So Detroit Files for Bankruptcy

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What, it can’t loan money to itself to get out of its hole?

Gov. Rick Snyder justified approving the historic filing by reciting a litany of the city’s ills, including more than $18 billion in debt, maxed-out tax rates, the highest murder rate in 40 years, 78,000 abandoned buildings and a half-century of residential flight. He said the city failed to provide basic services to residents or pay creditors.

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“There were no other viable alternatives,” Snyder told reporters Thursday. “We have a great city but a city that has been going downhill for 60 years.”

Just a coincidence I’m sure, but Detroit hasn’t had a Republican mayor for … sixty-one years.

It will be interesting to see if Obama inserts himself into this bankruptcy proceeding and screws the secured bondholders in favor of the unions.  Again.  (ETA:  Walter Russell Mead says “No.”)

Edited to add:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ZQooPHHAA?rel=0]
And, of course, this classic from Steven:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw?rel=0]
UPDATE #4: Michigan AG challenges judge’s ruling that Detroit bankruptcy is unconstitutional

An Ingham County judge says Thursday’s historic Detroit bankruptcy filing violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn.

But Attorney General Bill Schuette said he will appeal Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s Friday rulings and seek emergency consideration by the Michigan Court of Appeals. He wants her orders stayed pending the appeals, he said in a news release.

There’s more.

Apparently Judge Aquilina is a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences,” instead of someone who, you know, cares about rule of law.

For Breda

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…everyone’s favorite research librarian.

I’m currently reading The End is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome:  How Going Broke will Leave America Richer, Happier and More Secure by Kevin D. Williamson.  I’m about halfway through it, and so far it’s been written in pretty pure libertarian win.  Lots of Quote of the Day fodder, but I get the sinking impression that the last third is going to largely be of “and then a MIRACLE will occur!” variety, because, by George, we’re AMERICANS and that’s what we DO!

Time will tell.

But for today, I ran across a section that just had me saying to myself “Gotta post this for Breda.”  It’s in the chapter on “What Government is For.”:

Privately funded and volunteer-staffed public libraries were the norm for many years, from magnificent ones such as the New York Public Library―the main branch of which was the largest marble building in the world at the time of its opening―to modest ones throughout suburbs and small towns across the country.  At the apogee of WASP society-lady culture, volunteering at the local library was practically a rite of passage, an entrée into more prestigious charitable work.  (It was a perfection of mid-twentieth-century American upper-class culture that the vanity of ambitious social climbers was exceedingly well aligned with genuine civic virtue, and that conspicuous consumption had not yet displaced conspicuous civil service.  The WASP establishment had its shortcomings, to be sure, but its absence is today keenly felt from the Main Line to Orange County.)  To be sure, in many of these cases there was some entanglement with politics from the beginning, and in a great many more an eventual entanglement with politics, which has been especially harmful in the case of the public libraries: Somehow, as library budgets ballooned and volunteer society ladies were displaced by graduate-schooled, credentialed professionals in the faintly ridiculous field of “library science,” our libraries were transformed from quiet places to read a book into psychiatric wards in which homeless men masturbate to Internet pornography.  The San Francisco public libraries recently installed barriers to increase the level of privacy for this activity.

Coming to a library near you?

A Crutch? It Should be Used as an Impaling Stake.

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How many inconsistencies (and how much bullshit) can you find in this story:

Affidavit: Man using rifle as crutch when it fired

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man told police he was using his assault rifle as a crutch to help him get up from a couch at a friend’s apartment when it fired a burst through the ceiling and killed a little girl upstairs, court records show.

He was using the gun as a crutch, but it “fired a burst” through the CEILING?!?! Why didn’t it take his arm off at the shoulder?

A police affidavit said Jon Andrew Meyer Jr. told investigators the gun went off accidentally June 27 at the Grants Pass apartment, the Grants Pass Daily Courier reported.

Defense lawyer Gary Berlant adds Meyer had been assured the gun was not fully automatic.

But it “fired a BURST”?  How long had he owned it?  Did it have a happy switch?

Meyer is being held on $250,000 bail on charges of manslaughter, assault and unlawful possession of a machine gun.

Authorities say he was responsible for the reckless burst of rifle fire that killed 5-year-old Alysa Bobbitt of Shady Cove and wounded apartment resident Karen Hancock. The girl and Hancock were upstairs in the same apartment as Meyer.

The little girl and her mother were visiting friends there, but just what Meyer was doing in the apartment with the rifle was unclear. Court records say his fiancee had kicked him out of her place, getting a restraining order, and he listed his current residence as his sister’s home.

So he was under a restraining order, but he still had firearms? That’s unpossible!!

Meyer listed his occupation as lead bouncer at a Mexican restaurant, where he has worked for two years.

