Category Archives: The People Fight Back

Bullet Points

Posted on by

There are a number of items in the news today. The top story is the rebellion in the GOP House ranks against John Boehner. The MSM, including FOX, poo-poos the idea that Boehner can be turned out. Other commentators, however, believe there is a significant chance to oust Boehner.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax/files/eb/eb93f57b-c271-41ee-9ca0-a84839e85d7d.jpg

Reps, Ted Yoho, R-Fla., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas., and House Speaker John Boehner. (Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Landov; Alan Youngblood/Ocala Starbanner/landov; Shawn-Thew/epa/landov)

Two GOP candidates have stepped forward to run against Boehner. The strongest is Louis Gohmert (R-TX). But there is a second candidate, too, Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL). Gohmert is a strong conservative track-record. I don’t know much about Yoho other than he’s running against Boehner.

In the end, it matters not, who of these candidates receives the votes. The important thrust is that at least twenty-nine GOP Representatives—DON’T VOTE FOR BOEHNER! If Boehner loses the first vote, then the GOP can consolidate with another candidate, Gohmert I would hope, to choose another Speaker and put Boehner out on the curb.

I’ve already heard some RINOs say that a vote against Boehner is a vote for Pelosi. Not true, it’s another lie by the GOP establishment. The only way a ‘Pub can vote for Pelosi is to actually vote for her, or, to vote, “Present,” to reduce the number of votes cast. Boehner needs the majority of the votes, not just the highest number of votes. If he doesn’t get a majority, he loses.

A number of Representatives have already announced they won’t vote for Boehner. Many more have quietly let it be known they probably won’t. There are fifty new representative coming to Congress. Many of them ran on a ticket of opposing John Boehner. At first look, getting twenty-nine ‘Pubs to vote against John Boehner seemed impossible. When you look more closely, that impossibility fades.

A number of talk show hosts, Glenn Beck for one, are telling their audience to call the Capitol switchboard,1-877-762-8762, to speak to their representatives and to tell them to not vote for Boehner. The switchboard is being flooded and was shutdown once already this morning.

Go make that call!

***

Sarah Palin is back in the news against. Not for something she did but for something her son did. He used the family dog as a foot-stool.

PETA is outraged. Ho-hum.

The real thing that has the left outraged is not the photo of her son stepping on the family dog (it was a big dog. PETA looked the other way when Ellen Degenerate posted one like it,) but her 2014 award of being the top American Achiever.

The left rejects achievement. It is their antithesis. Achieving, in their minds, means someone loses, therefore achievement must be limited to be ‘fair.’

American Achiever of 2014: Sarah Palin

By M. Joseph Sheppard, December 27, 2014

It would be the height of churlishness for even the most inveterate leftist to deny the import of someone who made Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” list, and then the Smithsonian Institution‘s “100 Most Significant Americans Of All Time” list.  Both affirmations were earned by former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

To then accept Governor Palin as “American Achiever of the Year 2014” would be for most, if not all on the left (and to be fair, many in the GOP) no doubt a bridge too far.  However, such partisanship should not stand in the way of a general acknowledgement of what was a remarkable year for Palin.

Palin achieved what such luminaries as President Obama did not: a place in the Smithsonian’s prestigious “Most Significant” list.  After being written off by many in the media, and especially the left, as “irrelevant” and predicted by MSNBC’s Krystal Ball as “not going to have an effect on the [2014] midterms,” Palin’s record of success of her endorsed candidates was nothing short of phenomenal. (The article continues on the American Thinker website.)

Sarah Palin is never far from conservative’s minds. She is the epitome of conservatism. Maligned and slandered by the left, she continues on, unrepentant, and speaks her mind. The left hates her with a passion because she is the standard the left hates and cannot beat.

The Many Memes of Sarah Palin

By M. Joseph Sheppard, January 5, 2015

Defining a politician’s personality, whether positively to build them up, or negatively to tear them down, is a basic rule of politics. Themes can define an image e.g. “Roosevelt’s categorization of Al Smith as “The Happy Warrior” or Democrat folklore depicting William Jennings Bryan as “the Great Commoner” are two classic positive examples. On the negative side, Mitt Romney never recovered from being defined as “Mr. 1 percent”, nor did John Kerry from being “Mr. Flip Flop.”

