Friday, May 29, 2009

American capitalism gone with a whimper

This is from a Russian newspaper:
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Stanislav Mishin

Thursday, May 28, 2009

OBAMA ON HEALTH CARE REVAMP: IT'S NOW OR NEVER...

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D98FI7I00&show_article=1

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama warned Thursday that if Congress doesn't deliver health care legislation by the end of the year, the opportunity will be lost, a plea to political supporters to pressure lawmakers to act. "If we don't get it done this year, we're not going to get it done," Obama told supporters by phone as he flew home on Air Force One from a West Coast fundraising trip.
...

Obama in L.A.: 'You ain't seen nothing yet'

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obama-in-l.a.-confident-but-not-yet-content-2009-05-27.html

President Obama was in a boastful mood Wednesday night, telling a star-studded crowd at a fundraising dinner that he "would put these first four months up against any prior administration since FDR."
...
"I've made some mistakes, and I guarantee you I'll make some more," he said.

But Obama said in promising to continue to work hard, "Los Angeles, you ain't seen nothing yet."

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Court upholds Prop. 8 but lets marriages stand

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/26/BAE017PTAD.DTL&tsp=1

California voters legally outlawed same-sex marriage when they approved Proposition 8 in November, but the constitutional amendment did not dissolve the unions of 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who wed before the measure took effect, the state Supreme Court ruled today.

A Judge’s View of Judging Is on the Record

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor

"...where Policy is made..." -Sotomayor

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Guns in Parks: Safe, Scary or a Sideshow?


http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/guns-in-parks-safe-scary-or-a-sideshow/#john

The States as a Check on Federal Powers

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/996315/posts

I argue in the book that the framers understood that federalism would be protected by the manner of electing (and, perhaps most importantly, re-electing) the Senate. However, the adoption and ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, providing for direct election of the Senate,[iv] changed all that.
...

On May 31, 1787, very early in the Constitutional Convention, the delegates rejected Resolution 5 of the Virginia Plan that proposed that the "second branch of the National Legislature ought to be elected by those of the first," doing so by a vote of seven states "no," three states "yes." Instead on June 7, they unanimously accepted a motion by John Dickinson and seconded by Roger Sherman providing for the appointment of the Senate by the state legislatures.

The delegates were apparently persuaded by Dickinson’s argument that the "sense of the States would be better collected through their Governments than immediately from the people at large" and by George Mason’s observation that election of the Senate by state legislatures would provide the states with "some means of defending themselves against encroachments of the National Government. In every other department, we have studiously endeavored to provide for its self-defense. Shall we leave the States alone unprovided with the means for this purpose? And what better means can we provide than giving them some share in, or rather making them a constituent part of, the Nat’l Establishment?"

On June 20, James Wilson, a passionate nationalist, warned his fellow delegates that "a jealousy would exist between the State Legislatures & the General Legislature." He observed "that the members of the former would have views & feelings very distinct in this respect from their constituents. A private Citizen of a State is indifferent whether power be exercised by the Genl. or State Legislatures, provided it be exercised most for his happiness." On the other hand, "[h]is representative has an interest in its being exercised by the body to which he belongs. He will therefore view the National Legisl. with the eye of a jealous rival." Wilson’s attack, however, utterly failed, not because the delegates disputed his analysis but because they approved the outcome. Since they were committed to preserving the states as political entities, they found persuasive Mason’s assertions that the states would need the "power of self-defense" [ix] and that "the only mode left of giving it to them was by allowing them to appoint the second branch of the National Legislature." Accordingly, on June 25, the Convention reaffirmed its previous decision to elect the Senate by state legislatures by a vote of nine states "yes," two states "no."[x]

Monday, May 18, 2009

Repeal the 17th Amendment?

http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200405120748.asp

There is only one time when a U.S. senator is really free to speak the truth — when he’s announced his retirement. Since he no longer has to worry about raising money, pandering to voters, or retaliation from his colleagues, he can say what he really thinks about issues no other member of the Senate will discuss. For this reason, it is worth listening to Sen. Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, who recently spoke a truth that no senator except a retiring one would dare say.



