Drone Debate

Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY] just concluded an almost 13 hour long filibuster of the US Senate. This filibuster has delayed the confirmation by the full Senate of Brennan to head the CIA. The reason why Sen. Rand spoke, with able assistance for 13 hours, is very simple as he wants a simple answer to a very serious question.

Sen. Paul wants to know if the Obama administration, via the CIA that Brennan is nominated to head, is willing to use drones to kill American citizens on American soil without the due process of the law. Yes or no, that is all Sen. Paul wanted to know.

The response he got from Attorney General Eric Holder can be charitably called a 'maybe' answer. Two strawmen were brought out by Holder in his answer – Pearl Harbor and 9/11. There is a simple logical fault in using these two examples, neither attack was carried out by American citizens. Unlike Hassan Nidal at Ft. Hood or Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City.

In the case of Nidal and McVeigh, regular means were used to apprehend the killers. A routine traffic stop detained McVeigh long enough for them to connect the rental truck VIN to him. Nidal was bodily tackled and stopped in his killing spree.

So this administration wants a blank check to determine if an American citizen is an imminent danger. Without recourse to the American judicial system to rule if they have enough evidence to make such a finding. And then to send a remote control aircraft to kill that American citizen. Let me rephrase that, this administration wants to have the ability to assassinate American citizens on US soil without any oversight.

If you are not disturbed at that thought, just contemplate the government getting bad intelligence and sending out a drone on that information. Remember that wedding party in Iraq that American aircraft bombed by accident? Now imagine that happening on Main St in Peoria, IL – a drone fires a Hellfire missile at someone's SUV. Its noon in Peoria. The Hellfire hits and detonates, exploding the gas tank for good measure. Besides Betty Sue and her twin girls getting murdered because of bad information, how many people in the surrounding area just got killed or maimed also.

Now do you think armed drones over the US is such a good idea?

P.S. You may want to look up a movie from the 1980s called 'Blue Thunder' with Roy Scheider. LAPD is loaned a new helicopter. An armed helicopter that can also spy. Scheider's character Murphy finds out the organization supplying Blue Thunder has an ulterior motive of eliminating domestic threats. This administration is trying to replace Blue Thunder with something almost like a video game, just press the R1 on your X-Box controller to fire a Hellfire missile to blow up the target and get Achievement Points which is now a medal that can be worn between the Silver Star and Bronze Star.

School Violence 1991

With all the renewed talk about doing something to stop school violence I decided to reach back to 1991.  Lo and behold Jim Palmer of the Montgomery Advertiser had drawn the above cartoon.  Of course this is from Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year : 1992 Edition. 

Irrelevant Electoral College

Looking at the epicenters of blue in a sea of red from last Tuesday that handed so many Electoral College votes to Barack Obama even as Mitt Romney seemed to have won the popular vote, the natural question is what happened?  Well besides such things as St. Lucie county in Florida having 141% voter participation which hints at major voter irregularities.

Since 2008 there has been a serious push to make the President of the United States be selected by the popular vote.  That push was lead by many on the progressive-socialist side.  If that had been true on Tuesday we would be talking about President-elect Mitt Romney instead of a re-elected Barack Obama.

Which lead me to look at the map of the results.  At those masses of blue in a sea of red.  Like in past elections, states like California that might have gone red went blue due to population density.  Cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles nullified every bit of red.  Same in New York state, the deep blue of New York City outweighed the rest of the red state.  So both states went blue and all their Electoral College votes went to Barack Obama. 

Best way to truly prove what happened in California and New York is to look for large areas of blue but the states stayed red and gave their Electoral College votes to Mitt Romney.  Two such states are Texas and Mississippi.  Sparsely populated regions in both states went light blue to dark blue.  The more populated areas of both states went red.

This is how the Electoral College is supposed to work.  Each state being a battleground between the candidates.  To ensure each state has a voice and impact on the selection of a President.  But Tuesday it did not happen that way.

So what did happen?  This country has finally been defeated by Public Law 62-5 that was passed in 1911 and then made permanent in 1929.  Under House Speaker Cannon[R-IL] in 1911 the House fixed its size at 433 members plus 1 each for Arizona and New Mexico if those territories became states before the law went into effect in 1913.  In 1929, this law was re-authorized and made permanent by another Republican House Speaker Nicholas Longworth.

Public Law 62-5 fixed the maximum number of House seats and, until another state is added to the Union, set the maximum size of the Electoral College at 535 votes.  Even if Puerto Rico is added as a state, the 435 House seats will be re-apportioned among the 51 states while two more Senate seats will be added, thus raising the EC votes to 537.  Because the Constitution delegates to the House how it runs itself, there will be no change to that 435 number unless Congress changes it or another amendment is added to the Constitution.

