Ted Nugent on the right to life and the right to defend it

Warning: Far left control freaks may have blood shoot from their eyes after watching this clip.

Mayor Bloomberg shows just how dumb he thinks you are…

Spare me mayor… most of the states have laws that encourage responsible concealed carry of handguns, including Indiana. Here in Indiana 1 adult in 12 has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Odds are every time you have gone to a busy restaurant, a store, movie theatre, church, etc etc there were one or more concealed firearms in there with you. The only places that have a big problem with illegal guns are places were guns are banned. Criminals prefer unarmed victims.

The vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats oppose gun control, but the elitists in both parties, who go on as if they are our betters, just hate it. Too bad.   

Mayor Bloomberg should stick to making money on Wall Street because he is not much of a mayor.

Sotomayor’s Second Amendment Record

Sotomayor’s record shows that she sided with the Jim Crow like laws called “black codes” that were designed to keep guns out of the hands of black people and other citizens. She ruled that way in spite of acts of Congress that made the intent of the Second Amendment clear.

Wayne LaPierre who is the formost expert on the Second Amendment explains:

Big Time Conservative Red Meat: Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, and Michael Dukes

A very entertaining hour with three hunters talking hunting, ranching, machine guns, law and politics. Palin shows just how down to Earth and unpretentious she is.

Warning: If you are one of those pinheads on the second floor with a picture of Karl Marx on your wall, listening to these vids may make blood shoot from your eyes.

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

Part V:

33 STATES FILE AMICUS BRIEF ASKING SCOTUS FOR INCORPORATION OF SECOND AMENDMENT

Including California

Dr. Eugene Volohk:

Thirty-three other states also filed an amicus brief supporting incorporation, though they weren’t the surprise that California’s brief was — 31 of them filed an amicus brief in Heller that also endorsed incorporation (footnote 6). The two new additions are Maine and North Carolina. One of the states that joined both of the multistate briefs, Minnesota, is one of the six states that doesn’t have a right to bear arms provision in the state constitution; California is another.

http://www.nraila.org/media/PDFs/litigation/NRAAmicusFinal.pdf

Community college willingly violates law and risks lawsuit in foolish attempt to censor constitutionally protected speech.

A community college in Pennsylvania is facing a lawsuit that they have no possibility of winning in a hapless attempt to censor student speech. Examine this press release from FIRE.
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:

Pittsburgh-Area College Fails to Remedy Violations of Concealed Carry Advocate’s Free Speech

June 2, 2009

FIRE Press Release

PITTSBURGH, June 2, 2009—A student who wants to form a gun-rights group will still be subject to unconstitutional censorship, the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) announced yesterday. Christine Brashier, who wants to form a chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), was told through a letter to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) yesterday that she will not be punished for her efforts to organize the group, as college officials had threatened in an earlier meeting, but only if she follows CCAC’s unconstitutional policies. She must have all of her pamphlets approved before distribution and will not be allowed to use the name of CCAC in any way during her effort to start a group at the college.

“CCAC’s response was a transparent attempt to defend the indefensible,” said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. “The college’s justifications for its censorship of Christine Brashier are not only unconstitutional, they are absurd.”

In April, Brashier created pamphlets to distribute to her classmates encouraging them to join her in forming a chapter of the SCCC national organization at CCAC. Her pamphlets stated that the group “supports the legalization of concealed carry by licensed individuals on college campuses.” She personally distributed copies of the pamphlets, which identified her as a “Campus Leader” of the effort to start the chapter.

Brashier was quickly summoned to a meeting with administrators, who told her that passing out her non-commercial pamphlets was prohibited as “solicitation.” Furthermore, they insisted that the college pre-approve any pamphlets, that pamphlets like hers would not be approved, and that Brashier destroy all copies of her pamphlet. At one point during the meeting, Dean Yvonne Burns reportedly said, “You may want to discuss this topic but the college does not, and you cannot make us.” Brashier was warned that any further efforts would be considered “academic misconduct.”

FIRE wrote CCAC President Alex Johnson on April 29 about these violations of Brashier’s First Amendment speech and association rights, pointing out that her free speech in no way constituted solicitation, that CCAC may not condition approval of literature on its viewpoint or content, and that if CCAC recognizes student organizations at all, it must recognize an organization that supports concealed carry on campus.

FIRE took Brashier’s case public last week, generating widespread news coverage. As a result, Allegheny County Solicitor Mike Adams finally replied to FIRE Monday on CCAC’s behalf. Rather than affirming Brashier’s expressive rights, however, Adams tried to justify CCAC’s unconstitutional actions after the fact. While Adams assured FIRE that Brashier did not face any disciplinary action and that she did have the right to try to form a SCCC group—reversing the message Brashier received from Dean Burns—he ignored most of the alarming statements by the CCAC administrators and attempted to defend CCAC’s unconstitutional censorship.

