I’m In.

I’m In

Simon-Jester.org:

WHO WE ARE

We are Simon Jester.

We are not anarchists.

We are not Far-Right or Far-Left. We are the seventy percent in the middle.

We are not Capital “L” libertarians, although we do have sympathies with their platform.

We are neither bitter clingers nor conspiracy nuts.

What we are is a group of folks that think we see liberty and freedom eroding in our beloved United States. We see the policies and agendas of the hirelings in Washington D.C. heading toward an abbreviation if not outright abrogation of the Bill of Rights.

We think that the Federal government is grasping to consolidate power using the current crisis, since as Rahm Emmanuel said, it’s a terrible thing to waste. We think the Federal government, not just this administration, is more interested in self-serving personal, political, and party power than it is in actually doing its best to do the least.

This President didn’t make it this way. It has been heading along this path since Woodrow Wilson held political prisoners and FDR held four terms as president; since Johnson’s Great Society and Nixon took us off the gold standard; since Bush Sr. lied about no new taxes, Clinton desecrated the Oval Office, Bush Jr. rammed through the Patriot Act, and Obama wanted every high school kid to ‘volunteer.’

For almost a hundred years, our country has been heading towards becoming a Socialist, centrally planned, Nanny State where the Federal Government tells it citizens how to conduct business, what they could grow in their own gardens or on their own farms, and now even how much a private citizen is allowed to earn before punitive and illegal taxation takes it away.

Now is the time to make it stop.

Can I get an “AMEN!”?

The Constitution of the United States of America tells us how our government is supposed to operate. It tells us what powers they have been lent by its citizens. It even delineates what powers each branch of government is supposed to have. Our Federal Government, all three branches, has over-reached. Continually.

The Declaration of Independence told King George what we felt about the way he was treating the Thirteen Colonies. It also told the world what we as Americans believed were natural truths about how government should work, with the consent of the governed. It amazes us how many of the things the Colonies begged King George to address have raised their ugly heads in the present day. We are taxed without our consent for government programs we don’t want. We are told that our natural resources are not ours to do with what we would. We are even told that our property can be confiscated if the government thinks it can get a bigger tax base from a different owner. Our elections are swayed by huge amounts of dollars and the willing collaboration of the old media giants. More than that, our elections are influenced by unconstitutional law such as McCain-Feingold, communist groups such as ACORN signing up 200,000 illegal voters in Ohio, and terrorist groups like the Black Panthers staking our polling places such as in Philadelphia. And we, the legitimate voters of this country are forced to accept the results.

Our voice has been ignored, even to the point of telling the citizens of a state that a duly enacted and overwhelmingly voter-approved constitutional amendment would not be allowed to stand due to political correctness.

Our representatives have listened to us on occasion however; only to be overturned by a penstroke from the Executive Branch, like when we said we didn’t like the idea of bailing out the auto industry.

Our legislature has pretended to listen to us about our need to protect our country’s borders, but then come back and tried to tell us that they have changed their minds. All the while trying to curry favor to their own districts with pork projects.

We flood D.C. with calls and letters and emails demanding that the administration not burden our grandchildren with huge government debt that will necessitate huge tax increases, but are told that our thoughts on the matter have no bearing because some things are just too big to fail; only to hear the same legislators come back a few months later and demand punitive taxes on those companies it gave money to against our wishes.

The current administration has appointed all of these extra-constitutional “Czars” to oversee what they view as problems in our country and in our world, including an avowed Communist.

This administration, as well as far too many legislators, clings to a philosophy of man-made global warming that is far from settled science and has decided that “Cap and Trade”, regardless of the huge burden that will place on the consumers, is necessary to limit carbon emissions. The fact that it has been tried in Europe and FAILED to limit carbon emissions doesn’t matter because this program will generate huge tax dollars for the government while at the same time penalizing the consumers of energy in the form of higher energy bills.

Another thing that has failed in Europe and elsewhere is the idea of universal health care. Yet still our government is racing headlong towards rationed medical procedures, diagnostics, medicines, and preventive care because it is yet another way to control the population. It is very hard to tell the government “No” when you or your spouse, or your child, depend upon the government owned and run kidney machine, insulin shots, or cancer treatments.

