We are not Europe.

Recently, New York passed a law that states that "assault" rifles must be registered with state authorities.  I recall reading in the article that followed it up some time later that less than 20% of "assault" rifle owners in the state registered their rifles.  I'm pretty sure it was probably fewer than that, should all of the facts be known. 

Connecticut, after Sandy Hook, passed something similar, swearing that they only wanted to know where they were.  I'm pretty sure more registered there than in New York, but probably not as many as they'd've liked. 

And now, they're sending out confiscation letters.  Granted, they're only sending letters to those they think own an evil murder rifle, but I doubt the rest are far behind. 

The government officials involved in this stupidity are forgetting something: those that meekly registered their rifles like they were told may be sheep, but those that chose to disobey the law that ran contrary to their rights stated in and protected by the second amendment are likely to use those very rifles to protect themselves and their rights from a tyrannical government. 

They've also forgotten that Concord and Lexington were prompted by a government gun grab. 

In the twentieth century, there have been numerous gun grabs throughout Europe and Asia: The Ottoman Empire in 1915; the Soviets in the '20s; the Germans in the '30s; China, Uganda, Guatemala, and Cambodia through the second half of the century.  In each case, gun registration was near-immediately (within a year or two) followed up by gun confiscation.  In each case, the citizens meekly and lawfully turned over their arms.  And each case was followed up by massive numbers of people murdered by the very governments they turned their guns over to.  Millions.  Tens of millions.  Mostly either minority ethnic groups, persecuted religious minorities, or political rivals. 

Many Americans are both aware of this and wary of this happening here. 

This nation was founded by men and women who keenly felt the injustice of a hereditary political class that controlled their lives to a huge extent, and thus, left for freer pastures.  Though some two hundred years of political neglect--almost entirely benign--those who made this land their home learned to govern themselves, and learned to like the freedom to be left alone that they'd found here. 

In the early 1770s, that freedom started to be constricted.  The people were treated very unfairly (see the Declaration of Independence for further detail), and it chafed.  In 1775, the British government decided to quell the rebellion it could smell brewing before it got started, and misstepped.  King George III either didn't realize, or forgot, that the American colonies were made up of steel-spined malcontents that clanged when they walked.  And, in trying to seize the means for the colonies to defend themselves, triggered the very rebellion he feared in Concord an Lexington. 

Americans in 2015 are, for the most part, descended from these men who laid their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor on the line.  We are not sheep. 

And, most of all, we are not European. 

We will not lay down our God-given rights to defend ourselves just because some chattering, inbred nitwits in the hereditary political classes that have grown like a tumor in the heart of our nation tells us to.

I can't watch The Americans.

Don't get me wrong: it's awesome.  Well executed (pardon the pun).  I haven't seen many anachronisms breaking the setting of the early eighties. 

But.

I can't watch it.  It scares the crap out of me. 

I was born in '79.  I don't remember the early eighties, but I do remember the Iron Curtain.  I remember the pressure Regan put on the Russians, and I remember the tension.  I remember when the wall fell, and I remember watching the relief that everyone around me felt that the cold war with Russia was "over." 

I remember thinking, "Just wait.  This isn't over, and we haven't beaten Communism." 

I remember feeling the encroachment of communism into our own government and society. 

Khrushchev was right. 

The America I remembered is falling, and is falling from within. 

Russia is re-emerging as a nasty enemy, and our own government isn't seeing that.  Because their ideology parallels Putin's. 

This time, there won't be an Iron Curtain between freedom and tyranny, because there will be no freedom.

Little angry, today...

I walked into the bottom floor of the library, then took the elevator up to the circulation desk for my classroom key, just like I always do.  I turned to go up the last floor to my classroom, and came face to print with a whiteboard sign stand, just inside the front doors, and this is where the spitting mad came in.

The sign?  Written yesterday.  Had the footprints of the American chicken all over it,* and wished all viewers "Happy Vietnam Peace Day." 

Um...what? 

Did I read that right?

Sure did. 

There is a holiday celebrating our defeat. 

GRRRR!!!!!



*The hippie peace symbol.

Wow.

When ex-KGB commander Vladimir Putin is saying that the current administration is doing bad things with the phone records, and invading citizens' privacy a bit too much...you know there's a real problem. 

Y'know...

After the way this administration has handled everything thrown at it like the totalitarian thugs they are, I can't see how this hasn't happened earlier, or how anyone can even pretend to be shocked.

Detroit as a picture of our future.

It's not pretty.  It's nearly bankrupt, paying out $47 million more than it takes in, including $1.08 in retirement benefits for every $1.00 in salary to those still working.  Almost half of those of an age to work don't work, and aren't looking for work.  More than ten percent of those working have government jobs--and when they retire, they'll be sucking down even more of the city's non-existent resources. 