On April 28, Sen. Miller, the last genuinely conservative Democrat we will likely ever see in the Senate, laid the blame for what ails that august body at the door of the 17th amendment to the Constitution. This is the provision that provides for the popular election of senators.

Few people today know that the Founding Fathers never intended for senators to be popularly elected. The Constitution originally provided that senators would be chosen by state legislatures. The purpose was to provide the states — as states — an institutional role in the federal government. In effect, senators were to function as ambassadors from the states, which were expected to retain a large degree of sovereignty even after ratification of the Constitution, thereby ensuring that their rights would be protected in a federal system.

The role of senators as representatives of the states was assured by a procedure, now forgotten, whereby states would “instruct” their senators how to vote on particular issues. Such instructions were not conveyed to members of the House of Representatives because they have always been popularly elected and are not expected to speak for their states, but only for their constituents.

When senators represented states as states, rather than being super House members as they are now, they zealously protected states’ rights. This term became discredited during the civil-rights struggle of the 1960s as a code word for racism — allowing Southern states to resist national pressure to integrate. But clearly this is an aberration. States obviously have interests that may conflict with federal priorities on a wide variety of issues that defy easy ideological classification. Many states, for example, would probably enact more liberal laws relating to the environment, health, and business regulation if allowed by Washington.

Two factors led to enactment of the 17th amendment. First was the problem that many state legislatures deadlocked on their selections for the Senate. The upper house and the lower house could not agree on a choice, or it was prohibitively difficult for one candidate to get an absolute majority in each house (as opposed to a plurality), which was required by federal law. Some states went without representation in the Senate for years as a consequence.

The second problem involved a perception that the election of senators by state legislatures made them more susceptible to corruption by special interests. The Hearst newspapers were a major force arguing this point in the early 1900s.

The pressure of public opinion eventually forced the Senate to approve a constitutional amendment changing the election of senators to our current system of the popular vote. The fact that many states (such as Oregon) had already adopted a system whereby legislatures were required to choose senators selected by popular vote was ignored.

The 17th amendment was ratified in 1913. It is no coincidence that the sharp rise in the size and power of the federal government starts in this year (the 16th amendment, establishing a federal income tax, ratified the same year, was also important). As George Mason University law professor Todd Zywicki has noted, prior to the 17th amendment, senators resisted delegating power to Washington in order to keep it at the state and local level. “As a result, the long term size of the federal government remained fairly stable during the pre-Seventeenth Amendment era,” he wrote.

Prof. Zywicki also finds little evidence of corruption in the Senate that can be traced to the pre-1913 electoral system. By contrast, there is much evidence that the post-1913 system has been deeply corruptive. As Sen. Miller put it, “Direct elections of Senators … allowed Washington’s special interests to call the shots, whether it is filling judicial vacancies, passing laws, or issuing regulations.”

Sen. Miller also lays much of the blame for the current impasse on confirming federal judges at the door of the 17th amendment. Consequently, on April 28 he introduced S.J.Res. 35 in order to repeal that provision of the Constitution.

Over the years, a number of legal scholars have called for the repeal of the 17th amendment. An excellent summary of their arguments appears in Ralph Rossum's book, Federalism, the Supreme Court and the Seventeenth Amendment. They should at least get a hearing before Zell Miller departs the Senate at the end of this year.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

United States Going Away From Gun Control

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2009/05/14/united-states-going-away-from-gun-control.html

Maybe it's the 9/11 hangover or those anti-Obama bumper stickers sold at gun shops, but the country is edging away from gun control. "Attitudes toward gun control have become more conservative, people not wanting gun control," says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll. The number of people who say they want "more strict" gun control measures is dropping, he says. "So the NRA actually is in a pretty good position now, public-opinion-wise."

Thursday, May 14, 2009

What's happening to Republicans in Utah


http://www.slate.com/id/2218176/










What's the matter with Utah? The most Republican state in the nation is drifting to the left. In the last few months, Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican and a practicing Mormon, has come out in favor of civil unions for gays and repeated his support for government action on global warming. Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled state legislature has liberalized Utah's notoriously arcane alcohol laws. The punishment for this apostasy has been record-high approval ratings—for both governor and legislature.
...

