Wednesday - March 07, 2012

My Kind Of Change

Oklahoma, Ok.

OKLAHOMA CITY – President Obama collected the most votes in the Oklahoma Democratic primary, but lost in 15 counties.

With 98 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, Obama won 57 percent of the vote. Four other candidates combined for 43 percent of the vote, including anti-abortion activist and Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry who received 18 percent of the vote.

Wow, that’s gonna leave a mark. A sitting president takes less than 60% in his own primary, losing out to a flaming lunatic?

I know Randall Terry. He’s another product of the strange world of upstate Western New York. He got his start up in the Binghamton NY area when I was going to school there. The guy is more than a bit on the rabid side. Bug eyed and foaming actually. Look him up, please. We’re talking the very very fine line between Free Speech and bombing abortion clinics for fun and profit. He has an arrest record a mile long. NY Senator and all around grease weasel Chuck Schumer tried to write laws specifically to keep him from getting out of paying legal settlements. He’s had a whole boxful of different religions and now considers himself a staunch Roman Catholic, getting himself arrested protesting Obama giving the commencement address at Notre Dame. Because Obama supports abortion, and Notre Dame is a Catholic university. And now he’s resurfaced in Oklahoma as a Democrat? You know, that party that holds abortion so close to its heart, the party that, when pushed into a corner, would compromise anything as long as abortion remained funded by the government? How on earth does Randall Terry pass himself off as a Democrat ... and then manage to lay some seriously fat hits on Odumbo in the primary, winning 12 of the 15 counties that Obama lost???



What the heck kind of Democrats do they have out there, and - more importantly - can we here in NJ trade you for about a million or two of ours?? If Terry is par for the course, we apparently don’t have New Jersey Republicans as Conservative as Oklahoma Democrats.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/07/2012 at 01:18 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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a very bad day among many bad days for brits, and for afghan women

This is a crappy war that could be won with the liberal use of nukes. It’s that or just get the hell out.

It’s so easy playing armchair Fieldmarshal at a keyboard but truth to tell, I’m just frustrated like all of you.

I never thought much of Karzai and now think even less.  But then, it’s his country and those savages prefer the dark ages.  It’s what they are used to and generations of contact with the west hasn’t much improved them. Screw em.  There isn’t one worth the life of a Brit or American or any Nato grunt in that god forsaken place. Now there’s news that six Brit soldiers were killed after their armoured vehicle was blown up.

Karzai’s backing of strict Islamic code (that allows men to beat their wives) ‘is a giant step back for women’s rights in Afghanistan’

Activists worried women’s rights being used as bargaining chip in negotiations with the Taliban
New code promotes segregation of the sexes

By DAMIEN GAYLE

Activists have accused the Afghan president of reversing improvements in women’s rights after he endorsed a strict ‘code of conduct’ issued by clerics.

Hamid Karzai yesterday backed a document issued by the Ullema Council which promotes segregation of the sexes and allows husbands to beat wives in certain circumstances.

The move is seen as part of his attempts to reach out to the Taliban in the lead up to the planned withdrawal of Nato troops from the Afghanistan in 2014.

But activists are furious that gains made in women’s rights since the 2001 invasion and ensuing occupation are being used as a bargaining chip with Islamic extremists.

Prior to the 2001 U.S. invasion, girls were banned from going to school and women forced to wear burkas to conceal them from head to toe.

Women were also banned from venturing from their homes being escorted by a male relative.

Similarly, the new ‘code of conduct’ says women should not travel without a male companion and they should not mingle with men in places like schools, markets or offices.

Wife-beating is only prohibited if there is no ‘Shariah-compliant reason’, it said.

SEE AND READ IT ALL

AND THEN THERE’S THIS. SOME OF THE FALLEN.

There’s more HERE. ALL 400 OF THEM.

Posted by peiper     on 03/07/2012 at 01:16 PM   
Filed Under: • Military • muslims • UK • War-Stories •  
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Europe banned the controversial airport ‘strip-search’ scanners last year.

First of all, if this is factually on the ball then it is scary indeed.
Question comes to mind. If he could do it, then why haven’t the terrorists already come up with it?
More importantly, isn’t letting this stuff out in public only aiding the enemy?
Or will more be done to correct things if he has it right.