Once a politician is defined (fairly or unfairly doesn’t enter into the picture) as say, Rick Perry was as a forgetful ditherer, it becomes extremely difficult to shake off the perception — even though in his case it was based on a single, admittedly important, debate moment. Such is the power of media defining that an entire career as a successful governor of a major state can have that whole positive history shrouded in the fog of a slip of the tongue or a moments’ forgetfulness.

This eternal and unshakable truism seems to have one, and perhaps the only one exception to the rule, and that is Governor Palin. Once the media got over their initial shock at her 2008 convention address, the entire subsequent campaign was involved in a liberal media/blog attempt to stick a permanent, negative label on her. That a flow of constant new Palin memes continues to this day shows that for all their efforts nothing has stuck irrevocably and fatally detrimentally.

Before Palin’s convention address there was some flailing about by a confused media and a number of memes were tried out. “Palin’s a bad parent neglecting her children, especially the special needs one, for a campaign”. That such nonsense has never been used against a man, and the anger of many women at such a ridiculous concept put paid to that quickly. Next was “Palin’s a hypocrite because her daughter is pregnant” which quickly died after Palin describe her family as “having the same ups and downs as all families” which, rightly received an understanding and warm reception. There was even a despicable campaign from the likes of Daily Kos and the even wilder “progressive” fringes, which suggested Trig might not even be Sarah’s child.

After the Gibson interview the left crowed “Palin doesn’t even know what the Bush doctrine is”. As it turned out neither did 90% of the population either — it being unlikely that if the question was put to those crowing they could have answered it, so that quickly died the death. What did have legs, and is only 6 years later fading from the arsenal of even the lowest information voters, was the “I can see Russia from my house” statement. This line, of course, was not even spoken by Palin but had a life of its own, which is a sad reflection on some segments of the population.

No matter the lies, no matter the numerous slanders, no matter the accusations, Sarah Palin continues on, a stalwart pillar of American Conservatism.

Twenty-Fifteen is starting off with a bang!

Facebook

It is a new day

Posted on by

…or is it?

http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014_06_10_CantorLost.jpg

Yesterday’s Virginia primary had a big upset. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA-7) lost his seat in the primary to challenger and economist Dave Brat. There are numerous articles being published this morning how that happened.

Some pundits say is was a Tea Party victory. In reality, it wasn’t, it was a grassroots victory assisted by some big-name conservatives like Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin. There is a difference.

The national Tea Party organizations like the Tea Party Express and AFP ignored the race assuming, so say some, that Cantor was a shoo-in. Apparently, so did many of Cantor’s supporters because they stayed home and didn’t vote. The turnout was very low, 65,000 out of a population of over a quarter-million.

Cantor’s flip-flops came home. He hadn’t had much opposition since he first won his seat in 2001. He was unopposed until 2010 and 2012. In 2012, he courted the Tea Party and won by 79%. Since then, Cantor turned, vilifying his former supporters and sucking up to the GOP establishment.

David Brat, the winner of the primary against Cantor wrote this statement in an article for the Daily Caller earlier this year.

Congressman Cantor’s profile has been erratic even by Washington standards — flitting from eager establishmentarian coat-holder to self-glorified “Young Gun” and back again. His loyalties, both upward and downward, have shifted in his eager embrace of the Ruling Class. Washington’s only genuine article of faith: maintaining control regardless of how that control affects the life of the folks back home.

Like so many other GOP Representatives, Cantor let ambition override his duty to his constituents. Being elected in a strong, conservative district is no guarantee for incumbents. (Are you listening Vicky Hartzler?) So far this year, we are seeing numerous successful challenges to the GOP establishment, Cantor is one of them.

***

The worm turned…in California of all places!

Tenure for teachers in California received a severe blow in court this week. Judge Rolf M. Treu, Los Angeles Superior Court, found five California statues concerning teacher tenure unconstitutional.

Treu found that the statutes permit too many grossly incompetent teachers to remain in classrooms across the state — and found that those teachers shortchange their students by putting them months or years behind their peers in math and reading.

