Sooooo... How's that Obama feeling working for you right now?

Is that kicking and screaming that I hear? First off, let me preface by saying that Hillary sucked, Obama sucks, and McCain sucks. We have been sold out. It's that simple. Having said that... Let the shit hit the fan.

Yesterday, in what can only be called a stab into the heart of the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America, John McCain and Barack Obama along with others, granted immunity to telecoms who have violated your 4th Amendment rights under the auspices of domestic spying. But wait, there's more... It seems that Obama, after having secured the Democratic nomination, has decided to drift a little closer to the right.

What's most fascinating about his efforts to appeal to the American center is the extent to which Obama, as a constitutional law professor and Harvard Law Review president, has repeatedly chosen the Bill of Rights as his vehicle for doing so. Yesterday, Barack Obama shed his skin; the skin that enticed so many people into believing that he did, in fact, support the United States Constitution, and in particular, the fourth amendment to same.

What's Obama doing? He's trying to cozy up to the conservatives in order to gain votes. You know those "independent" votes that are soooooo very needed? That's bullshit. "Independent Voters" is double-speak for "I need to turn more conservative heads and secure their votes if I hope to defeat McCain in the fall." The bottom line is that there is political reality, and then there is principle. Barack Obama has billed himself as a new breed of politician who will stand up on principle. Yesterday illustrated that he’s reneged on that promise. He’s been revealed as an old school politico, who sticks his finger in the wind to see which way it’s blowing.

I'm just pointing out facts here. I never was for him. He just didn't have what it took for me. What was it that he didn't have? I follow the little things, like, ohhhh, let's see, HIS VOTING RECORD. All you have to do is see that when the big issues came up for his Senate vote, he didn't bother to show up. But I've been down that road already with those of you who are/were supporters.

So now we're faced with an individual who may become President. I really don't care who's President. What I care about is their ability to appoint Chief Justices to life terms in the Supreme Court. And on that note, Obama scares the hell out of me. He's all for the lowering of the walls between church and state.

But, let's get to the meat and potatoes of why I want him and McCain on a spit.

“The history of the Intelligence Community is replete with instances of abuse of civil liberties,” observed Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper last year in the course of his confirmation as Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

That is not news, of course, though it is useful to have it acknowledged by the Pentagon’s senior intelligence policy official. Also useful is Gen. Clapper’s proposed remedy:

“The requisite elements of a program to prevent such abuse are: (1) clearly articulated and widely publicized policies; (2) training, both basic and refresher; and (3) a mechanism to verify compliance independently,” he wrote (pdf) in reply to a question from Sen. Carl Levin.

By these standards, the pending amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that was being considered by the Senate today leaves much to be desired.

Far from being “clearly articulated,” the legislation leaves even experts uncertain as to what its provisions mean. And by granting retroactive immunity to telephone companies for unspecified illegal acts that they may have committed, the legislation compromises the most important mechanism for independent verification of legal compliance, namely the judicial process.

“Does the new FISA bill authorize wholesale interception of all communications to and from the US,” asked James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, “or does it only authorize the interception of the communications of particular individuals?”

Incredibly, the answer is not reliably known. “Both national security and civil liberties interests weigh in favor of clarity on this question,” Mr. Dempsey wrote last month.

Meanwhile, the congressional grant of immunity to telephone companies that are being sued for suspected acts of illegal surveillance under the President’s warrantless surveillance program “is a naked intrusion into ongoing litigation,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) on the Senate floor yesterday.

“I am aware of no precedent for the Congress of the United States stepping into ongoing litigation, choosing a winner and a loser, allowing no alternative remedy,” he said.

“I believe it will be determined by a court that ultimately this section of the legislation is unconstitutional, in violation of the separation of powers, because we may not, as a Congress, take away the access of the people of this country to constitutional determinations heard by the courts of this country.”

“If I were a litigant, I would challenge the constitutionality of the immunity provisions of this statute, and I would expect a good chance of winning,” Sen. Whitehouse said.

