Left Coast Rebel

Photo of the Day

2013-05-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

Posted by the Left Coast Rebel

'nuff said!

"Sadly, at the Highest Levels of Economic Thought in Government, Questions are not Tolerated..."

2013-05-16T16:01:00.004-07:00

... it is if we are dealing with the binary judgement of a fundamentalist religion."

-- Subprime short extraordinaire Michael Burry in 2012 at the 2012 UCLA Economics Commencement.

Michael Burry is correct: We are dealing with a fundamentalist religion in America, and no, it is not Christianity. The religion of the state and that of collectivism is steamrolling our individual freedoms into oblivion, facts -- economic, historical, or otherwise -- be damned.

Watch the comencement video starting at 12:00 on the YouTube dial and tell me that Michael Burry's words don't send a chill down your spine.

Ponder not only what he says about our nation but how he was dealt with by our feral government overlords when he was seen as a threat by pointing out the fallacy of their fundamentalist collectivist backward religion:

Absolutely chilling.

Posted by the Left Coast Rebel; hat-tip to Zero Hedge.

Budget Issues Trump The Benghazi, IRS and AP Scandals

2013-05-16T06:33:00.005-07:00

By Frank Hill

Budget Issues Trump Cards

Or should trump them, at least.

Despite all the consternation about the Obama Administration and Benghazi, the IRS harassment of Tea Party groups and the AP phone records being monitored, we still have a country to run.

Somebody better be paying attention to our spending and deficit/debt problems or else it really won't matter if the Obama White House is lying about any of the above 3 scandals now a-brewing.

They are all important issues of governance or malfeasance, however you want to call it...

But none of them can do the damage to our future that out-of-control spending can cause because our debt gets too high and then, when interest rates return to 'normal'? It either crowds out other essential functions of government or inflation rears its ugly, ugly head and everyone suffers. Especially the elderly, poor and infirm.

Here's some sobering news from Reason magazine about the most recent budget update from CBO.

Despite the brief rosy scenario put out by the evening news broadcasts today, there is not a whole lot of good news to be popping champagne bottles over or preparing for a ticker tape parade to hail President Obama for delivering us from the dangers that lie ahead.

The second paragraph of the CBO summary, which apparently every newscast chose to ignore, reads:

'But even with revenues above their 40-year average as a share of the economy, deficits will increase later in the decade, mostly because of the pressures of an aging population, rising healthcare costs, and increasing interest payments'

Here's two salient points to remember when some partisans start bleating about how 'President Obama's policies have cut the deficit in half!' as some are wont to say:

An increase of $105 billion in tax revenues occurred mostly because of the Obama tax hike...that is for sure. But it was because so many rich people opted to sell assets before the end of 2012 to take advantage of the lower rates before the Obama tax hikes hit. These tax payments became due and were paid on April 15.
A one-time dividend payment of $95 billion was received from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a result of the TARP deal and is unlikely to ever re-occur again.

That is $200 billion in extra tax revenues this year that will not be repeated. No wonder the deficits dropped by over $200 billion this year!

The Obama tax hikes have not taken full root yet this year so they can be scarcely credited with 'reducing the budget deficits'. And the budget sequester! You could squeeze a turnip with your own bare hands and get more deficit-reduction out of it than the budget sequester has so far.

Read the CBO report and see for yourself. We have a long way to go...and that is not just talking about getting to the bottom of the Benghazi, IRS and AP scandals.

What Obama would have you believe

2013-05-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

By Dean L.

The president is about to speak about the IRS scandal. After releasing a bunch of email documents on the Benghazi scandal. The president will focus in prime news time on the IRS scandal.

Classic misdirection.

There's likely no major smoking gun in the Benghazi declassified emails. But if the president wants eyes on the IRS - a scandal brought to light by the IRS in the midst of a Benghazi whistle blower probe - TV still trumps an email dump.

He will likely pump up the importance of the IRS scandal and then deflate the issue by announcing firings. He would have you believe he's above board on this and therefore also the Benghazi stuff, which he will play later as a witch hunt.

(VIDEO) Jon Stewart on the IRS Infringing Upon First Amendment Rights

2013-05-14T16:49:00.002-07:00

By the Left Coast Rebel

I couldn't be any happier seeing Washinton -- and the collectivist-socialist-statist axis of evil Democrat Party -- embroiled in not one but three heavy-hitting scandals that point to not only the corruption of our government but vindication for everything concerned citizens have been warning about for quite some time now.

On queue, Jon Stewart - pretty spectacular stuff coming from a self-described liberal (though he's dead wrong on Benghazi):

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

IRS scandal grows, threatens to derail Benghazi scandal

2013-05-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

By Dean L

Breitbart has a startling new twist on the IRS scandal - the IRS has been sharing it's dirt on conservative groups with a progressive group. No kidding

The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.

The commendable admission lends further evidence to the lengths the IRS went during an election cycle to silence tea party and limited government voices.

So the scandal grows. Unexpectedly.

I've always thought this White House was highly incompetent. But is that what's driving this - incompetence catching up with the president and his team? Maybe. But isn't it odd that the IRS scandal - brought forth by a government agency, is now growing because a progressive group is strangely admitting they received information on conservative groups? Why would they admit that, and why now? Excuse me while I branch into a paranoid theory. I don't necessarily think any of what I'm about to write is true, but I do think any of it is possible, and not highly improbable.

Similar to the IRS scandal, the Justice Department just admitted, suspiciously conveniently, that they were tapping the phone lines of the Associated Press. Another scandal. And one the press will lock onto with a vengeance since it affects them. Why are the scandals popping up all at once unless they are being planted? The timing is at a minimum, odd.

We've now got conservatives frothing mad because of the expanding IRS vs. Tea Party issue. The media is about to go ballistic over the Justice Department versus AP scandal. Everyone is conveniently distracted from the Benghazi scandal.

Is it possible that the Benghazi scandal is going to be so damaging to the administration, and/or possibly Hillary Clinton, that the only way the White House feels they can contain the damage is to release other damaging information on itself as a diversion. Use a scandal to distract from a worse scandal. The Benghazi issues might be deep. These other scandals might be deemed more containable.

Now this would be a high risk tactic, but if someone's back is against the wall then it might be their best remaining option. And even if it is a long shot, if it works, what are the consequences?

The IRS scandal and the Justice Department scandal may result in having to throw some bureaucrats under the bus, but that is a small price if it preserves Obama. Or Hillary. Even if Holder gets tossed, he's more expendable than either Obama or Clinton. Perhaps with the right spin the top players can come out of this with a media narrative of truly being above the dirty politics - they can claim to have cleaned house. That would serve Obama well.

On the other hand...

Is it possible that Clinton operatives are being used to throw Obama under the bus to preserve Clinton's chances in 2016? After all, the scandals all are likely to damage Obama to varying degrees. But what would be the most effective way to keep Clinton out of the news for as long as possible if the Benghazi scandal was THAT bad? How about an Obama impeachment? That would certainly overshadow 'anything Clinton', even if she was found to have played a role in the Benghazi situation. And if Obama is tarnished she can always claim she was following his directions. If it is being orchestrated by the Clintons, well - Wow. That would be as juicy as it would be frightening.

Obama: No 'There' There

2013-05-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

By Proof By now, you've probably heard the architect of the Least Transparent Administration in history try once again to weasel out of giving an honest account of what happened surrounding the terrorist attack at Benghazi, by telling the press that there's "no 'there' there."

