“Thugs, crack-headed and jack-booted,” a phrase I often use when I argue the Second, refering to citizens defending themselves against common crooks and government would-be tyrants.
Mayor Bloomberg is high on the tyrant list, with his “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” campaign, and his own, apparently illegal campaign to entrap gun dealers in other states into selling guns to prohibited persons he hired for his little scam.
Now comes Gun Owners against Illegal Mayors, which has the run down on almost a dozen members of the MAIG campaign, mayors who have themselves been convicted of felonies.
There’s a reason these thugs want you disarmed, people: like all criminals, it’s a lot easier to rob you if you’re helpless.
I had a client recently—call him Sam—who got in the law’s bad graces for some conduct involving alcohol and the brandishing of a firearm in his garage while his young daughter slept upstairs. The daughter—well-fed, well-loved, well-adjusted and well-cared-for—was never in any danger and never even knew what had happened.
Only a total idiot would think it was a good idea to take that child out of that home, but CPS was all over Sam’s case, questioning his daughter at school, filing suit against him, threatening to take her away from him and his wife. By spending a bunch of money on lawyers, Sam and his wife were able to fend off CPS and keep their very lucky child in their home.
Bennett then recounts another case where an eight year old girl starves to death because CPS repeatedly ignores signs of neglect.
In the first case, the parent was white; in the second, black.
I think there was bigotry, but not against race. My comment on DP [still awaiting moderation]:
One factor jumps out at me far more than race:
Sam’s case involved a firearm. I believe, based on many other stories I’ve read (i.e., anecdotal avidence) that CPS workers have a very strong prejudice against firearms and firearm owners.
Of course, Sam behaved irresponsibly. However, he in fact caused no harm. He very properly should have been rebuked with a fine. I think a mandatory gun safety course would be an excellent step. I might even support his gun being confiscated for a repeat offense.
But to confiscate his child? When no harm came to her or anyone else?
There is indeed prejudice here, outright bigotry. But it’s not against Sam’s melanin deficiency. It’s against his exercise of the Second Amendment.
WizardPC, manning the Walls of the City, points out that the new TSA directives promulgated in the wake of the Christmas Bombing, works in exactly the same way as current gun regulations:
Unaccountable Government Agency with the power to ruin your life over seemingly minor transgressions? Check!
Assumption that you’re up to no good based solely on lawful activity? Check!
…And three more items. As one of Wiz’s commenters notes, this only applies to international travelers, but come on, people, do you really believe that officials like Napolitano don’t want to impose them universally?
After all, many of our current gun control laws got started after the Civil War, and were only supposed to keep uppity black folk from resisting the KKK and other bastions of law and order; they were never intended to be used against decent white Americans.
If the system worked, as “Nappies” Napolitano claims, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would not now be in the hands of the Justice Department.
He’d be in military hands, in Guantanomo, and would at this moment be in the process of being persuaded to spill his guts on who supplied him with a defective bomb. He might be allowed to watch with the rest of us as the homes and capitals of those responsible were obliterated. He’d certainly be hearing, and possibly watching, the Current Occupants at Gitmo being shot. Then it would be his turn. They would all have been offered a last meal of pork sausage and beer.
If the system worked, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would never have attempted what he did, because his sponsors would either be dead, or would know better than to attack an American target.
If the system worked, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would indeed be in this country, attending engineering school, being a good student, and preparing to go back home to bring his nation into the modern era.
If the system really worked, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would be going to school in his own country, and that school would be almost as good as almost any place he could have gone to here, and his country would be a substantial economic competitor to the US, like Japan after WWII.
And if the system worked, Barack Hussein Obama would be the junior Senator from Illinois. At best.
Look, this is all over the place. It’s so obviously, blatantly wrong, nobody’s saying anything insightful about it. All you can really do is bug out your eyes and scream incoherently, or just sigh and click on to the next post, or go watch a movie or something.
One thing I’d like to point out here is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action.
Even CNN’s commentator can’t quite keep the disbelief out of her voice. CNN is not playing with The Team on this one.
Some of the passengers did indeed do the right thing, although Nappies and her minions have done everything possible to render the passengers helpless.
Then there’s this:
We have no suggestion that he was improperly screened.
He got on the plane despite being on watch lists and despite warnings from his own family. How is that not “improper screened”?
It is her basic position that the “system worked” because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was “foiled” by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right. That is just about the dumbest thing she could say, on the merits and politically.
…
If the White House wants to assure people that it takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning by the way), they could start by firing this patenly unqualified hack.