The unexpected consequence of this law has, over the intervening decades, made the Electoral College a national popular vote by proxy.  When originally passed in 1911 California only had 11 votes [House + Senate seats = total EC votes] while Mississippi had 8.  In 2012 California has 55 votes and Mississippi only has 6.  So as the population densities migrated to major urban areas, the now limited number of EC votes also flowed there.  So it became possible to win the Electoral College vote by only winning in a limited number of states.

So where do we go from here?  Either we toss away the last bulwark against a scared voting populace and do away with the Electoral College to embrace a national popular vote.  Or the House is forced to add seats and thus re-balance itself and the Electoral College.

Judging by the Progressive Left's attempt to get a President elected by national popular vote or making each state apportion its EC votes according to the vote percentage each candidate received, I do not even think many of them realize what Public Law 62-5 did to the landscape of national politics.  Perhaps most have just assumed the House has always had 435 seats and never thought on it.  If this is true, then the Progressive Left is a very useful bunch of suckers.  And we truly no longer deserve a Republic.

Day of Days?

Statue of Themis, Goddess of Justice

 Two monumental events might take place today in Washington D.C.  The Supreme Court might hand down their ruling on what is the Democrats' and Obama's signature piece of health care legislation.  The other will occur in the House of Representatives and their vote on whether the Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder is in contempt of that body in regards to Fast and Furious.

Much has already been written on the health care matter.  How anyone can claim 2,000+ pages of legal mumbo-jumbo is in fact a single law is beyond me.  Especially when one of the supporters has to declare you have to pass it to find out what is in it.  If that does not strike one of midnight deals in done in closed rooms full of nefarious plotting, what will?

Now what a piece of work Eric Holder and because of the Executive Order issued by President Obama, this whole administration is?  All Rep. Issa wanted was any documentation relating to the time Justice appeared before the committee under oath and told a falsehood that had to be retracted.  It is true it's the cover-up that makes things worse.  If this administration had been honest and forthright after the murders of Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata we would not be in this situation. 

Because of seemingly boundless perfidy that screams out for redress, today we may witness the sword of Justice.

Update Saturday 30 June 2012. 

Well its been an eventful two days since the Supreme Court has handed down its ruling.  To say people are angry and overjoyed might be an understatement.  What the Roberts court delivered seems akin to Solomon actually splitting the baby in two.  Time will tell if what was rendered was truly wise but in the short term it has energized the Romney campaign and all who oppose the legislation.  It has turned the mandate into a penalty tax that Democrats now have to defend while recognizing the states can resist federal encroachment without suffering penalties.

As for Eric Holder, he was found in contempt by the House.  Seventeen Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in this vote of contempt so it's bi-partisan.  Many other Democrats, lead by Rep. Pelosi, had a conniption and walked out in protest, thus silencing their constituents voice.  And to show how Eric Holder does not think the laws of this land apply to him, he went on a Disney vacation after the vote.

False Prophets

Was watching a bit of Fox News last night and was well gobsmacked by an commercial with this woman who called herself a 'Cultural Catholic.'  What?

Then she proceeded to try the classic Democrat strategy of scare the voter.  Claiming it was the Catholic Bishops who sought to take away their religions freedom.  Really?

First off what is a 'Cultural Catholic?'  Is that someone like Nancy Pelosi who fully supports killing the unborn in direct opposition to the tenants of the faith she claims to follow?  You know what, I have far more respect for the people who walk away from the Catholic Church.  They are standing up and saying aloud I can no longer abide what is going on.  They have guts, the strength of their convictions unlike 'Cultural Catholics' who try to dress up in the robes of faith while committing evil.

Second, who is trying to destroy religious freedom?  Obamacare is.  The limitations being imposed upon Catholic institutions are so strict that to comply, it would force the charity to ask the person in need if they are Catholic.  If the person says no, the charity must turn that person away least they lose their tax-exempt status.  This is why the Catholic charities are suing over Kathleen Sebilus' insurance mandate for contraception.

So once again I come to a painful conclusion.  Democrats can only advance their malignant causes if they lie and twist words.  When examined with logic and rationality, their farrago of lies falls apart.

Science Fiction

Governor Luis Raoul Panablanco sat at his desk in the governor's mansion, the flags of Texas and the North American Union at his back to frame the picture, the Great Seal of the State of Texas above his head on the wall behind him.

...

At nine minutes, thirty-two seconds into his scheduled half-hour speech, he was saying:

"... as the proof that God is on my side is that on the very morning that I banished the Alamo mutineers into orbit, a sunspot appeared! The first sunspot in more than three years appeared in my hour of need! God has stretched out his hand to me!"