Most outrageously, Adams sought to defend CCAC’s policy of demanding prior review and prior restraint of handbills and pamphlets. Adams attempted to justify this unconstitutional policy by arguing that Brashier’s use of the CCAC name and her self-identification as the “Campus Leader” of the effort to organize the gun-rights group might lead a reasonable person to erroneously assume that the group and its message were endorsed by CCAC.

“The Supreme Court has determined that prior restraint is rarely justified, even for national security reasons,” said FIRE Vice President Robert Shibley. “For Allegheny County to argue in favor of a government veto over privately-produced handbills makes a mockery of the First Amendment. Under this reasoning, Thomas Paine should have sought the British government’s permission to distribute his pamphlet Common Sense.”

[FIRE is right on the legal grounds. A famous legal test case of the law is New York Times v. United States. The NYT moved to publish leaked classified documents and the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not use "prior restraint" to keep the NYT from publishing them. This case is famous and is studied in almost every university in the country. How can CCAC hope to have a chance to get away with this? How could they be so outrageously foolish? - Editor]

Also troubling is CCAC’s argument that simply using the name of CCAC in a handbill promoting the formation of a group on that campus implied CCAC’s endorsement of the group and its message. “CCAC has officially recognized chapters of the College Democrats and the Newman Club. Does that mean CCAC officially endorses Democratic politics and Catholicism? Obviously not. Such a conclusion is patently unreasonable—as is CCAC’s weak attempt to spin away the violation of a student’s First Amendment rights,” Shibley said.

“CCAC students, as well as every citizen of Allegheny County, should feel very disappointed by the county’s apparent disregard of fundamental rights. FIRE will continue to pursue this matter until the First Amendment is restored to CCAC’s campus,” Lukianoff said.

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at our nation’s colleges and universities. FIRE’s efforts to preserve liberty on campuses across America are described at thefire.org.

College Student Shoots Armed Home Invaders. Saves 10 lives.

WSBTV Georgia.

Two armed criminals broke into a small gathering of 10 at an apartment in College Park. They seperated the men and the women. They made it clear their intent was to rob them, rape the women and murder them all. A college student shot at the first suspect, it is unknown if the suspect was hit because he ran and is still at large. The second suspect decided to shoot it out with the armed college student and was killed.

Media Bias You Can Believe in IV: MSNBC and the “All Pro-Gunners Are ‘Dangerous’ and Freaky Angle.” – NEW UPDATE!

After watching the video and reading the post please see below for an update to this story!!

Please watch this video carefully and continue reading below.

Watch how the “objective news man” is allowed the far left guy to make a nuanced points yet when Allen Gottlieb will not allow the “objective news guy” to couch his answer in the “objective news guy’s” premise he is interrupted, talked over and badgered.

The  “objective news guy” says give me an exact quote from an elected official of the administration that they want to ban ALL guns. This is a false choice because the problem is that many anti-gun advocates want to ban everything but low powered single shot rifles for example:

Ban handguns, ban semi-autos because they mischaracterize them as machine guns, hunting rifles become ’sniper rifles’ ..ban them, .22 long rifle is too hard to check ballistics on ban it, and shotguns are just like machine guns because they shoot more than one projectile with each pull of the trigger, large bore rifles become “elephant guns that no legitimate hunter needs” and that would ban most old style lever action guns etc. With just these provisions that seem so ‘reasonable’ you would have banned almost every gun except low power single shot rifles.

So no…. not ALL guns. So the  ”objective news guy” tries to push a false choice argument on Gottlieb; false choice creates the situation ‘its either THIS extreme or your all wrong or a liar’.

When Gottlieb tries to point out that Attorney General Eric Holder authored a Supreme Court brief saying that no one has a right to bear arms (LINK) the “objective news guy” speaks over him.

Even though the clip above is from MSNBC – this clip from the same network shows Obama to have lied about the issue. Maybe this is why MSNBC got rid of Dan Abrams’ show in spite of the fact that his show was going up in ratings.

This video shows Obama lying about the recently struck down DC handgun ban he previously supported.  

Of course, the elitism and condescension that Obama has voiced towards gun owners became more clear with this …

So while the “objective news guy” tried to make a false picture that the administration is not hostile to gun ownership, he is also aware of this, which he didn’t want you to know:

Fact :Obama voted to allow the prosecution of citizens who use a firearm for self-defense in the home.
Illinois Senate, S.B. 2165. 3/25/04

Fact :Obama has supported banning hundreds of rifles and shotguns commonly used for hunting and sport shooting.
Illinois Senate Debate #3: Barack Obama vs. Alan Keyes, 10 / 21 / 0 4

Fact :Obama voted to allow reckless lawsuits designed to put the firearms industry out of business.
S.397, vote 219, 7/ 29/ 05

Fact :Obama voted to ban almost all rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sport shooting.
S.397, vote 217, 7/29/05

How about Glenn Beck, who MSNBC did a nice editing smear job on in the clip? MSNBC frequently takes a snippet and creates a context around it that is not an accurate portrayal of the editing victims’ point.

