Barack Obama: Man of Destiny

Here's part of his recent oral output in quest of a heroic place in history.*


"These kinds of interventions, these kinds of actions are always unpopular because they seem distant and removed," Obama said. "I'm not drawing an analogy to World War II, (Then why the Hell do you bring it up, Sir?) --

--other than to say, you know, when London was getting bombed, it was profoundly unpopular, both in Congress and around the country, to help the British."

Mr. President,  Lend Lease was lopsidedly approved by congress months and months before Pearl Harbor and after a Gallup poll showed a majority of 1941 Americans approved "help(ing) the British" so long as our aid did not drag us into their war.

Did you, you know,  like skip all your history classes to practice up on your organizing neighborhoods skills south of the Blackstone Hotel?

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*Apparently he's given up on Obamacare as his ticket to Mt. Rushmore.

One Syrian, One Vote; No Americans Need Apply

His Ineptness the president demands that your "representatives" vote their "conscience" no matter what you think.

(1)  The presidential argument is, therefore, that his cherished democracy must be abandoned in the United States in order to create it in Syria.

(2) Asking a congress critter to vote his conscience is like asking Diane Feinstein to vote her balls.

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Altogether now, kids, "The Itsy-Bitsy Hoplophobe..."

As my friend John of the GMA mocks the anti-gun statists: "Well, whaddya know. They do have a playbook."  He found it at the blog of our dependable Robb Allen.

Even the "executive summary"  is gagworthy. For instance: "Advocates for gun violence prevention win the logical debate, but lose on more emotional 
terms". 

Right. After every headline shooting, the antigun forces take to their research cubicles, calmly compile facts and responsible opinions and historical references, then soberly present them to a waiting world in carefully worded white papers. It would be unheard of for them to bawl and snivel all over the teevee audience, beshitting better minds with temper tantrums and crying jags that would get a pre-schooler sent off to the special needs room.

I recommend a read on this. Not that we didn't already know it, but it confirms that   the marching orders to the Pelosi crowd order them to go for the gut, and anything like honest understanding be damned.

I got the power, Baby

So you wanna go for a ride in my shiny wheels?

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It's about a magic power washer, a cheapish one from a big box, about seven years old.  I used it for a few years.  In 2010 or '11 It developed a bad leak somewhere in the important machinery, shrouded in a plastic that would have frustrated Houdini.  No pressure. Trashed. I gave it up for lost and stashed it away. I kept meaning to haul it to the landfill.

This afternoon I got to feeling shame over the appearance of two of the Camp Jiggleview VEE-hicles, the command mini-van and the mobile assault wagon  carrying my Texsun field headquarters.

Generally, since the death of the washer, I've been counting on precipitation to keep them titivated. It hasn't rained in a month, and some wags have been writing undignified notes on the windshields.

For no logical reason I decided, what the Hell, to hook up the old washer and see what happened. I suppose I figured I'd make a quick guess about the problem and devote 30  minutes, no more, to an attempted fix. My confidence level was zero, and the plan was mostly an excuse to put off a tedious hand-wash.

There is something going on around here, and maybe it's true that all is better when you ignore reality and count on Barry's unicorns to breathe well-being into a man and all he owns.  Hook up the hose, plug it in. Instant power washing, as though it was new, and still going strong when I shut down after an hour.

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I have a Remington 12-gauge 1900 double that has been driving me nuts for two years. Can't make it go bang -- or even click -- despite by-the-book assembly of good parts. I am going to set it exactly where the power washer was and wait two years. I'll let you know

A good judge is hard to find.*

if you're looking for one, try Iowa. A guy here named David Wiggins makes his living as a supreme court justice. He keeps beating our primitives over their little statist heads, making the point that constitutions are written for reasons -- even that Fourth Amendment which makes life so inconvenient for cops.

Last week he let a drunk (but not very, .088) driver go because officers had only  a sorehead's anonymous tip to justify stopping him.

"To hold otherwise would cause legitimate concern because such tips would let the police stop persons on anonymous tips that might have been called in for vindictive or harassment purposes or based solely on a hunch or rumor." 

Thank you, Your Honor.

If you're interested in a a lucid explanation of some constitutional limits on a cop's authority to invade your privacy, the Wiggins opinion in the case (PDF) is worth a read.

This is the same guy who wrote another Fourth Amendment stunner saying that if police stop you for a piddly reason, they need to be damned careful about searching you in hopes of finding an unrelated offense. Wiggins warned them  to shape up or face the liklihood of being required to explicitly tell you, "No, you don't have to let me search you for pot just because your dog got off his leash." This is State vs. Pals.

