The Savvy Prepper

The Emerald Coast Outpost

2022-04-18T10:55:00.000-05:00

Wow!

That was a long hiatus! I'd actually forgotten about this blog as we've had so many life changes happen to us here at The Midwest Outpost. Oh, wait.... we're no longer the Midwest Outpost. We have relocated to the Florida Panhandle. So, now we are.... I dunno. "The Emerald Coast Outpost."

I like it.

Its been so long, I won't bother trying to pick up where we left off. I'll just mention a short list of happenings since last we spoke:

Moved to Missouri, about an hour outside of St Louis out in the woods. It was horrible. I don't recommend it.
Moved back to Indiana, lived a Bohemian lifestyle in an apartment above a storefront in downtown Madison. Kinda cool. Also kinda small.
Trump got elected, to almost everyone's surprise.
Decided to make a long-standing dream come true, and we moved down to sunny Florida, got an apartment there and used that as home base to start scouting for the "Forever Home."
Covid-19. Round one. Mandated restrictions tanked the US and Global economies. Oil was worth $0.00, briefly.
Purchased "Forever Home" during the first wave of the pandemic.
Covid-19. Round two, and this time I caught it. Shockingly, Mrs. Prepper did not.

It sucked. I give it 0 out of 5 stars. Hands down the worst flu I ever got. But I survived.
We still have not elected to receive any vaccination for this corona virus. This is a personal choice.

We bought a pontoon boat.
Hurricane Sally happened. Carried our boat from its secure trailer to someone's front yard, about 900 yards away from where it was supposed to be at the marina. This is a fun story, and I'll include it in a separate post.
Crazy Uncle Joe got elected, to the collective "Hmm?" of most of the country. Certainly the mail-in-voting was totally secure, right? Right? Right.
Covid-19 happened yet again, making its way through the first half of the Greek alphabet. People became weary of the constant mask wearing, blathering on of certain governors, mayors, some guy named Fauci and one president, who never seems to know how to complete a sentence without sounding like he's got dementia.
Putin invaded Ukraine, which has sent oil, gasoline and natural gas prices to levels not seen in 15 years, and it doesn't look like its getting better any time soon.

There. I think we're caught up. Through all of this, we have still maintained our prepper values, always looking for opportunities to put ourselves and our family in the best possible situation for those difficult times, most of which we are seeing now:

Fuel prices are ridiculously high.
Inflation is on the rise
Food prices are insane
Empty shelves in the grocery stores
Anyone tried to buy a new or used vehicle lately? How was that sticker shock?

While stocking up on food stores is always a good idea, a better idea is to learn how to grow your own vegetables and medicinal herbs. This is more of Mrs. Prepper's line of expertise (and she is very well read on the subject). With this being the beginning of Spring, we thought this would be a good time to talk about this.

Mrs. P started early this year, gathering up her seeds (heirloom, of course) and getting them in early grow pods to begin sprouting. And she's been hatching guacamole seeds (avocados). We purchased a couple of small, stainless rack shelves and some grow lights. Which not only assists in getting the needed sunlight to the seedlings, it also makes the room look really groovy at night.

The Socialism Test: A Parable

2013-10-08T11:11:00.001-05:00

I seem to be getting back into Facebook, recently, perhaps out of boredom or curiosity. I saw this post which has undoubtedly been re-posted hundreds of times, but I thought it was salient enough to give it a spot here.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that. (Please pass this on) These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

TL In Exile: Do Not Comply, An Essay

2013-01-30T19:08:00.000-06:00

From the Blog TL In Exile, TL Davis writes a beautiful essay, of which we must share:

Do Not Comply

It is sickening to travel the supposed Second Amendment sites and realize they are embroiled in discussions on how to comply with the upcoming laws banning assault weapons and high capacity clips. Comply? These sites should be alive with plans to defy and nullify these laws, not through some silly strategy of registering some guns and not others; not through selling these weapons in other states to get a good price while prices are up. Are they insane?

From the Revolution on down we have fought wars against the same people: tyrants. We have sent our young men into butcher mills in Europe to protect the British, to free the French, to conquer Hitler. For what? To merely roll over when our own despot arises on a popular platform with propagandists singing hymns to collectivism? Elections don't matter when the overall purpose of the government, run by whomever, is to alienate not just yourselves from your rights, but all subsequent generations from theirs.

The United States Government, no matter who has been at the top, or which party has controlled congress, has not paused even a second while reducing our children to abject future poverty, burdened from birth by enormous debt; to effectively enslave them to the government or even to a foreign government. What makes you think they are not interested in bankrupting not only their finances, but their society?

Comply? Are you seriously taking a look at the modern landscape, where the government rolls on unabated in the destruction of every aspect of freedom and are not alarmed? You seriously are not planning your resistance; are not lying in wait for that one final defilement that causes you to flash?

God, save us from our allies!

Look, just give your weapons to someone who will use them to defend the rights all of us have. Do not turn them over or register them with the government, give them away to local militias, to strong liberty groups who understand what is at play here. We are at the precipice of absolute subjection to government authority.

It is not our choice to fight this fight, just as it was not the choice of the children of other generations to fight in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the French and Indian Wars, the Civil War, the wars on the frontier, the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. It is not our choice, it is our duty. And, while some might pick and choose which wars were legitimate and which were not, let me emphatically point out that this one is more legitimate than all others, because it is the very survival of our society, of our nation that is at stake.

America has always stood out as a nation where one might rise above poverty; one might exercise control over government; one might sleep at night unafraid of the knock on the door; unafraid of a policemen on the street; unafraid of military columns traveling down the highway; unafraid of a judge or a court. What has become of that America? If it was ever worth fighting for it is now.

Systematically, over generations, the government has exerted more and more power; reached into more and more aspects of our personal, private lives and all with the consent of those we sent to Washington to represent us. We have had elections upon elections to try and get rid of the scoundrels, but the scoundrels are the only ones with the power to get elected. We now know that there is no one we can send who will not be corrupted by the power and prestige of government; who will not come to lust over the power to control the people. They just don't make them strong enough anymore.

What we are dealing with here is not mere legislation, a law here or there to try and find some answers to social problems. These laws being passed now are to the direct detriment of the Constitution, to diminish it and along with it any protections the people themselves have against the power of political office. They are laws to insulate government officials from the people and if we are not liberal enough to pass these laws, they will allow the immigration of people more liberal than us to do it. They will pass election laws, or rather prevent election laws that will prevent these immigrants from voting until establishing citizenship.

They will have their way with us, legally or illegally.

Our only chance, the last option left to us who seek laws that are solid and available to all of us; the sanctity of a Right; the sanctity of privacy; of self-determination; of liberty is to stand tall now and use the Second Amendment while it still has a few supporters and challenge the power of government over the people.