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Rethinking The 17th Amendment

Rethinking The 17th Amendment

Glad to see someone else talking about this

All of these are great ideas but, so far, I have not heard anyone proposing the one thing that is essential to any States’ Rights movement–the restoration of representation for the States in the Senate. The repeal of the 17th Amendment will return the Constitution to it’s original form where States’ Rights are recognized at the national level, and I will be proposing such an initiative at the Patrick Henry Caucus formation meeting this Thursday.

Hating What's Right

Follow up on his previous speech at the Heritage Foundation on liberalism.


The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child:The Impact on Private Gun-Ownership in America

http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={96190840-EC3B-4A5E-80EE-9719625B62A5}

“The spread of small arms creates a serious global problem and requires an equally urgent response because the lives and futures of children are at stake. These weapons have extinguished more young lives than they have protected.” – Carol Bellamy, Executive Director, UNICEF

Washington's drugstore cowboys

http://www.dosenation.com/listing.php?smlid=6229

Armed robberies of Washington State's drugstores and pharmacies are on the rise. Now pharmacists are fighting back with heat of their own. Here is a clip from Seattle's local King-5 news, including video of a pharmacist pulling a Glock on a would-be oxycodone robber.

Join the Patrick Henry Caucus

http://thepatrickhenrycaucus.wordpress.com/

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=97898

FDA Blasts General Mills Over Cheerios Claim

http://wcbstv.com/health/cheerios.general.mills.2.1007986.html

Cereal Makers Scolded Because Claim Of Lowering Cholesterol 10 Percent In Month Makes It A "Drug"

Interesting/Funny Cartoon

Friday, May 8, 2009

House bypasses governor’s veto to claim Oklahoma’s sovereignty

http://www.newsok.com/house-bypasses-governors-veto-to-claim-oklahomas-sovereignty/article/3366762

Although Gov. Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty.
...

Eco-sailors rescued by oil tanker


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/8034027.stm









An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth on a 5,000-mile carbon emission-free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker.
...

Monday, May 4, 2009

Montana Governor Signs New Gun Law

http://www.panamalaw.org/montana_governor_signs_new_gun_law.html


Executive Summary – The USA state of Montana has signed into power a revolutionary gun law. I mean REVOLUTIONARY. The State of Montana has defied the federal government and their gun laws. This will prompt a showdown between the federal government and the State of Montana. The federal government fears citizens owning guns. They try to curtail what types of guns they can own. The gun control laws all have one common goal – confiscation of privately owned firearms.

Montana has gone beyond drawing a line in the sand. They have challenged the Federal Government. The fed now either takes them on and risks them saying the federal agents have no right to violate their state gun laws and arrest the federal agents that try to enforce the federal firearms acts. This will be a world-class event to watch. Montana could go to voting for secession from the union, which is really throwing the gauntlet in Obamas face. If the federal government does nothing they lose face. Gotta love it.

Important Points – If guns and ammunition are manufactured inside the State of Montana for sale and use inside that state then the federal firearms laws have no applicability since the federal government only has the power to control commerce across state lines. Montana has the law on their side. Since when did the USA start following their own laws especially the constitution of the USA, the very document that empowers the USA.

Silencers made in Montana and sol in Montana would be fully legal and not registered. As a note silencers were first used before the 007 movies as a device to enable one to hunt without disturbing neighbors and scaring game. They were also useful as devices to control noise when practicing so as to not disturb the neighbors.

Silencers work best with a bolt-action rifle. There is a long barrel and the chamber is closed tight so as to direct all the gases though the silencer at the tip of the barrel. Semi-auto pistols and revolvers do not really muffle the sound very well except on the silver screen. The revolvers bleed gas out with the sound all over the place. The semi-auto pistols bleed the gases out when the slide recoils back.

Silencers are maybe nice for snipers picking off enemy soldiers even though they reduce velocity but not very practical for hit men shooting pistols in crowded places. Silencers were useful tools for gun enthusiasts and hunters.

There would be no firearm registration, serial numbers, criminal records check, waiting periods or paperwork required. So in a short period of time there would be millions and millions of unregistered untraceable guns in Montana. Way to go Montana.