Category Archives: Attacks on Conservatives

Repeat: Friday Follies for June 5, 2015

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The left is attempting to smear Marco Rubio and his wife. The Drudge headline this morning is this: NYT INVESTIGATES: Rubio and Wife Cited 17 Times for Traffic Infractions... The New York Times couldn’t be bothered by Hillary’s State Department incompetence, nor of the bribes funneled to her and Bill through their shell corporation, but let the Rubios get some traffice tickets? Horrors!

I’ll take the Rubio’s traffic ‘indiscretions’ over Bill’s and Hillary’s criminality any day. At least the Rubios paid their fines instead of attempting to cover them up.

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Rick Perry announced his candidacy for Prez yesterday. I saw him speak at the NRA Annual Meeting in Nashville a month ago. It was apparent then that he was going to run. (You can see my comments and a link a video of his speech here.) Perry’s opening video of him shooting steel with an AR was a hit with the NRA members—especially his final look to the audience in the video.

Perry lost his bid for Prez in 2012 by screwing up one interview. In that interview, he said he’d close three federal departments. He named two and couldn’t remember the third. I’ve heard him say elsewhere that he had learned his lesson—never give an interview after having major surgery. Perry had surgery on his back during the campaign and was taking pain-killers when he was interviewed.

I like Perry. I like a number of the ‘Pub candidates, Cruz, Walker, Rubio, Jindal, and to as lesser extent, Paul. I told my wife after hearing Perry speak in Nashville, “He is the only one speaking today that actually appears Presidential.”

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I don’t know how many of you subscribe to Erick Erickson’s daily newsletter. I do. I don’t always agree with him but, on occasion, he says something that strikes a cord within me. Today’s newsletter had such an occasion. I would hope you read it, too. It contains ammunition for you in your next discussion with a liberal who claims our Founders were racist, old white men.

Open Letter to a Liberal Professor

My conservatism doesn’t need to be edited.

By: Diary)  |  June 4th, 2015 at 03:27 PM

(From the diaries…bill s)

The heart of this entry is a letter I wrote in response to one specific liberal professor who made the mistake of attempting to embarrass me for holding conservative views. First let me share a little back-story. It was an online course on American Government, one that made use of a message board for class discussion and student interaction. After introductions our first assignment was to answer a question regarding freedom in America, including how and to whom it should be applied. I happily typed and posted my response, which I share here in part:

“Our Federation was founded on the ideas of Individualism, and the idea that freedom should be available to every citizen in equal measure. It was this idea that the framers of our Constitution embodied and enshrined within our system of governance. They sought to create a document that preserved and protected the idea of individual freedom by enumerating a system that not only protected the citizen but allowed the citizen to participate should he or she choose to do so.”

Being a liberal my professor could not let me, a mere student, praise the work of our nation’s founders, especially in an open forum where other students might be exposed to a positive view of them. Thus she felt it her duty to post a reply and correct my “errant” notions, and responded by stating:

“I will not usually intervene here, but I want to push you all to think about something —

Irish writes: “Our Federation was founded on the ideas of Individualism, and the idea that freedom should be available to every citizen in equal measure.” As I’m sure Irish knows, though, the Founding Fathers explicitly did not believe that freedom should be available to every citizen in equal measure. Quite the opposite. They believed that freedom should be available mostly to the wealthy, land-owning, white men. Our idea of who should be allowed to participate in this project of self-governance has evolved substantially over our history.”

Like so many liberal professors, in a room with a captive audience, this woman had become far too comfortable spouting factual inaccuracies and historically incorrect statements in order to drive forward a corrosive ideology. Like so many conservatives I am sick of this having become a common occurrence, so rather than drop the matter, I chose to respond:

Professor,

In response to your attempt to correct my statement I would prefer to defend my position. I said exactly what I meant, it needs no correction, and furthermore I can defend my position with historical evidence.

At the time of our nation’s founding the understood meaning of the word “citizen”, so far as political involvement was concerned, was indeed that of white, land-owning, males. Thus, to say, as I did, that “Our Federation was founded on the ideas of Individualism, and the idea that freedom should be available to every citizen in equal measure” is accurate in its context. However to state that the founders “explicitly did not believe that freedom should be available to every citizen in equal measure” that they believed “[q]uite the opposite” going so far as to suggest that “They believed that freedom should be available mostly to the wealthy, land-owning, white men” is demonstrably incorrect.