How to get ANYTHING through TSA nude body scanners: Blogger exposes loophole in $1billion fleet

Jonathan Corbett claims he could easily smuggle explosives onto a plane
Strip-search scanners banned in Europe over cancer fears

By LEE MORAN

Controversial nude body scanners used at U.S. airports have come under fire again - after a blogger claimed he could easily smuggle explosives through them onto a plane.

Engineer Jonathan Corbett has published a video where he shows how he took a small metal case through two of the TSA’s $1billion fleet in a special side pocket stitched into his shirt.

This is because, he suggests, the scanners blend metallic areas into the dark background - so if an object is not directly placed on the body, it will not show up on the scan.

The metallic box, he claims, would have set off an alarm had he passed through the old detecting system.

His revelation comes just weeks after Europe banned the ‘airport strip-searches’ over fears the X-ray technology could cause cancer.

MailOnline has decided not to publish the video because it details exactly how to circumvent the safety procedure - but it is freely available to watch online.

Corbett, standing in his living room as he speaks to the camera in the video for his ‘TSA Out of Our Pants’ blog, acknowledges the technique could be used by terrorists.

But he believes they would already know about the loophole, and took the steps to show ‘how much danger the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is putting all us all in’.

He said: ‘Here are several images produced by TSA nude body scanners. You’ll see that the search victim is drawn with light colours and placed on a black background in both images.

‘In these samples, the individuals are concealing metallic objects that you can see as a black shape on their light figure.  Again that’s light figure, black background, and black threat items.

‘Yes that’s right, if you have a metallic object on your side, it will be the same colour as the background and therefore completely invisible to both visual and automated inspection.

‘It can’t possibly be that easy to beat the TSA’s billion dollar fleet of nude body scanners, right? The TSA can’t be that stupid, can they? Unfortunately, they can, and they are.’

He said he put his theory to the test by buying a sewing kit to sew a pocket directly onto the side of his shirt. He then took a metallic case and walked through a backscatter X-ray at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport - all of which he recorded on film.

He said: ‘While I’m not about to win any videography awards for my hidden camera footage, you can watch as I walk through the security line with the metal object in my new side pocket.

YOU NEED TO SEE THE PHOTOS HERE TO MAKE SENSE OF THE TEXT ABOVE

Posted by peiper     on 03/07/2012 at 01:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Homeland-Security • Terrorists •  
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the Loonie and the Long Shot

It’s not just Ricky vs. Mittens in the primaries ...


Dennis Kucinich loses primary bid. Bye bye whacko!

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio lost his bid for re-election in the state’s Democratic primary Tuesday night to fellow longtime House Democrat Marcy Kaptur, CNN projects.

The two veteran lawmakers were drawn into the same district this cycle after a heated redistricting battle that followed the loss of two Congressional seats in the state.

Kaptur, now in her 15th term, is the longest serving woman in the House of Representatives. Kucinich’s 10th congressional district was eliminated and merged with Kaptur’s 9th district.

...

Kucinich, an eight-term congressman, had considered running in a different district - even one outside of Ohio state lines - but decided in September to stay put in the northern edge of the state.

You have to wonder how many Ohioans would have voted for him if he’d run in a district outside his own state. Nutcase.



‘Joe The Plumber’ wins Ohio primary

Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as “Joe the Plumber,” won Tuesday’s Republican primary in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, according to unofficial vote results from the Ohio Secretary of State.

With 100% of precincts reporting, Wurzelbacher bested opponent Steven Kraus to become the GOP nominee and will face Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longest serving woman in the House of Representatives, in the fall.

Wurzelbacher gained fame when discussing marginal tax rates and wealth redistribution with then-candidate Barack Obama in his neighbor’s driveway in 2008. And he has parlayed that encounter into a high media profile — a blue-collar everyman with Tea Party cred.
...
Wurzelbacher speaks more like a third way centrist than a Tea Party tribune. His agenda: tax reform, cutting regulation. “I believe we’re completely out of balance. There’s got to be a center here.” He’s opposed to green initiatives. He thinks the auto bailouts were an example of government overreach. “Most of my neighbors work at Jeep and GM, but most of them disagreed with the bailout,” he says. Neither party has been significantly aggressive on simplifying the tax code. He’d like to audit the Federal Reserve and go through the budget line by line. “They want to scare people and talk about cutting Social Security and Medicare,” he says. “Nobody talks about going through the budget line by line.”
...
Toledo has traditionally been Democratic turf. The area has long been represented by Marcy Kaptur, a labor-friendly Democrat known for bringing projects home to the region.