At eight minutes, fifty-five seconds into its scheduled flight, a cruise missile, stolen from the NAU Air Force, whistled down the street, bobbed over the fence surrounding the governor's mansion, rolled to miss a large oak tree, and crashed through the window and drawn drapes of the governor's office at 650 klicks per hour to explode a metric ton of high explosives where the governor's desk would have stood if it hadn't been moved to the other side of the room to accommodate the television crews.

In the event, the fact that the governor had moved his desk did him no more good than the fact he was wearing the best bulletproof vest on the market. The place of honor at his funeral was occupied by a hamburger patty of governor, bodyguards, and television crew.

-------------------------------------------------------
  pg 24-25. The Revolution from Rosinante. Alexis A. Gilliland. Del Rey. 1981

Meanwhile President Obama and his administration are going forward with drones over US air space.  For example the EPA is using drones to spy on livestock in states like Nebraska.

Free Speech Friday

The phrase, "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing" by Edmund Burke is a good place to start this post.

I am not going to comment, just let Aaron, Stacy, and Liberty Chick recount their very nasty encounters with a convicted felon.  Then scoot over to Michele Malkin's post on this matter.

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." - Benjamin Franklin

Incense and Georgetown

This Friday Georgetown University signaled how far they have strayed from the Jesuit path to knowledge and wisdom.  They allowed HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to give a speech.  She tried to wrap the whole outrage about Obamacare mandates into the context of John Kennedy and his Catholic faith while running for President.  We will not detour into discussing how Kennedy was a socialist's idea of a Catholic at this writing as it has been covered too well already.

Ms. Sebelius seems to want to follow in her boss' footsteps.  Tell half-truths and hope no one bothers to read the original speech.  So her lies could then stand.  Alas for her, too many of us can still think.  John Kennedy in his speech was warning about the things Obama and Sebelius want to do, "It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom.  Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril."

 Now the author of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty, and others are taking Georgetown University to Washington DC Diocese Court of Canon Law to argue that this institution should be stripped from calling itself Catholic.  That the university has failed to hire Catholic teachers and has failed to teach morality while failing to follow Church doctrine. 

The comments are priceless in the above article.  One such commentator obviously slept through their classes on religion.  Followed by sleeping in the pews every Sunday and Holy Day assuming they ever went to Church once they left their parents house.

Prinhart1 - Better call Father Merrin, Mr. Blatty is possessed. Anytway, who is anyone to define what exactly a catholic should be? You've got people of faith who are homosexuals, who are pro choice, and hell, when I was in Catholic school, we only learned about evolution and we had sex ed.

Luckily there are others who are having none of the above inclusive prattle from the uninformed.

Autotec127 - The comments so far show just what Mr Blatty is talking about. You want to call yourself Catholic here is what Catholic's believe. Here is what you have to accept and believe to be a Catholic. Being a Catholic is a free choice each person can accept or reject. What you can not do is declare yourself a Catholic and then demand that the tenets of the church must change to fit your "enlightened" new age thinking. If you do not believe what Catholics believe you are free to leave. But what we get is whining and thumb sucking from liberal babies who have discovered that they are the smartest people who have ever walked the face of the earth. I myself an not a Catholic, so I am free to tell you what a good Catholic would not say to you liberal brats. Shut that F**K up and go to hell.

As for Prinhart1 and others like them, since they are unsure of what the Catholic Church stands for and they don't want to stir themselves on a Saturday or a Sunday to attend Mass, I suggest they buy a recent copy of a book called Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It might do them a world of good.  And when they questions they could talk to the parish priest.  It could be an eye opening experience.  Or you can decide not to read the book, its called Free Will.  But willful ignorance of a faith is inexcusable and gives lie to any claims to being educated.


As for the Jesuit school of Georgetown.  Perhaps they do need to get out the incense, Holy Water, crack open a Bible, and then examine themselves.  Then they just might discover the log in their eye and remove it.  Might find again the path St. Ignatius of Loyola set out for all Jesuits.  And as a result - Go forth and set the world on fire.

What Do You Stand For?

The above video is powerful and its message is not just about Catholics and President Obama's health care package; a package that has granted waivers to two whole states and exempted the Amish and Muslims from even complying because neither faith has a fundamental objection to the concept of insurance.  So right there this is an un-Constitutional law since it is implicitly denying equal protection.

Then it gets far worse.  This whole package of rules and regulations endangers all vestiges of the separation of church and state.  In fact this back door in the dark of the night party line passed legislation is going to erases that boundary.  It grants to the federal State the totalitarian power of being the final arbiter of what should be or should not be taught by any faith or creed.  This is why Catholics, Christians, and Jews are all standing up and saying no, it makes them subservient to the secular State.

Ave Obama!

