How Would I Communicate If the Gov. Shuts Off the Internet?

Faultline USA plans to present a series of articles by a wide variety of writers on the subjects of Internet privacy, communication, and social networking in a world without the Internet. We are seeking submissions from our regular contributors and from guest writers on the subject: How Would I Communicate If the Gov. Shuts Off the Internet?

Regular contributors: Please feel free to publish articles on this subject at any time.

Bloggers and Guest writers: If you’ve written or already published an article on this subject or a related subject, and it’s no older than a year, feel free to submit.

Please submit your articles to: faultlineusa (at) yahoo (dot) com

For hints on the kinds of articles we are looking for check out:

Communicate_if_Your_Government_Shuts_Off_Your_Internet

Build a Phone Tree

Whistleblowers Gather for Conference on Being Targeted by the Surveillance State (VIDEO)

Pathways to Freedom (About the Underground RR)

Technorati Tags: communication,privacy,Internet,social networking,Bloggers

Read More

The Gun Ban Lobby and Its Funders

By James Simpson, Foundation Watch, February 2013 (PDF here)

Summary: The gun ban lobby includes not just a few groups like the Brady Center but also the mainstream media as a whole. Its preferred tactics are to use misleading terms and to ignore the actual facts of gun control’s failure.

The massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, this past December hit home like few other tragedies. Yet again a lunatic commits mass murder, this time slaughtering our most vulnerable and most cherished: our children. Words cannot express the bottomless grief one feels at the mere thought of such loss. Sandy Hook rightfully shook our sensibilities and forced us to reassess what we believe about ourselves and America. Why is this happening? we ask.

As usual, before police cordoned off the crime scene, the Left had its answer ready: not enough gun control. Left-wingers repeated their old refrain: America can no longer defend its “gun culture,” which is responsible for this tragedy, and we must have a national “dialogue” on guns.

In fact, we have been having a “dialogue” about guns for decades, and it has been very one-sided. The Left has often received what it asked for, starting with the 1968 Gun Control Act, the 1993 Brady Law (until the courts found parts of it unconstitutional), and a so-called federal “assault weapons” ban on semi-automatic rifles and high capacity magazines from 1994 to 2004. Yet none of this has affected gun crime or prevented any massacres. The Centers for Disease Control, a federal agency widely seen as favoring gun control, produced a major study in 2003 that admitted, “The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes.”

Prior to the 1968 Gun Control Act, few controls existed on privately owned firearms, with the exception of machine guns—that is, guns that keep firing as long as you hold the trigger—which have been strictly regulated since 1934 under the National Firearms Act. Even children could order rifles through the mail with parental permission. Yet firearms crimes were less frequent, as were the mass shootings that seem to be a regular feature in the news these days.

Activists on the Left don’t really want a dialogue. They want a total ban on guns in private hands, but they rarely admit that. Instead, they mask the issue with misleading language, selective statistics, and a campaign to vilify their political opponents.

Major Players
On the gun control issue, only a few small activist groups dedicate their work to banning guns. Here is the list, with the most recent available annual revenues shown on their IRS tax returns:

American Hunters and Shooters Association (2011 revenues $5,000)

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence (2010 revenues $3 million) and its 501(c)(4) affiliate, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (2010 revenues $2.9 million)

Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (2010 revenues $309,000)

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (2010 revenues $249,000)

Legal Community Against Violence (a.k.a Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence; 2010 revenues $978,000)

Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Fund (2010 revenues $2.7 million)

Stop Handgun Violence (co-founded the American Hunters and Shooters Association in 2005; 2012 revenues $143,000)

Third Way (formerly Americans for Gun Safety Foundation; 2010 revenues $7.5 million)

Violence Policy Center (2010 revenues $832,000)

United Against Illegal Guns Support Fund (affiliated with Mayors Against Illegal Guns; 2010 revenues $1.3 million)

The best known gun control groups are the Brady Center and the Violence Policy Center (VPC). VPC receives most of its funding from the Joyce Foundation ($6.3 million since 1998) on whose board Obama used to serve; George Soros’ Open Society Institute ($800,000 since 1999); and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($575,000 since 1999). The Brady Center receives much of its funding from small donors. FoundationSearch only reveals modest payments from foundations. From 2008 to 2011 the largest donation, $34,000, came from the Ladner Family Foundation. By contrast, the Brady Center’s last tax return says $2.7 million of its $3 million revenues were raised with the help of a professional consultant that specializes in online and direct mail fundraising (the Brady Center paid the consultant $96,000). In the same year, the group’s (c)(4) affiliate, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, paid the same consultant $99,000 to bring in $2.8 million of its $2.9 million revenues.

Altogether these 10 groups provided less than $20 million to the gun control cause in 2010, a trifle compared with the National Rifle Association (NRA), which lists 2010 revenues of $228 million. To the uninformed this appears to be a David versus Goliath struggle, the little good guys versus the big, bad old NRA, and that’s the way the Left likes it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Conservative groups often focus on one or a few issues like abortion, taxes, excessive regulations, immigration, or guns, and rarely unite behind other causes. Conversely, the Left should be understood as a single amorphous organism. Like a giant amoeba, one segment may move one way and a second another, but the whole organism moves slowly forward as one. While leftist groups may identify themselves with one issue, most work together on all leftist agendas.

Thus the gun ban lobby actually includes the ACLU, Women Strike for Peace, People for the American Way, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Physicians for Social Responsibility, National Council of La Raza, as well as labor, women’s, and medical groups. (Yes, the gun control Left has captured the national leadership of such groups as the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has stated, “The most effective way to prevent firearm-related injury to children is to keep guns out of homes and communities.”)

The NRA published a list of 141 organizations, 237 actors, and 26 national figures who have lent their resources and/or names to the anti-gun agenda. The list also includes 37 journalists and cartoonists who editorialize against guns. Practically all mass media outlets, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the publicly funded PBS, most major daily newspapers, and many magazines overtly push an anti-gun agenda. The earned media alone from this unified public voice is worth billions of dollars.

In addition, Soros’s philanthropic network purchases media to promote its founder’s radical agenda, granting annual awards to “Soros Justice Fellows.” In at least one case, this involves subsidizing a working journalist. Amanda Crawford, who works for Bloomberg and Newsweek, received $47,000 in 2010 “To illustrate the failure of the drug war through a blog [crawfordondrugs.com]) and series of targeted magazine articles….” Not surprisingly, she also writes about guns. This seems to be a clear case of Soros actually buying media to promote his agenda. In the past month, President Obama has asked Soros and other wealthy leftists to open their checkbooks to challenge the Second Amendment.

Lying About Their Beliefs
Gun control is not a winning issue. Talking amongst themselves or trolling for votes from their base, leftists will say what they think, but most moderate or hide their views to appeal to rational voters. The best example is our president. While he denies it today, President Obama has been overtly anti-gun for most of his political career:

* He served on the board of the anti-gun Joyce Foundation from 1994 to 2002, and considered becoming the foundation’s president.

* As a U.S. Senate candidate in 2004, he favored federal legislation to ban all concealed-carry laws for private citizens.

* While teaching at the University of Chicago, he told another professor, “I don’t believe people should be able to own guns.”

