Pres. Obama's Argentinian Two-step….

Pres. Obama Praises Australian Gun Confiscation Program: An Open Letter...

June 11, 2014

Pres. Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Mr. President,

While you have praised the Australians for ridding their society of firearms, you obviously haven’t looked to see just what effect such measures actually had:

Some scholars even credit the 1996 gun law with causing the decrease in deaths from firearms, though they are still debating that point. A 2003 study from AIC, which looked at rates between 1991 and 2001, found that some of the decline in firearm-related homicides (and suicides as well) began before the reform was enacted. On the other hand, a 2006 analysis by scholars at the University of Sydney concluded that gun fatalities decreased more quickly after the reform. Yet another analysis, from 2008, from the University of Melbourne, concluded that the buyback had no significant effect on firearm suicide or homicide rates.
So there’s no consensus about whether the changes decreased gun violence or had little to no effect. But the only argument we’ve seen arguing that it caused an increase in murder comes from our anonymous e-mail author.

The claims about Australian gun control were circulating as far back as 2001, when Snopes.com went over them and concluded that they were a "small, mixed grab bag of short-term statistics" signifying little, Gun Control in Australia.

Britain, another country in which firearms are essentially banned, has similarly seen increases in the use of firearms in crimes:

The Government's latest crime figures were condemned as "truly terrible" by the Tories today as it emerged that gun crime in England and Wales soared by 35% last year.
Criminals used handguns in 46% more offences, Home Office statistics revealed.

Firearms were used in 9,974 recorded crimes in the 12 months to last April, up from 7,362.

It was the fourth consecutive year to see a rise and there were more than 2,200 more gun crimes last year than the previous peak in 1993.

Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871.
Unadjusted figures showed overall recorded crime in the 12 months to last September rose 9.3%, but the Home Office stressed that new procedures had skewed the figures.

Shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin said: "These figures are truly terrible.

"Despite the street crime initiative, robbery is massively up. So are gun-related crimes, domestic burglary, retail burglary, and drug offenses.

"The only word for this is failure: the Government's response of knee-jerk reactions, gimmicks and initiatives is not working and confused signals on sentences for burglary will not help either.

"The figures will continue to be dreadful until the Government produces a coherent long term strategy to attack crime at its roots and get police visibly back on our streets."

Gun crime would not be cracked until gangs were broken up and the streets "reclaimed for the honest citizen by proper neighborhood policing", he added,” Gun Crime Soars in England Where Guns Are Banned, Katie Pavlich.

In fact, in the years that have passed since the Aussie government confiscated hundreds of thousands of legally owned firearms, they have been replaced by hundreds of thousands of other firearms that were brought into the country illegally, essentially nullifying the original confiscation, the net result being that the bad guys have the guns, while the law abiding do not.  Additionally, in terms of overall violent crime, Britain's rate of violent crime is FIVE TIMES that of the US - 400 per 100,000 population in the US vs. nearly 2100 per 100,000 in Britain - and in Britain and Canada, nearly half of all burglaries are committed while the residents are in the home, vs only 13% here in the US.

Yeah, Mr. President - those gun control provisions have been real game changers - for the criminals.

The reality is,

those who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.

There is no pattern, there is no increase," says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston's Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.
The random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest, Fox says. Most people who die of bullet wounds knew the identity of their killer.

Society moves on, he says, because of our ability to distance ourselves from the horror of the day, and because people believe that these tragedies are "one of the unfortunate prices we pay for our freedoms."

Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

Chances of being killed in a mass shooting, he says, are probably no greater than being struck by lightning.
Still, he understands the public perception — and extensive media coverage — when mass shootings occur in places like malls and schools. "There is this feeling that could have been me. It makes it so much more frightening," Mass shootings are not growing in frequency, experts say, Associated Press.

In other words, media coverage gives the perception that such events are on the rise, when, in fact, the long term trend indicates otherwise.

Mr. President, the fact is that such measures will stop nothing.  Even in countries in which access to firearms is banned or heavily regulated, those determined to obtain them find ways to do so.

If you are truly as concerned about this issue as you claim to be, then begin addressing the problems that lead to such events that were outlined in the study YOU commissioned.

"Somebody's Gotta Get Fired…"

The Today Show, 1/9/2103

Chuck Todd, Chief White House Correspondent: "There's either one or two things goin' on: either Chris Christie knew and he's now lied in that statement, or you take him at his word and he doesn't even have control of his own chief deputies, that there is a culture in his office where doing something like this political retribution is acceptable behavior…

Matt Lauer: "What does he have to do to try to get his arms around, or try to get control of this story?"

