Category Archives: Issues

Newport Finalizes Their Tall Structures Ordinance

Earlier this week, on Monday night, the Newport Town Council considered MillPondPost_Logonew recommendations for strengthening the town’s Tall Structures Ordinance (TSO).  The following are the highlights of the modifications that the council members then voted to adopt:

Requiring that the developers of renewable energy facilities apply for a special-use permit from the town before beginning construction of a wind turbine farm or other facility.

Reducing the allowable noise level from 45 down to 35 decibels.

Reducing the maximum allowable height to the uppermost end of a blade tip down to 275 feet from 550 feet.

Doubling the setback from neighboring property lines to 5000 feet from 2500 feet, and establishing a 1000 foot setback from property lines adjacent to the Croatan National Forest.

Requiring a $500K surety bond per wind turbine to ensure that turbines are demolished and removed after they are no longer operable or operating.

Requiring a $50K escrow deposit to help offset the cost to the town of consulting fees or other expenses associated with the process of reviewing and issuing a permit.

Requiring a Property Value Guarantee.

Kudos to the Newport Town Council, and to all who worked to see this process through. 

Obama’s Hammer — The Internal Revenue Service

The primary goal for the GOP in 2014 is to achieve electoral control of Obama_Hammerboth houses of the United States Congress.  The primary goal of the Obama administration is to thwart that ambition, because they know that Republican control of the House and Senate would make President Obama the lamest of lame ducks.  Their tactics for the next nine months, therefore, will be to use the leverage of government toward their ends, and to raise continual political distractions in the hope of making right leaning voters and legislators lose their focus on ObamaCare, Benghazi, and the other issues that have the potential to move the electorate.

One of the ways in which the Obama administration is using the leverage of government is to loose the jackals at the IRS onto conservative political advocacy groups, in particular those organized as non-profits under IRS code Section 501(c)(4).  One of the more diligent watchdogs working to keep the conservative public informed about this danger is Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the Washington, DC law firm of Foley & Lardner.  Ms. Mitchell has represented Tea Party groups in a number of legal confrontations with the IRS in recent years, and she has fully explained the threat in a video.  The deadline for public comment to the IRS is February 27th, so please click the link below to view the video in order to fully appreciate the threat that this proposal poses to our liberty, then use the boilerplate text to copy and paste an e-mail to the IRS expressing your opposition.  Access the page by clicking HERE, or by navigating via the menu bar [ Issues & Education / IRS 501(c)(4) Rules ], above.  Please, do this soon.

Newport Town Board to Vote on TSO Tonight

MillPondPost_LogoBecause of our recent bad weather and other considerations, the Newport Town Board put off their final vote on their proposed Tall Structures Ordinance revisions until their regular meeting tonight at 5:30pm in the Town Hall.  Their last meeting was poorly attended, so interested citizens should make every effort to be at this one.  If you have views on the subject but cannot attend, they may be sent via e-mail to the Board’s chairperson.  That e-mail address is  KDavis83@ec.rr.com.

All, repeat ALL, of the Audited 501(c)(4) Groups were Conservative!

Following is the entire text from the TownHall.com post from earlier this Obama_Hammerweek by Carol Liebau:

Less than two weeks after President Obama insisted that there wasn’t even a “smidgen of corruption” involved in the IRS targeting scandal, it appears that the scope of that scandal is widening.

Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, revealed yesterday that the committee’s investigation had found that it wasn’t only conservative groups applying for 501(c)(4) status that came in for IRS targeting and harassment.  Existing 501(c)(4)’s were targeted, as well.  In fact, Camp stated,

At Washington, DC’s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)(4)s were flagged for IRS surveillance, including monitoring of the groups’ activities, websites and any other publicly available information.  Of these groups, 83% were right-leaning.  And of the groups the IRS selected for audit, 100% were right-leaning.

That’s right — “somehow,” every single 501(c)(4) that the IRS selected to endure the time, expense, distraction and stress of an audit just happened to be conservative.

The fact that existing 501(c)(4)’s were targeted along with applicants is important.  First, though it isn’t conclusive, it does provide further evidence (as if any were needed!) that the scrutiny endured by conservative 501(c)(4) applicants had less to do with “confusion” over the (c)(4) rules than with efforts at political suppression.  Second, it suggests that the targeting was part of a deliberate, widespread agency policy rather than restricted to “bad apples” in just one narrow area.