Although Goldberg is generous (”patently unqualified hack”), you should read the whole thing; it’s short.
Oh, and I can’t pass over this [0:39]:
Within literally an hour to ninety minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred.
When seconds count, TSA is an hour away, at least. With advice, not actual, you know, help.
Goldberg is far too generous. Napolitano, and the administration she is a part of, is not unqualified.
When I was a kid, my favorite fall/early winter beverage was porch cider. You went out to a country apple stand, bought a couple of gallons of fresh pressed, unpasteurized apple cider, poured out a small glass or two to evaluate the taste, loosely replaced the caps, and let the jugs sit out on the porch for two-four days.
Then you would have a couple-three days to drink the wonderfully tart and fizzy, lightly fermented result.
However, it’s possible to come up with a close fake. This recipe is undergoing fine-tuning, as all bachelor chow projects are always undergoing fine tuning, but this is pretty close:
1-1/3 cup Apple Cider, the brown pulpy stuff.
2/3 cup Sparkling Apple Cider (I very strongly recommend Martinelli’s.)
2 tblsp apple cider vinegar
1 oz Apple Brandy (optional)
Serve over ice.
The vinegar makes the biggest difference, and you will definitely have to adjust for taste. Brandy or not depending on taste and mood. You might also experiment with rum or other spirits.
So those wonderful, oath-keeping, Constitution-upholding, best-of-the-best-of-the-best, testilying, batfuck crazies over at the BATFX have a guy in charge of licensing one of the two classes of tools explicitly protected by the Bill of Rights, Russell Vanderwerf.
ATF Gun Licensing Director Russell Vanderwerf Arrested
You might be able to make this up. But it would require a pretty disturbed mind. Where to begin. Initially being investigated for disabling the fire alarm systems in his hotel room, due to shower steam, he claimed, it was discovered he had replaced the hotel room door with a piece of plywood. The plywood contained a circular padded hole believed to be used for sexual acts. See gloryhole. Yes, it was facing the hotel hallway. It would seem he was interested in inspecting more than firearms. h/t BJ in email. And, no, I’m not making that up, either.
He serves as the director of industry operations for ATF’s Houston field office. The industry operations division is the regulatory arm of the agency, responsible for overseeing the inspection of all federal gun and explosives licensees, said ATF spokesman Drew Wade. He confirmed that Vanderwerf was in the New Orleans area on official business.
Yeah, I trust these guys to decide whether or not I’m fit to exercise my Constitutionally protected rights.
Uh huh. Sure I do.
“Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms: great convenience store, shitty government agency.”
Scott at Powerline explains why trying KSM in a civilian court is an “Insane Protocol”. He also provides a link to the actual, official policy document. [Since this looks like one of those docs that might change or fall down the memory hole, I've saved it here.]
Andy McCarthy at National Review Online identifies and answers eight lies Holder tells in his testimony.
Let me explain, for those who haven’t been paying attention or doing their homework, the difference between criminal justice and war:
In criminal justice, you seek out the individual responsible for a specific illegal act, and punish that individual for that act accordingly.
In war, you seek to punish an entire nation or other polity for acting in a way you do not like. The purpose is not to punish this or that individual for this or that act, but to bring your enemies to their knees and make them beg you to stop. The technical word for this is surrender, and an honorable victor will accept the surrender and cease making war.
KSM is not an individual committing specific illegal acts who needs to be punished. He is a member of a foreign polity, and a leader within that polity, determined to bring about our surrender. That polity is making war upon us. When we protect its warriors with the safeguards of our justice system, we are bowing down, preparing to surrender.
How do we know that the attack at Fort Hood was an act of Islamist terrorism? Simple, Major Nidal Hassan told us so. You’ve seen reports of a long list of things he did and said along these lines. But what’s most amazing of all is this:
Hassan is the first terrorist in history to give an academic lecture explaining why he was about to attack. Yet that still isn’t enough for too many people—including the president of the United States–to understand that the murderous assault at Fort Hood was a Jihad attack.
It was reported that the audience was shocked and frightened by his lecture. He was supposed to speak on some medical topic yet instead talked on the topic: “The Koranic World View as it Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military.” All you have to do is look at the 50 Power Point slides and they tell you everything you need to know.
It is quite a good talk. He’s logical and presents his evidence. This is clearly not the work of a mad man or a fool, though there’s still a note of ambiguity in it. He’s still working out what to do in his own mind and is trying to figure out if he has a way out other than in effect deserting the U.S. army and becoming a Jihad warrior. Ultimately, he concluded that he could not be a proper Muslim without killing American soldiers. Obviously, other Muslims could reach different conclusions but Hassan strongly grounds himself in Islamic texts.