So if you paid attention, you knew that Barack Obama loved the death penalty. You knew that he was pro-gun. You knew that he loved him some faith-based programs (and, if it's any comfort, the Family Research Council and other conservative and evangelical groups are pissed that Obama won't let churches discriminate in hiring for the programs). Most of this is no-brainer shit in the political realm. Did you really want Obama to have to defend no death penalty for child rapists? Pick your battles, motherfuckers, and pick 'em well.

Like this one: Barack Obama's reversal of his position on the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 was a craven, cowardly bullshit move that ought to haunt him with the left (and libertarian right) for the rest of the campaign. By voting for the bill yesterday (including voting for cloture), Obama made a mistake that is the political equivalent of Hillary Clinton's Iraq war vote. (They are not morally equivalent, since the dead would probably rather be alive and spied on.) And while there's no telling how Clinton would have voted had she been the nominee, just as there's no way to know how Obama would have voted on the war had he been in the Senate in 2002, the New York Senator was unencumbered and able to take the moral high ground and voted against the bill.

It wouldn't be so bad if Obama hadn't made an absolutely definitive statement about opposing any bill that contained immunity from civil lawsuits for telecommunications companies. But the bill did contain it. And he still voted for it. So he joined with other enabling Democrats to be like beaten dogs to their President-owner, hoping that Bush would praise them and pet them, even briefly. A proud, proud moment.

So now we know: Barack Obama believes that corporations that agree to break the law at the President's urging are not complicit, which means that if the President breaks the law, the law should be changed so that, retroactively, the President can't be prosecuted for the crime. He believes that anyone can be subject to surveillance at the whim of the President at any time with the only oversight being over the techniques of the surveillance ("No, guys, c'mon, you can't just put cameras all over the country. Oh, wait, sure, go ahead, you crazy terror fighters"). He believes that, even if the FISA court actually has the 'nads to say no, the government can continue its surveillance while it appeals the ruling. And on and on.


And to top this tasty morsel off... Obama is all for coming down on Iran. Yeah, that's war talk, for those of you who are listening.

Phillip Bobbitt is an enemy of the Republic of the United States of America.

In a recent edition of the Austin-American Statesman a book review of Phillip Bobbitt’s new book Terror and Consent goes into how the book calls for the shredding of the Constitution. The article written by James E. McWilliams features an image of the Constitution being torn with a big bold headline that states “Everything must go.” The words “How to Fight Terrorism”, are put in place of where the Constitution is torn. The article is blatant propaganda to make people think that the answer to fight terrorism is to destroy the Constitution. As disgusting as this is, the contents of Bobbitt’s book advocates exactly what the picture depicts. Bobbitt endorses using nongovernmental organizations and multinational corporations to take over the roles and functions of nation states. He also endorses giving the United Nations the authority to wage war without approval from the Security Council and the use of non-lethal chemical weapons to fight terrorism. If he really wanted to end terrorism using non-lethal chemical weapons, he should be endorsing the use of non-lethal chemical weapons on the headquarters of the CIA, British Intelligence and Mossad because that’s where the majority of terrorism comes from. Of course, Bobbitt won't mention that fact.

Let’s look at a blurb from the Austin-American Statesman article that gets into some of the things that Bobbitt endorses in his book.

Bobbitt’s previous book, "The Shield of Achilles," explored the grand themes of warfare and state development, marking his penchant for the magnum opus. At nearly 700 pages (including more than 100 pages of notes), "Terror and Consent" follows suit, taking on a similarly big picture. If "we want to defeat state-shattering terror in the twenty-first century," Bobbitt writes, we will have to "transform the emerging constitutional order of the twenty-first century State."

Specifically, we must stop thinking like a nation state and start thinking like the "market state" that we are inevitably becoming. The nation state — a constitutional order dedicated to protecting and improving the material welfare of its citizens — served the United States well from the mid-19th century to the end of the Cold War. But Bobbitt contends it’s vulnerable to a new battery of threats. The accessibility of weapons of mass destruction, the globalization of international capital and the "universalization of culture" have eroded the conventional borders that once legitimated national security.