One other reason to like this guy. He earned the hatred of Rick Santorum hard-shells in Iowa by ruling -- along with all six other justices -- that banning gay marriage violated the Iowa Constitution. Santorum's alter-ego in these parts, Bob Vander Platts, saw a fund-raising opportunity and led a successful drive to oust three of those justices.

Wiggins came up for retention one cycle later, and VDP went after him, too, but blew it. Many folks in the Vander Platts pews had become less excitable, allowing Wiggins to make his case that that the process of constitutional law was far more important than the outcome of any given issue. (As an aside, that was the same approach Bork took before an audience of excitable senators, and don't we wish he, also, had carried the day.)

I'm trying to phone His Ineptness to suggest he appoint our Justice Wiggins to oversee all FISA court cases. So far the call goes straight to presidential voice mail. I'm not really angry, though. According to the news he is up to his ears in trying to give Africa seven billion of our dollars so they can have electricity to charge their iPads, and isn't that just what we elected him to do?

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*You often get the other kind.

Justice Waterman dissented in this recent case, continuing his pattern of telling Officer Fife, "Whatever Barney Wants, Barney Gets."  (The Pals case again.) Unfortunately, he's a long way from his retention vote.










  

So many revolutions, so few Marines

We all anxiously await the Obama solution to Brazilian riots.  Our vital national  security interests pivot on free bus rides in Rio and Sao Paulo, so minding our own business is not an option.

Speaking of His Ineptness, it's hard to dispute this reaction  "...pure mush..." to his Brandenburg Gate gig. (The writer is a Thatcherite Brit, so make whatever allowances you care to.)

Obama made it to the White House in large part because of his powerful tent-preacher oratory. His skill seems to be fading.

Personally, I think the only shot he has at burnishing  his image is to hire Peggy Noonan.

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The birthers return

Okay. It was a silly attack on His Ineptness  but the birthers were good for a certain grin factor. How about another one as our president channels JFK at the Brandenburg Gate?

A wag hacks into his teleprompter.  Barry is just hitting his demagogic stride, his voice raises as he reads, "Ich bin ein Kenyaner!"

His Teleprompter Speaks

United States of America: The streets and schools are awash in blood, ergo it is my job as your president to advocate strict civilian gun control. In the end, only agents of the duly constituted authority should be armed.

Syria: The streets and schools are awash in blood, ergo it is my job as your president to arm the Syrian civilians in order that they may shoot down agents of the duly constituted authority.

Benghazi again, plus literary advice

A few news operations are keeping the murder-mystery alive, the one about four  dead Americans in Libya last September.

W'hoppen?

Our survivors on the ground cabled Washington about what they saw and experienced.  None mentioned righteous Islamist outrage over a goofy amateur video hardly anyone except Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton  had ever heard of.

Call those reports a set of "facts" reported to the White House, the Department of State, and an assortment of other Beltway centers for advanced white wash technology. (I use the term "facts" with caution but thoughtfully on grounds that they're closer to truth than the Rice performance on Sunday teevee.) Notice how quickly the facts turned into Suzie's odd video story which stood up for a day or two before even Chris Mathews found it untenable.

It all gets too complicated for mere day-by-day journalism, and it shouldn't be too long before the books appear. The first one to focus on the Obama/Clinton cover up should be titled: "When a Fact Hits a Whore House."

Tinfoil hattery; why we bother

Some times I wonder why I should care. I'm an Older American. No matter what is taken from me, I can reflect on a life more interesting than ordinary, probably even  "happier" than ordinary although that point is impossible to investigate. You see,  I lack the talent to know the state of happiness of any of my fellows, not one.

Certainly I'm as adept as anyone else at identifying and classifying apparent happiness as measured by the the usual  standards, the wherewithal to consume,   the crude wit to identify current fashion and conform,  the appearance of intensely satisfying personal relationships, and so forth. Just like Richard Cory who on that calm summer night went home and put a bullet through his happy head.

So, no.  Any man's opinion on the pattern of activity in another's neurons is as suspect as a politician's promise. I can know -- and probably only imperfectly -- the state of my own synaptic patterns which produce the range of contentment from a heartfelt smile when I am alone to the ugliest possible frown, also in solitude.

