Tuesday, January 26, 2021
A modest impeachment proposal
Much discussion is being given to the so-called second impeachment of Donald John Trump. Some have called it unConstitutional, some have called it necessary. It seems a bridge too far to waste resources and promote further divisiveness to have taken a hurried and undebated vote in the House to impeach President Trump on his last full day in office January 19. To proceed as laid out, the Senate has agreed to hold the trial in order to convict him, it must be conducted after he's left office -- or at least theoretically.
The relevant Article and Section of the Constitution regarding impeachment reads thus:
"The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."
The first paragraph refers to the President of the United States, not the former President of the United States.
The second paragraph states that judgement shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification, etc. But if the former President has left office, then no judgment can be forthcoming, since removal is no longer an option and disqualification, etc, can only accompany removal. It cannot be substituted for it; it must be a part of it.
By proceeding against a citizen who does not hold an impeachable office (former President), Congress's action amounts to a Bill of Attainder, another violation of Mr. Trump's rights.
Without analyzing the (doubtful) merits of the case, let us instead turn this on its head based on the actual words in the Constitution.
When the new Senate Majority (Equality co-leader) Schumer made the announcement that the President had been impeached and would be tried by the Senate at a later date, it was already after Biden had taken the oath of office. Not the former President, but the President! Either Schumer was recognizing that Trump was still the legitimate President of the United States, or he was announcing Biden's impeachment!
If, as specified in the Constitution, the President of the United States is tried by the Senate, then Donald Trump's term was extended de facto by the timing of the article of impeachment. He must therefore remain President until such time as judgment is rendered on the impeach-ment trial to remove him from office -- if that is in fact the verdict, as voted on by 67 (two-thirds of the) Senators. If they cannot garner 67 votes to convict, he remains President until impeached yet again, or the 2024 election, or he decides to resign (whichever occurs first).
Since Trump must remain as President due to the impeachment, Joe Biden's inauguration was an illegal usurpation of power by the Democrats and thus invalid -- as well as all his cabinet appointments, staff assignments and executive orders! Joe Biden is now illegally occupying the White House and the Biden administration is guilty of an insurrection!
Or the Democrats can put an end to this tantrum of childish vindictiveness, punish those who participated in bringing it about, and try to salvage whatever little goodwill can possibly remain toward the "new" administration, even after all the ill-thought out actions they have taken in less than a week.
But only after a public apology by Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer is made TO President Trump AND the American people. Then Pelosi and Schumer and the so-called House managers must be removed from office. And every Democrat AND Republican who voted on or publicly supported the impeachment resolution in either chamber should face disciplinary action.
Sunday, January 24, 2021
It's been awhile . . . .
. . . . perhaps too long for the creative juices to be restored.
A Discussion of Racism
I'm a "racist." Yes, now I've said it. I used to be more of a "racist" than I am now, but I'm still a "racist." I'm not a bigot, and I'm not a white supremacist, and I don't believe in enforced segregation. But in today's hyper-venacular, I'm a "racist."
I wrote this in the wake of the horrible massacre that occurred at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, at the hands of a despicable, ignorant, uneducated, mentally-disturbed white male. None of those adjectives give him an excuse for what he did. No adjective can provide rationale or absolution for his actions. But perhaps the victims must be the catalyst for the soul-searching that we all -- white, black, yellow, brown -- must undergo today.
I believe my parents were "racists" as well, and that is where my initial attitude toward Negroes (as they were called during my formative youth) were probably conceived. They weren't active, or even passive, haters; they never used (at least in front of their children) the word "nigger." They were never unkind to them, and never mocked them. At worst, they were condescending. They just didn't go out of their way to befriend people of minority background, and they did hold them generally to be culturally and socially inferior.
When I was in junior and senior high school in the Midwest, there were a handful of kids who were minorities. Perhaps statistically there should have been more, but since there were some, I assumed that's all there were. Two of them in my classes were black students, both of were class leaders academically and in extra-curricular activities. I never heard anybody even hint that they shouldn't hold leadership positions because they weren't white. I just assumed that they earned those positions on merit, not by preferential treatment. Perhaps I was naive.