He ruled that such a system violates the state constitution’s guarantee that all children receive “basic equality of educational opportunity.” In a blunt, unsparing 16-page opinion, Treu compared his ruling to the seminal federal desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education, decided 60 years ago last month. “The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience,” Treu wrote. — Politico.

For decades the California educational system has been the prime example was what not to do. With test scores pummeling, teachers fought to block testing, lest it prove the abysmal results of their social engineering agenda.

Test scores should be used to review the effectiveness of education. Too many school districts—and state educational systems, would rather teach the tests than actually educate their students. Systems that do ‘teach the tests’ then blame the tests for their failures to educate. Long before this case, it was evident that local and state education systems were more interested in their own sinecure than teaching.

We will soon hear the howl of outraged teacher unions calling for this judge’s head for speaking truth. Once again, unions have been found to be the refuge of many incompetents. The good teachers will get tarred equally along with the bad. They have no other recourse…California is not a RIght-to-Work state. Teachers are required to join the teachers union if they want to teach.

But that was yesterday. Perhaps…just perhaps the students of California will have a new day now that it will be easier to be rid of the lazy and incompetents in the California school system.

Facebook

What’s good for the goose…

Posted on by

I see that another government agency is building a private army, arming them, putting them in the universal government black uniform and buying body armor. Which agency? It’s not just an agency, it’s an entire governmental department, the Department of Agriculture. According to another website, the USDA soliciting bids for .40S&W submachine guns.

That begs the question that, so far, no governmental department nor agency has answered—why? What justification drives this solicitation? As before, that question remains unanswered.

A May 7th solicitation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeks “the commercial acquisition of submachine guns [in] .40 Cal. S&W.”

According to the solicitation, the Dept. of Agriculture wants the guns to have an “ambidextrous safety, semiautomatic or 2 round [bursts] trigger group, Tritium night sights front and rear, rails for attachment of flashlight (front under fore group) and scope (top rear), stock collapsible or folding,” and a “30 rd. capacity” magazine.

They also want the submachine guns to have a “sling,” be “lightweight,” and have an “oversized trigger guard for gloved operation.” 

The solicitation directs “all responsible and/or interested sources…[to] submit their company name, point of contact, and telephone.” Companies that submit information in a “timely” fashion “shall be considered by the agency for contact to determine weapon suitability.”

What use does the USDA have for these? Arming Meat Inspectors? Then add the body armor, what is the need? Is there an armed militia of Angus cattle who are arming themselves for protection from slaughter-houses?

Agriculture Department puts in request to buy body armor

By Cheryl K. Chumley, The Washington Times, Friday, May 16, 2014

Swat team personnel gather for a briefing before entering the the former Roth’s grocery store to investigate an armed robbery at School House Square in Keizer, Ore., on Tuesday, March 18, 2014. A Brinks employee was robbed at gunpoint when he was servicing an ATM machine, said Keizer Police Deputy Chief Jeff Kuhns. (AP Photo/Statesman-Journal, Timothy J. Gonzalez)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has put in an acquisition request to buy body armor — specifically, “ballistic vests, compliant with NIJ 0101.06 for Level IIIA Ballistic Resistance of body armor,” the solicitation stated.

The request was put in writing and posted on May 7 — just a few days before the same agency sought “the commercial acquisition of submachine guns” equipped for 3-round magazines, Breitbart reported.

The May 7 solicitation reads: “The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, [seeks] Body Armor [that’s] gender specific, lightweight, [containing] plate/pad (hard or soft) and concealable carrier. [Also a] tactical vest, undergarment (white), identification patches, accessories (6 pouches), body armor carry bag and professional measurements,” Breitbart reported.

The solicitation also reads that “all responsible and/or interested sources may submit their company name, point of contact and telephone number,” the media outlet reported. And “timely” respondents “shall be considered by the agency for contact,” Breitbart said.

Add it to the list of federal agencies making requests for guns and ammunition in recent months.

The same article mentions the purchase of ammunition by the US Postal Service. The USPS, unlike the USDA, has long had an investigative component, Postal Inspectors. They are federally commissioned officers and has racked up a record of arrests for mail fraud. The USDA has neither the history nor the need for armaments like the Postal Service.