What’s needed is a constitutional order that takes its structural cues from multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations, relying "less on law and regulation and more on market incentives" to expand people’s options. Such a market state keeps its finger on the pulse of consumer demand, advocates trade liberalization, is prone to the privatization of public works and "will outsource many functions." In the seminar rooms of political science departments this change is referred to as "neoliberalism" (on the streets, it is known as "globalization") — and Bobbitt, who is a geopolitical realist, believes we have no choice but to embrace it.

Simply put, Bobbitt is endorsing what the elites have long sought after and that’s a New World Order or a global government. Bobbitt advocates the destruction of the Constitution and the transfer of power to multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations. This man is a traitor. In the New World Order that the elites envision, people will only have the illusion of choice via phony democratic rule. Real decisions will be made by multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations behind the scenes. Unfortunately, what Bobbitt advocates is already happening considering initiatives such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership which seeks to dissolve the national borders between the Canada, United States and Mexico.

Bobbitt also endorses preemptive use of force by the United Nations without a Security Council authorization as well as the use of non-lethal chemical weapons to prevent terrorism. This is confirmed from a blurb in the Austin-American Statesman.

Bobbitt believes that the UN Charter should be amended to allow the preemptive use of force without a Security Council authorization, that the Geneva Conventions should be changed to forbid the indefinite containment of terrorist prisoners without trial and that we must, in cases in which the use of non-lethal chemical weapons could be used to prevent terror, be able to redefine such methods as "counterforce measures."

What is not mentioned in the article is what sort of non-lethal weapons he would advocate using. Considering that the public is having pharmaceutical drugs and fluoride dumped in their water, mercury put in their vaccines, pesticides sprayed over populated areas and all sorts of other horrors one has to ask if Bobbitt would endorse these methods to fight terrorism?

The war on terror is a proven fraud which makes Bobbitt’s book entirely irrelevant. He bases all of his conclusions off of something that is a lie. Bobbitt also refuses to acknowledge mainstream history which shows that anytime power is concentrated in the hands of a few it always turns out badly. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the New World Order is seeking to gain absolute power. If they are successful in achieving this, we will see a tyranny like no other. The New World Order will be a global enslavement system in which advanced technology is used to dominate the people of the world. It is disgusting that Bobbitt prefers a system that concentrates power in the hands of the unelected few over the freedom and inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution. It is insane to say that the Constitution is outdated and a new form of governance is required in the 21st century. Free speech, the right to bear arms, the right not to have your home searched and personal belongings seized without a warrant are concepts that are just as applicable in the 21st century as they were in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Bobbitt is an elitist hack and a traitor for the statements he is making in his book. While he has every right to say these things under the First Amendment, his statements undermines everything that has made this country special. What he doesn’t realize is that the New World Order will dispose of him like they will everyone else when they see that he is of no further use to their insanely corrupt and tyrannical system. Bobbitt is nothing more than another useful idiot for the New World Order enslavement system and he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.

Below is Bobbitt’s contact information if you’d like to express your displeasure at his anti-American and pro-NWO statements.

Phone: (512) 232-1376
Fax: (512) 471-6988
E-mail: PBOBBITT@LAW.UTEXAS.EDU

If for some reason the AAS should stop posting the above linked article, I have archived it on my server, here.

Back door gun control taking on a life of its own.

Can't take our guns outright, yet. So what are they doing? Attempting to tax, ban, encode, and pretty much any frigging thing possible in order for it to be impossible to own ammunition. Sneaky fuckers, eh?

Jerry the Geek is tracking this epidemic that is sweeping the nation.

I've pulled Jerry's article from his above linked site, in case you guys don't click the link. I would however urge you to click the link and see everything that he's got going on over there.

Given the plethora of "Encoded Ammunition" bills introduced into various State legislatures in January, 2008 (five so far; there may be more, I'm still researching), it occurred to me that it would be handy to have some kind of 'tracking document'.

Accordingly, I spent a couple of hours building an Excel Spreadsheet listing the salient characteristics of all the bills I have so far discovered. You can download the "2008 Geek Guide ..."( etc.) here.

Note that the file, 2008_Encoded_Ammunition.xls, will require that you have Microsoft EXCEL loaded on your computer. You can download it, but you can't read it without the software.

Here's a list of the states reported to date: Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Hawaii, Tennessee.