Chuck Todd: "He's gotta own this, and somebody's gotta get fired. Obviously, he says he doesn't know, that this was unsanctioned behavior, how is it that this person hasn't been fired yet…?"

Where was all this moral outrage as Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, and other members of the Obama administration were blatantly flaunting the law and engaging in activities that got people killed? Where was this rush to hold Obama accountable when he claimed ignorance regarding the actions of his chief deputies? Who stepped up and said, "He's gotta own this, and somebody's gotta get fired...?" Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS political retribution scandal?  Any of this ring a bell?  The CHIEF EXECUTIVE of the NATION cannot be held responsible for the actions of his underlings, is not required to own what has happened in his own administration, but a governor who aspires to the White House (but for whom I will never vote) is REQUIRED to both OWN the problem and TAKE ACTION against those who perpetrated them?

Matt Lauer, Chuck Todd: if it is right to hold Governor Christie responsible for this event, then it is IMPERATIVE that you apply the same standard to President Barak H. Obama and DEMAND that he both OWN and PROSECUTE the misdeeds of his chief deputies.
http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/54020537

Pres. Obama and the "Chains of the Constitution"

Some time ago, Pres. Obama made a remark regarding his frustration with the way Constitutional constraints hampered his efforts to reshape America according to his own ideals:

"It turns out our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change that I would like sometimes.  But what I have been able to do is move in the right direction..."

And, for once, he nails it. 

It cannot be expressed any better than the following words penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Kentucky Resolutions:

"...in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution…"

Mr. President, when the direction you desire to go conflicts with, or diverges from, the directions established in our Constitution, you are going in the WRONG direction.  End of story.

It is past time to re-bind our government with the chains of the Constitution that were intended to safeguard the enumerated rights of the States, and more importantly, the People. 

Capitol Shooting - Mother Was Depressed. Obviously We Need Vehicle Control Laws....

Regarding the recent capitol shooting: the driver was known to Connecticut police, it appears that she was suffering from depression and had been hospitalized for it at one point, and she rammed the barrier at the White House because she believed that Pres. Obama was stalking her (actually, she wasn't far from wrong on that count!).

Obviously, her right to own a vehicle should have been taken away long ago. 

We need to provide comprehensive, universal background checks as a condition to owning a vehicle, and we need to limit the capacity of gas tanks of all vehicles to not more than 10 gallons to insure that someone can't try something like this again. We need to immediately ban all high capacity gas tanks (11 gallons or larger), and register all vehicles in a federal database that can take a high capacity gas tank. Sen. Pelosi should waste more tax payer dollars looking at photos of vehicles so that she can come up with a list of scary-looking assault vehicles that should be banned from ownership unless you buy a tax stamp first; this list will grandfather in historic assault vehicles. It is imperative that the President pass an executive order banning the reimportation of any US-made historic assault vehicle that may have been provided to another country 60 years ago during the course of a war.

Further, the right of anyone associated with such a person to own a vehicle, especially one with a high capacity gas tank or, heaven forbid, an assault vehicle, should be curtailed as well to insure that the disturbed person can't illegally acquire the vehicle by running the owner over with their own vehicle. In addition, vehicle free zones should be established to prevent such people from getting too close to the White House, congress, and schools, and teachers and other school staff should be forbidden to possess a vehicle in a school zone. Malls, theaters, hospitals and other commercial entities should have the right to post themselves as vehicle free zones. The simple act of posting a vehicle free zone sign will be sufficient to deter someone who is potentially dangerous from using their vehicle to commit a crime, such as ramming a 7-11 for the purpose of dragging out the ATM.

If we take these measures, we can insure that something like this never happens again, because everyone knows that disturbed people, or even hard core bad guys, would never try to circumvent this system by illegally acquiring a vehicle or modifying a legal vehicle by adding a high capacity gas tank and other assault vehicle features.

Sound absurd? I can think of at least one other area in which these same conditions are considered to be "common sense," even though that area accounts for a fraction of the deaths that occur in the US as compared to automobile ownership.

Pres. Obama's Speech Against US Involvement In syria....

I love it when speeches made by senators come back to bite them as presidents! I have taken the liberty of making a few very minor changes to this speech:

"Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war speech, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.

My forbears signed up to fight wars in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific. They saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; they heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. They fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and they did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.

After Sept. 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported the administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Hillary Clinton and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like John Kerry to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through its worst years since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Bashar Hafez al-Assad. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, launched armed attacks against his own people. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Syrian people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Assad poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors, that the Syrian economy is in shambles, that the Syrian military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Syria will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Syria without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Obama? Let's finish the fight with terrorist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that effectively targets foreign threats while protecting the Constitutional rights of American citizens. You want a fight, President Obama?