And now our Federal government has asked for more power. It isn’t even trying to hide it anymore. They want the power to regulate to the point of confiscation the administration of every business in the United States, just for our own financial safety or course. They want to regulate our salaries and compensation. They want to bankrupt the coal industry, which provides eighty (80 !!) percent of all the power in this country. They don’t want us to be able to drill for oil or natural gas. But at the same time they don’t want to allow the transmission of power from wind farms or solar farms across the countryside because they say it will affect the natural beauty of the desert or they don’t want their view cluttered out past Martha’s Vineyard. They want control of the means of production, the type of crops we grow, and the structure and location of the buildings in which we live. And, despite their protestation to the contrary, they want to disarm us. Too much has slipped out about that for them to be able to deny it any more.

And yes, we repeat, they now are asking for more power. This isn’t just theft, it is a bloody strong-arm robbery with a knife in your ribs.

Now, here is where Simon Jester comes in.

This whole thing isn’t about the Democrats or the Republicans, because they are both taking us to the same place and they aren’t afraid of us anymore. It is about our Constitutional form of government. The Rights were there before the words were written, for they are inherent in all people. They don’t come from government; government, no matter how hard it tries, cannot dissolve them. Now, here we the people are, having all these Tea Parties, trying to show our government that we, the seventy percent or so of the country who is right smack dab in the middle trying to raise our families and give our children better lives than we had, are tired of this grab for power. These Tea Parties, where no one actually throws anything in the harbor, are getting hardly any coverage from the press. In fact, the TWO counter protestors at the March Tea Party in Orlando got as much or more local coverage than the under-reported thousands who attended the rally. So, short of actually committing acts of vandalism and felonious assault, how are we going to get noticed?

Simon Jester. A symbol, since “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” by Robert A. Heinlein was published in 1966, of dissent against authority. Let the press, and the government, and your neighbors know that you are paying attention to what the Federal government is trying to do. Let someone ask you what that little devil underneath the word “Citizen” across your chest means and then explain it to them. Explain to the one pool reporter who shows up at the next Tea Party that you and Simon have your eyes open and are watching as the government tries to control your life. Explain to your pastor, or your waitress, or your barista at Starbucks, that our government is power hungry and that you and others like you are trying to be heard.

We are Simon Jester. So are they.

And so are you.

Billy Beck advocates mass civil disobedience. I don’t think this is a harbinger of that, but it’s better than nothing.

Due Process?

A couple of posts down, the comment thread derailed a bit. One of the topics taken up was “asset forfeiture,” a subject that makes me a bit hot under the collar. A couple of the comments:

“Drug possession in the context you described is a catch-all bludgeon that the police can use to put people in jail because collecting evidence for real crimes was too hard. It’s a bullshit victimless crime, just like having an unregistered .50 BMG rifle sitting in a hypothetical California closet.”

It goes further than that, Oz.

In some states (or perhaps it’s a federal law, I don’t really know), a law enforcement agency can simply sieze your property, your vehicle, cash, and what-have-you, claiming that it is the result of illegal drug activity, all without arresting you, charging you, arraigning you, indicting you, trying you, or sentencing you. The gubmint can simply steal from you without the slightest pretext of due process of law.

It’s a really sad state of affairs when you can be the victim of your own gubmint and be called the victim of a victimless crime, even when there was no crime at all.DJ

The gubmint can simply steal from you without the slightest pretext of due process of law.

*sigh*

DJ, I like you, but as much as stickler for detail as you, you’re shockingly wrong there.

There’s complete due process of law. Your item is arraigned, charged, and convicted before asset forfeiture kicks in.
Very processed.

(Nitpicks aside, Asset Forfeiture was a bad idea gone very wrong. The “Due Process” that is conducted is so slanted that Kangaroos are known to complain about the courts. )Unix-Jedi

Theft under color of authority occurred before “asset forfeiture” was a legal gambit, and will occur if it’s not(sic) allowed. It’s something completely bloody different.Unix-Jedi

Unix-Jedi’s point in the thread is that there’s a difference between “asset forfeiture” – which has due process attached – and simple “Theft under color of authority.”