Really? Sounds very Tea Party to me.

This should be an interesting race to watch. The union-happy Princess of Pork vs. a regular guy with years of experience cleaning out the crap. Keep an eye-o on Ohio.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/07/2012 at 12:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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friends for a century … a human interest story

Not the usual sort of post I do but this story grabbed my attention.
And quite a story it is.

Take a look.

Best of friends for a century: They grew up together, married together, even honeymooned together.

Now they’ve died just a few days apart, at the age of 99

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

When they became inseparable as four-year-olds in the playground, Annie Walsh and Ivy Turner could never have imagined quite how long their friendship would last.

Over the century that followed, the pair went to school together, worked together and holidayed together.

And now, after sharing their lives for almost 100 years, the devoted friends have died within days of each other.

Ivy, left, married her sweetheart Fred, right, in 1932 and Annie followed two years later marrying Albert (centre), each taking the roles of bridesmaid and best man respectively

Mr and Mrs Turner, who set up a market stall selling handmade curtains after the Second World War, had no children, but Mr and Mrs Walsh’s three – Barry, now 69, Christine, 64, and Denise, 62 – knew their mother’s best friend as ‘Aunty Ivy’.

Christine, a former legal secretary, said: ‘They used to visit up at our home often and come on family holidays and they all used to enjoy playing tennis and going ballroom dancing together.

‘They ran a market stall together selling handmade curtains that Ivy would make and Fred would go out in his car and buy the material.

‘I remember when Ivy and Fred would take me and my sister out in their car when I was about nine – that was a real treat in those days because not many people had one.’

And as the years passed, the friends shared sad times as well as happy ones, each supporting the other in turn when Mr Turner died of bronchitis in 1976 and Mr Walsh passed away seven years ago.

By the time of Mr Walsh’s death, the friends were living in separate care homes in Oldham, but relatives helped them visit each other.

Mrs Walsh died on Valentine’s Day following a stroke, and seven days later, Mrs Turner passed away too. They would have celebrated their 100th birthdays in May and April respectively. 

Christine added: ‘I don’t know what happens when you die but I would like to think that once my mum died she looked down on Ivy and said, “Come on Ivy, let’s go and find Fred and Albert and go for a walk together.”’

Five years ago, Mrs Turner said: ‘We are more like sisters than friends.’ Mrs Walsh added: ‘Our friendship has lasted because we are both even-tempered and don’t get annoyed about things.’

LOTS MORE TO SEE HERE

I quite naturally scrolled through all of the photos at the link, but must confess to a feeling of dread when viewing the last one.
Could not shake the thought, mustn’t allow this for me at the end.
Seeing those old folks, once so strong and once independent and at the end for many, being washed by strangers and diapers (the late mil comes to mind).
Pretty much weak and pretty much at the mercy of others.  For many, at some point they end up alone. Old friends gone and no family. Never mind photos, like many of you I suppose, I’ve also seen it up close.  Not a good sight.
Scary.

Posted by peiper     on 03/07/2012 at 06:36 AM   
Filed Under: • UK •  
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   Tuesday - March 06, 2012

Piper At The Gates Of … Something Or Other

As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a paupers’ cemetery in the back country. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn’t stop for directions.

I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch.

I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to play.

The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I’ve never played before for this homeless man.

And as I played ‘Amazing Grace,’ the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together.

When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.

As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, “I never seen nothin’ like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”

Posted by Drew458     on 03/06/2012 at 05:16 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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I knew I’d seen her before

So I’m standing on line at the grocery store, stuck. I chose that register because the line was short, I didn’t have a whole big pile full of stuff, and I wanted to get home and eat lunch. I forgot the #2 rule of the check-out: scan the customers ahead of you and make sure they aren’t problems. It was only after I unloaded most of my stuff onto the belt that I noticed the cashier wasn’t ringing anything up and was just standing there. Her customer was one of those WIC check people, or some other kind of government assistance types, where she had a check and could only buy certain items. And damned if she didn’t want to get the large size mixed grain tortillas, and the government rules were she could only get the regular size. In whole wheat. So while I was cooling my heels for 20 minutes, I read my way through all the magazines. Brad is guilting Anjie into marrying him, but she’s throwing a monkey wrench into the works. Kim has her “revenge” - after being dumped by all the other guys, she’s scored a Saudi billionaire. Whitney’s last message to her fans. Oprah’s new life. Jennifer Anniston - again, always. Whatever!!! But on the cover of Glamour magazine was a really striking woman with almost red hair. Jennifer Lawrence. Who?

