September 3, 2019

At the Fallen Tree Café...

fullsizeoutput_31f4

... there's progress since last night's slow-motion falling.

(And remember, you can progress through the Althouse Portal to Amazon, where untold goods await you.)

87 comments:

wildswan said...

But where did all the pieces go? Chainsawed up?

Yancey Ward said...

To the morgue for autopsy.

buwaya said...

Interesting essay in Unz on "Il Gattopardo", both Lampedusa's novel and Visconti's film -

The Leopard Trevor Lynch

Just a bit -

"One of the most interesting characters in The Leopard is Ciccio Tumeo (played by Serge Reggiani), the local church organist and the prince’s hunting companion. Tumeo is an intelligent and thoughtful commoner. He is also a far more zealous guardian of the traditional order than the prince. Tumeo is a Bourbon loyalist because of the patronage and kindness extended to his family by the deposed king’s ancestors. He was educated at royal expense, and when his family was in need, they petitioned the court for aid and received it. In his essentially feudal view, this patronage binds and obliges him to the Bourbons."

Quite. This strikes home. There are often none so royalist as the peasantry.
And like the worthy but fictional Messer Ciccio, my grandfather too was a recipient of royal favor, a scholarship from the Queen Mother and regent, Maria Christina of Austria.

gspencer said...

Tree-lined streets with mature trees are generally attractive, to residents, to those passing through. But trees age and eventually die. Tree management is the solution, remove one or two of the big guys every 2-3 years, plant a new guy next to the old stump, and keep repeating. Of course the city/town will give the predicable excuses, "Our pensions are more important than municipal trees." And the management doesn't happen. The big guys get bigger, disease sets in, then limbs begin to fall.

Now if my town or your town had a Dorian to stick around for a couple of days, as in the Bahamas, your trees would be memories.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Hey - remember AOC's lighthearted, apt pushback re: Parade?

and remember the Antifa attacks on the cops and their arrests?

here's her lighthearted, apt follow-up:

AOC and the Squad Raise Bail Money for Cop-Attacking ANTIFA Thugs at ‘Straight Pride Parade’

https://bigleaguepolitics.com/aoc-and-the-squad-raise-bail-money-for-cop-attacking-antifa-thugs-at-straight-pride-parade/

rcocean said...

I've never read the Novel "The Leopard" , I've heard it excellent - an Italian GWTW. The movie is good too, as long as you use the Italian dub. Burt Lancaster may look like an Italian Aristocrat but he sounds 100% Hollywood 'murican.

rcocean said...

I'm glad its safe to walk the streets again.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Those poor people in the Bahamas.

(On a completely selfish note, we vacation the week after Christmas every year and we had just decided on the Bahamas. Very happy we did not book our trip. I think we are going to donate what we would have spent and staycation instead.)

narciso said...

Devastating immp
https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/2019/09/03/toxic-masculinity-my-foot/

Fen said...

Well, turns out the Biden Tied poll was bunk. Latest poll has him leading the combined numbers for Sanders/Harris. Of course, the latest poll is likely bs too.

narciso said...

If they brought back dueling:

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/09/full-list-the-tory-mps-who-rebelled-against-boris-johnson/?fbclid=IwAR1KQ9Op6c3bI7yiwtzSRHAcyIYST1l_fvXJM08AcduVTNL0Hat_nFi1PVg

narciso said...

I think o saw pigs fly:
https://www.nbcnews.com/th4ink/opinion/trump-s-policies-iran-north-korea-russia-are-cleaning-messes-ncna1028626?fbclid=IwAR1lCLJDAWGJmrtP_NA4vUXu8w9jZNv2GZUlcAfBKS_PcyUwtGQph6LMGxE

Marcus Bressler said...

Dorian update: basically squalls from the outer bands. We dodged a bullet, as the saying goes. We are dismayed by the destruction in the Bahamas which could have easily been us. Sad. Very sad. My church (one of those mega ones) will be doing relief efforts immediately.

THEOLDMAN

Lawrence Person said...

Dave Chappelle on Jussie Smollett.

tim in vermont said...

So Dems are running against “wasteful regime change wars.” We have one candidate so. far with a proven record on that score, and his name is Donald John Trump. First president to keep us out of new wars in a loong time. Hard as Iran tried to fan one up.

stevew said...

Did anyone witness said 'falling'? Was there noise?

Does Britain have any obligation to assist with the recovery from the damage to the Bahamas? The flyover video I saw of the destruction to Abaco is indeed catastrophic and complete. By the time the debris is cleaned up there will be nothing much left on the island.