In a sense, Hassan’s lecture was a cry for help: Can anyone show me another way out? Can anyone refute my interpretation of Islam? One Muslim in the audience reportedly tried to do so. But unless these issues are openly discussed and debated–rather than swept under the rug–more people will die.
In fact, I’d recommend that teachers use this lecture in teaching classes on both Islam and Islamist politics.
Follow along with me and you’ll understand everything.
So follow along, already. At first glance, his analysis seems thorough. Pro-jihadists, please feel free to respond in similar detail.
Having attacked Obama for having bowed to the Emperor of Japan, in fairness I offer this historic bow, delivered by one of the founders, John Adams, as ambassador to the King George III of England, and, until very recently (at the time) King of the American colonies as well:
For those among my patriotic friends on the right who are so deeply distressed, let me offer this story – possibly the first encounter between an American citizen and foreign royalty (the contacts between Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and the French preceded the British surrender, and so one can make a claim that they were not yet truly American citizens).
John Adams was presented to King George as the first American Ambassador to the Court of St. James (from Page Smith’s delightful John Adams biography)…
The Foreign Secretary then carried Adams with him in his coach to the court and ushered him to the antechamber, “very full of ministers of state, lords, and bishops, and all sorts of courtiers.” The Dutch and Swedish ministers, perhaps noticing Adams’ agitation came up to chat and in a few minutes Carmarthen returned to escort him to the King’s closet. The door was closed after him and Adams found himself alone with the Killoro and the Foreign Secretary. He bowed the three times that etiquette required – at the door, again halfway into the room, and a third time standing directly before His Majesty. It was a strange and dramatic confrontation – two short, stout men, both rather choleric, stubborn and strong-willed, sharing a certain emotional instability and a native shrewdness and wit. They were both great talkers and both, in their hearts, farmers. They both lived in worlds where they felt frequently that every man’s hand was turned against them. One was the King of the most powerful nation in the world, the other’s permanent rank that of a provincial lawyer and farmer. It was the New England fanner who represented victory and the King who had been forced to accept defeat. The name of Adams, John or Samuel, had been a stench in the nostrils of George III for almost twenty years and now an Adams stood before him, ambassador from those colonies which not so long ago had been the King’s special treasure.
Both men were agitated and ill at ease. Adams, obviously nervous, (”I felt more,” he wrote later, “than I did or could express”) delivered his speech as best he could and the King listened “with a most apparent emotion .. . very much affected” and replied with a tremor in his voice: “Sir…the circumstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you have now held is so extremely proper and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say that I not only receive with pleasure the assurance of the friendly dispositions of the United States, but that I am very glad the choice has fallen upon you to be their minister. . . . I will be very frank with you,” the King continued slowly, rather haltingly, searching out his words. “I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.” Then in a more informal spirit the King asked Adams if he had come most recently from France. “Yes, Your Majesty.” The King gave his short, barking laugh. “There is an opinion among some people that you are not the most attached of all your countrymen to the manners of France.” Adams was disconcerted at the remark, but he adopted the King’s light air and answered: “That opinion, sir, is not mistaken; I must avow to Your Majesty I have no attachment but to my own country.”
“A honest man will never have any other,” the King replied.
The King spoke a few words to Lord Carmarthen and then turned and bowed to Adams, signifying that the audience was at an end. The American retreated, walking backward with as much grace as he could affect, bowed a last time at the door, and withdrew.
So it’s quite possible to bow and speak frankly in defense of American interests.
Let’s judge Obama less on the bowing and the dressing and pay more attention to the speaking.
Armed Liberal has other cogent comments as well, and you should read them, as well as the many links he has on offer.
For my part, though, I must say that Obama is President, not an Ambassador; that the status of the United States as a nation not ruled by some kind of monarch (and indeed, among nations in the European sphere, not ruled by a monarch very closely related to the other European monarchs) was in Adams’ time very, shall I say? “raw”; and that Obama bowed very much more deeply than Akihito did.
Even AL acknowledges that it was at the very least an unbecoming error, and possibly a misunderstanding of Japanese custom.
As noted before, the State Department maintains an Office of Protocol, the job of which is exactly to instruct the President and other traveling dignitaries on how to behave when acting in their official capacity. Obama needs to stop goofing off in class, and do his damn homework.
rickety at name of blog dot com
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