Nom de plume: Rivrdog

USAG Holder claims the "Right of Kings" for Feds

This may be the definitive word for this Administration: States have no powers, even within their own borders, and their Laws are ALWAYS inferior to Federal law (and edicts made without benefit of law, it seems).

Couple of observations: first, this is the exact position of the Federal Government which started the Civil War. Note that the "State's Rights" position this time has a tad more MORAL basis. Second, there has been a sea change in the attitude of the Feds which brings on this statement of Holder's: he would NEVER have made this statement seven months ago.

The Imperial Presidency has just been declared.

You can either bow your back like a good imperial subject and put up with the Imperial Presidency and all the corruption which goes with it, or you can grab your ruck and rifle, then leave your home for the last time.

Did I miss any choices?

The Benghazi Boogaloo

Yep, it's dancing time again for the Democrats, so they trot out the Boogaloo, and we have been treated to a full day of it on the telly.

I don't want to burst any bubbles here, but if there is a single conservative who doesn't know the truth about Benghazi by now, it's because that right-thinking person just got off the slow intergalactic shuttle from Planet Zargon.

It boils down to this: Since this Administration began, "sensitivity" has taken precedence over Security at every US embassy around the world, and that is obviously by order of President Obama. We pretty much had this embassy security thing covered for the first 225 years of our Nation's existence: put Marines at the embassies, and leave them in charge of Security.

Along comes the "apologize to everyone" crowd, and their first take on it was to end visible security. The USMC is nothing if not visible, so away they go. They were "replaced" (not really) with a bunch of ex-spooks (contractors of the State Department) in plain clothes, with various levels of armaments, usually little to none, plus totally untrustworthy locals hired for the job. This was done in the name of not "offending" anyone in the host nations of our embassies.

Consider the case of Libya: a nation without an effective government, one which had just gone through a violent revolution to depose a dictator. Armed militias roamed the streets, and Jihadi militants were everywhere. Our embassy in Benghazi, Libya last September was a pool of gasoline waiting for someone with a match to come along. And they did. And there was no security. And our people died.

Almost immediately after the 9-11-12 attack on the embassy (interesting, predictable date, yes?), the Administration went into full cover-up mode and has been there ever since. Lie after lie. "Talking Points" ad infinitum. New faces to lie for old faces, but lie, lie, lie.

Today, at the latest Congressional hearings, some of the lies were exposed. 

Huzzah, they exposed some lies. Give Rep. Issa a kewpie doll.

B.F.D.

Is anyone at risk of being indicted for lying to Congress at the earlier hearings?

Doesn't sound that way.

Here's the Rivrdog Solution, take it or leave it. Quit farting around, Issa. You're not going to indict anyone for lying to Congress and you know it, so put the other side on the spot by introducing and passing a Bill that denies funding for all embassy protection EXCEPT a reinforced rifle company of the USMC placed at every embassy in Harm's way.

In other words, put embassy protection back on the footing the previous Administration had it.

Bring real guns and real gunners to the next gun fight at any US Embassy. Bringing Talking Points to a gunfight is fatal, as we know now.

End of discussion.

Boston, a cradle of Liberty?

Yeah, THAT Boston, where the "shot heard 'round the world" was first fired at Concord, to start the Revolutionary War, the winning of which gave us our freedoms.

THAT Boston, where the new catch-phrase "Boston Strong" has just been crafted and is now seen all over the country.

The only thing about Boston that's strong is the smell left over, not from bombs exploding 8 days ago, but from the stench of a crapped-on Constitution lying in the gutter there.

A couple of shit-for-brains Jihadis were enough to cause the various levels of Government there to illegally declare the Constitution suspended?

Oho! You say, "there was no such Declaration, 'Dog."

You're right, the traitors (Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino) who usurped the Constitution for better than two days in Boston didn't bother to make a declaration, because they knew that such a move would only have highlighted the un-Constitutionality of their actions.

But wait! You sniffle, and your dim-bulb glows, "didn't the Mayor and the Governor declare States of Emergency, 'Dog, and don't those declarations cover the Government actions?"