When I transferred to a high school in Northern Virginia in my senior year, I didn't notice that there were no black kids. In both my former school and my new school, there were kids of Mexican-American lineage, whose fathers were serving in the military. They were accepted as peers; we all came from military or government civilian families. It wasn't until years later that I recalled seeing school buses full of black kids passing by without stopping at our bus stops, but never arriving at our school. At that age, the concept of intentional segregation never occurred to me.
Decades ago, this country attempted to legislate integration of schools and neighborhoods. Yet when given the opportunity, it never happened. White people were accused of racism, bigotry, and "white flight," yet in the end, blacks and hispanics generally remained living among blacks and hispanics of the same economic and social strata. It was something that couldn't be legislated, namely that people tend to associate with and live among people like themselves. Where "minorities" strove to improve their economic conditions and expand their social circles, they were called names by their own people and accused of being race-traitors.
I wrote this in the wake of the horrible massacre that occurred at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, at the hands of a despicable, ignorant, uneducated, mentally-disturbed white male. None of those adjectives give him an excuse for what he did. No adjective can provide rationale or absolution for his actions. But perhaps the victims must be the catalyst for the soul-searching that we all -- white, black, yellow, brown -- must undergo today.
I believe my parents were "racists" as well, and that is where my initial attitude toward Negroes (as they were called during my formative youth) were probably conceived. They weren't active, or even passive, haters; they never used (at least in front of their children) the word "nigger." They were never unkind to them, and never mocked them. At worst, they were condescending. They just didn't go out of their way to befriend people of minority background, and they did hold them generally to be culturally and socially inferior.
When I was in junior and senior high school in the Midwest, there were a handful of kids who were minorities. Perhaps statistically there should have been more, but since there were some, I assumed that's all there were. Two of them in my classes were black students, both of were class leaders academically and in extra-curricular activities. I never heard anybody even hint that they shouldn't hold leadership positions because they weren't white. I just assumed that they earned those positions on merit, not by preferential treatment. Perhaps I was naive.
When I transferred to a high school in Northern Virginia in my senior year, I didn't notice that there were no black kids. In both my former school and my new school, there were kids of Mexican-American lineage, whose fathers were serving in the military. They were accepted as peers; we all came from military or government civilian families. It wasn't until years later that I recalled seeing school buses full of black kids passing by without stopping at our bus stops, but never arriving at our school. At that age, the concept of intentional segregation never occurred to me.
Decades ago, this country attempted to legislate integration of schools and neighborhoods. Yet when given the opportunity, it never happened. White people were accused of racism, bigotry, and "white flight," yet in the end, blacks and hispanics generally remained living among blacks and hispanics of the same economic and social strata. It was something that couldn't be legislated, namely that people tend to associate with and live among people like themselves. Where "minorities" strove to improve their economic conditions and expand their social circles, they were called names by their own people and accused of being race-traitors.
Even though I'm a "racist," I associate with people who have the same interests and passions as do I, regardless of color or sexual orientation. I learned long ago that black people, hispanic people, asian people, women, and people whose sexual preferences are different than mine, have lesser, equal, or greater skills and abilities than I in those areas. Some will never be better than me, and I will never be better than others. We're all endowed with traits or characteristics that we need to develop or hone. That's humanity, and it excels in a free society.
I admit to being a "racist" in that I'm proud of what my white forebears have left the world -- the concepts of democracy and freedom, dating back to the Greeks. I'm proud of the Magna Carta, of the Declaration of Independence, and of the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. I'm proud of the contributions that Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, and Edmund Burke made to political thought, and that John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason and other giants transformed into a Republic of laws, not of men, and a country that founded in individual freedom and liberty. I revere the concept that "all Men are created equal," and I praise the message carried in the slogan of "Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!" I still cling to the concept that government and its employees are servants of the people, not their masters.
I admit to being a "racist" in that I'm proud of what my white forebears have left the world -- the concepts of democracy and freedom, dating back to the Greeks. I'm proud of the Magna Carta, of the Declaration of Independence, and of the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. I'm proud of the contributions that Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, and Edmund Burke made to political thought, and that John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason and other giants transformed into a Republic of laws, not of men, and a country that founded in individual freedom and liberty. I revere the concept that "all Men are created equal," and I praise the message carried in the slogan of "Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!" I still cling to the concept that government and its employees are servants of the people, not their masters.
