BluegrassBulletin.com

Update On Obama's Reaction To State Sovereignty

Yesterday I commented upon the Obama administration's request for over $1 Billion to impose gun control.  Today I was alerted to this development:

The National Guard is following a direct order — but it’s not happy with it.

All of the Guard’s AH-64 Apache helicopters are scheduled to go to the active Army, and there’s nothing its top brass can do about it. [Washington Times]

Some have interpreted this move by the POTUS to have more sinister implications.

As if the Obama administration's purchase of more than 2 billion rounds of ammunition, and nearly 3,000 urban tanks, along with their unprecedented (and highly illegal) domestic spying program was not enough to convince you that the federal government is about to suspend the Constitution once and for all, the man who once vowed to run "the most transparent administration in history" has just rather inexplicably, ordered the U.S. Army to seize every Apache attack helicopter currently in use by the National Guard.

In all, the Defense Department will confiscate 192 Apaches from National Guard units around the country and give them to the active duty Army.

In exchange for the heavily armed and highly maneuverable choppers, Guard units will receive 111 UH-60 Blackhawktransport helicopters from the Army, Defense One reports.

Last week, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, claiming that the measure will save taxpayers $12 billion, over the next three years.

So, what could be another, more reasonable explanation?

The Apache, which began service in 1986, is armed with a 30 mm M230E1 Chain Gun (with 1,200 rounds), Hellfire anti-tank missiles, and 70 general-purpose 70 mm rockets. In short, it is capable of fending-off any enemy, foreign or domestic.

Obviously, these helicopters could pose a substantial obstacle to say, a tyrant drunk on his own power, with an army at his disposal. [Washington Examiner]

Time and time again this administration gives the impression that something is afoot which has bad written all over it.

According to one group the BLM agents at the Bundy ranch were in fact supposed to engage in violence in order to incite a larger scale crackdown centered around the expected death of some of the agents after a shootout.

Where does your state stand on the growing tension between "The People" and the Federal Government?  And perhaps to my fellow Kentuckians, which candidate for the US Senate has been tapped by none other than the First Lady as a reliable vote in favor of her husband's gun control efforts?

Your Land, My Land?

I'm not a big fan of Alex Jones or his hysterics, but I have been following this developing story and what you read below should give you a glimpse of how the government really sees you and me when we don't agree with them.  It also raises a question:  Is this land really your land, is this land really my land?

Federal snipers with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) trained guns on members of a family yesterday after they dared to stop and take video footage of cattle outside the bounds of a designated “First Amendment Area,” before arresting one of the men for non-compliance.

The cattle were being rounded up by BLM officers as part of a crackdown on Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has refused to pay “grazing fees” demanded by the feds as a result of a re-classification of 600,000 acres of federal land in northeastern Clark County which Bundy claims has been in his family for generations.

Fears that the confrontation may turn violent and concerns that Bundy is drawing increased support from liberty activists and the local community prompted the feds to tape off two ridiculous “First Amendment Areas,” outside of which free speech in support of Bundy is banned. A sign placed inside the area reads “Welcome to Amerika – Wake Up” alongside a hammer and sickle logo.

When Bundy’s family members violated that rule yesterday in an attempt to peacefully document the cattle roundup, they were met with a barrage of loudspeaker warnings and four BLM snipers with their guns trained on the dissenters.

None of the family members were armed, but as soon as Dave Bundy began filming the cattle in the distance, 11 BLM vehicles each with two agents arrived and surrounded him.

“They also had four snipers on the hill above us all trained on us. We were doing nothing besides filming the area,” said Ryan Bundy.

The family were told to leave the area via loudspeaker because they had violated the crudely established “First Amendment Area”. [Infowars]

Putin Wants To Claim Finland

From the International Business Times:

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest ex-advisers has claimed that the ex-KGB agent ultimately wants to reclaim Finland for Russia.

Andrej Illiaronov, Putin's economic adviser between 2000 and 2005 and now senior member of the Cato Institute think tank, said that "parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and Finland are states where Putin claims to have ownership."

"Putin's view is that he protects what belongs to him and his predecessors," he said.