Quite nice. So young and pretty. Nice enough so that the magazine did 3 or 4 alternate covers with her, and put them all in this month’s issue full size, so it’s one magazine with 4 covers. And a minute’s worth of research shows me that she has next month’s cover of the mag over in the UK -

And she’s set to be the star in the currently filming Hunger Games, a movie based on a series of books that are immensely popular although I’d never heard of them. Hey, good for her.

Then it struck me ... I had heard of her before. She’s the blonde who wore that red dress to last year’s Academy Awards, not to be confused with Scarlett Johansson, who is that other blonde who wore that other red dress to the same event the year before that.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/06/2012 at 01:36 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy • Hollywood •  
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look at me, look at me, look at me now!

sometimes all a post needs is a headline. I’d put in links, but come on, who really cares?

The guy just couldn’t stand to not be in the center of the limelight for even one lousy day. I can hear his drivel on the TV downstairs, going on about the military, the mortgage situation, the international situation, oil, Israel, Iran, blah blah blah.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/06/2012 at 01:25 PM   
Filed Under: • Obama, The One • Republicans •  
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Somalia: the jihadi yo-yo

The Ethiopian army - along with Somali pro-government troops - has recently captured the key al-Shabab stronghold of Baidoa.

The BBC’s East Africa correspondent Will Ross was one of the first journalists to visit the town since its seizure from the Islamist militants.

The dark red berets of the Ethiopian army are back in Baidoa.

At the airstrip, there was plenty of military might on display: hulking tanks, heavy artillery and dozens of alert troops.

We are told Somali pro-government soldiers were backed by the Ethiopians as they seized the town from al-Shabab but it is clear who is the dominant partner in this relationship.

Inside Baidoa’s presidential palace there are signs of the just departed Islamist militants. The walls of this battered, squalid building are covered in jihadist graffiti - mostly images of guns apparently drawn by very young al-Shabab recruits.

“They preach to them, so these kids think only about jihad,” says Ethiopian army Capt Mahammud Yissak.

“We saw very small guys between eight and 12. They had been in the al-Shabab training camps. They ran away and we welcomed them. Some of them were used as couriers to plant explosives.”

The militants put up little resistance when the tanks and troops closed in on the town but since then al-Shabab has promised blood in Baidoa.

It is extraordinary to think that just over three years ago Somalis were cheering on the streets as the Ethiopian army made its very public withdrawal from the country.

That incursion ousted the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which controlled much of the country.

But the Ethiopian presence became so unpopular - partly as a result of the shelling of civilian areas of the capital, Mogadishu - that it then helped trigger the rise of the more radical al-Shabab.

“Never again” was Ethiopia’s view on another major military incursion in Somalia, but - with al-Shabab threatening the stability of the entire region - it felt forced to act.

And in a month I’m sure they’ll be the bad guys once again. Save the neighbors from the crazies, bring war down upon the fanatics, but as soon as you do it’s “hey, who blew up my mud hut? Oppressors, kick them out of our country!!”

h/t to Doc Jeff

Posted by Drew458     on 03/06/2012 at 01:14 PM   
Filed Under: • Africa •  
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GUNS AND THE TSA?  NO. A PURSE AND ONE SILLY AGENT

Gotta wonder sometimes, well actually all of the time, if even one TSA officer is this stupid, how good is the agency that employees her.

I ask you.  Is this going a bit far?

The story is a year old but I never saw it on BMEWS or anywhere else before a few minutes ago, while searching for something.
I found a site called Opposing Views which is quite interesting.  There were a ton of short articles about teachers (women) committing the high crime of abuse of boys as old as 14 and 15.  When I was young and innocent and you were too, I think it was called pleasure. But we were never that lucky.  So I’m following all these stories wondering how come these ladies aren’t smarter in view of the pc world we live in and all the attention and jail time already dished out in previous years, when I found this article. Which is more interesting then teen sex with teachers.

Submitted by Mark Berman Opposing Views on Dec 5, 2011

First the TSA allegedly strip searches a feeble old lady, now a teenager misses her flight because of a gun-themed purse. What is going through the minds of these supposedly well-trained agents?

Vanessa Gibbs was trying to board a flight in Norfolk, Virginia to her home in Jacksonville, Florida recently when she was stopped at security. It seems her purse emblazoned with a tiny, hollow gun was literally a federal offense.