Ah, no, they don't, Tony Macaroni. All they do is permit the City to govern, according to the Constitution, by decree of the Mayor (or Governor), instead of by the processes of the Legislature or City Council, and primarily they are published so as to deny the cops overtime pay, since the declarations suspend wage and hour rules. If that State allows such declarations to deny Constitutional Rights, then it needs to be challenged in Court and have that authority removed from the Governor. Likewise the City of Boston.

The States of Emergency cannot permit police to boot down doors without a warrant or  arrest without probable cause (4th Amendment violations) or totally deny freedom of movement and assembly (First Amendment violations). All those violations of Civil Rights happened. The declarations of Emergency might be stretched to include closing off an area which is actually part of the crime scene, but not the entire City. If the Governor wants to stop commuter trains, and the Mayor subways and busses, fine, that's their perogative: the State and City own them, and they can run them or not.

So we have every liberal in the whole damn deluded Nation slapping the MA and Boston Governments on the back, praising them to the skies for their "efficiency" in capturing/killing the incompetent Jihadis.

Stalin, Hitler and Mao didn't have much trouble capturing criminals, either, did they? Would you have wanted to live under their governance?

Didn't think so.

Aren't you just a bit curious as to what might have happened if the Jihadis had bombed, say, the Boise Marathon, or maybe the Salt Lake City Marathon?

Let's apply a "Second Amendment Filter" to this discussion, shall we? Take any City where the Second Amendment is broadly supported (not begrudgingly supported like my City of Portland, OR), and ask yourself if the Government would have even thought about cancelling the Bill of Rights to catch a couple of Jihadis. Nope, in those cities, citizens would have just slung their rifles, strapped on their sidearms, and gone about their business, and the cops would have used the Constitution to help catch the perpetrators instead of wiping their collective asses with it.

The "blue" States don't support or even use their Constitution anymore, so they are doomed to the predations of Government, whenever that Government gets a whim to act outside of their Constitutional authority. Boston just proved that.

"Boston Strong", WTF?

That should be "Boston Wrong".

Event horizon change

The Event Horizon for efforts to retain the Second Amendment against the relentless efforts of the political left to emasculate or remove it has changed.

I know of no better example than brilliant gun writer Oleg Volk's blog.

Read the last (summary) paragraph in this post (the final sentence will suffice):

"The opium pipe dreams of the “restoration of the Republic” through another revolution are best left for those who don’t much value a connection to reality."

Now, fast forward almost 6 months to just a few days ago:

"We are at war with those who would disarm us. (Snip) Our chances of fighting back effectively diminish with every concession we make."

Yep, getting into a fight for your survival changes your event horizon. We're not in a shooting war just yet, but the chance that somewhere in the USA, a shooting war will soon break out is getting better by the day. I'm fairly sure that every day, POTUS Obama calmly re-evaluates his chances of removing the threat to his agenda that is the Second Amendment, and so far, he has doubled down against his Constitution at every evaluation of this fight's worth to him and the Left. I analyze the fight he's bringing to eliminate the Second Amendment as an indication of his plans, and the fight that defenders of the Constitution such as myself are bringing every day as an indication of our countervailing resolve. In no previous attack on the Second Amendment has the Left stayed in the fight this long, nor have they previously coalesced around the fierce determination they now demonstrate to end our enumerated freedoms and give their Leftist President a carte-blanche to convert the USA to a dictatorship of the Left.

The Left hasn't blinked, and it doesn't look likely that they will, because the attack is being carried not only by the Feds, but also by every Democratic Party operative in every Statehouse across the land. The particular objective common to the fight is to gut the Second by restricting the right to own and carry militia-capable weapons. That is the common thread of the Federal and State/local efforts by the Left.

What is the next "double-down tactic" when the Left gets stalled in the Congress? I have no doubt in my mind that some sort of event will "happen" that POTUS Obama will use as a lever to grant himself extraordinary, un-Constitutional power, and suspend the Bill of Rights, in total, or maybe just the First and Second Amendments during the "emergency".

My best guess for this "triggering event"? The North Koreans will shoot some missiles next week, and our forces will say that they appeared to be not tests, but hostile shots, and we will fire on their missiles, killing at least one of them. We will then be in a shooting war with the Norks, and the POTUS will declare himself a wartime prexy and present "evidence" of Nork "infiltration" of the USA, and list his suspension of the Bill of Rights. The aggression of the Norks will never affect the mainland USA, but the suspension of the Bill of Rights will happen anyway.