The government has declared its intent to disarm us. They have to do it. They have to do it soon, because they have to crash the dollar in order to re-arrange the finances of this nation. Everyone understands that the borrowing cannot continue, that services have to be eliminated. There are too many people reliant on the government for survival to somehow provide for all of the pensions, all of the Social Security payments, all of the welfare checks, provide for all of the health care they have promised us. They know they can't live up to the promises, so before they start breaking these promises, they have to make sure we cannot react with firearms to the intolerable abuses they know they have to inflict.

To give up on our ability to fight back against tyranny is only to hasten the worst they have to offer. The reason there is no one we can send to Congress who will stand up for us is because they know that when the government has to own up to its impossible situation, they will likely be targets of the citizen ire that is bound to mount in the wake of their admission. So, Republican and Democrat alike have to play this game, kick the can down the road until all of us are disarmed and defenseless. Then they can admit the lies they have told. Then, they can re-order society into something more manageable, without rights, or laws or Constitutions getting in the way.

Resist. Do not comply. Do not let them have the upper hand. Make them face our wrath as justly they should.

BofA Allegedly Freezes Deposits Of Gun Manufacturer

2013-01-08T00:15:00.001-06:00

This is most disturbing, if its true:

This story has hit several conservative blogs all over the intarwub; here's the scoop from The Lonely Conservative:

Bank of America decided it didn’t like the way a gun manufacturer was selling guns and parts on the internet so they froze the company’s account. How is this even legal?

Bank of America has reportedly frozen the account of gun manufacturer American Spirit Arms, according to its owner, Joe Sirochman.
In a Facebook post dated December 29, Sirochman wrote the following:
“My name is Joe Sirochman owner of American Spirit Arms…our Web site orders have jumped 500 percent causing our Web site e-commerce processing larger deposits to Bank of America. So they decided to hold the deposits for further review.
“After countless hours on the phone with Bank of America, I finally got a manager in the right department that told me the reason that the deposits were on hold for further review — her exact words were — ‘We believe you should not be selling guns and parts on the Internet.’”(emphasis added)
Sirochman also wrote that he told the bank manager that “they have no right to make up their own new rules and regs” and that “[American Spirit is a] firearms manufacturer with all the proper licensing.” (Read More)

Sirochman said he has done business with BofA for ten years, but that’s about to come to an end.

Well, Obama’s task force said they were going to be looking for help on gun control from corporations, so why not enlist the banks while they’re at it?

President For Life?

2013-01-07T02:23:00.001-06:00

And, here we go:

Left-Wing Moon-bat and U.S. Representative Jose Serrano (D-NY) has reintroduced a plan to repeal the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution that deals directly with presidential term limits. (Hey, why stop there? Why not abolish presidential elections al-to-gether, while they’re at it?)

Now, according to the Examiner article, Serrano's "inspiration" for submitting the bill--eight time through the years--may not necessarily be with the thought of offering Obama a third run (God help us all) at the presidency, as he has introduced this bill during Both Clinton's and Bush II's terms in office. However, there is such a wacky flavor to this year's Congress, and Dear Leader is acting as though he's already the King of North America, one cannot help but cringe at the thought of a bill of this sort even being introduced this year.

Most folks say that there's not a snowball's chance in hell of this thing making it to the House floor (because it never has), and I can only hope that "they" are correct. What would have to happen to make this a reality? Well, let's go ask Barbara:

How to Amend the Constitution

Article V of the Constitution spells out the processes by which amendments can be proposed and ratified.

To Propose Amendments:

Two-thirds of both houses of Congress vote to propose an amendment, or

Two-thirds of the state legislatures ask Congress to call a national convention to propose amendments.

To Ratify Amendments:

Three-fourths of the state legislatures approve it, or

Ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states approve it. The Supreme Court has stated that ratification must be within "some reasonable time after the proposal."

Time Period for Ratification of the Constitution

Beginning with the 18th amendment, it has been customary for Congress to set a definite period for ratification. Of the thousands of proposals that have been made to amend the Constitution, only 33 obtained the necessary two-thirds vote in Congress. Of those 33, only 27 amendments (including the Bill of Rights) have been ratified.

More than likely, it would appear that Serrano's lil' idea will not make it through this arduous process, even if by some crazy possibility it even makes it to the House floor. But, I've seen some pretty crazy "Schumer" over the past few months.

h/t: The Lonely Conservative

Former Marine's to Senator Feinstein: "No, Ma'am. I Will Not Register My Guns."

2013-01-05T04:14:00.001-06:00

"No, Ma'am"

From CNN:

It started off as a letter, but for former Marine Joshua Boston it was more than that. It was about his freedom.

The Afghanistan veteran wrote an open letter to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, saying that he would not register his weapons with the government even if a ban on assault weapons is passed. The letter started on CNN iReport and gained mass attention online, obtaining a quarter-million views as of Friday evening and appearing on several other news outlets.

Boston said he was inspired to send in the iReport because he felt as though some gun owners were being unfairly targeted. He is angered by "the fact that I'm supposed to be punished for doing nothing more than owning a rifle that looks scary because its stock isn't made out of wood," he said.

Feinstein has said she plans to introduce a bill in January that would place a ban on assault weapons. Gun rights legislation gained renewed attention after an armed gunman killed 20 children and six adults in the Newtown school shooting.

The bill aims to revisit a 1994 ban that expired in 2004. The prohibition did not eliminate assault weapons, but restricted their features, limiting magazine capacity to 10 rounds and regulating pistol grips, bayonet attachments and flash suppressors.

Boston said he served in Afghanistan twice and Iraq twice between 2004 and 2011. Although no longer serving in the military, the 26-year-old said he still owns guns and believes the government does not need to know what guns he owns; he believes weapons registration would lead to confiscation.

You can read the CNN report in full here.

And here is the Corporal's letter, in full, as submitted:

Senator Dianne Feinstein,

I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government's right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma'am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one.

I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America.
I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man.

I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.

We, the people, deserve better than you.

Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston
Cpl, United States Marine Corps
2004-2012

He's right, you know. We do deserve better than Dianne Feinstein. I'll stand proudly with this man any day of the week, too.

Stop! Hammer Time!

2013-01-05T03:49:00.000-06:00

Graphic Credit: The Looking Spoon

We were wondering when these numbers would surface. Breitbart has the story and the statistical data pulled from the FBI's annual crime statistics:

According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.

This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats' feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course.

However, it appears the zeal of Sens. like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is misdirected. For in looking at the FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, the number of murders by hammers and clubs consistently exceeds the number of murders committed with a rifle.

Think about it: In 2005, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 445, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 605. In 2006, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 438, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 618.

And so the list goes, with the actual numbers changing somewhat from year to year, yet the fact that more people are killed with blunt objects each year remains constant.

