Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Via WRSA, Robert Gore posts this piece.  Robert’s place should be a regular stop through your daily or weekly reads, and I normally like the stuff that Gore writes, but I have to disagree on this, and profoundly so.  The problem is more than just missing the point.  Missing the point just happens to be missing a very important point, one that needs to be made.

The Greeks blame not just the banker cartel, but the Jew banker cartel for their state of affairs.  And to be fair, the global banker cartel is responsible for much of the financial woes we face now, even if indirectly.  But that’s the important point to be made.

Goldman-Sachs (as a mere example) appears to be just as influenced by the United Methodist Church as it is Jews, but let’s stipulate for the sake of argument that Jews run the global banks.  Without the direct involvement, assistance, and even incestuous relationship with the politicians, the banks couldn’t do a thing to harm the financial system.

Banks cannot make fractional reserve banking legal – only politicians do that.  Banks cannot create debt-based economies – only politicians can do that.  Banks cannot create money-printing – only politicians can do that.  The entire crumbling edifice upon which Keynesian economics is built requires the willing participation of politicians who couple with bankers to fleece the people.

These politicians are elected by the people.  This is so in America, which is behind Greece in rottenness of the system, but perhaps not by much.  This is true in Greece as well.  For years now, the Greek voters have elected communists to office, these communists being in bed with the money people like they always are.

People get the government they deserve and demand.  While Gore seems to make much of the supposed revolution against the banker cartel in Greece, even sounding like some sort of purist ideological revolution similar to the founding of America, I know a Greek who is even now visiting Greece, and has known his community of people for a very long time.

His take on Greece is that they are suffering now because they “sit on their asses and do nothing all day.”  True enough, even with people working hard all day, a banker cartel can destroy the economic system of a country.  But his point is that the people elected communists to office because they want a state-run system.  They got what they asked for.  It’s unimpressive to argue now that the poor Greeks are victims of either the government or the bankers.  The Greeks are victims of the choices they made.

So too will Americans be victims not of the government, nor of the bankers, but of the choices the voters made in the voting booth.  And those raging against the machine will suffer in the wake of judgment on the balance of society.  God’s judgment is sometimes corporate and collective.  The bankers and government are like the Babylonians.  God doesn’t approve, but He uses them to create the consequences that teach us all.  In the end, they will suffer punishment.

None of this is to say that the bankers aren’t thieves.  Of course they are, just like the government.  Likewise, the voters are thieves.  Anyone who votes to get something for nothing is a thief.  And no one should be surprised that when two groups of thieves get together, someone wins and someone loses.  The collective moral weakness begets the collective sin, and both groups of thieves will suffer in the postmortem.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”  — Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Scalia dissented from the recent SCOTUS Obamacare ruling.

“The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says ‘Exchange established by the State’ it means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.’ That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so,” Scalia wrote.

Scalia added, “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’ It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words ‘established by the State.’ And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words ‘by the State’ other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges.”

Roberts also dissented, but of course words weren’t so important to him when he created rights out of whole cloth and the supreme court forced every state to accept same-sex marriage.  He wants to pick and choose when words mean something, and get his self-righteousness on when he opposes the policy.

As I had stated to someone else this weekend, you have the political right to advocate what you want, but God will judge us – individually and collectively – for our choices.  But constitutionally, the court has absolutely no business bossing the states around.

This ruling – and many more like it – marks the end of the state.  The grand experiment in states as the laboratories of democracy is finished.  It failed, and not because it couldn’t have worked.  Evil men vandalized the experiment.  If Roberts has his problems, Scalia does too.  In Heller, he stated:

Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.  It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of fire arms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.  Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

“Shall not be infringed” means as little to Scalia as ‘Exchange established by the State’ means to Roberts and the other progressive justices on the supreme court.  Scalia is clever, witty, smart, fun to read and biting in his dissents – and just as inconsistent as the rest of them.  Scalia gets a taste of his own medicine in the Obamacare and same-sex marriage ruling.

As I listened to the quiet conversation and whispers this weekend as I went about my business, I think Mike Vanderboegh’s words will turn out to be prescient.

