Monthly Archives: January 2013

Forward!

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Today’s post title was Obama’s campaign theme in the last election. We are now in Obama’s second term and what is the headline across the internet? Our GDP—that is our Gross Domestic Product, the sum of all our country produces is down 1/10th of a percent.  It’s the first contraction of our nation’s economy since…the beginning of Obama’s first term. After five years of Obama’s rule…administration, our economy has made no progress and we’re worse off than we were during G. W. Bush’s last year in office.

The democrats believe that shrinkage is a good thing.

In response to the news today that the economy contracted -.1 percent in the final quarter of last year, Democrats are touting the claim that this is “the best-looking contraction in U.S. GDP you’ll ever see.” The claim was originally made by chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics Paul Ashworth.

“The drag from defense spending and inventories is a one-off. The rest of the report is all encouraging,” Ashworth also claimed.

The claim was quickly seized upon by Democrats, looking to share good news about a contracting economy. — The Weekly Standard.

If Ashworth is correct, the downturn was due to a decrease in military spending, what is likely to come when Sequestration fully kicks in? More shrinkage and more job losses.

Job losses?  Yes. Along with this report is another one. The jobless claims went up too. After the usual “readjustment” in a week or two, those figures could reach the 400,000 mark again.

Instead of moving forward, we moving backward and the dems think that’s a good thing. The Luddite wing of their eco-wackos must be ecstatic. Less is More! Let’s retreat to the good old days before nasty technology ruined everything. Of course they conveniently refuse to acknowledge that the nation cannot exist today using 16th Century technology—those years of plague and starvation.

I noticed that in Colorado, some students were forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic. Perhaps the target century for the dems is the 7th Century, the days of Mohammad, instead of the 16th.

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The resistance to the Obama/Feinstein gun-grabbing continues. Various states have legislation to block any anti-2nd Amendment actions by the Feds. Wyoming’s law has passed their legislative House. A similar law is Arizona has passed out of committee. Missouri has a similar bill pending in committee as well as bills to allow teachers with a CCW license to carry in school.

The dems retreated to their usual theatrics. Senator Feinstein had a carefully scripted dog and pony show include numerous “evil” military-styled weapons.

Republicans tried to counter these cheap theatrics. As freshman Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas explained, “Emotions in Washington often lead to bad policy,” and the Senate often “operates in a fact-free zone.” Mr. Cruz and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina wanted to bring actual firearms to the hearing to demonstrate the absurdity of the laws currently being proposed.

Unlike Mrs. Feinstein, who had four local and federal law enforcement agencies aid her bringing rifles that are banned in the District to her Senate news conference, the Republicans were not able to do so.

So Mr. Cruz used a photo of a standard wooden hunting rifle and held up a plastic pistol grip to demonstrate how one irrelevant part transformed the item into a scary and creepy “assault weapon” under Mrs. Feinstein’s definition.

Day One in the legislative battle over the nation’s firearms laws ended with proof liberals will say or do anything to gut the Second Amendment. — The Washington Times.

Durbin and others directed their questions to the usual hackneyed subjects. Their pet Baltimore Police Chief said it was “scary” and “creepy” answering calls without knowing what’s behind the door. He ignored the fact that that situation would still exists for every domestic disturbance call they would make. A gun ban would not change that situation.

The real issue for the democrats is they don’t have all their own members, those from Red or Purple states, in line. If Feinstein’s bill every came to the Senate floor, they have no guarantee of getting 50 votes.

Speaking of 2nd Amendment issues, the Eastern Sporting and Outdoor Show, scheduled to open February 2nd, has been postponed. Reed Exhibitions, the British company managing the show has refused to rescind their no “military styled rifle” and hi-cap magazine ban. So many vendors have dropped out, at their great financial cost, that the show will not open as scheduled.

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Wednesday’s Words

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The big topic in the media these last few days is “immigration reform.” First let’s lay out the facts. It’s not about immigration and it’s not reform—it’s AMNESTY! It’s just another attempt to defraud the American public into believing more liberal lies—with the conscious assistance of some ‘Pubs, Marko Rubio for one.