I'm less proud of some of the other things that my white forebears have left the world -- Marxism, fascism, socialism, colonialism, collectivism. Apparently, those concepts that are abhorrent to me weren't too abhorrent to not be adopted by some Asian nations, some African nations, some Latin American nations, and briefly by some European nations. At least the European nations saw, or were made to see, the error of those ways.
I don't care that some of the Founding Fathers may have owned slaves. I don't condone it; I condemn it. But I also didn't live in their times, and neither did today's critics of them. While I understand that it's a visceral gut-punch to the descendants of those slaves, it's far enough removed for them to get over it. It's more than a century and a half in the past. I don't feel responsible for slavery. It originated thousands of years ago, and it wasn't invented by white people or by capitalists, although they participated and practiced it until they were the first to eliminate it by way of sacrificing 600,000 mostly white lives in the middle of the 19th Century. In the American South, according to the 1830 census, more than 10,000 slaves were owned by "free men of color." Even though it's been outlawed by Western developed countries, it's still practiced today in African, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries. Slavery is not a white man's legacy.
I can't help but notice that while the race-mongers whine about mistreatment of blacks or other minorities in this country, none are flocking to any African country to enjoy the Rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. In fact, if anything, people from African, Asian, and Latin American countries still flock to the nation that best embodies and recognizes these Rights. In the United States we still have a long way to go to realizing the dream where people are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character -- on both sides of the race equation. In Africa, people are still slaughtering each other on the basis of tribal affiliation, something they routinely did before colonization, and have resumed since the end of colonization.
I don't care that some of the Founding Fathers may have owned slaves. I don't condone it; I condemn it. But I also didn't live in their times, and neither did today's critics of them. While I understand that it's a visceral gut-punch to the descendants of those slaves, it's far enough removed for them to get over it. It's more than a century and a half in the past. I don't feel responsible for slavery. It originated thousands of years ago, and it wasn't invented by white people or by capitalists, although they participated and practiced it until they were the first to eliminate it by way of sacrificing 600,000 mostly white lives in the middle of the 19th Century. In the American South, according to the 1830 census, more than 10,000 slaves were owned by "free men of color." Even though it's been outlawed by Western developed countries, it's still practiced today in African, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries. Slavery is not a white man's legacy.
I can't help but notice that while the race-mongers whine about mistreatment of blacks or other minorities in this country, none are flocking to any African country to enjoy the Rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. In fact, if anything, people from African, Asian, and Latin American countries still flock to the nation that best embodies and recognizes these Rights. In the United States we still have a long way to go to realizing the dream where people are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character -- on both sides of the race equation. In Africa, people are still slaughtering each other on the basis of tribal affiliation, something they routinely did before colonization, and have resumed since the end of colonization.
So in an imperfect world and society, I strive to make it more perfect. I join hundreds of millions of others in this country -- the last best hope of freedom and liberty -- who feel similarly. But not by attempting to shame a group for something they didn't do, or because of the color of their skin. It's long past time we moved beyond that.
Friday, October 04, 2013
To what extremes will they go?
Despite the agitprop
press’s best attempts to aid their statist allies in blaming the Republicans
and especially the “tiny faction of Tea Party extremists” for the partial
government shutdown, the Democrats are exposing their own complicity by their
actions. And their actions speak much
louder than their lying words. The
shutdown was too well orchestrated, too targeted, too orderly to have been a
spontaneous reaction to Republicans carrying a point too far. The administration planned to do it, not just
respond to it.
Elderly American veterans of World War II, exercising what
is probably their sole opportunity to visit the memorial erected by a grateful
nation in their honor, were faced with barricades erected overnight before the
first day of the government “shutdown.”
Uniformed Park Police prohibited them from entering the area. Some Republican Congressmen accompanying veteran
groups, whose members were their constituents, distracted the police and the
veterans “stormed” the monument, completing their mission.
Thinking that perhaps some overzealous “mission essential”
bureaucrat had misunderstood his/her marching orders, representatives asked President Obama for permission to continue to allow these old veterans to visit the memorial
during the shutdown. Permission was
denied! The RNC offered to pay the
expenses of maintaining and policing the monument so that the veterans could
visit. Permission was still denied and
the offer was refused. Conveniently
hiding behind a law prohibiting the National Park Service from accepting
donations to run the parks and monuments, why, they were just helpless since
they had to comply with the law
(where was that sense of legal compliance when the administration refused to
enforce the Defense of Marriage Act? Deportation of illegals?)!