But even as staunch an anti-communist as I am now — as hard-nosed a supporter of the Founders’ Republic and the Constitution as I have become — I can see that the regime has dealt itself a crippling blow to its own legitimacy. I further note with somber acknowledgement that as bad as this confluence of events is for the country as a whole that it makes our job easier for it confirms everything we have been saying about the regime of both corrupt political parties being destructive of liberty and the rule of law. This will swell our ranks with people who are finally convinced that for the purposes of protecting our liberties, the present system has broken down completely and that the only thing we can count on from this point on is ourselves, alone. And our rifles. I will not celebrate this as a Marxist would but I will give a most sincere, albeit grim, “thank you” to the Supreme Court and the two predatory gangs of a tyrannical regime.

I would add that we can always count on God to honor His promises.  God will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7).  His words never change, and will always mean what they have always meant.

Daniel Barger:

“This would fall under the ‘self fulfilling prophecy’ description. People comment about how abusive, invasive and criminalistics government employees and the judiciary are and those same people
engage in conduct that PROVES THE POINT.”

ARSTechnica:

Federal prosecutors got Ross Ulbricht thrown in prison for life for running the Silk Road online drug marketplace. Now, they’re going after people who made comments online about the judge who sentenced him.

The Department of Justice is seeking the identities of commenters at Reason.com, a libertarian website that has covered Silk Road extensively. The hunt for commenters was revealed yesterday, when the legal blog Popehat published a grand jury subpoena (PDF) that DOJ investigators gave to Reason.

“Why is the government using its vast power to identify these obnoxious asshats, and not the other tens of thousands who plague the internet?” wrote Popehat blogger Ken White. “Because these twerps mouthed off about a judge.”

On May 31, two days after Ross Ulbricht was sentenced, Reason published a blog post looking back at his plea for leniency. The post is sympathetic to Ulbricht and Silk Road, which it calls “a revolutionary website that made it easier and safer to buy and sell illegal drugs.”

There are more than 100 comments on the short Reason article, and a quick scan suggests they are universally negative. US District Judge Katherine Forrest threw the book at Ulbricht, giving him life without the possibility of parole—more than prosecutors asked for. Her sentencing speech was a full-throated defense of the drug war.

Prosecutors want “any and all identifying information” related to the following eight comments, all published shortly after the May 31 blog post went up:

• Agammamon: Its judges like these that should be taken out back and shot.
• Alan: It’s judges like this that will be taken out and short. FTFY.
• croaker: Why waste ammunition? Wood chippers get the message across clearly. Especially if you feed them in feet first.
• Cloudbuster: Why do it out back? Shoot them out front, on the steps of the courthouse.
• Rhywun: I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for that horrible woman.
• Alan: There is.
• Product Placement: I’d prefer a hellish place on Earth be reserved for her as well.
• croaker: Fuck that. I don’t want to oay [sic] for that cunt’s food, housing, and medical. Send her through the wood chipper.

In the subpoena to Reason, the government requests that the company “voluntarily refrain from disclosing the existence of the subpoena to any third party,” but makes it clear they have no legal obligation to do so. The Popehat blog post does not identify the source of the subpoena.

Also see this important article at Popehat.com who does a good analysis.  Their conclusion?  Regrettably, The Government Can Probably Abuse the Grand Jury Subpoena Power This Way.

What you see here is incestuous law at its worst.  The prosecutors – who are part of the system and “officers of the court – want to find anonymous commenters in order to keep the system firmly ensconced.  They will get their way or send out the LEOs – who are themselves part of the system and officers of the court.  It will all eventually be heard or adjudicated by judges, who are officers of the court.

I firmly believe that even more troubling times are headed for our country.  An economy based entirely on fiat money, debt and fractional reserve banking cannot long last.  Furthermore, as “European American” correctly observes, “Armed, Law Abiding Citizens, and a Militarized Fascist Police State cannot coexist.”  Hard times are coming, and they cannot be stopped or held in abatement.

In the mean time, though, be careful what you you say and where you say it, even anonymously.

Entries in the annals of wickedness.  I also hear that in England you can’t go anywhere in the major cities without being recorded by a camera.  Perhaps some government authority is getting their groove on watching all of this play out.  No OC spray, no clubs, no batons, no sticks, and I would surmise no slapping either.

You wouldn’t want to harm your attackers, ladies.  So blow the whistle and spread your legs, girls.  It’s groove time.