There are still plenty of documents that haven’t been turned over to investigators yet, and plenty of witnesses who haven’t yet been interviewed.  Given how damaging the evidence already is, Democrats eager to defend the IRS and push through formalized rules to suppress (c)(4)’s might be well-advised to hold off until the facts are out — because the scandal is only broadening, and the IRS is looking worse by the day.

80-Year Old Man Shot In His Bed By L.A. Sheriff’s Deputy

This post recounts another bad outcome resulting from law enforcement CopsAbusePowerconducting a raid based on a warrant that was obtained through a dubious assertion (of meth cooking, based on “the strong odor of chemicals”) on the part of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

From a post by reporter Caleb Howe at the online Independent Journal Review, with my editing for brevity:

Deputies approached the house, and what happened next is where things get murky.  The deputies said they announced their presence upon entering and were met in the hallway by the 80-year-old man, wielding a gun and stumbling towards them.  The deputies later changed the story when the massive bloodstains on Mallory’s mattress indicated to investigators that he’d most likely been in bed at the time of the shooting.  Investigators also found that an audio recording of the incident revealed a discrepancy in the deputies’ original narrative.

That discrepancy was the timing of when the instruction to “drop the gun” was given.  Upon listening to the recording, the command from shooter Sgt. John Bones appears to have come after he opened fire, fatally shooting Mallory six times.

Mallory never fired a weapon, and no methamphetamine was found in the home.

Mallory was a retiree.  An elderly man, hard of hearing, who apparently did not understand who was invading his home armed to the teeth.  It was a high tension and very dangerous situation.

And then there is the video below (over seven minutes long, but worth your time), from Reason-TV, which also includes this bit:  “When it was all over, Eugene Mallory died of six gunshot wounds from Sgt. John Bones’ MP-5 9mm submachine gun.  When a coroner arrived, he found the loaded .22 caliber pistol the two deputies claimed Mallory had pointed at them on the bedside table.  Mallory had not fired of a single shot.”

[embedplusvideo height=”315″ width=”420″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1fnYZ9D” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/RZFlIK-zAO8?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=RZFlIK-zAO8&width=420&height=315&start=&stop=447&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep2893″ /]

If you paid attention to the 30-second segment beginning at 4:17, it is obvious that the shooter concocted an outright lie about the circumstances in order to make his action appear more justified.  This seems to have become standard operating procedure in some law enforcement jurisdictions.

Ninth Circuit Federal Court Panel Rules in Peruta versus San Diego, a Second Amendment Case

In the wake of the SCOTUS decisions in the Heller and McDonald cases, most federal courts have begun to assess second amendment (2A) cases in two stages.  In the first stage, they seek to determine whether the case at hand involves the 2A right.  If they decide that it does, they move on to stage two, which is to consider whether the state law (or county law, city law, etc.) under which the defendant was charged effectively destroys the defendant’s 2A right.  If they decide that it does (i.e., has the demonstrable effect in practice of making it impossible or inordinately difficult to exercise the right), then the law is struck down as being plainly unconstitutional.  Stage three is invoked if the judges decide that the law merely restricts the right rather than destroys it, and then other considerations come into play.

Peruta versus San Diego deals with the California statutes that define the conditions under which California citizens may be granted a permit to carry a handgun.  At issue was a provision that requires permit applicants to have a “good cause” for wanting a permit to carry a handgun.

An edited excerpt from constitutional law professor David Kopel’s post earlier this week at the Volokh Conspiracy law blog:

California law … also requires that the applicant have “good cause,” which was interpreted by San Diego County to mean that the applicant is faced with current specific threats.  (Not all California counties have this narrow interpretation.)  The Ninth Circuit, in a 2-1 opinion written by Judge O’Scannlain, ruled that Peruta was entitled to Summary Judgement, because the “good cause” provision violates the Second Amendment.

The Court ruled that a government may specify what mode of carrying to allow (open or concealed), but a government may not make it impossible for the vast majority of Californians to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

and

… the “good cause” requirement, as interpreted by San Diego, is a near-total destruction of the right to bear arms.  “Heller teaches that a near-total prohibition on keeping arms (Heller) is hardly better than a near-total prohibition on bearing them (this case), and vice versa.  Both go too far.”

The ruling was by a three-judge panel, not the full Ninth Circuit Court, and the next step may involve a re-consideration by the full eleven-member court (an en banc review).  Beyond that, the case may also be incorporated into a case before the Supreme Court, as there have been conflicting rulings among several Federal district courts on the base issue.

For more, click HERE to get to the Volokh Conspiracy blog, then search for “Peruta” to bring up all of their posts about the case.