It defies logic to suggest that our Constitution’s Framers intended to reserve citizenship and freedom to white, male, landowners, either generally or exclusively. If that were the case they could have done so, they had the opportunity — they had the votes.

Our Constitution, written by those very framers, does not restrict citizenship or freedom in such a manner. Even issues such as slavery are acknowledged but not enshrined, left instead to the discretion of the states. Nowhere within our founding document can be found anything resembling the Jim Crow laws or the “slave” codes that erupted in the South after the passing of the 13th Amendment. Yet these men you accuse of harboring such vile racist views had ample opportunity to include such legislation. Furthermore, the inclusion of the Article 5 Amendment process indicates that our Constitution’s framers were aware of the fact that times would change, and also aware of the need to provide for those changes. They were conscious of the population growth in the North and expected that it would eventually overrun the influence of the South within Congress. Feeling that this would be the case they allowed the Three-fifths Compromise in an effort to prevent the Southern States from simply importing more slaves as a means to increase their power within the House of Representatives. This act by the Framers suggests they intended to provide a means by which our federation could eventually deal with the issue of slavery while accomplishing the immediate, and necessary, task of creating a union of the existing States.

I would suggest that our Constitution is not a rigid document enshrining bigotry, patriarchy, or voting rights tied to landownership, is evidence of the lack of intent to restrict society in America in such a manner; but it could have been. This is a truth I feel is easily supported. We need look no further than he dissenting opinion in the infamous Dred Scott case. This document contains a great deal of history relating to the treatment of African Americans prior to the Emancipation. In the opinion Justice Benjamin R. Curtis reveals that four Northern states (Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire and New York) provided voting rights for African American citizens even before our Constitution was drafted. (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1072053/posts) Ironically, in light of your assertion, several states when ratifying the Constitution did so with votes from both Whites and African Americans. This, to my mind, seems to fail as evidence of an exclusionary approach by the Framers.

I am however not naïve, I realize that there were those among our founders who felt otherwise but the facts are clear — the majority of our Founding Fathers did not intend to restrict freedom, using a narrow definition of who was a “citizen,” reserving it to a select few, as you have suggested.

On a final note I would point out that where there hasbeen a substantial change to our definition, or understanding, of what constitutes a “citizen” it has been a result of those “white, male, landowners” in the North who voted to abolish the institution of slavery and redefine said citizenship, via the 13th and 14th Amendments, and this was done in the face of great opposition from the southern Democrat Party. (On a side note: This phenomena was repeated in the early 1900’s when again “white men” in the House of Representatives and the Senate voted to extend that definition to include recognized national voting rights for women as citizens of America, and this via another Constitutional Amendment. This decision closed the gap legally between citizenship and voting rights for women.)

The ability for this to happen, both for former slaves and for women, was precisely a result of those “white, male, landowners” who could have enshrined sexism, bigotry and the like within our founding document but did not.

I stand by my original statement, and maintain that I was accurate in my portrayal of the intent of our founders.

I appreciate your time.

I knew even then that I would not change her mindset, or reverse her ideology, but I also knew that I was throwing down a gauntlet she could not afford to pick up. This is why it is important we self-educate. We as conservatives must be able to defend our beliefs with documented and researched opinions. It is amazing to watch a liberal when they are out of their element, falling back on tired and weak hypothetical arguments.

Not surprisingly this professor never again attempted to correct my posts, and for the curious, my grade did not suffer for my response.

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Culture of hate

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We, conservatives, Christians, have been under attack for decades, since the sixties if not earlier. Initially, no one really cared, nor took any interest in the attacks. This is America, after all. We all have 1st Amendment rights. Don’t we? We can’t lost that! It can’t happen here.

Well, it can happen here. Our first amendment rights, as well as all the other constitutionally protected rights are under attack. The left has carefully seeded hate against us and those seeds have now sprouted. If you doubt this, just scan the headlines. You needn’t read the articles, the headlines will tell you enough.

Gay-rights advocates torpedo GoFundMe campaign for Christian-owned bakery

For those of you who have been living under a rock, a bakery in Oregon, Sweet Cakes, was targeted by a lesbian couple. They asked the bakery to make a wedding cake. The bakery refused saying it was against their religious beliefs. The lesbian couple sued for discrimination—and won. The bakery’s 1st Amendment right was ignored. The liberal court assessed the bakery a fine large enough to bankrupt them. The headline above tells the rest of the story.