Let's fight to make sure that the U.N. inspectors can do their work in Syria, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of chemical, biological, and nuclear agents, and that nations like Iran never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Obama?

Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Obama? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through sensible development of our enormous domestic oil and gas resources.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair. The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not — we will not — travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain."

This speech was originally delivered by then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2002 in Chicago to protest US involvement in Iraq. To see how minor the changes I made are, view the transcript of the original speech: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99591469

President to Sign UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) Over Break - in Violation of the Expressed Will of the Senate....

The news headlines are telling us that President Obama will sign the UN ATT during the legislative break.  

There is just one minor problem:  the Senate has already disapproved the signing of this treaty.

The US Senate web site provides the following details regarding the ratification of treaties:

"The Senate does not ratify treaties—the Senate approves or rejects a resolution of ratification. If the resolution passes, then ratification takes place when the instruments of ratification are formally exchanged between the United States and the foreign power(s)," (US Senate and Treaties).

On March, 23, 2013, the same week the UN ATT was passed by the UN Security Council, the US Senate, in an early morning vote, voted 53-46 to reject a resolution to ratify the treaty.  The Senate has already expressed its will concerning this treaty; the president has no legal grounds to sign the UN ATT.  Once again, however, the president is going to unilaterally act in violation of our system of checks and balances.

One more impeachable offense on the part of the president.

An Open Letter to Pre. Obama Regarding His Administration's Blatant Violations of the Constitution

Mr. President,

Your administration has taken surveillance of American citizens farther than any administration to-date. And since the NSA is monitoring everything these days, particularly the postings of conservatives, I feel relatively certain that they will stumble across this posting.

I agree with a past leader of our country who was far wiser than you regarding the lengths to which you are going to "keep us safe:" 

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

James Madison

I am well aware that your predecessor set up a system whereby he thought he could skirt the Bill of Rights with impunity, a system your administration is now taking to lengths never before imagined. I am aware that it was the republicans who pushed through the so-called "patriot act," an act which you condemned as a senator, but of which you take full advantage today. I condemned your predecessor's and the republicans' attempts to skirt the Constitution, as I condemn yours today. I will state this plainly: an unConstitutional law is an illegal law. A law that purports to protect the Constitution by violating it is an illegal law. A law that infringes upon the rights explicitly guaranteed in the Bill of Rights in the name of the Commerce, Necessary and Proper, or Sovereignty Clauses is an illegal law. That this is true is declared in the Supreme Court decision, United States v. Cruikshank, 1875:

"With regard to those acknowledged rights and privileges of the citizen, which form a part of his political inheritance derived from the mother country, and which were challenged and vindicated by centuries of stubborn resistance to arbitrary power, they belong to him as his birthright, and IT IS THE DUTY OF THE PARTICULAR STATE OF WHICH HE IS A CITIZEN TO PROTECT AND ENFORCE THEM, AND TO DO NAUGHT TO DEPRIVE HIM OF THEIR FULL ENJOYMENT. When any of these rights and privileges are secured in the constitution of the United States only by a declaration that the state or the United States shall not violate or abridge them, IT IS AT ONCE UNDERSTOOD THAT THEY ARE NOT CREATED OR CONFERRED BY THE CONSTITUTION, BUT THAT THE CONSTITUTION ONLY GUARANTIES THAT THEY SHALL NOT BE IMPAIRED BY THE STATE, OR THE UNITED STATES, AS THE CASE MAY BE." 

These attempts to circumvent the Constitution, to implement unConstitutional laws, must end now, and those who have promulgated these policies must be held accountable for breaking their oath of office, which requires them to defend the Constitution from ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. They have become what they profess to hate.

"We need your honor..."

Fine, then let's see that honor demonstrated by the Commander in Chief first.

“We need your honor, that inner compass that guides you, not when the path is easy and obvious, but it’s hard and uncertain, that tells you the difference between that which is right and that which is wrong,” Obama said. “Perhaps it will be the moment when you think nobody’s watching. But never forget that honor, like character, is what you do when nobody’s looking.”

Practice what you preach, Mr. President.  You have no moral authority to make such a demand.

Let me paraphrase your other relevant remark from this address:

“Those who commit dereliction of duty after receiving numerous please for help, who order troops to stand down when our ambassador and his staff are being murdered, who direct the IRS to target conservatives and others with whose ideology you personally disagree, who tell Christians that they must fund abortion and give vocal approval to homosexuality in violation of their First Amendment Rights, who direct the Department of State to provide funding and weapons to islamic terrorist organizations and hostile governments, and who direct immigration and other law enforcement agencies not to enforce our laws regarding illegal aliens, just to give a few examples, are not only committing a crime, they threaten the trust and discipline that makes our country strong.” 