* He supported Washington, D.C.’s draconian gun laws, struck down by the Supreme Court in D.C. v. Heller (2008).

* Presidential candidate Obama made the infamous comment about “bitter” people who “cling to guns or religion.”

Not all on the left, however, are so deceptive. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), author of the 1994 gun ban and the current Senate proposal, said in 1994, “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America turn ’em all in, I would have done it.”

Misleading Language
The Left deliberately uses incorrect and misleading definitions to elicit emotional responses and sway voters. We must, therefore, correctly define the more important terms:

Machine Gun: A fully automatic weapon that fires a rifle cartridge. Strictly controlled under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA), these require an extensive, months-long background check and payment of a $200 tax. Any such weapon manufactured after 1986 cannot be purchased by civilians. Only two criminal uses of legally owned machine guns have occurred since the law was passed.

Assault Weapon: Assault weapons, as understood by the military, are military-issue small arms capable of fully automatic fire, that is, continuous firing while the trigger is pulled; a.k.a., machine guns. Civilian versions of these kinds of guns, for instance, the popular AR-15 rifle, are only capable of semi-automatic fire; that is, you must pull the trigger each time to shoot one bullet. The Left deliberately conflates these two types of weapons—fully automatic military guns vs. semi-automatic civilian guns—to exaggerate the lethality of the civilian versions and generate an emotional response to the scary-sounding phrase “assault weapon.” The “assault weapons ban” now being contemplated is for semi-automatic firearms, not true assault weapons.

Submachine Gun: A fully automatic weapon that fires a pistol cartridge; it falls under the same NFA restrictions as machine guns. The Left deliberately confuses machine guns with civilian semi-automatic firearms, for the same reason they mislabel semi-automatics as “assault weapons.”

Gun Safety: Proper care and safe, responsible use of firearms. The NRA conducts gun safety courses nationwide for thousands of adults and children, for which it rarely receives credit from the anti-gun press. In the Left’s lexicon, “gun safety” means gun control. Not a single leftist “gun safety” group offers any training or information on the responsible, safe ownership and use of firearms, nor do they even advocate for it. They simply use the term “gun safety” because “gun control” does not win votes.

One extreme left organization, Third Way, even dedicated itself specifically to creating a positive “messaging strategy” about gun control. Founded in 2005, it absorbed the former Americans for Gun Safety Foundation. AGS was a project of the far-left Tides Center. Its creator, Andrew McKelvey, was also a prominent board member of Handgun Control Inc.

Using poll data to develop their “message,” Third Way believes “progressives” can “take back the Second Amendment”—as if they ever owned it—by convincing voters that “reasonable” gun laws don’t undermine the individual right to keep and bear arms.

The group emphasizes “gun safety” because “gun control has become a loaded term that leads voters to believe that the candidate supports the most restrictive laws.…” According to Third Way, “reasonable” gun laws include an “assault” weapons ban, closing the “gun show loophole,” and registration of all guns.

The flagship anti-gun group, National Council to Control Handguns, founded in 1974, was later known as Handgun Control Inc. Its most prominent leader has been Sarah Brady, wife of Jim Brady, the White House press secretary wounded in the 1981 attempt to assassinate President Reagan. When the term “gun control” became politically radioactive, the outfit was rechristened the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. In the group’s most recent tax returns, Sarah Brady is now listed as “chair of the organization,” with compensation of $135,000 for an average of five hours work a week (i.e., $519 an hour).

Gun Show Loophole: Another invention of the Left that implies gun show purchases can be made without a background check. This is false. All licensed federal firearms dealers must conduct background checks on all prospective purchasers, and all gun show exhibitors that sell firearms hold federal firearms licenses (FFLs). Private sales between individuals, however, are not regulated in most states. This is what the gun controllers really seek to stop, and because such sales sometimes occur at gun shows, gun ban extremists demonize show promoters and hope to shut them down. They have had some success. Meanwhile, the scholar John Lott explains that the now-common claim that “40 percent of all gun sales today are private” is nonsense. It’s based on one small, flawed survey from two decades ago which mostly surveyed sales that occurred before mandatory federal background checks became law in 1994. Lott speculates that the true figure is in the single digits.

Sporting Purposes: Gun ban advocates try to delegitimize ownership of firearms that do not appear to serve a “sporting purpose.” They question, for example, the “sporting purpose” for semi-automatic firearms, especially those with large capacity magazines. But the Second Amendment was not intended for sportsmen: it was intended for defense, personal and national.

That is exactly why Sir William Blackstone, in his 1765 Commentaries on the Laws of England, a seminal work that profoundly influenced America’s founders, said that having arms for defense is a “natural right of resistance and self-preservation.”

It is precisely because the antebellum Supreme Court accepted Blackstone’s rights-based defense of firearms that it handed down its notorious Dred Scott decision in 1857. In that ruling, which helped to precipitate the Civil War, the high court tried to make sure black people would never be American citizens and therefore never be able to acquire the right “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

Similarly, when the Ku Klux Klan was trying to enforce Jim Crow restrictions against blacks, gun control was high on its list of goals. Liberal black Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy recently praised the way blacks responded to the Klan by forming private groups like “the legendary Deacons for Defense and Justice—an organization of black men in Louisiana who used shotguns and rifles to repel attacks by white vigilantes during the 1960s.”

The same phenomenon occurred during the Rodney King riots in 1992, when many Korean business owners stood guard over their property with their firearms prominently displayed. Korean businesses suffered a large proportion of the losses during the riots, and those firearms proved critical to their survival when police abandoned the area and left them to face the rioters alone.

Selective Statistics
The Left trots out Britain and Australia as model gun control utopias, basking in peace and security. Handguns have been controlled in the U.K. since 1920, and other firearms also have been heavily regulated. That didn’t prevent horrific mass killings in Hungerford, England (1987), and Dunblane, Scotland (1996), which claimed a total of 33 victims, including 17 school children, and spurred successively more restrictive gun laws.

The Firearms Act of 1998 effectively banned automatic weapons and handguns. The penalty for possession of a handgun in Britain is up to 10 years in prison. After the handgun ban, gun crime, including handgun crime, skyrocketed. In 1997/98, there were 2,636 crimes committed with handguns in England and Wales. By 2001/02, handgun crimes had increased to 5,871. Overall, firearms were used in 9,974 crimes. (“Gun crime soars by 35%,” Daily Mail, Jan. 9, 2003).

Firearms crime in the U.K. peaked in 2005/06 and has declined since. In 2010/11, firearms were used in 7,024 crimes, and 3,105 of these were handgun crimes, down from the earlier peak, but still well above its 1997/98 level. In 2010/11, 9.3 percent of all homicides were committed with a firearm. U.K. firearms crime and violent crime in general remain well below U.S. levels, but both have increased dramatically despite a century of gun control. (Press release, Home Office, Jan. 19, 2012)

Despite harsh laws regulating what few firearms are still allowed in the U.K., in June 2010, a taxi driver in Cumbria, England, killed 12 and injured 11 during another murderous spree.

In all these circumstances, victims were completely at the killer’s mercy, and local police, also unarmed, were powerless to stop the rampages. In the U.K., only specially trained police carry firearms. In the Hungerford case, the nearest armed police unit was 40 miles away. The killers all ended their sprees by committing suicide.