New Dog Libby knows when she's happy. Well-fed, fresh from a Frisbee romp, ears scratched, she is satisfied in the deepest sense of that term. Only a magical Disney epic could endow her with care for what sort of life her grandpuppies would have. This reveals a defining difference between Libby and the man who fills her bowl. He thinks of his posterity. Like any beast, she would find that preposterous. She is a prisoner of the instant moment. Her master and all his fellows are cursed with a notion of foresight, the belief that they can observe current patterns and extrapolate into the future.

It is the curse of despair and hope when I, at least, would often prefer a stick to chase, a banana split, and a sound ear-scratching as I drift into dreamless sleep.

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In this motley internet neighborhood of disorganized  (and unorganizable) libertarians and ancaps, no one is surprised at the staccato new reports of universal spying. Most are on record as simply assuming it exists, that it is destined to exist by the very nature of coercive power, that is, the Power  of the drones and command control over the 82nd Airborne, all the Marines, and millions of spies you never heard of, all charged with identifying Crimethink by invading private human thought.

I have no great-grandpuppies yet, but I probably will. With a bit of luck I'll cuddle them, and I'll certainly hope (the curse, again) they have choices in a world neither too brave nor too new, nor ruled by other Controllers of an Inner Party.













    

Dear Television,

Thank you. I get it. Everyone in Moore, Oklahoma, is brave and stalwart.  Cops and firemen and ambulance drivers and so forth are braver and stalwarter than average.  Politicians fighting their way through the rubble, deperately seeking a television camera, are bravest and stalwartest of all.

So it is unnecessary for you to keeping telling me. Shoot me an email when you have milked the last emo goop from the tragedy and developed some perspective  on this story's place in the whole wide world of news.

(For instance, Ben Bernanke goes public today with all the reasons he should keep devaluing our currency because President Obama needs lots more Federal Reserve Cartoons to keep the recovery going. Gas at four FRCs and bacon at five is just minor collateral damage which we should ignore.)

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An aside: Gretchen has her thighs covered this morning, so there's no reason to flip to Fox, no matter what they claim to be reporting about.

Is there a .govbot in the house?

Three patriots understood that one can not make America a better place to live by hanging around a tea party. Even personal debt reduction must yield to to the need for action now.

Thus they sortied to a loophole, that is, a gun show, at 0804 this date, all in search of enhanced firepower. One of them was particularly enthusiastic about bringing a battlefield weapon to the mean streets of Smugleye-on-Lake.

Designed in part to resist enemy assaults, the (semi) automatic rifle with quick-change detachable bullet clips, was also intended to permit American freedom fighters, both professional and militia, to participate in  assaults.




This one came from a federally licensed dealer, so the armed American exploited  the gun show loophole by providing identification, a state permit in lieu of an NICS check, and filling out what has become a four-page form 4473.

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She's been rebarrelled (sharp, shiny rifling) but otherwise appears about original. The condition is somewhere near the high end of average, and I expect her to shoot rather well for a dowager born on the high river bluff of Springfield in March, 1943.

Even if she doesn't, I'm glad she's here, especially for a bride price well below the usual 1,000 FRC asking.

I did remark to a loophole companion that the M1 was not especially fun to shoot and that I never found it handy.

 "So why did you buy it?"

Because an American should own a Garand.

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Topic of Crapicorn

Even a dedicated wookie can easily take his eye off the ball. It is simply too much fun to watch the details of the government in power getting a wedgie.

For instance, Miller -- the career "civil servant" who bossed Americans through his control of the IRS --  is sickly entertaining. He been questioned all morning by the House Ways and Means Committee. Two things stand out. His attack of Alzheimer's, and his sweat. The latter makes a person think of a Golden Gloves welterweight after eight rounds with Sonny Liston.  ('course, like the Arias legal team, Miller doesn't have much of a case to work with.)

Then there is the congressional committee in charge of Obama polishing. They continue to assert that the real outrage must be reserved for two interns sharing the smallest cubicle in the Cincinnati office of their Inner Party's finance branch.

Such details are vastly entertaining, but if I'm to deserve my fur I need to lift my eyes to the big idea. The crime rests on questions of huge tax-free money to influence a huge government.

Everyone from the Koch Brothers to the Farm Bureau to Acorn is willing to spend billions of dollars to buy political favor for one reason. One. The payoff is hundred of billions of dishonest dollars, money extorted from you and delivered into the hands of whatever lobby happens at the moment to be most successful.

If American people continue to vote for big bloat, they continue to vote for big crime. That's how government is.

Whatcha been doin', Jim?

