Archive for the 'Obama Administration' Category

So Chuck Hagel is confirmed as Secretary of Defense for the United States of America.  I don’t have a long, complicated assessment of what will follow, or why Hagel is a horrible choice for mowing my lawn, much less being SecDef.

But contrary to the notes I have received, the blog entries I’ve read, and the speeches I have heard the Senators make on how much he concerns anyone with a lick of common sense, it doesn’t really matter whether Hagel was confirmed or not.  It didn’t matter with Secretary of State Kerry either.

Anyone in this post will be implementing Obama’s foreign policy, and that makes for a very dangerous world for some time to come.  But it is noteworthy that Hagel acted so foolishly in front of the Senate, like a bumbling clown.

Together with Kerry, Obama has his insane clown posse, and they will do his bidding for an insane clown foreign policy.

I’m glad that my son is out of the Marine Corps.  The battle is now for the homeland.

Corner:

Congressman Steve Stockman (R., Texas) accused President Obama’s gun-control campaign of using Twitter bots to flood Republican lawmakers and give the illusion of widespread support for the president. “Obama’s anti-gun campaign is a fraud,” Stockman said. ”Obama’s supporters are panicking and willing to do anything to create the appearance of popular support, even if it means trying to defraud Congress.”

Last week, organizers told Obama supporters to tweet at their representatives with the message: “I’m 1 of the 92 percent of Americans who support universal background checks. #WeDemandAVote.” When Stockman reviewed the Twitter messages he received, he noticed that more than half were from what appeared to be spam accounts …

Stockman noticed that these “fake, computer-generated spambots” used the default Twitter avatar, had tweeted once (to Stockman), followed only a few people, and had one follower: Brad Schenck, Obama’s former digital strategist. Other GOP lawmakers, such as New York’s Michael Grimm and Illinois’s Adam Kinzinger, are being flooded with similar messages from seemingly fake accounts.

I’ve said it before.  The polls saying that people want more gun control are lies.  The GOP is full of idiots if they believe them, and also if they believe that the polls are any cover once primary time begins.  We gun owners are a fairly sophisticated bunch.  And we never forget.  Ever.

So, Obama’s anti-gun program is a fraud.  Sort of like … Obama is a fraud.

The Washington Times:

Bob Beckel, co-host of “The Five” on Fox News, doubted the need for women to carry guns on college campus as protection because rape rarely takes place at institutions of higher learning anymore.

Mr. Beckel said, according to a report by The Blaze: “When was the last time you heard about a rape on campus?”

Another co-host, Eric Bolling, said rape on campus was “rampant,” The Blaze reported, and said denying women the right to carry at college was tantamount to an open invitation to criminals.

Co-host Dana Perino agreed with Mr. Bolling, that rape is a huge issue for women attending college. Mr Beckel wasn’t swayed.

“Date rape, yeah that’s one thing,” he said, according to The Blaze. “But you gonna take a gun out and shoot your date?”

Politico reports Mr. Beckel subsequently apologized for his remarks.

“It’s a horrible, horrendous issue. Simply put, rape is rape. Whether it’s date rape or it’s somebody coming in off the campus trying to rape somebody else,” he said, according to Politico. “I just want to straighten the record out on that. I simply was trying to make — there was not a distinction to make here. It simply was that date rape is rape, and that is, by any other definition, rape is rape.”

The great thing about extemporaneous speaking is its honesty, regardless of the subsequent triangulations.  The democrats really are the party that supports rape.

Kurt Hofmann has a must-read article on the connection between gun confiscations and gun registration (or so-called universal background check).  It’s an issue I have been discussing for some time.  Kurt begins his article this way.

St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner is a frequent and vocal critic of the NRA (see here and here for recent examples), often wondering if the organization’s leadership is merely naively optimistic, à la Neville Chamberlain, in its dealings with the forcible citizen disarmament extremists, or actively collaborationist, à la Vidkun Quisling. Honesty requires, however, acknowledgement of effective steps the NRA does take in defense of gun rights.

Read the rest at Examiner.  Taking off on this honesty though, I have also been a critic of the NRA before, begging, as it were, the NRA to put its full force behind educating the public to the dangers of universal background checks as a pretext for and necessary precondition to a national gun registry, which is itself a precondition for gun confiscations.