In another instance, the John Hopkins University Student Government has banned Chick-fil-A from their campus. Why? “Johns Hopkins University has banned Chick-fil-A from its campus saying that the restaurant is a “microaggression” against its students.” It mattered not that Chick-fil-A has no presence on the university campus. The act was nothing more than pure spite.

These were attacks against Christians and a Christian-owned business. But these aren’t the only instances of hate and violence. Rabid environmentalists have used violence for decades. Usually those acts were against property. One of the latest attacks was direct violence against a person, an employee of a company.

Will there be a National Conversation after environmentalist shoots energy worker?

posted at 7:21 pm on April 17, 2015 by Noah Rothman

Get ready for a week of introspection from the press, particularly the left-leaning media, as a wave of tortured self-criticism characterizes coverage of what is sure to dominate the news cycle for the foreseeable future… LOL. Just kidding!

A disturbing story out of West Virginia flagged by The Washington Free Beacon’s Lachlan Markay indicates that a man, enraged by the drilling taking place in his state, shot an employee of an energy exploitation company on Monday.

A man dressed in camouflage with his face painted black approached Mark Miller, an employee with HG Energy LLC, on Joe’s Creek near Sod, Napier said.

“At that time he played Mr. Miller a recording that said ‘Stop the drilling’ and then stuck a gun through the window of the passenger side of the truck,” [Lincoln County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy J.J.] Napier said.

A reporter with The Charleston Gazette called a member of the West Virginia Sierra Club for comment and received unequivocal condemnation of this violent incident, but the episode has received little attention in the national press.

For a media culture that is quick to blame conservatives for every episode of violence with a potential political motive, the commentary community’s silence on this incident is deafening.

The column continues listing the instances where the lefties acted with violence. In some cases the liberal media tried, and failed, to blame conservatives for the acts of violent liberals.

The left has purposely sought to divide the country. A country divided is weak and when weakened, that nation is susceptible for a takeover. A coup, in other words.

A coup need not be a violent overthrow, it can be insidious, a chip here, a chip there. The question is not how, but when. When will the people of this nation wake up and resist. That resistance need not be violent, either. The same methods used by the left, can also be used by us to counteract the left.

With Obama, Holder and the new Holder clone as Attorney General, the left is emboldened. The current crop of GOP leadership in Washington are willing enablers of the coup. They fear the left and are abetting them. We have a chance to make corrections. Remember Cruz, Walker, Paul, and Rubio, each a conservative, when the election cycle commences. Remember, too, that Boehner and McConnell must go along with their cronies in Congress.

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Bits ‘n Pieces

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Missouri Secretary of State, Jason Kander

Jason Kander, our democrat Missouri Secretary of State and scion of the Kansas City democrat political machine, has announced he will run against Senator Roy Blunt in 2016. Kander received the endorsement of the entire Missouri democrat team as well as from the KC ‘Red’ Star. Surprise, surprise!

Attorney General Chris Koster, who is readying to join Kander on the statewide slate in his own run for governor: “Every day, Jason Kander uses the lessons he learned serving in the Army in Afghanistan to do what’s right for Missouri. He doesn’t care who gets credit for an idea, he just wants to get the job done for our state. We need that approach in Washington, which is why I am supporting Jason Kander for United States Senate.” — PoliticMO Newsletter, February 19, 2015.

So it will be Turncoat Koster running for Governor teaming with Kander running for Senator. All in all, Kander has a better rep than Koster. Still you have to wonder, in this ‘race of the Double-Ks’ who is helping whom?

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An idea whose time has come? Missouri already has a Voter-ID law on the books. There are a number of acceptable forms of ID listed on the Missouri Secretary of State’s website.

ACCEPTABLE FORMS OF VOTER ID:
  • Identification issued by the state of Missouri, an agency of the state, or a local election authority of the state
  • Identification issued by the United States government or agency thereof
  • Identification issued by an institution of higher education, including a university, college, vocational and technical school, located within the state of Missouri
  • A copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, government check or other government document that contains the name and address of the voter
  • Driver’s license or state identification card issued by another state

If you do not possess any of these forms of identification, you may still cast a ballot if two supervising election judges, one from each major political party, attest they know you. – http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/govotemissouri/howtovote.aspx

This new effort will add a Constitutional Amendment to give more teeth to the existing law which has a number of exceptions that still allow people to vote without proper ID. The existing law is a good first step, but, reviewing the documented acts of vote fraud in St. Louis and Kansas City, it isn’t enough.