For example, in 2011, there was 323 murders committed with a rifle but 496 murders committed with hammers and clubs.

Go read the whole thing here, its worth a look.

One thing I found interesting that the Breitbart piece failed to point out is that the number of deaths-by-rifle have been steadily dropping during the period 2005-2011, the same period in time in which firearm sales have been skyrocketing. One might draw a correlation there that MORE guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans has had the effect of LESS violent crime in the United States.

But, have no fear. The Democrats will never allow facts to stand in the way of an emotion-driven, Utopian solution. To be sure, after the gun ban has passed (along with a specific measure against "assault clips"), I'm sure our government will find some new legislation to protect us from the evil assault hammers plaguing our society.

The Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin--Seriously!

2013-01-04T17:52:00.002-06:00

Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley (Flickr)

With President Obama kicking off debt ceiling negotiations by vowing not to negotiate on raising the debt ceiling, an alternative solution to paying off the nation's considerable tab -- over $16 trillion, and counting --seems to be gaining momentum with certain cheeky economists and monetary wonks.

It goes something like this: Should the congress fail to raise the debt ceiling, the government could decide to begin minting and issuing....wait for it....trillion dollar platinum coins! Jim Pethokoukis and his American Enterprise blog line out three scenarios in which the debt ceiling could be raised through (1) out-and-out raising of the debt ceiling through congress, (2) raise the debt ceiling with congressional disapproval, (3) raise the debt ceiling through invoking the 14th Amendment. Then there is option 4:

4. Platinum Coin Option. This is even more theoretical than the Constitutional Option, though some argue that it is a stronger legal option. There are limits on how much paper money the U.S. can circulate and rules that govern coinage on gold, silver, and copper. BUT, the Treasury has broad discretion on coins made from platinum. The theory goes that the U.S. Mint would create a handful of trillion dollar (or more) platinum coins. The President would then order the coins deposited at the Fed, who would then put the coin (s) in the Treasury who now can pay all their bills and a default is removed from the equation. The effects on the currency market and inflation are unclear, to say the least. You would also likely trigger a wave of lawsuits similar to the Constitutional Option and create two tranches of treasuries. Both this option and the Constitutional Option are VERY low probability options.

The reason this option appears to be gaining momentum is that platinum is unregulated, from a monetary issuance perspective. While there are laws in place to regulate how much paper, gold, silver or copper currency can be circulated by the government, there is nothing so clearly stated when it comes to platinum. That door open, the Treasury could have the U.S. Mint melt and mold a few trillion dollars of it, then ship the goods over to the Federal Reserve for safekeeping until the time comes to pay the bills. Its kind of like writing an I.O.U., except its in platinum.

No one seems to be sure what this decision would do to the current value of paper currency, gold and silver. I'm pretty sure we don't want to find out.

Its too bad we can no longer listen to the wisdom of Senator Barack H. Obama in 2006 on the subject of raising the debt ceiling:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. (emphasis added) It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.

Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.

And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.

Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006

Good speech, and right on the money, no pun intended. Unfortunately, that man no longer exists.

Taxation (And Spending) Without Representation

2013-01-03T20:44:00.001-06:00

"Balanced?" Right.....

According to a recent Rasmussen Poll, 62% of Americans favor across the board spending cuts in an effort to reduce the deficit. Further, 57% of the same Americans surveyed think that those wished-for spending cuts are "unlikely." Any chance that our "representatives" in Congress are hearing (or even paying attention to) their constituents? Evidently, no.

Even as official Washington signs off on a “fiscal cliff” deal with $1 in spending cuts to every $41 in new taxes, most voters continue to favor across-the-board spending cuts but doubt they are likely to happen.

$1 in spending cuts to every $41 in tax hikes. This is the "balanced" approach the seemingly never-ending Obama Administration promised. To make matters even worse, the spending cuts in the deal, are not even real spending cuts, rather a reduction in the growth of certain programs. In The Anointed One's own words:

We can't simply cut our way to prosperity. Cutting spending has to go hand-in-hand with further reforms to our tax code so that the wealthiest corporations and individuals can't take advantage of loopholes and deductions that aren't available to most Americans. And we can't keep cutting things like basic research and new technology and still expect to succeed in a 21st century economy. So we're going to have to continue to move forward in deficit reduction, but we have to do it in a balanced way, making sure that we are growing even as we get a handle on our spending. ... Today's agreement enshrines, I think, a principle into law that will remain in place as long as I am President: The deficit needs to be reduced in a way that's balanced. Everyone pays their fair share. Everyone does their part. That's how our economy works best. That's how we grow.

As if this guy knows anything about how a successful economy works. Or what the definition of "balanced" might be. This is the guy you voted for, Ohio. Thanks a trillion (or 20,000,000,000,000).

On a side note, here's a graphic representation from Zero Hedge of the tax hike vs budget deficits. We have a spending problem, plain and simple.

But, but, but...tax the rich!

The Best Essay I've Read On The Second Amendment

2013-01-02T21:42:00.000-06:00

Lately, we've been reading a great deal of news articles, essays and blog posts on the subject of reconciling our second amendment rights with tighter gun-control laws. In large part, the defense of the second amendment seems to lean towards personal defense, hunting and sport shooting. Although all of those ideas are indeed inherently protected under the "right to bear arms," the bigger point is overlooked.

Our Founding Fathers penned the Bill Of Rights under a singular notion: these Constitutional Amendments are to protect the citizenry from a power hungry government. And the Second Amendment makes legal for the American Citizenry to keep and bear arms as a specific deterrent against a tyrannical government. Where you have a government who fears its citizenry, you have liberty. When you have the exact opposite, you have tyranny.

I encourage you all to read the following essay by Lawrence Hunter (yeah, his name is "Hunter") from Forbes magazine. Its the most concise and insightful essay on this topic I've read in a while. Some excerpts:

It is time the critics of the Second Amendment put up and repeal it, or shut up about violating it. Their efforts to disarm and short-arm Americans violate the U.S. Constitution in Merriam Webster’s first sense of the term—to “disregard” it.

Hard cases make bad law, which is why they are reserved for the Constitution, not left to the caprice of legislatures, the sophistry and casuistry of judges or the despotic rule making of the chief executive and his bureaucracy. And make no mistake, guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21^st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free.

A people cannot simultaneously live free and be bound to any human master or man-made institution, especially to politicians, judges, bureaucrats and faceless government agencies. The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals’ enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest.

The Second Amendment was designed to ensure that individuals retained the right and means to defend themselves against any illegitimate attempt to do them harm, be it an attempt by a private outlaw or government agents violating their trust under the color of law. The Second Amendment was meant to guarantee individuals the right to protect themselves against government as much as against private bad guys and gangs.

