28 February 2013

Sequestration



This is NOT a scary threatening cut of massive proportions in critical programs, people! It's a little reduction on some stuff that people do NOT have yet - not stealing money out of anyone's pockets, just limiting the amount that they might get from the government if all of the appropriating goes through.

 I hate to see this sequestration situation coming around. It is a no win situation for a lot of us. I'm fixed income (disability), and obviously I should like to have the government paying me more. Also, I should not want to be paying more taxes. It is a mutually exclusive thing - you wants more money you pays more taxes. But I want the sequestration to go into effect, because it's the only way we are going to quit spending huge amounts of money we don't have.

But - the administration is setting itself up to move into a role of socialist dictatorial control by dealing a death blow to the people and to the Congress. Not just to Republicans, or Tea Parties, or Democrats, or blivnaps or whatever. Don't forget: President Obama designed the sequester and where budget items will be cut. So what he is cutting does not make sense to most people and would really hurt everyone. SOOOOOO, if the Congress does not override sequestration by approving exactly what Obama wants, then the cuts come in. If Congress does pass what the president wants, then any good things will be credited to BO himself - Barry will see to that. If bad things happen, it will all be blamed on "the Republicans", "the Right", "the Radicals", "the Lugnuts", fill in your own noun. The Democrats will then play it for all it is worth to ensure that the Republicans get hammered in the 2014 elections, thereby ensuring his permanency in office. 

Politics stink!

And the sad part is: the money in the sequester is really insignificant. None of that gloom and doom stuff is gonna happen. Have you ever seen a general quit fighting because some politician somewhere didn't pass a certain budget line item? No, doesn't happen. Will schools close because their Federal support is minisculely (really, minisculely) diminished? Not a chance. It is all a manufactured crisis. The great Barry Soetoro himself once said "Never fail to take advantage of a good crisis." He has gone on to become expert at manufacturing good crises, building them out of pure cloth if necessary. 

We'll see over the weekend what happens. 

22 February 2013

So, what DOES the Constitution mean about guns?


I saw this news article in one of my venerable lugnut feeds this morning: New York will prosecute veteran with high-capacity magazines. The first thing I thought was at least they didn't call them clips.

Magazine:                                                       Clips:


















You can obviously tell how felonious this perpetrator is for possessing 5 of these things that he routinely carried every day when he was in Afghanistan. How dastardly!

Contrary to what you read, the Second Amendment reads:


As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
 Notice the commas. The version recorded in the records of the Executive Branch, which is the true and correct version, is two clauses instead of the four clauses that are shown many times and truly do show in the one hand-scribed version of the Bill of Rights in the National Archives. Remember - that is a copy of the original text and the law is what was passed by the states.

Notice also: The Second Amendment does not grant a right. The amendment provides that a pre-existing right shall not be infringed. In that it is not granting a right, the Bill of Rights recognizes the validity of the inalienable right to keep and bear arms. Since the right is not granted by the government but pre-existed the government, the government may not alter something that is not its to alter.

At least that's the way my little pea brain breaks down the logic. Being neither an attorney nor a politician I am not invited into the clubhouse to talk about these things though. Nor do any lobbyists pay me to vote one way or the other about this stuff, since I have no vote anywhere. Nonetheless, that's what I think these things say, that's the way I think things are.

Moving Along to More Law that Most People Never Heard of or Know to be Law

Of course, you recognize 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL. v. HELLER
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
No. 07–290. Argued March 18, 2008—Decided June 26, 2008

and, I'm sure the words are right on your lips from

130 S.Ct. 3020 (2010)
Otis McDONALD, et al., Petitioners,
v.
CITY OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, et al.
No. 08-1521.
Supreme Court of United States.
Argued March 2, 2010.
Decided June 28, 2010.

These two court decisions, both fairly recent if you will notice, clearly state what the meaning of the Second Amendment is. Surprise? Of course it is. The media will never just plain read simple statements from these; they always want to take what the media wants to say and wiggle around the words of the court to support their, probably totally wrong, allegations.

That being said, first a direct comment from DC v. Heller:
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a
firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for
traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
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 firearms 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.
 and, from McDonald v. Chicago:
Two years ago, in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 2783, 171 L.Ed.2d 637 (2008), we held that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense, and we struck down a District of Columbia law that banned the possession of handguns in the home. The city of Chicago (City) and the village of Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, have laws that are similar to the District of Columbia's, but Chicago and Oak
Park argue that their laws are constitutional because the Second Amendment has no application to the States. We have previously held that most of the provisions of the Bill of Rights apply with full force to both the Federal Government and the States. Applying the standard that is well established in our case law, we hold that the Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States.

Now, I am not an attorney; and, I never played one on television or in the movies. But this language seems straightforward. Weapons in common usemay be possessed by an individual and used for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense within the home, and that right is fully applicable to the States. In a case where a veteran merely possesses items that are, indeed, commonly used accessories to weapons, and is not using them for any purpose, and they are in his home, I would offer that the State of New York has no jurisdiction to prosecute. Actually, if they show up to confiscate his magazines, I say he has the right to use his weapons to defend his home and property. This would be viewed dimly, and he would undoubtedly be plugged dead by law enforcement officers "doing their duty", but then I would say his estate should be able to sue the bejabbers out of the state in Federal court.

Like any of that would ever happen.

But, think about it ...

21 February 2013

Absurdity to the nth degree

OK. What are they drinking in Washington? They need some purple Kool-Aid, I think to clear the benches and start again, but ...

News today: the Department of Homeland Security at the request of law-enforcement agencies has paid $2 million to make new training targets of a non-traditional type. Pregnant women, senior citizens, protective mothers, children in playgrounds. Yes, seriously, all of the above:








WHAT POSSIBLE KIND OF THREAT DO THESE PEOPLE PRESENT?

As far as I am concerned, they are just regular people standing their ground to protect themselves and their families. A "hostile young mother depicting a threat on a playground"? The guys that thought these up suffer from severe craniorectal inversion disorder!! Of course, with that 2 billion rounds of hollowpoint .40 caliber and 9mm ammunition that the DHS bought for training purposes, the desk clerks to whom those automatic pistols have been issued are going to need something to practice on. What better than these realistic targets of the great threat to our country: informed citizens protecting themselves from a government that has become destructive of the inalienable rights among which are quite obviously life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I guess they do not count any more under the current administration and their game rules. Obviously the Consitution and the law-making process are insignificant, since so many Executive Orders and recess actions are being taken and made.

Like I say - arm up so when they take you out you can at least take two with you.