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Chicken Little rides into town on his trusty weasel crying out, \”The Militias are coming! The Militias are coming! We\’re all going to die!\”

For those of you that think you\’ve seen this story already, you\’re right.  In the 1990s it was a standard hand-wringing topic of every pundit and newscaster worth their salt.  Behind every compound was another militia just waiting to put on a flaming showdown with the federal government.  Everyone was in danger!!  Except it didn\’t really turn out that way.  The militia movement was largely overblown, except for a few isolated cases, mostly where the government types needlessly provoked militias.

And now according to some, the movement is back.  Sparked by the reign of a black messiah, supposedly militias are back and again nobody is safe.  It may just be a matter of time before your children are killed by rampaging militias.  Or so some would have you think.  The Southern Poverty Law Center has released a report entitled The Second Wave : Return of the Militias, where they attempt to make a case for the return of the militia movement.

And a poor case they make for it, starting with their very definition of militias, which apparently include Birthers and those attending Tea Parties. In fact, the report admits that these groups make up the largest and most energized portions of this movement.  Got that?  The new militia movement is mostly people that think they might be paying a lot in taxes.  Scared yet??

Throughout the document is the unsupported assumption that racism is a basis for all of this.  As \”evidence\” of this, the report cites the fact that there are black people in every branch of government.  Ignored is the fact that that has been true for decades, including during the decline of militias.  As further supporting evidence, the report cites the immigration debate.  Apparently the only way someone can be for the enforcement of our laws, is rampant racism instead of belief that the law should be…..well, the law.

Further supporting their stance as scary militias is the fact that many of them protested being called \”right wing extremists\” in the much lampooned (and eventually retracted) Department of Homeland Security April report.  Because we all know that nobody but militias would take offense to being called right wing extremists.  Innocent people wouldn\’t do that, therefore they must be militias!!

Still, they are militias and militias do scary things right??  Right?? Well buried between scary tales of militias past is the admission that the latest resurgence of militias hasn\’t come close to the levels of the 90s (and we all remember how bad that was right?).  In fact, mostly the movement has taken up the tactic of using YouTube videos to distribute their message.  That\’s right instead of car bombs and mass shootings, these scary militias have chosen the same \”weapon\” as the \”Leave Britney Alone\” guy.  Sure the guy was annoying beyond belief, but he hardly qualified as a national security risk.

As further proof of how scary and insidious the militia movement has become, is the fact that it\’s become \”mainstream\”.  Politicians, media pundits and all sorts of organizations have latched onto some of the claims of these scary militias, which remember include border enforcement activists, birthers and Tea Party activists.  This is apparently proof of how devious this movement is, rather than an indication that perhaps these aren\’t kooks without legitimate concerns.

Yes, this militia movement has certainly returned and it\’s scarier than ever.  It\’s always scary when citizens start sitting up and paying attention to what their government is doing and how badly it is being run.  It certainly unforgiveable that citizens would think they are paying too much in taxes and would prefer to keep their hard earned wages.

In an attempt to have his cake and eat it too, Obama has nationalized the cake baking industry.  Ok maybe I made that up, but Obama certainly seems to want things both ways.  Whether it\’s naivety that he doesn\’t realize the disconnect, or else it\’s arrogance that he think he can have things both ways, it\’s become a pattern already.  Since he willfully continues it despite the presence of the internet, which has changed the game, I have to assume it\’s arrogance.  And his arrogance is appalling.

Stimulus was supposed to stimulate immediately, then it was supposed to stimulate in the long run. but then it was never supposed to stimulate, only stabilize.  Rushing bills through Congress are bad, until Obama has to do it.  First prepackaged news from the White House is bad, but Obama having his own television studio is okay.  Government officials should first be held to a high standard, but Obama\’s staff meets no standard at all.  First earmarks are bad, now earmarks are good.  Obama can lecture us about having to sacrifice, but he excesses beyond reasonable.  First he was a single-payer health care supporter, now he never was.  First they want people to spam others with White House propaganda, now they don\’t.

