Archive for May, 2011

Those awful curbs in Augusta, Georgia…

<a href=”http://www.formstack.com/forms/?1080216-GRc3gmFBgs” mce_href=”http://www.formstack.com/forms/?1080216-GRc3gmFBgs” title=”Online Form”>Online Form – Survey</a>
Oath Keepers:
This is being sent to official Oath Keepers members only. I seek your input on a very important topic. As you may know, a young 26 year old Marine veteran who had survived two tours in Iraq, and father of two, Jose Guereña, was killed [...]

Osama bin Laden had been dead only a few days when House Republicans began their efforts to expand, rather than contract, the war on terror. Not content with the president’s wide-ranging powers to pursue the archcriminals of Sept. 11, 2001, Republicans want to authorize the military to pursue virtually anyone suspected of terrorism, anywhere on earth, from now to the end of time.

These are two cases that illustrate how “gun control” can affect all of us, even those trying to abide by the law, and they’re the springboards for my latest GUNS Magazine “Rights Watch” column, now posted on the magazine’s website. – David Codrea

Police in Weston, Connecticut, based in part upon an unsubstantiated FBI statement that Reddy was a “person of interest” in a domestic terrorism investigation, executed a search and seizure warrant at Reddy’s home on February 14 that involved the local SWAT team. The police took a pump-action shotgun and an antique revolver from Reddy. Reddy was never charged with a crime, but his legally held guns were taken from him anyway. He is, however, a widely known constitutional political activist and persistent critic of big government.

States cannot grant their citizens wider freedoms from search and seizure than federal courts do, and police may manipulate events that allow them to avoid getting Fourth Amendment search warrants from judges for home searches, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled May 13 in the case of Kentucky v. King.

But, Guerena’s wife, Vanessa, who hid in the closet with her youngest son while 71 rounds were fired her husband’s direction, said she heard nothing. At any point did you hear them yell, ‘police” or ‘SWAT’?” KGUN9 asked. “No, no!” answered Guerena.

A neighbor who heard the shooting corroborates the wife’s account, “The only sirens I heard out here were like maybe 20-30 minutes into the entire ordeal,” said David Watson.

Watson is very familiar with gunfire and stressful situations; he’s a Vietnam combat veteran, “I want to make this as clear as possible: you only heard the announcements after you heard the gunfire?” asked KGUN9 reporter Joel Waldman. Watson quickly answered, “Yes!”

Now we see it was not just any old run-of-the-mill Sheriff’s deputies who showed up to serve the warrant, but instead was a highly specialized sort of Sheriff’s deputies – the County Sheriff’s S.W.A.T. team.

“What happened in Project Gunrunner,” Dobyns told Napolitano, “is that a violation of our mandate took place. We are told by Congress to stand in the way of violent crime and to prevent guns getting into the hands of criminals and during Gunrunner, ATF did exactly the opposite of that and armed the enemy.”

Free-Market Analysis: This is a fairly remarkable article that uber-liberal New York Times media star Paul Krugman (left) has written. Imagine even a few years ago that an article by one of the Times’ most prestigious analysts would frankly castigate America’s ruling class and one begins to get a sense of the growing panic that must be circulating at the top of the proverbial heap. Krugman, who evidently and obviously rubs shoulders with these people, tells us that fingers are starting to be pointed – not at others in the US ruling class but at the larger civilian population. He wants to make clear he disapproves.

Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

The Pima County Regional SWAT team fired 71 shots in seven seconds at a Tucson man they say pointed a gun at officers serving a search warrant at his home.

Jose Guerena, 26, a former Marine who served in Iraq twice, was holding an AR-15 rifle when he was killed, but he never fired a shot, the Sheriff’s Department said Monday after initially saying he had fired on officers during last week’s raid.

(May 10, 2011) — Approximately six weeks ago, The Post & Email began receiving newsletters from an organization called Save America Foundation, which is hosting a conference to announce major changes and future strategy as this article goes to press.

The Save America Foundation’s mission statement reads, in part:

The Save America Foundation (SAF), a not for profit organization, is intent on seeing the U.S. Constitution upheld by our elected officials. The foundation informs and educates the public through free Public Forums and through the SAF Online Education Center. The foundation is holding large scale nationwide conventions, establishing charter offices across the country.

The state is the only institution which can use the revenue from this organized theft [taxes] to presume to control and regulate people’s lives and property. Hence, the institution of the state establishes a socially legitimatized and sanctified channel for bad people to do bad things.

A “free society,” by contrast, does not establish a legitimatized “channel for theft and tyranny.” Instead, it “discourages the criminal tendencies of human nature and encourages the peaceful and the voluntary.” Thus to the extent a society’s institutions or social infrastructure personify freedom and not state control, then to that extent “harmony and mutual benefit of voluntary interpersonal exchanges” will be maximized.

A CNN/Opinion Research poll released late last week shows Paul faring the best against President Obama of any potential Republican candidate. He trails the president by only 7 points, 52-45 percent, in a head-to-head matchup. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee trails by 8 points, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney down 11 points to Obama.

Last Thursday, the day of the first GOP debate, one of Paul’s fabulously-labeled “money bombs” exploded with the announcement of $1 million in contributions for the Paul campaign.

The analysis of power elite promotions, using mainstream articles as a fulcrum of attack, is perhaps the Daily Bell’s most notable current feature. Dominant social themes – the memes of the elite – are designed in large measure to alarm Western citizenry and to stampede them toward authoritarian solutions. The only antidote to power-elite promotions is free-market thinking. Another fairly unique perception that the Daily Bell regularly hammers home is that Internet itself is revealing and ruining these power elite driven dominant social themes – which worked so well in the 20th century. – The Daily Bell

“What seems astonishing today could become conventional wisdom in a short period of time,” Forbes said.
“The times they are a-changin’.” – Bob Dylan