I read somewhere that the number of NFA purchases by citizens (to the uninformed, NFA purchases include full-auto weapons, suppressors, and short firearms, a legacy from Prohibition and the Gangster Era,) has increased dramatically. In line with that is the purchase of body armor by citizens as well, in some areas, more body armor is bought by locals than their law enforcement agencies.

These purchases of body armor has raised concerns for some municipalities and they’ve passed ordinances banning the purchase of body armor by law-abiding citizens. According to one website that sells body armor, they will not ship their products to Connecticut nor to New York for buyers who are not military or law enforcement organizations.

One of the purposes of the 2nd Amendment was to allow citizens to be armed—on par with government. Citizens who are armed—and protected, equally with the government are better prepared to resist governmental tyranny.

The bottom line? Buy body armor for yourself while you can. It’ll be another motivation to maintain your weight…and girth. Body armor is useless if it doesn’t fit. Prices for body armor is less than a new AR.

Facebook

Continuing on a theme…

Posted on by

The theme I speak of in today’s post title is the civil war within the GOP between the Washington establishment and the Tea Party, conservatives, and other grassroot organizations throughout the states. Karl Rove, using his Crossroads PAC, started the war several years ago. He attacked conservatives claiming they couldn’t win. He supported Romney against other conservative candidates.

He was successful. Romney lost in 2012, Obama won.

Karl Rove is still here. He continues to stir up division within the party, supporting McConnell, Boehner and other establishment RINOs against conservatives and attacking the primary opponents of establishment candidates across the country.

The establishment isn’t keeping the war secret. No, they’re proud to be known for supporting the democrat agenda saying, “we don’t want to make waves in an election year.” They ignore the political fact that during an election year is the time to make waves, to score points against the dems, else, what difference is there between the dems and the ‘Pubs if the ‘Pubs continues to support the democrat agenda?

The likely result will be a repeat of 2012 when enough conservatives stay home. When there is no difference between the two parties, what difference does it make who wins? The nation will still continue on the path of authoritarianism, and toward a one-party dictatorship like that of the old Soviet Union.

I’m not the only one who has observed the civil war. IBD, in an editorial this week, agrees.

Republicans Shouldn’t Run Away From The Tea Party

Posted 

Politics: Republican Party leaders seem willing, anxious even, to walk away from the Tea Party, certain that such bedrock support will brand the GOP as extremist in voters’ eyes. If anything, polls show, the opposite is true.

With 10 months to go before the crucial midterm elections, Republicans understandably will try to avoid screwing up their chances for victory.

Democrats have taken to vilifying any Republican who actually stands for something — such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — as a captive of what they’d like to label as the far-right fringe.

This can be seen in the efforts of Sen. Charles Schumer of New York — the Democrats’ top political strategist — to, in the words of The Hill, “poison the Tea Party by driving a wedge between its rich funders and its blue-collar rank and file.”

This kind of hardball has Republicans in a bit of a panic. And in case you’re wondering, it’s a big reason why they supported the pork-filled $1.1 trillion spending bill this month, and why GOP leaders are talking about legalizing millions of illegal immigrants.

But before they sell their souls to political expediency, they might want to look at a few recent polls that suggest the small-government, conservative ideals of the Tea Party are quite popular. To wit:

• A Quinnipiac Poll finds 53% believe the Obama administration has been incompetent at running the federal government. And 56% oppose ObamaCare, the Democrats’ signature accomplishment since 2008.

• In a recent Gallup Poll, almost two-thirds of Americans said the U.S. government has gotten too big and too powerful, and are unhappy with how it works.

• A Fox News Poll found 62% believing income inequality is acceptable “because that’s just how the economy works.” Another 21% agreed inequality was bad, but that the government “shouldn’t get involved.”

Get the picture? Average Americans show a strong preference for smaller, more-accountable government. And which group most closely fits that description in its basic beliefs? Why, the Tea Party, of course.

Republicans would be wise to heed the people’s clear will and not fall for Democrat ploys to make them feel “extreme.” If anything, it’s the Democrats, now a party of the far left, who are the extremists.

