Category: Politics

Irony Defined

For some time now the Mexican gun canard has been raging across the gun rights scene. Mexico claimed the cartels were getting guns from American gun shows since we have such an abundance of fully automatic AK-47s in this country. Well it appears as if the BATFE is now worried that weapons from Mexico are coming into the United States. This story specifically covers grenades which apparently can cross the border as well as illegal immigrants. An interesting quote from the story:

The weapons are preferred by drug hitmen because they are cheap and easy to find. Many are left over from Central America’s civil wars and sold on the black market to drug cartels.

Something tell me that grenades aren’t the only weapons left over from those civil wars. And the same thing that is telling me that is also telling me that it’s possible those other weapons are also being sold to the Mexican drug cartels.

Disappointment in Senator Klobuchar

I’m not a very difficult man to make happy. It’s really quite simple in most cases, especially if you’re one of my representatives. All you have to do is either pick up the phone when I call or reply to any e-mail or letter I send with something along the line of content.

So here’s the fiasco. I wanted to let my representatives know that I would like them to vote yes on the Thune amendment that would allow national reciprocity for carry permits. Of course being time was very constrained I was unable to use the old snail mail system. In it’s place I sent an e-mail first. To send her an e-mail you need to use a form on her website as she doesn’t publish her e-mail anywhere (although I did get it eventually from the reply that was sent). Of course I didn’t get a response e-mail that night, I figured this was expected since I believed they would need staff there to send the reply.

I then called her office in D.C. At that late of an hour nobody was there to pick up so I left a message with my name, city, phone number, and what position I wanted her to take on the Thune amendment.

Yesterday around noon I also called her office, this time the local one. Again I was greeted with a machine saying nobody was there to pick up. This I found really odd being it was the middle of the day and their office is open until 17:00. Once again I left a message expecting some kind of return call.

Well I never received a return call and nobody is picking up the bloody phone. I did however receive an e-mail which read as the following…

Dear Christopher:

Thank you for taking the time again to contact me about guns. I realize the importance of this issue, and I appreciate hearing from you.

To keep track of what I am doing both in Washington and in Minnesota, please visit my website at http://www.klobuchar.senate.gov. You may also like to track legislation through the Library of Congress legislative information website at http://thomas.loc.gov.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. One of the most important parts of my job is listening to what the people of Minnesota have to say to me. I am here in our nation’s capital to do the public’s business and to serve the people of our state. I hope you will contact me again about matters of concern to you.

Sincerely,

Amy Klobuchar
United States Senator

Wow. Just wow. This is the ultimate form letter of form letters. It had to be generated automatically as there is no content in it that would imply it was a response to what I sent. No where does it state her position for or against, well, anything. I don’t ask for much but a response to the message I sent would be nice. A simple yes or no answer to by request with some reasoning is all I’m looking for. I just want to know some human looked at what I sent and at least let my senator know where I stand.

I’m very disappointed with her office and her. She should be stomping on her staff for not responding to her constituents. Every other one of my representatives has no issue at all responding to my communications. Usually these responses aren’t even form letters or e-mails but actual thought out responses.

Since I was only able to find contact information for our new senator, Franken, I’m giving his office a couple days to give me the courtesy of a reply.

More on Honduras

I previously posted about Obama opposing the forced removal of the Honduras president. I didn’t look into it deep enough then but have done a little more research and found a few interesting articles…

http://www.halfsigma.com/2009/07/article-239-of-the-honduran-constitution.html

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/honduras-removal-president-legal-constitution-has-vaccine

http://www.redcounty.com/memo-president-obama-read-honduran-constitution

Under the Honduras constitution no resolution can be made to extend the length a president can server. This was done to ensure the country wouldn’t end up with a life long president whom eventually acquired enough power to become a dictator. This is a very common problem in that area and developing nations.

Since the president did bring forth a resolution to extend the term of the presidency he violated their constitution. Being he violated it he was required to cease his position post haste. He did not do this so the Honduras Supreme Court ordered the military in to remove their would be dictator. Being a body of government ordered in the military to remove a corrupt head of state this situation doesn’t relaly qualify as a military coup.