That is why the gun grabbers’ assault on firearms is not only, not even primarily an attack merely on the means of self-defense but more fundamentally, the gun grabbers are engaged in a blatant attack on the very legitimacy of self-defense itself. It’s not really about the guns; it is about the government’s ability to demand submission of the people. Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state.

Go read the whole thing. You'll feel smarter afterwards, I promise, and perhaps even better "armed" when you have to go up against a Feinstein-esque Liberal MoonBat who wants you to think that the Second Amendment was intended to eventually create the National Guard.

Commentary: Dave Barry Reviews 2012

2012-12-31T16:33:00.001-06:00

And we couldn't have done a better job of it ourselves:

It was a cruel, cruel year — a year that kept raising our hopes, only to squash them flatter than a dead possum on the interstate.

Example: This year the “reality” show Jersey Shore, which for six hideous seasons has been a compelling argument in favor of a major earth-asteroid collision, finally got canceled, and we dared to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we, as a society, were becoming slightly less stupid.

But then, WHAP, we were slapped in our national face by the cold hard frozen mackerel of reality in the form of the hugely popular new “reality” show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, which, in terms of intellectual content, makes Jersey Shore look like Hamlet.

Another example: As the year began, the hottest recording artist was the brilliant singer-songwriter Adele, whose popularity made us think that maybe, just maybe, after years of rewarding overhyped auto-tuned dreck, we were finally developing more sophisticated musical tastes, and then ...

WHAP, we were assaulted from all sides by the monster megahit video Gangnam Style, in which a Korean man prances around a variety of bizarre Korean settings riding an imaginary Korean horse and shouting a song that, except for the words “Eh, sexy lady,” is entirely in Korean.

Read the rest of it. He breaks down 2012 month-by-month, and its worth every word.

Happy New Year, y'all. Here's to hoping that 2013 brings more prosperity and peace to us all. God bless.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/31/178658/commentary-dave-barry-reviews.html#storylink=cpy

What If The Principle Had Been Armed?

2012-12-18T15:42:00.000-06:00

(We at The Savvy Prepper wish to express our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. There can be no greater pain than experiencing the loss of a child.)

I didn't want to have this conversation, yet.

I wanted to think only of the families, in particular the parents of those slain. Most of us have never even been to Connecticut, nor ever will; most of us have never met any of the families affected by this tragedy, nor ever will. Yet, none of us will ever forget this event, nor the stories of heartbreak and heroism detailed from that day.

I think about a school, so heavily scarred, that may never reopen.

I think about a time of year when happiness surrounds most children with the visions and great expectations of a Christmas morning.

I think about parents leaving the morgue after receiving the worst news imaginable and returning to a home with unwrapped presents neatly displayed underneath a lit Christmas tree which will never be opened. I think of the joyful decorations trimming the neat and tidy Northeastern houses now robbed of joy.

I think of siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents now stricken of grief in what is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.

I think, too, of the survivors, and the parents of those children trying to explain to small minds why and how such a violent thing could have happened at their school.

I think of Newtown, Connecticut and how Christmas will never be the same. A place where school will never have the sense of security as it had before; how parents will never drop their children off at school without telling them, with grave sincerity, how much they love them.

I had hoped that the politicians, and by extension, the mainstream media at large would allow some time to pass before the pundits started discussing gun-control issues, amateur-ish psycho-analysis of the shooter and the soul-killing paparazzi snapping photos of grieving families.

But, no.

On the same day as the school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, the media began its flare-up over stronger Federal gun-control legislation. Social media began the same arguments. Our president gives a speech suggesting that he will do everything within the power of his office to insure that another incident like this one will never happen again--the whole speech smacked of re-writing the 2nd Amendment.

The political machine has started up, and the discussion of the day for the next several months will be gun-control, and how we owe it to our children to make the world a safer place by banning as many guns as possible.

I'd like to offer a different point of view.

What if, for argument's sake, the school principal, Dawn Hochsprung, had been armed? According to some reports, the headteacher was killed as she "lunged" for the gunman. If the school's principal had been armed and properly trained to handle her firearm, it is possible that the story from Newtown could have had a very different ending. How many lives could have been saved had there been just one member of the staff armed and ready?

Congressman Louis Gohmert (R-TX) wondered the same thing:

Gohmert became emotional as he continued: "You know, having been a judge and having reviewed photographs of these horrific scenes and knowing that children have these defensive wounds -- gunshots through their arms and hands as they try to protect themselves -- and hearing the heroic stories the principal, lunging trying to protect -- Chris, I wish to God she had had an M4 in her office locked up. So, when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn't have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands, but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids."

Maybe, just maybe, instead of advocating for stricter gun-control laws from the Federal Government, we should be advocating for a smarter, more heavily armed population. When we have "Gun-Free Zones," are we not advertising to the violent criminals in our society that "this is a good place for you to come and shoot as many people as you can before the cops show up?"

That very mentality may, in fact, be more true than anyone is willing to admit.

Let's think back, for a moment, to the horrific shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. James Holmes decided to go to a movie theater in which the new Batman movie was playing. There were seven movie theaters in the area which were showing that film on the night of the shooting. Holmes did not choose the theater closest to his apartment. He did not choose the largest movie theater in Aurora, which would have afforded Holmes the potential for a higher body count, and was the same distance from his apartment as the theater he did choose. Instead, he chose the one movie theater which specifically banned patrons from entering the theater with a concealed weapon--a designated "Gun-Free Zone."

Let's think back, again, to a story that came out just a few days before the Newtown incident. On Tuesday, December 11th, a shooter opened fire on Christmas shoppers in the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Clackamus County, Oregon. The shooter killed two mall patrons and injured a number of others before fleeing the area, and shooting himself.

What is being widely ignored by the MSM is that an armed citizen, Nick Meli, pulled his weapon and drew down on the gunman. The gunman saw Meli, saw that Meli was armed, and fled the scene. At no time did Meli fire his weapon at the shooter, as Meli rightly recognized that the mall was crowded with patrons trying to flee the scene, and had he missed hitting the gunman, it was likely he would have accidentally shot one of the mall patrons. Regardless, Meli effectively distracted the gunman from firing on any other unarmed patrons and evidently dissuaded him from taking any further aggressive action.

When you ban guns, rather than making it safer for the victims, you unintentionally make it safer for the criminals, because they have less to worry about. If you had a violent criminal stalking you or your family, and was really seriously threatening you, would you feel safer putting a sign up in front of your home stating, “This home is a gun-free zone?”

My guess is you wouldn't do that. And I've never run into any gun-control proponents who would do that either. And the reason is pretty clear: Putting a sign there saying "this is a gun-free home" isn't going to cause the criminals to say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to break the law, so I’m not going to go in and attack these people.’ It encourages them to do it. It serves as a magnet for the criminal. If he’s going to engage in this attack, then that’s the place where he is going to engage, because he finds that it is going to be easier to do it there.