MIL's house on one of the islands near Palm Beach was missed by the storm. She was with us in Columbus over the weekend for nephew's (her grandson) wedding. Remarkably sanguine about the potential for damage and destruction. My wife and her siblings were concerned for her - she would not be happy if she had to live in the Boston area in the winter. But, her lack of concern was rewarded - no harm, no foul I guess.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The guy who falls your tree is a feller.

What a feller...what a guy!

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

The Boston Police Association just rebuked a sitting member of Congress who is raising funds for an Antifa legal fund of rioters who attacked officers

- Antifa rioters crosses state lines into Boston, threw urine and chemicals at police, 36 arrested for assault, some w dangerous weapons

- Police found concealed handcuff keys on them

Boston police union urges Pressley to pull support for activists arrested at antifa-fueled protest

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/3/ayanna-pressley-urged-police-pull-support-activist/

Boston judge declines to dismiss assault charges for those arrested during ‘Straight Pride Parade’

https://whdh.com/news/boston-judge-declines-to-dismiss-assault-charges-for-those-arrested-during-straight-pride-parade/

Aside from "liberalism is a mental disorder", what exactly was Antifa's beef with this innocuous, lighthearted (gay man as grand marshal) parade celebrating heterosexuality?
(heterosex-- you've heard of it-- it's what's been keeping our species going for, um, EVER)

-What is "fascist" about heterosexuality?
-Why Antifa's need to crack heads? (no crack-head jokes, please!! No Jokes!! ;-)
-Why is it not some sort of censurable/impeachable act for govt officials to be aiding/abetting this form of assault on law enforcement and the general population?
-Other than having pity on a moron such as AOC, why would her actions be casually dismissed as "lighthearted, apt pushback"?
Any takers??

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael K said...

Tumeo is a Bourbon loyalist because of the patronage and kindness extended to his family by the deposed king’s ancestors.

Explanation of the Swamp. The left has taken care of its foot soldiers in DC for 50 years.

No parvenu from Queens is going to disturb the traditions. Think of them as tax farmers.

Scott Patton said...

My grandmother (b. 1902) called work boots clodhoppers.

gilbar said...

Why Antifa's need to crack heads?

So,
You have a group of young men,
That dress in black
Wear masks
BEAT anyone that disagrees with them

Wiki, has an article about these people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackshirts

I think that people need to realize that by calling themselve AntiFa,
they mean in like Antipasto
Antipasto (plural antipasti) is the traditional first course of a formal Italian meal.
AntiFa are the traditional first course of a formal Italian Dictator ship

Anti == Ante == first

Mark said...

My grandmother (b. 1902) called work boots clodhoppers.

A later generation would say that people like Chris Fredo Cuomo were clodhoppers.

Seeing Red said...

No Brexit. Now it gets interesting.

Mark said...

No Brexit. Now it gets interesting.

Now we see that the ideas of democracy and government of the people are a farce.

Mark said...

In all good conscience, it has been hard to sing the National Anthem for the last several years. And it has nothing to do with the stupid protests of the left.

"Land of the free and the home of the brave" ring awfully hollow.

Guildofcannonballs said...

From WFB's The Lexicon: A cornucopia of wonderful words for the inquisitive word lover.

gird (verb) To prepare for a struggle, test of strength, or other action.

I cannot complain softly. My blood gets hot, my brow wet, I become unbearably and unconscionably sarcastic and bellicose; I am girded for a total showdown.

Goo-gooism (noun) From the initials of "good government," a reform movement in politics, especially in the era of Theodore Roosevelt, --- usually used disparagingly.

If John Lindsay won, Republicans in Ohio and California would not be permitted to pass off his victory as meaningless, as merely a triumph of Goo-gooism in a jaded municipal situation.

grandiloquence Lofty, extravagantly colorful, pompous, or bombastic style, manners or language.

Ramsey Clark is now and then just a little grandiose, e.g., "Dissent has been the principal catalyst in the alchemy of truth," which, substituting as it does "in the alchemy of" for the simpler "of," suffers not only from straitened grandiloquence, but from an edgy syntactical ineptitude.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

I am girded for a total showdown.

"Loaded for Bear" out there, somewhere, mon frere ??

take care.

steve uhr said...

Everyone ok with pence using government funds to enrich the trump organization ... at the suggestion of trump? Pretty swampy

Chuck said...

The Leif Olson story has gotten interesting.

He is the Texas appellate lawyer who was brought into the Trump Department of Labor as, I think, some sort of senior policy advisor.

Now I am not going to tip anyone off about how I feel or what I am reading. I’d like to see all the Trump fans go to their own favored news sites and check things out. Just remember; the Trump Administration seems to have cut him loose. Why?