In Imperial Rome they would say Ave Ceaser! or in English Hail Ceaser! as a greeting.  That kind of thinking is something our Founding Fathers were allergic to.  George Washington could have set himself up as King, the veterans of the Continental Army would have supported him.  Instead he talked them out of overthrowing the new government and after two terms retired back to his farm.  By these actions he embodied the spirit of a great Roman patriot - Cincinnatus.

So when I see people flying a copy of the US flag where President Obama's picture replaces all the stars of the Union, I have to think of the Roman Emperors and their various cults of personality.  Some of these rulers even thought they were truly divine.  What history shows is most of them did far more harm to the Roman Empire than any external force ever could.

Whether my interpretation is what is on the minds of people who fly this flag is immaterial.  History shows that once a leader becomes more important than the country he leads, the country itself is on an arc of decline.

Fluke's Followers are Fools

The media circus abound the Obama administration and Catholic charities continues.  The Catholic charities have dug in their heels because the ruling threatens their very existence.  Democrats have tried to shift the focus from the threat of government diktat to it to be a threat to a right they hold sacred, access to birth control with the testimony of Democrat activist Sandra Fluke.  Meanwhile HHS, IRS, and other alphabet agencies involved in this effort have just issued a call for suggestions on how to improve/change this contentious issue.

About page 10 of that document something becomes clear, even though President Obama promised accommodations right now, HHS has another idea.  They will review and accept advise on this accommodation but any change will not happen until the expiration of the one year grace period which they call a safe harbor time.  Which can also mean these agencies could decide at a later date not to implement any accommodation. Perhaps after the November election which sees Obama re-elected or Obama sent packing.  It kicks the problem down the road while hoping everyone falls for the promise the controversial issue has already been taken care of.  This is the peril of administrative law, no Congress enacting the specific law while a cabal of bureaucrats decide to enforce a law of their creation.

But lets get back to Sandra Fluke.  She testified under oath to Congress that contraceptives costs for law students at Georgetown like her will cost $3000 during her whole time at school.  She says this a hardship.  Lets guess she will be at law school for the average three years.  That is thirty-six months.  Now divide the $3000 by 36.  The monthly cost then should be $83.34.  My question is, like many others, is why is this a hardship for Ms. Fluke and where is she shopping?  The costs for attending Georgetown are very expensive as this listing of tuition and fees show, perhaps she is tapped for cash. However as the Wall Street Journal article I link to shows she could have visited Wal-Mart or Target for contraception pills, spent about $150, and have enough pills for three years of frolic.  Ms. Fluke's grasp of costs seems a bit flawed which raises questions of what her billing practices will be when she is in the real world, unless she just wants to work for the government where it seems costs are never a factor.

Of course the worse thing about Ms. Fluke's testimony is the damage it does to the concept of female empowerment.  She is refuting everything Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox are singing about in this video about Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves.  It seems the song Ms. Fluke sings is "I Want Someone Else to Pay for Me."  She wants to be a kept woman, this time kept by the government and paid with other peoples money.  Yes she has come a long way, right back to dis-enfranchisement.

A Righteous Response

It did not take long for the Roman Catholic Church to respond to President Obama’s magnanimous, in his mind, compromise on his health care diktat.  In fact the rebuke was read from many pulpits this past weekend across the land.  And the rebukes keep coming out.  Today Rep. Issa in the US House is asking about it.

There is one grave problem with this compromise.  Yes it sounds like Obama has deftly threaded a needle to satisfy various constituencies.  The brutal truth is he has tried to deflect the gravity of the sin he is trying to force on people of faith. 

In the original version of his diktat, Catholic hospitals would be forced to provide birth control pills, condoms, vasectomies, hysterectomies, and pills like RU-486.  All of these items are anathema to Catholics of faith because they transform the act of bringing life and hope into this world into something purely made of lust and creating sterility in its wake.  Hence for any Catholic institution to comply, they would be committing a sin of commission.

The new version transforms this sin into one of omission.  According to Obama the Catholic hospitals no longer have to knowingly pay for all the above ‘vital’ medical requirements, instead the underwriters of the insurance policies would pay for them at zero cost.  The sin is still happening but now someone else is doing the sinful deed as Catholic institution are supposed to look the other way.

As for Obama’s tissue thin lie that the insurance companies will pay for all these items without charging Catholic institutions.  Does he think we are all morons?  It seems he does and those who have gone back into the Obama fold prove he can sucker some people all the time.  The fact of the matter is the people or institutions will pay premiums on their insurance policies.  It will be from these premiums that all those counter-life items will be paid for since insurance companies are not charities.  So we find ourselves back again committing a sin of omission, we are supposed to just look the other way while evil occurs.