Virtually everything Obama says is eventually spun 180 degrees when it doesn\’t pan out for him or goes belly up entirely.  Not only does every Obama promise come with an expiration date, but it comes with a complete reversal.  Which would be bad enough, he\’s a politician after all, hardly an occupation known for it\’s reliability and integrity.  But with each reversal comes with a complete denial that it is a reversal, or that this hasn\’t been the position all along.  Again this would be a relatively minor demonstration of arrogance, except that this is the 21st century, we have the internet.  The internet, in addition to being the best porn distribution system that Al Gore ever designed, also make it easy to archive and track down virtually every thing that has ever been written down.  So now when a politician tries to claim a completely different position that he did last week, it\’s the height of arrogance to believe they can whitewash the public enough that they won\’t believe their own lying eyes.

This administration and it\’s liberal cronies have been labeled as having a culture of corruption, or a culture of incompetence.  I think most worrying is the culture of arrogance permeating everything this administration does.

Bush was famous for his \”Bushisms\” and even for someone that voted for him and maintained a connection with reality, some of them were actually pretty funny.  The man was not the best public speaker.  But many of his were simple misphrases (\”I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family\”) or simply a poor selection of words (\”I understand small business growth. I was one.\”).

Obama on the other hand has also developed some speech patterns.  Unlike Bush, most of them are far from innocent mistakes but signposts of deception.  So next time you listen watch out for them, and insert the translation.

Let me be absolutely clear : I\’m totally about to bury you in bullshit

It\’s not about me : I\’m building a legacy here and you\’re ruining it!

The debate is over : I\’m losing public opinion and we have to wrap this up quick

As you know, I’ve consistently said : I\’m doing a 180-degree change in my position

We inherited these problems (or some variation) : I totally screwed up or at the very least made the problem worse

The alternative is to do nothing : There are better alternatives but they aren\’t what I want to do

Can’t get distracted by : Okay you figured out there ARE better alternatives but please don\’t think about them

Scare tactics : Totally legitimate points that absolutely destroy my argument

People have said \”We can\’t do it\” : People have offered alternative options on what should be done

Those who say : I\’m totally about to toss out a strawman argument

Naysayers : Here\’s another strawman for you

Those on the other side of the aisle :You guessed it, strawman

I\’ve heard people say : Strawman

My Republican friends : Seriously I can only win an debate by debating with myself so here\’s another strawman

Some folks : Now I have enough strawmen to field a hockey team

Think about this:
1. Cows
2. The Constitution
3. The Ten Commandments

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COWS

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

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THE CONSTITUTION
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq … Why don\’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we\’re not using it anymore.

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THE 10 COMMANDMENTS

The real reason that we can\’t have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse or Congress is this –you cannot post \’Thou Shalt Not Steal\’ \’Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery\’ and \’Thou Shall Not Lie\’ in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians …. it creates a hostile work environment..

[h/t to Andrew]

Why I Carry a Gun

My old grandpa said to me son,\’ there comes a time in every man\’s life
When he stops bustin\’ knuckles and starts bustin\’ caps and usually it\’s
When he becomes too old to take an ass whoopin\’.
I don\’t carry a gun to kill people.
I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I don\’t carry a gun to scare people.
I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.

I don\’t carry a gun because I\’m paranoid.
I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.

I don\’t carry a gun because I\’m evil.
I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the
World.

I don\’t carry a gun because I hate the government.
I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.

I don\’t carry a gun because I\’m angry.
I carry a gun so that I don\’t have to spend the rest of my life hating
Myself for failing to be prepared.

I don\’t carry a gun because I want to shoot someone.
I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and
Not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.

I don\’t carry a gun because I\’m a cowboy..
I carry a gun because, when I die and go to heaven, I want to be a
Cowboy.
I don\’t carry a gun to make me feel like a man.
I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the
Ones they love.