When the clip is viewed in full, you see that Beck’s primary point is that he was wrong when he said that Obama was pushing socialism, what Obama is pushing is Corporatism. Corporatism is when private business keeps the form and structure of capitalism, but through regulation and fear of government reprisal it is the government who calls the shots in those businesses, as a result three things happen:

1. Instead of running the best business with the best products and services, the goal becomes lobbying, manipulating, buying the politicians and regulators to make decisions that favor that business over others. In essence the government pics winners and losers.

2. What ever the government or a politician wants to do, big business pretends to be all for it because bucking the government can lead to reprisal can lead to your stock price tanking.

3. Government assumes the power to interfere in established legal contracts outside of the bankruptcy process which the government has asked Congress for the power to do, in spite of a strict constitutional provision banning such a law.

What is going on now with the banks, GM, and the other powers that the Administration is asking Congress for are near textbook examples of Corporatism. It is not a widely studied subject but Corporatism is the economic model used by Mussolini and Hitler and that is why Glenn Beck was using that snippet of video and he explained all of this in some detail.

Imagine the impression a layman might have after watching that MSNBC clip above. Is the narrative  and feelings generated by that video an accurate representation of reality. This is a perfect case of propaganda strategy called “attitude change propaganda theory” and what that means is that the propagandist does not give you all of the facts, he gives you only some of the facts and those facts are delivered with an attitude or spin. The propagandist than uses that to create a false narrative over the highly spun partial facts you have been given to generate the desired response by the person viewing the propaganda. Most journalism schools teach how this type of propaganda works and MSNBC uses it to polarize the electorate in an attempt to gain economically from one side of that electorate.

UPDATE - CNN tries the exact same tactic on Allen Gottlieb the next day – but this time Gottlieb was ready for it. Mr. “objective news guy” sets up the narrative that conservatives and everyone it FNC is a frothing at the mouth hate monger and when the “objective news guy” launches into Allen Gottlieb and demands with great indignation that he show the evidence, Gottlieb starts out with Obama’s voting record and begins to list that evidence. When Mr. “objective news guy” realizes he was about to get served he blares in with….wait for it….this is priceless……

CNN to Conservative: Is that all the proof you have, the (voting) record?  

More from News Busters HERE.

Government report shows where the machine guns the Mexican drug cartels use are coming from (and it’s not the USA) – UPDATE: Fox News reports 83% of drug cartel guns could not be traced to U.S.

UPDATE - FNC investigated this story and using ATF Firearm traces discovered that 83% of siezed guns could not be traced to American gun stores. – LINK 

OUR TAKE – We told ya HERE when the story first appeared that it was BS.

*******Original Story*******

CNN on Lou Dobbs at 7pm has told the truth about this issue, but CNN at other times shows you pictures of machine guns and tells you that they are being bought at gun shows and gun stores across the USA.

It’s a lie, machine guns are not sold by gun stores and gun shows and haven’t been for decades. The only way to purchase one is from a Class 3 firearms dealer and there are very few of those and each transaction is strictly regulated by the ATF.

We previously covered this story HERE. But some great work by the JustMyTruth blog has discovered a government report that tells us exactly where the machine guns are coming from.

Here is the report – http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/OrgCrime_Mexico.pdf

In short the report makes it clear that arms are coming from Colombian Communist Rebels known as FARC. FARC is funded by Hugo Chavez. Hmmm no wonder the left wants to blame American gun owners and not the guy that the far left so often defends. Here is an excerpt:

KEY FINDINGS

Mexico’s drug trafficking and alien smuggling networks have expanded their criminal activities aimed at the United States by capitalizing on the explosive growth of transborder commerce under NAFTA and the attendant growth in human and merchandise traffic between Mexico and the United States. The growth in trans-border commerce, as manifested in soaring levels of overland passenger and commercial vehicle traffic, has provided an ever-expanding “haystack” in which the “needles” of illicit narcotics and illegal aliens can be more easily concealed.

During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking established a partnership with the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix Organization (AFO).

Statements by high-ranking Mexican officials prior to and following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks indicate that one or more Islamic extremist organizations has sought to establish a presence in Mexico.

The report  goes into much more detail about arms smuggling to the Mexican drug cartels by FARC.

Here is CNN on Lou Dobbs getting it right:

And here is NRA VP Wayne LaPierre blasting CNN for running these faked stories which CNN is still running:

Malcolm X: The Constitution and Bill of Rights are HUMAN Rights and that includes the right to self defense.

Malcolm X had several shifts in his philosophy in his life. At one time he believed that all whites were oppressors, because that had been his life experience. Towards the end of his life he traveled around the world and this changed his philosophy. He realized that all nations and races have been enslaved or oppressed at one time or another. Malcolm X realized that what was needed was to convert the “civil rights” movement to a human rights movement. The above speech was given as Malcolm X was in the process of changing his philosophy.

He eventually realized that it isn’t always just one race or another, but a struggle between those who wish to impose central control vs. those who wish to be free.

In several speeches Malcolm X quoted famed Founding Fathers such as Patrick Henry. Like Patrick Henry, Malcolm X came to believe that human rights are everyones birth right from God.