So what Caeser Obama offers is just a difference of poisons.  One is overt and the other more subtle, both are still deadly to the soul.  We need to keep standing up and saying no to this administration.  When Obama is forced to blink and back away from all this, we must not rest.  We must keep up the pressure and roll back in its entirety the abomination Obama and others call ‘affordable’ health care.  This health care program allows four states and many friends of Obama to be exempt from.  While Democrats have been abusing the Commerce Clause, they have also abused the Equal Protection Clause.  These abuses and usurpations of power must be stopped least the tree of Liberty is renewed with the blood of patriots.  Most importantly we must do this before our collective soul is irredeemably blotted by these evil actions.

Post script – Obama pretends he knows Scripture.  So do the ‘religious’ who support him.  But I find it hard to credit their knowledge and faith when they so willingly serve a worldly master called socialism.  They will engage in many amazing feats of verbal gymnastics to dress up their aberrations as most holy writ.  As Obama proved when he replaced individuals performing acts of charity with a secular government acting as the arbitrator of who will get charity.  These are false prophets who shall wear millstones about their necks.

Jealous Tyrants

There has been a lot of religious talk of late and how the secular sphere intersects such.  Of faith held beliefs colliding with secular beliefs.  Of confronting Moloch.

In the Peoples Republic of China; what a contradiction as the people have no say in how they are oppressed, just ask the employees at Foxconn who were awakened at midnight in their barracks, fed a biscuit and a cup of tea, and then churned out iPad2s with a new screen, religious oppression proceeds.  That government has imprisoned nine Roman Catholic priests.  Eight are of the 'underground' church that has the support of the Holy See in Rome but this church is oppressed by Beijing who pushes a state approved catholic church.  The Vatican and Beijing have been at an impasse over this matter for years with Beijing appointing catholic cardinals without Papal approval.  Here is a case of a 'modern' state oppressing and imposing beliefs on the people they are supposed to serve.

The Soviet Union went a step further when the likes of Lenin seized the reigns of power.  All places of worship were forcibly closed.  All monasteries were closed.  The Russian Orthodox faith was suppressed.  And yet it was the Soviet Union who collapsed while the faithful persevered.

In Germany in the 1930s similar things were tried.  The National Socialists ordered the crosses atop churches be replaced by their party symbol.  Youth groups like the 700,000 strong Protestant youth group were shut down.  There could only be one deity in Germany and all were supposed to swear fealty to the Fuhrer.  Thus there was no room for the likes of the Jews or the Catholics or Protestants.  Even pagans were oppressed.  It took six brutal years of war that ravaged a whole continent before this evil was ended.

So what has all this history to do with confronting Moloch?  Its very simple, in all three cases presented above an oppressive secular government has attempted or is attempting to wipe out any other locus of power.  These other sources of normative mores, I think that is the term, rebuke what the secular mandarins want to impose.  They deny the validity of this secular dogma.

Now we are seeing this secular dogma being attempted here in the United States.  Health and Human Services has issued a draconian ruling that will have drastic impact upon religious non-profits of all beliefs.  These non-profits have one year to comply with the demands of Moloch ... errr...  the Obama administration's diktats.  What are these demands?  These religious non-profits MUST offer as part of health insurance things they find morally offensive and evil.  A good example is RU-486 which is also called the Morning After Pill.  A woman will be prescribed these pills in order to kill off a possible fertilized zygote.

After the trials of Nuremberg and what happened at My Lai, soldiers are now expected to refuse unlawful orders.  What the Obama administration is demanding of religious non-profits is an unlawful order.  It is an attempt to impose secular state beliefs upon individuals.  What next, will Cesar Obama demand all offer burnt sacrifices at the altar of Obama as divine being?  That did not work well for Imperial Rome nor France after their revolution.

That the Obama administration is going ahead with this is the height of hubris and folly since the US Supreme Court just struck down 9-0 another attempt to subjugate the religious.  In that case, the Obama administration tried to tell religious ministries they could not discriminate in any form on whom is hired.  The Supreme Court firmly rejected this concept.  If this ruling had been allowed to stand then we could have seen a Buddhist temple compelled to hire a follower of Santaria.

So where do we go from here to stop this latest ploy?  Sen. Rubio(R-FL) has already introduced legislation that attempts to neuter this nefarious ploy.  Much must still be done.  A strong message has to be sent to Washington DC on how wrong this ruling from HHS is.  If we do not stand together for religious freedom as outlined in the US Constitution now, then we risk far more than all these non-profit hospitals shutting down.  We risk the total loss of liberty.  Either we hang together or we hang separately as Benjamin Franklin once said.

More Fast And Furious

The details of this ATF operation keep getting more sordid. As new details emerge, the thin veneer of this being a serious official investigation is getting thinner and thinner. I expect what little patina is left of the official line that this was an operation intended to track and identify supply lines of guns from the United States to Mexican drug cartels will dissolve.