Yet, every time we have shooting incident, it renews the call from the media and the left-wing moon-bats for banning guns. It makes no sense. Banning guns of any type is not the answer, no more than making certain narcotics illegal does anything to stop American citizens from using drugs.

I'd like to say that I think that those who are pushing for stronger gun-control laws are well-intended. I can't say that, however. Especially after hearing about a Houston-area blogger calling for shooting NRA members:

"In the wake of Friday’s horrific killings in Newtown, CT, Texas Democrat John Cobarruvias tweeted the following, according to Eric Dondero.

Can we now shoot the #NRA and everyone who defends them?

He has since removed the tweet and apologized, but the apology may not be heartfelt. Later on December 14, he tweeted that the NRA is to blame."

Describing the NRA as a “domestic terrorist organization” equates them with the likes of the KKK, which was once the most effective Democratic Party domestic terrorist organization in existence.

He also tweeted:

It may be news to Mr. Cobarruvias that Americans don’t support the Second Amendment because the NRA supports it. They support the NRA because the NRA supports the Second Amendment.

Now, you may be asking yourself who John Cobarravius even is. He runs a Houston-area left wing blog, Bay Area Houston. He is a Harris County Democratic Party Precinct Chairman, which is an elected position. He is also a member of the Texas Democratic Party’s Executive Committee, elected to that position from District 11. As a member of the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee, he is in a position to influence his party’s strategies, finances and legislative agenda.

His call for the shooting of anyone who supports the NRA includes Texas’ governor, both of its senators, all of its other statewide officials and most elected members of the state’s legislature. His public threat against so many elected officials could constitute a terrorist threat. But he'll probably get away with it, being as his party affiliation is currently in power.

DHS Is Spending Money Preparing For A Zombie Apocolypse

2012-12-06T11:05:00.000-06:00

Zombies, right.

And people think we're crazy for loading up on canned goods, the Department of Homeland Security is spending lots of money to show our cities how to protect themselves from ZOMBIES...

From our friends at The Lonely Conservative:

You can rest easy at night, my friends, secure in the knowledge that the Department of Homeland Security is spending plenty of tax dollars to keep you safe from zombies. That’s right, zombies.

Coburn found that, among other things, DHS was spending money on teaching first responders how to stop flesh-eating ghouls. The report said the event was held by the HALO Corporation “at the Paradise Point Resort & Spa on an island outside San Diego 9 (and) the 5-day summit was deemed an allowable expense by DHS, permitting first responders to use grant funds for the $1,000 entrance fee.”

The article above goes on to quote from Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) report.

The marquee event over the [San Diego] summit, however, was its highly-promoted “zombie apocalypse” demonstration. Strategic Operations, a tactical training firm, was hired to put on a “zombie-driven show” designed to simulate a real-life terrorism event. The firm performed two shows on Halloween, which featured 40 actors dressed as zombies getting gunned down by a military tactical unit. Conference attendees were invited to watch the shows as part of their education in emergency response training. Barker explained that, “the idea is to challenge authorities as they respond to extreme medical situations where people become crazed and violent, creating widespread fear and disorder.”

According to the firm’s public relations manager, the exercise was brought about “utilizing Hollywood magic,” and setup in a “parking lot-sized movie set [with] state-of-the-art structures, pyrotechnic battlefield effects, medical special effects, vehicles and blank-firing weapons.” [HALO President Brad] Barker added, however, “This is a very real exercise, this is not some type of big costume party.” (Emphasis added.)

Well, if the gubment is doing it, it must be a good idea, right?

I'm Back From Hiatus....

2012-11-26T20:19:00.000-06:00

...only to find more signs of the coming apocalypse.

Since the election, we have uncovered a number of instances where Left-Wing Nut Jobs at large make attempts to deify our Dear Leader. We recommend viewing the remainder of this post on an empty stomach, if you have a history of being squeamish:

Jamie Foxx refers to President as "our Lord and Savior"

Actor Jamie Foxx called President Obama “our Lord and Savior” during an appearance Sunday on the Soul Train Awards. It’s just the latest example of entertainers and artists deifying the Commander in Chief.

“It’s like church over here,” Foxx told the audience. “First of all, give an honor to God and our Lord and Savior Barack Obama.”

“Barack Obama,” he shouted as the audience cheered.

Painting Depicts Obama As The Crucified Christ

Creepy, redefined.

From FoxNation:

A painting that features President Obama posed as Jesus Christ crucified on a cross is on display at a community college art gallery in Boston.

The painting by Michael D’Antuono is part of a larger exhibit called “Artists on the Stump – the Road to the White House 2012.” It’s on display at the Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery until Dec. 15th.

The painting is called “Truth” – and shows the president on the cross with his arms outstretched. A crown of thorns rests on his head.

Book Compares Obama To Christ

Yes, its an actual publication

Courtesy of the Daily Caller:

Looking for something to read as Thanksgiving approaches? Or a unique take on what has made President Barack Obama such a successful politician? Or perhaps an explanation of Obama as an apostle and his “politics as religion?”

You could check out “The Gospel According to Apostle Barack” by Barbara Thompson (AuthorHouse 2012). The mouthful of the book's subtitle is: “In Search of a More Perfect Political Union as Heaven Here on Earth.”

The book’s thesis is that Obama is not just the 43rd president of the United States. Much more than that, he’s an apostle akin to Martin Luther King, Jr. or even Jesus Christ.

According to Thompson, she began to have a series of unusual dreams as she formulated ways to help Obama win the 2012 presidential election:

"I learned that Jesus walked the earth to create a more civilized society, Martin (Luther King) walked the earth to create a more justified society, but, Apostle Barack, the name he was called in my dreams, would walk the earth to create a more equalized society, for the middle class and working poor. Apostle Barack, the next young leader with a new cause, had been taken to the mountaintop and allowed to see over the other side."

The stated goal of Thompson’s book is to “unlock the answers” contained within Obama’s numerous speeches, so that “his followers” may have a guide “to creating and living in the reality of a middle class lifestyle that was so economically and ethically sound that it appeared to be ‘heaven here on earth.’”

The author, a professor, is a member of the physical education faculty at Florida A&M University.

And these are the same people that refer to the conservative movement, and Republicans in general, as "extremists." Makes one wonder how that whole "separation of church and state" is working out for the Left.

I will close this with a bit of scripture that seems to have particular meaning tonight. From the Book of Matthew, NKJV:

¹⁵“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’^[c] spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), ¹⁶“then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. ¹⁸And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. ¹⁹But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! ²⁰And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. ²¹For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. ²²And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.