And while the description of "no 'there' being there" more aptly applies to the current occupant of the Oval Office, notice how once more Obama tries to go from "We'll get to the bottom of this!" and "We need to wait for the investigation" to "Nothing to see here! Move along!"

Mr. Transparency has stonewalled and refused to answer even the simplest of questions from the very beginning. When a reporter finally managed to ask him a question of where he was when he heard Benghazi was under attack, Obama said we needed to wait for the investigation.

That, too, was misdirection. Obama was asked where he was and what he did. There is no need for an "investigation". No witnesses. No subpoenas. All Obama needs is a spine. He is free to tell us what he personally knows to be true. He could answer the question of where he was during the attack. Exactly when did he learn of the attack. And what specific instructions or orders he gave, and if he gave them, to whom and why didn't they get carried out?

What has he got to hide? If Obama, as he said, responded

"...the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice."

So, Mr. Obama, which minute exactly was it? What exactly was done to "secure our personnel"? And whatever in the hell did you mean by "doing whatever we need to"? To whom did you give those "very clear (as mud) directives" to? Did they carry out your orders? If not, why not?

Rather than saying, "there's no 'there' there", and not providing a single shred of evidence to the contrary, why should we not take your silence to assume the very worst, that you were frozen with indecision, afraid that your re-election campaign might be derailed by a terrorist attack from al Qaeda, a group that you had implied had died with the execution of Osama bin Laden? That in your political calculation, keeping your job was more important to you than protecting the American citizens you swore an oath to protect?

For eight months the President of the United States has been dodging simple questions that he could answer himself, without subpoena or committee or tribunal, about where he was, what he did, or didn't do. The Narcissist-in-Chief, who has his picture taken on every occasion imaginable cannot produce a single picture of himself in the situation room, doing "whatever needed to be done" to "secure our personnel"? Maybe it was because he never went near the situation room. Maybe he was getting his beauty sleep for his fund raiser in Vegas the next day?

One person can tell us. He won't. Is the truth more damaging than what we can imagine, Mr. President? Is that why you kept all the survivors under wraps and away from the press, so no one would ask the embarrassing questions of you of why you did nothing to save them?

What you really meant to say, Mr. Obama, is that there is no 'there' there that doesn't make you look bad. That doesn't make you look weak and cowardly and craven. Doesn't fit the "narrative", does it, Barry?

Cross posted at Proof Positive

Stockton, California: The Best and the Brightest

2013-05-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

By Proof My current hometown of Stockton California has taken a lot of abuse of late. The largest city in the US to go into bankruptcy, taking it "on the chin" from late night comedians like Jay Leno:

"Stockton's so broke, Lindsey Lohan wouldn't shoplift there."

"Stockton's so broke, a North Korean missile would raise property values."

So, there's a nice little human interest story to balance the scales a bit. It involves a fourteen year old girl and her science project. Most of us at fourteen might have stuck some wires in a potato to power a clock, or something, but Gianna Chien had something a little more sophisticated in mind.

"A California teen discovered the magnets in iPad 2 tablets and covers are capable of interfering with cardiac rhythm devices, like pacemakers, according to the Heart Rhythm Society. The research, conducted by 14-year-old Gianna Chien of Stockton, Calif , was presented Thursday at Heart Rhythm 2013, the Society’s 34th Annual Scientific Sessions.

“iPad 2s use magnets to help secure the cover to the tablet. Since people hold tablets so close to their chest, I wanted to see if these magnets could affect cardiac device performance,” said Chien, who initially organized the study as part of a school science fair project.

Cardiac rhythm devices can be affected by magnets and radiofrequency energy in products ranging from cellphones to MRI machines, the Heart Rhythm Society reported. When cardiac devices are near magnets, they switch into “magnet mode,” which could potentially disrupt function. With the help of her cardiologist father, Chien asked 26 patients with implantable cardiac devices (ICDs) to hold the iPad 2 at reading distance. At this length, the iPad caused no electromagnetic interference. However, when participants placed the tablet on their chests, as if they had fallen asleep with the iPad there, “magnet mode” was triggered in 30 percent of patients' ICDs, the Heart Rhythm Society reported."

Wow. No telling how many lives might have been saved, or how many Apple engineers are getting to work overtime to redesign the magnetic functions of the ipad2, or how many of Apple's lawyers are formulating the costs of a recall vs. the cost of potential litigation. All from a fourteen year old Stockton girl.

And you want to hear the funny part? Her project wasn't considered the best. Two other people tied for first! The breakthrough research on the effect of ipads on pacemakers came in third!

Some day, when they've put Leno in a home, and he's laying in bed watching reruns of his shows on his ipad, he can thank a Stockton girl that his pacemaker doesn't switch off. You're welcome, Jay!

Update: Stockton's brightest and Best, II. The day before, there was a story about two 16 year olds, a 17 and an 18 year old, from my old high school, who built a working prosthetic arm for less than $20.00

STOCKTON - Yael Castillo slipped on a prosthetic arm the other day and flexed the device's two prongs to pick up tennis balls and toss them into a bucket, to lift a can of soda and drink from it, even to grasp a pen and sign his name.

Was there anything he couldn't do with the artificial limb? "Maybe use a touchscreen phone," Castillo said.

The prosthesis cost $19.44 to build. It was designed and constructed by Castillo and fellow Stagg High School students Brooklyn Omstead, Anthony Nichols and Gabriel Zuniga. Today at University of the Pacific, Stagg's prosthetic arm just might pick up one more thing. It might grab the Math Engineering Science Achievement, or MESA, state championship.

"For less than $40, they had to design something to replace the arm and hand," explained Stagg's MESA teacher, Andrew Walter.

Cross posted at Proof Positive

Strong Benhazi Ad Spiked by Romney, Liberal Sheep Still Bleat: "Partisan!"

2013-05-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

By Proof Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames. One of the spurious charges that liberals and Democrats are offering up, in lieu of actual facts, is the notion that somehow the situation at Benghazi is just a partisan, political witch hunt. A "Gotcha" attempt by Republicans to smear Democrats. Let's look at that, shall we?

First we have the evidence of the dog that didn't bark, as illustrated in the ad above. Romney had the opportunity to hold Obama's feet to the fire on Benghazi and decided not to. He said it was because he wanted to focus on the issue of the economy. However, given the vicious attacks from the MSM jumping all over him for his justifiable criticism of the State Department, through the embassy in Cairo, who issued an apology to offended Muslims after the incident in Egypt, the US was not responsible for, and given the tag team approach of the media with Candy Crowley siding erroneously with Obama during the second presidential debate, Romney may have believed it was the better part of valor not to press the issue.

Before the election, low information voters were bleating that Benghazi was nothing more than a political ploy to "get Obama". Now that that election is well behind us, the same liberal sheep are bleating that Benghazi is nothing more than a political ploy to "get Hillary". This, despite the fact, that one of the primary whistleblowers is a Democrat who voted for Hillary in the 2008 primary and Obama twice in the general. (Hopefully in different years!)

