Nom de plume: Rivrdog

The "Fiscal Cliff", and why we'll go over it

Easy answer, because it's now been fleshed out by our President as a "Cloward-Piven" strategy. In other words, it will be a manufactured crisis, the mother of all such actually, during which, the President will "take charge", thereby demonstrating his "leadership" and (probably) creating an un-Constitutional power grab of the economic (appropriation) reins from Congress.

The Holy Grail for Obama is not taxing the rich, a simple smokescreen for the present, it is to be able to bust the debt-ceiling at will. If he creates a fiscal disaster, he will then tell us that only more "stimulus" spending will see us safely out of the disaster, and so he will order the Treasury to print that money, he will order it spent (likely added to present stimulus law), and we will add another few trillion to the debt.

If the House of Congress finds it's spine, and I'm NOT betting on that, all it can really do is start impeachment proceedings, but the while the (GOP) House might impeach, the (D) Senate won't convict, so that's a stalemate. Bill Clinton was impeached, and it hasn't stopped the (D)emocratic Party from calling him the "elder statesman".

After some time has passed, and with as much delay as can be arranged, Obama will have to face the Supreme Court, which will probably declare that part of the National Debt he created by fiat to be illegal.

Okay, what then?

Nothing, then. Unlike FDR, who actually stopped his stimulus programs when the SCOTUS ordered him to cease and desist, Obama won't stop. Is the SCOTUS going to hold Obama personally responsible? No. Is the SCOTUS going to hold him in contempt and order the US Marshals to arrest him and put him in jail? No, you and I would get that treatment, but Obama won't.

Obama will have ignored the Constitution and the SCOTUS and gotten away with it.

What other part of the Constitution might he ignore next? Hard to say, but all the anti-gun filk would beg him to give similar treatment to the Second Amendment. There's a physical threat to his tyranny there, after all. He might try to muzzle Internet dissent and trash the First Amendment while he's at it. Along the way to trashing those pesky First and Second Amendments in the Bill of Rights, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments will probably go away, too.

Bottom line, by the time 2016 rolls around, there will be NO doubt that Obamalamadingdong intends to stay in office as long as he wants to (read: until he can groom a "Manchurian" candidate who will take his orders), so the (D)emocratic Party will just ignore the election and not even nominate a candidate to replace him.

Blue sky theory? You bet, but it's how some of his advisers think, and Obama himself has never had or expressed an original idea, he IS the product of his advising staff.

Yep, these are Valerie Jarrett's ideas as well as mine, I'd bet on that. We know, to a moral certainty, that what Valerie Jarrett wants, Valerie Jarrett gets. What Valerie Jarrett advises, Obama acts upon.

By this time next month, it will be unlikely that this Nation will be able to be rescued from total tyranny without resort to arms, and that uprising, when and if it occurs, will be a mere blip in history, a "beer-hall putsch", a short interruption in the Greater Glory of Our Glorious Leader.

All Hail, etc.

How bad IS the GOP?

This bad.

The latest (D)onk ploy: buy a few "Republicans".

Item: Charlie Christ of Florida, Marco Rubio's primary opponent. Bought and Paid For and has reported for duty as a (D)emocrat. This may not be news, since he's been threatening this action for a while, but he will be added to this list of additional suspects:

Item; Michael Bloomberg, Dictator of New Jack Citeh, who claimed the Republican Party to be elected Hizzoner, doesn't really mean it. Probably also claimed it in the first place for the purpose of staying connected to his Richey Rich pals, before he was smart enough to figure out that most of them are closet or actual liberals. He now claims to be "independent". Riiiight. Obama just announced the price for buying Bloomie off: the lion's share of $60 billion bucks for "storm relief":

"And it would provide $15 billion for community development block grants that would fill in gaps in recovery by ad­dressing needs not covered by other fed­eral programs. (my emphasis)

Obama also asked Congress to provide nearly $13 billion to harden states against future storms — a key request of Governor Christie in the month after Sandy."