Share your thoughts.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

So, ref "nexit": I'm confused. Johnson wants a snap election now. Does he actually still have that power, or is he expressing the hope for something that he would need his (vanished) majority to call?

Bay Area Guy said...

"My grandmother (b. 1902) called work boots clodhoppers."

Work boots issued in Navy Boot Camp circa 1984 were called "Boondockers". Has a similar grammatical cadence as "Clodhoppers".

Lewis Wetzel said...

But I am interested in why you believe Trump cut Olson loose, Chuck. As a Trump voter, share your thoughts.

Ralph L said...

Does he actually still have that power, or is he expressing the hope for something that he would need his (vanished) majority to call?

DailyMail says 2/3rds of MPs must vote for an early election under a 2011 Act.

buwaya said...

Boondocks = bundok = Tagalog "mountain"

"boonies", "boondockers", etc are derivatives.

The Tagalog word, as with so many, is singular (mount this or that, the mountain) and plural - the(plural form)- "mga" bundok. And general - "the mountains" or "the hills", or "the wild country", geographically bound, or not.

It's this last meaning you are using of this word you brought back from the contretemps of 1899.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

DailyMail says 2/3rds of MPs must vote for an early election under a 2011 Act.

Well, then: Not happening.

This whole mess shows it is kind of stupid to institute a fixed term in a parliamentary democracy. If you can't take "no confidence" to the people, where are you?

It seems like a case where you could hardly blame HRH for stepping in and dissolving. I think one of her governors general did that in Australia which is still very controversial after 50 or whatever years, but somewhat generally thought to have been the least bad option.

buwaya said...

Tumeo is not a man of the "swamp" but a personal loyalist.
There is nothing between him and his liege, no structure, no system.
The ancient form of government, going back to the tribe.

Marc in Eugene said...

Does he actually still have that power, or is he expressing the hope for something that he would need his (vanished) majority to call?

DailyMail says 2/3rds of MPs must vote for an early election under a 2011 Act.


The hope is that to the remaining 301 Conservative votes in the House of Commons will be added a sufficient number of votes from members of the parties in opposition who want to bring down the Government and are confident enough of their own positions in their constituencies (e.g. because they support Brexit & their voters endorsed Brexit in 2016) that they will vote for elections. A series of polls in August indicate that the Conservatives would win a majority of 62 in October elections.

Narayanan said...

Boris could/ may go "Galt" resign.
Not like the "New Majority" can form government, cabinet etc.

Any history on Parliament without PM?

buwaya said...

Britain is in a constitutional crisis.
As Unknown helpfully notes, this is very similar to that Australian case.
And as Farage said the other day, Johnson should have called an election right off.
But both sides are gaming the heck out of this, so it is forseen.

Maybe Johnson has had some word from the Queen. I wouldn't be surprised.

If the polls are right - and who knows - these are just delaying tactics.

Unless there are more twists in the tale.

Whats sure is that a score of quite senior Conservative MPs are out, bridges burned.

There is a huge pile of loot backing the Remainers.

Narayanan said...

Has Rees Mogg still got his job?

Bay Area Guy said...

Here's the great Harvey Mansfield riffing on Trump and deToqueville

Money Graf:

Trump openly opposes the elitism of the Establishment, as he calls it, borrowing the term from the New Left of the late sixties. Ascendant intellectuals call for democratic equality, though they not only violate it with their own privileges but also constantly accuse others, and occasionally themselves, of being “privileged.”

Drago said...

LLR Chuck: "Now I am not going to tip anyone off about how I feel or what I am reading"

LOLOLOLOL

buwaya said...

The political events in the UK have been going ever more off-kilter.
Traditions are falling by the day, and there is always some new absurdity.
I also expect this to escalate, with the moves and countermoves breaking new ground.

Money can clear away a lot of tradition.

buwaya said...

"will be added a sufficient number of votes from members of the parties in opposition"

Every MP can, tonight, name his price. It will be raining treasure.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

An anonymous man terrified he’s about to be named in court papers related to Jeffrey Epstein

“It’s a whole new set of documents, five to 10 times larger in volume than what has been released so far,” the lawyer said, referring to nearly 2,000 pages of case documents that were made public on Aug. 9 — just a day before Epstein’s death by suicide at a lower Manhattan jail.

https://nypost.com/2019/09/03/john-doe-begs-judge-not-to-name-names-in-epstein-gal-pal-case/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons

Guildofcannonballs said...

I really thought it hillarious he played Okie from Muskogee.

One of the first songs.

chickelit said...

It will be raining treasure.