Out of Detroit's children, seven percent score as proficient or better in reading, and far fewer (4%) are proficient in math.  Compare that to Michigan's 32% proficient in reading and 31% in math.  It's not surprising, given how many teachers are union thugs that only want the paycheck and the benefits, and don't give a shit about the rest of the job (as demonstrated by how many skipped work to try to prevent the passage of laws removing some of the power wielded by the unions).

The people  of Detroit aren't in any better shape: many are desperate and amoral enough to resort to grave robbing.

This is what the rest of us are looking at if the socialist agenda isn't stopped.

Amen to that.

Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, really nails it: "I don't care what the majority voted to do, they don't have a right to steal my money just because they vote for it."

And here's to the new normal...

Did you know that your annual physical is now "free"*?  Yep, glory be to the 0ne who passed the bill that will eventually drive all health insurers out of business, and will force each and every one of us to submit to government control.

Speaking of such, did you know your doctor is now required to ask about your lifestyle during this visit?  Things like "your weight, exercise, family life, smoking, sexual abuse(!), and even to ask if you wear seat belts"--and they're required to make sure your answers are in your still-private (for now) medical record (my answers to these questions will all be the same: "It's none of the government's business.") 

But they're not going to be allowed to listen to new concerns you may have about current issues that may be moving out of control, or any new issues.  Basically, they're being told to ignore your health, and focus on whether you're doing what the government mandates you should be doing.


*Disclaimers: your free annual physical only involves conversation with your doctor concerning current, managed conditions.  No other concerns may be discussed, and new conditions are not covered.  You will be required to reschedule your appointment to discuss any new concerns, and pay out the ass to cover your doctor's uncompensated expenses for your "free" annual physical.

We're so screwed.

He is a Communist without question promoting the Communist Manifesto without calling it so. How shrewd he is in America. His cult of personality mesmerizes those who cannot go beyond their ignorance. They will continue to follow him like those fools who still praise Lenin and Stalin in Russia.  Obama’s fools and Stalin’s fools share the same drink of illusion.

That came from Pravda, the former Soviet Union mouthpiece.  

How...truly wonderful.

Recent numbers suggest that people receiving SNAP benefits outnumber the total population of twenty-four states.

Last year, the total number of SNAP recipients maxed out at 44.7 million people, and paid out $71.8 billion.  This year, as of August (last month available on USDA's page), there were 47.1 million people on SNAP benefits.  We'd already spent $62.8 billion dollars by August.

I am not, by any means, against helping those who truly need it, like the people Odysseus and I helped out (until a couple weeks ago, when they managed to scrape together enough to go back up to northern Missouri to stay with her mom).

However, I strongly doubt that most of those on SNAP and TANF (best figures I could get on that weren't good enough to link) actually need that level of help.

There need to be stronger controls on who can apply for and get help.  Not just a means test, but urinalysis every week, blood tests every six months, and one failure loses benefits and any children in the home until the parent who failed goes through rehab and goes a year totally clean.  There needs to be a class on how to cook and how to buy groceries required as part of the SNAP application, and a class on budgeting worked into the application for TANF.  

EBT cards--both kinds--need to be accepted only at grocery stores, Wal-Marts, and gas pumps--not inside gas station convenience stores.  Neither kind should cover junk food or alcohol.  Neither kind should be accepted at fast food places, like McDonalds or pizza places.  Neither kind should cover tobacco in any form.

If a person wants to drink, smoke, and eat crap, they need to do it on their dime, not mine.

Last, and possibly most important, they need the right to vote removed for the duration of the time they're on government benefits. 

Stupid parent tricks.

When I was thirteen or so (about seventh grade), my class petitioned the school to be allowed to watch The Crow before Halloween.  My school deliberated, then sent home permission slips because the movie was rated R, and parents and school officials worried about our innocence then. 

I brought the permission slip home, let my mom read the letter, and she refused to sign the slip because she didn't want me to see the movie.  Simple solution, and didn't spoil it for everyone else.

Something's wrong with modern parents, though--especially atheists.  Instead of refusing to sign the permission slip, a group of parents are setting up a fuss about a school in Arkansas that had the opportunity to take the kids to see a live, stage production of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  The parents are making the fuss about the school taking the kids to the play--at all--because of the religious overtones to the play, and because the performance is being held inside a church.

No, she's not refusing to sign the permission slip--the one quoted doesn't want her child singled out--but she'd sure be as pleased as punch if the school caves to her demands to not take the kids to the play at all.  She'd rather ruin it for everyone, because she can't stand the thought that somebody somewhere might be made happy by something she disapproves of. 