For a decent summary of the Phoenix ATF and its Fast and Furious, Forbes has this lengthy article up. I disagree with Miniter that this is Obama's Watergate as I disagree that this is comparable to Iran-Contra. This operation is far worse in my opinion, since by deliberate acts by officials of the US government, thousands of weapons were allowed to slip into the hands of criminals who then proceeded to use these weapons to destabilize a friendly nation, murder civilians, and murder two agents of the US government itself. Watergate was a botched burglary while Iran-Contra had the strategic aim of rescuing American hostages and bringing down a hostile government in Nicaragua.

Even as Frank Miniter was writing that article for Forbes, events and new information was emerging to further damage the official explanation of Operation Fast and Furious. I consider the following information the most disturbing. Previously the information had indicated ATF had allowed weapons purchased by suspects to simply vanish and later appear at crime scenes on both sides of the border. Also ATF agent Camino has testified before Congress he had read the first part of Fast and Furious' case logbook and three times other ATF agents had left a stash house alone. What could be so disturbing than that? How about the head of the ATF unit responsible for Fast and Furious, Voth, authorizing another ATF agent, Dobson, to purchase weapons with government funds, sell those weapons to a suspect, and then deny Dobson's request to seize those weapons before they slipped across the border and vanish. I am not a lawyer but with these actions it seems the US government has gone from being a mere accessory to murder to an active participant in murder.

While these revelations have come out about what went on inside the ATF, another crack in the deniability armor has widened. Even after President Obama has been shown on video tape talking about operations aimed at curbing the weapons flow into Mexico, the White House and Sec. Holder of the Dept. of Justice have denied they knew anything of these operations. Until an email from ATF agent Newell that he sent to his friend O'Reilly in the White House emerged. Still the White House has denied that they knew any details on the operation. New emails between Newell and O'Reilly have emerged showing Newell supplied O'Reilly with a chart showing the flow of weapons into Mexico.

Naturally Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley would like to interview Mr. O'Reilly who serves as one of President Obama's national security advisors, but Mr. O'Reilly is not available to the committee. He is out of the country, O'Reilly is presently in Iraq. How convienient this trip is. And how pathetic and desperate this attempt to keep O'Reilly and his testimony under wraps. Just a few years ago President Bush would have regular secure video-teleconferences with Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq. You mean to tell me that O'Reilly could not use the same facilities to answer questions from Iraq posed to him by Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley?

There is another piece of new information contained inside that CBS report which opens another avenue of investigation for Rep. Issa and Sen. Grassley. It seems the Pheonix ATF office has been running another operation called Wide Receiver. One photo that is linked to that operation is not a .50 caliber rifle as Ms. Attkinson states, instead the picture shows an M-2/M-3 .50 caliber heavy machine gun. Which is a completely different animal than the likes of a Barret M-82 sniper rifle.

So there is still much to be discovered about all these various covert operations carried out under the aegis of the Obama administration. Obama and Holder can keep trying to deny any culpability in all these operations, but the evidence and Harry Truman's adage of 'The Buck Stops Here' points to the White House. An outraged Mexican government wants justice for the 200+ citizens murdered by these weapons. The families of Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata, all US citizens, want justice for their murdered family members. To prove the United States is still a nation of laws, justice has to be thorough and fair in this case since so many people whom citizens entrusted with great power are implicated. For those same people to try and deflect, obfuscate, or even deny will surly mean the end of this great experiment called the United States.

The Addicted States of America

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times is how a certain story by Dickens goes. Those words certainly do seem to apply to these trying economic and political times, as people struggle to stay afloat and large swathes of the world seem to be aflame.

Against this backdrop, another of Dicken's characters seems to have multiplied. As Fagin and his cronies continue to spend the money they have looted from honest people, the foot soldier of that looting Oliver Twist has apparently multiplied. As President Obama tries to gloss over glaring deficit numbers, Harry Reid lows like a gelded bull that nothing can be cut from the budget, and John Boehner carefully sharpens his tax-cutting knife on the whetstone; here comes many Oliver Twists to plead. It seems many state governors who have grown addicted to the bowls of tax porridge that Federal Fagin has ladeled out these past years. They fear Boehner will stop feeding them this special porridge, so in their best voice they have gone abegging to Washington DC to not cut off the funding that has kept these states almost solvent.

These governors have begged for the unlimited slurry of porridge to keep pumping. Even though their states have become bloated and moribund on it. Though the workhouse itself is teetering on insolvency. On porridge that has been boosted from the average taxpayer, the voting citizens of these several soverign states. I would think some tough love is in order and these states should be forcibly told to cut back. Or be honest with each state's own citizens on this shell game being played; instead of the state government raising taxes and angering the voters, the states go pleading to the federal government for these funds, so the federal government raises taxes to meet these demands, and these governors then can say they never raised taxes while blaming the government in Washington DC for the higher taxes.