How not to stop a bully

You don't ever stop a bully by giving the bully a default win.

That's what Secretary of Defense "I hate war" Chuckie Hagel just did. The USAF had been scheduled to test a Minuteman 3 ICBM in a launch from Vandenburg AFB, CA, but the peacenik SecDef just kowtowed to the Nork bully and put off the test.

Technically, the test is probably unnecessary, since the Minuteman 3 is a very reliable missile and we can do non-firing computer simulations with it's component parts that will have better than 90% validity. Maybe this exercise was to have tested the MIRTB, a new multiple warhead that showers the enemy with teddy bears instead of nukes. Who knows. All the Crazy 'Un knows is that we kowtowed to him.

OTOH, maybe we acted upon the suggestion of the nepotistic Park family, which just turned South Korea over to the wife of the former President. This isn't the first time nepotism has happened in So. Korea, either. They are into their Sixth Republic.

So now the bully-boy Kim-'Un gets a notch on his gunstock without firing a shot. Boy, we showed him with those B-2 flybys, didn't we?

I'm having a hard time deciding on Maroon of the Month, since both Chuckie Hagel and Kim Jong-Un are both nominated. Sorry, you pair of idiots, neither of you gets the 15 seconds of fame as Maroon. The office will remain vacant.

The Dorner Disaster

Every so often, a teachable moment comes along. Most of them are under-appreciated for the lessons they could teach us, and the Dorner crime wave in the Los Angeles Basin will probably follow that pattern. My sense of doing good works requires me to rise to the duty of outlining this lesson, though, so here it is.

PawPaw did a good short blog on what happened, with good linkage, and I posted my take on this lesson over there as a comment, so go to his post and take a look at it (and my attached comment) from the point of view of two old cops with the experience and the writing ability to offer their own profession, then the entire Nation, a valuable lesson in self-reliance.

I haven't decided whether it's important to highlight Dorner's manifesto as to it's statements of political affiliation, because, after all, it could be disinformation, and a good analyst considers that. The statement of political affiliation does seem to check out with the guy's known personal history, though.

The politics can be set aside for the moment though, so as to consider the threat that Dorner's type of  "asymetrical warfare" poses for all of us. It doesn't really make any difference if Dorner was coming from the Left, the Right or if he was a Jihadist, the threat is the same.

Consider my statement in my comment to PawPaw's blog: this guy's rampage has turned the second-biggest Metroplex in the USA absolutely on it's ear, and the reason Los Angeles and it's near-neighbors are functioning at all this morning is because martial law hasn't been declared (yet). Dorner's plan, in his terror rampage, was to cause a lot of disruption, but he seemed to forget the physics: no matter how tactically-proficient one terrorist is, there is a limit on how large of an area he may terrorize. Five Dorners at work on their terroristic tasks would have shut down the entire metroplex. Five such large metroplexes under seige in the country would shut down the entire country.

Think about that. This is the teachable moment. Just look how few determined and trained people it takes to disrupt our way of life.

Okay, has the lesson soaked in?

Good!

What do we do about it?

There is, people, only one answer: we have to re-assume the responsibility for our own protection that we gave up when this country became heavily urbanized five generations ago. Back then, had Dorner sprung forth, life would have gone on, but men would have been a little more wary as they went about their daily routine, perhaps keeping their rifles next to them instead of in the nearby closet. They would have paid attention to the latest dispatches received via telegraph, then passed by word of mouth around their towns and cities. At some point, the terrorist would be killed, and that would be the end of it. If the terrorist was captured, he would be unlikely to have been given the opportunity to spread his poison, and he would have been executed soon, anyway. That's what would have happened if this had occurred 100 years ago.

I'm sure, if I read the blogs deep enough, I would find some that are sympathetic to Dorner, that support his position on perceived racial injustice at the least, and perhaps even some that support his "asymetrical warfare" method of dealing with it personally.

The most immediate lesson for us with the Dorner Affair?

