Tag Archives: government

Gunning For Glory: Omnibus Second Amendment Court Case Doomed From Start; Yet, Unlooked for Smaller, Ordinary Victories Appear

15 Monday May 2017

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The day or week, I can’t recall, I mentioned a federal court case from Kansas, U.S. v. Cox,  No. 6:15-cr-10150-JTM-01, 02 (D. Kan., 2016). Cox ran a firearms business, in Kansas, and without an Imperial license. Nominally “protected” by Kansas law, he felt the federal formality unnecessary. The Empire took issue and prosecuted him for breaking its illegal gun control laws.

As part of his defense, Cox challenged those laws – all federal gun control, in fact. He sought a declaration of the truth, that all of these laws run afoul of the Second Amendment. He lost. His Motion to Dismiss and his entire position failed; a jury convicted him of something.

Some maintain hope that either the Tenth Circuit or the Supreme Court will reverse the injustice. I, having tried federal firearms cases and knowing the system like few others, know better. I didn’t need to look far into this matter. The legality really doesn’t matter. Freedom from D.C. comes only when D.C. goes the way of Rome. The good news, by that measure, is that it is now about 470 A.D. Tick, tick, tick.

However, the smaller victories come forth on a near daily basis. Today, even the looniest of the lefties – once the most ardent gun grabbers – open tote ARs in the streets. Given enough time, and if they don’t shoot themselves in the process, this may actually turn them into real Americans. The rest of us are armed to the teeth and enjoy one legal success after another.

State after state after state, the gun controls continue to break down. For example, one jurisdiction after another passes some form of “campus carry”, allowing guns at colleges. This improves safety and civic atmosphere. It also has other, unexpected but tangible, benefits.

The prospect of a man or men, armed, in the classroom, drives the communist professors nuts. It also drives them out the door.

An associate professor at the University of Kansas has publicly resigned in protest of the school’s new weapons policy allowing students to carry concealed guns on campus.

Jacob Dorman, an associate professor of history and American studies at the university for the past 10 years, had his resignation letter published Friday by the The Topeka Capital-Journal.

“Kansas can have great universities, or it can have concealed carry in classrooms, but it cannot have both,” he wrote. “Let us not let the NRA destroy the future of the state of Kansas with a specious argument about the Second Amendment.”

Actually, professor, they can have both. The facts of the new law and your departure prove that. This could have far-ranging positive ramifications.

Cox lost but the students of higher education in Kansas won. (The geographic location of both these stories was a coincidence.

The students, now free to carry, are free from the fear of the likes of Abdul Artan or Dylan Roof. Freedom and safety, together. Very nice. And, with the riddance of people like Dorman, they now stand to actually get an education.

campus-carry

This map is already out of date. NCSL.

Dorman, formerly a KU “history” professor, theorized both Amerika and the Harlem “Renaissance.” He wrote a both about chosen black Israelites and is writing one about Black Muslim black magic in the Orient … or something. All to do with Amerikan history, you know. He’ll now do that some place else. Going forward, the Kansas students, while actually learning, will have to come up with their own fantastic fairy tales.

The morals, here, are several. Live free. Humor the idiot empire; pay their bribes and buy their licenses and laugh. Project and protect freedom and intellectualism on campus. Watch the SJWs run.

This is real American history in the making.

News It or Lose It

13 Saturday May 2017

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Charles Krauthammer recently said on Fox News that, given the GOP-DNC-Comey-Russia-Trump-media mania and mass misinformation campaign, that the American people increasingly have nowhere to turn for accurate information. Considering that the mass media is mostly owned for four or five large companies, all beholden to special interests and incestuously tied to the crazed government in D.C., it makes perfect sense. Of course, I’m not sure most people want accurate information. Air conditioning, cable, and beer – yes. Info – maybe not.

These trends are doing to the media and reporting what a lack of income has done to retail – killing it, slowly but surely.

Consequently, a new study shows the number of reporters on the streets, digging up facts, is collapsing. A snapshot of the largest media markets over the past ten years or so:

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BLS / Apartment List.

Odds are your city has 100 reporters or less. A few places are growing – D.C. especially – but the overall trend is down, precipitously.

At the rate things are going, I calculate that by 2027 we will be down to just 11 reporters nationwide. Two of those will be Russian hackers, the rest robots.

Enjoy the AC and TV.

A Case for James Bond

12 Friday May 2017

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Hackers are demanding money to unlock computers in multiple countries following a massive ransom-wear attack. England is particularly hard hit.