To me, that’s a distinction without a difference, and (risking a diagnosis of Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect) here’s an example of why:

Texas town’s police seize valuables from black motorists

By HOWARD WITT
Chicago Tribune

TENAHA — You can drive into this dusty fleck of a town near the Texas-Louisiana border if you’re African-American, but you might not be able to drive out of it — at least not with your car, your cash, your jewelry or other valuables.

That’s because the police here have allegedly found a way to strip motorists, many of them black, of their property without ever charging them with a crime. Instead, they offer out-of-towners a grim choice: voluntarily sign over your belongings to the town or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes.

That would be “asset forfeiture with due process of law” – at least from the town’s perspective. (My emphasis.)

More than 140 people reluctantly accepted that deal from June 2006 to June 2008, according to court records. Among them were a black grandmother from Akron, Ohio, who surrendered $4,000 in cash after Tenaha police pulled her over, and an interracial couple from Houston, who gave up more than $6,000 after police threatened to seize their children and put them into foster care, the court documents show. Neither the grandmother nor the couple were charged with or convicted of any crime.

Hearkening back to that comment thread, that doesn’t mean they weren’t guilty of something, right? (Again, emphasis is mine.) This is “theft under color of authority,” but the law behind it is ASSET FORFEITURE.

Officials in Tenaha, situated along a heavily traveled state highway connecting Houston with several popular gambling destinations in Louisiana, say they are engaged in a battle against drug trafficking, and they call the search-and-seizure practice a legitimate use of the state’s asset-forfeiture law.

Of course they do! We can trust our “Only Ones,” can’t we?

Can’t we?

That law permits local police agencies to keep drug money and other property used in the commission of a crime and add the proceeds to their budgets.

“We try to enforce the law here,” said George Bowers, mayor of the town of 1,046, where boarded-up businesses outnumber open ones and City Hall sports a broken window. “We’re not doing this to raise money. That’s all I’m going to say at this point.”

Sure you’re not.

But civil rights lawyers call Tenaha’s practice something else: highway robbery. The lawyers have filed a federal class-action lawsuit to stop what they contend is an unconstitutional perversion of the law’s intent, aimed primarily at African-Americans who have done nothing wrong.

So if they do it primarily to whites, it’s OK?

Tenaha officials “have developed an illegal ‘stop and seize’ practice of targeting, stopping, detaining, searching and often seizing property from apparently nonwhite citizens and those traveling with nonwhite citizens,” asserts the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.

The property seizures are not just happening in Tenaha. In southern parts of Texas near the Mexican border, for example, Hispanics allege that they are being singled out.

A prominent Texas state legislator said police agencies across the state are wielding the asset-forfeiture law more aggressively to supplement their shrinking operating budgets.

(Emphasis mine.) Gotta keep that .gov hand-me-down armored personnel carrier fueled up, you know!

“If used properly, it’s a good law enforcement tool to see that crime doesn’t pay,” said state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of the Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee. “But in this instance, where people are being pulled over and their property is taken with no charges filed and no convictions, I think that’s theft.”

You think correctly – but you guys in the legislatures are the ones responsible for writing these laws, and you have an uncanny knack of squealing “We never meant THAT!!!” when they get stretched and twisted.

David Guillory, a lawyer in Nacogdoches who filed the federal lawsuit, said he combed through Shelby County court records from 2006 to 2008 and discovered nearly 200 cases in which Tenaha police seized cash and property from motorists. In about 50 of the cases, suspects were charged with drug possession.

But in 147 others, Guillory said the court records showed that the police seized cash, jewelry, cellphones and sometimes even automobiles from motorists but never found any contraband or charged them with any crime.

(Emphasis – you know.) Don’t you feel safer already?

Of those, Guillory said he managed to contact 40 of the motorists directly — and discovered all but one of them were black.

“The whole thing is disproportionately targeted toward minorities, particularly African-Americans,” Guillory said. “Every one of these people is pulled over and told they did something, like, ‘You drove too close to the white line.’ That’s not in the penal code, but it sounds plausible. None of these people have been charged with a crime, none were engaged in anything that looked criminal. The sole factor is that they had something that looked valuable.”