Comedian Steven Crowder on GUNS, Obama and Ghandi – Featuring Michael Moore

Tea Parties Erupt Across Nation to Protest Obama Economic Policy – Congress Not Reading Bills before Voting on Them

Here is another video from the Chicago Tea Party and it has some of South Bend’s very own. Don’t miss the appearence of the one and only Sam Adams at the end! -

I like this message from www.readthebill.org –

Eric Holder says “Hey lets ban guns” and Pelosi says “Are you nuts?”

UPDATE II – A governmemnt report shows that drug cartel machine guns are coming from FARC/Hugo Chavez – LINK. Mini-Update: The government was lying. The number of guns in mexico that get traced back to the US is 17%……we told ya so.

UPDATE: CNN gives a similar analysis as IUSB Vision:

BUT a few years ago CNN faked the story in much the same way ABC did by calling these guns “machine guns” and NRA’s Wayne LaPierre called them on it and CNN ran a correction.

*****original story******

The Obama Administration already has talking points filled with lies to fool you into accepting this.

Of course, the last time they passed this it made no difference in crime at all and gun buyers eventually found ways around it. Criminals do not prefer expensive long guns, they like cheap guns they can hide.

ABC News:

Obama to Seek New Assault Weapons Ban
Previous Ban Expired in 2004 During the Bush Administration
By JASON RYAN
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2009-

The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

“As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons,” Holder told reporters.

Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.

“I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.” Holder said at a news conference on the arrest of more than 700 people in a drug enforcement crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating in the U.S.

Mexican government officials have complained that the availability of sophisticated guns from the United States have emboldened drug traffickers to fight over access routes into the U.S.

A State Department travel warning issued Feb. 20, 2009, reflected government concerns about the violence.

“Some recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades,” the warning said. “Large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico, but most recently in northern Mexico, including Tijuana, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez.”

At the news conference today, Holder described his discussions with his Mexican counterpart about the recent spike in violence.

“I met yesterday with Attorney General Medina Mora of Mexico, and we discussed the unprecedented levels of violence his country is facing because of their enforcement efforts,” he said.

Now here is where the lies come in and its the same as the old lie.

The weapons they are calling “assault weapons” and want to ban are not the low to medium powered, selective fire, automatic weapons see on TV. They are NOT machine guns. Yet those who want to take away your ability to defend your freedom with effective means always TALK about machine guns, and machine guns are what they show on the news when they talk about this, but the guns they want to ban fire ONE bullet with each pull of the trigger and are functionally no different from a 1911 Colt .45. These guns LOOK like assault rifles but they lack assault rifle functionality.

It says in the article that the drug cartels in Mexico have automatic weapons, that means machine guns. American gun stores don’t sell machine guns. That’s right folks, it’s the old bait & switch.

The last time the Democrats did this they got creamed come election time. Bush dared the Democrats to pass it and threatened to sign it knowing that the Democrats would get the blame. Rank and file union members have shown that they will vote Republican in a heartbeat over this issue.

This is why Nancy Pelosi told Eric Holder NO WAY.

Obama talked over and over how he supported the Heller decision (granted he flip flopped on it but he did say it) and opposed gun bans. No one who supports the Heller decision by the Supreme Court could possibly support any kind of ban of this kind.

UPDATE II - This blog has more on ABC News’ chicanery. This blog HERE has another good explanation.

UPDATE III -

February 26th, 2009 1:11 PM Eastern

A New Assault Weapons Ban Will Not Reduce Crime In This Country

By Dr. John R. Lott, Jr.
Author, “Freedomnomics“/Senior Research Scientist, University of Maryland

It is pretty hard to seriously argue that a new so-called “assault weapons” ban would reduce crime in the United States. Even research done for the Clinton Administration couldn’t find that the federal assault weapons ban reduced crime.

There are no academic studies by economists or criminologist that find the original federal assault weapons ban reduced murder or violent crime generally. There is no evidence that the state assault weapons bans reduced murder or violent crime rates –and there’s even some evidence that they may have caused murder to actually rise slightly. Since the federal ban expired in September 2004, murder –and overall violent crime rates– have remained virtually unchanged.

If Holder thinks that it is so easy to control drug gangs’ access to guns, one way to show it is by proving that he can stop drug gangs’ access to drugs.

In fact, when the assault weapons ban went off into the sunset in September 2004 there was no explosion of murder and bloodshed as gun control advocates feared. Immediately after the law expired murder rates fell and they fell more in the states without state assault weapon bans than the states with them.

Read the rest here – http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/02/26/lott_holder_gun/

UPDATE IV – Hey remember THIS?

Larry Pratt with Glenn Beck on gun ownership and freedom

Stealth Gun Bans in Omnibus Senate Bill

This is exactly the sort of thing the Democrats promised would not happen in the campaign:

GOA:

Lost in all the news of the massive bailout bill that just passed the Senate is another enormous bill, one that increases federal control of public and private land.