Though his fiancee, Victoria Kohout, told authorities that Meyer was a “big teddy bear,” her June 20 petition for the restraining order described him as an “unpredictable drug addict” who had threatened her with a gun, and threatened to burn down her house, slash her tires and break the windows on her car. The judge noted in the file that Meyer had four guns.

So he was a drug abuser, and the court was informed that he had firearms? And they didn’t take them?  Or did he acquire this one after the fact?

Lori Nelson, who lives down the block, said she was startled by the noise of gunfire, and saw Meyer running down the driveway. Then she heard screaming and saw Danielle R. Wilson, Alyssa’s mother, come outside holding the child in her arms.

“She looked up at me and said, ‘Please, help my baby,'” Nelson said.

The perp was using the rifle as a crutch in his apartment, but after it “fired a burst” through the ceiling he is then seen “running down the driveway”. It’s a MIRACLE! He was HEALED THROUGH THE POWER OF JESUS!

Everything about this story stinks. I can’t wait for the junk-on-the-bunk pictures and the handwringing over this guy’s “arsenal.”

And I hope he dies screaming in a fire.

Now watch the AP come after me.  I claim “Fair Use.”  Read the disclaimer at the bottom of the page.

Quote of the Day – Zimmerman Debacle Edition Pt. II

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This one’s from SayUncle:

Two idiots tried to out idiot each other. One was successful.

Pretty much.  Let me retract that.  Zimmerman was doing his duty as a Neighborhood Watch member.  The evidence indicates that Martin confronted him and attacked him.  Everything prior to that is moot.  Martin played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.  Zimmerman did not maintain situational awareness.  This doesn’t make Zimmerman an idiot.

Charges Should Never Have Been Brought

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Zimmerman found not guilty.

Here’s the story as I understand it:

Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch member after a recent string of burglaries in his neighborhood, sees a young male he doesn’t recognize.  Young males are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of property crimes, regardless of race.  Doing his volunteer job, he follows the suspicious person and calls 911.

Martin, fresh to the neighborhood because of personal problem – he’s staying with his father and his father’s fiance – notices that he’s being followed by a “creepy-ass cracker.”

Zimmerman is advised by the 911 operator that he “doesn’t need” to follow Martin.  The police are on their way, but Zimmerman gets out of his truck and follows anyway.  He’s Neighborhood Watch, remember?  He loses sight of Martin.

Returning to his truck, he is confronted by Martin, who is younger, fitter, and probably stronger.  The confrontation is violent.   Zimmerman ends up on his back under Martin, getting beaten.  His nose is broken and his head shows signs of trauma indicating that it was in contact with concrete.

In fear for his life or at least serious injury, Zimmerman draws his properly licensed concealed weapon and fires one shot, stopping the assault.

NOTHING prior to that next to last paragraph has any standing on the defensive shooting.  Once the assault began, Zimmerman was justified in defending himself.

I’m glad the jury understood that.

Now we get to see what happens with the racial grievance crowd.

Vigilantes!!

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Pennsylvania teens chase down kidnapper’s car on their BIKES and save five-year-old girl

Two Pennsylvania teens are being hailed as heroes after they chased down a man in a car who had snatched a five-year-old girl from her grandmother’s front yard – on their bikes.

Jocelyn Rojas, five, was missing for two hours yesterday when Temar Boggs and a friend saw the child in a car near Lancaster Township and gave chase.

After Boggs, 15, and his friend had been tailing the vehicle for 15 minutes, the driver let the little girl out of the car and sped off.


Now that the little girl is safely back with her family, police are focusing on finding the suspect.

Jocelyn Rojas was playing in the front yard of her grandmother’s home on the 100 block of Jennings Drive in Lancaster Township when she disappeared at about 4:35pm Thursday.

The family notified police and officers sprang into action, blocking off streets and scouring the area with canine units. Police showed Jocelyn’s picture around the neighborhood and Boggs and his friend joined more than 100 first responders searching for the girl.

Boggs spottted the girl in the abductor’s car and he and his friend began to follow the car.

The high school student said the little girl ran towards him when she got out of the car.

‘If he wasn’t going to stop, I was probably going to like, jump on the car,’ Boggs told ABC6.

Boggs said the suspect would turn around to see if they were still following him after they began to give chase.

‘As soon as the guy started noticing that we were chasing him, he stopped at the end of the hill and let her out, and she ran to me and said that she needed her mom,’ he said.

Boggs took the little girl to the police and they contacted her frantic mother and family.

Good on ya, kid young man sir!  (Edited due to some excellent comments.) Here is someone who instinctively understands Robert Peel’s Seventh Principle:

Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

Rendezvous!

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The 8th Annual Gun Blogger Rendezvous is fast approaching, September 4-8 at the Silver Legacy Resort and Casino in Reno, NV.  Event organizer Mr. Completely has published the schedule of this year’s events:

Wednesday, September 4th.