Most lately, processing a worn-out, red, cotton flannel shirt.

You probably remember that Travis McGee occasionally remarked on one of his "treasured old (garments)." I'm like that, but when this one came out of the washer last night I noticed that both elbows were out, so I decided not to treasure it anymore.

Fact: An XL Tall shirt will yield a half-dozen gun rags about the size of a handkerchief plus a quart zip-lock bag stuffed with cleaning patches.

It sounds tedious, but it really isn't if you do it during your early morning hour of disgust in front of the cable news channels. I found myself making most of the patches during the content periods and looking more carefully at the screen during the commercials, which are somewhat more coherent.

As a matter of social responsibility, repurposing the flannel is about a wash. I earn carbon credits for reducing the load on my local landfill, but, on the other hand, there is the guilt of unstimulating the economy.  The Obama-Bernanke policy holds that I should  do my part to alleviate unemployment; that is, take some Federal Reserve Cartoons to the store and purchase rags and patches to maintain my lethal weapons.

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Then there are K and D, man and woman, traditionally married. They paid a visit yesterday, bearing gifts. D brought her incomparable caramel rolls untouched by shrink wrap. K provided the show and tell, a handful of scrap steel lathed into a complete and, IMO, elegant, system for sizing cast bullets in .355 and .356 for another friend's Helwan. Somewhere in America laid-off machinists and commercial bakers continue to starve.

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Earlier in the week, just before global warming abated, a lady celebrated her birthday with a fine outdoor party. I didn't know many of the other guests well, so there was the possibility of striving to make conversation. That annoyance did not occur. About half of the men gather downwind from the tables (cigars were involved) and came to a consensus that firearms, archery, the ammunition drought, the deluge of white-tail deer, and the idiocy of politicians were all worthy of serious comment.

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Besides, the summer machinery is up and running. Both chain saws, both little tractors. Not to mention that the dock is fixed. Holy Moly Mary Marvel. Don't know how much better life can get.

Well, maybe a little.

But I'm probably dreaming, eh? Back to Robert Ardrey so that someday maybe I can write usefully about applying his views on biological imperatives to the current disorder.

 

Indictment Blizzard Smacks Maryland; Women and Minorities Hardest Hit

Lots of hanky panky going on in a big Baltimore jail. Narco dealing, boffing the guards, and other things that could get a guy locked up.

Thirteen female corrections officers essentially handed over control of a Baltimore jail to gang leaders, prosecutors said. The officers were charged Tuesday in a federal racketeering indictment.

The perps already adjudged guilty of something-- without need of further indictment  -- seem to make up the other 12 accused.  They're reported to be stalwarts of something called the Black Guerrilla Family.

I suppose finding this on the hilarious side makes me insensitive to cultural differences, politically incorrect if you will. Still, there's a redeeming social purpose.

What is more firmly under control of a government than its prisons? If said government cannot even maintain order there, why are we to believe that it will do a better job when placed in charge of free men and women -- our medical care system, access to the means of self-defense, and dietary habits  (care for a Big Gulp?).

  

Still grinding the gun-politics sausage

Let us honor the filibuster. Think of it as a precautionary dose of Valium to be taken before doing something massively stupid.  Or counting to ten before you ballkick the boss.

You don't even need to use it. The mere threat settles things down. Three weeks ago, it looked like the left would insist on trying to gut the Second Amendment and, in consequence, face at least 41 senators saying "no" at great length and handing HIs Ineptness the place where the pants fit tight.

That would have been the optimum result, but it really wasn't in the cards. The national drama contest  after Newtown all but guaranteed that we would lose something, just as did the World Trade Center bombing.  When the mobs circle up for a an intense tear jerk, it's hard to stop them, harder yet when they're led by  our wet-eyed national primo and his dependable cadre.

At the moment it appears we will lose something but could actually gain a mite from the Toomey-Manchin "compromise" designed to ward off the filibuster. The New York Times reports:

The bill also enhances some gun rights. For instance, it would allow gun owners who have undergone background checks within the past five years for a concealed-carry permit to use the permit to buy guns in other states, and it would relax some of the restrictions on hunters traveling with their guns through states that do not permit them. It would also allow active members of the military to buy firearms in their home states, currently prohibited when they are stationed outside their state.


Tearing down the iron curtains of state borders for interstate gun purchasing  is long overdue, even if it depends on holding a Mommy-May-I Card from our state bureaucrats.* So is expansion and clarification of the federal innocent-passage doctrine. 