Don't be too damn fast to surrender an iota more of your self-reliance to the Government. Yes, people, you really do need to have those semi-auto rifles that can "shoot all day", and the training, the ammo, the extra magazines, etc to employ them properly in your own defense. There aren't a lot of wannabe Dorners out there, but if they all got mass hysteria and decided to have a "Dorner Apocalypse", you would need the protection of that military-style rifle.

Too bad that in such a "Dorner Apocalypse", you would stand a much greater chance of getting killed by your own police force than by a terrorist.

Bring.It.On.

All over the news today is rumor of a major power-grab by President Obama. Not rumor actually, he's being goaded into it by the Left Wing of his party.

The power-grab is in two parts, concerning the President bypassing the House on raising the debt ceiling, and the President bypassing the entire Congress to create new gun control laws.

Note that the latter item has been discussed in these pages for about 2.5 years, including the recent issuance of Dire Warnings by your blogger...

Taken together, Nancy Pelosi's call for the President to ignore the Constitution and assign himself the power to create debt in the name of the United States, and Joe Biden's call for the President to consider enacting his Panel's gun control laws by Executive Order, taken together, WILL precipitate a Constitutional Crisis.

As Newt Gingrich said on Fox News tonight, the Constitution has a general rule for Executive Orders: the President may use an Executive Order to direct the implementation of an existing Federal law. The President may not use an Executive Order to create law where none had existed before.

For the Debt Ceiling, there is NO law authorizing the President to raise the debt ceiling. The Fourteenth Amendment was NOT about that, it was about refusing to use the Good Faith and Credit of the Federal Government to stand behind war debt incurred by the Confederacy. To try to stretch that into blanket permission for the President to have the power to control ALL Federal debt simply ignores Article One, Sections Seven and Eight. To "parse" the Fourteenth Amendment on it's applicability where it conflicts with the basic Articles of the Constitution itself is simply wrong, and illegal.

For the Gun Control legislation the Biden Gang is about to come up with, there is a direct conflict with the Second Amendment and Tenth Amendment. The laws that Biden wants to come up with do not exist (the "Assault Weapons Ban" used to exist, but it expired and was not renewed by Congress, so it is not law). Likewise, no law exists to ban High Capacity Ammunition Feeding Devices or Private Sales of firearms by Federal law. Some hi-cap magazines and some such un-registered sales are already banned by State Edicts, so the Tenth Amendment is already in force on this issue, and for an Executive Order to be signed banning private sales, the idea that the Tenth Amendment already controls such law would have to be rejected, presumably by the Supreme Court of the United States.

When asked what would be the appropriate remedy for the President performing these Executive over-reaches, Newt Gingrich simply said, "Zero out the budgets of the agencies tasked with implementing the illegal Executive Orders."

Well, it might be difficult on the Nation to zero the budget of the Treasury Department, but the world would NOT stand still if the FBATFE's budget were zeroed, or the EffBeeEye's, either.

All that is not necessary, however. The House of Representatives has adequate legal counsel, and if such counsel were to opine that the Executive Orders were un-constitutional, the Speaker would simply memorialize the President to rescind them, and if the President failed to do so, he could be charged with Treason, a "High Crime", and impeached in the House. The Bill of Impeachment would then move to the Senate for trial, and I would have a hard time believing that there aren't six Democratic Senators who would not vote for conviction.

Then we get President Joe Biden. Something tells me that Uncle Joe is not so keen on ripping up the Constitution as his boss is, and he would likely rescind the EOs of Obama when reminded to do so by the House.

Here's the thing about Impeachment. Were a Bill of Impeachment to be filed, every one of the hundreds of Executive orders Obama has signed, some having great effect on commerce (e.g. the "war on coal"), would be looked at. Chances are, the Bill of Impeachment would demand such a review. Chances are, that the Bill of Impeachment would have a clause that said, upon a vote of Impeachment, that the House of Representative considers every action implemented by an Obama Executive Order to be improper, and thereby orders it's members not to appropriate any funds for the implementation of any of them.

My friends, there's a name for that.

It's called the Un-Do.

If Obama wants to precipitate the Un-Do of everything he has done since 1/20/09, including ObamaCare (many parts of which were done by Executive Order/Fiat), he should just go ahead and issue those Executive Orders. If he wants to keep his Office, he needs to ignore Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.