Of particular concern to gun owners is that the bill, S. 22, will greatly expand the amount of land controlled by the National Park Service. NPS land is currently subject to a gun ban.

While President Bush took steps in the waning days of his presidency to reverse the ban, the new regulations apply to persons who carry a concealed firearm with a permit. Non-permit holders and open carry are not explicitly addressed.

Another eyebrow-raising aspect of this bill is that it is actually a compilation of over 150 separate pieces of legislation that never passed out of Congress on their own merits.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) successfully held up over 100 of these bills, until anti-gun Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rolled all of the bills into one so-called Coburn Omnibus and forced it through the Senate in January on a vote of 73-21.

As the House prepares to take up the bill, the Democrat leadership has taken procedural steps to ensure that the measure cannot be amended or altered in any way. That means that if it passes the House, it goes right to President Obama’s desk, where it will be signed into law.

The full House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the bill this Wednesday or Thursday.

Unless the NPS gun ban is repealed and the rights of gun owners are protected, Gun Owners of America opposes the bill in its entirety.

ACTION: Please urge your Representative to repeal the NPS gun ban in S. 22, or to vote against the entire bill.

http://gunowners.org/a021009.htm

Hey “Sportsman for Obama”: Obama’s New OIRA Director Says It’s Time to Ban Hunting

Wasn’t it PT Barnum who said, “There is a sucker born every minute and you can fool some of the people all of the time.”

Remember the folks at “Sportsman for Obama” who served as a propaganda tool to cover up Obama’s far left anti-gun recordincluding the fact that Obama voted to allow prosecution of those who were forced to defend their own lives with a gun in their own home? Or were they just actors wearing shooting glasses because where are they now?

Remember this???

Center for Consumer Freedom:

Barack Obama’s pick for “regulatory czar,” Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein, may be the incoming president’s most popular appointment so far. Judging from his resume — best-selling author, “pre-eminent legal scholar of our time,” and an endorsement from The Wall Street Journal — we can almost understand why. Almost. Because as we’re telling the media today, there’s one troubling portion of the new Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator’s C.V. that has seems to have flown under everyone’s radar: Cass Sunstein is a radical animal rights activist.

Sunstein delivered a keynote speech at Harvard University’s 2007 “Facing Animals” conference. (Click hereto watch the video; his speech starts around 39:00.) Keep in mind that as OIRA Administrator, Sunstein will have the political authority to implement a massive federal government overhaul. Consider this tidbit:

“We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn’t a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It’s time now.”

Sunstein also argued in favor of “eliminating current practices such as greyhound racing, cosmetic testing, and meat eating, most controversially.”

The Video (his speech is 39 minutes in):

“Never in our nation’s history have we had an incoming President and Vice President more supportive of strong gun laws. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence strongly endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket, and for good reason.” – The Brady Campaign

VIDEO: Police Shoot Handcuffed Man on the Ground

Police and prosecutor misconduct is a problem that seems to be getting worse and worse.

We have told you about prosecutorail misconduct by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in the Blagoyevich and Libby prosecutions. We told you about how FBI and prosecutor misconduct in the case of Senator Ted Stevens may result in an appeal or Stevens may walk. While we haven’t covered the story, the prosecutors in the Caylee Anthony case are doing everything they can to prevent fair discovery by the defense, which is a violation of the accused Constitutional right to a fair trial.

We told you how an Alaska State Trooper, who had threatened the life of Governor Palin’s family and who even threatened Palin’s daughter at a high school football game and used a taser gun on Palin’s nephew, was being protected by the state police and they refused to even conduct a proper investigation. We told you how Denver Police arrested an ABC News reporter for filming a newsworthy event from a public sidewalk. We also showed you a case of unprovoked police brutality in New York.

This is a symptom of a society that does not know how to think logically and ethically. A society that no longer practices the self restraint that is a reflection of the Christian philosophy that made this country the greatest on earth.

Now we have come to this…

The man who was shot is Oscar Grant. We have video from two angles. If you slow down the tape you can see that grant was face down, handcuffed and another officer had his knee on the back of Grant’s neck when he was shot. Grant was fatally wounded and killed. The police aren’t talking. If I was a police officer on the scene I would have arrested the officer who pulled that trigger on the spot.

Warning – the videos show Grant being shot.

And this…

A Chicago Police Officer strip searched minor children in a school. Strip searching minors is not allowed. The parents were not even notified. It also took almost a year before the family would find a lawyer to accept the case, which reminds me of another problem I have seen more and more of, and that is attorney’s who are unwilling to take on bureaucracies on behalf of clients who are not wealthy.

China Still Executing Its Own With Little Justice

WASHINGTON POST:

BEIJING — Compared with murder and other violent crimes, the charges against Wo Weihan seemed minor, if a little exotic: copying articles from missile technology magazines in a public library, buying four night-vision equipment scopes, gathering information about the health of senior government leaders and collecting documents from a local Communist Party conference.

Yet the once-respected scientist with his own medical research laboratory in the capital was branded a spy and executed last month after a closed trial. His is one of several recent executions that highlight the secrecy, lack of due process and uneven application of the law that continue to surround capital cases two years after China embarked on a radical overhaul of the way it handles the death penalty.