Daring Debt-Ceiling Conjecture from a Duke University Professor

The latest potential debt ceiling crisis is now safely in our rear view mirror, having come and gone with a whimper rather than a bang.  That’s okay with me, by the way, as some readers will remember that I opposed the defunding strategy that Senator Ted Cruz and his adherents bungled so badly last fall.   However, the Congress is addicted to spending more money than our Federal revenue stream will support, so there will be more crises down the road, sure as death and taxes.

Now comes Duke University law professor Steve Schwarcz to postulate a potential new strategy for future Presidents (or maybe even Obama) to use in avoiding a default, a strategy which would bypass Congress altogether.  An excerpt from law professor Kenneth Anderson’s post from yesterday at the Volokh Conspiracy about Professor Schwarcz’s idea (BTW, for you non-accountants, the term “monetize” just means taking action to convert an asset, tangible or intangible, into cash):

… although the Executive Branch lacks authority to directly issue Treasury securities above the debt ceiling, it has the power to raise financing by monetizing future tax revenues.  In each of the proposed options, a non-governmental special-purpose entity (SPE) would issue securities in amounts needed to repay maturing federal debt.  Depending on the option, the SPE would either on-lend the proceeds of its issued securities to the Treasury Department on a non-recourse basis, secured by future tax revenues; or the SPE would use the proceeds of its issued securities to purchase rights to future tax revenues from the Treasury Department.  In each case, therefore, future tax revenues would form the basis of repayment to investors.

The full article is HERE.

Those who favor a con-con (Constitutional Convention) do not always appreciate the myriad number of issues that the public might want to see addressed at such a convention, but I am confident that this would be one of them, as it is such a radical  and divisive departure from all our previous assumptions about how debt ceiling confrontations might be resolved.

The Jobs Reports issued near the 2012 Presidential Election

In an article from last November, the business reporter for the New York Post, John Crudele, began this way:

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.

The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.

And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.

Now that we have a better understanding of what Obama’s IRS is capable of, maybe it is time to look at his Labor Department, and the Census Bureau within it.  The full article is HERE.

Continuing Examples of Police Power Abuses

I recently posted a piece, with links, expressing my concern over the CopsAbusePowerincreased militarization and lawlessness of the civil law enforcement in the United States.  I am aware that this has always been a problem, but it is becoming acute, in my view, for two reasons:

First, the increasing militarization tends to cause police officers to view themselves more as soldier/combatants in hostile territory rather than as law enforcement officers (i.e., civil servants) integrated into a community.

Second, the ferocity of police unions in adopting a “my LEO, may he always be right, but my LEO, right or wrong” mentality is one that, all too often, turns a blind eye to justice in the service of blue solidarity.  

Following are examples of police power abuse that do nothing but heighten my concern:

Example-A, HERE, is an update on a case arising from the massive California manhunt for accused cop-killer Christopher Dorner in February of 2013, in which two women delivering newspapers in a pickup were inexplicably mistaken for Dorner.  The cops, seemingly near hysteria, then fired a total of 103 rounds into the truck.  Amazingly, the women were hit by nothing more harmful than flying shards of shattered automobile window glass.

Example-B, HERE, is an update on the case of David Eckert, an innocent New Mexico man who …

was stopped on a minor traffic violation and accused by an officer of holding his buttocks.  What followed was a nightmare where officers and doctors subjected Eckert to outrageous abuse as they searched for drugs or contraband in his body.  Before the police released him after finding no drugs, he would endure five manual penetrations; three forced defecations before witnesses; and an intrusive surgery under sedation.

Abuses such as these were once thought to occur only in the large metropolitan areas such as New York City, Chicago, Detroit, etc., but they are now gradually being seen with increasing frequency in less urbanized areas.  This is yet another example of where our “eternal vigilance” is needed to prevent an erosion of our liberty.

Court Decision A Bit Tardy, But Welcome Nevertheless

Excerpts from the article on Loving versus IRS, HERE, authored by law professor Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy:Obama_Hammer

In 2011, responding to concern about the performance of some paid tax-return preparers, the IRS issued new regulations.  Among other things, the new regulations require that paid tax-return preparers pass an initial certification exam, pay annual fees, and complete at least 15 hours of continuing education courses each year.  The IRS estimates that the new regulations will apply to between 600,000 and 700,000 tax-return preparers.

[snip]

… the Executive Branch never interpreted the statute to authorize regulation of tax-return preparers.  But in 2011, the IRS decided that the statute in fact did authorize regulation of tax-return preparers….  We agree with the District Court that the IRS’s statutory authority under Section 330 cannot be stretched so broadly as to encompass authority to regulate tax-return preparers.