During his first term, the Third Debate and again right after Newtown, Obama DID say that he would leave gun control up to Congress and the normal political process. It's time he re-read his own speeches.

Thursday Thuds, post-Holiday edition

Thud the First: Heard on Fox News yesterday morning at about 10:34 PST: "Survival is the new Prosperity"...referring to the state of small business in the good-ole US of A. Word!

Thud the Second: The New Yawk Stock Exchange soared yestiddy, presumably because of the dreaded "Cliff" being in the rear-view mirror, but, guess what? So did the Gold price (fell back some today, though). Verrrrry interesting. Institutions are still buying gold despite all the supposed bully news from DeeCee? Something does not compute, and my guess is that the Street is very wary of the "fiscal solutions" involved. Also, TCWIC (Tax Cheat What's In Charge) Timmy Geithner now says we've reached the statutory borrowing limit, but, hey, that's okay because he can cook the books for at least two months to keep the downgrade wolf at bay. Of course, if any of us ran the books of any corporation the way he runs the books of the Federal Government, we'd all be in jail...

Thud the Third: The Grand Old Party continues it's collapse into political futility. The best available economic minds (Simpson-Bowles Commission) recommended a Fiscal Cliff solution with a ratio of Revenue enhancement (tax increases) to Spending increase of 1:2.6. The GOP just signed off on a plan with a ratio of 1:41  I forgot how to do mathematical proportion calculations or I would tell you what factor of excess past Simson-Bowles that number is, but it seems to be at least an 800% departure. The GOPes approved of that? Now we all go over a different cliff, and it is such a tall cliff, we will have a LOT of time to consider the error of our ways before we impact the base of that cliff at terminal velocity. The GOPes seem split, but in the entire House, there are only 25 or so true fiscal conservatives, so it's not likely that anything will change with the Speakership of John Boehner (just in: Boehner retained his seat). The TEA party types seem inclined to try to replace all the GOP fiscal wimps with conservative who have spines, but can the TEA party folks get it together again in 2014 like they did in 2010? I'm not putting any money on that outcome.

Thud the Fourth: Last night, Leno tried a zinger on prospective Secretary of State John Effing Kerry. Leno noted that Kerry's face is shaped more like a horse than a human, so he sould be called "Secretariat Kerry". Few laughed, and it immediately occurred to me that Leno missed an opportunity because he was looking at the wrong end of the horse...

Thud the Fifth: As I indicated here, Mad Mayor Bloomberg of New Jack City seems to be trying to seize control of the entire gun-control movement. He made another move in that direction by sitting down with various Civil Rights Deniers and Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. My guess is that he is actively recruiting her to be the new poster-girl for gun control. She would, of course, replace Sarah Brady in that role (no links to enemies!).

MSM lips, meet Obama's posterior

The link tells it all.

We're I editor of that ass-kissing 'zine, I would have put a blank page up, with the simple words, "We're sorry, in 2012 there was no person worthy of even our worst previous selection, so there is no Person of the Year selection for 2012".

After Newtown, and it's firm demonstration of the total disintegration of our formerly-great society, how could any publication heap praise on the current leader of the political party most responsible for that destruction of an entire populous society?

Pearl Harbor Day

We "lost the day", as football coaches are wont to say nowadays, but we won the season.

Part of me says it's pointless to highlight this day, "the Day that shall live in Infamy", as FDR so eloquently put it. Historical revisionism is a booming industry now, and the revisionists, who have a single purpose in mind with all their work*, have gotten to the point where perfunctory mention of the attack which began WW2 for the USA will be the only mention made. For a calmer look at the day, go here.

Part of me says to drag out my soapbox (which hides my cartridge box), mount the soapbox, and scream at the revisionists. Calm suasion does not work with that bunch. Scholarly reference to historical fact doesn't work with that bunch. Screaming gets their attention, they turn towards you, and then you memorize their faces...

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* The revisionists work towards suppressing any institutional memory of the times when Americans were self-sufficient individuals first, and a collective only when needed. Socialism, of course, does not work within a population of individualists, only within a population of collectivists.