Missouri House endorses voter photo ID requirements

By MARIE FRENCH, Associated Press, Feb 18, 6:21 PM EST

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri House is once again pushing forward with a Republican priority to require photo identification at the polls, after similar measures were stymied by the Senate or courts in recent years.

The House gave initial approval Wednesday to a proposed constitutional amendment that would go before voters in 2016 and also endorsed a bill that would institute the voter photo ID requirements if the constitutional amendment is approved.

Both measures need a second House vote and also would also have to pass the Senate, where Democrats have previously blocked the proposed photo ID requirements.

Supporters say the requirement is needed to ensure the integrity of the election process. Rep. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, said the measure would protect individuals’ voting rights by making sure someone does not try to vote for another person.

“It ensures that someone did not take their vote and steal what is rightfully their vote,” Brattin said.

If you read the full article at the website, you will see, as usual, democrats, abetted by MO Secretary of State Jason Kander, protesting the measure because it would make their continuing vote fraud schemes more difficult.

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Have you heard the term, Social Justice Warrior? It’s all the vogue on university campus across the country and in other segments of society (see my post concerning the SFWA and the Hugo Awards.) Social Justice Warriors have become the progressives’ front-line troops in their battle against free speech and expression.

Social Justice Warriors Come to Campus

By Robert Weissberg, February 19, 2015

Since the late 1960s, radical students have periodically taken over the university president’s offices to propose a laundry list of “non-negotiable” demands. Early takeovers tended to be about their school’s cooperation with the military during war in Vietnam; today, however, “social justice” is the aim so let’s call these office occupiers Social Justice Warriors or SJW’s.

Back in February 2014 a group of 30 Dartmouth students commandeered the president’s office to  announce a “Freedom Budget”:70 specific calls for greater diversity, eliminating sexism and heterosexism, an improved campus climate for minorities and gays, banning the term “illegal immigrant,” offering a class on undocumented workers in America, creating a professor of color lecture series, and harsher penalties for sexual assault, among many, many others.

More recently, Clemson University SJW’s demanded that the school provide a “safe” multicultural center for students from “under-represented” groups, employing more administrators and faculty of color, a more diverse student body, mandatory sensitivity training for faculty and administrators, and increased funding for students organization catering to under-represented groups.

Then there are the University of Minnesota students who seized the President’s office to demand a bigger budget for the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies Department, removing all racial descriptions from university police reports, offering gender-neutral bathrooms at all college facilities and, of course, recruiting more faculty and students of color.

Fortunately, this is the U.S., where such political histrionics are greeted with mild amusement. Ironically, school officials typically welcome “meaningful political dialogue and change,” the need for “hard work” to achieve progress and then conclude by thanking the Social Justice Warriors for their assistance in moving forward. Though police may remove protestors, criminal charges, let alone violations of campus rules, are rarely pursued and the moral buzz for these SJW’s may last weeks. In fact, I suspect some warriors honestly believe that their achievement will burnish their resume when applying to a second-tier MBA program. Imagine if these SJW’s tried this in Russia or China?

Such incidents are easy to pooh-pooh as the politically-correct version of Animal House. But that said, they nevertheless offer important insights into today’s college activist’s thinking and why university administrators tolerate the foolishness.    

Most evidently, the Social Justice Warriors totally disregard the costs associated with their self-righteous crusades. Everything is single-ledger accounting. Will the tooth fairy fund Dartmouth’s proposed $3.6 million dollar Triangle House, the “safe haven” for LGBT? Yes, high-school dropouts may believe that government benefits are “free,” but youngsters admitted to top colleges? No wonder the U.S. sinks deeper and deeper into indebtedness — even among the smart, costs are invisible. Picture a Warrior taking Econ 101 and hearing for the first time that there is no such thing as a free lunch. What a shock!

The shallowness of these demands is breathtaking and suggests that these activists are just winging it. The Dartmouth students are surely among America’s brainiest but why do they denounce “ableism”? Are they suggesting that acknowledging variations in ability is morally wrong and if differences are to be abolished (hopeless anyhow), how would society function? Why must the campus offer gender-neutral bathrooms? Keep in mind that in a few decades such folk may be among our national leaders.

Particularly troublesome is how these presumptuous, self-centered warriors think that if they think something is good, it must be good, so case settled. For example, they glibly assume that academically challenged black and Chicano youngsters really benefit by attending schools that would never admit them in a merit-based admission process.  Have these young do-gooders considered the downside of this generosity — schools will fake the numbers by creating easy-to-pass courses in dubious ethnic-studies departments, steering them to easy grading instructors or just tolerating rampant grade inflation. Or, more important, that these in-over-their-head youngsters may be better off in community college acquiring well-paying skills like welding?