In 1996, shortly after Dunblane, a man with a violent history killed 35 people and wounded 21 using two semi-automatic rifles at a tourist site in Port Arthur, Tasmania. Australia’s gun laws were stricter than Britain’s at the time, and after Port Arthur the Australian government banned all semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and certain other firearms and instituted a forced buyback program, destroying 631,000 firearms at a cost of $500 million. The result? According to the Wall Street Journal:

Peter Reuter and Jenny Mouzos, in a 2003 study published by the Brookings Institution, found homicides “continued a modest decline” since 1997. They concluded that the impact of the National Firearms Agreement was “relatively small,” with the daily rate of firearms homicides declining 3.2%.

The United States has a rate of firearms crime higher than many other developed countries. For example, 3.5 per 100,000 are murdered by firearms in the U.S., while in most Western European countries the rate is less than 1 per 100,000. The U.K. is often cited due to its very low firearms homicide rate of 0.03 per 100,000. Many but not all Western European countries have restrictive gun laws. Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland, for example are less restrictive; all allow open carry, and their firearms murder rates are no higher than the others. Germany’s rate is roughly equivalent to the U.K.

The U.S. rate is radically lower than most Central and South American countries, despite stringent controls in many of them. Venezuela, for example, bans all semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns, yet Venezuela’s firearms murder rate is 11 times higher than ours. Brazil and Honduras require extensive background checks and registration, but Brazil’s firearms murder rate is 5 times higher than the U.S., and Honduras’ rate is almost 20 times higher. Conversely, Chile has few restrictions and licensed owners can carry handguns openly, yet Chile’s firearms murder rate is much lower than the U.S.

What does this say about gun laws? Obviously, other factors are at work in these different countries, and they have a much greater impact than gun laws. Just about the only thing consistent about gun laws is the inconsistency of their results.

But let’s engage in a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that somehow the Left got its wish and all civilian-owned firearms were confiscated and banned. Would Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter, have attacked Sandy Hook if such a ban existed? It’s impossible to know; he was mentally disturbed. But even assuming Lanza had no access to firearms, would that have stopped him from murder? He could wait until school got out and attack the kids with a car as they waited for busses to arrive. He may have killed more that way.

In 2009, a 20-year-old man attacked a daycare center in Belgium with a knife. He killed two babies and a daycare worker and seriously injured 12 others, 10 of them children. He was also implicated in another knife murder and had plans to attack two other daycare centers, according to police. (WKRG website, Jan. 27, 2009)

This young man, Kim De Gelder, had a history of mental health issues. His parents had tried to have him committed, but medical authorities declined because was already receiving treatment for depression. Interestingly, he applied make-up before the attack, using white face and black eye-liner, and like last summer’s Aurora, Colorado killer, who attacked theater goers watching the Batman sequel, Dark Knight Rises, De Gelder dyed his hair red, earning himself the nickname, “Joker Killer.” (“Belgium’s ‘joker killer’ Kim De Gelder admits guilt,” Telegraph (U.K.), Jan. 27, 2009)

For the 1999 Columbine, Colorado high school attack, the perpetrators manufactured a total of 99 explosive devices. This included two diversionary bombs set elsewhere in town that exploded before the attack, 30 bombs that exploded at the school, 46 more that did not explode, 13 in their cars, and 8 more at their residences. Police determined that the two unexploded propane bombs left in the cafeteria could have killed up to 488 students, all of whom were at the cafeteria when the bombs were set to detonate.

Following the Australian gun ban, suicides by firearms did decline. Firearms are naturally a preferred vehicle for those intent on suicide because they are quick and effective. Following the ban, firearms were more difficult to obtain for most non-criminals. But people intent on suicide have serious problems. They are not going to be dissuaded simply because one of many methods is denied them. And indeed, the overall suicide rate remained essentially unchanged. People simply chose other methods. (Time.com, May 1, 2008; TheTruthAboutGuns.com, Dec. 16, 2012) Gun bans only guarantee that law-abiding citizens will be unarmed. One cannot argue that they would prevent criminals and terrorists in the U.S. from obtaining guns. A robust international trade exists in small arms, much of it illegal, and much of that illegal activity backed by governments hostile to ours. The world market is awash in weapons from past wars and defunct governments. Many weapons used by Mexican drug cartels are genuine assault weapons, i.e., capable of fully automatic fire. They did not come from U.S. dealers as alleged by the gun control crowd, because they are much more difficult and expensive to obtain in the U.S. (Stratfor.com, July 9, 2009)

In 1996, U.S. Customs seized a shipment of 2,000 AK-47s from a merchant marine ship of Communist China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). It was the largest seizure of its kind in U.S. history, and the guns were allegedly to be used by street gangs. (Baltimore Sun, Nov. 8, 1998) At least 35 Jamaat-ul Fuqra terrorist training camps operate within the United States. These are privately owned compounds, complete with gun ranges and underground bunkers. Two have been shut down by police; one in California and another in Colorado. A storage facility used by the Colorado compound was raided by police in 1989. It contained handguns, silencers, explosives, bombs, and other materials plainly meant for terrorist acts. (Colorado Attorney General, statement, Feb. 9, 2005) Will Jamaat-ul Fuqru comply with an “assault” weapons ban? Will American street gangs? The notion is laughable. Every criminal or terrorist who has a gun will keep it, and the illegal firearms market will thrive.

Vilification and Smears
Here is where the extremist media comes to the fore. Journalists constantly vilify guns and gun owners. After any headline-grabbing event, activists then pick up the narrative, which journalists in turn amplify, creating a feedback loop of propaganda. Meanwhile, the facts about gun control and the role guns play in deterring violent crime are suppressed by the media and ridiculed by leftists. The Newtown fallout was especially ugly.

Des Moines Register columnist Donald Kaul suggested (Dec. 29, 2012) that the NRA be branded a terrorist organization and people who refused to turn in their guns be killed: we should “tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner … to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.”

Westchester County, New York’s Journal News published names and addresses of every concealed-carry permit holder in Westchester and Rockland Counties, along with an interactive Google map showing their addresses. After widespread public outrage over this action, which put retired police, prison guards, and many others at risk, the Journal News hired armed guards to protect themselves. They also sheepishly admitted that a staff member held a concealed-carry permit, but they did not publish his information. Putnam County officials refused the Journal News’ request for their permit holder records, calling it “stupid and dangerous.”

In 1995, Eric Holder, then U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia (but now Obama’s attorney general), said we need to change attitudes about guns as we did with cigarettes. He advocated a relentless campaign of brainwashing in schools: “We have to be repetitive about this,” he declared. “We need to do this every day of the week, and just really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.” Some critics have claimed Holder conceived the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scam to create the appearance that U.S. gun shops were supplying Mexico’s drug cartels. At least one American and hundreds of Mexicans have died at the hands of drug dealers using those same weapons.

Anti-gun hysteria whipped up by politicians has another unintended consequence. It spurs panic-buying among current and prospective gun owners when new gun restrictions are proposed. As Clayton E. Cramer noted at National Review Online, after the 1994 federal “assault” rifle ban was passed, people who lacked experience with guns bought firearms “while they still could.” Some misused the weapons, resulting in deaths.