LONDON — Hackers exploiting data stolen from the United States government conducted extensive cyberattacks on Friday that hit dozens of countries around the world, severely disrupting Britain’s public health system and wreaking havoc on tens of thousands of computers elsewhere.

Hospitals in Britain appeared to be the most severely affected by the attacks, which aimed to blackmail computer users by seizing their data. The attacks blocked doctors’ access to patient files and forced emergency rooms to divert people seeking urgent care.

Corporate computer systems in many other countries — including FedEx of the United States, one of the world’s leading international shippers — were among those affected.

The kicker is that the malicious software used was developed by the NSA in America – to protect us and such. Just as similar hacking tools from the CIA were recently made public, so the NSA has a hard time keeping track of its cyber weapons. Way to go, government.

In this case, people’s lives are at stake. It sounds like no British NHS patients died but they could have. They were certainly inconvenienced. This is more than a breach of privacy. This is an act of terrorism or of war. It should be treated as such. Perhaps one government can clean up the mess caused by another.

Tracking down the hackers will be very difficult. Still, I imagine it could be done. And it should be. Theresa May should turn MI6 loose with orders to hunt down and eradicate the vermin – in Africa, Russia, Mexico – wherever they’re hiding.

And maybe the Military-Security Complex can do a better job of managing its monsters. That, or just not have them.

arogermoore

Eon / United Artists.

It’s Not the Trucks: TSA Issues an Overdue ISIS Warning

05 Friday May 2017

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The TSA has issued a warning report to trucking companies about ISIS’s designs to use large vehicles as weapons of mass destruction.

Truck owners and truck rental agencies in the U.S. must be “vigilant” about the increasing frequency of “ramming attacks” by terrorists using vehicles as killing machines, according to a new Transportation Security Administration report obtained exclusively by NBC News.

The unclassified report warns owners, operators and rental agencies to protect their vehicles from theft. Entitled “Vehicle ramming attacks: Threat landscape, indicators and counter measures,” the report was sent Tuesday to local law enforcement agencies and private companies working with the Department of Homeland Security.

The report notes that in the past three years, at least 173 people have been killed and more than 700 wounded in 17 ramming attacks around the world. Of the 17 attacks, 13 resulted in fatalities. Five were carried out in France both before and after the Nice attack and four took place in Israel.

With nearly 1,000 victims in year or so, this isn’t idle speculation. The warning seems a little late. And it does nothing to address the knife attacks, shootings, and bombing perpetrated by terrorists. ISIS even suggests their agents use rocks as deadly weapons.

What’s the solution, here? Ban trucks? There’s a lot of them and their rather needed. Ban knives? The same but in even greater numbers. The left would love to ban guns but that’s not going to happen – nor would it help. And there is no way to ban all the everyday items and chemicals that one can use to make a bomb. Then there are other weapons.

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NBC.

Why not just ban the terrorists. Literally, physically kick them out of the U.S. and refuse to allow another single one inside. apparently that’s not going to happen either.

I have a sneaking suspicion about all of this. Government loves to expand its reach and power. The TSA has already made flying a nightmare. Perhaps they wish to extend their intrusive, costly, and useless security theater to the roads? Trucking would be a good place to start. If it was a start. They’ve already been working that plan. And they, and ICE, claim border authority hundreds of miles form any actual border.

None of this I like. I also can’t fathom why my legitimate solutions are routinely ignored. Maybe the government isn’t really out to fight terrorism. Maybe we’re their enemy. That would make them ours.

That was a Pretty Good Kick, by Congressional Standards

01 Monday May 2017

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Recently I’ve noted the Kongressional Kicking of the Kan along with the perpetual betrayal of conservative voters by the GOP.

The latest kick puts reality and the federal budget off until September.

President Donald Trump said he’ll sign a bipartisan $1.1 trillion spending bill that largely tracks Democratic priorities and rejects most of his wish list, including funds for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We’re very happy with it,” the president said Monday in an interview with Bloomberg News. The plan would allocate some new funding for border security, though the funds couldn’t be used to build his promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The president said he will sign the bill if it remains “as we discussed.”

The compromise measure, announced early Monday morning, would keep the government open through the end of September. Under House procedures, a vote could be held as early as Wednesday. The plan drew howls of protest from conservatives.

Howl at the moon if it makes you feel better. But this is the way it is. The Republicans are the Atlanta Falcons of politics. The budget blueprint is blown to smithereens. The tax reforms may happen but they won’t look anything like what was announced. No wall. No spending cuts. No priorities met. War in Syria. War brewing with North Korea, Russia, and half the rest of the world. Healthcare reform may make a comeback – or it may not. ISIS is planning the next domestic attack on the West. Rest assured the debt ceiling will be raised in timely fashion. And then raised again. And again. Over and over, bloated half-measure “budgets” will sail through in order to avoid the dreaded “shutdown”.