Closer to home, have these SJW’s calculated the link between achieving their vision of “social justice” and tuition? Attracting minority students, addressing their academic deficiencies, creating a nurturing environment and all the rest costs money, and this will inevitably push soaring tuition even higher and, since there is no Santa Claus, a college education will be yet further beyond the reach of many poorer students while saddling graduates with yet more debt. In effect, these idealistic protestors are demanding a tax on those who are not members of their version of “under-represented.” Imagine if these SJW’s had to hold jobs to pay their own tuition?

Do these Social Justice Warriors realize that their demands will require administrators to break the law to achieve this multicultural Utopia? That is, under today’s judicial guidelines it is almost impossible to admit students solely on the basis of race or ethnicity. California, Michigan, and Washington (among others) have state laws explicitly banning racial preferences.

Why do schools tolerate such idiocy, including ignoring violations of campus policy? The answer is that no matter how imprudent the demands, they help drive the university’s bureaucratic expansion, and in today’s campus life, size matters. A symbiotic relationship exists between the children’s crusades and yet more bureaucratic bloat. Universities are not the profit-driven private sector. Absolutely everything, everything in every one of these SJW catalogues entails spending more university money, hiring more personnel, and creating yet more rules and regulations and the apparatchiki to monitor and enforce them.

It is a long article and I urge you to follow this link to the website and read the entire piece. It may be an education for you; make you aware of another insidious attacks against our liberty by ‘progressives.’ Joe Stalin and Adolf would be proud of them.

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More Missouri Moments

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Ed Martin, now chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, in an Oct. 6, 2010, file photo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Missouri GOP Chairman Ed Martin announced his resignation yesterday. Rumors had been floating around some some weeks before the announcement. Martin is leaving to become President of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum.

The announcement did surprise many. Today, we’re hearing some news who may replace Martin. Some are well-known conservatives. Others, such as the protégé of Ron Richard, aren’t.

Possible Four Way Race Shaping Up for Missouri GOP Chair

Duane Lester, February 3rd, 2015

Yesterday Ed Martin announced he was not running for re-election for the Chair of the Missouri Republican Party, instead taking a position with The Eagle Forum.

When I heard that, I only knew of one person who was in the hunt: John Hancock.

After I posted Martin’s press release, I had someone reach out and say, “Did you hear that someone else may jump in?”

I hadn’t, but today I have a name: Eddy Justice.

Justice has shown interest in leading the Missouri GOP, but didn’t want to challenge Martin. He said he didn’t have any problem replacing him though.

Another name that’s being mentioned is Pat Thomas, current Secretary of the Missouri Republican Party. She’s also deputy Treasurer.

Finally, a name I’m hearing as being possibly recruited for the position is Nick Myers, Newton County GOP Committee Chairman. Myers is a good friend of Sen. Ron Richards, and a power player in southwest Missouri.

So, overnight, this turned from a one man race into a bit of a dog pile for the leadership of the Missouri GOP.

I’ll be working on doing some profiles on each of these folks.

I’m reminded how Ron Richard betrayed the GOP by reversing his votes in the last veto session and in the veto session in 2013 to block passage of some key bills. The 2013 reversal came after a mid-east junket with democrat Governor Jay Nixon. Ron Richard had earlier voted for the bills. But when it came to support the GOP, he didn’t. Richard has no core principles other than his own advancement. Consequently, I would not be a supporter for anyone connected to him.

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CNBC Reporter Kelly Evans, tried to ambush Senator Ron Paul during an interview. Paul didn’t fall for the tactic and turned the tables. Before the interview left the air, Paul called Kelly’s attempts as ‘slanted’. I always like to see a lib’s plan fail. Especially when it backfires so spectacularly.

I’m not a believer that vaccines cause autism. I believe it falls into the same category as global warming—cherry picked data to fit a preconceived objective. The originator of the ‘vaccine causes autism’ cherry-picked data and actually fabricated data in a study that started this controversy. Every study since, that I’ve examined, still uses that original false study as source document.

Be that as it may, I also believe it is a parent’s right to choose which, if any, inoculations her or his child receives. The libs are pushing for mandatory vaccinations using the current measles outbreak as justification. The ‘anti-vaxxers’, as they have been called, claim that their children are the only ones at risk. Those vaccinated should not fear being infected.