Today I received a flyer in the mail from the NRA where they said exactly that.  The NRA might be frustrating at times, but they are still the largest and most powerful gun rights organization in America, and it matters what they say.  I don’t partake in pitting one organization against another.  That’s a loser’s proposition, and it’s what the enemy wants us to do.  I sincerely appreciate each organization that protects gun rights and stands against the totalitarian state.  I will correct them when they wander, and praise them when they do well.

Moving on to Wayne, he is under criticism these days, most notably for his belief in a coming apocalypse and the prudence of guns to address it at a personal level.

National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre is again under fire after penning an op-ed that claimed Americans need guns to fight off rampant gangs, terrorists and psychotics.

LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, claimed the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy showed what the future would hold, and why every law-abiding citizen needs to arm themselves.

“We saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia,” he wrote in the Daily Caller. “Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.”

Immediately LaPierre was attacked. Former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough said, “He has lost his mind,” on his MSNBC show Morning Joe, while President Barack Obama’s strategist David Plouffe called the NRA head “delusional.”

In his argument against new gun control laws, LaPierre described a world where Americans would be defenseless without guns and fall prey to everything from terrorists and Latin American drug gangs to civil unrest and looters in the wake of natural disasters. He said Americans would, in effect, be crazy not to arm themselves against the coming calamity and to rise up in protection of their Second Amendment rights.

Well, Joe Scarborough is a moron and so the balance of what he said is unimportant, but let’s consider the state of the union for a moment.

Pakistan is now our enemy.  We are withdrawing forces from Afghanistan after having lost the campaign because we wanted to wage nation-building instead of war.  Libya is now a disaster, and we left our men to perish in Benghazi with forces available to respond to their need.  Iran is headed towards a nuclear weapon and Israel is alone in her quest for self preservation.  War is coming to the Middle East, and we won’t be energy independent when it happens mostly because of the EPA.

Russia is reasserting itself unopposed in its “near abroad,” and China owns 1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasury Securities.  Our Southern border may as well not exist, and MS-13 is in every major city in the U.S., and most smaller cities, while some in the border patrol and law enforcement across America are bought off with drug money.  The cartels South of the border have morphed into transnational warlords who kidnap, extort, murder, traffic, and torture, and they’re moving North.

We’re in horrible national debt, and our unfunded liabilities reach a staggering $87 trillion.  Within ten years, the interest on the national debt will reach $10 trillion per year, the unemployment rate is still hovering around 8% or higher, the under-employment rate is still around 18% or higher, a recovery is nowhere in sight and won’t be until we get spending and entitlements under control, half of the American people don’t pay federal taxes, 47 million people rely on food stamps and that roll is growing at the rate of 11,000 per day, and the U.S. Marines are set to lose 20,000 men.

We are too broke to refuel our aircraft carriers, the administration has – for now – gotten away with walking guns across the Southern border in an effort to bolster support for gun control in America, food prices may soon soar, and amidst it all, the administration is working hard on that currently critical need to take guns away from the American people, which would of course be the catalyst for fourth generation warfare in America.

I think Wayne is on solid ground here.  In short, good flyer in the mail, good call on a former ally turned enemy, and keep it up.  As for the apocalypse, I don’t have to be told by anyone.  I’m doing my best to prepare for it.  Are you?

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike Vanderboegh for the link.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to David Codrea for the link.

UPDATE #3: Thanks to David Hardy for the link.

David Codrea scoops the story (before the MSM) on a lawsuit just filed by the parents on behalf of deceased Immigration And Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata.  I don’t blame them.  I wouldn’t let this go either.  It’s because of corruption that guns were walked across the border in the failed U.S. attempt to side with drug lords in their war against each other while also giving the state an excuse to enact new gun laws.

The corruption might be exposed by this lawsuit, although whether this brings it about won’t effect long term probabilities.  Long term, I just don’t believe that it’s possible to hide the truth.  The sooner everyone confesses, the better it will be, but everyone’s role will ultimately be made known.  It’s just a matter of time and light.