[snip]

It might be that allowing the IRS to regulate tax-return preparers more stringently would be wise as a policy matter.  But that is a decision for Congress and the President to make if they wish by enacting new legislation….  The IRS may not unilaterally expand its authority through such an expansive, atextual, and ahistorical reading of [the relevant federal statute.]

Treasury, IRS, HHS Conspired to Create an Unauthorized, Half-Trillion Dollar Entitlement within ObamaCare

Michael Cannon at Forbes is reporting on a big revelation in the ongoing investigations (and litigation) over ObamaCare:GangstaGuv

In early 2011, Treasury and IRS officials realized they had a problem.  They unanimously believed Congress had intended to authorize certain taxes and subsidies in all states, whether or not a state opted to establish a health insurance “exchange” under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  At the same time, agency officials recognized: (1) the PPACA plainly does not allow those taxes and subsidies in non-establishing states; (2) the law’s legislative history offers no support for their theory that Congress intended to allow them in non-establishing states; and (3) Congress had not given the agencies authority to treat non-establishing states the same as establishing states.

Nevertheless, agency officials agreed, again with apparent unanimity, to impose those taxes and dispense those subsidies in states with federal Exchanges, the undisputed plain meaning of the PPACA notwithstanding.  Treasury, IRS, and HHS officials simply rewrote the law to create a new, unauthorized entitlement program …

The full article, well worth the time to read, is HERE.

Taking Up The POTUS Challenge — The 2017 Project

In a further reponse to President Obama’s SOTU challenge to Republicans to offer up a viable alternative, and coming only two weeks after the introduction of the Burr / Coburn / Hatch ObamaCare Replacement Plan, Bill Kristol and Jeff Anderson have posted in the Weekly Standard on another ObamaCare replacement plan, this one from The 2017 Project, a think tank headed by Anderson.

From the Introduction:

Before Obamacare, Americans had three core concerns with our health-care system, and a victorious alternative needs to offer compelling solutions to all three:  the large number of people without insurance; the no-man’s-land plight of those who are uninsured and have expensive pre-existing conditions; and the high cost of care.  To a large extent, the solution to all three problems involves fixing what the federal government had already broken even before liberal politicians defied public opinion and rammed Obamacare into law, making things far worse.

The two-page Executive Summary for the new plan is HERE, and the text of the full plan is HERE, both in PDF form.

Marine Corps Times controversy: Are the Marines being further politicized?

The Marine Corps Times publication, like its sisters the Army Times and Air Force Times, are independent newspapers that are owned and published by media conglomerate Gannett.  There are other publications that focus on the Marines, on their employment and careers, on the working conditions of Marine service men and women, and on the issues affecting their families as well, but the sales of the Marine Corps Times outstrips them all.

The publication also dabbles in investigative journalism, and over the course of the last year or so they have run a number of articles about the inquiries underway into the activities of General Jim Amos, the current Marine Corps Commandant.  This seems to have rubbed the General the wrong way, and the Times published THIS ARTICLE yesterday questioning whether General Amos is retaliating.  An excerpt:

Marine Corps leaders have ordered the independent Marine Corps Times newspaper removed from its prominent newsstand location at base exchange stores worldwide and placed instead in areas away from checkout lines, where it is harder to find and fewer copies are available.

The move raises troubling questions about motive and closely follows a directive prohibiting commanders from using budget funds to buy Marine Corps Times and a number of other publications.

[snip]

Spokesmen for the commandant’s office would not answer questions about whether Amos or his staff were aware of or involved in the decision to relocate the newspaper, but a source with knowledge of the new directive said it was approved with the commandant’s knowledge.

“It is no secret [in the Pentagon] that the commandant does not like Marine Corps Times,” the source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

And then there is a related story, HERE, concerning North Carolina Representative Walter Jones:

Frustration is building at Marine Corps headquarters over a congressman’s aggressive support for a whistle-blower who has accused the commandant’s office of abusing its authority.

Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican and member of the House Armed Services Committee, has taken an active interest in allegations the commandant, Gen. Jim Amos, took extraordinary measures to ensure Marines were punished for a video showing four scout snipers urinating on dead insurgents in Afghanistan.  Those claims, made last year by Marine attorney Maj. James Weirick, have landed at the Information Security Oversight Office, the federal agency responsible for policy and oversight of the government’s security classification system.

Sooo, It’s All In The Way You Look At It?