In other words, Democrats were unable to put politics aside
long enough to show some respect for those heroes who answered the call of
their nation in a time of crisis.
Vice President Biden actually congratulated the Park
Police officer who denied the veterans access to their memorial. “Good job,” he told her. Translation:
Who the hell do these people think
they are anyway? Really, Mr. Vice
President? Is a display of callous
indifference toward these heroes and their families a job well done? Is that what’s meant by serving the people?
These visits by the last surviving veterans of World War II
give them an opportunity to visit with each other, meet veterans who served in
other theaters, and to remember the friends and comrades they lost in combat
and to other causes. They are dying in the thousands every day. Their trips are
often carefully planned months in advance and orchestrated by Honor Flight, who
covers all the expenses from charitable contributions – not government funding. For anybody who has participated in or seen
the documentaries on Honor Flight, it’s demonstrably evident that these visits
are very emotional and meaningful to these veterans.
Maybe the Patriot Guard Rider motorcyclists need to escort these veterans past the Park Police so that they can finally see their memorial.
The pettiness and disrespect displayed by all the “caring”
liberals who oppose permission and legislation to exempt these members of the
Greatest Generation from being denied what may likely be their only opportunity
to visit the memorial tells far more about these arrogant statists than any of
their other disingenuous pronouncements.
When Senate Majority Leader Reid
(D-NV) was asked by reporter Dana Bash about making an exception and
authorizing a vote for funding the National Institute of Health to provide
cancer treatment clinical trials that might save the life of a little girl
whose plight had been highlighted earlier, his answer was anything but
compassionate.
BASH: “But if you can help one child
who has cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?”
REID: “Why would we want to do that? I
have 1,100 people at Nellis Air Force Base that are sitting home. They have a
few problems of their own.”
The LIFE of one child is less
important to Senator Reid than the INCONVENIENCE of some of his
constituents. How’s that for compassion?
Be sure to remember that when liberals
moan that we must pass more gun
restrictions “if it saves the life of just one child.” We now have an answer for them from one of
their own: “What? And inconvenience millions of law-abiding gun
owners? Why would we want to do that,
Senator Reid?”
The fact is that the National Park
Service and other agencies were pre-prepared to spring into action with
brand-new signs and “barrycades” at the stroke of midnight. Anything that the administration could think
of to inconvenience taxpayers or cause emotional pain to citizens and
government employees was ready to be implemented on the moment of shut down.
Claude Moore Colonial Farm is a living
history, family-friendly site that, according to 1771.org,
“authentically portrays the life of an 18th Century American family building a
life on the nearer edges of civilized society.” It is also the only National
Park in the country run by a non-profit organization. Yet, even this privately
funded space, which has not received a
penny from the Federal government since 1980, was not safe from Monday's
shutdown. The NPS was on it first thing
Tuesday morning with orders, demands, and threats. Why?
The State of Arizona offered to pay to
keep the Grand Canyon open. That’s not
private donations “in violation of federal law,” yet their request was
denied. Why?
The IRS kept collecting taxes, but furloughed
90% of its employees so that refunds would be delayed. Why?
How many of those refunds do you suppose would have been going to other
furloughed government employees who could really use them right now?
Yet the inauguration of signing up for
Obamacare went ahead, despite the fact that the flawed software wasn’t nearly
ready and the “navigators” were too poorly trained to provide correct outcomes. Why?
Bash pressed Reid on why he and his
Democratic caucus wouldn’t sign off on the National
Institutes of Health funding bill.
BASH: “Given what you said, will you at least pass
that, and if not, aren’t you playing the same political games that Republicans
are?”
REID:
“What right do they have to pick and choose what part of government is
going to be funded? It’s obvious what’s going on here. You talk about reckless
and irresponsible. Wow! What this is all about is Obamacare. They are obsessed.
I don’t know what other word I can use. I don’t know what other word I can use.
They are obsessed with this Obamacare thing.”
Well, for one thing, picking and
choosing what part of government is going to be funded is part of their job,
Senator. It’s listed in Article 1,
Section 8: “The Congress shall have
Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts
and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States . .