Starting in 2007, China began for the first time in more than two decades to require a final review of every capital case by the Supreme People’s Court. The hope was to reduce the number of executions and bring some consistency to a process that had been handled unevenly by lower courts. The former president of the Supreme People’s Court who pushed for the review, Xiao Yang, vowed that the death penalty would be used only on “extremely vile criminals.”

While “reforms” have brought down the number of executions 30% form 2006:

Defendants on death row continue to be executed for such nonviolent crimes as illegal fundraising, graft, drug dealing and espionage. They are prosecuted and dispatched with a lack of transparency, according to Chinese lawyers who complain of blocked access to their clients and say many confessions are still coerced.

There are also double standards: Public officials accused of embezzling millions receive suspended death sentences that spare their lives, while ordinary citizens convicted of stealing far less die by lethal injection or a single gunshot to the head, according to lawyers and court records.

China remains the world’s top executioner — the Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights group, estimates that China carried out 5,000 to 6,000 executions in 2007. The same year, the United States executed 42 people. On a per-capita basis, China is estimated to have carried out 30 times the number of executions the United States did.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/23/AR2008122302795.html?wprss=rss_world

TROOPERGATE RESULTS: Branchflower finds Sarah Palin “Guilty” of not Keeping Her Husband Todd from Defending His Family from a Maniac State Trooper

 

Sounds like a silly headline, but when you read the report, in a nutshell that is exactly what it claims.

The Media is going nuts saying “Palin Abused Power” – but they are not giving you all the pertinent details that are in the report. Before I get into the details a few things need to be understood.

1. The report is the finding of just one man, Steve Branchflower. Who is the so called “independent investigator” who colluded with Democrats Hollis French and Kim Elton to keep some of Palin’s witnesses from testifying.

2. Hollis French, the Senator leading the investigation, is a strident Obama supporter and said unabashedly that he intended for the UPCOMING investigation to be used as an “October Surprise” for the election.

4. Monegan worked with Hollis French to try and get funding for projects that Governor Palin had previously vetoed.

…insubordination from Monegan from the official documents:

• 12/9/07: Monegan holds a press conference with Hollis French to push his own budget plan.
• 1/29/08: Palin’s staffers have to rework their procedures to keep Monegan from bypassing normal channels for budget requests.
• February 2008: Monegan publicly releases a letter he wrote to Palin supporting a project she vetoed.
• June 26, 2008: Monegan bypassed the governor’s office entirely and contacted Alaska’s Congressional delegation to gain funding for a project.

Even after all this, Palin didn’t want to fire Monegan, she just wanted to reassign him. She offered him another job on the spot. If Palin was personal and wanted to “get even” with Monegan she would have fired him.

Here is our previous coverage with the evidence of French’s, Monegan’s and Kim Elton’s politically motivated misconduct in the investigation—> http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/a-picture-is-worth-1000-words-here-are-your-troopergate-investigators/

5. The 12-0 decision was not a unanimous finding of any guilt. It was a vote on whether or not to release Branchflower’s report to the public… so the Anchorage Daily News, who we have said before is often biased in its reporting against Palin, got it wrong when they said that the legislature found her guilty.

6. The press says that it was bi-partisan because the legislative committee has Republicans and Democrats on it. Lyda Green, the Republican leader of the Alaska Senate, who sits on the committee hates …and I mean HATES Governor Palin. Why do we say that? Lyda Green, as we reported HERE, is a part of that good old boys corruption network in the Alaska Republican Party that Palin brought down. Green tried to get revenge against Palin repeatedly, including trying to get the State of the State address schedule changed so that Palin would miss her son’s graduation. Lyda Green became very unpopular for opposing Palin’s reforms. So unpopular that she is not running for re-election.

It is important to remember that the Republican and Democrat party machines both hate Palin and would certainly be more aggressiveve towards her if she did not have an 80% approval rating. She ended their billion dollar corruption ring with the energy companies that owned the state government. Lets face facts, lots of people have been killed for less money. Palin refuses to endorse Republican Senator Ted Stevens, and it was Palin’s outing of the corruption ring that got the FBI interested in investigating Ted Stevens to begin with.

 

Here is the Branchflower Report.

The report states clearly:

Governor Palin’s firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.

The conspiracy theorists and partisan pundits said that the only reason Palin fired Monegan because he would not fire Alaska State Trooper Wooten (we will get to Wooten in a minute). Which, if true would have been a technical violation of state ethics laws. This has now proved to be false. This is an important lesson in the unintended consequences of passing sweeping legislation. As we will start to cover in a moment, if anyone on Earth deserved to be fired and have his right to own a gun taken away, it is Trooper Mike Wooten. Wooten has amassed quite a history of illegal, violent and reckless behavior, including threatening the lives of members of Palin’s family while in uniform. If the ethics laws prevent a governor from getting a threat to the public like Wooten off the street with a state issued firearm, the law has a problem.