The Obama administration has come into a lot of well-deserved derision for trying to spin the recent CBO report that postulates the effect of ObamaCare on the labor force over the next decade.  I actually feel a little sorry for the desperation exhibited by some of them, ‘though.

Take Representative Gwen Moore (D-WI) for example, who said in an interview with MSNBC, “You could say people don’t want a promotion, because if they make more money they’ll have to pay more taxes.”

Which reminded me of a rural farm neighbor of ours who, upon hearing my father declare that he had to leave because dusk was approaching and his hogs needed to be fed, said “I sure am glad I don’t have any hogs to feed.”

Or the Castro government’s assertion on the State-owned Cuban television in 1969 that the nation’s meat ration had been cut because Cuban nutrition scientists had discovered that eating meat caused cancer.

Just when you think that the absurdity had topped Mount Everest, you can count on the Obama administration to reach a new high.

ObamaCare’s Employer Mandate Extended Again

This afternoon, the White House announced that it would give employers with between 50 and 99 employees another year to provide health GangstaGuvinsurance to their workers.  This would make them exempt until January 1, 2016.

From the article in the Washington Post, written by reporters Juliet Eilperin and Amy Goldstein:

Firms with at least 100 employees will have to start offering this coverage in 2015.

By offering an unexpected grace period to businesses with between 50 and 99 employees, administration officials are hoping to defuse another potential controversy involving the 2010 health-care law, which has become central to Republicans’ campaign to make political gains in this year’s midterm election.

Even the nation’s largest employers got a significant concession: They can avoid a fine [ $2,000 per worker ] by offering coverage to 70 percent of their full-time employees in 2015 and 95 percent starting in 2016.  Under an earlier proposal, employers with at least 50 employees would have been required to offer insurance, beginning 2015, to 95 percent of those who work 30 hours or more a week, along with their dependents.

No reliance on Congress for legislative support, of course, because the President has a pen with which to sign an executive order.  If your blood pressure will take it, the full article is HERE.

President Obama Labors to Perpetuate the Myth of the Gender Wage Gap

A great deal has been written to debunk the myth of the “gender wage gap” in the days since President Obama’s 2014 SOTU speech made reference to it anew, in a pitifully transparent attempt to enlist the women’s vote on behalf of Democratic candidates during the upcoming mid-term election season this fall.  However, this short video from American Enterprise Institute scholar Christina Sommers does a pretty good job of encapsulating the salient points that reveal what an outright lie this Democrat talking point really is:

[embedplusvideo height=”250″ width=”420″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1eOxbi8″ standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/vyFjPHwF6To?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=vyFjPHwF6To&width=420&height=220&start=&stop=129&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep6884″ /]

For a far greater in-depth read on this topic, HERE is the transcript of the testimony of Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Diana Furchgott-Roth before the Congressional Joint Economic Committee in September of 2010, testimony of which the President must surely be aware.  An excerpt from her opening statement:

… average wage gaps do not represent the compensation of women compared to men in specific jobs, because they average all full-time men and women in the population, rather than comparing men and women in the same jobs with the same experience.

And for another perspective, THIS short article from Camille Paglia, well-known lesbian author and social commentator, on the folly of the current feminist effort to diminish the role of men in American society.

Michelle Malkin: School Choice and Common Core are Mortal Enemies

EndCommonCore_LogoA couple of weeks ago, conservative activist and author Michelle Malkin recounted the experiences of her and her husband in pursuing the best possible education for their children, and how Common Core is a force that acts in opposition to their goal.  Some key excerpts:

Every family in America deserves maximized, customized choices in education.  It is the ultimate key to closing that “income inequality” gap the politicos are always gabbling about.  Yet, the White House and Democrats beholden to public school unions and their money are the ones blocking the school choice door.

[snip]

Family participation is not an afterthought. It’s the engine that drives everything.  The dedicated parents, grandparents, foster parents, and legal guardians I’ve met in the charter school movement and homeschooling community see themselves as their children’s primary educational providers.  Not the U.S. Department of Education.  Not the White House.  Not GOP politicians cashing in on top-down “education reform.”

Derek Anderson is the principal of Ridgeview Classical Schools in Fort Collins, Colorado, where Malkin sends her two kids to school.  Malkin continues:

PARCC is the behemoth, federally funded testing consortium (the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) that raked in $186 million through President Obama’s Race to the Top program to develop nationalized tests “aligned” to the top-down Common Core program.  [Principal Derek] Anderson and informed administrators, educators, and parents like him understand: “PARCC is truly the enforcement mechanism that will coerce schools into adopting the Common Core curriculum.  We cannot do this.  It is entirely against the mission and philosophy of our school.”  It is, in short, sabotage.  Anderson calls it an “almost existential dilemma.  Our mission and philosophy are irreconcilable with Common Core’s.”