I'd LOVE for the Feds to pay the tab for modernizing MY city, but we don't have any faux-GOPers running it, so Obama won't get to crow like he will when Bloomie signs the (D)onk pledge.

Ditto Tubby the One Note Tuba. Chris Christie will likely be added to the D-list before the '16 Election, too. He just announced that Uncle Hussein, who Tubby praised to the skies just a few days prior to the election and probably took Romney votes away by doing so, has agreed to finance his Joisey dream-sheet as well. Christie's probably finished as the Conservative he pretended to be, his only "conservative" action since election being the trashing of his Joisey public employees' unions (but not the Big Unions, like Dockworkers). He has no other Conservative credentials at all, and damn few Republican credentials, either.

All in all, it appears that US taxpayers (or their kids and grandkids) will be on the hook for at least $28 billion of "storm aid" past the actual estimates for just-plain restoration after Hurricane Sandy. That's nothing but naked influence-peddling.

Can anyone else report any other likely candidate for the Big Switcheroo, which will become a centerpiece for the (D)onks, maybe even in time for the Congressional Election of 2014?

Civics bleg

This info request is about civics, the way your Citeh funds itself. Most municipalities work off of a tax base that is tied to property value, which is not the actual, immediate value of the real estate. The only reason that Citehs are not the worst of the gummint vote-buyers is that the millage rate limits their expenditure of public money, so they have to budget. Make that USED to have to budget.

Enter the monthly fee, in my Citeh (Gresham, OR), labeled "a fee to prevent more cuts" (cute name, innit?) Our City Council is trying to impose a fee, outside of the tax base, on every household and every business, of $7.50 per month.That's not a lot, but my basic research tell me that once these fees are introduced, they are usually raised, sometimes obscenely. In my case, I have to pay twice, because I run a small business here.

Back to the millage rate. The process of raising the millage rate involves the consent of the residents via an election. The process of sticking a new fee up our hoo-hoos does not, unless an ad-hoc committee arises to collect signatures and put the fee on the ballot in a special election (that could happen). Note that in Gresham's case, the City Council will put a new tax base on the ballot in 2014, and using the bludgeon of the new fee, will tell us to pass the new tax base or the fee will be continued, and likely, raised.

This is pure blackmail. As far as I know, the Gresham City Council members don't belong to the Mafia, but they are sure acting like they learned their civics at Mafia University.

Any Dear Readers who have information that might enliven my testimony before the Citeh Council next Tuesday, please leave it in comments.

Bloomie steps over the line

NY Citeh Mayor Bloomberg was asked by the Brooklyn Borough President for National Guard help. Hizzoner refused to pass along the request because the Guard would have showed up in uniform and bearing arms, lending the appearance of a...wait for it...wait...a POLICE STATE!

Okay then, first the Marathon issue, now this. New Yorkers, could your city possibly be mismanaged worse than it is now?

I didn't think so.

Recall Bloomberg's incompetent, dictatorial ass, and DO.IT.NOW!

H/T to Say Uncle Blog

Mediocrity wins in the Windy City

Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel blinked (winked?) and the city of broad shoulders got a teacher's contract in which just gettin' by is good enough, or close enough for government work, as the old saying goes. No merit-system supervision for Chi-town school marms and school men.

Oh, and they also got a 4.25%/year pay increase for 4 years, plus COLA. CBO has estimated the ongoing CPI at not over 2.5%, but then again, the Congressional Budget Office doesn't have a merit system for performance evaluation, either...

Garagineering: Two wins, one defeat

Win: after running up against the Government ban of high-power incandescent light bulbs (I have a 13.5-foot garage ceiling, which has the lighting canopies I have always had 200-watt light bulbs in so as to have the correct intensity down on the floor). Because of the ban, I have to use the !@#%^&*&^%$# compact flourescent bulbs, which can't be installed by means of an extension tool. BUT WAIT, Acme Engineering Commercial Electric has a Bulb Changer that's DESIGNED! (hahahahahahahah) to do this. I bought one at Home Despot. It looks like this in it's packaging:

Don't buy it, it's a Piece of Shit. See that thumbscrew on the changer-head? It is a metal screw in a soft plastic base, and it will NOT tighten the changer head to the extension pole well enough to provide the torque resistance to unscrew the light bulb those 13.5-feet up. It's crap, despite the fact that the packaging AND instructions claim that it can be done.