In some cases, police used the fact that motorists were carrying large amounts of cash as evidence that they must have been involved in laundering drug money, even though Guillory said each of the drivers he contacted could account for where the money had come from and why they were carrying it, such as for a gambling trip to Shreveport or to buy a used car from a private seller.

Once the motorists were detained, the police and the Shelby County district attorney quickly drew up legal papers presenting them with an option: waive their rights to their cash and property or face felony charges for crimes such as money laundering — and the prospect of having to hire a lawyer and return to Shelby County multiple times to attend court sessions to contest the charges.

There’s your “due process” right there! Signed and notarized!

The process apparently is so routine in Tenaha that Guillory discovered presigned and prenotarized police affidavits with blank spaces left for an officer to fill in a description of the property being seized.

It’s an assembly-line!

Jennifer Boatright, her husband and two young children — a mixed-race family — were traveling from Houston to visit relatives in East Texas in April 2007 when Tenaha police pulled them over, alleging that they were driving in a left-turn lane.

After searching the car, the officers discovered what Boatright said was a gift for her sister: a small, unused glass pipe made for smoking marijuana.

Although they found no drugs or other contraband, the police seized $6,037 that Boatright said the family was carrying to buy a used car and then threatened to turn their children, ages 10 and 1, over to Child Protective Services if the couple didn’t agree to sign over their right to their cash.

“It was give them the money or they were taking our kids,” Boatright said. “They suggested that we never bring it up again. We figured we better give them our cash and get the hell out of there.”

So, what happens if the cops try this with someone who believes in personal sovereignty?

Several months later, after Boatright and her husband contacted a lawyer, Tenaha officials returned their money but offered no explanation or apology. The couple remain plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit.

Except for Tenaha’s mayor, none of the defendants in the federal lawsuit, including Shelby County District Attorney Linda Russell and two Tenaha police officers, responded to requests from the Chicago Tribune for comment about their search-and-seizure practices. Lawyers for the defendants also declined to comment, as did several of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

But Whitmire says he doesn’t need to await the suit’s outcome to try to fix what he regards as a statewide problem.

On Monday, he introduced a bill in the state Legislature that would require police to go before a judge before attempting to seize property under the asset-forfeiture law — and Whitmire hopes to tighten the law so that law enforcement officials will be allowed to seize property only after a suspect is charged and convicted in a court.

Well, gee, why didn’t you think of that BEFORE? Of course a lot of seized property (cars, boats, etc.) sits in storage lots and rots – for months or years – before forfeiture determinations are made, so perhaps that isn’t the panacea it’s made out to be, either, but it’s at least a start.

“The law has gotten away from what was intended, which was to take the profits of a bad guy’s crime spree and use it for additional crime fighting,” Whitmire said. “Now it’s largely being used to pay police salaries, and it’s being abused because you don’t even have to be a bad guy to lose your property.”

No, you just have to fit the profile.

Kinda.

(h/t to The Club)

An Update on the Milsurp Brass Topic

I listened to Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk show via podcast this afternoon. The second hour he had Gordon Hutchison, author of The Great New Orleans Gun Grab, on to discuss the subject, and Tom also got Larry Haynie, owner of Georgia Arms on the phone, since this whole thing apparently started with him. Haynie reported that he had bid on and won an auction for 30,000 lbs of brass, mostly 5.56, with some 7.62 and .50BMG. He had sent his check, and was making arrangements to ship the brass late last week when he received notification that new DOD rules were in effect and that the brass had to be destroyed rather than reloaded. He immediately sent out emails to all and sundry, and Gordon Hutchinson was on his email list. After the show on Sunday, Gordon posted an extensive piece. Quoting:

From now on, remanufacturers of military brass will not be able to buy surplus brass from DOD–actually from Government Liquidators, llc.–the corporation that sells surplus materials for the U.S. government. At least, not in any form recognizable as once-fired brass ammunition.

Now all brass ammunition will have to be shredded, and sold as scrap.

Georgia Arms, who brought this to our attention, is the 5th largest ammunition manufacturer of centerfire pistol and rifle ammunition in the U.S.