With the saturation coverage that tragedies like Newtown receive, the media may actually be encouraging more killings. David Kopel argued in a recent Wall Street Journal article that

Cable TV in the 1990s, and the Internet today, greatly magnify the instant celebrity that a mass killer can achieve. We know that many would-be mass killers obsessively study their predecessors … the copycat effect is as old as the media itself. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1774 classic “The Sorrows of Young Werther” triggered a spate of copycat suicides all over Europe. But today the velocity and pervasiveness of the media make the problem much worse.

If Kopel is correct, we will likely see more of this appalling violence, which only makes it more urgent to ensure that people in schools and elsewhere are free to defend themselves and those they are responsible for.

Mental Illness
Finally, while the Left hyperventilates over guns, we overlook the elephant in the tent in stories like the Newtown killings: mental illness.

David Kopel observed that deinstitutionalization of the violently mentally ill may be credited to an earlier left-wing campaign, the 1970s deinstitutionalization movement:

A second explanation is the deinstitutionalization of the violently mentally ill. A 2000 New York Times study of 100 rampage murderers found that 47 were mentally ill. In the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry Law (2008), Jason C. Matejkowski and his co-authors reported that 16% of state prisoners who had perpetrated murders were mentally ill … today, while government at most every level has bloated over the past half-century, mental-health treatment has been decimated.

Moreover, a 2011 paper by Steven P. Segal at the University of California, Berkeley, … found that a third of the state-to-state variation in homicide rates was attributable to the strength or weakness of involuntary civil-commitment laws.

According to Rasmussen and Gallup polls taken shortly after Newtown, most Americans believe treating mental illness is the most important factor in preventing these mass crimes.

Conclusion
So should we deny private citizens the right to self-defense on the off-chance that a few lunatics may be prevented from using firearms as their method to commit mass murder, even though we know, with certainty, that terrorists, street gangs, and other criminals will remain heavily armed and able to attack citizens they know are defenseless?

Isn’t it a better idea to let law-abiding citizens remain armed, promote firearms safety and responsible gun ownership, while relaxing counterproductive constraints that now prevent law-abiding citizens from using firearms in defense of themselves and others in emergencies like Sandy Hook?

Isn’t it a better idea to confront the problem of mental illness in our society head on? Aren’t our dollars better spent treating these people, rather than risking more children’s lives by attempting to fix the problem on the cheap with feel-good non-answers like gun control? Would we not be risking many more lives by disarming the public while letting criminals go free?

James Simpson is an economist, businessman, and freelance writer. His writings have been published in Accuracy in Media, American Thinker, Big Government, Washington Times, WorldNetDaily, FrontPage Magazine, and elsewhere.

Republished from Capital Research Center with permission from Jim Simpson, a Faultline USA contributor.

Technorati Tags: guns,gun control,lobby,gun ban lobby,American Hunters and Shooters Association,Brady Center,Newtown,Sandy Hook

Read More

It's STILL AMNESTY! ... J. D. Longstreet

It's STILL AMNESTY!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************

It matters not a whit what you call it -- it still amounts to amnesty for eleven million illegal aliens in America. 
This "new" immigration reform from both the US Senate and the US President is utterly ridiculous.  But in the end, it will be rammed down the throats of the American public simply because the US government has gone rogue and is no longer responsive -- nor responsible -- to the US citizenry.  (And some people still wonder WHY Americans are arming themselves???)

The Heritage Foundation released the following statement on January 30th, 2013:

"America’s heritage of immigration has fueled our nation’s strength and diversity, yet our immigration system has become so politicized and dysfunctional that it causes untold personal tragedies, strains the fiscal capacity of public services in many states, and prevents many from pursuing the American Dream. Complex, comprehensive legislation based on back-room deals never works, and the Senate immigration proposal announced this week and echoed yesterday by President Obama—to the extent that it repeats the mistakes of the past—will further polarize Americans, fail to solve the real policy problems, and make matters worse.

Immigrants come to our country for freedom and economic opportunity. We are concerned that many aspects of the framework for comprehensive reform will undermine the very foundations that make for America’s exceptional success. Policymakers should refrain from committing to such broad statements before the actual legislative language is available for public review. A proposal that would grant individuals who are in this country illegally a pathway to citizenship violates the rule of law and is unfair to those who have obeyed our immigration laws.

The Heritage Foundation believes that America’s immigration system must be reformed through an open and public step-by-step, problem-solving approach that unites Americans and creates a system that welcomes immigrants, protects our sovereignty, encourages assimilation, and expands opportunities for everyone. Once such common-sense reforms are in place and working, lawmakers can determine how to respond in a fair, compassionate, and constitutional way to those who have come to our country illegally." SOURCE:  http://blog.heritage.org/2013/01/30/heritage-foundation-statement-on-immigration/?roi=echo3-14403859543-11190034-1b80b2b425f4c1aef7d244951acffbfe&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Let's just blow away some of the smoke and call it what it is:  What we have here is a HUGE payoff by the Obama Administration to the Hispanic community for their vote in the November election.  That's one side.  On the other side is the GOP trying like hell to convince the Hispanic vote to shift to their side by offering them citizenship in the country they broke into.

If you, like me, don't like what the Senate and the President are proposing, well, stuff it!  It doesn't matter. The decision has been made -- and a bill WILL be passed to offer illegals amnesty. 

Look.  The poor, hapless, dumb, republicans cannot, for whatever reason, understand that the GOP has lost (if they ever really had) the Hispanic vote.  Heck, the Hispanic vote is a "natural" for the Democrat/socialists, anyway ... always has been.    The republicans cannot get it through their heads that agreeing to and passing this comprehensive immigration reform simply adds eleven million NEW VOTERS to the democratic side of the tally sheet.  It is lose, lose, for the republicans.  And it is lose, lose, for America as that will place the democrat/socialists in a position to rule America in perpetuity... forever!

Oh, and don't count on the border being secured, either.  Yes, I know it is supposed to be a key part of the Senate bill.  But here's the thing:  How are you and I going to know the border is secure?  Take their word for it, huh? 
Consider this for a moment:  The only way that the American borders are going to be sealed is when a rogue US government decides to seal them  -- not to keep illegals out -- but TO KEEP US CITIZENS IN!!  Then -- and ONLY THEN -- will the US borders be sealed.

America's old hippie government, years ago, bought into the globalist "world without borders" agenda and they will never agree to securing America's borders. But they WILL lie to America and swear the borders are secure when, in fact, they are not.
That part of the Senate bill means absolutely nothing.  Obama's "proposed" bill doesn't even include a provision for securing the border first. 

Those of you who support open borders do not, I repeat, DO NOT try to beat us about the head and shoulders with the old saw that says America is a nation of immigrants.  See, we already know that -- because our ancestors were immigrants, too.  Mine came into the country, legally, in 1789 through what was then Charles Town Harbor and were assigned a place in the 96th precinct of the state of South Carolina.  Notice - they came into this country LEGALLY!  That is all we expect of any who want to immigrate to America.  Do it legally and we will welcome you with open arms. Do it illegally and we want you caught and deported forthwith!  Unless, of course, you are a prospective democratic voter. 