Rubio made the conservative media rounds yesterday, Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin and others presenting his side of the issue.  The problem is that it isn’t Obama’s side. Rubio stated that security must come first. Good, I’m glad he said that. Unfortunately, it’s a fantasy. It doesn’t mean that border security will actually happen.  There was supposed to be an electronic fence built on the US/Mexican border. It, too, was a prerequisite in the last immigration reform bill. I’m still looking for that fence. From what I’ve been able to determine, only a few miles of the fence was ever built before the whole project was abandoned.

Rubio said the criminal immigrants would be excluded. Evidently he’s forgotten the definition of “illegal.” All those who are here illegally are criminals and they continue in that criminality by staying here. By Rubio’s logic that would mean that all aliens currently living in the US illegally would be excluded. I don’t think that is what he meant.

Legal immigrants, as a condition of being given a Green Card, sign a statement pledging that the immigrant will not accept any public assistance, nor public monies for a period not less that five years—no welfare, no Medicaid, no food-stamps, nothing.

Under Rubio’s plan, there are no similar prohibitions. The illegals would be given social security cards, driver’s license, and be eligible for welfare, food-stamps, Medicaid, plus—the Earned Income Tax Credit—a negative income tax if they earn below the poverty level. Many (most?) of these illegals do live below the poverty level. They will receive money from the government in the form of a tax-refund, a refund on taxes you, not the illegal, paid.

I’m against the whole plan. I would prefer we enforce existing law. We wouldn’t have to round up the illegals if we made it impossible, perhaps just difficult, for them to be parasites on the American public.  They’d soon leave for easier pickings. There is a reason why they are called ILLEGAL aliens.

Here is a LINK to other writers with opinions on this so-called immigration reform.

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I just heard on the radio that a Missouri legislator is pushing for gun safety classes in schools. It is the NRA’s Eddie Eagle project. A number of Missouri schools already have Eddie Eagle classes. This legislator, Dan Brown, wants to make it mandatory for all Missouri schools. The radio newsitem triggered another memory from my childhood.

I previously blogged about guns in schools in my posts, PROTECTED, and MR. HELFRITCH. There was another instance when guns in schools was the topic of the day.

When I was in the third grade, as I remember, one of the local farmers shot himself in the leg with a .22 rifle while climbing over a fence.  It was the talk of our rural community. My father was on the school board and the incident was mentioned. One of the board members suggested that we have a gun-handling session for the schoolkids to make sure they all knew how to cross fences safely and were taught general gun safety procedures. Mr. Helfritch was nominated and after a quick phone call he agreed.

A week later, all the school kids, from the youngest in the first grade through those in the eighth grade, boys and girls, and all the teachers, gathered at the rear of the school yard where an old rusty fence separated the school yard from a field. It was a small school. There were only around 80 pupils in attendance in most years.

Mr. Helfritch taught three grades at a time showing how to check to see if the rifle was empty, how to unload it if it wasn’t, to empty and place the rifle on the other side of the fence before crossing and to only cross when those steps were finished.

Cooper’s Rules hadn’t been written at that time, but Mr. Helfritch wrote some of his own that closely matched those later created by Col. Jeff Cooper. He spent another hour with everyone reviewing his rules, why they are important and some examples of the consequences of failing to abide by those rules. There were some parents present during this class and I remember one saying that he’d learned some new things during that class.

I don’t know why the classes didn’t continue. Perhaps, with the exception of the incoming first graders, all the students had been trained. But time passed. Mr. Helfritch left for another teaching position, there was a new school board—my father didn’t run again and there was a new Principal with different priorities. I do know that none of those students trained by Mr. Helfritch ever had a gun incident or injury.

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Phbbbt!

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Today is turning out to be a dud—content wise.  Nothing is coming to mind and nothing in my daily newsbox is striking accord.  If I could, I’d just roll over and go back to sleep.  If I had that option.

Check back tomorrow.

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Why am I a conservative instead of a democrat?

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I chose today’s blog title purposely. I excluded the label Republican. I am not an establishment republican, I am a believer and follower of republicanism. There is a difference. In that same vein, I used the term democrat instead of liberalism. In this case I’m referring to the classical democrat philosophy of the mid-20th Century instead of the current democrat philosophy of liberalism. Again there is a difference. You’ll also notice I use the term “democrat” instead of “democratic.” There’s nothing democratic in the democrat party.