Republicans shouldn’t look at them and say, “Me, too.” As a statesman once said, Americans deserve a choice, not an echo.

“Americans deserve a choice, not an echo.” What a closing statement. I wish I could come up with ones of that caliber.

***

Other news today is a reflection on the liberals new attacks against capitalism in favor of “income equality.” Income, whether to individuals or corporations, is dependent on a single statement: Wages and salaries are dependent on the revenue the individual brings to his employer.

Income has no relationship to individual worth. Everyone has worth. Income is driven by the value an employee provides to his or her employer. The more value an individual provides, the more income he should receive. If not, find another job using the skills and training you received from your prior employer. Note: you aren’t likely to gain any marketable skills flippin’ burgers. Choose a job or career, wisely.

McDonald’s Fighting To Be ‘Relevant’ To Customers, CEO Concedes

January 23, 2014 6:46 PM

NEW YORK (AP) — McDonald’s is losing customers, as the world’s biggest hamburger chain struggles to attract diners with its higher-priced sandwiches and new offerings like Mighty Wings.

“We’ve lost some of our customer relevance,” CEO Don Thompson conceded Thursday on a call with analysts.

The Oak Brook, Ill.-based company reported disappointing sales for its fourth quarter, as fewer customers visited its established restaurants. Guest counts at those locations fell nearly 2 percent globally and 1.6 percent in the U.S. in 2013, according to a regulatory filing. And McDonald’s expects some challenges to persist this year.

There’s more to the article, you can read it here. The point I’m making is this: consider McDonald’s position if the minimum wage is raised to $15, almost twice the minimum wage in most states. How would that increase in the cost of doing business affect McDonald’s plans for more service, more value for the customer’s dollar?

When income, as it is happening to McDonald’s, goes down, the last thing the company needs is more expenses. It matters not if the increased expenses come from higher taxes, federal mandates like Obamacare (when McDonald’s waiver expires) or increased wages, such as would occur if the minimum wage is raised. Increased cost, with little or no improvement in revenue equals reduced or no profits.

McDonald’s employs 1.7 million people around the world. It’s certainly more than those employed in California and the other socialist states in the nation who would rather destroy an employer affecting hundreds of thousands, rather than admit their agenda does not work.

 

No, what income equality creates is not higher incomes, it is less. Why? Because with the increased employee cost, McDonald’s only choice is to layoff people and reduce their cost of doing business to a level that will allow them to remain profitable. Without profits, there is no McDonalds.

But, that is inconsequential according to the levelers who drive income equality. They would rather see McDonald’s cease to exist than admit income equality, like all such socialist schemes, doesn’t work.

Facebook

Liars figure and figures lie

Posted on by

The big news this morning is the the “unemployment” rate dropped to 7.7%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also said that Hurricane Sandy had NO effect on unemployment or employment.

Bull.

We know the pattern now. Statistics are released favorable to Obama and within days, those figures are quietly revised, bit by bit, until the next report is released. It’s a well established pattern.

So, unemployment is now 7.7% with 146,000 new jobs created. Really? Let’s examine those numbers.

  • New jobs: 146,000
  • Number dropping out of the labor force: 540,000.

Take a look at those numbers. 146,000 jobs were added but the work force dropped 540,000. If you calculate the unemployment rate by the size of the workforce, the unemployment rate will go down. If you can’t create new jobs sufficient to drop the unemployment rate, decease the labor force so those “new” jobs appear to be more significant. I expect those “Sandy” figures to change that unemployment rate upward as soon as this becomes old news.

Quietly.

Oh, and where were those dropping off the radar coming from? Those lost jobs? The private sector, of course. The public sector unemployment rate was 3.8%. The actual number of unemployed people changed little.

***

This comes under the category: Who’d’a thunk it?

Right-to-work law has passed the legislature in…Michigan! Home of the UAW!

Right-to-work bills pass in Lansing

By Karen Bouffard and Chad Livengood, Detroit News Lansing, December 7, 2012 at 9:35 am

Lansing — The birthplace of the nation’s modern-day labor movement moved closer to becoming the nation’s 24th right-to-work state after bills Gov. Rick Snyder vowed to sign into law passed their first hurdles in the Republican-controlled Legislature on Thursday.