Hail, Britannia Style

Guildofcannonballs said...

It was supposed to be 8:15 and by *;16 by God Dwight was there.

They stopped a bit, but were done around 9:43.

My taxes for me paid for one of the greatest shows a taxpayer could pay for.

Just saying I hate the phrase just saying and wish poeopl weress smarter and would't use it no or.

Guildofcannonballs said...

He never had the band play "Blame it on the vein" but they hinted with the certain electric guitar sounds they would.

https://comonocreerendios-lem.blogspot.com/2019/09/taste-of-colorado.html

Nobody in real life Chip meets is anything but kind.

Online not so much, unfortuneatley.

I thank and praise God Chip is in a friendly city that respects and loves him.

Yancey Ward said...

I don't think Johnson is going to obey the mandate to ask for an extension, even if the bill passes Commons and the Lords (who will probably have to change their rules to get rid of a filibuster, but when the stakes are this high, custom has no role any longer). And Johson, as the PM can probably stop the extension within the EU all by himself, but I think he would prefer to take this to an actual vote given the overwhelming support he and Farage have in all of the polls, and these are polls conducted by people who support Remains, so I should think their margin is even larger than stated.

The Remainers, I think, will face a decision, and it is one they need to make this week- they can do a vote of no confidence and try to form a government with the support of the rebel Tories, but I think this literally hopeless- who would lead it? Jeremy Corbyn? Seriously? No, I think the only hope of stopping Brexit is what it has always been- revoke Article 50 either before or after new elections, and right now if they wait for new elections, Johnson is going to win in a landslide, so revoking Article 50 this week seems to be the only realistic plan for stopping Brexit, but this would give up the ruse of supporting Brexit with a "good deal"- that was always a lie they told to the public.

Yancey Ward said...

When they were proposing/accepting Republican poll watchers for Wayne County, Democrat officials were given the choice of taking Chuck or taking a coma patient. They accepted Chuck.

Guildofcannonballs said...

There are only three I ever have but always will own:

Feste.

Ritmo.

Satan.

Seeing Red said...

IF I was a constituent in one of those traitorous Tory districts...he’d be hearing from me tomorrow. In person. With rotten eggs and days old cabbage. Like the good old days.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I'd like to thank Justice Ginsberg for her kind, although weak, words about her peer Justice Kavanaugh.

Reeking of deep state stench, it meant a lot to me nonetheless.

She is an incredible woman.

chickelit said...

“There are only three I ever have but always will own:”

What about online identities? The 3 you name are abstractions. Get concrete. Set in stone as it were.

Bruce Hayden said...

I watched Tucker tonight a bit. Long story, but he is enjoyable in small doses. In any case, he had one of his regular liberals on, and they got into gun grabbing/gun control. Lib tried the statistics route, but then included suicide in the gun death count. Tucker responded that the left was in favor of assisted suicide. Was the leftist in favor of assisted suicide? Of course. So why use the suicide count as part of the gun deaths statistic? Why is it good for someone to be able to kill themselves with the aid of a physician, and not a gun? And Tucker also pointed out that more people were shot and killed in Chicago over the weekend, than by the mass killer in TX. Why was the TX shooting more important than the Chicago murders? Was it because most of those killed in Chicago were black? Sounds pretty racialist to me.

The leftist then threw in that AR-15s weren’t useful for or used in hunting. Of course, they are, and are the clear choice when dealing with feral pigs. But that got me thinking. Why do they think that the primary justification for the 2nd Amdt is hunting? It isn’t mentioned anywhere. At least Life and Liberty are mentioned in our Bill of Roots. Hunting is not.

chickelit said...

Blogger Bay Area Guy quoted:

“Trump openly opposes the elitism of the Establishment, as he calls it, borrowing the term from the New Left of the late sixties. Ascendant intellectuals call for democratic equality, though they not only violate it with their own privileges but also constantly accuse others, and occasionally themselves, of being “privileged.”

_____________________

Trump leads the “crass roots rebellion.”

narciso said...

Bloomberg painted olson as an antisemite, penn is a nasty labor hack.

rehajm said...

Ryan Maue has an excellent climate change alarmist fact check from yesterday. Interestingly his feeds now receive relatively little pushback from politically motivated scientists and 'scientists': Maue on Twitter

The public should beware of overconfident assertions that diverge from the current expert consensus. Some scientists are way too eager to make (tenuous) connections between hurricanes and climate change. The media tends to amplify those voices.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The public should beware of overconfident assertions that diverge from the current expert consensus. Some scientists are way too eager to make (tenuous) connections between hurricanes and climate change. The media tends to amplify those voices.”