“We’re right up there behind Hornady,” Larry Haynie told me.

He also told me with the cancellation of his contract to purchase this brass, and the ending of his ability to purchase any more expended military ammunition, he will have to severely curtail his operation–laying off approximately half his 60-person work force.

Haynie further pointed out this move is a stupendous waste of taxpayer money–reducing the worth of the brass some 80%–from casings, to shredded bulk brass.

He stated most of this will now go to foundries where it will be melted down, cast in shippable forms, and likely be sold to China, one of the largest purchasers of U.S. metals on the open market.

Haynie was manufacturing over 1 million rounds of .223 ammunition every month, which he sold on the civilian market to resellers, and to law enforcement agencies across the country.

He will start tomorrow sending cancellations of orders for .223 to law enforcement agencies all over the country.

Actually, during the conversation Haynie stated that Georgia Arms loads approximately 1.2 million rounds of just .223 a month, and has about three months worth of inventory left before he will have to start laying people off.

I recommend you read the whole piece.

And write your Congresscritters.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: 3/17 – It’s over. We won. Georgia Arms now has this message up on their homepage:

Dear Loyal Customers,

Thanks to your voice, DOD has rescinded the order to mutilate all spent cases as of 4:30 pm on 3/17/09. We appreciate the time and effort that you expended, together we all made a difference. We will be posting the email we received from DOD as well as any additional information within the next 12-16 hours. Thanks so much and lets get to work!!!

Damn! That was quick! Good for us!

Respecting Authoritah

Respecting Authoritah!

A joke received via email:

A DEA officer stops at a ranch in Montana and talks with an old rancher. He tells the rancher, ‘I need to inspect your ranch for illegally grown drugs.’

The old rancher says, ‘Okay, but do not go in that field over there,’ as he points out the location.

The DEA officer verbally explodes saying, ‘Mister, Let me tell you something, I have the authority of the Federal Government with me.’ Reaching into his rear pants pocket, he removes his badge and proudly displays it to the farmer. ‘See this badge? This badge means I am allowed to go wherever I wish …. on any land … no questions asked or answers given … have I made myself clear? Do YOU understand me?’

The old rancher nods politely, apologizes, and goes about his chores.

A short time later, the old rancher hears loud screams and sees the DEA officer running for his life chased, close behind, by the rancher’s prize bull. With every step the bull is gaining ground on the officer, and it seems likely that he’ll get “horned” before he reaches safety. The officer is clearly terrified.

The old rancher throws down his tools, runs to the fence and yells at the top of his lungs…..

‘Your badge! Show him your badge!’

What the hell. I’m already on somebody’s list . . . 😉

Oh HELL No

Oh HELL No!

In another apparent back-door attack on the shooting public, it appears that the Department of Defense has changed the rules regarding the auction of once-fired milsurp brass. An email has been circulating through the gun boards concerning the status of materials sold as “scrap”:

Dear Valued Customer:

Please take a moment to note important changes set forth by the Defense Logistics Agency:

Recently it has been determined that fired munitions of all calibers, shapes and sizes have been designated to be Demil code B. As a result and in conjunction with DLA’s current Demil code B policy, this notice will serve as official notification which requires Scrap Venture (SV) to implement mutilation as a condition of sale for all sales of fired munitions effective immediately. This notice also requires SV to immediately cease delivery of any fired munitions that have been recently sold or on active term contracts, unless the material has been mutilated prior to sale or SV personnel can attest to the mutilation after delivery. A certificate of destruction is required in either case.

Thank you,

DOD Surplus
5051 N. Kierland Blvd # 300
Scottsdale, AZ 85254

A follow-up email by a poster at AR15.com brings this clarification:

I just got off the phone with SV and GL with people I know very well. As of yesterday (3/12/09) ALL brass is only to be sold as scrap and as such, must be destroyed. It will no longer require an EUC, so that scrap buyers can pick it up immediately and submit the destruction certificate. Sounds like a move to help the metals buyers in the volitile(sic) markets.

In the SV managers words… “The reloaders are screwed.”