The law should not be written in such a way as to prevent a governor from protecting the public from a threat such as a rogue cop like Wooten.

The report also states that Palin abused her power and violated ethics laws by not preventing her husband, Todd Palin, from trying to get Wooten fired. A stretch for many reasons with the most obvious reason being that husbands protect their families and good luck deterring Todd Palin from doing what he thought was best under such a threat and Todd Palin’s under oath statement states clearly that Sarah asked him to stop. What is she going to do, have her husband arrested to put an end to it? Its silly.

The reasoning that Branchflower uses to make this finding is here:

I find that Governor Sarah Palina busedher power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides

The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.

The problem is that this is a wholesale misreading of the law and it takes a great deal of tortured logic to get there. We were preparing to explain why this is in detail, and while our previous legal analysis here at the IUSB Vision has ALWAYS proved accurate, trial attorney Bill Dyer was kind enough to publish his own analysis which we find to be spot on.

Hugh Hewitt published trial lawyer, Bill Dyer’s analysis HERE.

Excerpts – read this very carefully:

Instead, Branchflower has piled a guess (that the Palin’s wanted Wooten fired, rather than, for example, counseled, disciplined, or reassigned) on top of an inference (that when the Palins expressed concern to Monegan about Wooten, they were really threatening to fire Monegan if he didn’t fire Wooten) on top of an innuendo (that Gov. Palin “fired” Monegan at least in part because of his failure to fire Wooten) — from which Branchflower then leaps to a legal conclusion: “abuse of authority.” Branchflower reads the Ethics Act to prohibit any governmental action or decision made for justifiable reasons benefiting the State if that action or decision might also make a public official happy for any other reason. That would mean, of course, that governors must never act or decide in a way that makes them personally happy as a citizen, or as a wife or mother or daughter, and that they could only take actions or make decisions which left them feeling neutral or upset. This an incredibly shoddy tower of supposition, and a ridiculous misreading of the law.

This is exactly the entire point right here, in order for what Branchflower says to be true, the law would have to be read in a ridiculously broad manner. No serious judge (granted there are judges who ignore legal ethics routinely) would allow such a broad interpretation. In fact the number one reason why most laws are shot down by the courts is that they are overly broad. For example: when Palin returned a portion of the states energy revenue to every citizen of the state, including members of the Palin family who are citizens, according to Branchflower’s reading of the law this would have been a violation of the states ethics law. It’s silly.

Branchflower puts under a microscope every direct and indirect contact that can possibly be claimed to to come, directly or indirectly, from Gov. Palin or her husband, Todd. In none of them did either Sarah or Todd Palin demand or request that Wooten be fired. Some of them date back to before Gov. Palin was even a candidate for governor. All of them are equally well explained by legitimate concerns that Wooten was a potential threat to the Palin family (having already made death threats against Gov. Palin’s father) and/or an embarrassment to the Alaska Department of Public Safety and the entire state law enforcement community. That the Palinsalsohad strong — and entirely understandable! — negative feelings about Trooper Wooten does not make any of these communications remotely improper, much less illegal.

Nevertheless, Branchflower leaps to the personal conclusion (page 67 of the .pdf file) that “such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins’ real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons.” Well, here’s another memo to Mr. Branchflower: When the family is question is the family of the Governor of Alaska, and when her security detail is charged with protecting her from threats, and in the process of that, the security detail actively seeks out information as to who may have previously made death threats against the family, that’s no longer solely a “personal family related reason.” And when someone like Trooper Wooten threatens to bring ridicule and shame to the entire state of Alaska, that’s no longer solely a “personal family related reason” either.

Branchflower, I’m told, is an attorney and a former prosecutor. If he thinks this kind of nonsense could support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, or even a finding of proof by a preponderance of the evidence, then he may be the worst lawyer I’ve ever encountered — and I’ve met a lot of awful ones in almost three decades before the bar.

We are thrilled the most respected bloggers on the internet such as Hotair.com and Hugh Hewitt have come to similar conclusions as we did when we finished reading the report. After seeing Hugh Hewitt’s report from Bill Dyer, we were also thrilled to see Hotair.com feature Bill Dyer’s spot on analysis in their own report.

Now lets move on to Trooper Wooten:

Way back on September 3rd we published an analysis of “Troopergate” sometimes called “Tasergate” with this headline:

Ending the Biggest Lie Against Palin – Called Troopergate: Hey Ladies How Would You Deal With a Violent, Reckless, Out of Control Rogue Cop Who Threatened Your Family’s Life and Stalks Your Relatives – All While His Fellow Cops are Covering for Him.

This is the situation Palin’s sister faced. An abusive and violent cop for a husband that she was trying to divorce. A cop with a history misconduct…. including the tasering of his own 10 year old son.

Palin’s sister obtained a domestic violence protection order against Trooper Wooten. Wooten said in uniform that if Palin’s father helped Palin’s sister obtain an attorney, “I will make him eat a f**king lead bullet”.