That last statement, too, is false logic. First, no inoculation is 100% perfect. Some will get sick regardless. The inoculation will not work for some. Some, whose immunizations work, can still be a carrier. There is some justification for inoculation. However, the final choice still belongs to parents, not government.

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The current buzz today is the straw poll conducted on the Drudge Report yesterday. Scott Walker was the clear leader of the possible GOP candidates with 46% of the votes. Ted Cruz was second with 14% and Ron Paul third with 12%.

The poll is meaningless, of course, but it did create a storm of discussion on the ‘net! For me, it was a toss-up between Walker and Cruz. I’m more aligned, politically, with Ted Cruz. On the other hand, Scott Walker has proven to be a fighter and the GOP needs a fighter. There are none in Washington, DC.

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Friday Follies for January 23, 2015

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Under the tag line of, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” comes this tidbit from Politico. Given their continuing failures in reporting news, CNN is in discussion with changing Anderson Cooper’s 360 program to a game show. We all know that CNN has not been a news channel since the first Gulf War when their lead anchor, Bernard Shaw, had hysterics in Bagdad at the start of the Gulf War I air war. I suppose it’s only reasonable that CNN comes out of the closet and admits it hasn’t been a news channel and moves on.

CNN developing political game show

By DYLAN BYERS, 1/21/15 2:42 PM EST

CNN is producing a new political game show hosted by Anderson Cooper, TVNewser reports.

The show, which is set to air on Presidents’ Day, will be a quiz-style program focused on presidential politics. If the show is a success, CNN is likely to produce future episodes.

We’ve reached out to CNN for more details and will update here if and when we hear back.

CNN, like MSNBC, has drifted so far from reality that nothing they do now surprises me.

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The Jubilee has come! Eric Holder actually changes DoJ policy in favor of the states. The FedGov will no longer usurp state and local asset forfeiture cases. In many of those cases, the state and local law was more restrictive than federal law. The DoJ would takeover cases then give local PDs a cut-of-the-action. Theft by government order. I’ve never liked asset forfeiture until the accused has actually been convicted and sentenced. Even then the laws are too broad; seizing accounts and assets unrelated to the actual crime(s).

Holder Has Made It Harder for Federal Government to Legally Seize Your Property

Jason Snead / / Andrew Kloster / /

In a stunning announcement last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Department of Justice would immediately stop “adopting” state civil asset forfeiture cases. Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement came exactly one week after leaders on Capitol Hill called on him to halt the controversial program as a step toward broader reform of the nation’s civil forfeiture system.

Before today’s announcement, federal agencies could take over, or “adopt,” forfeiture cases from local or state law enforcement agencies. In other words, state or local law enforcement personnel would seize property and then turn it over to the federal government to process.

Pursuant to agreements with the federal government, once the property was successfully forfeited in federal court, the originating state or local agency got a portion of the proceeds, potentially as high as 80 percent. That money had to be used for law enforcement operations, placing it beyond the control of local governments and state legislators.

The program became the subject of controversy for effectively allowing local agencies to circumvent restrictive state laws in favor of the potentially more lucrative federal route, raising serious federalism and good government concerns. Even where states had strong procedural safeguards for property owners or limitations on the use of forfeiture funds, law enforcement could partner with the federal government and use federal rules to seize property and make use of the profits.

Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., and John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote that “these seizures might circumvent state forfeiture law restrictions, create improper incentives on the part of state and local law enforcement, and unnecessarily burden our federal authorities.”

Apparently responding to these concerns, the attorney general’s new policy bars federal authorities from adopting local or state seizures of “vehicles, valuables, cash and other monetary instruments.” The AG was able to make this change unilaterally because the statutes underlying federal civil forfeiture made the equitable sharing payments optional. The Department of Justice has the authority to craft, and to change, the rules of the program. The Treasury Department, which operates its own forfeiture fund, announced its forfeiture operations will conform to the same guidelines as those laid out by Holder.

The article continues with an explanation of exceptions under Holder’s new directive. All-in-all, it’s a step in the right direction.

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Ya just gotta love Dave Clark. Who’s he? He’s the black, conservative, Milwaukee County Sheriff who won his last election despite the efforts of liberals who hate black conservatives. He does not hesitate to make his opinions known. This time the subject was Al Sharpton.