Lies, Budget, and Obama

Sometimes you just have admire the gall of this administration is how bald face they lie. Case in point is the Obama proposed 2012 budget and the forecast for the following years. It has come to light, that Obama's budget fails to factor in debt interest payments into their numbers.

Naturally this makes the Obama budget look better than it is. Now if you were WorldCom or Enron, SEC and IRS would be hauling the CEO, CFO, COO, plus others to court and then to jail. Crime? Cooking the books to make the company's financial standing look better. Or if you were a person with a house, two BMWs in the garage, and a pool plus ten credit cards. It would be like paying for the house, the cars, utilities, and ignoring what is due on the ten credit cards. Pretty soon your creditors will be in court taking everything you own for repayment.

The Obama administration is betting the United States is too big to be repossessed or denied credit. I wonder if the Peoples Republic of China has gotten that memo? I seriously doubt even those comrades will keep selling Obama the rope he keeps using since he is buying it on credit. Eventually they stop selling on credit because its no longer remotely profitable and then what? A house of cards collapses, sic transit the US into debt peonage to Beijing.

So what to do? Contact all your governors and elected people in Congress to stress this spending spree has to be curtailed. In fact the massive increases in all non-defense spending that came out of the failed stimulus needs to be zero'd out of future budgets. Cuts in spending results in less accumulated debt because the gap between revenue and outlay narrows, which means the existing debt can be paid down faster. What Obama is doing is what he does best, vote present and kick the disaster down the road for someone else to fix. He is the quintessential moocher and looter Ayn Rand talked about. His and the Democrats' failed spending policies need to be stopped before the United States goes into receivership. To borrow from the progressives, do it for the children so they won't be saddled with billions in debt before they are even born.

D Minus One

Here it is people, this is the last day to rally the troops for tomorrow. There are 435 battles spread across this land for a seat in the House of Representatives. Just as there is 33 battles for Senate seats. Plus many governorships are up for grabs plus more local initiatives.

Tomorrow marks the start of the great crusade to restore this country. To restore pride in a country that will spill its most precious resource, its citizens, to liberate others from the slavery of oppression. To return this country to where fair deals are the norm instead of an aberration. Where anyone, can by sheer hard work, can become the next JP Morgan or Bill Gates. To lead this country back into being that shining beacon of hope the rest of the world turns to and yearns to emulate.

None of this will happen if those we elect to Washington D.C. fall into the habits that make the term Congressman a curse word. Remind all these who are elected from local to national office that they work for us, We the People. And tell them that we are watching. If they start doing the 'pay to play' shenanigans then they shall suffer our wrath when we vote them out again. This is our country, not their personal plaything. Such notions belong to kings and princes, in America we have no need for kings or princes.

Oratorical Fail - Again

President Barack Obama gave a speech before an Iftar dinner in the White House. This speech has caused much reaction. In this speech he came out in support of the mosque/outreach center a bare two blocks from Ground Zero, which has caused the most reaction. I have stayed out of this mess with only a few posts on other blogs. With a name like Cordoba attached to this project, its a linkage to a golden time in Andalusia for Islam. But if they follow all the rules and laws to get this built, then as a matter of law it is settled. But as matter of is this right? This is where that concept diverges from what is legal. It seems Cordoba seeks to invade hallowed space, Ground Zero, for its own purpose which is insensitive and hurtful to many victims of 9/11.

Now that I have addressed my feelings on the whole Mosque Mess, lets look at the President's speech shall we?

First he links Seders, Christmas parties, and Iftar dinners with the Hindu festival of Diwali.

Here at the White House, we have a tradition of hosting iftars that goes back several years, just as we host Christmas parties and seders and Diwali celebrations. And these events celebrate the role of faith in the lives of the American people. They remind us of the basic truth that we are all children of God, and we all draw strength and a sense of purpose from our beliefs.

Seders, Christmas, and Iftar are ceremonies to a singular deity - Jehovah, God, or Allah. Diwali, depending up where you are, can celebrate Rama's homecoming or Laksmhi or Kali. One can see how it does not fit with the others Its an artificial attempt to make all these events and deities the same, thus destroying the uniqueness of each ceremony in the name of political expediency.

But let me be clear. As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure.

Here the President tries to navigate the tricky waters of the mosque controversy by dressing it up as a civil rights issue. And again he uttered one of his boilerplate statements of 'let me be clear.' On the bright side President Obama seems to be a strict constructionist in regards to the First Amendment of the U.S. Consitution.

The laws that we apply without regard to race, or religion, or wealth, or status. Our capacity to show not merely tolerance, but respect towards those who are different from us.

Here President Obama is not advocating religious or cultural neutrality which true justice under US law is supposed to demand. Instead he is saying with the word 'respect' that special treatment must be accorded to those who are different. In this case, the followers of Islam.