“She (the TSA agent) was like, ‘This is a federal offense because it’s in the shape of a gun,’” Gibbs News4Jax.com. “I’m like, ‘But it’s a design on a purse. How is it a federal offense?’”

The genius agents finally figured out the gun was just a design, but they still told Gibbs it could not be carried onto the plane. It would have to be checked. But by this time she had missed her flight.

As it always does, the TSA stands by its actions, saying replica guns have been banned on planes since 2002.

“Security checkpoints may be impacted or closed because replica weapons like toy guns, novelty grenades, fake bombs and other items appear similar to the real thing when viewed through an X-ray machine,” TSA spokesman Greg Soule told CNN. “Checkpoint closures cause significant delays, which can be avoided if passengers don’t bring these items to the airport.”

Gibbs pointed out that she has taken the purse on several flights without incident, including the flight down to Virginia.

TSA LUNACY

Posted by peiper     on 03/06/2012 at 12:38 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • USA •  
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terrorists and gypsies and prisoners must have more “rights” says left.

Good gosh.  If you read the comments section after the article, you get the strong impression that many of the people really believed their PM when he said he’d do away with this sort of thing.
He said he would yeah.  But he only meant it at the time said and it was forgotten by the next promise If not well before. .  That’s what politicians do. Even the ones we think we like and trust. 
Anyway, this is one of those truly stupid ideas that only the left can dream up. And will enforce whenever given the opportunity. Now that you can trust.
Take a look at this mind bender.

PRISONERS, TERRORISTS and GIPSIES SHOULD BE HANDED MORE HUMAN RIGHTS, DECLARES EQUALITY QUANGO

By IAN DRURY

Prisoners, gipsies, terrorists and union activists routinely have their human rights abused, a highly controversial report will claim today.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has spent at least £150,000 ( $ 236,487.17 ) of taxpayers’ money publishing a review into how public bodies safeguard people’s rights.

The left-wing quango, led by former Labour politician Trevor Phillips, has concluded that ‘more could be done to improve human rights protections of some,’ which also included vulnerable people in care homes and victims of crime.

But it contentiously calls for more rights for groups that include criminals, travellers and gipsies on illegal camps, and suspected extremists.

Some of the EHRC’s conclusions will spark anger because they are in defiance of the rulings of law made in Britain’s courts and decisions made in Parliament.

In one of its most controversial findings, the report, due to be published this morning, states that prisoners should be given the right to vote. In February last year, MPs voted to continue to deny inmates a chance to vote in elections despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.

But the report, called How Fair Is Britain?, states: ‘Human rights… apply to everyone, even unpopular minorities.

‘Offenders may be punished with a prison sentence, which means a denial of their right to liberty. Treating the right to vote as a privilege to be removed for bad behaviour is a disproportionate interference with a fundamental right.’

The report also states that travellers and gipsies had no choice but to occupy sites illegally because local authorities had undermined their rights by failing to provide land for caravans. Evicting them therefore contravened Article 8 of the Human Rights Act – the right to a private and family life.

Right. That damned article 8, an invention of the Euro-peeon left, their court and union. And imposed on the UK. Go ahead, call me chicken little but I tell ya folks, if the left gets their way and I know I keep saying it, the USA won’t be far behind that one world one law ONE ARTICLE nightmare, but in our case it will be another association writ in stone that joins us to Europe.  Not so far fetched I don’t think.  Look what the left has already brought us to in just two generations.

‘Gipsy and traveller communities face a shortage of caravan sites,’ the report claims. ‘This means it is difficult for them to practise their traditional way of life.’

It echoed a claim by the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe last week that October’s eviction of 80 families illegally camped at Dale Farm, near Basildon, Essex, was an outrage against human rights.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘I don’t really think the commission needed to spend tens of thousands of pounds telling us we need more human rights – that’s the reason for its existence. It seems a complete waste of money.

‘In many cases the people who the commission says are not getting human rights have forfeited them.

‘Do prisoners think of the human rights of the victims of their crime? Do travellers think of the human rights of those whose land they illegally camp on? Not for a second.

to see more

Posted by peiper     on 03/06/2012 at 09:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Commies • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Insanity •  
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Aminals, Aminals!

Toola was a rescue otter with a neurological disease who need daily medication. Although she could not have any pups of her own, her maternal instinct was very strong and she acted as a surrogate mother to more than a dozen otter pups over the years, raising them as wild creatures that could then be released back into nature.