The House and Senate each passed bills on the same day they were introduced that give private and public sector workers the right to avoid paying union dues in an organized workplace. Only police officers and firefighters would be exempt.

…

The historic legislation passed over the thunderous chanting from thousands of workers who descended on the Capitol, resulting in at least eight arrests and a temporary lockdown of the building by Michigan State Police. Democrats in both chambers staged walkouts and procedural maneuvers to stall passage while workers protested in and outside the Capitol.

When the votes are against dems and their stooges, they revert to their norm and riot. They tried that tactic in Wisconsin and it backfired. Now they’re trying it in Michigan. I expect it won’t work in Michigan, either.

***

In case you haven’t been watching, “law” enforcement organizations want to dissolved more of your 4th Amendment rights. How? By removing the requirement of a search warrant to monitor your text messages and to seize your call logs.

EDITORIAL: Texting away your freedom

Nosy bureaucrats want to boost their snooping powers

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES – The Washington Times, Thursday, December 6, 2012

Modern communications are making the world smaller and, in many ways, better. The electronic devices that bring consumers a constant stream of information are, at the same time, increasingly capable of relaying back a record of their activities, shrinking privacy. Americans need to take action if they want to keep Uncle Sam from spying on their smartphones.Law enforcers are looking for the power to read through everyone’s text messages, the oftentimes frivolous missives Americans launch back and forth among friends and family. A coalition of police groups that includes the Major Cities Chiefs Association has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to examine a plan to mandate that Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and other wireless providers save their customers’ texts for two years so the local constable can read through them as desired. The association has characterized the proposal as an attempt to bring the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 in line with 21st-century technological capabilities, according to CNET. Some wireless firms store texts for short periods, while others do not. Presumably, access to text records still would require a court warrant — though the pro-surveillance lobby has been agitating to break down that barrier as well.

…

Another troubling high-tech development could allow outside eyes and ears to zero in on activities inside the home. Verizon is seeking a patent on a detection system that uses infrared cameras and microphones installed in digital video recorders (DVRs) to sense the number of people in a room and the nature of their conversations. The patent, titled Methods and Systems for Presenting an Advertisement Associated With an Ambient Action of a User, would use the information to tailor personalized TV commercials, thereby maximizing chances for subsequent purchases. For example, detection of an “ambient action” such as “cuddling, fighting, participating in a game or sporting event,” according to the patent application, could prompt a related televised sales pitch.

More snooping, less privacy, no need for warrants, less liberty, less freedom; makes Orwell’s 1984 more real every day.
Facebook

Choose a Tea Party in your area to support

Posted on by

This week contains April 15th—National Tax Day and the day Tea Parties will be sprout all over the country. There is a large one scheduled for April 15th in Kansas City, KS near the NASCAR track hosted by KC’s Political Chips. There are many Tea Party organizations across the country. Find your local one and help them replace all the dems up for election. That’s all dems in federal, state and local offices. We can no longer afford or accept the policies, agendas and goals of that party is we want our liberty to survive.

Mark Steyn, writing for the Investor’s Business Daily has some thoughts on Tax Day.

April 15 Marks Season Of Suckers (aka Federal Income-Tax Payers)

By MARK STEYN Posted 04/09/2010 04:55 PM ET

View Enlarged Image

We are nearing the climax of “tax season.” That’s the problem right there, by the way:

Summer should have a season, and baseball should have a season, but not tax. Happily, like candy canes and Christmas tree lights on Dec. 26, the TurboTax boxes will soon be disappearing from the display racks until the nights start drawing in and the leaves fall from the trees and tax season begins anew in seven or eight months’ time.

And yet for an increasing number of Americans tax season is like baseball season: It’s a spectator sport. According to the Tax Policy Center, 47% of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax for the year 2009. Obviously, many of them pay other kinds of taxes — state tax, property tax, cigarette tax.

But at a time of massive increases in federal spending half the country is effectively making no contribution to it, whether it’s national defense or vital stimulus funding to pump monkeys in North Carolina full of cocaine (true, seriously, don’t ask me why).