Bunch of overcredentialed idiots on the public dole.

Fen said...

Cuck: Now I am not going to tip anyone off about how I feel or what I am reading.

Go suck off your masters, traitor cuck.

Chuck said...

Hey before the Trump-tells-Alabama-to-prepare-for-Dorian story fades, I wanted to post this link to a really well written CNN summary of the whole thing and the particular timeline that shows how stubbornly Trump defended his flatly inaccurate tweet about Dorian hitting Alabama much harder than previously thought.

It't such a beautiful little example of Trump never backing down even in the face of absolutely clear evidence that he was wrong. These are the stories that I love so much. Perhaps not big policy questions but rather the ones that so clearly demonstrate Trump's character as a pathological liar.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/02/politics/trump-hurricane-dorian-false-claims-alabama/index.html

Chuck said...

Fen said...
Cuck: Now I am not going to tip anyone off about how I feel or what I am reading.

Go suck off your masters, traitor cuck.


Hey good morning! Have a nice day!

Matt Sablan said...

Penn should be sued. There's clear evidence of malice in his slander and libel. I doubt you could win on this with the Covington standard. Penn will use the classic "just asking questions " dodge. Still. There's no reason he should still be employed after such a blatant fabrication.

Chuck said...

Speaking of nice days, it'll be a beautiful week in Birmingham, Alabama.

tim in vermont said...

I can’t believe I am heartily agreeing with something that Whoopi Goldberg said on The View.

gadfly said...

“The state of the economy is the single biggest factor in determining whether the president is reelected, and right now, it feels like [he is] riding a rubber ducky into alligator-infested waters,” says Michael Steel, of the Heritage Foundation.

So we are now down to: "Fuck Trump and the rubber ducky he rode in on!"

iowan2 said...

The leftist then threw in that AR-15s weren’t useful for or used in hunting. Of course, they are, and are the clear choice when dealing with feral pigs. But that got me thinking. Why do they think that the primary justification for the 2nd Amdt is hunting? It isn’t mentioned anywhere. At least Life and Liberty are mentioned in our Bill of Roots. Hunting is not.

Ask any leftist gun grabber what the purpose of the 2cnd amendment?

That question ends any debate. That's why facts are always avoided.

AR 15's? Protected by the Constitution. Via, the Miller decision. According to the definition provided by SCOTUS, Miller ruling, Guns specifically enumerated by the Constitution include guns widely used and available to the population. The AR 15 platform of rifle is the single most produced style of rifle in the United States. Try asking the Atty General of California to square her desire to ban assault weapons with the Constitution, and existing precedent that protects the most common rifle produced. A rifle that is extremely fuctional for carrying out the mandate laid out in the Constituion.

Bruce Hayden said...

Over at https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/ there is a discussion about paid trolls, and a reference to political groups allied (and illegally coordinating) with Crooked Hillary and her campaign trolling political comment threads, like the ones at Althouse. My memory was that we were facing maybe 2-3 people a shift, three shifts a day, round the clock. Maybe it is just my faulty memory, but the pressure seemed worse through the summer, and started easing as we went into the fall. Or Ann and Meade figured out how to shut some of it down.

My, again possibly faulty, memory is that was when I first noticed Inga’s postings. I think that I finally figured out that she was a real person, and not a troll, when her posts would be the only leftist ones (beyond those of out long term regulars like Freder and Cook) showing up around the clock, instead of in fairly well defined shifts.

Maybe we will be lucky next year, and whoever gets the Dem nomination won’t have the sophisticated network of dirty players that the Clintons obviously had working for her. We can only hope. Otherwise, I think that we can expect an extremely dirty election, the left having leaned that cheating and violating societal norms works, esp since their only metric is winning, and the power that brings. With one part of the battle being played out by paid leftist trolls in venues like this one. And they do it because it works - normally fairly thick skinned Dr K pulled out of here for awhile in 2018 due to all of the personal attacks he was facing. That was a success on their part, silencing a highly intelligent, well read, voice. Maybe I am being pessimistic, but I expect it to be bad here next summer. I just hope it isn’t worse than 2016.

Marc in Eugene said...

Every MP can, tonight, name his price. It will be raining treasure.

I hope a sufficient number of voters in the UK are keeping lists-- a box score, if you will-- of who, of putative integrity, does what when and for how much.

Guido Fawkes is saying this morning that what is in effect 'the anti-filibuster bill' in the House of Lords has no chance of passing before Monday.

Browndog said...