When asked if Putin wishes to return to the Russia of the last tsar, Nicholas II, Illiaronov said: "Yes, if it becomes possible."

2016 Presidential Race: Those With 'Low T' Need Not Apply - Russia Threatens The USA With Annihilation

The world is laughing at the United States.  We've lost all credibility as the defender of liberty via the exposure of government spying and IRS abuses.  We've lost our stature as the strongest economy.  And now we face the greatest danger as the world taunts us and threatens us because they see us as weak.

Barack Obama has been accused by some of deliberately plotting the demise of the nation.  It doesn't matter.  Whether by intent or inaction he has demonstrated for the world that he is a pushover, capable of being bullied, unwilling to fight.  He has made America more vulnerable.

Only hours after Russia moved in and assisted a rogue group of Ukrainians to secede from their nation in Crimea, they installed a former street thug as governor.  Now they have control of the land over which much of our European allies get their natural gas, and Russia has a cold water port.

As soon as Crimea became a Russian territory, Russian TV spit this right into Obama's face:

Russia, news anchor DmitryKiselyov took to the Rossiya 1 news channel to put the situation into a broader geopolitical context for views.

One part of his explanation, however, has caught a lot of attention: Kiselyov explained to his viewers that Russia is the only country capable of turning the United States into “radioactive ashes.” He then went on to use animated maps to show exactly how Russia would automatically respond with nuclear missiles if command and control were attacked or disabled by a U.S. attack. [Washington Post]

Former world chess champion and Russian human rights activist Gary Kasparov says he doesn't think Putin will stop at Crimea.  In addition he tweeted how weak the US looks under Obama and how much of this is Hillary's fault:

Even Americans say that Putin is a much stronger president than Obama.  And now we are getting ready to choose the next president as the world around us grows more threatening every day.

Who will it be?  Hillary?  Patriotic Americans instinctively know she is but a smell in a windstorm when it comes to aggressively defending American lives, and no, Benghazi is not going to go away.

Will it be Rand Paul?  I think the world of him and what he has achieved, but his base is very much of a non-interventionist mindset.  Until the Russian Navy lands in California or New York they'd prefer to let other countries get by with murder never seeing the growing threat on the horizon until it was too late.  He'd have a lot of selling to do to make the case for being more of a hawk.

And what difference would it make anyway now?  We are drawing down the size of our military, Russia is housing the guy with all our internal codes and secrets who many in the TEA party want to call a hero, we don't have the money to back down another USSR, our all volunteer army is made up of kids who wanted the jobs and the perks but some of them reportedly threatened to go AWOL during the government shutdown if they didn't draw a paycheck and the press won't even let our warriors be warriors.

There are a lot of puzzled expressions on people’s faces when it comes to the subject of the late Osama Bin Laden and why the White House has not authorized the release of any pictures of the body.

Matt Bissonnette, one of the SEAL Team Six operators on the raid, partially outs the reason in his book, No Easy Day.  The book reads, “In his death throes, he was still twitching and convulsing. Another assaulter and I trained our lasers on his chest and fired several rounds. The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless” (No Easy Day, Chapter 15).

You may not care if Bin Laden got some extra holes punched in him, few of us do, but what should concern you is a trend within certain special operations units to engage in this type of self-indulgent, and ultimately criminal, behavior.  Gone unchecked, these actions get worse over time. [sofrep.com]

War is about killing people and destroying things.  Warriors are killers.  Rules of engagement for our troops have trained them to assess rather than kill.  The idea of bombing nations rather than specific targets has turned our military response into a spectator sport for our enemies, instead of the fearsome horror of war that brings an entire nation to its knees and surrender.

We need to be the biggest, baddest, scariest force on the planet.  At the same time we need to be unassailably the most devoted defender of human rights and liberty and the right to life and proseperity the world has ever known.  We can do none of this with a powder puff president, or a non-interventionist policy. 

Our founders came to this nation as missionaries seeking to bring Christianity to a savage world.  We have always been missionaries seeking to bring democracy and prosperity to a struggling world.  We are compelled by the terms of our endowment to continue this tradition.