Half a decade back, it was just under 40% who paid no federal income tax; now it’s just under 50%.

By 2012, America could be holding the first federal election in which a majority of the population will be able to vote themselves more government lollipops paid for by the ever-shrinking minority of the population still dumb enough to be net contributors to the federal treasury.

In less than a quarter-millennium, the American Revolution will have evolved from “No taxation without representation” to representation without taxation. We have bigger government, bigger bureaucracy, bigger spending, bigger deficits, bigger debt, and yet an ever smaller proportion of citizens paying for it. The top 5% of taxpayers contribute 60% of revenue. The top 10% provide 75%. Another two-fifths make up the rest. And half are exempt.

This isn’t redistribution — a “leveling” to address the “mal-distribution” of income, as Sen. Max Baucus, (D-Kleptocristan) put it the other day. It isn’t even “spreading the wealth around,” as then Sen. Barack Obama put it in an unfortunate off-the-prompter moment during the 2008 campaign.

Rather, it’s an assault on the moral legitimacy of the system. If you accept the principle of a tax on income, it might seem reasonable to exclude the very poor from having to contribute to it. But in no meaningful sense can half the country be considered “poor.” The U.S. income tax is becoming the 21st century equivalent of the “jizya” — the punitive tax levied by Muslim states on their non-Muslim citizens: In return for funding the Islamic imperium, the infidels were permitted to carry on practicing their faith.

Likewise, under the American jizya, in return for funding Big Government, nonbelievers are permitted to carry on practicing their faith in capitalism, small business, economic activity and the other primitive belief systems to which they cling so touchingly.

In the Islamic world, the infidel tax base eventually wised up. You can see it literally in the landscape in rural parts of the Balkans: Christian tradesmen got fed up paying the jizya and moved out of the towns up into remote hills far from the shakedown crowd.

In less mountainous terrain where it’s harder to lie low, non-Muslims found it easier to convert. That’s partly what drove Islamic expansion. Once Araby was all-Muslim, it was necessary to move on to the Levant, and to Persia, and to Central Asia and North Africa and India and Europe — in search of new infidels to mug.

Don’t worry, I’m not so invested in my analogy that I’m suggesting the Obama-Reid-Pelosi shakedown racket will be forced to invade Canada and Scandinavia. For one thing, pretty much everywhere else got with the Big Government program well ahead of America and long ago figured out all the angles: Two-thirds of French imams are on the dole. In the Stockholm suburb of Tensta, 20% of women in their late 40s collect disability benefits. In the U.K., five million — a tenth of the adult population — have not done a day’s work since the New Labour government took office in 1997.

America has a ways to go to catch up with those enlightened jurisdictions, but it’s on its way. Rep. Paul Ryan pointed out recently that, by 2004, 20% of U.S. households were getting about 75% of their income from the federal government. As a matter of practical politics, how receptive would they be to a pitch for lower taxes, which they don’t pay, or lower government spending, of which they are such fortunate beneficiaries? How receptive would another fifth of households, who get about 40% of their income from federal programs, be to such a pitch?

And what’s to stop this trend? Democracy decays easily into the tyranny of the majority, in which 51% of voters can empty the pockets of the other 49%. That’s why a country on track to a $20 trillion national debt exempts half the population from making an even modest contribution to reducing it. And it’s also why the remorseless shriveling of the tax rolls is a cancer at the heart of republican citizenship.

Pace Max Baucus, this isn’t about correcting the “mal-distribution” of income. What Mal Max is up to is increasing dependency. In the newspeak of Big Government, “tax cuts” now invariably mean not reductions in the rate of income seizure but a “tax credit” reimbursed from the seizure in return for living your life the way the government wants you to.

With ObamaCare, we’ve now advanced to the next stage — “tax debits,” or additional punitive confiscation if you decline to live your life in accordance with government fiat. ObamaCare requires you upon penalty of law to make provisions for your health care that meet the approval of the state commissars.