A military coup is generally considered either a branch of the military or the military itself moving into remove some or all entities of government and claim power for either the military itself or the branch of government that ordered them in. In these cases the people being removed generally haven’t broken any laws, they are simply in the way of somebody else claiming power. In this situation a replacement was put in as the president the position of president wasn’t removed.

The real gray area here is the president was simply exiled from the country. This seems to ignore the idea of a trail being held and is where the real problem starts. Had the Honduras Supreme Court arrested the former president and put him on trial it wouldn’t have given everybody ammunition against what they did. Personally I detest the fact that they simply exiled a man without trial but at the same time I congratulate them on removing an obviously corrupt politician from power. Hence I’m torn on this issue but am leaning towards the side of the Honduras Supreme Court since the evidence of what the former president did is a matter of public record and hence proof is available.

This is certainly a hairy situation with nobody lacking some amount of guilt. But there is a point that I can not find argument with, if a government official is actively violating the law he is sworn to uphold and protect he must be removed. This is why the United States Bill of Rights specifially states the people have the right to bear arms. The people are the final check and balance in this country against tyranny.

Health Care in the United States, a Perfect Summary

I think I’ve found the best quote out there to explain the health care “situation” here in the United States. Via Say Uncle…

http://www.saysuncle.com/2009/07/06/oh-teh-noes-health-care/

I went to a local walk in clinic, said how much, they told me, and I gave them money. They then gave me health care. Amazing. People will sell something that you’re willing to buy.

Obama Doesn’t Like People Taking Action

This deals with recent happenings in Honduras…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090630/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_honduras_analysis;_ylt=Ao9GSQcMUSjMln5_
4wzAcwBH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTNhc2VocGRmBGFzc2V0Ay9hcC8yMDA5MDYzMC9hcF9vbl9nb19wcl93aC91c191
c19ob25kdXJhc19hbmFseXNpcwRjcG9zAzUEcG9zAzUEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNhbmFseXNpc29iY
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Apparently the elected leader of Honduras decided his position should be for life. Although he was elected he decided to do a full power grab. Well apparently the people didn’t appreciate that gesture and with assistance from the military booted his ass out. Here is the part that really irks me though, it’s Obama’s response…

We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras. It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections. The region has made enormous progress over the last 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don’t want to go back to a dark past.

I won’t argue with military coups being a bad method of dealing with governmental transitions. But when a political figured decided to go beyond the power he was granted in the democratic election something needs to be done. You can’t elect out a dictator-wannabe. Therefore the option of force becomes necessary. This wasn’t a random military general decided to grab power but people of a country wanting to get rid of a person who was overstepping his bounds.

The fact is those of us in America are expected to do the exact same thing if our political leaders would decided to grab power. That is why we have the second amendment and why our military takes a creed to defend this country against both foreign and domestic enemies.

I applaud the people of Honduras for doing what needed to be done. There are times when force is absolutely necessary to avoid bigger problems. It’s hard to oust a dictator once he’s cemented power.

Minnesota Finally Picked Their Senator

And it only took us eight fucking months…

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/49520987.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU1yDEmP:QMDCinchO7DU

So Al Franken is our second senator after the long drawn out pissing match that didn’t seem to want to end. Personally I’ve been indifferent between the two of them as they both demonstrated their capability to be whiney little brats. Now to see how Franken responds to my inquiries about the second amendment.

The Supreme Court did it Right and Wrong in One Case

A story I’m glad to see printed in the slowly dying New York Times…

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/politics/26scotus.html?_r=2&hp

Back in 2003 a school’s zero tolerance policy (a.k.a. complete stupidity) went beyond too far. Savana Redding was suspect of having prescription strength drugs (you know for a prescription) which the school apparently frowns upon. They decided to search her backpack and outer clothes. But they didn’t stop there, no they went for the full strip search, on a 13 year old girl.

They ended up finding nothing of course. But I find it down right despicable that a school performed a strip search on a student. This in my opinion is a complete violation of a person’s rights. But schools love to claim you have no rights until you turn 18 years old, which is bullshit.

Anyways the Supreme Court found, by an 8 to 1 vote, that her rights had in fact been violated.