No, I am not saying that we need a rabid hawk for president.  But neither do we need the image of an Ostrich, with its head in the sand and it's ass hanging out.

We need a strong looking, strong sounding, strong thinking man of his word who has a Congress and a Senate and a nation of people who want better for themselves and their posterity not to be used as sacrificial lambs in pursuit of leveling the playing field where nobody else is playing by the same rules to begin with.

IF we survive until 2016 what America needs is a president who, at the very least, won't lose in the polls to Putin.

Therefore, those with low testosterone need not apply

God help us.

The Massie Mistake, Update

First he joined with House Democrats applauding John Kerry making a deal with Iran.  Now this:

The House of Representatives passed the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act by a 410-1 vote today. The legislation, a major priority for the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), designates Israel as a "major strategic partner"--a first for any U.S. ally. AIPAC members lobbied Congress to approve the bill on Tuesday, in addition to asking elected officials to sign letters stressing that Congress should be informed of the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Only Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted against the bill. [eWallStreeter]

He voted against sanctions on Iran and Syria and was one of only two votes against condemning North Korea for a recent nuclear test.

As one of his constituents said this morning:

As a Massie constituent, I believe his position is another demonstration of his consistency. He's a grandstander dancing like a monkey to the tune of far right-wing extremists who have taken over the Kentucky Tea Party - and a continuing embarrassment to me (accustomed to my former visionary Republican congressman). I suppose "intellectuals" may be able to rationalize Massie and admire his "independence" and "courage" to vote his conscience. Guess I'm not that smart, for I think he's an embarrassing nobody - going nowhere, and dragging his district down with him.

Massie's votes against sanctioning Syria, Iran and North Korea were shocking enough.  Now he stands alone voting against the rest of the House in his solo opposition to strengthening our alliance with Israel.

Oh, and the House also passed a resolution expressing its support for

"the democratic and European aspirations of the people of Ukraine, and their right to choose their own future free of intimidation and fear...condemns all acts of violence and calls on the Government of Ukraine to bring to justice those responsible for violence and brutality against peaceful protesters...supports the measures taken by the Department of State to revoke the visas of several Ukrainians linked to the violence, and encourages the Administration to consider additional targeted sanctions against those who authorize or engage in the use of force."

Of course Thomas Massie was one of only two votes in the House opposing these sentiments as Russia amassed its military in and around the Ukraine in what many saw as a Hitler like threat to the peace of the entire world.

Can't say I didn't try to warn you.

Here's How To Gain The Right To Arrest Law Abiding Citizens

From the Hartford Courant:

Everyone knew there would be some gun owners flouting the law that legislators hurriedly passed last April, requiring residents to register all military-style rifles with state police by Dec. 31.

But few thought the figures would be this bad.

By the end of 2013, state police had received 47,916 applications for assault weapons certificates, Lt. Paul Vance said. An additional 2,100 that were incomplete could still come in.

That 50,000 figure could be as little as 15 percent of the rifles classified as assault weapons owned by Connecticut residents, according to estimates by people in the industry, including the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000.

And that means as of Jan. 1, Connecticut has very likely created tens of thousands of newly minted criminals — perhaps 100,000 people, almost certainly at least 20,000 — who have broken no other laws. By owning unregistered guns defined as assault weapons, all of them are committing Class D felonies.

"I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register," said Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-Stafford, the ranking GOP senator on the legislature's public safety committee. "If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don't follow them, then you have a real problem."

Any doubts as to why you need to oppose any gun registration legislation of any sort that comes down the pike?

How will Connecticut deal with all of the unregistered guns owned by the thousands of new felons they just created?

The problem could explode if Connecticut officials decide to compare the list of people who underwent background checks to buy military-style rifles in the past, to the list of those who registered in 2013. Do they still own those guns? The state might want to know.

So how would the government arrest and detain so many gun owners?  That would be a good subject for conspiracy theorists to discuss, but in reality disarming the people by making them felons isn't really all that hard.  Felons cannot own guns, legally.