What to do?

Call a Garagineer, we need to make a single-purpose tool!

Who do you call? Rivrdog, the Garagineer on Duty!

I had, in my  tool crib, a Mark One Mod Zero incandescent light bulb changer stout enough to overcome the corroded-in-place aluminum base of the bulb and remove it. I used it and the spent bulb was soon in my garbage cart.

The replacement was not so easy. Since the available )$#%^&^%$#@ Compackt-by-order of-Government Flourescent bulbs (Heil Energy Gauleiter!) are not only fragile, they are weaker in output than the 200-watt incandescent bulb, I had to twin them in the canopy to get the same light-cast on the floor. That called for the use of a twinning-adapter ("Y"-adapter), still available for cheap.

Problem: how to get the Y-adapter, with it's load of two fragile CFL 100-watt-equivalent units, up to the 13.5-foot high canopy, and screw it in with enough force to seat it to good electrical contact.

Solution: is in the back yard, where I have a Box Hedge. I went to the hedge, and eyeballing (Garageineer's Calibrated Eyeballs) the correct diameter, cut a branch with a decent "Y" on it, and went back to the garage, where I fitted it to my old Mark One Mod Zero, Old School Light Bulb Changer, which had a socket of about .70" in it's base (by accident of engineering design). Shimming with Gorilla Tape did the trick to seat the "Y"-stick, with proof against the necessary torque. The principle of two inverted "Y" units forming a snug universal-joint was the trick here. The "Y" of the hedge stick against the "Y" of the twinning-adapter sufficed to both balance (with the aid of a small strip of Gorilla Tape) and hold the twin-CFL setup up to the extension unit, and threading it into the canopy 13.5 feet up. The equipment and it's use:

Project accomplished! Repeat for the second canopy, which still held a good 200-watt incandescent,  (reserved now for museum display)...

Win # 2: Back to the TCBBB-94, Tidy Cat Bucket Boom Box 1994 project. It works, but had terrible reception on radio (fine on cassette tape), due to no antenna being installed. In scavenging my boat electronics locker, I came up with a standard "rubber Ducky" car radio antenna, with attaching cable and standard antenna-coupling. I installed it as a breadboard mount, and VOILA!, the TCBBB now has perfect radio reception. I have yet to mount the antenna on the side of the Tidy Cat Bucket, which might require the fabrication of a backing plate, but the music from KMHD, Mount Hood Community College jazz, plays with excellent base response as I blog. 1962, Kiki Hamilton on drums, now playing...

FAIL: Started to install the new Ignition Module in the Honda HR-214-SM mower, and all went swimmingly, until time to set the module-to-magneto gap. Not knowing the correct gap, I relied on the time-tested .018" gap of the end-flaps of the new spark-plug box. I was torquing down the two bolts of the module, very slowly, maybe 1/25th-turn at a time, when I torqued off one of the two bolts in the cylinder body. It was the metric version of a 1/4X20 machine bolt, and it was a soft bolt with no grade markings on the head, so I was using a 1/4" drive Craftsman socket wrench 5" long (10mm socket) with light force, probably no more than 20 foot# at the max, maybe less, but the bolt sheared in the cylinder body. I now have an easy-out job on a small bolt to do. )*UY^#$%^&*!! (Translates as: the God of Mechanics may bend over and kiss my Rosy Red bung-hole!). I will now convert this repair job to a total rebuild of the engine (compression is down to 80#, which is marginal anyway), and let the machine shop deal with getting the sheared bolt out. )(*&^#@$%^&*!!!. This mower may yet wind up, minus it's mowing parts, as a 4hp, 12VDC, electric battery charger/donkey engine surface mount for my boat with a 150-amp surge capacity, and perhaps the self-drive transmission might wind up as a capstan winch for pulling up the rear anchor, or carb/shrimp pots. It is perfect for that job, with a solid cast deck to attach the alternator/capstan to, electric start and a blade/alternator clutch to boot! I have a seviceable Snapper Hi-Vac mower to mow my lawn for the present, and room now to store the rider I've always wanted for my 4500-square foot lawn, so this Honda HR-214 may yet live to be the envy of the Rivr as a Garagineered Project Battery Charger.