The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan —- making it the first known iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago.

June 1805, the United States Navy forced the bashaw of Tripoli to sue for peace, to stop demanding tribute, and to stop preying on American merchant vessels. Here are links to treaties and truces between the United States and Tunisia. So that is the historical context of President Jefferson meeting with the Tunisian ambassador that Obama omits.

"I hope I shall never again be sent to Algiers with a tribute except it be from the mouth of a cannon." - Captain William Bainbridge, commander of USS Essex and USS Philadelphia during the Barbary Wars. As captain of the USS George Washington, he brought tribute to Algiers, hence this quote.

For in the end, we remain “one nation, under God, indivisible.” And we can only achieve “liberty and justice for all” if we live by that one rule at the heart of every great religion, including Islam —- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Again Obama attempts to force an artificial narrative upon people when it comes to comparing religions. As long as taqiyaa [Religiously sanctioned dissimulation - pg 268, God Has Ninety-Nine Names by Judith Miller] is allowed then it is impossible to say with honest conviction the Golden Rule applies in Islam.

One would think after catching so much grief over his Cairo speech and all those historical goofs contained therein, this President would be better at this speech thing. But it's obvious he is incapable of learning anything new. Which bodes ill for all in this country and those who struggle for freedom in the world.

Addendum 11:30pm Aug 14, 2010.

While the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey has given Cordoba House a green light for their mosque/outreach center/multiplex the efforts to rebuild the only house of worship destroyed on the 9/11 attacks has been stalled by the same Port Authority for over a year. Unless satisfactory answers are offered to solve this mystery about St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, then people will assume Cordoba got some of that respectful special treatment President Obama talked about Friday night.

And speaking of that speech from Friday night. While the President, First Lady, and one daughter cavort on Gulf beaches to promote tourism, the President has been forced to make clear what he meant Friday night.

"I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there," he told reporters in Panama City, Fla. He, his wife, daughter Sasha and family dog Bo are spending an abbreviated weekend there as part of an effort to help Gulf Coast tourism that has suffered because of the BP oil spill."

Tell us another story Mr. President, we still have one more leg to pull.

The People vs Barrack Obama

Lets talk about Obama and his designated knee-capping don at the DoJ Holder bringing suit against the state of Arizona. One word: Insane.

British forces went to Lexington and Concord to seize the militia arms. The British general's intent was to prevent the colonials from getting into mischief because tensions were very high with a populace chaffing under a Crown governor after George III stripped the colony of its original charter and government. Now tactically for the British it made sense, but to the colonials it was proof the British government, ne George III, cared not for them and would leave these people depending upon British regular forces in Boston to save them from Indian raids.

After all the French and Indian Wars was barely a generation in the past. Naturally the colonials were not going to be left swinging in the wind and thus the American Revolution started.
In the present age we once again have a leader appointing upon himself rights and powers normally vested in the peoples legislature, be it termed Congress or Parliament. He has elected czars who are not accountable to anyone save him. He has bypassed court rulings to push his agenda. He has impeded local and private citizens actions answering to a disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And now he moves against a state that is trying to protect its citizens after suffering wanton and depraved murder of those citizens, blantant destruction of property, and flagerant flouting of all laws with legal bullying while ignoring such basic concepts as states are soverign entities who have voluntarily entered into a compact to create the Federal government.

So there are very strong indications of this boiling downto a states rights issue, how far will the Federal government stretch its tentacles via the Commerce clause? That is one thing this lawsuit will determine. Assuming the judge does not laugh himself to death reading the lawsuit where it admits the Federal government of Barrack Obama chooses not to enforce legal laws passed by the Congress and vetted by various other courts. This is the kind of government one gets when an amateur is elected to a position far above his head.

I wonder if I have enough popcorn for this schlock theatre?

Witless at the Witness Table

If we, the voting public, still had doubts on the capabilities of the sitting US Attorney General and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, this week should have removed all doubt. As in there is no more doubt they are incompetent for the important jobs they now hold.

In separate testimonies before members of Congress days apart, Eric Holder and Janet Nepolitano both admitted to the same fact. When it came to the new Arizona law dealing with illegal immigration, neither had bothered to read it. But both think the law is a bad idea. You heard me right, the man responsible for prosecuting people under federal immigration laws and the woman tasked with securing the nation's airports, seaports, and borders have not read a state law on immigration enforcement even though it falls under their spheres of responsibility.

The only positive spin I can put on this sorry spectacle is, they were honest in admitting they had not read it. And the only reason that I can think of that fits their individual personalities as to why they were truthful is they feared being prosecuted for perjury at a later date. So we, the People, can now say with a straight face that Eric and Janet are honestly incompetent.