My parents were democrats in the classical sense and members of the democrat party. My mother was an elementary school teacher in the days before the infiltration of unionism into the NEA. My father was a coal miner. He and his father were members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). One of the more powerful unions during the first half of the 20th Century.

My parents…I’m trying to find the correct verb…adored…no that’s too strong…respected…no that’s too weak. Let us say both understood and believed in classical democratic philosophy best defined by Yves R. Simon. I remember my mother talking about “Dr. Simon.” She once traveled to Springfield, IL, to hear him speak at an Illinois education conference. I went with her.

I think, in those days, I attended more teacher’s meetings, conferences, conventions that most active teachers. Dad worked, my older sister was in college and at that time my grandmother did not yet live with us.

At that young age, I was steeped in democrat philosophy. It would be natural for me to be a democrat party supporter when I was older.

It didn’t work. Nor, surprisingly, did it work with my older sister. She graduated from college with a teaching degree and eventually became President of her local American Federation of Teachers union—as a Republican. In the 1950s and early 1960s, education and teachers unions were conservative.

Why did we change? What happened? A short answer was the events of the latter half of the 1960s. The real answer is more involved.

Through the first half of the 20th Century, schools taught history, real history about the Founding Fathers, about Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison. Because we lived in Illinois, Lincoln was included. 

Lincoln, at that time, outside of Illinois, was not viewed all that favorably. That view could be understandable in the southern states but it was also true in many of the northern and western states as well.

The common view was that Lincoln violated the Constitution. He waived Habeas Corpus, imprisoned political enemies without trial nor charges levied, and he violated the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and the 10th Amendments in the Bill of Rights. The excuse that Lincoln had to violate the Constitution in order to save it was not universally accepted.

The national culture at the end of World War II, those called the “greatest generation,” was conservative.  A conservative today would have felt at home in any democrat household. The democrat party leadership, however, was already tainted by the Progressive philosophy of the early socialists of the Wilson era and those brought into government by both Roosevelts.

Everyone was a “bitter clinger of their Bibles and guns” as Obama labeled us. If those voters were brought forward sixty years, there wouldn’t be a single democrat politician in office.

By the time my wife and I graduated from college in 1969, the liberal infiltration of universities and education was a fact. The transition of education with a conservative philosophy to a socialist philosophy took less than a decade. Many believe the transition was the culmination of long-term subversion by the USSR. There are many documents released after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s to support that view.

Returning to the question why I, my wife, whose parents were also democrats, and my sister turned out to be republicans instead of democrats is an easy answer.  We didn’t change. The democrat party, infiltrated by socialists, communists if you will, and progressivism, changed.

Modern researchers claim that if John F. Kennedy was alive today, he’d be a republican. Maybe. I’m not so sure of that but I do agree with his statements and actions at the time of his presidency were more conservative than democrats like to admit.

The core difference between the two parties in the 1950s was a single concept. The democrats, following a philosophy similar to that of Simon’s believed in a top-down government—the primacy of the federal system. Republicans on the other hand, believed in a bottom-up government—the primacy of the individual and of the states.  That was, and still is to a large extent, the single division between today’s republicans and the views of the establishment Republican party and the democrats.

The final answer, as I said above, is that we did not change. The political parties did. We stayed faithful to the views taught to us by our parents and by our educational system.

We can correct the drift towards more federalism, more statism, more socialism, but to do so we must first reclaim our educational system, remove the taint of political correctness and teach the truth about our history, not the liberal pablum taught today—in the few remaining areas where history and government is still taught.

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The Worm has Turned

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This quote is said to have been created by Shakespeare in in Henry VI, Part 3, where Lord Clifford urges the king against ‘lenity and harmful pity, saying:

To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?
Not to the beast that would usurp their den.
The smallest worm will turn being trodden on,
And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.

Another, more current reference is this one from Funtrivia that explains the phrase in this manner.

“Worm” is a common term for ‘dragon.’ In fairy tale terms, the flying dragon spewing fire would ravage fields and villages. To be in the dragon’s path resulted in inescapable destruction. What a relief if it changed directions.

Some political worms have turned recently against Obama. The first was the reversal of an ACLU suit in Massachusetts.