America’s biggest problem with illegal immigration is not with those who illegally break into our country and help to bleed it dry, but with our government which refuses to uphold the laws already on the books.  Had those laws been enforced we would not be in the situation we find ourselves today.  Plus, the problem of what to do with these 11 or 12-plus million illegal aliens would not be a problem, at all, if the government would simply follow the laws on the books today.

The bottom line for Americans to ponder is… what do we do with a government that refuses to uphold/enforce the nation’s laws and tramples on the constitution at will? 

Well, let me ask you - suppose you had a business and an employee consistently refused to follow the rules of the workplace.  What would you do to that employee?  See?  The answer used to be simple. You'd toss them out at the next election.  Unfortunately, our elections have become something of a pro forma showcase these days.  Just going through the motions while the results are fore ordained.  Nowadays "the fix" is in before the first ballot is dropped into the box.  The ONLY way we are ever going to get relief from this problem is to clean the house in Washington.  But, how to do that now? Huh? When your vote no longer counts, how, exactly, do you do that?   

My friend and fellow blogger, Alan Caruba, recently said in his piece entitled “A Crisis of Governors:"   “What, in fact, Americans are witnessing is a failure of government at both the state and federal level. The nation has managed to elect too many people to public office that are so clearly inept, incompetent, and untrustworthy, it poses a threat to the republic.”  SOURCE:  http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/07/crisis-of-governors.html  

Alan, as usual, is spot on.  America’s most dangerous enemy, at the moment, is its own government! I would add that, in my opinion, America’s second worst enemy, at the moment, is its own ignorance. It was through the ignorance of the American electorate that these pitifully inept, power hungry, politicians were elected to office to begin with.
Not to worry.  The democrat/socialists are going to get their eleven million new voters.  Count on it.  And it makes absolutely no difference what YOU think!

J. D. Longstreet

Read More

U.S. is losing economic freedom and the prospect of women in combat

By James Shott

Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Chile, Mauritius, and Denmark all beat the United States in the 2013 Index of Economic Freedom. The U.S., part of a group of countries termed "mostly free," scored 76.0 out of 100, dropping .3 from last year, compared with 89.3 for Hong Kong. The world average score of 59.6 is only .1 above the 2012 average. All free economies averaged 84.5, well above the U.S. ranking.

The Index is produced by The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, and is based on Adam Smith's theory expressed in The Wealth of Nations in 1776. It covers 10 freedoms scored from 1 to 100, from property rights to entrepreneurship, for 185 countries, and has been published since 1995.

Economic freedom is defined as "the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself." That definition applies less to the U.S. each year.

The U.S. has lost economic freedom for five consecutive years and suffered losses in the categories of monetary freedom, business freedom, labor freedom, and fiscal freedom. The U.S. did post an increase in one category, however: government spending, in which it scored lowest of the ten categories.

The poor U.S. position, the lowest Index score since 2000, is due to rapid expansion of federal policies, which have encroached on the states' ability to control their own economic decisions. The authors specifically mentioned the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial bill as having strong negative influences on economic freedom. They also noted that national spending rose to over 25 percent of GDP in 2010, that public debt passed 100 percent of GDP in 2011, and that budget deficits have exceeded $1 trillion each year since 2009.

"More than three years after the end of the recession in June 2009, the U.S. continues to suffer from policy choices that have led to the slowest recovery in 70 years," the authors wrote. "Businesses remain in a holding pattern, and unemployment is close to 8 percent."

Until government stops trying to regulate nearly every facet of life, its tinkering will continue to slow the economy and prolong suffering, and we will continue to fall in the Index of Economic Freedom.

* * * * * * *

The decision to put women in up-front combat roles is troubling, to say the least, perhaps more so to those of us who grew up and served in times when women played important roles in the military, but were not directly involved in combat, or even close to combat.

Fortunately, only a relative few females have been injured and killed in recent military actions, but if this decision stands those numbers will grow, and that prospect is a quite traumatic one for many Americans, and completely unacceptable for many others.

The critical factor in determining whether any group or individual serves in a combat situation is whether they are up to the daunting challenges that exist. Requirements for who fills combat roles must be maintained at levels that guarantee that every person in a combat role is up to it, man, woman, gay, straight or whatever.

There are also practical considerations when males and females are in combat situations in close proximity. Troops are often in sustained operations for extended periods, and living conditions offer no privacy for personal hygiene functions or sleeping. Finding ways to provide needed privacy during high stress and dangerous operations may very well put troops at greater risk. That is not acceptable.

A convincing argument against this is that the decision was made for the wrong reasons: it was driven by political and social considerations, not military need, according to Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, US Army (Ret.), who served for 36 years as an original member of the Delta Force and a Green Berets commander.

Some women believe that their chances of career advancement within the military suffer from being excluded from ground combat positions. And predictably, the American Civil Liberties Union, which frequently takes positions that make no sense in the practical world, agrees and has filed a lawsuit on their behalf.

The safety of our military personnel must not be put at risk in return for achieving some politically correct sense of fairness or even to allow female military personnel access to the career advantages that are available to males, as unfair as that may be. Fairness and equality sometimes must take a back seat.

Despite the strong desires of many Americans, men and women are by nature different biological creatures and distinctly not equal in important ways, one of which is that men are better suited to military combat than women. We shouldn’t fool with Mother Nature.

Cross-posted from Observations

Read More

Gun Owners Against Christ? ... J. D. Longstreet

Gun Owners Against Christ?
Tell It To Jesus!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************

Obama and those leftist democrats have now dealt the religion card in their manic drive to snatch weapons from gun owners in America.

Have they NO SHAME -- ANY?  At ALL?

I suppose separation of church and state only applies when  Christians attempt to place a copy of the ten commandments or a Christmas creche on a courthouse lawn.  But it DOES NOT APPLY when the political left, the progressives, democrats, socialists, Marxists, and communists in our government  -- and, yes,  in the pulpits of the mainline religious denominations in America -- feel it is impeding their Marxist agenda.

Senator Feinstein, herself descended from Polish Jews and grandparents who were of the Russian Orthodox faith and self describes her faith as Jewish, ought to brush up on her New Testament before she allows hauling the "cross," a distinctly Christian emblem, into her anti-gun extravaganzas.

Look.   I am sick, ad nauseum, of the mainline religious denominations in America and across the globe, sticking their self righteous noses into my political ideology.

Heck, it is my firm belief that Christian churches have no business, whatsoever, involving themselves in politics -- at any level.  (Frankly, I an very uncomfortable with churches allowing polling places on their premises.)   In fact, if they were doing the job they were given by Christ, Himself, they would not have time to make fools of themselves belittling others and rolling around in the filth of politics.

I refer, of course, in the paragraph above to "The Great Commission," that with which the Christian church is directly charged by Jesus, Himself, to make its work on earth.  It is simple and to the point -- and -- if carried out the church would find itself entirely too busy to become involved in those things that are Caesar's business.

This is The Great Commission: 

Matthew 28:18-20
Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (NIV)   

"As Sen. Dianne Feinstein D-Calif. opened her press conference on gun control today, she invited Dean of the National Cathedral Rev. Canon Gary Hall to offer a prayer.

Hall spoke briefly before the prayer, calling for Washington lawmakers to stop fearing the gun lobby and fulfill their “moral duty” to restrict guns.