On Fox News Sunday this AM, Democrat congressman Adam Smith (absolutely no relation to the Smith of the "invisible hand"), tried to belittle one of the aspects of the Benghazi cover up, the so called "talking points" memo from the CIA. Congressman Smith tried to trivialize it as "just a memo", as if this memo had not undergone twelve revisions scrubbing all mention of Islamic terrorist and al Qaeda, as if the White House had not denied that such edits had taken place, and as if the final result, promulgated by Susan Rice on all five Sunday talk shows, the President at the UN and Hillary, over the flag draped coffins of the dead, had not all mislead the American people with a big lie. A big lie which also flat out contradicted the Libyan president, on national television.

It's more than "just a memo". If this were a Republican administration, Smith might be calling this a "smoking gun". It is evidence of a cover up of the other two scandals of Benghazi, that repeated warning were given and repeated requests for added security were denied at the highest levels of our government. The "inconvenient truth" that seems to elude so many liberals is that criticism of failures in any administration will of necessity be all of the same party, which doesn't mean it is "partisan". Show us the Republicans responsible for the incompetence and malfeasance in Benghazi, and we will criticize them, too!

Which brings us to lame defense #2: The Republicans did it. How many times have you heard this one? The Republicans and the sequester cut back the budget so badly there was no money for security. Except, that isn't true either. The State Department admitted it wasn't budget cuts that caused the breach in security. Indeed, the State Department had millions of dollars for embassy art and charging stations for electric cars...it wasn't a lack of money that doomed Chris Stevens. It was will.

President Unicorn was proclaiming that al Qaeda was beaten. After all, he'd almost personally killed bin Laden, hadn't he? Terrorism against the US was not part of the President's narrative as to why he should be re-elected. Plus, he had made a speech to the Muslim world telling them that with nasty George Bush out of the way, we could be friends! Barry understood Muslims. Barry turned NASA into a Muslim Self Esteem center. He'd lived in Indonesia. The Muslim world would be singing Kum-bay-ah with us in no time. And we certainly wouldn't want to offend our Libyan hosts by sending a military presence to our embassy. That would imply that we didn't think our host country could provide proper security! That would be insulting! (Despite the fact that every other Western nation and NGO had gotten out of Dodge because of increasing terror attacks.)

No, the fact that several high ranking officials of one administration were involved in a cover up of incompetence or malfeasance (or both) is not "partisan". Was Watergate "partisan" because only Republicans were involved? How many Democrats were prosecuted??

There were any number of breaches of common sense and professionalism leading up to the attack in Benghazi. There are huge holes in the testimony of the whereabouts and actions of the Commander-in-Chief's failure to send any sort of aid or support during the attack. There have been countless lies told about the nature of the attack by the highest levels of this administration.

The families of the dead deserve an answer. The American people deserve answers. Maybe if one of the whistleblowers could 'come out' as gay, the president might rush to a phone to communicate the answers he has been hiding from the American public all these months.

As Bob Schieffer* famously said on his Sunday show, "This is a story that just won't go away."

*If you ever get a chance to hear the video where he said it, tell me if you think his tone of voice was one of admiration or annoyance? Or maybe both...

Hat tip for video: The Lid

Cross posted at Proof Positive

Profiles in Courage: The President's Gutsy Call on Benghazi

2013-05-10T23:25:00.003-07:00

By Proof

Remember when everyone in the sycophantic, lapdog press was lauding Obama for his "gutsy call" in dropping two fully crewed helicopters full of SEALs in on bin Laden in his jammies, in the middle of the night, while there was no imminent attack. Not to belittle America's finest, but their Commander-in-Chief, from many reports, only reluctantly signed off on a well planned and rehearsed mission.

In the fog of war, when the reports of a terrorist attack were laid in his lap, Obama punted his duty to protecting Americans and the service's tradition of "no man left behind", to put on his own jammies and catch some Z's before an arduous day of fund raising in Las Vegas. By some accounts, he repeatedly obstructed rescue attempts, in order to preserve his own political viability and re-election.

There are three scandals in Benghazi. One, why was security neglected and warnings not heeded before September 11, 2012? Where was the President when he heard of the attack and what did he do? What did he order to be done? And if it wasn't done, what is the reason why?

And lastly, the cover up, with the President, his press secretary, the UN ambassador and Secretary of State all lying to the American people and the world about a video they knew was not the cause.

Editor's note: There may be some measure of sarcasm in the headline.

Cross posted at Proof Positive

Political Correctness as a Weapon

2013-05-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

By Grant Davies

You may have heard this story recently. It's been floating around the net, but of course it hasn't been covered by the mainstream media. At least I haven't seen it. To be fair, I don't watch very much of the mostly useless drivel they peddle as "news"on those networks, so feel free to correct me if you saw it on one of them.

Since the theme of this blog is freedom and individual rights, it only seems right to bring this to your attention. When someone's rights are violated they lose some of their freedom. It doesn't matter which thugs are doing the violating.

It could be common street thugs who steal the liberty of inner city teenagers by attempting to force them into joining a gang. Losing the right to walk the streets freely unless you comply is no small loss.

It could be union thugs who use their partnership with government thugs to force people into joining their gang. Losing the right to work for whom you choose at a mutually agreed upon wage is no small loss.

Or it could be the thugs in government (at all levels) who steal individual liberty in ways too numerous to count. All the small losses add up to a mostly un-free existence.

In the case below it is university administrators who use political correctness to squash individual liberty. Those in charge at Syracuse University tried their best to destroy the career path and aspirations of the young man below by labeling him as a racist (and other vile things). He dared to make a personal post on his Facebook page questioning the opinion of someone who held that he was somehow unqualified to teach non-white students because he wasn't from a traditionally black college.

His right to work as a teacher may be over because of it. He seems to have "won" round one (or two, depending upon what you count) by exposing the thugs. But it remains to be seen if he will be blacklisted for not being black.

If he is, it will be no small loss for any of us.

Comments are welcome.

Obama’s Top Ten Excuses for #Benghazi

2013-05-09T23:26:00.000-07:00

By Proof

Obama’s Top Ten Excuses for #Benghazi

10. I thought I was being punked by Ashton Kucher!

9. They wouldn’t dare! Don’t they know I got bin Laden??

8. Couldn’t find a photographer to take my picture in the situation room with a serious look on my face

7. Still half blind from playing strip poker with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid

6. Hillary touched it last!

5. Up all night polishing my Nobel Peace Prize

4. Did I mention I got bin Laden??

3. Hillary double-dog dared me.

2. Of course it wasn’t a video! All the cool stuff is on Blu-Ray!

And, the number one Top Ten Obama Excuse for #Benghazi?

1. Vegas, Baby!

For those of you who think what happened at Benghazi is nothing to joke about, note that this is my way of mocking them* . They have no excuse. It was a political calculation based on what Zero and his friends had bragged about at the Democrat convention. A terrorist attack, on an American embassy or mission, on September 11th didn’t fit with Zero’s re-election narrative. So, he and his associates callously left dozens of people to die. The fact that only four perished was not due in any part to any leadership or action from this administration.

* See also: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Benghazi?

For more serious analysis of the three (3) Benghazi crises, see Benghazi: Obama's Chappaquiddick?

Cross posted at Proof Positive

Hey Conservatives, Libertarians and Republicans - what Rodney King said

2013-05-09T11:09:00.001-07:00

By Dean L

Granted, I'm a little behind in posting this week. I've been busy but I have time for a quick post . I was reading through the comments on my most recent post on Left Coast Rebel. One short comment caught my eye, and it made me think about conservatism, libertarianism and the future of the Republican Party and the Tea Party. That's the sign of a great, thought-provoking comment.