And here is a list of the data items found there, along with a short (?) description of the data points:

* State: The name of the state in which the bill is introduced.
* Bill #: The designation of the bill(s). Note that in at least one state (Tennessee), the identical bill was simultaneously introduced in both houses.
* Link to Text: A "Tiny URL" code. Copy and past it into your web browser, and the original URL will be generated to take you to the document which contains the full text of the bill. Note that I neglected to include this link in at least one of my original articles. I hope I've corrected those articles, but ALL are referenced here.
* Sponsor: The name of the state legislature(s) who sponsored and/or introduced the bill. This allows you, if you are a resident of that state, to follow him/her back to his/her personal website and send him/her emails appropriate to the amount of outrage you feel about his/her disenfranchisement of honest shooters.
* Justification for bill?: A simple YES/NO, if the text of the bill includes verbiage which attempts to justify the introduction of this disgusting piece of .... legislation. (Sorry, I can't help editorializing, even when I know I shouldn't. I'm just that irritated.)
* Date Bill Introduced: The date the bill was first read into the record in the state house, assembly or senate.
* Bill Status: The current status of the bill, usually, "referred to Committee" or similar verbiage. Bills so designated sometimes STAY in committee until the end of the legislative session (January 1 of the following year), after which they will die. At least one bill has a "bill expiration date" built into it, which I presume refers to the legislative guidelines for that state.
* Type of Ammo: The limitations on the kind of ammunition which is subject to these restrictions. ALWAYS "Handgun", but may also include "Assault Weapon" or "Assault Pistol". Some states include a list of "Designated Weapons" in the bill, which usually refer to what is essentially an "Assault Weapons" list established by existing state laws.
* Sell Only By Date: The date upon which vendors (retailers, etc.) may offer for sale 'only' ammunition ... or bullets (some states mention both) which has been "encoded".
* Own Only By Date: The date upon which all vendors and private citizens may not possess ammunition (or bullets? .. not always clear) which has not been "encoded". Possession may or may not involve specific penalties; see below.
* Per-Round Tax/Fee?: ALL states have, as far as I know and of this date, imposed some kind of tax or fee per bullet; this is most commonly five cents, although one state sets the fee at ".005 cents" which works out at five cents per thousand rounds or bullets. As noted, this last may be a typographical error. It's difficult to imagine politicians setting the fee so low, as long as the bill is obviously designed as an ipso facto impediment to free exercise of the second amendment. (There I go again!) Mississippi politicians aren't even honest enough to set the fee as part of the bill. They merely stipulate that a "End User Fee" will be established. Don't expect a "five cents per thousand rounds" fee from these boys. They ALL have to finance a database system, enforcement, and undefined other expenses needed to administer this bogus bill. (Oops! Sorry.)
* Fee Retained by Retailer: A couple of states provide that the vendor may retain a portion of the fees they collect, presumably to encourage the vendors to support the bill. Fat chance, ammunition sales will be so undercut by this oinker that the resulting market won't support any retail sales of ammunition or other firearms-related business in these states. (Dammit! Stop that, Geek!)
* Owner Penalties: This identifies the fines or penalties which may be imposed on 'anyone' who attempts to defile, obscure or obliterate the serial numbers on a bullet or round of ammunition. Usually a misdemeanor ... but we're usually talking about a year in the pokey and/or a fine of $1,000.
* Merchant Tax Penalty: One state (Illinois) imposes a penalty on a vendor who fails to accurately report tax revenues (the "per-round tax/fee"). This is a Class 4 Felony in Illinois. As may be presumed, the bureaucrats don't like it if you file the serial numbers off bullets but they take it seriously when you don't pay them their Dane Geld, hence the Felony vs the Misdemeanor. (That was okay, wasn't it? Not 'editorializing'?) The rest don't mention it ... to date. Apparently, that is covered in another section of the Code.
* Merchants Adherence Fine: I THINK this is the fine for selling non-encoded ammunition after the cutoff date. Your guess is as good as mine. Universally, it's $1,000.
* Buyer Data Collected: The information that the vendor is required to collect to define the retail buyer. Always Name, Date of Birth, Driver's License Number, and "any other information which the (governing agency) may define/require". More weasel words; they can ask for the serial number of the firearm in which you choose to shoot the ammunition, if they want to, and if there are not state laws forbidding this ... it's okay!
* Retailer Reporting: The vendor must report the information recorded on each ammunition sale periodically. This is either Monthly or Quarterly, if it is included in the Bill. Presumably, when you report the information, you must also remit the 'End User Fee' collected at the time of sale.
* Enforcement: For the Average Joe, this is one of the most important facets of the bills. In Illinois, the 'administrative authority' (usually the DOJ) can make it up as they go. Excuse, I mean the "any reasonable rules" may be imposed. That's an administrative decision, not subject to normal Congressional Oversight. Not encouraging. In Tennessee, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is the administrative authority. Isn't it nice when the police get to make the rules?
* Exceptions: Who do these bills, if they become laws, NOT apply to? In those states in which the legislators actually spent more than ten minutes writing the bill, the "Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement Organizations" are exempt. No word yet on whether the National Guard and the U.S. Military are exempt; but since they are not LEOs, and they are not specifically exempt ... hey, they might grab a few bucks from the Feds! (Must ... Control ... The ... Fist ... Of ... Death!)
* Bill Expiration Date: As mentioned above, one state included and expiration date for the bill if it is not enacted into law. Probably an administrative requirement, but I include it just for ... well, actually, no reason at all.
* Notes: Miscellaneous notes included only to show that not all states just stuck to boilerplate. The general text is obviously taken from a template ... source not yet identified ... but some states legislatures seemed to feel that they needed to assert their individuality. Indiana declared an emergency; Hawaii and Mississippi granted an 'income tax credit' for in-state bullet/ammunition manufacturers to purchase, install and use bullet-encoding machinery; Tennessee included a really onerous records-keeping requirement for both vendors and manufacturers.
* Text for Justification of Bill, if present: For states which included a justification of this bill (a minority, only Hawaii and Tennessee), the full text of their 'justification' is included just so you don't have to read the actual bills. I found it interesting that (so far) the majority of states which accepted this bill-template didn't feel it necessary to explain WHY this bill was necessary. I interpret this to mean that they don't care enough about the citizens who have to live under these egregious rules; they just entered the bill because they can. I'm guessing that they're Liberal Democrats who are just looking for a real good rating from The Brady Campaign, and don't expect the bills to get out of committee, let alone actually pass, so why bother? This may be "a good sign" that the authors aren't serious about the bill(s).