"Everyone in this city seems to live in terror of the gun lobby," Hall said. "But I believe that the gun lobby is no match for the cross lobby."

Hall said that he could no longer justify a society that allowed ordinary citizens to keep and bear "assault weapons."

During the prayer, Hall asked God to “bless our elected leaders with the wisdom and the courage needed to bring about the changes that the people demand.”   Source:  http://washingtonexaminer.com/sen.-dianne-feinstein-opens-up-anti-gun-presser-with-a-prayer/article/2519581#.UQPnAvJ0jTg 

This is exactly the kind of leftist political stunt that caused me to walk out of TWO mainline denomination churches a number of years ago --  and I have not allowed my shadow to darken the door of one since.

When a body of believers, gathered together as a church, becomes an apostate church, Christians are commanded to "come out from among them."  That's what I did -- and I highly recommend it for those in fear of the final resting place of their souls.

The whole thing strikes me as the height of hypocrisy anyway.  I mean,  the democrats/socialists screaming about the separation of church and state.  If you want to see overt, in you face, conjoining of religion and politics simply watch the democrats parading into the pulpits of black churches across the nation during a political campaign season. Somehow, THAT is perfectly fine.

OK, I get it:  It's not wrong WHEN THEY DO IT, right?

We have known the Obama machine is going to use every tool they can lay their hands on to attempt to shame gun owners into surrendering their weapons. (Make no mistake.  The final goal of this entire gun control campaign is to TAKE YOUR GUNS ... to disarm Americans.  They only need to complete two easy steps ... registration and then confiscation. Register your weapon and they know what it is, who has it, and where it is.  They next step is to TAKE it from you.)

Gun owners in America are going to be called every dirty name in the book in ad campaigns over the next weeks and months. (Think anti-smoking ad campaign.) Leftist columnists will write stinging tomes concerning our low morals, and our lack of respect for human life. You name it and if it is low-down and dirty enough, American gun owners will be labeled as such.

Right now, though, we are E V I L !   That's why we are seeing the limp-wristed useful idiots of the leftist clergy paraded out to condemn us.

In the words of the ancient prophet Joel:

"...  Prepare for war!
Rouse the warriors!
    Let all the fighting men draw near and attack.
 
10 Beat your plowshares into swords  and your pruning hooks into spears.
Let the weakling say,
    “I am strong!” --  Joel: Chapter 3

 And finally, before our leftist "Christians" get too intolerably pious on us and begin preaching that Jesus would want us to turn in our guns,  Allow me to disabuse them of that bit of deceit.

Back in December of 2012 I wrote a piece in which I noted the following:  "And yes, dear reader, Jesus' boys were packing. Well, they weren't packing "heat" because "heat" hadn't been invented yet.  I am satisfied that had guns been available -- at least Saint Peter would have had at least one on him.  Concealed carry, of course.

What they had were swords.  Not the broadsword with which Hollywood is so enamored, but a short sword similar in some respects to the Roman Gladius, but more akin to the American Bowie knife. (Named for its inventor, famed American gambler Jim Bowie, who died at the Alamo.)The "sword" the boys of Jesus' posse possessed were "up close and personal" weapons. You could easily kill, gut, and skin an animal -- or a man -- with the same utensil.  It was, to say the least, uh, practical.

Now, you anti-gun types might not want to hear this, but Jesus KNEW they had those swords.  In fact, he directed them to get one, if they did not already own one, even if they had to sell their coats to purchase a sword. 

For the record, here is what Jesus instructed his men:  "And he [Jesus] said to them [His disciples], “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one. For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me, ‘And he was numbered with transgressors’; for that which refers to Me has its fulfillment.” They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” And He said to them, “It is enough.”  Luke 22:36-38  -- You may read the entire article at: http://insightonfreedom.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-did-jesus-do-j-d-longstreet.html

There you have it.   Makes me sort of wonder if Jesus is, today, " ... numbered with the transgressors."

It all makes me wonder just how long it will be before the gun grabber's slanderous campaign against America's gun owners will backfire in the faces of the masters of knee-jerk hysteria.

© J. D. Longstreet

Read More

American Amazons? ... J. D. Longstreet

American Amazons?
Women in Direct Combat
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************
Amazon: (From Greek mythology) one of a nation of women warriors of Scythia (who burned off the right breast in order to use a bow and arrow more effectively)
***************
" ... the call by men for women to fight in their place is the height of cowardice, and worthy of the strongest possible rebuke."  Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thoughtlife/2013/01/women-should-not-be-in-combat-says-a-female-marine-captain/

***************

Has the Obama administration gone completely nuts? (THAT is a rhetorical question.) One is required to be at least "nominally" sane before one can go INsane.

Now they are going to place the lives of that half of the human species -- able to reproduce life -- directly in harm's way. 

Why?

Have they grown weary of just killing the babies?  Have they now become intent upon killing those capable of producing the babies in the first place? 

Placing women in direct combat teams is so wrong -- on so many levels. 

One thing is for darned sure. I will not recommend my grandson join the US Military.  Not any longer. 

With the advent of gay society into the ranks, and now weakening the war fighting ability of the armed forces by placing women in combat roles, the US military is simply not up to the moral standards -- nor the warrior standards -- to which I would have my son, my grandson, my daughter, or my granddaughter exposed.

The left's social experiments with the US military over the decades has left us with a military that hasn't won a war since the Second World War.  (Desert Storm was basically one huge battle which lasted days.)

As  veteran myself, I am proud of having done the tiny bit that I did for my country in the military.  But that was back in the 1950s when we were marched over to the WAC's barracks at Fort Jackson, South Carolina -- which were fenced off with eight-foot tall fencing -- and we told by our training sergeant  that that was where the women were and if we even went near the place we'd be shot!

I read recently of concerns by some on the political left that America is creating a "warrior class" with our all volunteer military.  Heck, we've had a warrior class since, at least, the War Between the States.  We call 'em Southerners!  When the US decides to go to war, southern males begin lining up and signing up.  Blame our Celtic heritage and ancestry.

President Bush in 1992 created the Presidential Commission on the Deployment of Women in the Military to determine the capability of women severing in direct combat positions. “The Commission showed that women were three times more nondeployable than men, primarily due to pregnancy, during Operations Desert Shield and Storm.” (Hoar 1) The commission used expert medical witnesses and current military policy to show the pitfalls of having potential mothers serving in military units.    SOURCE:  http://www.grossmont.net/musgrave2/Grammar%20Hospital/new%20pages/opponent.example.htm

Look.  Combat is just as mean, just as barbaric, just tough as it has always been. The combat soldier MUST rely on his physical strength, and his mental strength to survive and to aid his fellow soldiers to survive and win the victory.  That is a fact -- period. 

Let's state the obvious here:  Women cannot carry as much as far as fast as men, and they are more susceptible to fatigue.

Women are shorter.  Women have less muscle mass. Women weigh less than men.  This is a great disadvantage when called upon to perform tasks that would require a high level of muscular strength and aerobic capacity, you know, like -- ground combat.  Read more about this issue here: http://www.grossmont.net/musgrave2/Grammar%20Hospital/new%20pages/opponent.example.htm

This just WRONG!  A nation intent upon survival does not, I repeat, does not deliberately place the "life-givers," -- their women -- in danger. It is a basic rule of survival. 