 

 

First question: why 16-minute police response at Aurora?

Aurora, CO. Hmmm, I remember an event there, not too long ago, where the cops there arrested everyone in a major intersection, at least 40 people, in an effort to capture one bank robber.

Last night, the same police force, knowing that 3 theaters were premiering a blockbuster movie and that many people would be there, that police force took 16 minutes to respond to an active shooter scenario.

Let's add it up: the first incident revealed that those cops have leaders who don't know their constitution(s), which don't permit such mass arrests, and the current incident shows that same leadership to have leaned NOTHING about active-shooter events. Active shooters are stopped by IMMEDIATE armed response AND intervention with deadly force, and that is the ONLY way to stop them.

The solution here for Aurora is to fire the Chief, and all of the command officers on duty last night (and on June 6th, for that matter). The Sheriff needs to take over that Police Department, and insure that the municipal police officers there are properly trained, and thereby restore the confidence of the people of Aurora in their public safety.

If that Chief were to eat his gun this evening, I would say he FINALLY realized the gravity of his position of protecting the public safety, and his personal failure to do so. He won't do anything so honorable, though, so just fire the Chief's sorry ass and blacklist him so solidly so that he can't ever get another public safety job.

 

Second Amendment Warning – first Alert

Just heard on the KPTV (Fox) News out of Portland, courtesy of the soon-to-be deactivated analog repeater station in Astoria, OR:

(Paraphrasing) PTSD policy for returning War Veterans. Today, the Veteran’s Administration announced that ALL returning veterans will be tested for PTSD, and RETESTED every year. (end of headline).

If you are a gun-owner who has served in a war zone, you should be aware that the VA has been asking “entrance questions” for some time, and they are designed to ask for a voluntary statement of hostile feelings, etc, which might be a result of PTSD. Those questions, anywhere from two to five in number, are followed (or sometimes preceded) by “do you have any guns in your home.”

Folks, there are two possible answers. You may consider yourself under duress of the removal of your constitutional rights with the Second Amendment, and a person under duress is permitted to dissemble (lie) as a proper defense of constitutional rights, so you answer “No”, even if you have guns. The other possibility, more palatable to those who can’t bring themselves to lie under any circumstances, is to use the time-honored, “I’m not at liberty to answer that question”, and if that answer is questioned by the VA intake people, reply, “because it compromises a legal position I am required and permitted to sustain.”  Do not further elaborate, and if required, firmly inform the intake person, “I am here to (state medical appointment) and further questioning is delaying this doctor visit. If you persist in attempting to question me on these private matters, I will be obliged to report you to the Patient Affairs representative.”

Be properly polite and professional during these confrontations, and realize that they are simply an extension of enemy action against you as a military member, but remember that YOU, as a Veteran, have all the rights of the HIPP Act, AND your rights as a military person. You have the right to be given all orders in writing, and in fact, you may end all of this by demanding that right. Of course, the VA will never issue you such an order. OTOH, if you are still in the IRR, or any branch of the Reserve, you CAN be issued orders, and the above advice may not apply.

Recognizing the end result of this new VA policy will probably put a stop to it: it is designed to do nothing less than disarm THE most likely armed opponents of a dictatorial take-over by the Obama Regime, and it’s consequent complete suppression of the US Constitution.

Veterans WILL remember and act on their to act on their oaths to protect the Constitution with their lives (and by TAKING lives, if required by circumstances), and the would-be Gauleiters of the American Reich know this, which is why they will do their utmost to defang their primary opposition before their final moves to take this Nation into dictatorship.