More of the same. More of the same. More of the same. Not that it will make any difference but I will probably remind you of all this again just before the next election, the next election when you keep the cycle going.

Howl.

Kongress Kicks the Kan

30 Sunday Apr 2017

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Again. Because shutdown.

The US Congress has passed a stop-gap spending bill to keep the government running an extra week.

It will now go to the White House for the president’s signature, and will buy Congress time to reach a deal to fund the government until September.

It came just hours before a funding deadline expired, threatening a second government shutdown in four years.

Republicans were forced to make several concessions, the latest on funding for so-called Obamacare.

A government shutdown would close national parks and monuments, lay off federal employees and delay tax refund payments.

The last shutdown, in 2013, lasted for 17 days.

There was a time, long, long ago, when Congress used to appropriate money for an entire year at a time. Now it’s a chunk here, a chunk there, one week, three weeks, four months, your dollar. The word “incompetent” comes to mind.

The real reason the pols fear a shutdown is that, should one happen and go on too long, the people might realize just how little they needed or missed the government. They can’t have that. And they can’t act responsible. So they kick the can.

The only downside I see to a temporary shutdown is the closing of the Parks. And those, I can tell you from experience, are still accessible. No force field goes up around them. They’re just much, much quieter. Kind of nice.

It would be nice if Trump would veto this one-week measure. He could use it as a “teaching moment” for the idiots on the Hill, maybe for others. Go ahead and shut her down. That won’t happen though.

The can shall be kicked. Again. And then, again later. And again. A day may come when it will be harder to kick or the kicking won’t help. Not that the pols care. Or that most of you notice.

kicking-the-can

The Times Picayune.

A better approach might be for Congress to leave the can alone and kick the bucket.

Conservatives: You’re Being Played, Again, As Always

26 Wednesday Apr 2017

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Among other social designs, “liberals” and many Democrats want to kill off future native-born Americans while simultaneously importing incompatible “replacement” citizens. They call it “choice” and “diversity”. “Conservatives” and the sad lot of the GOP say … say … they oppose these things.

At campaign rallies they claim they will halt the flow of illegals and terrorists into the country. They say they will stop wasting tax dollars on Rehashed Nazi Eugenics Inc. Planned Parenthood. Then they sweep to power and something funny, something fishy happens.

Now, Congress faces an April 28 deadline to pass a new government funding bill.

There is currently no talk that it will include language to prohibit funding of Planned Parenthood.

But there is talk that it will not include the language that President Trump has requested to provide $1.4 billion to begin his project to build “a great, great wall on our southern border.”

The Republican House can pass and send to the Republican Senate a bill that funds the border wall but not Planned Parenthood. Or they can pass one that funds Planned Parenthood but not the border wall.

The former course of action would fulfill the campaign promises that got their president elected. The latter would appease congressional Democrats and the liberal press.

So, which will it be?

Is there any doubt, at all, about that?

If you still believe anything the Republicans say, do realize that your team isn’t yours at all. They’re just one squad of the uniparty team, in business for themselves and their owners. None of them care anything about you.

That’s why they spy on you. (They’re recording you reading this right now). That’s why they have destroyed your currency. That’s why they want freaks trolling around your daughters in the restroom. That’s why they have to constantly have wars to fight (well, for you to fight). That’s why they move Heaven and Earth to keep invaders moving into America, while keeping you from leaving (or returning).

This is what the allegiance and the voting have gotten you. They lie. You fall for it. Always. Odds are this will continue.

Budget_boks

PolitiFact.

Aiding, Abetting, and Getting Paid

25 Tuesday Apr 2017

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A Federal Judge in California ruled against the administration’s order that sanctuary cities either comply with the law or lose federal funding.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to withhold funding from “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with U.S. immigration officials, saying the president has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued the preliminary injunction in two lawsuits – one brought by the city of San Francisco, the other by Santa Clara County – against an executive order targeting communities that protect immigrants from deportation.

There may actually be some legitimacy to this ruling. The President might lack the authority to decide how earmarked monies are spent – a kind of late-term line item veto. It could be judicial overreach and interferrence. It could be both. I’ve looked into it as far as I think wise, especially considering there is a better and legal approach:

The local officials in these cities are committing felonies under 8 U.S.C. § 1324. Let them keep our tax dollars. Maybe they can buy some cigarettes in prison.

