RGV Republican Liberty Club

Wow. I’m not sure what to say about this one. Perhaps the abusiveness of the security personnel is to blame. Perhaps they need to reexamine their policies on when they are actually able to engage with people. Mr. Hill made no threatening gestures whatsoever, but apparently was such a threat to security that he had to be taken down. Hard.

This is just one of the latest instances of small minded individuals given a modicum of power and taking that power to an abusive level. At the very least, they need to be disciplined. Arguably, they should be fired for attacking an individual that did not offer up any threats. Then we have the so-called State Trooper. Ummmmm, really? I sure couldn’t see his “identification”. Upon repeated requests for his name or badge number or identification, he failed to display it. That sure seems suspect, as if he is not really a real State Trooper. He comes off as another security guard that is abusing his power. Now, Alaska is a gun friendly state. There are also several gun owners in Alaska. What happens if you are a gun owner (with a gun on you) and you witness 2 people assaulting an individual and someone masquerading as a State Trooper? Well, it’s not a good scenario. Likely, more than one person would not be sleeping that night very soundly. And I’m not just talking about Mr. Hill.

Torches & Pitchforks. That scenario seems to be getting closer every day.

Activist Post brings us this one:

This first day of the 2010 Alaska State Fair starts with sunny skies and a brutal assault by security personnel on a LaRouche supporter.

At about 5pm Alaska Time, Thursday, August 26, 2010, security personnel approach Sidney Hill, a lone man peacefully displaying an impeach Obama sign near Pioneer Plaza on the Alaska State Fairgrounds in Palmer. Minutes later, a crowd assembles, additional security forces arrive, and they physically assault the man holding the sign. He’s taken to the ground with force and detained.

An unidentified Alaska State Trooper arrives to physically disperse the crowd, and at several points during the conflict, crowd members yell in support of the demonstrator’s right to speak his message. The demonstrator’s personal firearm is confiscated by fair security, and he is held captive until Palmer police arrive to escort the man away in cuffs.

Sidney Hill was in jail awaiting a pre-trial at 1:00 pm on August 27, 2010 at the Palmer Courthouse. He has been charged with Assault 4-Cause Fear Of Injury, Disorderly Conduct-Challenge To Fight, and Criminal Trespass 2- Upon Premises. However, according to the Valley Frontiersman newspaper, “Assistant District Attorney Trina Sears said her office decided not to prosecute Hill on the assault charge.”

Assault on protester at 3:30
Trooper distracts me, but I barely catch the gun in security guard’s left hand at 4:41

Court record of arrest: http://bit.ly/bPSx6D
ADN coverage: http://bit.ly/bwE3u9
Frontiersman coverage: http://bit.ly/9V4gyn
Newsminer coverage: http://bit.ly/bEEq2K
Alaska State Fair official statement: http://bit.ly/cY5U2u

GovTrack, a civic project to keep tabs on those congresscritters has posted the text of H.R. 5741, the Universal National Service Act, as submitted by Representative Charles Rangel (NY-15) on 7/15/10. It has since been referred to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel where it will hopefully die a quick death. But what is H.R. 5741 you might ask? Well, remember when BHO was first talking about having a Civilian Corps as big and strong as the Military? You guessed it! This is the legislation which would draft you into forced servitude to such an entity. But don’t take my word for it! Read it yourself, particularly the opening paragraph

To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.

Yes, that’s right. You will be REQUIRED to serve for two years in this entity towards whatever designs BHO has for us. It doesn’t matter if you love it or hate it. You will be required to do so. Well, at least if you are in that age category, which is quite substantive. This is nothing short of a civilian Draft, a topic to which Rangel is no stranger. He has long been a proponent of re-instituting the military, as evidenced by his re-introduction of this similar legislation. He’s already done it 3 other times – H.R. 163 in 2003, H.R. 4752 in 2006, H.R. 393 in 2007, and this latest iteration only a week and a half ago.

It should be noted that the first implementation in 2003 of this proposed legislation had a roll call of 2-402. Only 2 Representatives voted in favor of it… Jack Murtha and Pete Stark. Every other Representative voted against it. But that doesn’t mean anything to Rangel. He went on to bring the same war conscription legislation up again, 3 more times!

As the dissatisfactions of Americans with their national government grow, so does the likelihood of the breakup of the United States. I believe that most Americans can improve their well-being by ending the national government, that is, ending the Union. I believe that this goal should shape politics if politics is to do much good.