Georgia Arms is apparently the first remanufacturer/reseller to respond to this announcement:

Attention!!
Due to new government regulations concerning the purchasing of surplus brass, we are removing sales of all 223 and all 308 until further notice. Below is a copy of the email we recieved from Goverment Liqudiations.

“Effective immediately DOD Surplus, LLC, will be implementing new requirements for mutilation of fired shell casings. The new DRMS requirement calls for DOD Surplus personnel to witness the mutilation of the property and sign the Certificate of Destruction. Mutilation of the property can be done at the DRMO, if permitted by the Government, or it may be mutilated at a site chosen by the buyer. Mutilation means that the property will be destroyed to the extent prevents its reuse or reconstruction. DOD Surplus personnel will determine when property has been sufficiently mutilated to meet the requirements of the Government. “

This is a huge waste of taxpayer’s money. The value of these products is reduced by 80% by going from a recycled product to a scrap product.

CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN!!!!!!!!!

Good advice.

I recommend writing to them as well. And include a teabag the string and tag from a teabag.

First the “no lead ammo in National Parks” rule, now this. It looks like Team Obama is going to implement whatever “gun control” they can through rule changes, since they obviously aren’t going to get any traction in Congress.

Congresscritters still understand that Job #1 is getting re-elected.

UPDATE: Tam posted first, and has more details.

UPDATE II: Jeff Bartlett at GIBrass.com has this statement:

Effective Immediately

Orders for all military brass acquired thru government auction is hereby

suspended until further notice. If recent auction purchased brass is

is declared unrestricted, all orders will be filled in order received

How Did I Miss This?

How Did I Miss This?

I’ve mentioned author Orson Scott Card here before, most recently in October. Card writes mostly Science Fiction, but he also has an intermittent op-ed column called WorldWatch that I check on every now and then. Well, I missed this one, One Party Rule Forever! published in mid-February. (Granted, I was working 65-hour weeks at the time.)

Excerpt:

Obama has set himself up to rig all future American elections, not through any democratic process, but by fiat. Just like a dictator.

Remember how, when the Patriot Act was passed, we were flooded with outraged stories in the press about how Americans’ rights were going to be trampled on?

None of it came true.

But now we have a genuine attack on the roots of the Constitution and the principle of counting only people who can be proven to exist when apportioning the House of Representatives. It’s a naked grab for power. It’s a coup d’etat.

And the so-called freedom-lovers in the Leftist media are absolutely silent about it.

If Bush had put Karl Rove in charge of the Census without so much as asking Congress for permission, the howls and screams would have been deafening. Obama does the identical thing … and the freedom-loving Left is fine with it.

Because they don’t love freedom. They just love having their views prevail, without regard to democracy or human rights.

RTWT.

Rope, Trees, Some Assembly Required

Rope, Trees, Some Assembly Required

Orlando Sentinel columnist Charley Reese cut loose in the mid-80’s. It’s even more pertinent now, and it’s making the rounds of the blogosphere, updated by someone. Here’s my little assist.

545 PEOPLE

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are really against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are really against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Don’t you see now the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the Speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. Stop and think how long she has been Speaker of the House…..

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red .

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq, it’s because they want them in Iraq.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way. If they were on Social Security then they would fix it fast.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do. Change the law so that it is unlawful for quasi public companies (like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to donate to politicians or political parties etc and unlawful for those persons/organizations to accept donations from those over which they have oversight.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power..

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses … provided the voters have the interest and incentive to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

We should have, long ago. I think it’s too late for that to ever happen now. As I’ve said before, Claire Wolfe was wrong. It’s not too early to shoot the bastards, it’s too late.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

It’s always the same, isn’t it? They’re going to infringe our rights just a little bit — and all for our own good. Little itty-bitty law, passed with nobly-strained faces.

Then, once it’s passed, next session of Congress, they take that law, and they tack on one itty-bitty extra sentence. Next session, they add a teeny,tiny little paragraph — and next thing you know, the whole stinking bloody camel is up under the tent. – Lawdog, Sweet zombie Jeebus here we go again

This behavior is often associated with the original nobly strain-faced lawmakers saying “We never intended THAT!

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of it.