6:15 Pm. For those arriving on Wednesday, KeeWee and I and some of the other early arrivers are planning on having dinner at the El Dorado Buffet Restaurant. The El Dorado is part of the same giant casino complex as the Silver Legacy and the Circus Circus. The El Dorado Buffet is at one end of the complex. The Silver Legacy is in the middle, and the Circus Circus is on the opposite end.

Thursday, September 5th

8:30 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality Room for one of the restaurants for breakfast.
1:15 pm. Leave the Hospitality Room to car pool to Cabela’s.
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm. Guided tour Cabela’s and browsing/shopping. Buy ammo? Pick up munchies and soft drinks on way back to hotel.
6:00 pm. Leave the Hospitality Room to go to dinner. Location to be determined later.
Thursday Evening until midnight: Refreshments and conversation at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Bring your own refreshments and munchies.

Friday, September 6th.

8:00 am. NRA Sponsored breakfast in our Hospitality room. NRA representative will be speaking to us over breakfast.
9:00 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to car pool up and head out to the Washoe County Shooting Facility, the Pyramid range for rifle and pistol target shooting out to 900 yards.
9:45 am – 2:00pm. At the range.
4:00 pm. – 5:45pm. Show-N-Tell at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Manufacturers and show new stuff, and attendees show neat things too!
6:00 pm. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to go to Dos Gecko’s Mexican Restaurant for dinner sponsored by Gunlawsbystate.com and Brian Ciyou.
7:15 pm. (Approx) Ray Carter from the Second Amendment Foundation and Brian Ciyou from Gunlawsbystate.com, will talk to us, and other industry, shooting sports, and legal aspect folks will follow.
7:45 pm. Double Elimination Pistol competition in Hospitality Room using the Optical Computer Aided Training Simulator from Outwest systems, using real guns shooting lasers instead of bullets. An OCAT System will be awarded to one of the competitors by random drawing!

Friday Evening until midnight: Refreshments and conversation at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Bring your own refreshments and munchies.

Saturday, September 7th.

8:00 am. Gunauctions.com sponsored Breakfast in the Silver Legacy Hospitality room.
9:00 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to car pool up and head out to the Washoe County Shooting Facility, Western Nevada Pistol League Action Pistol bays at the Pyramid range for an introduction to Steel Challenge Action Pistol shooting, a demonstration of the live fire version of the OCAT system, and more.
9:45 am – 2:00 pm. At the range.
5:00 pm – 6 pm. Short presentation by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
6:00 pm. NSSF all you can eat pizza feed at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. After dinner will be the fund raiser raffle for Project Valour-IT and the drawings for the door prizes.
Saturday Evening until Midnight: Refreshments and conversation at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Bring your own refreshments and munchies.

Sunday, September 8th.

8:00 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room for one of the restaurants for breakfast
9:00 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to car pool up and head out to the Washoe County Shooting Facility, Western Nevada Pistol League Action Pistol bays at the Pyramid range for some fun with the Black Powder bowling Ball Mortar from Gunauctions.com, and some other surprises you won’t want to miss!
9:45 am – 1:00pm. At the range.

This year sounds like a real blast!

This Woman Had More than Tissue Paper

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Wife killed husband in self-defense

A McMinn county man was shot and killed by his wife on Saturday within 15 minutes of leaving jail after he was arrested earlier in the day.

The McMinn County Sheriff said shortly before 8 am Saturday, Athens Police Officers received a report that Robert Vann Marshall, 34, was irate, suicidal, armed and threatening to kill his wife and children.

Officers stopped Robert Marshall shortly afterward at the Athens Super 8 Motel. The officers found he had a handgun and various narcotics pills in his possession.

Authorities found there to be an active order of protection against him and arrested him for the firearms and narcotics charges and took him to the McMinn County Justice Center.

While in custody authorities read and explained the order of protection to Marshall and gave him a copy of it. He was ordered to not contact his wife, or go to their residence, or else he would be charged.

Authorities said Robert Marshall made bond and was eventually released at approximately 1:27 p.m.

Then at approximately 1:38 p.m., 911 received a call from the Marshall residence where Melissa Marshall, stated that her husband, Robert Marshall was at the residence attending to get inside.

While authorities made their way to the residence, Ms. Marshall indicated that her husband forced his way inside and then she told dispatchers that she had shot him.

Athens Police Officers and McMinn Sheriffs Deputies arrived at the home and found the front door kicked in with Robert Marshall lying in a back bedroom with a fatal gunshot wound to his chest.

Unlike Claudia Pascal or Shennell McKendall or Yong Sun Park, her mother, father, and six year-old son.

Melissa Marshall will now live with the aftermath of having taken a life, but she’s alive to have that experience and not dead at her husband’s hands.