Now for the part they did wrong. The Supreme Court decided, but a 7 to 2 vote, that the individuals who performed the search should not be prosecuted. Personally I think if you’re unwilling to say “Fuck no I’m not doing that, I’ll quite first.” in a situation such as this then you are as guilty as the person ordering it.

Either way there is a pending lawsuit against the school which I hope the girl’s family wins. This kind of shit needs to be put down.

More on Stripping the Right of People on the Terror Watch List

I mentioned earlier about the proposed bill which would prevent anybody who is on the secret “terrorist watch list” from buying firearms. Well Sharp as a Marble posted a good story where morons who don’t know what they are talking about try to spread hysteria through lies…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062201766.html?hpid=topnews

From the article…

People named on the government’s terrorist watch list have successfully purchased firearms hundreds of times since 2004, government investigators reported yesterday. In one case, a known or suspected terrorist was able to buy more than 50 pounds of explosives, the Government Accountability Office reported.

So people who are on a secret list that contains everybody from 70 year old ladies to politicians has no ability to stop people from buying guns and explosives? And this is surprising why?

If these idiots would critically think for just a few minutes they would realize a couple of things. First of all this is a secret list which means nobody outside of the higher echelons of government know who is on it. If you started preventing people who are on it from doing things they previously had no problem doing that might tip them off that they are on this secret list. I know if ended up passing and all of the sudden I got turned down by the NICS system I’d be pretty sure I was on that list.

The second idiotic thing about his list is that no court process has to be done to put somebody on the list. What the supporters of this bill are saying is they support stripping the rights of citizens without due process. Are people who are willing to strip your rights just because somebody put your name on a secret list really the kinds of representatives you want? Do they really represent you? I hope the answer to both questions is a resounding no.

Make no mistake this isn’t about saving guns or keeping guns out the hands of terrorists. This bill is about control and disarming the citizens of America. Remember just because somebody is on this list doesn’t mean they’ve actually done anything illegal. In fact we don’t even know if anybody on this list has done anything since it’s secret.

Finally although I’m not much for conspiracy theories who is to say that people won’t be placed on this list after they buy “too many” guns. After all it’s a list of “suspected” terrorists. And by suspected I mean there isn’t enough evidence to even get a search warrant on the person. Tie this with the recent paper describing right-wing extremist terrorists, which included proponents of the second amendment, and you have a recipe for government terrorism against its citizens. Who knows maybe if you buy two guns in a month you automatically get placed on this list, you just don’t know.

Source: http://blog.robballen.com/2009/06/22/p3524-secret-lists-cannot-stop-firearm-purchases.post

Having the Government Control Our Lives Costs a Lot

I found an eye opening post over on Bob Barr’s blog…

http://blogs.ajc.com/bob-barr-blog/2009/06/19/federal-regulatory-burden-hits-117-trillion/?cxntfid=blogs_bob_barr_blog

He brings up the cost of Federal regulation which is right around $1.17 trillion. From the blog…

The cost of federal regulations to American citizens, businesses and state and local governments has reached $1.17 trillion, according to a report just published by the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). This equates to some $3,849 for each man, woman and child in the country.

That’s a lot of my tax money going to regulate my life. Personally I think I can regulate my life for much cheaper by doing it myself. Furthermore regulatory code is expansive…

The same report found that the “Federal Register,” the government publication that is the compendium for federal rules, now stands at a staggering 79,435 pages!

No human being is going to be able to read through 79,435 pages of regulatory code. Hell you’d need a lot of people knowing small parts just to have a group of people who know it. This means that there are regulations that are probably not usually enforced until they need something to nail somebody to the wall with.

Personally I’m of the idea where if your laws are so numerous and expansive that no person can possibly know them all you need to cut down the number of laws. I should be able to read all the laws in a specific area, understand them easily, and know exactly what I can and cannot do. With our current setup I can guarantee everybody in the United States will break multiple laws this year without even knowing it.

But the best quote is this one…

But not to worry. President Barack Obama admits he “loses sleep worrying about the deficit.” Sort of like an alcoholic worrying that he drinks too much, as he reaches for another drink to drown his worries.

Simply hilarious. I’m rather glad I voted for this guy during the election.