Toola was the first captive otter to ever serve as a surrogate mother. And that changed the way researchers rehabilitated injured otters. In the past, otters could not be released to the wild because they had grown too accustomed to interactions with humans. Toola changed all that and she also inspired legislation that created the California Sea Otter Fund, which supports research into “disease and other threats facing sea otters in the wild.”

“Toola was without question the most important animal in the history of our program,” Andrew Johnson, manager of the Aquarium’s Sea Otter Research and Conservation program, said in a statement. “She showed us that captive otters could successfully raise orphaned pups for return to the wild. She inspired a critical piece of legislation that is helping protect sea otters. And she inspired millions of visitors to care more about sea otters. We will miss her.”

A long life of service, well lived. 

Posted by Drew458     on 03/06/2012 at 09:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Animals •  
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   Monday - March 05, 2012

I Hope NJ , NY, CA, CT, and Washington DC are listening

Wow, there is at least one federal judge with a functioning brain. Outstanding.

“A citizen may not be required to offer a good and substantial reason why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right‘s existence is all the reason he needs.”

A federal court ruling in Maryland, that the Second Amendment right to bear arms extends beyond the home and that citizens may not be required to offer a “good and substantial reason” for obtaining a concealed carry permit, is a huge victory, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

Ruling in the case of Woollard v. Sheridan – a case brought by SAF in July 2010 on behalf of Maryland resident Raymond Woollard, who was denied his carry permit renewal – the U.S. District Court for Maryland ruled that “The Court finds that the right to bear arms is not limited to the home.”

U.S. District Court Judge Benson Everett Legg noted, “In addition to self-defense, the (Second Amendment) right was also understood to allow for militia membership and hunting. To secure these rights, the Second Amendment’s protections must extend beyond the home: neither hunting nor militia training is a household activity, and ‘self-defense has to take place wherever [a] person happens to be.’”

“This is a monumentally important decision,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The federal district court has carefully spelled out the obvious, that the Second Amendment does not stop at one’s doorstep, but protects us wherever we have a right to be. Once again, SAF’s attorney in this case, Alan Gura, has won an important legal victory. He was the attorney who argued the landmark Heller case, and he represented SAF in our Supreme Court victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago.”

“Equally important in Judge Legg’s ruling,” he added, “is that concealed carry statutes that are so discretionary in nature as to be arbitrary do not pass constitutional muster.”

At issue in the case is the Maryland statute which says that the Secretary of the State Police can issue a carry permit if the applicant “has good and substantial reason to wear, carry, or transport a handgun, such as a finding that the permit is necessary as a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger.” Md.Code Ann., Pub. Safety § 5-306(a)(5)(ii).

In today’s decision on the merits, the “good and substantial reason” requirement was ruled to violate the Second Amendment. The court held that the Second Amendment right is not limited to self-defense in the home. It also includes the militia and hunting. None of the Second Amendment rights can logically be confined solely to the home: “In addition to self-defense, the right was also understood to allow for militia membership and hunting. To secure these rights, the Second Amendment‘s protections must extend beyond the home: neither hunting nor militia training is a household activity, and ‘self-defense has to take place wherever [a] person happens to be’.”

Washington DC seems to think your Second Amendment rights stop at your front door. New Jersey is one of those supposed “may issue” states for Concealed Carry (CCW) and requires a “proof of justifiable need”, though in reality the only permits ever issued are to retired police, and the rare rich and politically very well connected. Even being kidnapped by biker gangs out on bail and threatened with death is not “justifiable need” according to the state, but creating a big enough lawsuit IS. The other “may issue” states have laws with their own wording, but it generally boils down to either proving your need or being on a very short list of approved people decided by the local or county law enforcement types. Today’s decision by the United States District Court puts a huge dent in the “prove your need” argument. Unfortunately, it ain’t over yet ...

The case is headed to the Fourth Circuit, which has a mixed record on Second Amendment issues. From there, Woollard could be the case in which the Supreme Court chooses to tell recalcitrant lower federal courts that Heller and McDonald really do mean what they say: that the Second Amendment includes the right to carry, albeit not in “sensitive places,” and the government may, if it wishes, require that carry be open rather than concealed.

Hey, I’ve got nothing against open carry. I’d just need to buy a cowboy hat to go with the Wild West look.