I'll be updating this document, if and as more states are found to have proposed similar bills. (What am I saying? These are all the same bill, with minor variations.) If you find an error in the document .. and I do strongly encourage you to view this document critically with the goal of correcting errors and providing more information ... please let me know.

I'm tempted to dismiss these bills as bogus, not likely to pass; nothing to see here folks, move along. But since the Microstamping Bill (not the same thing) was passed in California last year, it is demonstrably NOT SAFE to expect that any gun-control bill, no matter how unreasonable or how irresponsibly enacted or how badly worded, cannot be passed by any given legislature. EVERY TIME a bogus gun-control bill is passed by a state, it sets a precedent for other states which are controlled by liberal gun-grabber politicians who just want to get their names on the roster of 'people who are trying to accomplish something about crime!'

No more editorializing. Every time I write one of these articles, it makes my guts ache for the rest of the night. I find it hard to believe that these weasels are stomping on the rights of their constituents for their own career advancement.

But then, if they weren't rats and weasels, they would find honest work.

Oh, and just as an aside, the Supreme Court is about to start ruling on the wording of the 2nd Amendment and comparing every other state's legislation to D.C.'s. There's a serious problem with that however... D.C. is not a state of the union of the United States of America; it doesn't fall under the same laws as we do. Also, don't you find it funny that while we're in a war against terrorism, the largest supposed target would decrease the budget for emergency planning and security cost in the District of Columbia from $14 million in 2006 to $3 million in 2008?

Just remember... "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here."

I'd advise you to get ready to rally against your government and take our country back, but you'd just ignore me and go back to watching whateverthefuck it is that you watch.