²³“Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. ²⁴For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵See, I have told you beforehand.

²⁶“Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. ²⁷For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. ²⁸For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.

Hiatus

2012-11-07T01:41:00.001-06:00

I'll be taking some time off from the blog-scene for a few days. The results of this election have definitely dampened my spirits, and I need to take a few steps back and process what all has come to pass tonight. May God bless you all, and God bless America.

American Thinker's Geeks Guide To Election Night

2012-11-06T05:37:00.000-06:00

I really like this blog. So much so, I am willing to shamelessly re-post this.

You know who you are. Most nights you are still awake after a comedic interlude with Greg Gutfeld, so you tune in to a rerun of Rachel Maddow to satisfy your inner masochist. On election night, you have lined up your energy drinks, coffee and favorite snacks to get you through the 18 hours from 6 PM (EST) on election night to noon or beyond on the next day. You are probably watching alone, since your friends have long ago dismissed you as dangerously obsessed. But that won't stop you from hurling profanities at the TV set.

You are hoping for an early concession by shocked and sobbing MSNBC hosts that somehow Obama has lost and that Harry Reid's reign of terror is ending. But a small part of you hopes that when you finally doze off at noon on Wednesday, the results are still uncertain enough to feed your addiction just a bit longer.

For all my fellow junkies, even the liberal ones, here is a guide to the first few hours of the last few hours of your favorite day of the leap year. The results are pretty much known in advance for 43 states and DC. Rasmussen predicts an Obama lead of 237 to 206, with 95 votes in 8 tossup states. If any states actually flip, it is likely that all eight tossup states will go the same way. The chance of states flipping in both directions (like NC for Obama, but PA for Romney) is close to nil. There will be no late surprise flips. That action will be over by 8PM EST.

The tossups close early. The conventional wisdom that Romney must win FL(29) and VA(13), closing at 7PM, is accurate. So give him 248. Otherwise you can break out the Jack Daniels or the cyanide, depending on just how invested you are in the outcome. But the conventional idea that Romney needs OH(18) more than Obama does is not so clear. If Romney grabs NH at 7:00, and OH at 7:30 that adds 22 votes to his 248---game over! With OH(18) but not NH(4), Romney would have 266, and it would be Obama who has to run the table. Romney would need just one more state out of CO(9), IA(6), WI(10), NV(6). Even with wins in both OH(18) and NH(4), Obama still has to win two of the remaining four states.

The bad news is that the presidential action is probably over at 9PM EST. The best hope for junkies is some too-close-to-call tossups. But don't despair ---there is always the Senate.

The Morning Before The Election

2012-11-06T04:23:00.002-06:00

Super Tuesday, 2012

A weapon that comes down as still
As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
But executes a freeman's will,
As lightning does the will of God;
And from its force nor doors nor locks
Can shield you,--'t is the ballot-box.
-- John Pierpont (1785-1866)
-- A Word from a Petitioner

As I begin this post, it is 1:14 A.M. (CST), and we are hours away from the polls opening for the 2012 election. My emotions are decidedly mixed, somewhere between the anticipation of Christmas morning as a child and the anxiety of sitting in the dentist's waiting room knowing your turn is coming. I am excited about the prospects of the future, and deeply worried that it will be more of the same of the last four years.

Anyone keeping up with me knows my views; I don't apologize or try to hide them. I further recognize that anyone reading this post probably share my political views, otherwise you wouldn't be following me in the first place. I've stated my reasons for being a Mitt Romney supporter in the same breath that I've stated my reasons for not supporting another Obama presidency. If you're looking for documentation, references, images etc., feel free to peruse some of my earlier posts. I don't expect to change anyone's mind here in the eleventh hour.

I could use this night to talk about Obama's ballooning deficit, ballooning welfare state, anemic economic recovery and the huge number of jobless Americans we have in our country today--but I already have, in previous posts. I could go on a rant about Obama's shameless handling of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, the needless deaths of four brave Americans, and how it never would have happened under, well, ANY other president--but I already did. And the mainstream media has given this president a pass on all of those subjects, but you already know this, and I've already written on that topic, as well.

I haven't talked about the tragic conditions in the Northeast in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and how our President has only passed through the state of New York for a few photo opportunities, on his way to continuing being our campaigner-in-chief...but you already know about that, too. Anyone with eyes has watched as this president has successfully used the platform of Hollywood, the press and its glitz and stardom to elevate himself into a potential second term as the leader of the free world.

Anyone with ears has heard this president suggest that voting for him is the best revenge against Governor Romney, who has done nothing to harm this country, rather who has run a clean campaign, taking the high road when many wanted to see him pounce on Obama for his enumerated failures. Some say that remark was off the cuff (we all know how Obama does without a teleprompter) and that the president chose the wrong words--but as it turns out, Obama makes no apologies for his "revenge" statement.

Obama doesn't have the decency, courage or presidential chops to take back something no politician, much less a sitting president, should ever do--and that's try to pit Americans against each other. Obama has run a small campaign because he is a small man; a divisive, mean-spirited and petty campaigner who seems annoyed by the very idea that he has to campaign for a second term. In his eyes, we should all just give it to him and then kindly step out of the way.

But, in Obama's defense, he really has no other choice but to campaign in the fashion that we've seen. In 2008, in his own words, "if you don't have a record to run on, paint your opponent as something to run away from."

We, the people of these United States, elected a man based on Hope and Change. We were all hopeful that Obama, the first black man to run for the highest office in the land, would be able to bring this country together; that he would be the moderate we all hoped for; that his leadership skills were at least as good as his oratory skills. We believed his promises for fairness, transparency, fiscal responsibility and that maybe he could actually slow the rise of the oceans. We were mesmerized. We were the rats, and Barry was the pied-piper. We were sold a false bill of goods--Obama has not come close to living up to the hype.

Obama was in over his head, to begin with. When he received the Democratic nomination for President, he was only two years removed from the Illinois State Senate, and he had never held a private sector job. How could we expect him to be a successful president--he had no idea what he was doing. The situation we are all in--the economy, the foreign relations nightmare, the increased welfare state-- is not Barack Obama's fault, its ours. And we must atone for this.

But that's the real question of the day, isn't it? Will American take this opportunity to atone for our collective sins? Will we correct the mistake of the last four years?

I'm not suggesting that Mitt Romney is the ultimate answer to our problems. Its a lot to ask of one person, and I don't think our expectations should be such. But Mitt Romney is a person you can research--he has a record of success to run on. He has a background that can be traced right here to the United States. I expect he will make mistakes along the way, if he gets a chance to be president--I also expect that he has the courage and decency to stand up and admit his mistakes as they occur. I expect you will never hear a President Romney talk about the mess he inherited--he is a problem solver who doesn't use excuses to deflect responsibility. He may not be able to slow the rise of the oceans, but I believe Mitt Romney can help soothe our economic health, and the health of our country.