In this instance, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) received federal funds to provide services to trafficking victims under the auspices of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The contract between the USCCB and HHS contained provisions that the USCCB would not provide contraception nor abortion services The ACLU sued the Council of Bishops citing a conflict of the “Establishment” clause—the absence of contraception and abortion services in the contract between USCCB and HHS supported the anti-contraception and anti-abortion doctrine of the Catholic Church thus violating the Establishment Clause.

They lost.

A federal district court had sided with the ACLU. The USCCB appealed. The First Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the case and decided for the USCCB stating there was no violation of the Establishment Clause.

The ruling effectively negates forcing religious organizations with doctrine against contraception and abortion from being forced into providing those services not specifically required by contract. The ACLU argued the terms of any such contract between federal agencies and religious organizations could not exempt those services. This ruling may have significant affect to provisions of Obamacare.

The second instance of reversal to Obama’s extra-legal acts concerns his recess appointments to several federal agencies. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments last year to the National Labor Relations Board.

Court: Obama appointments are unconstitutional

By SAM HANANEL,  Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill vacancies on a labor relations panel, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday.

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The unanimous decision is an embarrassing setback for the president, who made the appointments after Senate Republicans spent months blocking his choices for an agency they contended was biased in favor of unions.

The ruling also throws into question Obama’s recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cordray’s appointment, also made under the recess circumstance, has been challenged in a separate case.

Obama claims he acted properly in the case of the NLRB appointments because the Senate was away for the holidays on a 20-day recess. But the three-judge panel ruled that the Senate technically stayed in session when it was gaveled in and out every few days for so-called “pro forma” sessions.

GOP lawmakers used the tactic – as Democrats have in the past as well – to specifically to prevent the president from using his recess power. GOP lawmakers contend the labor board has been too pro-union in its decisions. They had also vigorously opposed the nomination of Cordray.

It’s gratifying that not every judge is a liberal rubber-stamp. We need, from time to time, the assurance that in some areas the Rule of Law still exists and is honored in the courts.

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No post today

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I hate winter. I’m always cold—even sitting next to a space heater in my office, and I ache continuously. So much that sleep is getting rare. I think if I added up my sleep last night, I may have gotten 2-2 1/2 hours at best.

When I’m fatigued, short of sleep, nothing seems appropriate for a post as you’ve seen already once this week.  Consequently, I’ll pass for today. Tomorrow will be better.

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Another vendor gone…a current example of unintended consequences

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For those of you not of the “gunny” subculture or perhaps only on the periphery of that culture probably aren’t aware of the current controversy over a major, regional gun and sports show, the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, PA. The show averages 200,000 attendees making it one of the largest in the country. The show is managed by the same group, Reed Exhibitions, that managed the famous S.H.O.T. show that just finished in Las Vegas, NV.

It all started with this statement.

A statement on the Eastern Sports And Outdoor Show website says, “As a hunting-focused event, we welcome exhibitors who wish to showcase products and firearms that serve the traditional needs of the sport. Clearly, we strongly support the 2nd Amendment. However, this year we have made the decision not to include certain products that in the current climate may attract negative attention that would distract from the strong focus on hunting and fishing at this family oriented event and possibly disrupt the broader positive experience of our guests.” — FOX43 News

Those “certain products” are AR type rifles, the EBRs, Evil Black Rifles so demagogued by the media, and large capacity magazines. The response by vendors was rapid and unambiguous. The first vendor that I was aware of withdrawing was Cabelas. That vendor was quickly followed by Ruger, Smith & Wesson, the NRA, and others. The list continues to grow.

Many of those vendors who dropped from the show are local to the area. For them, the show is a major marketing event, allowing them to meet more actual and potential customers than any other venue. It is an expensive decision for those small dealers to make. But, make it they did.

Reed Exhibitions decided to cave to pressure from the anti-gun lobby and the liberal agenda to disarm America. They made a tragic, strategic mistake.

The local response should not surprising in the heavily Blue eastern Pennsylvania area. Unionism and democrat politics are the norm but perhaps there is more Red in the populace than the liberal pols and organizations believe. In a sense these continued attacks on guns and the 2nd Amendment strengthens resistance to the FedGov and liberal policies. I just wish it wasn’t necessary. I would not be surprised to see another manager for next years S.H.O.T. show. Gun dealers and the NSSF who sponsor the S.H.O.T. show have long memories.

Just another day under the weight of gangster government.

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