True leadership doesn't make demands of others that it doesn't first make of itself.

Pres. Obama to West Point Grads: "We need your honor..."

Privileges and Favors, or Inalienable Rights?

"Just because you have a right does not mean that the state or local government cannot constrain that right…"  B.H. Obama

"I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom..." Michael Bloomberg 

At every turn, we are witnessing an all-out attack on the freedoms guaranteed us by the Bill of Rights. It's amazing that the words "unalienable" or "shall not be infringed" could ever be interpreted as, "at the government's whim."

If one looks at our rights only as amendments to the Constitution, it is easy to dismiss their importance. When you put them back into their original context of the Bill of Rights, however, one is confronted with the critical nature of those amendments. The States that created the federal government with the ratification of the Constitution DEMANDED the addition of the first 10 amendments, and ratified them with a 3/4 supermajority. Those amendments to the Constitution made this country what it was. Our government's penchant to disregard them has made us what we are today.

The Danbury Baptists nailed the basic issue when they wrote their historic (and abused) letter to then-president Thomas Jefferson:

"[A]nd such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those who seek after power and gain under the pretense of government and religion should reproach their fellow men--should reproach their order magistrate, as a enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dare not, assume the prerogatives of Jehovah and make laws to govern the kingdom of Christ."

Our rights are not privileges or favors granted to us by a beneficent government; they are INALIENABLE RIGHTS, recognized by our Founders as having been granted to us by God by virtue of having been created in His image. Therefore, the attacks and slanders we endure at the hand of our government for the exercise and defense of those rights are "inconsistent with the rights of freemen." But as was the case already in Jefferson's time, those of us who believe and defend that position are instead looked upon as the enemy by those who seek absolute power.

April 23, 2013: the First Anniversary of the End of the War on Terror....

April 23, 2013. 

Today is the first anniversary of the end of the war on terror.

I'll bet you didn't know that.

One year ago today, the administration did something that went largely under the radar until after the Boston Marathon bombing: it declared the war on terror to be over. 

In an interview with the National Journal, a senior State Department official stated, "The war on terror is over... Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a LEGITIMATE ISLAMISM" (all caps added). 

In other words, the administration folded. It has admitted defeat. But while the US is no longer engaged in a war on terrorism, recent events make it clear that we are still a target for terrorists.  The man who castigated Bush for declaring "mission accomplished" while still carrying out combat missions in Iraq has declared an end to the war on terror even as we deal with terrorist sleeper cells in this country.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/04/23/Obama-war-on-terror

"Jamie Foxx: 'Our lord and savior Barack Obama'"

At the Soul Train Awards Sunday (11/25/12), comedian Jamie Foxx encouraged those in attendance to give thanks to God and "our lord and savior Barack Obama."

Folks, this is blasphemy.  There is ONE LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS THE CHRIST. 1 Corinthians 8:6, "yet for us there is ONE GOD, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and ONE LORD, JESUS CHRIST, through whom are all things and through whom we exist."

I am reminded of a similar situation that was recorded in Acts 12.  There was a group of people with whom King Herod was angry.  Wanting to appease him, those people came together, groveled, and then sat through a speech.  Wanting to appease Herod even further, when he was done with his speech, the people all shouted, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!”  Verse 23 of Acts 12 records, "Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, BECAUSE HE DID NOT GIVE GOD THE GLORY, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last."

This is not the first time that deity has been attributed to Pres. Obama.  A page from a commemorative calendar being sold during the DNC conference in North Carolina features a photo of the birth certificate of Obama along with the words, "HEAVEN SENT,  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. - John 3:16."

This is blasphemy of the highest order, something that God does not take lightly.  Isaiah 42:8 records this statement by God:  I AM THE LORD; that is MY NAME; MY GLORY I GIVE TO NO OTHER, nor my praise to carved idols."  What applies to God applies equally to His Son, Jesus the Christ:  "My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.  I and my Father are one..." (John 10:29).  Jesus used the primary name of God, I AM, as His own:  "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am...'" (John 8:58).

It is truly time for the people of this nation to fall on our faces before God to confess this blasphemy, to throw ourselves on His mercy.

And to the PASTORS of the African-American congregations of this nation,  "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: PREACH THE WORD; be ready in season and out of season; REPROVE, REBUKE, AND EXHORT, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming (indeed, it is already here - added) when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears THEY WILL ACCUMULATE FOR THEMSELVES TEACHERS TO SUIT THEIR OWN PASSIONS..."  (2 Timothy 4:1-3).

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/11/26/jamie-foxx-calls-obama-our-lord-and-savior#ixzz2DKxjLvCA