It's not exactly stealing candy from small children to make them cry, but it's close in spirit.

Wow...

So, since unemployment is so high (and, I would assume, everyone is so badly unqualified to do the work needed), Baltimore has come up with a...unique...solution:

Baltimore’s City Hall is mulling a controversial new mandate that, if passed, would require any business with a city contract of "at least $300,000 or any project that gets a city subsidy of at least $5 million to hire Baltimore City residents for at least 51 percent of new jobs.”

So...this is going to be like something I witnessed while I was in grad school.  A student had a twin sister who applied for (and got) a job at a clothing chain at the mall.

Two weeks later, she was fired.  She was told that she was only hired because she fulfilled a diversity quota that the company had been checking the week before she was hired.  She was fired because they didn't need her to be a token black worker anymore, and she could barely run the register, couldn't count back change, and figuring how much something a certain percentage off would cost when asked by a customer.

How is Baltimore's requirement going to be any different?

"...prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

This is a dangerous precedent. 

A federal judge has just told a family that they have to go against their beliefs by offering the morning after pill and the week after pill to their employees.*  The family believes that preventing the implantation of the embryo is as bad as abortion. 

The federal government is telling them, through Obamacare, that private individuals' rights to act on their beliefs is not Constitutionally protected, despite the clear language of the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law...regarding the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

That does not apply to churches alone.  That, despite the cowardly** idiot judge's interpretations, also applies to individuals, and individuals who own businesses. 

Were I the Greene family, I would either immediately divest my family holdings in any company employing enough people to fall under Obamacare's unConstitutional restrictions, or I'd cut each and every employee back to 26 hours per week. 

I'd expect that the next target will be individuals' rights to worship as they please (with the exception of Islamofacists), and then the churches.

That's the usual order of actions taken by Marxist governments against those who believe in a higher power than government.

*I disagree with their beliefs about the morning after pill--preventing implantation.  However, the week after pill is a bit more problematic.  An embryo implants between three and five days after fertilization, on average.  And after that sucker's implanted, it's a baby.  After that, it's murder, not contraception--but is still between a woman and her conscience.

**The judge's excuse is that the plaintiffs didn't cite any court cases where the "free exercise thereof" applied to a business, instead of a religious organization.

Another gas station accepting EBT

As we were driving home this afternoon after purchasing my husband a new pair of work shoes, we drove past another gas station that had up on its movable type billboard, right under the gas prices, "Now Accepting EBT."  I glanced at the front door as we pulled past it, and sure enough, there was a sticker advertising that SNAP benefits were accepted there.

I don't get it.  When my family was on food stamps, the only place that accepted food stamps was the grocery store.  You know, where groceries were sold.  Not candy.  Not beer.  Not instant crap, or pre-cooked, overpriced convenience stuff.  Groceries.  Flour.  Sugar.  Butter.  Eggs.  Milk.  Meat.  Dry pasta.  Canned veggies.  You know, stuff you cook with. 

The federal government needs to revisit what can and cannot be bought with money they take from me to give to those who might need it, but who certainly don't need it more than I do for my kids' sake, and where that money can be spent.  I distinctly, and deeply, resent that SNAP benefits can be spent at your local gas station, and at some restaurants. 

Who didn't see this coming?

First, they came for the smokers...and we didn't say anything because we didn't smoke, and it was none of our business.

Then, they came for the drinkers...and we didn't say anything because we didn't drink.  Too much. 

Then they came for the fatties...and we didn't say much because we acknowledged that we could stand to lose a little weight.

Now, they're trying to define gun violence as a "public health issue" so that they can put pressure on us to become the serfs they imagine us to be.

I hate to tell them this...well, that's a lie.  I will proclaim this boldly, proudly, and at the top of my lungs, as often as it needs to be said: I will not permit anyone to remove my right to protect myself and my family.  I will not permit the government that works for me to penalize me for being a (for the most part) law-abiding citizen.  I will not give in.  I will not surrender.  I will not abide by any law or social engineering that will not affect any but the law abiding. 

I will not give up my guns.  Nor will I pay any penalty to be "permitted" to keep them.  Nor yet will I accept discrimination in my workplace, my health insurance (which is separate from my job), my home insurance, or my property tax. 

The government, in all its infinite wisdom, the doctors in all their concerned busy-body nosiness, and anyone who agrees to abide by whatever the two come up with can go fuck themselves. 

Collars and chains and raccoon traps

We went grocery shopping for a staple we forgot on the last trip: lentils. 

Back when George W. Bush was in office, lentils went for $.48/pound.  The last time I bought lentils before this (about six months ago), they were $.98/pound.  This morning, they were $1.08. 