David Clarke, Wisconsin sheriff: ‘Al Sharpton ought to go back into the gutter he came from’

By Cheryl K. Chumley – The Washington Times – Thursday, January 22, 2015
http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2014/12/10/david-clarke_s878x473.jpg?de75613b37228017a9f5cb3e6ff07328005a3223

Milwaukee’s tough-talking black sheriff, David Clarke, argued this week that white Americans have “made great strides” in healing race relations, and that sooner or later they’re going to grow tired of having their noses “rubbed in the past sins of slavery.”

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke didn’t pull any punches in his assessment of the Rev. Al Sharpton — who vowed to keep fighting for justice for slain Ferguson teen Michael Brown, despite the feds’ decision to drop a civil rights investigation — and characterized him on national television as less than intelligent and unworthy of respect.

“The grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, got it right,” Sheriff Clarke said, during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “Officer [Darren] Wilson has been exonerated. The thing I want to know is how does he get his reputation back?”

Sheriff Clarke then directed anger at Mr. Sharpton, who spoke sharply in the wake of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision not to prosecute Mr. Wilson, a former police officer, on civil rights charges.

Sic’em Dave!

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Former Speaker of the House, Tom Delay.

Tom Delay may be out of Congress, but the libs failed to defeat him. The Texas Supreme Court ended the Travis County (Austin, TX) democrat prosecutor’s vendetta against Delay. He’s back now with a review of Obama’s SOTU speech earlier this week.

In Obama’s speech, a conservative call to arms

By Tom DeLay – – Thursday, January 22, 2015

I found President Obama’s State of the Union address this week infuriating — and exhilarating.

It was infuriating for all the usual reasons. For all the talk that this time things would be different, in the first State of the Union speech since the American people repudiated his entire agenda we got the same old Mr. Obama, arrogant, disdainful, defiant of the new Republican majorities and of the voters who sent them to Washington. Had there been a referee on the premises, he would have thrown a flag for taunting.

It was perhaps the most in-your-face speech of this kind that I have ever heard, and I felt for the Republican lawmakers who had to sit through it, knowing that the television cameras were ready to pick up any scowl, eye roll or failure to join a “spontaneous” standing ovation. (It must have been especially tough for House Speaker John Boehner, who had to preserve his dignity and remain polite while Joe Biden was bouncing up and down like a manic jack-in-the box behind the president.)

The president either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that his party badly lost the elections. He’s not listening to the American people, as was evident in the very first minutes of his speech when he laid out the same old tired agenda that dragged down the Democrats in the first place. When President Clinton got a similar repudiation in the 1990s, at least he had the smarts to cooperate — sometimes kicking and screaming — with our new Republican majorities to get items like welfare reform passed. Things worked out so well that now Mr. Clinton brags about the things we forced him to accept.

That’s clearly not Mr. Obama’s way. What we got instead was one of the most misguided, frankly unconstitutional speeches ever given by an American president. The president called for universal child care, gender pay equity, guaranteed paid sick leave for workers, a higher minimum wage, free community college and new rules to make labor unions stronger — not one of which is the responsibility of the federal government under the Constitution. Then he laid out all the things he’s ready to veto if he doesn’t get his way — not exactly the bipartisan outreach that his advisers said was coming.

Even more infuriating — if possible — was Mr. Obama’s boasting about how far we have allegedly come under his watch. He bragged of bringing down the federal deficit in recent years when it was his uncontrolled — and unconstitutional — spending and taxing that ran up the deficit and debt in the first place. The official unemployment rate is down, but only because 90 million Americans have grown so discouraged that they’ve dropped out of the labor market altogether.

The president says he wants to turn his attention to stagnant wages and income inequality, apparently oblivious to the fact that wages aren’t going up precisely because there is a vast army of nonworkers out there saturating the job market. And income inequality will never be “fixed” by taxing the job producers more and giving the money to people who aren’t working. That approach has failed everywhere it has been tried.

The president’s victory lap was even more incredible when you consider the full plate of crises beyond our borders, from Russia and Iran to Yemen, Nigeria and Syria — the easily foreseen consequences of an administration that brags of “leading from behind.” The president claims the “shadow of crisis” has passed, but that’s not true to anyone who has been paying attention.

So why the exhilaration, you ask?

The more I listened to the speech, the more I was convinced that the president is handing the Republicans an incredible opportunity. He’s not backing down from his disastrous progressive agenda, and that means conservatives cannot afford to back down from theirs.

New Sen. Joni Ernst struck a nice, hopeful tone in her official rebuttal speech, but building the Keystone pipeline and getting more help to vets is not a full agenda. The joint House-Senate Republican retreat last week was another missed opportunity to pre-empt the president’s liberal agenda, to put a true constitutional conservative program on the table and force this president to react.