Mike Vanderboegh:

But we are here, now. We ARE acting. Look around you. You know in your heart that for every one here today, there are tens, hundreds, even thousands just like us. People who will not comply. And do you hear that? Listen. Do you hear that? That’s the sound of all those who are not here but who are convinced that this time the tyrannical wolves are indeed coming to our doors. Do you hear it? That’s the sound of cleaning rods moving ceaselessly in thousands of rifle barrels as they are scrubbed to get ready for the coming fight.

The video of Mike’s speech is here.  I honestly don’t see how Mike keeps going.  Traveling exhausts me.  Read Mike’s entire speech, and watch the video.

David Codrea first reported on Michael Bloomberg’s next move in cyberspace:

Anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg will be expanding his influence over managed information about guns the public is exposed to when he launches a propaganda effort masked as news in June, a Friday Capital report notes. The announcement of two principals setting the tone and cranking out the propaganda is instructive on what we can expect.

James Burnett, formerly of The New Republic and New York Magazine will be bringing his established “progressive” flair to the helm as editorial director. Jennifer Mascia, who worked on the strictly one-sided Gun Report for The New York Times, is also “attached prominently to the Everytown news project.”

Ah.  The truth comes out about Jennifer.  Recall I had said the following about her credentials.

Tommy Gnosis is someone named Jennifer Mascia, who has her own web site.  In fact, she was one of the authors of the now defunct “The Gun Report” for the New York Times.  Recall that report?  That awful, hideous, dreary rundown of shootings every day?  As if all we have to do is remove those awful guns from society and sin goes away because evil is located in things rather than the heart of man (a noted neo-Platonic and stoic view).

Anyway, I did an IP trace and found that the address was owned by Bloomberg.  It makes sense, since I also found out that she works for Bloomberg via Everytown For Gun Safety.  Her Disqus account is active, and features snark, misdirects, sarcasm, insults, and most of all, prose designed to demoralize and demonstrate the complete impotence of whatever group she is berating at the moment.  The prose is designed to cause depression and dejection.

Here is the lesson.  Bloomberg is paying her to visit web sites – particularly gun rights web sites – and spread discontent and dejection.

Nope, said she in the comments.

Hi Herschel,

I am not paid to comment here, or anywhere, nor have I ever been. There is no “tactic.” I have never worked for a political organization or a nonprofit, only media companies, and before that, restaurants. No one at Everytown knows I comment here. I actually don’t work with the advocacy arm of Everytown. The news site will be staffed with journalists, not lobbyists. We have zero to do with elections or phone banks. We won’t be working with Everytown staffers.

Her Disqus account was by “Tommy Gnosis.”  I outed her and she posted as “Guest.”  She responded that she isn’t paid to comment anywhere.  There is no “tactic.”  She claimed no relationship at all to Bloomberg.  Now we find out that her use of an IP address that pointed back to Bloomberg was no coincidence.  She is indeed trafficking in propaganda, and she is in the employ of Bloomberg.  Let’s continue with Codrea’s second article on Bloomberg’s next move.

“Tommy Gnosis is someone named Jennifer Mascia,” Herschel Smith at The Captain’s Journal posted in March. He was describing someone who, under cover of anonymity, “visits web sites — particularly gun rights web sites — and spreads discontent and dejection.”

That’s consistent with the “elaborate subterfuge” technique for “infiltrating and disrupting alternative media online” used by those with an agenda. Per Canadian research, such “Internet trolls aren’t just mean — they’re sadists and psychopaths.”

That would also seem consistent with the control-all megalomaniac who hired her, in a company-he-keeps kind of way. Mascia is one of two paid flacks “attached prominently to the Everytown news project,” an experiment in virtual Astroturf that billionaire Michael Bloomberg will be rolling out this summer.

David then goes on to explore her past as daughter of a mob hit man.

What drives Mascia is anybody’s guess, but chances are her father having been an underworld killer with multiple hits under his belt had an influence. That probably comes as a surprise to many gun rights advocates, unaware that Al Jazeera told its readers “America’s best hope for tracking gun deaths is a mob enforcer’s daughter,” and Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action gushed on social media that her story was “Amazing.”