Left Coast RebelMay 5, 2013 at 1:52 PM

How delusional that she thinks we are republicans, too. Ha!

While my thoughts ran on several different tangents that are worth sharing, I'd like to focus on just one for now.

I have much more in common with a lot of Tea Party groups than current Republican leadership. But the Tea Party is too amorphous and fluid to include in this discussion properly. So I will focus on conservatives, libertarians and how they relate to the current Republican party.

I'm probably more aligned with the most of the folks at LCR philosophically than politically. More precisely, we have very common beliefs when it comes to things like the economy, limited government and individual liberty, but we part ways somewhat when it comes to the means necessary to achieve those ends. Let me explain why.

Firstly, I adhere pretty forcefully to the notion that a person can love the ideals and principles that America's founding fathers established the nation upon while at the same time vehemently opposing the direction the current government is taking. I suspect no one will argue that is an unreasonable proposition - even if you do not agree with my opinions about the current government. If that is fair, then it is also fair to say that it is possible to like the premise of the modern Republican party (in the tradition of Reagan and Goldwater, the litany of principles which I will also save for another time) while not agreeing with the current Republican leadership.

In other words, I like the Republican Party, I do not like the Republican leadership.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm not a Republican. I'm a Canadian (and unlike liberal Democrat ineligible voters, I don't vote in U.S. elections). But as a Canadian I have a unique perspective on what damage is caused by a split conservative electorate. In 1987 in Canada, a populist conservative party sprang up in the west as conservative voters had become disaffected by the more liberal wing of the Conservative party that had dominated the party and politics for a few election. Our Prime Minister at the time, Brian Mulroney was about as popular as a second term George W. Bush. The conservative party was ripe for a clobbering and in fact they got one in the next election (1993).

But with a split in the conservative constituency between two conservative parties, the conservative viewpoint was left in the wilderness until 2006. In 2006 the conservatives finally won a narrow minority government once again, but only after a unification of the two parties in 2003 when they realized that the parties had split resources and expended efforts fighting each other in conservative ridings (districts) instead of focusing their efforts on the common political opponents - the Liberals and the socialist New Democrats (who as often as not, worked together).

The point is that a split conservative, libertarian and Republican constituency is an ineffectual one. It is something that will keep both conservative and libertarian views from having a seat at the table as long as that split exists. We have to subvert the 10% to 20% of areas upon which we disagree in order to avoid having the 80% to 90% of things we agree upon subverted by president Obama and potential president Hillary Clinton *shudder*.

Subverting those disagreements does not mean forgetting them forever. It means those issues get put on the back burner until the general public can be paradigm-shifted to the right. Then the time for those issues will be plausible as the 'in-fighting' will not estrange voters from conservative/libertarian philosophy. Canada again provides an example.

After years in the wilderness the Conservative Party in Canada has been forced to move the nation to the right in slow motion. As I offered to Ed Morrissey as a counter-argument on Hot Air in 2011,

The conservative party of Canada is far less of a center-left party than you suggest. While it is not currently conservative in the sense of American conservatism, it’s still a center-right party. The way it governs is affected by the country as a whole. The conservative government is hampered by decades of liberalism and socialism, so moving the country back to the right will take considerable time. The country fears conservatives as being radicals and Prime Minister Harper has had to temper his lower taxes, stronger national defense, pro-business views to suit what is still a center-left country that is slowly testing the waters with a conservative government (three elections later).

Harper’s prudence isn’t as exciting as Reagan or Thatcher in a full on charge to the right, but it’s the smartest approach in a country ready to run back to the liberals at what it regards as the slightest hint of radical conservatism. If we are to get to a center-right nation, we unfortunately have to do it slowly.

Other than that, glad as always that you are paying attention to what’s going on up here.

In the end, Ed Morrissey agreed that prudence was necessary. I'm still flattered that he even noticed my comment.

What that means for the case of the U.S., is that the longer conservatives spend out of power, the harder it will be to move the country back to the right. Combine that with the notion of a Tea Party or a Libertarian party or a Constitution party 3rd option, it means a split vote and a guaranteed loss. The path of most likely success is for conservatives and libertarians to work within the Republican party than without it. Fix it, don't dispose of it. That's why I supported Mitt Romney in 2012 even though he was not my third or even fourth choice during the GOP primaries (I put him ahead of only Huntsman). That's my opinion based on what I've seen here in Canada and how dark it got for conservatives for almost twenty years.

Perhaps that also points out a difference between Americans and Canadians. Americans think big and they want to hit a grand slam home run and switch the nation back onto the path of liberty and limited government in one fell swoop. Canadians, continuing the baseball analogy are perhaps more ~~conservative~~ cautious and willing to play station-to-station baseball, winning one single, walk, stolen base or double at a time. That explains why Canada is moving to the right slowly and probably also explains my thinking that it's more of a recipe for success than striking out trying for the grand slam. Of course, grand slams are entirely possible. Ronald Reagan was a grand slam. I'd like to believe that it's still possible but given how far down the path of entitlement, environmental, class warfare and the dumbing-down of the populace path America has traveled, I'm not sure that it is any longer anything more than a fairy tale.

Up until president Obama, the left was content with a slow roll towards socialism and it was successful. The speed with which progressive liberals are pushing forward now is out in the open. While Obama won yet again in 2012, a backlash is coming and they will pay for their brazenly socialistic pursuits in votes. But that is only true if the opposition isn't split. Divide and conquer works. Unity within the right is needed now more than ever.

Handicapping 2016 yet?

2013-04-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

By Dean L

It's early. 2016 is a political lifetime away. But there are already some indications of what might happen in the next presidential election. True, these indicators should be taken with a block of salt, but it sure looks like certain things will come to pass. Other things are less clear, and of course nothing is certain this far out from the election. But the 2016 election already has me thinking and so far I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy.

Not my numbers - click for source odds.

In a series of recent polling and news items it looks like it's a fait accompli that Hillary Clinton will be the next Democrat presidential candidate. Others in the race who may have a chance to contend - Cuomo, Biden and Kerry - will all have their work cut out for them. As CNN noted, she's lapping the field. She probably has already locked up New Hampshire. She hasn't said she'll run, she's busy making gobs of cash in different ways. The sort of cash one might need for say a presidential run. She's going to run. I'm not suggesting she has an impressive list of accomplishments but that doesn't matter - the press was able to make a threadbare Obama resume into the greatest guy EVER for audiences. Clinton has no business answering the 3 a.m. call (Benghazi or Bosnia ring a bell?), but it just doesn't matter. She's the next liberal superstar heir apparent. She's going to run, and she's going to be the Democratic party's nominee. She's going to be the press' nominee.

She's going to have to be beaten. Unfortunately things on the Republican side seem muddled for the time being. In the same poll extolling Clinton's extended lead, the Republican field is understandably unclear. There are some apparent front runners - Rubio, Christie and yet another Bush among them.

As CNN noted,

While the race for the Democratic nomination is basically frozen until Clinton makes a decision, the hunt for the Republican nomination remains wide open. The new poll, as with past surveys, indicates that there's no front runner on the GOP side.