AR 15's? Protected by the Constitution. Via, the Miller decision. According to the definition provided by SCOTUS, Miller ruling, Guns specifically enumerated by the Constitution include guns widely used and available to the population

One way to read this is that the inalienable right to self defense is not guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment, but bestowed upon us via the charity of men in black robes.

iowan2 said...

One way to read this is that the inalienable right to self defense is not guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment, but bestowed upon us via the charity of men in black robes.

Unfortunately, most today believe the rights are conveyed to citizens.

Senator Grassely asked either Kagen, or Sotomeyer, if citizens had a right to keep and bear arms, before the constitution was ratified. It produced some fancy non-answer if memory serves.

Bruce Hayden said...

Ask any leftist gun grabber what the purpose of the 2nd amendment?

That question ends any debate. That's why facts are always avoided.


I think that they can almost accept self defense, because the need sometimes is so obvious that they look like fools ignoring it. I remember Condoleezza Rice explaining that she was pro 2nd Amdt because of watching her father (a minister) and the other men in their community carrying guns when patrolling their community for protection against that generation’s Anti First Amdt thugs (the KKK, etc). Or even last night, on the FBI episode where the one SSA jammed up his AA sponsoree for a firearms violation. The guy explained that he had the gun because he drove a cab, the implication was that he would be carrying legally if DeBlazzio would let him, but carried illegally because in NYC only the politically connected get carry permits. The way that it was presented in the episode suggested to me that, deep down, most of this country instinctively understands that armed self defense is sometimes warranted, such as in this case, driving a cab in NYC.

But the second reason for the 2nd Amdt is the one that scares the pants off the left is that of potentially using guns to effect regime change. Just read the 2nd Amdt in the context of the Declaration of Independence, and this is obvious. This country was formed as a result of an armed revolution, and triggered when our former masters tried to disarm our ancestors. The right and ability to repeat this, if necessary, to replace a repressive government, by force of arms, is enshrined in this part of our trans generational contract of governance, our Constitution. That is what the Militia Clause is talking about in the 2nd Amdt - the town militias that came together all through that fateful day, April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, to fight the British expedition from Boston that had embarked to seize arms (esp cannon, powder, and shot) stored by the Colonists in these towns.

The 20th century is filled with examples where the government disarms its people, then murders them. The Nazis did it. The Soviets did it. The ChiComs are still doing it. Tens of millions died after being disarmed by their governments. And we are fairly unique in this world, in granting us Constitutional protection against this, as well as implicitly guaranteeing that we can replace our government by force, if necessary. And that is why the gun grabbing left wants to disarm the American public - so that they can rule without the threat of armed revolt, if their rule becomes too oppressive.

When gun grabbers complain that AR-15s are weapons of war, they are entirely correct. And that is why they are protected by the 2nd Amdt even more strongly than other arms, and esp those of mere sporting use. Indeed, that is the bottom line in Miller, that the government can, at times, infringe the right to keep and bear arms when the arms involved are not weapons of war. And they fear these weapons so viscerally, because they pose the greatest threat to their unchallenged rule. The purpose of banning these weapons is not to protect the people in the country, because the number killed by these guns annually in a country this size is extremely low, lower than numerous other objects used to murder in this country. Rather, the purpose of banning these arms is to protect themselves from armed rebellion when they impose their dysfunctional view of Utopia on this country by force. Anything else is mendacious subterfuge.

Browndog said...


But the second reason for the 2nd Amdt is the one that scares the pants off the left is that of potentially using guns to effect regime change. Just read the 2nd Amdt in the context of the Declaration of Independence, and this is obvious. This country was formed as a result of an armed revolution, and triggered when our former masters tried to disarm our ancestors. The right and ability to repeat this, if necessary, to replace a repressive government, by force of arms, is enshrined in this part of our trans generational contract of governance, our Constitution.


Well said, Bruce

Chuck said...

I'm not afraid of any "repressive" U.S. government as long as the U.S. government is following the Constitution. It's the Constitution that we need to constantly praise, and study, and revere, and follow.

And we have a President now, who clearly has less understanding of, and interest in, the Constitution and constitutional principles, than any other president in at least a century, if not more.

Michael K said...

The leftist then threw in that AR-15s weren’t useful for or used in hunting

Watch when the left/media talk about guns. They know nothing about them. The "Assault Weapons" thing was a funny example. They are afraid and ignorant.

I have previously mentioned the radio show in LA about ten years ago, when the LA Chief of Police was on and lecturing about how dangerous it was to carry a concealed gun without a permit (Which are limited to big donors). Every caller to that show that morning was a woman who carried a gun. They all said "I will not be a victim!" I was laughing so hard I almost drove off the road.

walter said...