But Mr. Obama’s speech made it crystal clear that Republicans have no alternative to confrontation, a clash that should last through the 2016 election. Facing a delusional and defiant president, this is no time for conservatives to play small-ball. We need a bold agenda that presents an alternative to the left. We need real, pro-growth tax reform. We need to repeal Obamacare — now. We need to slash spending. We need to defund the president’s illegal executive actions, starting with his amnesty for illegal immigrants. We have to show we respect life and traditional values.

There can be no debate about it any more. Barack Obama has made it unmistakably clear he wants a fight.

We should give him one.

Well said, Tom. Well said.

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Retaliation

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If you thought the GOP establishment would accept the flood of new conservatives in Congress, you were wrong. McConnell, et. al., is already planning to remove leading conservative Senators. Ted Cruz is too strong in Texas, but Mike Lee of Utah is perceived to be weaker.

They’re Coming for Mike Lee

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  December 22nd, 2014 at 12:50 PM

It is extremely notable that Manu Raju of the Politico has written that the establishment intends to destroy Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)See Full Scorecard97%. Raju serves as the court stenographer for the Senate GOP leadership. His pieces are routinely littered with the conventional wisdom and talking points of the Senate GOP leadership. He has more than once anticipated Senate GOP leadership strategy based on their conversations with him.

So when Manu Raju says the establishment intends to go on offense against the tea party by beating Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)97% in the Utah Republican Primary, we can be sure Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)67%, the NRSC, etc. will be stepping aside and failing to give Lee the support they gave Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS)51%, etc.

Of note, the story focuses on Jon Huntsman, Sr., who remains well respected in Utah. Huntsman, you will recall, is the man who spread the rumors about Herman Cain in 2012, in an effort to help his son, Jon Huntsman the lesser, run for President. All he managed to accomplish was taking out Herman Cain and getting his granddaughter an MSNBC show.
But Huntsman is clearly planning on destroying Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)97% to gain a tea party scalp and the GOP establishment in D.C. clearly plans on standing aside to let it happen.

You can read the entire article by following this link.

One interesting portion of the article is the involvement of the Huntsman family. John Huntsman was a candidate for President in 2012. As the campaign progressed, his views aligned him more with Obama and the democrats that with any of the remaining GOP candidates. In the end, it became clear that Huntsman’s purpose in the campaign was the disruption of the other GOP candidates instead of a true run for the Presidency. With the Huntsman family deep pockets, Mike Lee will be the underdog in funding his re-election to the Senate.

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Bill de Blasio and Al Sharpton have been accused with fomenting the tension that led to the murders of two New York police officers. When New York Mayor de Blasio attended a memorial service for the two officers, many of the officers attending turned their backs to the Mayor.

Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said, “They [de Blasio and Sharpton] have blood on their hands.”  The statement appeared in an article appearing in The American Thinker. De Blasio’s relations with the NYPD continue to deteriorate. With growing pro-police pressure, de Blasio attempted to step back and issued a statement pleading for a cessation of the anti-police protests. Al Sharpton, one of the protest leaders, refused.

The growing disruption is a creation of the media and of charlatans like Sharpton. They claim Eric Garner was choked to death while being arrested. He was not. Eric Garner died of natural causes, a heart attack, an hour after being arrested due to his own health issues. You won’t learn that in the media. No, you have to review the coroner’s reports because the media ignored that vital piece of information. The Coroner blamed the cops before the Grand Jury, but when the report was examined, it said otherwise.

The misinformation by the media and their liberal accomplices are slowly coming to light. Generations of Americans have been mislead by the liberal controlled media. Some members of the black community are beginning to realize they’ve been lied to for decades. Follow the link. It is an interesting read.

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GOP funds Obamacare and Amnesty

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Despite claims to the contrary, the GOP establishment pushed through the House a massive funding bill that funded Obamacare and Amnesty. As best that I can find, EVERY Missouri Representative voted for this. They all issued a press release this morning that was almost identical. Every press release was formulated from a common talking point Just compare Vicky Hartzler’s press release with that of Sam Graves, Jason Smith and and the other members of the GOP delegation. They’re almost identical.

And every one of them lied! I’m so mad I could bite nails.

Let’s term limit the entire Missouri GOP House—replace every one of them. Our Senator, Roy Blunt issued the same platitude. He needs to go, too.

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