Unfortunately, as they discovered after passing it, the bill didn’t provide for any enforcement mechanisms. But not to worry. The other day Douglas Shulman, commissioner for the Internal Revenue Service, announced that, if you fail to purchase the mandated health insurance, he’ll simply confiscate any tax refund due to you from your previous 12 months’ withholding.

We are now not merely disincentivizing economic energy but actively waging war on it. If 51% can vote themselves government lollipops from the other 49%, soon 60% will be shaking down the remaining 40%, and then 70% will be sticking it to the remaining 30%. How low can it go?

When you think about it, that 53% of U.S. households prop up not just this country but half the planet: They effectively pick up the defense tab for our wealthiest allies, so that Germany, Japan and others can maintain minimal militaries and lavish the savings on cradle-to-grave entitlements.

A relatively tiny group of people is writing the check for the entire global order. What proportion of them would need to figure out the game’s no longer worth it to bring the whole system crashing down?

© Mark Steyn, 2010

Never forget. We are in a war for the survival of this nation as a representational republic governed by a Constitution that documents our God given rights. Our liberty and that of our children is at risk. We cannot afford to fail. Failure means slavery to a statist government ruled by a select group of elitists and you won’t be one of them. The ability to better yourself, your family and your children will be dictated by those in power. Don’t expect them to allow you to share their power. It will be closed to all but those belonging to their statist clique. No peons or serfs allowed within the circle.

Attend a Tea Party. Join a group. It matters not whether you are a republican, libertarian, independent or even a democrat who has finally realized how the rank and file of the democrat party has been duped. We must return the country to that envisioned by the founders. Not one envisioned by Marx and Lenin.

CCW Applications Up—again!

Posted on by

This caught my eye since is was primarily about Missouri.

More ask to carry concealed weapons
Political, economic fears drive increase

By Emily Bazar
USA TODAY

Gun owners are packing heat in record numbers, fearful of stricter gun control under the Obama administration and higher crime in a sour economy.

Some states and counties report a surge in applications for concealed weapons permits since the November election. All states but Illinois and Wisconsin allow concealed weapons, but requirements differ.

Applications already have hit a record this year in Clay County, Mo., where the sheriff’s office received 888 through June, compared with 863 in all of last year, Sheriff Bob Boydston says.

In the past, applicants tended to be middle-aged men, he says, but now include “grandmothers, older folks, young women, young men.”

They tell him the bad economy will lead to more thefts and break-ins, he says, but his statistics show recession-related violent crime hasn’t gone up.

They also fear gun control, he says. Last week, an elderly couple seeking a permit told him they were sure the president was “on the verge of coming to our homes and taking our weapons,” he says.

Statewide, the Missouri State Highway Patrol has processed 18,878 background checks this year for the permits, the most since the agency began keeping statistics in 2005, Lt. John Hotz says.

In May, Obama signed a law that will allow guns in national parks. “The president respects and supports the Second Amendment and the tradition of gun ownership in this country,” White House spokesman Ben LaBolt says.

Interest groups on both sides agree that demand is up because of economic and political uncertainty.

People worry the administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress will try to “enact more gun control,” says Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, fears that violent confrontations will increase. “When someone’s carrying a gun around and they’re not fully trained, oftentimes they’ll use it just because it’s there,” he says.

Demand is also up in:

•Florida. The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services hired 61 temporary workers to tackle a backlog in applications, spokesman Terence McElroy says. It got 75,520 applications through June, on pace to beat last year’s record of 90,331.

•Caldwell County, N.C. Residents filed 358 applications in the first half of this year, compared with 135 for the same period last year, “a bigger increase than we’ve ever seen,” Sheriff’s Detective B.J. Fore says. “People are worried about desperate times.”

•Utah. June ranked as the top month ever for applications, with 11,292 received, says Lt. Doug Anderson of the state Bureau of Criminal Identification. The year also is on pace to be record-setting, he says, with 49,499 applications in through June.

Craig Ball, manager of Impact Guns in Ogden, has offered more training courses. “Last year, a typical class would be 15 to 20 people,” he says. “Right after the election, we had as many as 55.”

Ya think? Yep, basic mistrust of the gubbmint and their minions. Always remember.

“When seconds count, the Cops are minutes away!”