Unfortunately, any women who has been a victim of domestic violence by a police officer knows how hard it is to get justice. When the family reported what was going on the Alaska State Police was none too keen on investigating one of their own and the Palin’s were forced to hire a private investigator just to take statements to submit to the investigation because the state police simply refused to do it.

After it was all over, the state police suspended Wooten for 10 days  and reduced that punishment to five days. Wooten taunted the Palin’s saying that he got away with it and that there was nothing they could do to stop him. Wooten even threatened Governor Palin’s daughter Bristol at a Wasilla football game.

Be sure to read our analysis HERE and read official documents on Wooten’s behavior HERE.

The Palin’s offer no apology for any of their actions and any person with any sense at all would have acted the same. See the video HERE.

The mistake that Palin and the campaign did make.

The mistake that the campaign made was not getting ahead of this problem and trusting the media to be fair about reporting it. When you are a governor or a president you cannot afford to let your enemies or the press define the issue for you. All you here from Democrats and the elite media is “abuse of power” with almost no context.

The Campaign should have started calling this issue “Fathergate” or “Tasergate” at every opportunity. The campaign should have sent Sarah Palin out to blast Hollis French, Steve Branchflower, Walt Monegan and Trooper Wooten very publicly for what they did and kept the focus on them.  

After the fact (now) I would find an ally in the legislature and file an ethics complaint against Hollis French. Why?? Because by Steve Branchflower’s own far overreaching and over broad interpretation of the ethics law, French personally benefited from this investigation and personally benefited because he said before the investigation got underway that he intended this to be an October surprise for the election. It’s politics and you gotta play rough, honest, but rough.

The documents in the case so far:

http://www.politico.com/static/PPM103_ethics2222.html

http://media.adn.com/smedia/2008/10/10/16/Branchflowerreport.source.prod_affiliate.7.pdf

http://media.adn.com/smedia/2008/10/10/19/349-Response_to_Branchflower_Report_10-10-08.source.prod_affiliate.7.pdf

http://www.johnmccain.com/Images/Truth/Analysis100908.pdf

 

Obama Pro-Gun Radio Ad is a Lie – Don’t Be Fooled

Here in Indiana, where Obama is trying to make a competitive run, the Obama campaign is playing radio ads talking up how pro-gun he is. Examine the evidence and please feel free to comment on whether or not you think his ad is trying to fool you.

Dr. John Lott, who worked with Obama at the University of Chicago, says:

The Obama that I knew while we were both at the University of Chicago Law School during the 1990s was someone who disliked talking to people with whom he disagreed. Possibly it was just his extreme dislike of gun ownership, but I had more than one occasion when my attempts to talk to him ended in him turning his back and walking away.

The media’s portrayal of Obama as willing to work with those who disagree with him is not the person that I remember from a decade ago.

Dr. Lott’s research on gun control laws is the academic standard on the issue.  

The NRA has Obama’s voting record listed as an F rating on gun laws. The NRA says this:

Fact : Obama voted to allow the prosecution of citizens who use a firearm for self-defense in the home.
Illinois Senate, S.B. 2165. 3/25/04

Fact : Obama has supported banning hundreds of rifles and shotguns commonly used for hunting and sport shooting.
Illinois Senate Debate #3: Barack Obama vs. Alan Keyes, 10 / 21 / 0 4

Fact : Obama voted to allow reckless lawsuits designed to put the firearms industry out of business.
S.397, vote 219, 7/ 29/ 05

Fact : Obama voted to ban almost all rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sport shooting.
S.397, vote 217, 7/29/05

Update: Hotair.com comments on the NRA’s ads reminding people of this issue.

MSNBC calls out Obama on gun control deception.

Obama then vs Obama now.

McCain

Obama in reference to Pennsylvania voters when he is at a closed fund raiser of left coast elite friends: You folk get bitter and cling to your religion and guns out of frustration (that Obama hasn’t “saved” you yet)

Hillary on Obama’s comments.

Ar 5:14 into the video, Sarah Palin reacts to Obama’s comments.

ABC’s 20/20 examines gun laws to see if they reduce crime.

UPDATE: Remember how I said that Factcheck.org gets it right about 80% of the time? Well this is one of the 20% where FactCheck didn’t do their homework, didn’t look at the record and blew it big time. Anyone who checked the public record for 30 minutes could not take the position Fantcheck.org took on the gun control issue. I could give a top to bottom analysis, but Patterico beat me to it and he did a great job. Malkin comments HERE.

UPDATE II: On TV the Obama campaign spokesman is openly lying about Obama’s gun ban record. The public record is clear and easy to find, yet the Washington Post (who has still not retracted a long list of debunked Palin smears) and factcheck.org simply refuse to look at his record or his previous statements. They are even saying that a questionnaire where he said that he wanted to ban all handguns that had Obama’s handwriting on it wasn’t his and they were not his answers. The NRA is spot on when it comes to Obama’s record. Don’t be fooled. The elite media going “pro-gun” all of the sudden for Obama should be a clue as to what is going on. Hotair.com comments HERE.