I don’t think Americans are going to be the first people in the modern era to initiate a large-scale anarchy. But Americans might conceivably move back to a federal form of government something like that under the Articles of Confederation. If so, the problem is how to proceed. Many Americans feel (and are) trapped and thwarted by government power.

I see two paths. Americans can do this either acting as individuals formed into a body politic of 300 million Americans or as 50 body politics organized by state. I think action by state has a better chance of success.

To act as one body, Americans would have to alter their Constitution. The divisions among Americans make this highly unlikely. Even if it were pursued, the results would be highly uncertain.

Yes, indeed. The key to success on a large scale is mobilization and activation. Individuals ranting and raving about wrongdoings are portrayed negatively in the public and only get a 10 second soundbyte on the evening news. They aren’t taken seriously and assisted in their dilemma. Why do so when they can be paraded about as a malicious Angry White Man or crazed Right Wing Fringer “bitterly clinging to their guns and religion” as the illustrious BHO would say. They don’t have much to say about their own dilemma because they are ignored by the larger system itself. Good luck trying to get your point across to a newsie. Even if you find a sympathetic ear, you can oh so easily have the entirety of your story demolished by editorial oversight. Far too many people with an ounce of power over something have an agenda to Lord it over everyone else. Just ask a Mall Cop.

Rozeff makes another good point that

A tax revolt that works from and through the state legislatures directly undermines the Union. It directly challenges the power of Congress to tax. That’s a far stronger political platform for restructuring the United States.

which is certainly true, but is a concept so far down the road to most Americans that they haven’t even thought that far ahead. Mostly, they are concerned with just trying to live their lives and minimize Government intrusion and tyranny into it, rather than proactively attempting to fix what is broken within it.

Outright secession is one political measure in a spectrum of possible actions by which one or more states stand up to the U.S. government. Nullification is another. Withdrawal from the banking system is another. A separate payments system at the state level is a fourth. Refusal to obey any of hundreds of U.S. directives is a fifth. The formation of alliances among states is another.

Rozeff makes some points of interest here and almost blows right by them. Secession is certainly an interesting topic of conversation these days. What with Governor Rick Perry making allusions to it (and being attributed to a lot more – wishful thinking on someone’s part) and more than just the local so-called rednecks (one of my local Border Patrol agents) riding around with ‘Secede’ stickers affixed to their vehicles. The topic has gotten to the level of interest in the mainstream that much of the opposition is scoffing at it as illegal. Well, we know what that means. As Gandhi stated, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win.” Well if this is true, then the Secessionists are probably transversing from stage 2 to stage 3…

Nullification is another topic worthy of discussion. These United States are a collective of 50 individual States (as well as some Protectorates and other Holdings which aren’t quite “states”) which incorporated a Federal Government to oversee a very specific and limited set of Powers. The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights explicitly enumerate a finite list of Rights and privileges thereon. Now, the States authorized themselves an Out when it comes to laws that the Federal Government comes up with. Normally, the various states would be beholden to Federal laws, except whereby they are outside the scope of the explicitly delegated Powers of the Federal Government. Nullification is the Right of the state in question to nullify, or invalidate the Federal law because of it’s Unconstitutionality. This is a topic that most citizens don’t understand. However, it is something they really need to understand, because it goes to the heart of an overpowering and tyrannical Federal Government. When all legal means of redress are subverted, how does one seek satisfaction?

Next we have the topic of withdrawal from the banking system. This is yet again a difficult topic to discuss due to the vast majority of people’s misunderstanding of it. When you ask the man on the street about our banking system, he almost assuredly talks about saving and checking accounts. He thinks that the bank holds your money to loan to other people at higher interest so it makes money and can pay you smaller amounts of interest. This is a bald faced lie. Their are two types of banking prevalent to this conversation, Central Banking and Fractional Reserve Banking. The former is the macro system while the latter is the micro system. Central Banking in short, is ‘Money as Debt’ which is why we in America have a debt-based economy. It’s all about pushing debt around and debt management. You take on an amount of debt and pay it back with interest. That’s how money is made here. The problem with this is that the debt grows from interest and can never be paid back because their is not enough money in existence to pay it back. This eventually leads to bankruptcy of someone or something. On the large scale, the Federal Government doesn’t even print it’s own money! They buy it from the Federal Reserve through the issue of Bonds in the Bond Market. It is distributed in turn to the regional Federal Reserve branches and then to local banks in said regions.