Chuck,
Tell us which Dem candidate you would like to elect to assemble an administration carrying out Dem approved policies?

FullMoon said...

It't such a beautiful little example of Trump never backing down even in the face of absolutely clear evidence that he was wrong.

Are you saying Trump was Pecan Pied?

Bruce Hayden said...

I'm not afraid of any "repressive" U.S. government as long as the U.S. government is following the Constitution. It's the Constitution that we need to constantly praise, and study, and revere, and follow

I would very much agree. But, for example, the sort of gun grabbing measures proposed by so many of the Dem candidates for their nomination do not follow or obey the Constitution.

And we have a President now, who clearly has less understanding of, and interest in, the Constitution and constitutional principles, than any other president in at least a century, if not more

I think that is blind. President Obama, who supposedly taught Constitutional law, allowed far more egregious breaches of the Constitution than anything Trump has done. The IRS targeting Tea Party groups was an egregious 1st Amdt violation. Examples of Executive overreach and misuse of power exemplified his Administration. And, looking back, their ability to escape accountability for eight years is probably why they ultimately finished with SpyGate, including rampant Title VII, then Title I FISA abuse. FISA sole purpose is to allow electronic surveillance of foreign enemies and terrorists in this country in such a way that it doesn’t violate, in particular, our 4th and 5th Amdts. The problem is that the Obama Administration, possibly starting with the FBI allowing contractors to utilize FISA 702 searches of NSA databases containing all of our tax, immigration, bank, phone, etc, to research and track political opponents, maybe earlier, carefully and intentionally slid around the safeguards that kept that surveillance from violating our Constitutional rights. The surveillance didn’t become Constitutional just because Obama appointee DAG Sally Yates stretched the Law here and there, and prevented OIG oversight of the organizations within the DoJ and FBI involved with FISA surveillance. It may have started with Title VII surveillance of the Republican candidates in 2016, except that FISA abuse appears to maybe have started earlier. And then ‘‘tis was followed by the Title I surveillance of much of the Trump campaign, transition, and even White House. None of those surveilled had their 4th and 5th Amdt Rights honored.

Bruce Hayden said...

I think that question has to be asked again, in light of what we know now about the FISA abuse side of SpyGate. Why did Obama appointee DAG Sally Yates remove OIG oversight over the National Security organizations in the DoJ and FBI? The timing makes the conclusion almost inescapable. These were the organizations that utilized FISA surveillance. And the Obama Administration was embarking on politically weaponizing FISA surveillance for partisan advantage. The last thing that they wanted was Inspector General Horowitz stumbling onto their illegal (and thus unconstitutional) use of FISA surveillance capabilities for partisan purposes.

It also, probably, prevented IG Horowitz from figuring out why she had greatly loosened up the White House access to unmasked FISA intercepts, extending even to the political side. The revised rules by DAG Yates allowed UN Ambassador Powers, without any intelligence origination responsibilities, to order hundreds of unmasking during 2015 and 2016, until NSA Dir Rogers discovered the FISA 702 abuse and shut down access completely. FISA recognized that Constitutional protections were the strongest for US Persons (citizens and legally resident aliens) esp in the US. That is why FISA requires Minimization of their identities and of their communications. Their identities could be unmasked only so long as absolutely necessary in order to develop bona fide intelligence on terrorism threats and to counter intelligence threats from foreign enemies. Not domestic - just threats from foreign governments and terrorist groups. (All of the people involved from the National Security organizations in the DoJ and FBI in the FISA abuse came from Counterintelligence, and not Counterterrorism, for obvious reasons). And similarly, recorded surveillance could only be retained as long as absolutely necessary in developing counterterrorism and counterintelligence intelligence (involving foreign governments and terrorist groups).

There are intelligence creators and intelligence consumers. The Intelligence Community (IC) creates the intelligence, and the rest of the Executive Branch consumes it. The only legitimate purpose of unmasking of identities under FISA is in intelligence creation. Intelligence in the White House is consumed, not created. But Obama appointed DAG Sally Yates modified the rules implementing FISA to not only allow unmasked, and thus unminimized, surveillance intercepts of communications involving US Persons, to be distributed to a much broader audience in the government, and esp in the White House, including people with completely political responsibilities, but she also expanded the group of people who could request unmasking of the identities of US Persons in FISA intercepts to a number of people in the White House with no intelligence creation responsibilities, including some with almost completely political responsibilities, like UN Ambassador Powers. And, whether it was Powers herself, or someone using her credentials, there were hundreds of unmasking requests in her name, all presumably for political, and not legitimate National Security reasons.