From Instapundit:

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Why Are The Feds Loading Up On So Much Ammo? “According to one estimate, just since last spring DHS has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. That’s sufficient firepower to shoot every American about five times. Including illegal immigrants. To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, DHS is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war.”

Wicked fascists.  If you’re in this line of work, you ought to go home tonight, fall on your knees, beg God for forgiveness and then turn in your resignation.  You will answer for your sin of totalitarianism one day.  God does not approve of your world view, and He manages the economy of His creation by spheres of influence and authority, the Church, State and Family, all accountable to Him and none with the authority to override the other’s domain.  You have usurped God’s natural order.

Shame on you, now or in eternity.  Beware.  God will not be mocked.

Prior: So Why Does DHS Need 1.6 Billion Rounds Of Handgun Ammunition?

From Joseph Farah:

How do you know the left is firmly in charge of the political and cultural establishment in America?

Because now they want to ban guns.

As a former leftist revolutionary during my misguided youth, I recall with crystal clarity when the radical left of the 1960s brazenly bore arms in public, boasted about firearms training, stockpiled arms and ammo and even engaged in armed violence against police.

The Black Panther Party, originally, by the way, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, is a case in point. The organization, led by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, were often referred to in the ’60s as “the vanguard of the revolution.”

They were known for ambushing police. Newton himself, after being freed from prison for the killing of Oakland police officer John Frey, boasted of murdering him. James Forman, Black Panther Party “minister of foreign affairs,” called for blowing up police stations, killing Southern governors and mayors and murdering 500 cops. They took full advantage of the Second Amendment and California laws that permitted the carrying of loaded rifles and shotguns in public, as long as they were not concealed or pointed at anyone. In May 1967, the Panthers literally invaded, fully armed, the State Assembly of the California Legislature. Later they organized an armed march on the state Capitol when lawmakers introduced legislation banning the carrying of loaded weapons in public.

All of this made them the heroes of the left. So-called “civil rights attorneys” like Charles Garry and William Kunstler and the American Civil Liberties Union defended them for their brazen calls for armed struggle, armed attacks and armed intimidation tactics.

But that was then, and this is now.

[ … ]

The only difference between now and then is who is running things.

[ … ]

The New Left, as it was known back then, worshipped firearms.

The new, new left does, too – as long as it maintains a monopoly on them and state power.

Yes, the left still loves guns.  There is no other reason for the fawning acceptance of the vulgar SWAT raid tactics in which innocent men like Mr. Eurie Stamps get shot and killed.  These tactics are repeated all across America every day.

The left just doesn’t love guns in the wrong hands, and anyone who isn’t an agent of the state is the wrong hands.  Listen to Representative Jim Himes (D – CT) tell you why high capacity magazines are still necessary in government hands.

There is absolutely no justification for weapons that were made for the explicit purpose of killing lots of people quickly to be in the hands of civilians.

Let that wash over you again.  “Killing lots of people quickly” and “civilian hands.”  The two don’t go together.

Leftists are by nature not liberals, no matter what label they have adopted.  Scratch a liberal, and find a Fascist.

Kurt Hofmann has a great piece up at Examiner on foreigners respecting the Second Amendment more than some Americans.

It’s well worth the time.  As you read it, remember that your company can define who you are, characterize you, and change you.  “Bad company corrupts good morals,” 1 Corinthians 15:33.  And remember that many of those who currently rule us were trained by Marxists.

Also remember this.  I have called their designs for gun control evil, a function and product of wicked governments.  Take note that communist China has criticized our Second Amendment and encouraged gun control, as well the United Nations.  Finally, their ideas come mainly from Nazi Germany, where Hitler had designs for gun control long before our current administration.  That’s who this administration can call company.

What does all of this have to do with Kurt’s article?  Just that those who have seen the final manifestations of evil in a society are the very ones who warn us about it and encourage the nurturing of freedom in America.

I had previously said “Universal background checks have nothing whatsoever to do with keeping weapons out of the hands of criminals, or a reduction in violence of any sort.  The system, if set up, is a predecessor and necessary prerequisite to a national gun registry.”