Fractional Reserve Banking is where the real theft occurs. This is the kind of theft that the man on the street can wrap his head around because it doesn’t have an illustrious number of zeroes after it, boggling his mind. When I deposit $1,000 into a bank, they aren’t holding that money and loaning it to other people to make more money for me. Instead, through the miracle of Fractional Reserve Banking, they have just created more money out of thin air! Banking law allows the bank to loan out more money than they hold on deposit. That $1,000 in the vault means they get to issue “Lines of Credit” to everybody to the ratio of 10 to 1. There are several cartoons on YouTube which eloquently explain this better than I could.

Rozeff’s last 3 arguments are perhaps beyond the scope of this article, and quite a bit more in depth as to their requirements.

In short, the impending tides of  turbulence can bring on any number of effects if the citizenry of the nation unites under their respective States to do battle with the Monsters in the Swamp.

The American Spectator pens this lengthy yet accurate read on what is wrong in America today regarding how our political overseers see themselves against us. It isn’t a Right-Left issue. It isn’t a Democrat-Republican issue. It’s far more sinister. Following is an excerpt, but read the entire article!

Important as they are, our political divisions are the iceberg’s tip. When pollsters ask the American people whether they are likely to vote Republican or Democrat in the next presidential election, Republicans win growing pluralities. But whenever pollsters add the preferences “undecided,” “none of the above,” or “tea party,” these win handily, the Democrats come in second, and the Republicans trail far behind. That is because while most of the voters who call themselves Democrats say that Democratic officials represent them well, only a fourth of the voters who identify themselves as Republicans tell pollsters that Republican officeholders represent them well. Hence officeholders, Democrats and Republicans, gladden the hearts of some one-third of the electorate — most Democratic voters, plus a few Republicans. This means that Democratic politicians are the ruling class’s prime legitimate representatives and that because Republican politicians are supported by only a fourth of their voters while the rest vote for them reluctantly, most are aspirants for a junior role in the ruling class. In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans — a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents — lack a vehicle in electoral politics.

So… along with a certain island falling off into the ocean, this is a new one on me. Apparently Arizona does not share a border with Mexico. Apparently, if that were the case, then this Milwaukee County Official would think twice about the issue. Since Arizona does not share a border with Mexico, according to her, then she is in favor of the boycott proposed by certain people against the state of Arizona. This is particularly poignant because Arizona is 1600 miles away from Ms. West. Perhaps living in her neck of the woods has given her a skewed perception of  reality?

Ms. Wests’ county website is located at http://www.milwaukee.gov/West

If you would like to contact her and instruct her in geography, her contact information is as follows:

MILWAUKEE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
Milwaukee County Courthouse
901 North 9th Street, RM 201
Milwaukee, WI 53233
Phone: 414-278-4222 Fax: 414-223-1380

Thanks to TownHall for yet another insightful toon. It’s a wonder that Steele is still in the positions of Chairing the RNC. He’s taken “full responsibility” for his wasteful spending habits, expecting us to just accept his so-called apology and go right on like nothing has happened! It’s time this guy steps down and out of the picture! Get a new person in there to do the job and not blow through a million bucks on cars and planes and excessive costs…

from Salon:

In late January, I wrote about the Obama administration’s “presidential assassination program,” whereby American citizens are targeted for killings far away from any battlefield, based exclusively on unchecked accusations by the Executive Branch that they’re involved in Terrorism.  At the time,The Washington Post‘s Dana Priest had noted deep in a long article that Obama had continued Bush’s policy (which Bush never actually implemented) of having the Joint Chiefs of Staff compile “hit lists” of Americans, and Priest suggested that the American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was on that list.  The following week, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, acknowledged in Congressional testimony that the administration reserves the “right” to carry out such assassinations.

Today, both The New York Times and The Washington Post confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield.  I wrote at length about the extreme dangers and lawlessness of allowing the Executive Branch the power to murder U.S. citizens far away from a battlefield (i.e., while they’re sleeping, at home, with their children, etc.) and with no due process of any kind.  I won’t repeat those arguments — they’re here and here — but I do want to highlight how unbelievably Orwellian and tyrannical this is in light of these new articles today.

Just consider how the NYT reports on Obama’s assassination order and how it is justified:

The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday. . . .

American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate of the terror network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. They say theybelieve that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad, the officials said.

It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing, officials said.  A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president. . . .

“The danger Awlaki poses to this country is no longer confined to words,” said an American official, who like other current and former officials interviewed for this article spoke of the classified counterterrorism measures on the condition of anonymity. “He’s gotten involved in plots.”

No due process is accorded.  No charges or trials are necessary.  No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family).  None of that.