From the decision:

A law that burdens the exercise of an enumerated constitutional right by simply making that right more difficult to exercise cannot be considered “reasonably adapted” to a government interest, no matter how substantial that interest may be. Maryland’s goal of “minimizing the proliferation of handguns among those who do not have a demonstrated need for them,” id. at 40, is not a permissible method of preventing crime or ensuring public safety; it burdens the right too broadly. Those who drafted and ratified the Second Amendment surely knew that the right they were enshrining carried a risk of misuse, and states have considerable latitude to channel the exercise of the right in ways that will minimize that risk. States may not, however, seek to reduce the danger by means of widespread curtailment of the right itself. “[E]ven the most legitimate goal may not be advanced in a constitutionally impermissible manner.”

Woolard had also sued that Maryland’s law violated his 14th Amendment rights, ie “may issue” is not exactly what you’d call Equal Protection. The judge, having decided that the 2A violation was sufficient, did not venture into 14A territory.

Please be aware that Maryland does not currently see a difference between open carry and concealed carry. In that state, it is the right to carry PERIOD that was under question. Most of us understand “open carry” to mean having a gun in a holster at your side, visible; “concealed carry” means having a gun hidden on your person or in your effects (glove compartment, purse, coat pocket). “brandishing”, a term not used in this case, is considered by some (the Right) to be the act of pointing a gun at somebody in a threatening manner, while others (the far Left) consider a child making a crayon drawing of some stick figure making “finger guns” to be an act of brandishing sufficient for arrest, psychoanalysis, a scholastically enforced regime of mind altering drugs, and perhaps arrest of the parents as well. Thus they show Zero Tolerance for your natural rights.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/05/2012 at 04:50 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Red Leader, Red Leader, Do You Copy?

In case you haven’t seen it, the latest article from Andrew Breitbart:

The reason that Obama’s Alinskyite past, and his many appearances in political photography and video from the 1990s, are conspicuously missing from the national dialogue is that State Senator Barack Obama’s reinvention as a reasonable and moderate Democratic politician could not withstand scrutiny of his political life. 

For those who didn’t know just how red Fearless Reader really is, or for those who may have momentarily forgotten. The Love Song of Saul Alinksy.

In The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama claims that he worried after 9/11 that his name, so similar to that of Osama bin Laden, might harm his political career.

But Obama was not always so worried about misspellings and radical resemblances. He may even have cultivated them as he cast himself as Chicago’s radical champion.

In 1998, a small Chicago theater company staged a play titled The Love Song of Saul Alinsky, dedicated to the life and politics of the radical community organizer whose methods Obama had practiced and taught on Chicago’s South Side.

Obama was not only in the audience, but also took the stage after one performance, participating in a panel discussion that was advertised in the poster for the play.

And there was his name, right on the poster advertising the play. Baracka Obama. Baracka? Misprint? Not hardly. Senator Baracka Obama.

This was also the period just before Barack Obama served with Bill Ayers, from 1999 through 2002 on the board of the Woods Foundation. They gave capital to support the Midwest Academy, a leftist training institute steeped in the doctrines of—you guessed it!—Saul Alinsky, and whose alumni now dominate the Obama administration and its top political allies inside and out of Congress.

Stanley Kurtz, author of Radical-in-Chief, described the Midwest Academy as a “crypto-socialist organization.” Yet almost no one has heard of Midwest Academy, because the media does not want you to know that the president is a radical’s radical whose presidency itself is a love song to a socialist “community organizer.”

In itself this can be spun to be meaningless. But half a dozen of the dozen panelists there were known commies, and proud of it. And the rest? Perhaps Baracka should know that if you lie down with dogsa, you get up with fleasa. Not that he’d bother to scratch; these are his friends.

Coincidentally, another story sticking it’s head up today, via the latest WikiLeaks: the 2008 Obama campaign got big green from Big Red: Obama received campaign donations from the Russians. Hey, that’s against the law!

First, the Democratic Party engaged in election tampering, a felony, by stuffing ballot boxes in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Second, the Democratic Party paid Jessie Jackson six figures to keep his mouth shut about political issues during the 2008 campaign. It was widely known at the time that Jackson had no use for Obama. And third, Russian money went to the campaign of Barack Obama much as Chinese money went to the campaign of Bill Clinton during the 1990s.

Wow. Radical.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/05/2012 at 02:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Commies • Obama, The One •  
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