. .”
On the other hand, Article 2, Section
3 requires the president to: “ . . . from
time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such
Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; . . . he shall take Care that the Laws be
faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United
States. How does that translate into "if they don't act, I will!"?
With respect to the Senator’s imagined
“obsession” by the House members “with this Obamacare thing,” methinks he doth
protest too much. It’s Reid and Obama
who decided to hold fast against any changes to the “Obamacare thing” to
the point of obsession. They refused to
discuss it at any time up to the passage of the Continuing Resolution by the
House, and they‘re still refusing to discuss it. That doesn’t sound much like “recommending
for their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and
expedient.”
Instead, they have drawn a red line
(didn’t they learn anything about declaring red lines from their hollow threats
against Syria?) that will scuttle any continued funding of government
operations before they will agree to even talk about any proposed changes. And they’re ready to sacrifice anybody who
gets in their way: elderly veterans,
government employees, mothers with children, retirees, park visitors.
Their carefully orchestrated plan to
shut down the government, inflict pain on its citizens, and blame it on their
nemesis, the “rightwing extremist minority Tea Party faction” of the Republicans,
is blowing up in their faces.
Unfortunately, the continued shutdown
is having its effect on some faint-hearted Republicans who appear to be eager
to bolt and acquiesce to Obama and Reid’s demands. Either they’re blind or being bought. They’d rather sell their mothers into
whoredom than acknowledge anything positive about their conservative brethren.
However, despite the propaganda
machine’s drumbeat that the Republicans are about to split asunder, it’s Obama
and Reid who are panicking. They and the agitprop press are
already trying to confuse low-information voters by tying the CR and the
shutdown to the debt ceiling increase in order to divert attention from the
failure of Obamacare to live up to its promise of expanded coverage and lowered
costs for those who need it.
It’s very much like what they did
during the height of the immigration reform push, casually interchanging the
terms “immigration” and “illegal immigration” to best distort any rational
discussion (this comprehensive bill will control illegal immigration, but the
Republicans want border control because they’re opposed to immigration) of the
issue.
It’s also the clearest sign yet that
people are listening to what conservatives are saying about the flaws in Obamacare,
and are starting to think for themselves rather than lap up the KoolAid
propaganda of the agitprop press.
They’re also starting to understand
that this president, far from “taking
care that the laws be faithfully executed,” acts like he has discretion to
ignore laws or sections which don’t interest him or further his agenda – more
like a dictator than a president.
They’re beginning to understand that the
IRS abuses, the NSA abuses, the executive privilege cover-ups, the crony
capitalism, the non-stop campaign, the shrill name-calling and targeting of
groups and individuals, the dissembling and lying on a massive scale, the
bullying of innocent old men and anybody else who disagrees with their agenda form a
disturbing pattern not associated with democracy, tolerance, and freedom of
expression and choice.
They may be finally recognizing that
this regime, and the party that supports it, is about controlling the people, not
working for the people.
And that realization scares the crap
out of Senator Reid and President Obama.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Empty Folders
Like many Americans, I was disappointed that the leadership
of our executive branch chose to respond to sequestration by furloughing
government employees instead of making serious decisions about cutting waste. I clearly remember all the hand-wringing
about the negative impact on military Readiness and Training. I’m sure the recent nuclear surety inspection
failure at Malmstrom AFB will have as one of its causes “lack of funding for
adequate training.”
On the other hand, when I get a memo like the one below imposing yet another requirement to meet for an upcoming inspection, I don’t feel that
sequestration went far enough:
“Subject: CUI-Empty Folders
Please Disseminate:
Good morning,
If you have empty paper or electronic record folders then
you will need to
place an "Empty Folder Memorandum" in the folder
until you start populating
them. The "Empty Folder Template" can be
found out on the RM SharePoint
page under the "Records Management Information"
folder then the "Templates"
folder. You will need to input when you
created the folder and why the
folder is empty and that you will check it again in a year
to see if you
need the folder. This will help prevent write ups when
inspected.
Now some folders remain empty until an action happens.
(Example: One of our
flying units has this memorandum in their folders and stated
that the
folders remain empty until they have a plane in. Once
the plane leaves the
folders become empty again but they have the memorandum in
the folder when
the records are not in them.)