Oh, and the rot went to the top. Part of how they greatly increased the distribution of unmasked was intelligence was to include it in Obama’s Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), and then to greatly increase the distribution of PDBs, including to the top appointees on the political side of the WH. A long way from when Nixon’s PDBs went to himself and Kissinger. Even Obama’s National Security publicity chief, Ben Rhodes, was getting Obama’s PDB’s, containing unmasked FISA intercepts. There it was, unmasked surveillance on US Persons, every day, in former Constitutional scholar Barack Obama’s PDBs. And never a peep from him that it had been obtained without a valid warrant, nor had the US Persons whose communications were distributed throughout the top tier of the WH, been accorded Due Process.

tim in vermont said...

"And we have a President now, who clearly has less understanding of, and interest in, the Constitution and constitutional principles, than any other president in at least a century, if not more.”

Well, at least since Mr ‘Pen and Phone’ Obama, anyways.

Chuck, I didn’t think you could get any more ignorant.

Bruce Hayden said...

“And never a peep from him that it had been obtained without a valid warrant, nor had the US Persons whose communications were distributed throughout the top tier of the WH, been accorded Due Process.”

That is a reminder of first principles. Were these Us Persons (who happened to be Obama’s and the Dem’s political enemies) accorded Due Process? They had been accorded no process whatsoever, so the burden is on the Obama Administration to prove that they were owed no process. The only way to possibly do that is to show that the letter and intent of the FISA had been strictly followed and honored. And, as we all know, the Obama Administration did neither. Ditto with warrants. Was the information obtained with a duly issued warrant? Definitely not with the 702 derived information, since there were no warrants involved. And with the Title I surveillance, the DoJ and FBI blatantly materially lied* on the applications. When you materially lie on a warrant application, whether it is a search warrant, a Wiretap Act warrant, or a FISA surveillance warrant, the warrant is invalid. And not only is evidence resulting from a fraudulently obtained warrant excludable at trial, so is everything necessarily resulting from that evidence (Fruit of the Forbidden Tree). (This, BTW, is part of why Gen Flynn’s attorneys are challenging the DoJ’s possession of the unmasked transcript of his call with the Russian Ambassador).

*Part of the material misstatements in at least the Carter Page FISA applications was that he was an agent of a foreign government. The FBI knew this to be a false statement because they had used him as late as seven months (3/16) before their first warrant application (10/16) against agents of the Russian government in court. He had been cooperating with the FBI in that regard for better than three years. And the examples they used to show him working for the Russian government were precisely the same episodes where he had been working for the FBI to incriminate real Russian government agents. He wasn’t a Russian agent at that time. Instead, he was an agent of the FBI pretending, for their benefit, to be working for the Russians. It is a material fact, because working for a foreign government (or terrorist group) is jurisdictional. The FISC cannot legally grant a Title I FISC surveillance warrant without a certified and verified allegation, based on articulated facts, that the target is at that time, an agent of a foreign government or terrorist organization. And I think that they also have to certify that this is the orly practical way to get the sought for information. This too was false, since he had apparently reached out to the FBI to discuss his role in the Trump campaign at least three times between when his testimony for them ended in 3/16 and they filed the FISA applications starting in 10/16. Arguably material, since FISA is a National Security exception to the 4th and 5th Amdts. They, of course, refused his overtures, because their real goal was electronic surveillance of the Trump campaign, transition, and White House, through their two hop rule.

Bruce Hayden said...

Let me also add that the lie about Carter Page being an agent of the Russian government was a knowing lie because both his working with the FBI against the Russian agents and the FISA applications were almost entirely within their Counterintelligence Division (Strzok, Priestap, etc). But maybe more importantly, they would only know of his dealings with Russsian agents through their entrapment and prosecution of those Russian agents using the assistance and testimony of Page. They pretty well couldn’t have known about his dealings with these Russian agents, without knowing also that he was working as an agent for the FBI at the time.

iowan2 said...

Waiting for Chuck to apologize for smearing President Trump in light of the detailed posts providing proof of Obama's lawlessness.

Accusing President Trump of unconstitutional actions, but judiciously avoiding citing even one instance. Raw leftist twaddle.

narciso said...

greg craig was left off the hook, by judge Jackson, who threw the book at manafort and stone,

Drago said...

Obama's magical "dream-perfect economy" "republican" Chuck: "And we have a President now, who clearly has less understanding of, and interest in, the Constitution and constitutional principles, than any other president in at least a century, if not more."

LOLOLOL

Looks like the lefties and LLR-lefties like Chuck have gotten the word that obamas unprecedented assault on the Constitutional protections for Americans is coming out and Chuck's flop sweat panic and fear for his beloved dems is transparent.