What we lose is our right to make our own judgements about people to whom we, as private citizens,  can responsibly sell or trade our guns. In return, America will gain precisely nothing. Inter-thug trading in Glocks will continue merrily, especially in neighborhoods like ones our president organized before beginning his climb up the federal pay scale.

The content of the Senate bill as reported here needs to be viewed cautiously. A wide internet ramble turns up no actual legislative language..

The Toomey web site is as close as I can come to a draft of the legislation.  I suppose you can trust it to the extent you can trust any elected nabob to tell you the truth.

 (The actual bill may not yet be written. Picture Mountain-Dewed young staff munchkins spending this night hunched over word processors, large bags of chemically flavored  corn chips close at hand.)

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*I hope no one reminds the gun-ban left of a consequence they can't see. When the state CCW becomes some sort of national pass for firearms purchases, the demand for them will soar. Okay by me, but I expect the Feinstein gang will develop  a new interest in the price of Depends.

The Rand Paul Filibuster: Condensed

Eight hours is a long time to listen to even an articulate libertarianish thinker drone on. So, for what it's worth, here's how it might have been said:

"Obama, Holder, and even some famous Republican munchkins say they own plenary shoot-to-kill authority over American citizens on American soil.  No warrants, courts, due process or any other technical mumbo-jumbo which just slows things down. 

"All they need is a sincere belief that the death-marked American is a bad guy who might do wrong. 

"Then they sing us the lullaby 'Of course we wouldn't really do it. Well, hardly ever anyway, just when we're pretty sure we need to.' But we demand the authority.

" The idea of entrusting my life or yours solely to the competence, judgement, and good will of guys like that  -- or anyone, for that matter -- scares Hell out of me. How about you?"

"So the answer is 'No'."

"We like to trumpet the moral and practical superiority of government by law rather than men, so let's get with the program. Thank you and good night."

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Aside No. 1: Joel has a related take on "dangerous people"  over at his place.

Aside No. 2: Television news. as usual,  is missing the point by parsecs. The morning gruel -- especially on MSNBC --  is turdfully dense with panicked concern about (1) Whether all this means Sen. Paul will run for President and (2) whether it "exposes a rift in the Republican party."  For krissakes Joe, Mika, the point here is whether or not the  DoD should program into the president's football the coordinates of every coffee shop known to harbor loud-mouthed nonconformists.

Darwin at work in the frozen North

Strapping on a 9mm pistol, getting drunk, then crashing your snowmobile may not be the best idea a guy ever had.  If the cops and reporters have it right, that's what a fellow did last week. He dumped his sled in an "open field"  down near Storm Lake, badly injuring his back-seat lady. Officers charged him with OWI, and:


"In addition, authorities discovered ------  had a concealed 9 millimeter handgun on his person. Authorities say (he) had a valid permit to carry the gun, but when a person is intoxicated that permit is NOT valid, as well as when operating a snowmobile. An additional charge of carrying a concealed weapon was filed...".

I have no problem with the carrying-while-puked charge. Our two-year-old shall-issue law permits carry while sipping in bars and restaurants, but the second you hit .08 on the  joy meter your CCW becomes worthless. That strikes me as reasonable. I never found great fault with one of the old NRA "10 rules" which said firearms and booze don't mix.

The carrying while snowmobiling or ATVing prohibition is part of DNR law {Iowa Code § 321G.13(2)} and is more debatable. A permit holder would seem to be no more danger to man or beast  on a sled than at the wheel of a rust-bucket Ford Ranger with giant wheels,  4x4,  and an aftermarket Zoomenkrash 460 V-8. 

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I haven't kept close track of the gun bills in the Iowa legislature this session. For that you go to Stranded in Iowa. From what I have been following, it appears that there won't be much, if any, gun-law change this session. Our pols are fully occupied bickering about education reform (stop giggling), property tax relief (dammit, I told you to stop), and what to do with our modest budget surplus. About the only consensus of that last point is that we shouldn't give it to His Ineptness  even though he badly needs it to buy votes from union ship welders in tidewater Virginia.

Whinny whinny

I woke up with the darndest urge to buck somebody off and crap in the middle of the street.  In broad daylight, mind you.

it took a minute to clear my mind and remember that I supped on Swedish meatballs from IKEA.

Poor Trigger.




I conclude that the Swedes sequestered a bunch of krona, forcing the layoff of all their royal meat inspectors.

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"They Deserve a Simple Vote"

And by God, Barack, with you in charge that's just what they'll get.
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