Please contact your Functional Area Records Manager (FARM)
for further
assistance.
Hope this helps . . . .”
Secretary of Defense Hagel recently patted himself on the back with
announcements that he managed to reduce federal employee furlough days by
cutting waste. How that
can be when one of his bureaucrats has so much time on his/her hands that they
can produce memos and requirements such as the “empty folder memorandum?" Beyond the obvious logical fallacy, requiring
others to apply their time and efforts to comply with it is in itself wasteful.
I'd like Secretary Hagel to tell us how the "empty folder memorandum" requirement might have improved the outcome of Malmstrom’s nuclear surety
inspection, or how it has positively impacted Readiness and Training for combat-bound
troops? His DoD employees are being required to complete 100% of their taskings in 80% of the available time (and for 80% of their former pay). Their work load wasn't reduced, just the time in which to complete it. I'd like him to explain how diverting their attention from their jobs, to satisfy some bureaucrat’s anal-retentive focus on empty folders, contributes to mission effectiveness?
I will never believe that we have reduced government to its
most efficient operating size and cost as long as pointless internal exercises
in self-promotion and bureaucratic self-perpetuation such as this continue to
be allowed to exist.
Saturday, May 04, 2013
Ah, What tangled Webs We Weave . . . .
Gleaned from several news reports this weekend, including the Washington Times, the UK Daily Mail, Examiner, Wordpress.com, and others:
"The truth is, right now, our border with Mexico is more secure than it’s been in years. We’ve put more boots on that border than at any time in our history, and illegal crossings are down by nearly 80 percent from their peak in 2000.” – President Obama speaking in Mexico, Saturday, May 4, 2013.
Mr. President, you wouldn’t recognize the truth if it crossed the border right in front of you – just like the illegal Mexican woman who climbed the 18-foot fence right in front of Senators McCain, Schumer, Flake and Bennet during their visit to the border a week earlier on March 27th.
President Obama used a speech at Mexico’s Museo Nacional de Antropología (maybe he thought that word translated into "apology') – the National Anthropology Museum – to claim that ‘most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States.’
How can this be? Didn’t you just say the border is more secure than it’s been in years?
Changes in the Mexican army, including a slow-down in Central American armed conflicts, have brought record numbers of military desertions, dumping countless guns into the private market. According to some news reports, at least 150,000 desertions were recorded between 2003 and 2009.
Well, that’s one way. Most of the guns the deserters are taking with them were supplied to the Mexican Armed Forces by the US government!
Obama also did not mention the more than 2,000 firearms that his Department of Justice ‘walked’ across the Mexican border as part of Operation Fast and Furious, a federal law enforcement project that aimed to track weapons to drug traffickers.
And, of course, that’s the other way!
Those guns have been connected to the deaths of at least 300 Mexican citizens. And U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died in December 2010 when a so-called ‘Fast and Furious gun’ was recovered at the scene of his murder during a routine patrol in Arizona.
An ensuing Congressional investigation led to the first-ever citation of a sitting cabinet member – Attorney General Eric Holder – for contempt of Congress. Holder declined to provide most of the more than 140,000 documents subpoenaed by a House committee, although the Department of Justice did selectively turn over thousands of others.
And those were “selectively” redacted to the point of incomprehensibility by “the most open Administration in history!”
“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.”
Haven’t we heard all this before? In 2009, Obama – and Holder – and Napolitano – and Clinton – and ATF deputy assistant McMahon – and Kerry – and their allies in the agitprop press always ready to unquestioningly parrot their masters’ every word as gospel – were claiming that “90% of the ‘assault’ weapons recovered at Mexican crime scenes could be traced to the US.”
But the evidence indicated that about 17% of the traceable (those whose serial numbers hadn’t been eliminated) guns could be tracked to US sources. And they knew it, because others in DoJ and DHS had told them so. So they came up with “Fast and Furious” to back up their phony figures.
If they lied to you then, what makes them more believable now?
[Mexican President] Nieto urged the U.S. to consider a gun registry and a prohibition on bulk sales of firearms.
I suggest that Mexican President Nieto solve the issues of his government’s corruption, cartel violence against his people, and his government’s documented human rights violations against Mexico’s Indian minorities, and documented inhumane treatment and human rights violations against illegal immigrants – especially women - crossing his southern border, before suggesting which of our Constitutional rights we should forego.