However, we cannot put all of our faith in one candidate for one office. The office of the presidency holds only one person. Our country was not designed to operate on the premise of a single authority. What I mean to say here is we have more at stake in this election than just the presidency. As much as I hope Americans have paid attention to the utter failure of this president, I hope equally that we have paid close attention to our elected men and women in congress and the senate. The conservative movement gained momentum in 2010 during the mid-term elections--it is my hope that we keep that momentum going in all areas of the ballot today.

You hear that this may be the most important election of our time, and I believe that it is, at least to some degree--maybe every election is the most important election of our time. I encourage all of you to spend your time today not only voting, but in "getting out the vote" with your family, your neighbors, co-workers, parishioners, congregations, etc. This is Super Tuesday, and we all need to practice our rights as American citizens, for God and Country.

And when you get a chance, say a little prayer.

Illegal Immigrant Challenging Georgia's Drivers Licence Law

2012-11-02T22:06:00.000-05:00

Whiskey. Tango. Fox-trot.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

An illegal immigrant from Mexico is challenging the constitutionality of the state’s driver license law in a case the Georgia Supreme Court is set to hear Monday.

Fernando Castillo-Solis says the law — which requires motorists who have lived in Georgia for 30 days or more to get a state-issued license before driving — discriminates against illegal immigrants. (emphasis ours)

At issue is a part of the law that says motorists can’t be convicted of driving without a license if they can later present their licenses in court. Since illegal immigrants are ineligible for Georgia licenses, they don’t have the same protection.

You cannot make this stuff up, folks. Only in America can this level of brain-dead activity be given a place on the legal stage. This even trumps Benita Veliz, an illegal immigrant herself, being given the national stage at the DNC earlier this year.

Let's make this easy. Imagine a flow-chart.

Question: Are you an illegal immigrant?

No: Access to equal protection under the law.
Yes: Deportation back to your country of origin.

Problem solved. Or, am I making things too difficult?

The Leadership Disconnect Post-Sandy

2012-11-02T21:45:00.000-05:00

Once again, American Thinker nails it:

So while NYPD and FDNY and National Guard are pulling double shifts and linemen and tree surgeons are collapsing from too many hours on the job, the leadership elite has not been setting a very good example either.

Dwayne Wade let his feeling be known about the stupidity of holding the Nets -- Heat game tonight as scheduled. The Steelers will be flying into town late for their game with the Jets but may not be able to get the gas to get back home after the game the way things are shaping up. Who cares about the fans, anyway? It's all about TV revenue and the sponsors.

The worst and most egregious case is the Marathon. Generators desperately required to power infrastructure and clothes and food required to feed people who really need it have been purposed for a nonessential event that runs through all five boroughs. As people in the projects are forced to use hallways as latrines, thousands of Port-O-Sans have been dropped along the marathon route to provide comfort for the runners. Mayor Bloomberg and the organizers are way out of line on this one. There is a real danger of protests and disruption, which frankly I would support.

People are dumpster-diving in the Village and yet down at Ft. Dix there are helicopters to deliver MRE's and water ready to go. So who is tasking these resources? The disaster relief just isn't happening in any logical manner.

Read the whole thing.

Do we really need to be pulling valuable resources out of circulation just to run the NYC Marathon?

UPDATE: Nanny Bloomberg and Mary Wittenberg announce NYC Marathon cancellation. Finally, calmer heads prevail. From USAToday:

The New York City Marathon will not be run Sunday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office announced late Friday afternoon.

It's the first cancellation in the race's 42-year history.

Earlier, Bloomberg defended his decision to go ahead with the 26.2-mile run, saying it would give the storm-ravaged city "something to cheer about." Critics argued that the race would take resources away from recovery efforts and that it was insensitive to New Yorkers hit hard by Hurricane Sandy.

"While holding the race would not require diverting resources from the recovery effort, it is clear that it has become the source of controversy and division," Bloomberg and Mary Wittenberg, the president of the New York Road Runners, said in a joint statement.

IBEW Halt Alabama Utility Crews Trying To Assist In Wake Of Hurricane Sandy

2012-11-02T20:03:00.001-05:00

Ocean County, New Jersey Devastated By Hurricane Sandy

This is unbelievable.

From WLOX News:

A Decatur Utilities crew left Alabama to help with storm recovery in New Jersey, but did not make the trip because of what they are now calling confusion over union paperwork.

The six-man crew staged in Virginia, but Decatur Utilities said they were never able to get in touch with officials or utility companies in New York or New Jersey. While the crew stood down in Virginia, Decatur Utilities officials claimed they received a union contract they thought they would have to agree to before helping storm victims.

General Manager Ray Hardin appeared on Fox Business Channel Friday morning saying, "We were presented documents from IBEW that required our folks to affiliate with the unions and that was something we could not agree to."

Decatur Utilities later released a statement expanding on that, "Upon arriving at a staging area in Virginia, crews were held in place pending clarification of documents received from IBEW that implied a requirement of our employees to agree to union affiliation while working in the New York and New Jersey areas. It was and remains our understanding that agreeing to those requirements was a condition of being allowed to work in those areas."

Read the whole thing.

The IBEW later released a statement saying that during times of crisis they welcome help from outside of the state and outside of the IBEW, but it was too-little-too-late for this crew who spent most of the day Thursday in Virginia at a holding area awaiting Union Paperwork clearance. In a holding area!?!?!? I wonder if they were checking passports, too.

With hundreds of thousands of residents still without electricity, you would think that anybody with a cherry picker would be happily accepted into the area to work on getting power restored--but, no. First, we gotta check you out for the Union Label.

There may have been a good time and a good place for the emergence of labor unions, but they have gotten too big and too controlling (much like our Federal government) to be considered good for our country and our populace.

Day Seven Of Main Stream Media Blackout Of Benghazi Coverage

2012-11-02T19:16:00.000-05:00

This is not the country I grew up in:

For the seventh night in a row, ABC’s World News, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News refused to give one single second of coverage to the Obama administration’s deceitful response to the terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on September 11. According to the Media Research Center, the last time Benghazi was discussed on one of the flagship network evening news casts was the October 25 edition of CBS Evening News.

Since then, ABC News and CBS News have relegated coverage of the Benghazi terrorist attack to their websites. Jake Tapper’s November 1 report for ABC News landed on the Drudge Report, while a post from CBS News’ Sharyl Atkisson that same day was picked up by Real Clear Politics. But the millions of viewers who tune in to ABC’s World News and CBS Evening News were not permitted to hear these stories on the evening broadcasts.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell puts out a scathing statement:

The stories about the Benghazi terrorist attack written by ABC’s Jake Tapper and CBS’s Sharyl Atkisson clearly demonstrate that there are some serious journalists who believe this is a major story and are looking for answers from the Obama Administration. ABC’s World News’ and CBS Evening News’ refusal to present these stories to the millions of Americans who count on them as their primary source of news shows how corrupted they have become. They’re trying to rig this election for Barack Obama, deliberately spiking news stories even their top reporters believe to be important.