In 1763 [General Thomas] Gage was appointed commander in chief of all British forces in North America—the most important and influential post in the colonies. Headquartered in New York, he ran a vast military machine of more than 50 garrisons and stations stretching from Newfoundland to Florida and from Bermuda to the Mississippi. He exhibited both patience and tact in handling matters of diplomacy, trade, communication, Indian relations, and western boundaries. His great failure, however, was in his assessment of the burgeoning independence movement.

Thus Gage is chiefly remembered in the U.S. as the protagonist of the British cause while he served as military governor in Massachusetts from 1774 to 1775. In this capacity, he ordered the march of the redcoats on Lexington and Concord (April 1775), which was intended to uncover ammunition caches and to capture the leading Revolutionary agitator, Samuel Adams who escaped.

As the folks over at Truthaboutguns.com reminded us:

First they came for the ARs
and I didn’t speak out because I had other guns.

Then they came for the high capacity magazines,
and I didn’t speak out because I wanted to keep my guns.

Then they came for all semi-automatics,
and I didn’t speak out because I had a revolver.

Then they came for my revolver,
and I couldn’t speak out because I’d lost my ability to speak.

What Happens In California Comes Here In .....

No doubt you've heard it said that what happens on the west coast happens here in the heartland 10 years later.  Well let us hope and pray that what is happening in Los Angeles county never happens anywhere else.

Residents are complaining that the police, dressed in military armor, have a pattern of behavior "oppressive" to the people they are supposed to be serving.  And as in this case, many times the police raids are based upon "anonymous" tips.

You will recall how law enforcement behaved after the Boston Marathon bombings.  Now, in this video, you will see how an innocent 80 year old man was gunned down in his bedroom.

I've asked these questions of you before, but now you need to be asking yourself again, when will we take back our country?  What will you do?

Here's the 7 minute video that should wake you up.  It is very hard to do damage control once the flood breaks out of its banks.

 

Diane Feinstein Thinks Free Speech Is A Privilege Not A Right

Okay, so Texas schoolbooks are trying to re-write the Second Amendment in the minds of children.  Now, Diane Feinstein is trying to silence anybody, particularly bloggers, from speaking their minds.  How is she doing this?  Well, she says that free speech is a "privilege" not a right. 

Constitution, what constitution? 

Re-Writing History In Texas Textbooks

In case you didn't know it, most of the textbooks in the nation are based upon what Texas wants them to say.

No matter where you live, if your children go to public schools, the textbooks they use were very possibly written under Texas influence.

Texas originally acquired its power over the nation’s textbook supply because it paid 100 percent of the cost of all public school textbooks, as long as the books in question came from a very short list of board-approved options.

As a market, the state was so big and influential that national publishers tended to gear their books toward whatever it wanted. [NYBooks.com]

Well, hold your seats Moms and Dads, and liberty loving constitutionalists across the nation, guess what Texas is doing to the Second Amendment.

The authors of United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination have taken it upon themselves to change the Constitution of the United States. The high school textbook contains a summary of each Amendment that alters the initial intent in which they were created.

The textbook notes the Second Amendment as, "The people have a right to keep and bear arms in a state militia."

The actual Second Amendment reads, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Guyer High School and numerous others have assigned the book for an "Advanced Placement History" course. By assigning anti-factual literature, the only advanced placement the school has ensured for their students is in the world of biased academia. [Breitbart]

It's hard to unlearn things, which is why it is so important to keep an eye on what we are teaching in the first place.

I May Switch Parties

I am a fourth generation Kentucky Republican.  My wife's family have been republicans since the Civil war.  I've devoted myself to the cause of the Republican party over my entire life.  But I'm about to tell them, enough is enough.

Congress is celebrating the upcoming vote in favor of the likely passage of the Farm Bill.  Once again the GOP is bought and paid for by big business.  Here's just one little straw they added to my back.

Congress‘ mammoth farm bill restores the imposition of an extra fee on home heating oil, hitting consumers in cold-weather states just as utility costs are spiking.