Feinstein’s proposals:

The bill will exempt firearms used for hunting and will grandfather in guns and magazines owned before the law’s potential enactment. However, the grandfathered weapons will be logged in a national registry.

A national gun registry – it’s one of the touchstones of success for the statists.  And universal background checks and a national gun registry go together like a hand in a glove.  When they make laws they are looking long term.  In fact, take note of one part of her legislation.

The legislation being pushed by Feinstein — who has long history of calling for gun bans — would prohibit the sale, transfer, importation and manufacture of certain firearms.

Neocon Charles Krauthammer (no friend to the second amendment) theorized the approach for them.

It is simply crazy for a country as modern, industrial, advanced and now crowded as the United States to carry on its frontier infatuation with guns. Yes, we are a young country but the frontier has been closed for 100 years.

Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquility of the kind enjoyed in sister democracies like Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically.

It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today.

Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic – purely symbolic – move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation. Its purpose is to spark debate, highlight the issue, make the case that the arms race between criminals and citizens is as dangerous as it is pointless.

De-escalation begins with a change in mentality. And that change in mentality starts with the symbolic yielding of certain types of weapons. The real steps, like the banning of handguns, will never occur unless this one is taken first, and even then not for decades.

What needs to happen before this change in mentality can occur? What must occur first – and this is where liberals are fighting the gun control issue from the wrong end – is a decrease in crime. So long as crime is ubiquitous, so long as Americans cannot entrust their personal safety to the authorities, they will never agree to disarm. There will be no gun control before there is real crime control.

Universal background checks and assault weapon bans are mere window dressing.  The goal is to desensitize the public and cause this to occur over one or two generations.  You can keep the rifle you just purchased.  But you must register it with the federal government and you cannot bequeath it to your children or grandchildren.  Thus do they wish to accomplish confiscation by means other than sending SWAT teams into your home.  The question is, will you let them?

It might have been part of his overall plan.  Mr. Obama has succeeded in spinning things up to the point that if he trots out anything less that full blown gun confiscation, people will say, “Oh thank God.  We can live with what he’s proposing.”

But be careful what you wish for.  The proposal that stands the best chance of passing happens to be the most insidious.

Hours before President Barack Obama’s official swearing-in to a second term, top Democrats predicted a victory for the broadest component of the White House’s push to change the nation’s gun laws.

During an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, N.Y., called legislation to institute universal background checks for gun buyers “the sweet spot.”

“In terms of actually making us safer and having a good chance of passing, this is it,” Schumer said on Sunday.

“I think you’re going to see [the very likelihood] in the next week or two a proposal that has broad support for universal background checks,” he added.

We’ve dealt with this issue before, how the phrase “gun show loophole” is a disingenuous invention of the gun control lobby, and how it would turn grandpa into a felon if he gifts his grandson with a .22 rifle under the Christmas tree.

Take careful note that there will be no more sales of firearms between hunting buddies, and no more exchange of guns between friends in church or at work, without paying a transfer fee to a federal firearms license.

It has been observed that a universal background check may be unenforceable.

There are 300 million guns currently in circulation and the federal government doesn’t have any data on who owns what. There’s no national registry for guns. All the federal trace data shows is who originally bought the gun from a licensed dealer.

“So let’s say a universal background check law passes and a gun I bought back in 2008 shows up on a Chicago crime scene a month from now,” says Ludwig. “The police show up at my door and ask who I sold it to. I say I sold it before the [universal background check] passed and at that time I wasn’t required to ask any questions.” There would be no way for police to know if he had complied with the law or not.

Relying on the notion that the federal government cannot ascertain whether you’re a felon because they lack the data is a horrible way to proceed.  Besides, as gun serial numbers are tracked by manufacturers, time goes by, and guns gradually go out of circulation, all it takes is a few executive orders to nationalize an electronic database of information from form 4473’s, and presto, there you have a national gun registry.

I firmly and unapologetically believe that all federal laws and regulations concerning firearms are unconstitutional.  But even if you don’t, and if you don’t fight the universal background check, remember the times.

Mr. Obama may very well get his desire for anti-gun legacy, and it may come as a Trojan horse, promising safety and security, but bringing onerous federal control that affects generations to come.