Eighteen percent of self-identified Republicans or those who lean towards the GOP say they support Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, with 16% backing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and 14% supporting New Jersey Gov. Christie. Nine percent back former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a 2012 GOP presidential candidate who battled eventual nominee Mitt Romney deep into the primary calendar, with 21% preferring someone else and one in five unsure.

"Republican uncertainty mirrors the identity crisis the party is facing as it redefines its message in the aftermath of the 2012 presidential loss. Republican voters seem to be saying they remain on the lookout for their party's Mr. or Mrs. Right," says Krista Jenkins, professor of political science and director of FDU's PublicMind.

While the identity crisis may be an over-the-top misnomer gleefully perpetuated by the left-leaning mainstream media, it is not entirely without merit. The 2012 primaries proved there was a rift between conservatives in trying to achieve what William F. Buckley advised - nominate the most conservative candidate in the field who can win the election. No one clearly, has a solid understanding of what that actually means in the real world. Electability is an amorphous concept. Was Sharon Angle electable before she lost her election bid? Was Pat Toomey before he won? Similarly "most conservative" may mean entirely different things to different types of conservatives - social conservatives, libertarians, defense hawks, economic conservatives and other conservatives constituencies will have differing definitions. Hence the confusion.

Another problem on the Republican side is timing. Clinton will likely lead the Democrats wire-to-wire. But for conservatives, is it better to decide the primary early in order to focus fundraising on the general election as early as possible? That didn't work for Mitt Romney. But he also didn't spend effectively and clearly was not the technocrat, economic whiz he presented himself to be. On the other hand, is it better to have a nominee determined as late as possible in order to avoid the slings and arrows of the left and media yet foregoing name recognition building opportunities at the same time? I'm not sure but I'd lean towards doing the opposite of what both Romney and prior to him McCain did against Obama.

That means come out fast, furiously and unrelentingly as early as possible and sustain the message, and sustain the attacks on Clinton. Not attacking Obama did not work for either GOP nominee. Both were attacked and yet wanted to come across as above the fray and empathetic. It worked for Bill Clinton and even more so for Obama. because they had the media on their side.

Getting back to the Republican field for 2016, I think that the party that wants to internally debate ideas may shift gears in the run-up to 2016. It may come down to who they think is the best fighter and who can best undress Clinton (politically and rhetorically only please). Conservatives are not only sick of losing, they are sick of losing because their nominees aren't fighting tooth and nail for victory at every turn. We are going to need a battler. Conservatives would do well to modify the Buckley rule to look for the most (effectively) combative conservative in the field. At least that takes electable to a more granular level, right or wrong.

So who does that mean in the GOP contender field right now? Jeb Bush isn't made of that sterner stuff, but he will still poll well. He may win but I don't think he will at this point. He's still too Bush, in an era when Bush 43 memories have not faded. Marco Rubio on the other hand is very intelligent, and a likable conservative. But he may be too nice to dig in for a battle. We haven't seen if he can win a street fight yet. If my presumption is right, then the likely nominee will be electable, but not the most conservative candidate in the field - Chris Christie. He wouldn't be my choice, but this early on, unless someone else better positions themselves as a fighter, he's the likely nominee.

There's my worthless way-too-early prediction. Modifications will undoubtedly follow.

One Way To Never Get People To Follow You Is To Call Them 'Stupid'

2013-04-29T06:31:00.002-07:00

By Frank Hill

'Don't Call Me Stupid'...(But 'Stupid Is As Stupid Does!')

There's several great scenes in the classic 'A Fish Called Wanda' where Kevin Kline as the dim-witted narcissistic con-man gets riled up when someone calls him 'stupid':

Generally, we have found in life that we won't follow the lead of someone who calls us 'stupid'. On the other hand, we have also found that it is very difficult to get people to follow our lead or to even like us when we call them 'stupid'.

Life just doesn't lend itself to calling people 'stupid' and getting away with it.

Unless you are Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman who somehow has kept his job writing for the New York Times and his Nobel Prize despite having none of his prescriptions for restoring robust economic growth ever work over the past 4 years.

He has called Home Depot founder Ken Langone an 'ignoramus' which ought to go over really well in the Langone family. By implication, he has also called everyone else who doesn't agree with his Nobel Prize-winning theories 'ignoramuses' as well.

If you click on the 'ignoramus' link above, you'll get a better feel for the hubris of Mr. Krugman. It is pretty smug and for a Nobel Prize-winning economist, pretty petty when you get down to it.

Mr. Krugman says people are 'stupid' when they believe the economy works like a family budget:

'The economy isn’t like an individual family that earns a certain amount and spends some other amount, with no relationship between the two'.

That much is sorta true..in the vacuum of space. The economy, the government and each family have a certain amount of finite resources beyond which it is more than dangerous to exceed spending. That is one part that we think Mr. Krugman and President Obama might be just a little 'stupid' on themselves.

Mr. Krugman will go to his grave believing 'if we just spent more money on government programs in 2008-2013 (and still counting) and taken on far more debt and/or raised taxes by another couple of trillion or so, we would have slain the dragging effects of the massive economic retraction we have all been through.'

That is where we think he and President Obama are dead-wrong and dangerously so. They believe the government can 'fix' the economy. We believe the 'people operating in a free economy can 'fix' the economy assuming government gets out of their way' as Ronald Reagan preached in 1980.

Here's what we truly don't get about so-called 'Keynesians' when it comes to stimulating the economy:

'Do they know anything about the trillions of micro-economic and business decisions that have to take place to create millions of new jobs in America?'

We don't think so. That is why so many of them are living in the cloistered, ivy-walled towers of academia. It is a tough, dog-eat-dog world out there in the rough-and-tumble of everyday American capitalism.

We have often said that if ever elected to any office, we would give a Congressional Medal to any person who ever starts a business and hires one person, even it is only themselves. Why? Because the guts and perseverance it takes to start a company and then run it so it survives past its 5th birthday is monumental in scope.

It takes such an incredible amount of skill and strength to start and run a company that we almost consider it to be as high of a calling in America as serving in our armed forces, on a mission field or in the emergency rooms of the toughest of our nation's cities.

Why, again? Because these are the people who hire the rest of us, pay us wages, provide us benefits, and then pay the taxes so the rest of us can have welfare benefits, Social Security and Medicare when we need them.

It is a virtuous cycle that begins and ends with the American business person and entrepreneur. We kill both of them with over-regulations and taxation and we have killed any hopes of a better tomorrow for ourselves and our children.

We put Mr. Krugman in the same camp as President Obama of not understanding this 'virtuous cycle' of American business simply because neither of them show any signs of 'getting it' when it comes to espousing and enacting policies that would actually 'work' to expand this economy and bring this desultory 'jobless recovery' to end.

But where guys like Krugman and President Obama fail to understand how the economy really 'works' is this:

They think all you gotta do is throw a hunk of government money (or borrow it from the Chinese or make it up out of thin air from the Fed on their balance sheet) at the 'economy' and poof! 'Lo and behold! There will be jobs created tomorrow!'

Nothing could be further from the truth, as we have proven for the past 4 years in this petri dish of economic conflagration.

There are maybe 1000 steps between the Keynesian dream of 'throwing government taxpayer money at the economy' and the actuality of someone starting a company or an existing business manager hiring one more person to work for them.