The fee — two-tenths of a cent on every gallon sold — was tacked on to the end of the 959-page bill, which is winding its way through Capitol Hill. The fee would last for nearly 20 years and would siphon the money to develop equipment that is cheaper, more efficient and safer, and to encourage consumers to update their equipment.

It’s just one of dozens of provisions tucked into the farm bill, which cleared the House on a bipartisan 251-166 vote last week and faces a key filibuster test in the Senate on Monday. It is expected to survive and face final passage Tuesday before heading to President Obama’s desk.

Taxpayer groups say the bill could increase spending over the previous version and that it’s crammed with favors for individual lawmakers, such as rules legalizing industrial hemp.

The heating oil fee was backed by Northeast lawmakers who said it would fund important research to benefit consumers. [Washington Times]

Forget the fancy hemp provisions that somehow have blinded the rest of my fellow Kentuckians into falling in line behind the farm bill.  And put aside the slam to those of us who use heating oil.  Do you know what the farm bill really is?

[T]he bill’s main budget attribute is that it ratifies the huge recent increase in food stamp spending. The House bill had proposed trimming a modest $39 billion (5 percent) from food stamps, but Republican leaders caved in and agreed to just a token 1 percent trim in the final bill.

The farm bill is far too costly. George W. Bush vetoed the 2008 farm bill because it “would needlessly expand the size and scope of government.” Unfortunately, Congress overrode his veto and enacted that bill, costing $640 billion over 10 years. Today, the House is considering a farm bill that would cost taxpayers $940 billion over 10 years — 47 percent more than the one that even big-spending President Bush couldn’t stomach.

Food stamp costs have exploded. About four-fifths of the cost of the farm bill is for food stamps.

Farm subsidies are reverse Robin Hood.Farm subsidies even go to millionaire farmland owners such as Mark Rockefeller and Ted Turner.

Subsidies are very concentrated. Although politicians love to discuss the plight of small farmers, the vast majority of farm subsidies go to the largest farms. In recent years, the biggest 10 percent of farm businesses have received three-quarters of farm subsidies, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Farm programs harm free trade.

Farm subsidies are scandal-prone. As in all federal subsidy programs, a substantial share of farm subsidies are wasted on fraudulent and improper payments. Subsidies also go to farmers who haven’t suffered substantial losses. [CATO]

Now back to the heating oil tax.  I don't think that many of my republican elected officials have any sense whatsoever of the plight of millions of their countrymen.  I know many people trying to live on less than $700 per month.  That's TOTAL INCOME!

Out of that they have to pay rent, or a mortgage payment, utilities, taxes, insurance if they can afford it, food, gasoline, car repairs, medical expenses, pharmacy expenses, clothing and all of the other things needed to survive in this world today.  They do it on less than $700 per month. 

Do you Republicans have any sense whatsoever of how hard it is for those people to survive?  They are your grandmothers, your disabled brother, your neighbor.  They are human beings and they are struggling while the big businesses, like big agriculture, are getting billions in support.

Yes, the farm bill does indeed fund food stamps.  And that is a help to some, but the next time you have a minute, go to Walmart, watch a family of illegals push two or three shopping carts piled to spilling over up to the checkout and pay for it with their food stamp card.

And then watch as the hard working guy with a paycheck struggles to pay for a few items in a nearly empty cart out of his earnings.  Why is this wrong?

Because the money for food stamps isn't really helping all the poor.  Not all of them qualify for food stamps.  I know many people who own their homes who don't qualify but are trying to pay for everything else on a pittance.  And now you want to tax their heating oil, in the middle of this cold winter, to fund research?

Bullship!  That research money is going to go to some of the well connected who will spend it to conclude that we need to give the government control over thermostats, or that we need tighter emission controls on furnaces in order to force people to buy new furnaces, a ploy by the furnace makers, or some other cockamamie pop culture idea that will either result in fewer freedoms or be swept into a dust pan with all the other wasted money we spent researching how the government can make life better.

If any one of our Kentucky republicans votes for the farm bill with this level of spending and with this heating oil tax in it, you will disgrace our Commonwealth and our party.

Get over yourselves.  What you do hurts real people.  Forget the rich donors for once and be human again.