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Lock ’em up with one of their friends. Star Tribune / Vigo County, IN Jail.

In related news, the Ninth Circuit will be dismayed to learn one of their beloved scholarly, academic-type foreign invaders has been arrested. Azhar Hussain, professor of aviation at Indiana State University was booked on charges related to his fabricating false hate crime nonsense. That keeps the otherkin hate crime hoax rate at exactly 100%. Every. Single. Time.

 

Department of Justice [SIC] to Charge Julian Assange … with Something

21 Friday Apr 2017

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The U.S. government is known by two hallmarks: absolute power over everything on Earth, and; a complete aversion to the truth. Naturally, it wants to prosecute Julian Assange of Wikileaks.

US authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, US officials familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The Justice Department investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks dates to at least 2010, when the site first gained wide attention for posting thousands of files stolen by the former US Army intelligence analyst now known as Chelsea Manning.
Prosecutors have struggled with whether the First Amendment precluded the prosecution of Assange, but now believe they have found a way to move forward.

During President Barack Obama’s administration, Attorney General Eric Holder and officials at the Justice Department determined it would be difficult to bring charges against Assange because WikiLeaks wasn’t alone in publishing documents stolen by Manning. Several newspapers, including The New York Times, did as well. The investigation continued, but any possible charges were put on hold, according to US officials involved in the process then.

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But Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, argued that US prosecution of Assange sets a dangerous precedent.

“Never in the history of this country has a publisher been prosecuted for presenting truthful information to the public,” Wizner told CNN. “Any prosecution of WikiLeaks for publishing government secrets would set a dangerous precedent that the Trump administration would surely use to target other news organizations.”

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CNN.

There’s a pattern, here, as old as government corruption itself: government commits evil; someone exposes the evil; the evil-doers visit upon the exposing party.

A great opportunity for the advancement of human freedom is missed. Washington could acknowledge it’s many faults, as exposed by Wikileaks, and vow to fix them. It could stop spying on everyone, wasting money, bombing without cause, and generally mind its own damned business. They might actually thank Assange and Co. for their work.

That’s not going to happen. Dangerous precedents from dangerous people.

Evidence Suggests No Sarin Nerve Gas Was Used in Syria

20 Thursday Apr 2017

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Even if it was, that should have been none of our business. Deploy Sarin in Alabama, we have a problem. Thousands of miles away in an area known for perpetual violence – not so much. Heartbreak, maybe. Strategic interest, no. That’s IF it happened. Dr. Theodore A. Postol, professor at MIT, presented a scientific analysis which suggests it did not happen (at least as we were lead to believe):

This abbreviated summary of the facts has been constructed entirely from basic physics, video evidence, and absolutely solid analytical methods. It demonstrates without doubt that the sarin dispersal site alleged as the source of the April 4, 2017 sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun was not a nerve agent attack site.

It also shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only mass casualty site that could have resulted from this mass attack is not in any way related to the sites that are shown in video following a poisoning event of some kind at Khan Sheikhoun.

This means that the allegedly “high confidence” White House intelligence assessment ssued on April 11 that led to the conclusion that the Syrian government was responsible for the attack is not correct. For such a report to be so egregiously in error, it could not possibly have followed the most simple and proven intelligence methodologies to determine the veracity of its findings.

Since the United States justified attacking a Syrian airfield on April 7, four days before the flawed National Security Council intelligence report was released to the Congress and the public, the conclusion that follows is that the United States took military actions without the intelligence to support its decision.

Furthermore, it is clear that the WHR was not an intelligence report.

No competent intelligence professional would have made so many false claims that are totally inconsistent with the evidence. No competent intelligence professional would have accepted the findings in the WHR analysis after reviewing the data presented herein. No competent intelligence professionals would have evaluated the crater that was tampered with in terms described in the WHR.

Although it is impossible to know from a technical assessment to determine the reasons for such an egregiously amateurish report, it cannot be ruled out that the WHR was fabricated to conceal critical information from the Congress and the public.

It cannot be ruled out? Given the fact that just about everything from D.C. in the past 100+ years has been a big, steaming pile of lies, it seems it would rule it in.

Postol-6-2

Can solar declination, wind direction, and chemical science overcome the …. Never mind… Postol / Washington’s Blog.

This assessment, if true, would demonstrate not the first deception from Washington. It certainly won’t be the last.

Little, if any, of this will reach the ears and minds of average ‘Muricans of any political persuasion. Did you know Let’s Make a Deal! is back on the TeeVee??