Señor Presidente, if you don’t want us Americans to have guns – Come and Take Them!
It worked so well for your country last time it was tried, didn’t it?
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
4/15/2013 . . .
. . . or, the parable of the boys (and girls) who cried "(lone) wolf !"once too often.
With Newtown / Sandy Hook Elementary still fresh in our memories, it didn’t take long until Americans were shocked and stunned yet again with another mass attack – this time in Boston. Random targets, ordinary people, targeted this time by indiscriminate bombing instead of indiscriminate shooting. Most of our nation’s citizens immediately rallied to offer support and consolation to the people of Boston, the cradle of the American Revolution that brought about our great nation.
With Newtown / Sandy Hook Elementary still fresh in our memories, it didn’t take long until Americans were shocked and stunned yet again with another mass attack – this time in Boston. Random targets, ordinary people, targeted this time by indiscriminate bombing instead of indiscriminate shooting. Most of our nation’s citizens immediately rallied to offer support and consolation to the people of Boston, the cradle of the American Revolution that brought about our great nation.
Yet just as in Newtown, the Left couldn’t let a crisis go to
waste. Within hours, there was
speculation in the media that it might be a “lone wolf,” a home-grown
terrorist (read "rightwing extremist"). Already the president was
talking about “domestic terrorism” (read "rightwing extremist"). His
former advisor, David Axelrod, was saying that the president might be thinking
about the bombing occurring on “Tax Day,” a thinly-veiled finger-pointing at
TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party activists (read "rightwing extremists"). And then there was David Sirota's headline in Salon hoping that the bomber was a "white American," since to discover otherwise might derail the Left's push for gun control and immigration pandering (well, he got half of what he hoped for).
However, history shows that home-grown terrorist bombers –
including Bill Ayers, the president’s friend – tend to target government
institutions or government employees, not random civilians enjoying a community
event. Jihadist plots tend to focus on mass, indiscriminate killing.
Let’s thrust the Left's disgusting implications aside right
now.
Let’s remind the American people
that the government was busy borrowing money from the Chinese to buy up massive
quantities of ammunition, drones, automatic assault rifles, and mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, ostensibly to “protect” the American people -- or perhaps to protect an overreaching government from an outraged American people.
Let's remind the American people that while the government has successfully thwarted plots and prosecuted dozens of jihadists in the USA, the only case brought by this administration against members of a "rightwing extremist" militia group ended up in their being found not guilty and their weapons and ammunition returned to them!
Let's remind the American people that this administration failed to protect the US ambassador to Libya and his staff, and then attempted to use that failure to blame a "rightwing extremist" for inflaming Islamist radicals to attack the consulate in Benghazi. For two weeks, this administration lied to the world, with each pronouncement only serving to throw more fuel on the fires of hatred in the Middle East, knowing full well that the fatal attack was a planned and coordinated effort to which they had failed to respond.
The government took its eye off the real threat and failed to protect the people of Boston. Its failure resulted in the first major attack on American civilians, on American soil, to succeed since 9/11/2001.
The government took its eye off the real threat and failed to protect the people of Boston. Its failure resulted in the first major attack on American civilians, on American soil, to succeed since 9/11/2001.
This president, who was so willing to take personal credit
for killing Osama bin Laden, now has to accept the blame for this attack. It happened on his watch.
This administration, in its failure to protect the people of
Boston because it was too busy massively arming itself against an illusion
(namely, “rightwing extremists”), deserves to be held accountable. This Congress needs to defund the wasteful
DHS spending and divert those funds into something tangible and productive.
Let’s take that funding and ensure that everybody who was
injured or maimed in the Boston bomb blasts, and the families of those who were
killed or may yet succumb to their injuries, have 100% of their medical bills,
physical therapy or mental treatment costs, or any other expenses associated
with this tragedy covered by the federal government. Much the same as was done for the victims of 9/11, there should be a Special Master appointed to ensure full and just compensation for the victims of 4/15.
They are casualties of the war on terror as much as any of
our wounded or killed combat veterans – except they didn’t volunteer to go in harm’s
way. They were left in harm’s way by an
administration that promised to protect them – and failed to do so. This administration owes them, and the American
people, whatever it takes to repair the damage done to them.