The litany of failures that led to the deaths of four brave Americans in Benghazi on September 11, and the contradictory answers, is long and getting longer, but the big question the Obama Administration must answer remains unasked by the liberal media: if the administration was repeatedly warned of danger, and requests for help were repeatedly turned down, and four brave Americans died, who is responsible for this catastrophe, and why did the Obama Administration dishonestly try to blame it all on a video?

Obama Makes Appearance On The Jersey Shore Only 24-Hours After Hurricane Sandy.

2012-11-02T01:25:00.000-05:00

Re-post from The Gateway Pundit:

It took Barack Obama 7 days to visit Joplin, Missouri after a tornado wiped out half of the town and killed 120 people.

It took Barack Obama fourteen days to visit the gulf coast after the BP oil spill.

Obama declined to visit Tennessee after the historic 2010 1000 year floods.

Obama ignored the Texas wildfires when over 400 homes were lost.

And, of course, Obama ignored the calls for help from Benghazi.

But it took Barack Obama only one day to visit the hurricane damage on the east coast.

Then again, there’s an election next week. Never let a crisis go to waste, right?

I sincerely hope that Americans can see through the motives of this president who promised to have the most transparent presidency in the history of presidencies and the history of things that are see-through.

Election Day is November 6. Send Obama back to Chicago, or Hawaii...whatever.

Obama Spiritual Adviser: All Whites Going To Hell

2012-11-01T00:17:00.000-05:00

The Reverend Joseph Lowery Giving The Benediction At Obama's 2009 Inauguration.

From The Daily Caller:

All white people are going to hell, longtime African-American civil rights advocate Rev. Joseph Lowery told an audience at a get-out-the-vote event held Oct. 27 in Georgia.

Lowery, who gave the benediction at the January 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, told the audience of up to 300 African-Americans “that when he was a young militant, he used to say all white folks were going to hell. Then he mellowed and just said most of them were. Now, he said, he is back to where he was,” according to an Oct. 31 report in the Monroe County Reporter newspaper.

“I don’t know what kind of a n—– wouldn’t vote with a black man running,” Lowery also told the audience in the St. James Baptist Church in Forsyth, Ga., according to the Reporter.

And this is how Dear Leader expects to bring us together as a nation?

You can't make this stuff up, folks. The divisiveness is not only blatant in this man's campaign for a second term, but also inherent in his closest associates. I laugh whenever I hear someone from the Left or the MSM accuse a Conservative of being racist whenever this level of rhetoric is out there for the public to see and hear. Oh, and by the way, how many MSM news outlets picked up on this story and called the Reverend Lowery out on his statements? None, other than the oft-maligned Fox News.

h/t Evilbloggerlady

Top Fifty-Three Reasons To Vote For Mitt Romney

2012-10-31T23:20:00.000-05:00

From The Independent Journal Review, Kyle Becker lays it out for those of you who may be on the fence, undecided, or who may have considered just staying home on November 6. Keep in mind that, although these listings may appear slanted, these facts are based upon Romney's official record, news reports and otherwise fact-based reporting.

Some highlights, we'll take the Top Twelve:

#1. Mitt Romney graduated from Harvard University with a degree from the prestigious J.D.-M.B.A. program, which is the graduate education of the last two presidents combined.

#2. Mitt Romney governed a state whose schools ranked first nationally in education.

#3. In 1984, Romney founded and led one of the world’s most successful venture capital and investment firms: Bain Capital.

#4. Bain Capital helped turn around numerous struggling businesses that went on to become prosperous and successful, such as: Burger King, Sealy, Sports Authority, Staples, Brookstone, Burlington Coat Factory, Clear Channel, Domino’s Pizza, Houghton Mifflin, Dunkin’ Donuts, The Weather Channel, Guitar Center, and the Hospital Corporation of America.

#5. In 2002, Romney left the private sector to oversee the Olympics preparations at Salt Lake City. He erased a $379 million operating deficit, organized 23,000 volunteers, and oversaw security in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

#6. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney turned a $3 billion deficit into a $700 millionbudget surplus in less than two years.

#7. Governor Romney was granted emergency gubernatorial powers and slashed unsustainable spending levels by hundreds of millions of dollars.

#8. As governor, he helped reduceMassachusetts’ unemployment rate from 6% to 4.7%.

#9. Romney was elected Chairman of the Republican Governors Association for the the 2006 election cycle, going on to raise a then-record $27 million for candidates in state house contests across the nation.

#10. In 2006, Governor Romney proposed and signed into law market-based healthcare reform approved by 99% of the Massachusetts legislature, which was 85% Democrat and could override any veto.

#11. Romney objected to the employer mandate, mandated benefits, minimum coverage guidelines, and medicaid expansion in the final healthcare bill. His vetoes were overridden. He also preferred a tax break for those who could prove coverage, rather than a penalty for the individual mandate.

#12. As Romney predicted, the healthcare law added 1.2% to Massachusetts’ budget, despite the additional costly provisions that he objected to as governor. Another analysis put the cost as low as .3% a year or $100 million.

Read the whole thing. It may enlighten you.

Top Ten Ways To Celebrate Halloween: Obama-Style

2012-10-31T04:54:00.000-05:00

Just for fun, we were going to attempt to do this, but M.Allen Fritsch beat us to the punch. From American Thinker, we proudly, and shamelessly, re-post:

Top Ten Ways To Celebrate Halloween: Obama-Style!

10) Lure kids to the house with the promise of "shovel ready" candy.

9) Incite "trick-or-treaters" to violence by posting videos on YouTube denigrating Halloween.

8) Hand out 1^st lady baby carrots and low-fat ranch dressing instead of candy

7) Hand out "ObamaPhones" along with the candy (Ohio only).

6) Don't give out any candy, but tell the kids, "Hey, you can stay on your parent's Health Insurance until age 26. What else do you want?"

5) Scare the kids by saying, "I see rich people."

4) Don't give out any of your own candy; rather, indignantly dictate how much candy your neighbors should be giving out.

3) Check the bags of all trick-or-treaters and redistribute as needed to "spread the wealth around."

2) Don't compliment especially good costumes. Instead, remind the kids that "they didn't make that...somebody else made that."

1) If you run out of candy, blame it on the previous homeowner.

Here's to wishing you all a safe and ghoulishly Happy Halloween. Y'all be careful out there...