Readers who have been with me a while may recall that commenters pushed Jennifer around a bit when she visited this web site.  In fact, my readers drove her completely off of Disqus, as my oldest son Josh remarked to me.  But don’t feel sorry for her.  David notes that:

At this point, though, good people would still feel a degree of sympathy. After all, Mascia had no control over who her parents were or what they did. Their defects and failings were not her fault.

The problem is, she’s chosen to become part of an effort to make the rest of us defenseless against sociopath predators like her father, and enablers who help them kill, like her mother. She knows full well no “law” proposed by her billionaire patron would have any effect on stopping diseased animals like John Mascia from working his sick will on more victims.

David is right on target.  I said to Josh that “You absolutely must remember that she is the kind of person who would send the SWAT team to forcibly take your guns.”  And that’s the point after all.  Despite any sympathetic feelings you might have for such people, it isn’t that they want peace for all men.  Jennifer knows that we will never voluntarily give up our guns.  She knows that it will take a bloody civil war to try to disarm us.  She doesn’t care.  She supports violence if it is perpetrated by the state.  Just like Bloomberg, if it’s her folks with the guns, she’s okay.  She is only in favor of disarming certain people, and readers should realize that you are among that group of “certain people.”

As for pushing Jennifer around, I’ve made clear that if you want to come in this back yard and run with the big dogs, you’d better be prepared for some rough business.  And as for Jennifer herself, you weren’t entirely honest with us, were you?

David Codrea’s First Article

David Codrea’s Second Article

David Codrea:

The National Rifle Association last week called a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union and against Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, “a significant victory” and “a big loss for Big Brother.” The lawsuit challenged the National Security Agency’s position that collection of telephone “metadata” was authorized by the so-called “Patriot Act.”

“Your NRA had participated in the case by filing friend of the court briefs at different stages of the proceedings,” the Institute for Legislative Action report advised. “We have also supported legislation to curtail the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of American citizens.”

Why?

Aren’t we told NRA is a “single issue” organization, focused solely on promotion and protection of the Second Amendment?

Yea, I’ve heard that claptrap for years now, especially from the progressives over at reddit/guns.  It annoys me because it’s so hypocritical.  The NRA and their advocates get to say that when it’s convenient.  When it comes to something like immigration and what it portends for gun control, well, that’s entirely another story.

From Seymour Hersh, the real story of the UBL raid.  Or not.  And really not (via Mike Vanderboegh).  Listen folks.  Seymour Hersh has a reputation for padding his stories with anonymous sources and things that cannot be verified.  And no one ever comes forward later to exonerate Sy Hersh.  Take everything you hear, see and read with a grain of salt.

Trans-Pacific Parnership: Stupid Party Cedes Working Class To Democrats – Setting Up Next Defeat.  See also this.  The GOP is so in-the-pocket of corporate America they can’t see straight.  They are whores, every one of them.  And both parties are completely corrupt.

News from New York:

UNION SQUARE, N.Y. (PIX11) — Police are searching for a man wanted for bashing two women with a hammer in Union Square and who may be connected to two other attacks in Manhattan.

A photo of the alleged attacker was released midday Tuesday. Earlier in the day, police sent out a sketch of a possible culprit but later said to disregard that image, replacing it with a grainy surveillance photo.

NYPD said the man began his rampage about 7:30 p.m. Monday when he took out a hammer from inside a bag and hit a 28-year-old woman on the head. The victim was sitting on a bench in Union Square Park.

About 10 minutes later, he slammed a hammer on a 33-year-old woman, attacking her from behind near 44 West 18th St. and leaving her with a scalp wound, police said.

I don’t want to hear another damn word about how dangerous guns are until someone makes a law that controls these implements of death with universal background checks and bans all assault hammers.

World Net Daily:

In government, secrecy is the enemy of honesty and righteous rule.  That’s why this administration has been so loath to tell anyone anything about what it’s doing.

But I’ve come to the conclusion that this administration has actually been a good thing for America, albeit painful.  Heretofore, we only thought of the democrats as the gun grabbers, collectivists and advocates of socialized medicine, and big government control freaks.

But this administration has forced the GOP to tell the world what it’s all about.  So for instance, Senators like John Thune (and many others) who voted to confirm Loretta Lynch have told us that they think just like the democrats.  Anyone who enables this president to press his ill-conceived ideas on America is a traitor, and that includes GOP and democrats alike.  And they deserve to be treated as traitors.