Here's a brief listing of the sorts of things a businessperson processes in their minds on a daily basis regardless of what Paul Krugman and President Obama want to 'throw at them' in terms of federal stimulus packages, infrastructure projects or just plain old pork-barrel log-rolling projects you learned about in high school civics classes:

Who is going to buy my product?
What is my target audience?
Can I get my products made on-time?
Will my products be made 100% perfectly?
Can I get credit from the bank?
At what interest rate?
Has the local community college trained enough people to do the job I need them to do?
How much money can I mortgage my house for or credit cards can I max out?
Do I have enough 'confidence' to hire one more person and hope I can make more money with them than without them?
Will this President along with his advisors who agree with guys like Paul Krugman ever figure out that we don't need or want more regulations and we can't pay for Obamacare and that is why we ain't hiring anyone?

That is just 10 of the things that a business person processes before breakfast time every single day they wake up and head into work.

It is near about 'preposterous' that well-educated and honored economists such as Paul Krugman and even our President do not understand the basic granular facts about how businesses work in America. Maybe it is because neither of them have ever held a job in the private business or marketing sector. We can not find any evidence that Barack Obama ever set up a lemonade stand or delivered newspapers while growing up in Hawaii.

Running a lemonade stand or delivering newspapers to people's doors should at least be a minimum prerequisite for any 'Nobel Prize winning economist' in the future, don't you think?

Maybe our future Presidents as well.

Then maybe they wouldn't feel compelled to call those who disagree with them so 'stupid' or 'ignoramuses'. After all, have Mr. Krugman and President Obama been proven 'right' that their way is the best way...yet after 4 years of trying it their way?

Why Are Food Stamps a Growth Industry?

2013-04-24T07:42:00.004-07:00

By Dean L

Today in the Washington Post there's an article about how states are trying to grow their Food Stamps (SNAP) programs to get as many people as possible onto food stamps. Something is terribly wrong with society when states see Food Stamps as a growth engine.

...In fact, it is Nerios’s job to enroll at least 150 seniors for food stamps each month, a quota she usually exceeds. Alleviate hunger, lessen poverty: These are the primary goals of her work. But the job also has a second and more controversial purpose for cash-strapped Florida, where increasing food-stamp enrollment has become a means of economic growth, bringing almost $6 billion each year into the state. The money helps to sustain communities, grocery stores and food producers. It also adds to rising federal entitlement spending and the U.S. debt.

Nerios prefers to think of her job in more simple terms: “Help is available,” she tells hundreds of seniors each week. “You deserve it. So, yes or no?”

In Florida and everywhere else, the answer in 2013 is almost always yes. A record 47 million Americans now rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, available for people with annual incomes below about $15,000. The program grew during the economic collapse because 10 million more Americans dropped into poverty. It has continued to expand four years into the recovery because state governments and their partner organizations have become active promoters, creating official “SNAP outreach plans” and hiring hundreds of recruiters like Nerios.

A decade ago, only about half of eligible Americans chose to sign up for food stamps. Now that number is 75 percent.

The liberal argument is that the cutoff for food stamps is a really low income level, and 50% enrollment means that the food stamp program is under-serving its target constituency - the poor. But that argument overlooks an important point -maybe not all of those "in need" of food stamps actually need that help. They may be relying on family, or private charities like food banks or churches for example. That point of view also underlines the problem with liberal thinking as outlined for years by conservatives, and eloquently stated by Rush Limbaugh:

Liberalism defines compassion as how many people it is helping. Conservatism defines compassion as how many people no longer need our help.

In other words, the liberal objective is 100% enrollment among eligible recipients. The conservative objective is zero enrollment because nobody needs it any more. The latter is not achievable but should always be a target. The former is acceptable ONLY if it is done in conjunction with the former. 47 million on food stamps is not reasonable. Growing that number should not be a goal. 2 million on food stamps at 100% enrollment is okay when those 2 million people are strictly temporarily.

Expanding public debt to pay for food for those in need is not a solution - it compounds the problem. Getting people back to work should be priorities 1 through 5. The rising federal debt associated with food stamps proves the program is unsustainable as a growth engine. In addition it is creating yet another dependency class of people. When that program dries up they will be ill-equipped to fend for themselves. Food stamps should not be a growth industry. The very idea is repugnant.

Language Tortured in Aftermath of Marathon Bombing

2013-04-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

By Proof

One of the casualties in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing and terror spree, is language, or at least common sense in regards to language. Rush Limbaugh today played a montage of news anchors and commentators referring to the Boston Marathon bombers as "kids". It was unreal. There must have been at least two dozen, if not more, newspeople and talking heads using the word "kids" to describe two cold blooded killers.

FYI, These are "kids": Kids brainwashed and blinded by hatred, but kids, nonetheless. Nineteen and twenty-six year olds, who plot and plant bombs designed to maximize death and dismemberment, and get in shootouts with police are not "kids". Not sure what the endgame of this particular meme is here. Maybe to make Dzhokhar Tsarnaev more sympathetic to those who see him more as an enemy combatant, subject to interrogation, rather than a "first time offender" in the criminal justice system, entitled to full Miranda rights...

The second thing that bothered me was in today's news coverage, a statement by the surviving bomber about the motivation of his brother:

The surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect has told investigators that his brother orchestrated the attacks because he 'wanted to defend Islam from attack'...

"He 'wanted to defend Islam from attack'...". And the 30,000 runners, 8,500 volunteers, 1,100 media members and 500,000 spectators of the Boston Marathon were the primary enemies of Islam? What? Had they just run 26.2 miles to desecrate a mosque?? Passed out cartoons of Mohammed to wear in lieu of numbers???

This is not a reason. A rationalization, perhaps, but, this is only an excuse. Nothing more. Random murder to make a political statement is not a "defense" of anything. This seems to me to be the groundwork for a variation of SODDit. Some Other Dude Did it. My dead brother was the mastermind. He talked me into it. I was just some dumb "kid" who looked up to his big brother. Blame the dead guy, not me!

Kids a lot younger than 19 have been tried as adults. Kids who acted without as much premeditation or planning as this attack. I don't care if this guy wasn't the ringleader. He participated in a deadly bombing and shoot out which killed and maimed people, scarring them for life. He is clearly old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. His careless disregard of human life prior to the attack, through his attempt to escape, so that he could kill again, makes this guy a candidate for lethal injection. Whether or not the Obama justice department, which fumbled a case as simple as the New Black Panther voter intimidation case, can obtain justice for the victims of the Boston Marathon and its aftermath, remains to be seen.

Cross posted at Proof Positive

Watch President Drip with Sincerity

2013-04-19T20:31:00.001-07:00

By Proof

The President graced us with with a speech tonight that will make us forget the Gettysburg address, will make us forget "We have nothing to fear but fear itself", make us forget "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country".

Well, not forget, exactly. But, being in a coma is almost like forgetting, isn't it? Within minutes of the people who actually risked their lives and were responsible for capturing the bombing suspect ending their press conference, Barry sprinted to the sound of the microphones and cameras to insert himself into the spotlight before it faded. I suppose he could have called the first responders and FBI, and congratulated them personally for a job well done... if it had been about them. But, no one would have seen him do that. I suppose he could have invited them up to the White House for a small ceremony, or some random golf course for a round of golf. But, not as many people would be paying attention then. President Me couldn't bear the thought of passing up the opportunity to put his face in front of the American people one more time.