Frankly, I am not surprised. The left places so little value on human life, so little value on human dignity, so little value on the worth of each individual, that, to them, this is just another victory for their progressive agenda. They simply don't care about the consequences.

We've known for many decades that the political left views humankind as a plague upon their Holy Mother Earth.  So, maybe this is just one more way they feel they can rid earth of it's payload of humans and cleanse the planet. 

Consider the following:  "In "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society,"  Lt. Col. Dave Grossman briefly mentions that female soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces have been officially prohibited from serving in close combat military operations since 1948. The reason for removing female soldiers from the front lines was due less to the performance of female soldiers, and more due to the behavior of the male infantrymen after witnessing a woman wounded. The IDF saw a complete loss of control over soldiers who apparently experienced an uncontrollable, protective, instinctual aggression, severely degrading the unit's combat effectiveness.

However, in 2001, subsequent to the publication of Grossman's book, women did begin serving in IDF combat units on an experimental basis. There is now an all-female infantry battalion, the Caracal Battalion."  SOURCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_combat 

Read more about the Caracal Battalion at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracal_Battalion

I came across an article while doing a bit of research recently that I think should be read by everyone -- on both sides of the women in combat debate.  It is entitled:  "Women Should Not Be in Combat (Says a Female Marine Captain)
You will find the article here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thoughtlife/2013/01/women-should-not-be-in-combat-says-a-female-marine-captain/   READ THIS ARTICLE.  

"For those who dictate policy, changing the current restrictions associated with women in the infantry may not seem significant to the way the Marine Corps operates. I vehemently disagree; this potential change will rock the foundation of our Corps for the worse and will weaken what has been since 1775 the world’s most lethal fighting force." --  Capt Katie Petronio  --  SOURCE: http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal

The quote immediately above is from the article entitled:  "Get Over It! We Are Not All Created Equal."  The article was written by Capt. Katie Petronio, a Marine.  You will find the entire article here:  http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal 

Placing women in direct combat war fighting roles within the US military will do nothing to elevate women.  It will, in fact, grind women down even more.

Now that that the ban has been lifted we are left with a fight between facts an leftist ideology.  Women are now caught in the middle of yet another fight in which ideology will trump facts.

No matter how horrible the results of this decision will be for women serving in America's military,  leftists will NEVER admit to being wrong.  So, this disastrous decision will stand while the broken, twisted, and maimed bodies of America's young women, those who would bear our young, those who would rear America's children, will continue to pile up.

© J. D. Longstreet

Read More

Obama to Top Brass: Will you fire on American Citizens?

This may be the most important interview you will have seen within the last year.   I do have a little bit of skepticism associated with it...but not much.

In the video that follows, Gary Franchi of the Next News Network interviews Dr. Jim Garrow about the call he claims to have received from a retired, high-ranking military officer who told him that the Administration is beginning to ask military officers whether or not they will be willing to fire on American citizens if those citizens refuse to surrender their arms when ordered to do so.   One of the more interesting pieces in the interview is when Dr. Garrow talks about China, our debt to them, and how our natural resources are being given away to them as a way of paying off American debt to China.

I have not yet seen any corroborating evidence in regards to this reported "litmus test" of military leadership, so it is something we need to keep an eye on.  I have seen some "hits" on the Chinese being allowed into our nation to exploit our natural resources, but have not yet been able to draw any conclusions from them.

Link to video


Other commentary on this issue:
-- Rick Wiles (TRUNEWS) interview with Dr. Jim Garrow (23 Jan 13)
-- Examiner.com article "Renowned author: Obama wants military leaders who will fire on U.S. citizens" (22 Jan 13)

Cross-posted from Against All Enemies

Connect to AAE
   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AgainstAllEnemies (Click "Like")
   Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/@AAEnemies ("Follow")
   YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/AAEnemies ("Subscribe")
Disclaimer: These opinions are solely my own, and do not reflect the opinions or official positions of any United States Government agency, organization or department.

Read More

BIPARTISANSHIP IS UNAMERICAN ... J. . Longstreet

BIPARTISANSHIP IS UNAMERICAN
A Commentary  by J. D. Longstreet

********************
I hate to tell you this… but BIPARTISANSHIP is “UNAMERICAN”!

Yep!

This is a partisan country. Partisans founded it. It was founded because there was a HUGE difference of opinion between the people of the colonies and the King of England. Democracy is “partisan”. It is the nature of our country and the nature of our government.

Allow me to tell you a short story that might help clear up the misunderstanding about the partisan and bipartisan nature of our country and government:

There was a truly bitter election back in the year 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. When all the voting was finished Thomas Jefferson had won. But… and here is the big but… as the result of a quirk in the way the Electoral College worked at the time, Jefferson was tied with his own Vice-Presidential candidate, Aaron Burr.

If you are ahead of me here. You know that things just got completely out of hand. See, the election went to the House of Representatives. The Federalists, who had supported John Adams, hated Thomas Jefferson so much they decided to throw all their support to his Vice-Presidential candidate Aaron Burr. Now, at the very moment Burr understood that he just MIGHT become President, well, it was “Katie bar the door!” Burr pulled out all the stops and he began maneuvering for those votes.

Back then the rules required the House of Representatives to vote by state. Well, on the first ballot Jefferson had eight states. That was one state short of what he needed. Six states voted for Burr and two states were tied. Now, over the next few days the House of Representatives had thirty-two more ballots… and guess what? Nothing changed; Jefferson and Burr remained tied as the vote totals remained unchanged!

Things were getting hot in The House... And that’s putting it mildly! Why, Jefferson’s supporters threatened to arm themselves and cause all sorts of bad things, including throwing some hot lead around the Well of the House, if Jefferson was not elected! And… they were not kidding! President John Adams, himself, is on record as having wrote: “a civil war was expected.” Things were so hot and tempers were so inflamed and the fear of violence was so grave that the governor of Virginia, who, by the way, was a Jefferson supporter, placed guards around a supply of 4,000 firearms to prevent them being seized by the Federalist and possibly used in forcing an outcome favoring their candidate.

The sole congressman from Delaware, a fellow by the name of John Bayard, controlled his state’s vote. The Federalists had been, up to this point, supporting Burr. But, after three days of ballot after ballot, Bayard announced that he was going to abstain. That would throw the election to Jefferson. Some really angry Federalist took to the floor of the house and shouted “Traitor, Traitor” at Bayard. But ole John Bayard stood his ground. He later said he did it to save his country.

As a result, the deadlock was broken and Thomas Jefferson became the President. Some four years later Alexander Hamilton was shot and killed in a duel with Aaron Burr. Hamilton had been one of the Federalists who refused to support Burr under any circumstances. Hamilton referred to Burr as “the most unfit man in the U.S. for the office of President.”

I share this wee bit of US history in an attempt to demonstrate that partisanship in the government of the US is in no way new. No. Absolutely not! It is the way the government works, it is the way the government was planned to work. Those loud calls for bipartisanship are deceptive as can be. They are used often as a tool to divert your attention away from the conniving behind the scenes by the very congresspersons calling loudest for bipartisanship. Understand that in a bipartisan House of Representatives, for example, it would insure that every piece of legislation coming before that body would be passed. That includes the rotten pieces of legislation as well as the good. At least with a partisan House the legislation will be debated and examined before it is passed or defeated.