Your resistance to the onrushing American Reich starts now, with YOUR refusal to be classified as unfit to keep and bear arms. Your Nation WILL depend on you, of that I’m sure. No one else has the training and the proven valor to stand in this breach. Stay strong, my fellow Veterans.

B.O.H.I.C.A.*, New Global Warming alarmism.

EhBeeCee News this time, and it was the lead story tonight.  "Major Alert" intones Diane Sawyer as the phrase "Tipping Point" gets casually tossed around. "State of the Climate (Fearmongering) Report just isued", the story blathers on. Cue the picture of the polar bear standing forlornly on the melting iceberg. More alarms: "The odds of a tipping point keep growing."

The story opened with "Weather equals climate?" as an affirmative question, then sort of said it wasn't, but if the writers know that weather NEVER equals climate**, why did they put that in? More fearmongering.

Remember the famously discredited "hockey stick" chart which propelled Al Gore to fame, then shame as a GlowBULL warNing" expert? Look at it this way, the "hockey stick" is back, except that it's now called a "tipping point". The fearmongers knew better than to mention ALGore's name during the story, but it wouldn't surprise me if commentary puts him back into the conversation.

Why now? With the election and the economy and Radical Islam still nipping at our heels, you'd think that the climate alarmists, having been roundly discredited in several major revealing incidents, would be a little less forthcoming this time.

It's "double-down" time! This is a characteristic trick of pathological liars in general, and liberal liars in particular: deny, deny, deny, counter-accuse. The corollary to that is, when caught in the first lie, make up a bigger one to cover the first one. That's what we're seeing now, the Next Big Lie.

BTW, liberloons, the "tipping point" idea was fine as an attention-getter in the climatescare movies, but it has never been proven to actually happen in real life. The climate is fairly well mapped out in the micro-paleontology of the ice caps, and there is no record of a "tipping point" there.

Here's the curmudgeon's last word. Now that the Cloward-Piven strategy is revealed, an early sort of "October surprise", the object/event to be overwhelmed this time is the election and it's previously-driving event horizon, the US economy. The (D)onks know that they will get beaten down by the sluggish-to-declining economy, so they are going to dance out of it with global warming alarmism. "How can we just sit there and let this happen. Quick, before the tipping point gets here, let's DO SOMETHING"

Mark my words, the "DO SOMETHNG' will include re-electing Barack Obama, despite his dismal record on anything related to climate change.

What can WE do?. Start looking for the emails and the evidence that this was set up. They've got to be out there, and if history is any guide, the alarmists aren't capable of any effective cover-up. After we find evidence of these connivances, let's make a supreme effort to tie it to the world liberloon conspiracy.

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* B.O.H.I.C.A. (Bend Over, Here It Comes Again)

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** I took Weather and Climate in college as part of the Geophysical Science triad. On the first day, the Professor advised us that mixing up the two sciences, Weather and Climate, would result in grade failure, because if there was one sure thing on this earth, it was that there is ZERO mathematical relationship between weather and climate. Yeah, that was almost 50 years ago, but I have heard nothing in the intervening half-century to contradict that Professor. BTW, I got an "A" in the course, despite not having the math skill to do any of the really scary calculations to study past the introductory course.

On the trail of a new medical scam

....just heard on Fox News: if you are bitten by the Lone Star tick,which ranges over the Southeast and East Coast, you could suddenly become allergic to Red Meat!

All my BeeEss warning systems went off at once.

Why just RED meat? Why MEAT only? The human body assimilates meat protein and meat fat the same whether it is red or "white", fish or fowl, or even eggs. It's all animal fat and animal protein.

The foreign doctor interviewed didn't say anything about the mechanism of the allergic reactions involved, just said they would be horrible and they would prohibit one from eating RED MEAT.

The good Doctor wouldn't happen to be a PETA darling, would he?

ABC News did a piece on it yesterday, and their piece is full of doubts expressed by the original researchers. Of note: ABC did mention the "war on meat" in their first sentence. Excuse the ad-laden links.