Hope he thinks it was worth it. Watch, or watch again the colorless, bland and boring laundry list of people dying, losing their homes and being maimed for life, and tell me if the president reeks with sincerity or just reeks? The Master of Understatement tells us, "it's been a tough week". Really, Barry? What was your first clue? His listless recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at the end was particularly less than inspiring. But, the performance did put me in mind of a similarly passionate oration:

The saying is "always leave them wanting more", Barry. Not "always leave them wanting you to leave."

Update: And here I thought it was just me! "Robotic, Emotionless President Obama Gets Boston Victim’s Name Wrong" It's "Lu Lingzi", not "Ling Su Lu".

Cross posted at Proof Positive

"I Think We Can Coexist Better If One of Us is Dead"

2013-04-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

By Proof From the 'truth is stranger than fiction' department, I have heard from two different sources now, that the car the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing used as a getaway car, had a "Coexist" bumper sticker on it. But, then, anyone with that low of a regard for human life would lie about other things, too.

Update: Apparently this was on the back of the car they hijacked. Perhaps now the owners of the car will see the folly of their ways?

Cross posted at Proof Positive

President Strawman H. Bamboozler Doesn't Disappoint Us

2013-04-17T21:06:00.000-07:00

By Proof President Strawman H. Bamboozler, standing outside the White House next to Tailgunner Joe the Bumbler Biden, had a few choice remarks after the defeat of his party's latest attempt to circumvent the Second Amendment. And, as is his usual custom, he created a strawman argument that no one in the world is making, in order to demonstrate just how "common sensical" he and his cohorts are. Like most good demagogues, it was very subtle:

One common argument I heard was that this legislation wouldn't prevent all future massacres. And that's true. As I said from the start, no single piece of legislation can stop every act of violence and evil.

Who exactly have you heard, Mr. President, since it is so "common", that "this legislation wouldn't prevent all future massacres"? I don't know of anyone anywhere who claims that any single piece of legislation would prevent "all" of anything. That's why laws are accompanied by the penalties that violations of those laws bring.

The most common argument, Mr. President, is that this legislation would not have prevented ANY of the massacres that supposedly necessitated and prompted its passage. You see the difference? We say, Mr. President, this bill would not have prevented any of the mass shootings you say prompted the law, you respond, of course the law won't prevent all mass shootings. Dishonesty comes to you as naturally as breathing, doesn't it, Mr. President?

They say if you want to know what a liberal is guilty of, just look to see what he accuses his opponents of doing:

"the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill...unfortunately, this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose..."

It is a shame that the United States of America is lead by a man of such low moral character, that he lies continually. It is a greater shame that, even as skillful a liar as he is, that so many of his followers believe him.

Obama will continue to use those who have suffered tragedies, as pawns in his political gamesmanship. He will continue to demagogue every issue he believes will help him to remake this country into something its founders never imagined. There's a verse in the Bible that Obama ought to consider:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

I wonder if Rev. "G*dd*mn America" Wright ever mentioned that verse in his hearing, in his twenty some odd years of pew warming?

Cross posted at Proof Positive

Boston Marathon Bombing: Some Thoughts

2013-04-16T09:14:00.002-07:00

Photo: News.com.au

By Dean L

Yesterday a couple of bombs (IEDs) went off at the Boston Marathon. I had a cousin running in that race for the first time in her life, after years of training. She made it to about the 34 kilometer mark and was stopped and put into lockdown in a church with a bunch of other runners in her immediate area. The response from local authorities was effective and well done from what I hear. My cousin, after a lengthy lockdown opted to leave the church and continue running to the finish area where her family was near. They were also safe and she knew they were. But she wanted to run and she wanted to get back to her family. Ultimately she was reunited with her husband and children and able to run a full marathon plus, somehow extra distance. I watched the unfolding events on CNN and Fox (as well as Twitter and Hot Air) and followed her husband's updates on Facebook. As I watched it all, a number of thoughts occurred to me.

My first thought was about how brave my cousin was. She has very poor vision and required a guide runner. Nevertheless she was determined to finish and also get back to her family. She left the church while it was still on semi-lockdown. She was advised to not yet leave and that if she did to avoid garbage cans, and be careful.

My second thought was about liberty. I'm not sure there are many countries, including my own (Canada) where she would be allowed to leave that church in those circumstances. While the risks were still unknown it is amazing that a country exists where it would allow people to make those decisions on their own. That in itself is something that as an American, you should be proud to have such individual freedom. The government still does not have the power to protect you from yourself by taking away your right to make decisions. It does so all the time in subtle ways, but the right has not erode to the point of no return. Be thankful.

My third thought was sorrow for the injured and dead and their families. In particular, the eight year old boy who died was most upsetting. My prayers are with his family. It was a s senseless and barbaric act of terrorism, aimed at innocents. Those in the Middle East who take joy in such deaths are contemptible. The actions of the United States in the Middle East do have collateral damage at times, but civilians are not deliberately targeted. There is no equivalence between the two types of casualties, None whatsoever.

My other thoughts were around an early youtube posting that included a suspicious man standing on a roof (see in the upper left corner). I assumed that someone who raised the issue in the comments section was being paranoid - it was a water tower or something. It turns out, that it might be a lead. At least some people thinks so. I'm still skeptical. I was even skeptical that the original person of interest was the right suspect.

My final thoughts (after being assured that my cousin was safe) drifted to the political. Being skeptical at least initially is probably healthy. That is also true for the president. Although the president himself declined to call it an act of terrorism, the FBI, Homeland Security and later the White House were less reticent to do so. My initial reaction towards the president's response was anger. I thought back on Benghazi and the Fort Hood massacre, and his non-involvement in Syria and also Iran's brutally squashed Green Revolution and my assumption was that the president was putting his personal politics of success against terrorism before the reality of what was happening. But on reflection, I think it was a fair thing to do. Jumping to conclusions is a bad idea, particularly in cases like this. President Bush did not invade Afghanistan on September 12th, 2001. I think the president was right to be restrained in his wording. Facts are required before action. But that doesn't explain his dispassion about the situation. Nor does it explain how some on the left*, the president apparently included, want to blame this on right wing conspiracies (despite some evidence to the contrary) or use it as a prop to argue against sensible budget cuts.

This is a tragedy pure and simple. To try to fit it to a political viewpoint is in poor taste.

*Here is one egregious example from Michael Moore.

2+2 =

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) April 15, 2013

Followed later by a post about tax day and Patriot's day and then this today:

This is the anniversary week of the Columbine massacre, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Virginia Tech massacre, the Bay of Pigs, and Waco.

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) April 16, 2013

When Idiots Write Gun Control Laws, We Get Idiotic Laws

2013-04-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

By Proof (Originally posted 1/16/13) "12 ga. Street Sweeper" I stopped by the local Bass Pro Shop down the road today. Upstairs, in the firearms department, it was a lot like those movies you see of Wall Street traders on the trading floor, shouting out their orders. Okay. Not quite that bad, but crowded and busy. And a lot of empty slots along the wall where the long guns usually stand.

The handgun ammunition shelves, on the other hand, looked a lot like Twinkie displays after the Hostess closure.

I wasn't there to buy a firearm, but it reminded me of the last time I went there shopping for one. It wasn't very crowded back then at all. In fact, I didn't really need another gun. I just wanted one. BPS had run a national ad for this particular gun: It reminded me of rifles I'd seen in Western movies as a boy. It struck me as a kind of novelty: a revolving rifle. Odds were, I might not even ever fire it, just keep it as a collectible. This model fires ~~six~~ five .45 Colt (an old six shooter round) or .410 shotgun shells. And, as such, is illegal in the State of California.