I don\’t carry a gun because I feel inadequate.
I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am
Inadequate.

I don\’t carry a gun because I love it.
I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful
To me.

Police Protection is an oxymoron. Free citizens must protect themselves.
Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the
Crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.

Personally, I carry a gun because I\’m too young to die and too old to
Take an ass whoopin\’.

I\’ve been rather amused by the Democrats reaction to the common folk daring to stand up to the nobles in Congress.  How dare they!! They must be an paid angry mob!!!  To be fair that\’s a projection of sort, since that\’s exactly how the left operates and has for years.

But the angry mob label amuses me.  Not sure how grandma showing up worried about her health care constitutes an angry mob, so I thought I\’d remind our Congress critters just what an angry mob looks like.  Of course I want to do it in an especially non-threatening way since dissent is no longer patriotic and I\’m rather fond of rights like voting and owning firearms.  I\’d prefer not to lose those because a Congress critter overreacted.

So I thought I\’d mail my Senators an \”Angry Mob Play Set\”, so they could refamiliarize themselves with what a real angry mob looks like.  But then I took a closer look at the \”Angry Mob\”…

Hmmm, well that just won\’t do!!  Look how well dressed some of them are!! They clearly can\’t be authentically grassroot.  And one of them looks like a union worker, so his angry is orchestrated.  And that one guy is clearly just clinging to his guns…and probably religion too!!  Ohhh and the torches, they are just ruining mother earth by emitting all that carbon so they probably wouldn\’t be taken seriously. Plus look, they are all white!!  And as our newest Supreme Court Justice tells us, they clearly don\’t have good judgement.

Can someone find me an ethnically diverse poorly dressed angry unorganized mob??

\”Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.\”

— Groucho Marx

It\’s amazing the lengths some politicians will go through in order to deceive the public and glossy things up to better than they are.  And this is true for both sides of the aisle.  In this particular case it\’s the Democrats, as pointed out by Ramesh Ponnuru:

Pro-choice lawmakers are trying to craft a compromise that would require insurance companies to pay for abortions out of premiums paid by patients, not out of tax dollars. Pro-choice Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., amended the House version of the legislation to state that abortion is not part of an \’essential benefits package\’ that all insurance plans must provide — meaning someone could offer a special \’pro-life health insurance\’ plan that doesn\’t cover abortions, even under the reforms.

Essentially we\’re all going to end up on the government option.  Liberals can try to claim otherwise but if this bill becomes law it\’ll happen.  I\’m sure my employer will drop insurance immediately and I\’ll get dumped on the government\’s shitty plan…apparently that\’s a choice, not sure how.   End result is I\’ll be paying premiums to the government plan without an option otherwise.

So how does a premium I have to pay differ from a tax??  Quite simply it doesn\’t.  Whether abortions are paid by premiums or by taxes, it\’s the same damn thing.  Different pocket, same set of pants.  And those pants are owned by someone that very well may have all sorts of objections, moral or otherwise, to abortion, much less paying for one.  Politicians can glossy this up all they want, it\’s still taxes being used to pay for abortions.

In case you live in a cave, you might not have heard that the White House is asking everyone to let the White House know about people spreading \”fishy\” information, essentially inform on any fellow citizens not going along with the administration\’s plan.

Ok now that you\’re caught up, pretty much the predictable has happened and it\’s been roundly criticized and lampooned ever since it started.  Including a certain conservative-leaning radio host reporting himself and everyone calling into his show to the email address.  It\’s one of those, if this weren\’t so serious it\’d be funny moments.

Apparently trying to quiet criticism the White House has sought to clarify the purpose of this program.  And there are basically two different ways you could interpret her answers, both of which happen to be clearly illegal.  So the White House has essentially admitted it\’s breaking the law by even having this email address operating.

Normally when you break the law, jailarity ensues….but this is the Obama Administration.  They are above the law.  Respect their authoritah!