But there's little to no inflation, if we listen to government sources, rather than our wallets. 

QE 1 and QE 2 are partial causes; another root cause is raising minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25.  Basically, they print money, and assume prices will stay the same.  They raise the cost of doing business to the retailers, and assume that those costs will not be passed on. 

The stage is set.

On to step two: creating a larger underclass of government dependents.

We know prices are rising.  Honestly, they're rising faster than the inflation caused by the minimum wage increase can account for (though the Monopoly money coming into the economy through the firehose of quantitative easing certainly does).  Suddenly, groceries cost a bit more than twice what they used to (though that isn't inflation--food and fuel prices somehow don't count).  Paychecks in the current economy are stable or falling.  More and more people are losing their jobs entirely.

And our federal government is there to pick up the slack with welfare turned back to pre-Clinton rules (i.e., sit on your ass and collect a check, rather than work a shit job for government minimum wage as an incentive to find something better for yourself in the private sector), and food stamps.  It's currently a financially better choice to sit on your ass and collect government bennies.

Hook, line, and sinker.  Fire up the metal works--we've got a whole new class of slaves coming in.  We caught 'em in the raccoon traps. 

Bastards.

Umm...excuse me?

0bama just leaned back and let rip with a doozy from the anal sphincter masquerading as his mouth:

"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. ... If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Umm...what?  Say I were to decide to open a used book store (highly unlikely--I possibly could, with all of the books I actually own, but I very rarely can be convinced to part with a book).  I'd have to spend the time to find a building I could afford to rent, I'd have to pay the permit fees for running a small business, and I'd have to spend all of my time running the store, with maybe one day off per week.  I might or might not make it, depending on several factors, including but not limited to where I were able to afford to rent (and how high the rent and utilities were), what kind of inventory I carried, how many hours I stayed open, my costs vs. my prices, a hefty dose of hard work, and an even larger dose of luck.

No, I wouldn't credit a teacher with my success.  I wouldn't credit the government to whom I'd paid the fees to be allowed to sell books--nor the government snatching money out of my pockets in the form of taxes on every fucking thing I bought, sold, or used (like electricity and water).

As it is, I worked damn hard keeping my temper to make it all the way through my masters' degree.  I did that.  No one else could do it for me.  I don't believe that individuals who build a business from scratch would enjoy being told that their hard work, planning, and luck counts for exactly as much as the nasty hag spreading her legs for another raise in welfare (i.e., getting pregnant).  

Then again, I'm not someone who got to the White House on affirmative action, either.

Happy Independence Day

On July, 4, 1776, the thirteen colonies signed a document that listed the colonies' grievances with King George III.  They mostly revolved around unfair taxation, laws, and a lack of representation in the creation and application of those taxes and laws.

Today, two hundred thirty-six years later, we are faced with unfair taxation, laws, and a lack of representation in the creation and application of those laws--yes, we have an elected congress that are supposed to represent us, but they've fallen down on the job so badly that the Declaration penned by Thomas Jefferson might well have been aimed at the congresscritters of Washington, D.C., of 2012, rather than England and George III of 1776.

Blow it out your ass, sunshine.

To Louis Farrakhan:

You are no more a minister than the father who beat and raped me was.  You are no American.  I cannot rightly say what you are, because anything I attempt to equate you to...well, you're simply not an equal to anything.  I could call you a shit-stain, but that insults shit stains. 

The only one who takes joy in the fall and failure of their own country is a traitor.  Same as the ones that actively work for the fall and failure of their own country. 

Go to hell, you radical, fundamentalist, extremist Muslim nigger.*  Go.  To.  Hell.

With all sincerity,

A patriot

*Niggers are defined by their own actions, regardless of skin color.  For example, Nancy Pelosi is one...and Allen West isn't.

Steaming...

And not just because of the extremely hot weather. 

I cannot believe that the SCOTUS upheld mandatory Medicaid.  Two things suggest themselves to me:

1.  It takes a lawyer to be able to misinterpret the Constitution--a remarkably clear and concise document which is supposed to limit what our government is legally allowed to do to us--badly enough to mistake that abortion of a law for anything close to "constitutional."

2.  John Roberts is not a constitutionally conservative justice.  He was the deciding vote on mandatory Medicaid.  A few days ago, he voted against Arizona, and for the administration's permissive policies toward illegal immigration.

Where Roberts is concerned, either the Left has something on him, or he is simply a traitor to his office. 

I am actually incandescently angry.  I am so angry about this that I can't actually express it.  I am going to have to bury myself in reading as far away from the news as I can get to calm down enough to write a FFOT post on this that's even close to coherent. 

Right now, I'm going to go tickle my daughter.  Baby giggles always help.