Instead, in Barack Obama’s America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens — and a death penalty imposed — is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone’s guilt as a Terrorist.  He then dispatches his aides to run to America’s newspapers — cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they’re granted — to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist.  It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American military targets(advocacy which happens to be Constitutionally protected) to Actual Terrorist ”involved in plots.”  These newspapers then print this Executive Verdict with no questioning, no opposition, no investigation, no refutation as to its truth.  And the punishment is thus decreed:  this American citizen will now be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done.  What kind of person could possibly justify this or think that this is a legitimate government power?

Just to get a sense for how extreme this behavior is, consider — as theNYT reported — that not even George Bush targeted American citizens for this type of extra-judicial killing (though a 2002 drone attack in Yemen did result in the death of an American citizen).  Even more strikingly, Antonin Scalia, in the 2004 case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, wrote an Opinion (joined by Justice Stevens) arguing that it was unconstitutional for the U.S. Government merely to imprison (let alone kill) American citizens as “enemy combatants”; instead, they argued, the Constitution required that Americans be charged with crimes (such as treason) and be given a trial before being punished.  The full HamdiCourt held that at least some due process was required before Americans could be imprisoned as “enemy combatants.”  Yet now, Barack Obama is claiming the right not merely to imprison, but to assassinate far from any battlefield, American citizens with no due process of any kind.  Even GOP Congressman Pete Hoekstra, when questioning Adm. Blair, recognized the severe dangers raised by this asserted power.

And what about all the progressives who screamed for years about the Bush administration’s tyrannical treatment of Jose Padilla?  Bush merelyimprisoned Padilla for years without a trial.  If that’s a vicious, tyrannical assault on the Constitution – and it was — what should they be saying about the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s assassination of American citizens without any due process?

All of this underscores the principal point made in this excellent new article by Eli Lake, who compellingly and comprehensively documents what readers here well know:  that while Obama’s “speeches and some of his administration’s policy rollouts have emphasized a break from the Bush era,” the reality is that the administration has retained and, in some cases, built upon the core Bush/Cheney approach to civil liberties and Terrorism.  As Al Gore asked in his superb 2006 speech protesting Bush’s ”War on the Constitution”:

Can it be true that any president really has such powers under our Constitution?

If the answer is yes, then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited?

If the president has the inherent authority to eavesdrop on American citizens without a warrant, imprison American citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can’t he do?

Notice the power that was missing from Gore’s indictment of Bush radicalism:  the power to kill American citizens.  Add that to the litany — as Obama has now done — and consider how much more compelling Gore’s accusatory questions become.

UPDATE:  When Obama was seeking the Democratic nomination, the Constitutional Law Scholar answered a questionnaire about executive power distributed by The Boston Globe‘s Charlie Savage, and this was one of his answers:

5. Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

[Obama]:  No. I reject the Bush Administration’s claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.

So back then, Obama said the President lacks the power merely todetain U.S. citizens without charges.  Now, as President, he claims the power to assassinate them without charges.  Could even his hardest-core loyalists try to reconcile that with a straight face?  As Spencer Ackerman documents today, not even John Yoo claimed that the President possessed the power Obama is claiming here.

UPDATE II:  If you’re going to go into the comment section — or anywhere else — and argue that this is all justified because Awlaki is an Evil, Violent, Murdering Terrorist Trying to Kill Americans, you should say how you know that.  Generally, guilt is determined by having a trial where the evidence is presented and the accused has an opportunity to defend himself — not by putting blind authoritarian faith in the unchecked accusations of government leaders, even if it happens to be Barack Obama.  That’s especially true given how many times accusations of Terrorism by the U.S. Government have proven to be false.

UPDATE III:  Congratulations, Barack Obama:  you’re now to the Right of National Review on issues of executive power and due process, asKevin Williamson objects:  ”Surely there has to be some operational constraint on the executive when it comes to the killing of U.S. citizens. . . . Odious as Awlaki is, this seems to me to be setting an awful and reckless precedent. “  But Andy McCarthy — who is about the most crazed Far Right extremist on such matters as it gets, literally — is as pleased as can be with what Obama is doing (or, as Gawker puts it, “Obama Does Something Bloodthirsty Enough to Please the Psychos”).

UPDATE IV:  Keith Olbermann’s coverage of this story was quite good tonight – see here.

Yes, he actually thinks Guam might “tip over” and fall into the sea. This is the Representation that the people of Georgia have:

TownHall sums it up nicely.