The fact that Obama is polarizing the country is no surprise to those of us who have been around the block a few times. That was a given from the “git go.” The country is split, almost exactly in half, over Obama and his henchman’s plans for the country. I count myself, proudly, amongst that half who wants to see Obama’s presidency fail, utterly, and his plans and machinations all come to naught. If I am right, and I believe that I am, things are going to get a lot worse in the Polarization Department as the months and years go by, and all the trials and tribulations the American people are going to have to bear under an Obama regime unfold.

Many of those Americans who voted for Obama will rue the day!  Had they listened to the warnings from us “Old Bulls” they could have saved themselves, and the country, a lot of grief.

© J. D. Longstreet

Read More

His Royal Majesty ... J. D. Longstreet

His Royal Majesty
No Explicit Constitutional Provision Or Statute Permitting Presidential Executive Orders 
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************

Richard M. Nixon was a shrinking violet compared to His Royal Majesty Barack Hussein Obama.  Talk about an Imperial presidency -- an imperial President?  One need look no farther than the current occupant of the Oval Office.

America is about to see "Obama unleashed."

Everything we conservative commentators warned America would happen in an Obama second term is about to transpire.  Four years from this month, America will be difficult to recognize.  There is even the possibility that America will not exist four years hence.   We hear reports fairly often that a few states are actively investigating leaving the union.

Look up Imperial Presidency in a dictionary and you will probably find Mr. Obama's photo embedded within the definition.

For those of you not familiar with the term imperial presidency, allow me to offer some background:

Imperial Presidency is a term that became popular in the 1960s and that served as the title of a 1973 volume by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. to describe the modern presidency of the United States. The author wrote The Imperial Presidency out of two concerns; first that the US Presidency was out of control and second that the Presidency had exceeded the constitutional limits.[1]   
Source:  Wikipedia

Please note the last line of the paragraph above: "The author wrote The Imperial Presidency out of two concerns; first that the US Presidency was out of control and second that the Presidency had exceeded the constitutional limits."  Does that describe any current President of the US that, you know,  might spring to mind?

"One definition of "imperial" on dictionary.com is "of the nature or rank of an emperor or supreme ruler."

"At his news conference Monday, a petulant, threatening and confrontational President Obama spoke like an emperor or supreme ruler. All that was missing was a scepter, a crown and a robe trimmed in ermine."  Thus wrote Cal Thomas at in a column at The Washington Examiner which you will find here:  http://washingtonexaminer.com/obamas-imperial-presidency/article/2518775#.UPiWy_J0jTg

Thomas goes on to say:  "President Obama will not negotiate about raising the debt ceiling? Not surprising. Imperial leaders don't negotiate."   SOURCE:   http://washingtonexaminer.com/obamas-imperial-presidency/article/2518775#.UPiWy_J0jTg 

"In so many situations, Mr. Obama's stated rationale for action has been the same: We tried working with Congress but it didn't pan out—so we did what we had to do. This is not only admission that the president has subverted the legislative branch, but a revealing insight into Mr. Obama's view of his own importance and authority.

... Mr. Obama came to office promising to deliver a new kind of politics. He did—his own, unilateral governance." -- Kim Strassel -- The Wall Street Journal Online --   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577506881495497626.html

Matthew Spalding, Vice President for American Studies and Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation, wrote about the imperial presidency in June:

   " We can now see before us a persistent pattern of disregard for the powers of the legislative branch in favor of administrative decision-making without—and often in spite of—congressional action. This violates the spirit—and potentially the letter—of the Constitution’s separation of the legislative and executive powers of Congress and the President."  SOURCE:  http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/24/morning-bell-obamas-imperial-presidency-part-ii/

"It is critical that Americans understand the Obama Administration’s mode of operation. The law has not stood in its way. Congress has not stood in its way. It seems to recognize no authority but its own."  SOURCE:  http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/24/morning-bell-obamas-imperial-presidency-part-ii/

On a recent Fox News Channel report Mark Levin said the following:   “He was elected president. Congratulations. This guy makes Richard Nixon look like a man who followed the law all the time. I think we have an imperial president. He sounds imperial, he’s arrogant as hell and I’m furious about this.”  SOURCE:  http://www.mediaite.com/tv/mark-levin-goes-off-on-tyranny-under-obamas-imperial-presidency-to-foxs-megyn-kelly/

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, speaking on Laura Ingraham's radio talk show recently said of Obama: "He is feeling right now high on his own power, and he is pushing on every front, on guns ... ."  Cruz continued:  "I think he's going to pay a serious political price, and I think the price that's going to be paid on this is going to manifest in Senate races in 2014 ... ."

America, we have a problem!  A really BIG problem!  If Mr. Obama doesn't slack-off his monumental power grab we are in for a constitutional crisis. 

Look.  The Founders of this nation understood that every time a law is passed by the government, the people lose more freedom.  They deliberately made passing laws very difficult.  We often have gridlock.  Gridlock simply proves the system is working as designed.   It's not sexy. It's not pretty, but it IS the way our government is supposed to work.

When a president, any president, takes matters into his own hands, no matter the motive, and orders laws into existence, it is unconstitutional.  It removes the people's voice.  There is no representation of the people in the making of that law.  THAT'S NOT the way constitutional government in America is supposed to work.

Executive orders were intended to assist officers and agencies of the executive branch manage their operations within the federal government itself.  They were never intended to be laws, or decrees, handed down from the Office of the President.

 Executive orders, as perceived today, have the full force of law.  But do they, really?  And where, exactly does the President get the authority to issue such orders?

You may be surprised to learn that there is no constitutional provision or statute that explicitly permits executive orders.

There is a vague grant of "executive power" given in Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution, and furthered by the declaration "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" made in Article II, Section 3, Clause 5. Most executive orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties,[2] the intent being to help direct officers of the U.S. Executive carry out their delegated duties as well as the normal operations of the federal government: the consequence of failing to comply possibly being the removal from office.[3] -- SOURCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order

Please note,  as I mentioned above:  "there is no constitutional provision or statute that explicitly permits executive orders."

No need to check the text of the constitution ... it simply is NOT there!

It seems to this ole country boy, that any executive order issued by ANY president that affects any American -- not in the direct employ of the executive branch and supervised directly by the President of the United States -- is, therefore, unconstitutional.
It would also seem to me that executive orders should be limited to supervising the tasks of executive departments and even then, only after the law triggering the EO has been passed by both houses of Congress an signed by the President. 

Even more important, I believe, is the need to settle the dispute over the constitutional status of executive orders once and for all.  If Americans decide that we wish to have Presidential executive orders the I would propose that an amendment to the constitution is called for.   The amendment should spell out-- clearly-- what an executive order is and what, exactly, and who, exactly, it affects.   There should be nothing vague about an amendment to the constitution.

There may, very well, be court challenges to one or more of the 23 executive orders Obama signed recently aimed at gun control. The timing is spot on to determine if the President actually has constitutional power to issue such orders, or not. 

This is far too important an issue to allow a "vague" notion of power -- a "vague" interpretation of the constitution -- to affect the freedom of the people of America.

© J. D. Longstreet

Read More