I know. You're quaking in your boots over the thought of ~~six~~ five shots, fired double action, as fast as you can squeeze the trigger, which in turn is about as fast as any other revolver ever made.

You can legally buy a semi-automatic .45, which could fire ten shots in less time than it would take to empty the Circuit Judge. You can legally buy a 12 ga. semi-automatic shotgun which will fire 8 rounds of 12 ga. buckshot or slugs ( a much larger and more powerful cartridge than the .410) as fast as you can pull the trigger.

So what elevates the Taurus Circuit Judge to be in that rarefied status of "scary gun we have to ban"? As with any other revolver, the Circuit Judge has a revolving cylinder. Oh, noes! You cry.

Oh, yes. Unlike the "Streetsweeper" depicted at the top of the post, (also illegal in CA) which is semi-automatic, with a rotary 12 shot magazine,and a truly formidable weapon, the trait that the Circuit Judge shares with the Streetsweeper, is that before they fire, the shells go around in a circle. Since it is such a "Mickey Mouse" distinction, think of it this way: If your shells are all in a line, as if you were waiting to ride Space Mountain, you're legal. If any of your shells go around on the Tea Cups, you're public enemy #1. (Hope we cleared that up for you!)

Under California law, according to the idiots who wrote it, the revolving cylinder of a Circuit Judge somehow magically becomes a rotary magazine, and a relatively low powered , low capacity, innocuous firearm is thus banned from being legally owned in California.

For comparison, a .410 shotgun shell (L), 12 ga.(R)

Also legal, though quite a bit more expensive, I could legally purchase a semi-automatic 10 ga. shotgun, that fires an even larger shell.

Some pinheaded legislator who probably can't figure out which end the round comes out, decided that a Circuit Judge is too dangerous for me to possess, but guns that will fire more, larger shells, more quickly is just fine.

Yeah. Right. If only we could allow the ignorant to write even more gun control laws for us! That'll fix our problems!

Cross posted at Proof Positive

The Cindy Sheehanization of Sandy Hook

2013-04-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

By Proof Anyone here remember Cindy Sheehan? Anybody? Anybody at all? Back before the war in Afghanistan became Obama's and the casualties really started to mount, the Main Stream Media found a champion against the war in Cindy Sheehan. Cindy's son had been killed during the Iraq war, and Cindy would camp out by the side of the road in Crawford, Texas, to see if she could waylay President Bush on his way to or from his ranch. As an IED of the MSM (Improvised Exploitative Device), Cindy was supposed to have moral authority to oppose the war, perhaps more than any other, because she lost her son in the fighting.

After a while, her fame at being a gadfly, escalated to where she could rub shoulders with dictators, and demagogues like Jesse Jackson, up until there was a Democrat in the White House. After that, it didn't matter how many mothers lost their sons in the escalation of deaths in Afghanistan, because protesting a Democrat president simply isn't done, except by the far Left wackadoos, and we try to keep our distance from them!

The reason I bring up dear, forgotten Cindy, discarded by the Left like a Kleenex in an influenza ward, is it seems to be happening again to a lesser degree with the parents of Sandy Hook. The Left doesn't have a logical argument for implementing a new regiment of gun control laws. They are exhibiting the "never let a crisis go to waste" mentality that they tried with Gabby Giffords* and the Aurora theater shooting and now with the Sandy Hook shooting, to stir people emotionally to the point that they do not recognize that none of the proposed measures would have stopped any of those tragic shootings. Not one.

It seems that flying the parents, or at least some of the parents, out on Air Force One and squiring them around to twist the arms of law makers is an attempt to make use of this same supposed "moral authority" that Cindy Sheehan was supposed to have. "Who better to judge whether or not we should be at war than someone who lost a son?" translates to "Who better to judge what is a good gun control law than someone whose child was a shooting victim?" Well, in Ms. Sheehan's case, perhaps someone who was an expert on military strategy, or someone familiar with the security and defense needs of our country, or the intentions of our adversary? People also lose loved ones in auto accidents every day. It scarcely makes them authorities on automobiles, road construction or advisability of traffic laws.

While we have deep feelings for those surviving family members of the Sandy Hook shooting, grieving for their loss, it doesn't make them an authority on gun control or the Second Amendment, or give them some moral authority that should supersede the rights of fellow citizens. I truly feel sorry for their loss, but it does not make them experts on guns or legislation, it merely makes them political pawns.

And when all the President's men are through using them, they will find themselves abandoned, by the side of the road, alongside Cindy Sheehan. And any actions taken by this administration will have been to further their own political agenda.

*Remember the shameful "memorial" service/ pep rally Obama had in Tucson for those who were killed? All the attendees were given a "Together We Thrive" t-shirt, because what's a proper remembrance of the dead without a slogan for the President's reelection campaign?

Cross posted at Proof Positive

(VIDEO) Californians Sign Petition to Repeal Second Amendment

2013-04-13T09:40:00.004-07:00

By the Left Coast Rebel

The petition's a hoax but the fact that residents of the People's Republik of Kalifornia signed it isn't:

After generations of drug use, public school-media complex indoctrination and all sorts of evolutionary gene pool fail, California residents are ripe for the leftist picking.

Coming to a state near you?

More "Hollow Points" from President Obama on Gun Control

2013-04-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

By Proof

"We can pass common-sense laws that protect our kids and protect our rights."

-Barack Obama Really? Why don't you start in Chicago? Democrats control Chicago, Mr. President. Please tell us what "common-sense laws" you can pass in Chicago that will protect our kids there? And if you could, why haven't you passed them before now? Do you know how many children have died in Chicago since Sandy Hook, Mr. President? Why are you not standing out on the street corners of Chicago with the parents of slain children there, Mr. President? There are so many more of them than you'll ever find at Sandy Hook!

You know, one of the problems I had with Obamacare, early on, was the lack of ability by the government to demonstrate they could responsibly handle the enormous burden of healthcare for the entire country. They were responsible for the VA Administration, for Medicaid and Medicare, all of which were riddled with fraud and horror stories of malpractice. Why couldn't the government be required to make any one of those, if not all, a jewel of patient care and fiscal responsibility before taking on additional responsibility?

Why should we ask less of laws that infringe upon the Second Amendment? Why can't the liberals in Washington D.C. implement any or all of these laws in liberally run Chicago and demonstrate that they truly work, before inflicting them upon the entire nation?

Did you also take note of how much of Obama's speech was designed to inflame the emotions rather than to appeal to reason? He adopted the style of the pulpiteer who repeats a phrase over and over to make a point. Consider the following:

And now is the time for Congress to do the same. (Applause.) Now is the time for Congress to do the same. This week is the time for Congress to do the same. (Applause.)

"We have to tell Congress it’s time to...We have to tell Congress it’s time to...We have to tell Congress it’s time to..."

This is not about politics... This is not about politics. This is not about politics.

And then, compare that to the style of the preacher in whose church he sat for twenty years, in a nearly identical style of repetition, as he calls for God to "damn America" three times in a row:

Maybe the Demagogue-in-Chief heard a lot more than he's letting on?

Cross posted at Proof Positive