Read the whole article, HERE.

The Man Behind The Recent CBO Job Loss Numbers

… is University Of Chicago economics professor Casey Mulligan.  Last week, reporter Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal interviewed Professor Mulligan, HERE, on how the Congressional Budget Office came to be enlightened by his research on how government policies drive the incentives and dis-incentives for work, and how that effects the national economy.

It is Time that We Step Up our Opposition to Police Militarization & Lawlessness

As a conservative, I am generally very supportive of law enforcement.  CopsAbusePowerHowever, I have long thought that the trend toward militarization and lawlessness of the police in American is becoming very problematic.  It is another example of how we lose our rights, not by some grand gesture on the part of a President, and not by some radical legislation passed by Congress.  Rather, we lose them by a creeping erosion that brings about deterioration so slowly that we barely even notice, and therefore do not find as alarming as we should.

Police lawlessness and misconduct can take many forms.  One abusive practice that takes place on almost a daily basis in America is police over-reaction to being photographed or videotaped by the citizenry during the performance of their duties.  This has become so troublesome that there is a website, administered by an often-arrested professional photographer, that exists to document and highlight such excesses.  This post if not about this situation in particular, but for those interested in exploring the depth of this issue the photographer is Carlos Miller and the website is known by the acronym PINAC, for Photography Is Not A Crime.

A new example of another type of police lawlessness occurred recently in Ankeny, Iowa, and has been featured in two articles by journalist Radley Balko, a former Cato Institute policy analyst and someone who has researched and written about this topic extensively.  I will try to summarize the salient points of both in the text below the following video.

[embedplusvideo height=”230″ width=”460″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1f0fok9″ standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/32vyRPfiXzo?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=32vyRPfiXzo&width=420&height=222&start=&stop=135&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep5621″ /]

First, the police have tried to justify their behavior based on their prior knowledge that an occupant of the house, a man named Justin Ross (who had recently been honorably discharged by the US Army), held a concealed carry permit.  Ross, however, was not a target of the police investigation and was not suspected of any illegal behavior.

Second, in order to conduct this raid the police had to get a warrant.  They had a choice of what type of warrant to ask for, and they requested a “knock and announce” warrant as opposed to a “no-knock” warrant.  It is important to understand that the premise of a “knock and announce” warrant is that the police will knock on the suspect’s door, loudly announce that they are law enforcement officers, and then give the suspects the customary time to answer their door, thus avoiding property damage and other unnecessary disruption.  In the video, it is plainly apparent that the police executed as if they had a “no-knock” warrant when they did not, even to forcing the door open with a battering ram and ripping a video surveillance camera off the porch wall.

Third, consider how the police looked when they came up the driveway to the home.  They were nine officers dressed in “swat team” type uniforms with boots, helmets, bulletproof vests, and hoods, and with guns drawn and held at the ready.  This appearance can have an intimidating effect, and the police can be forgiven for using that to their advantage when confronting hardened criminals with a record of violence.  It has no place, however, when serving warrants on those suspected of non-violent crimes.

Fourth, the two people who were the target of the warrant were suspected of credit card fraud, a non-violent crime.  The presence of a law-abiding armed citizen in the home was therefore no legal basis for requesting a “no-knock” warrant, let along executing the raid as if they had one when they didn’t.  Although the police did take two houseguests into custody, the two were charged with probation violation and drug possession, neither of which is a violent crime.

One of the many disturbing aspects of this event is that the police in Ankeny insist that they did nothing wrong.  That may speak volumns about how far the public has allowing this trend to progress.

Law enforcement needs to be frequently reminded that there are limits, lines that must not be crossed.  And that even their personal safety does not justify disregarding the Bill Of Rights.

For more on this story, Radley Balko’s two articles, both published in the Washington Post, are HERE and HERE.

Bill Hench Says There Are Other Examples of IRS Malfeasance

In Scott Johnson’s PowerLine post of earlier today, William Hench, an attorney in the IRS Office of the General Counsel offers an indictment of Obama_Hammerthe IRS unrelated to their disgraceful persecution of conservative groups.  An excerpt:

… I have personally witnessed improper giveaways of billions of dollars to taxpayers with inside access at the agency, bullying of elderly taxpayers, the cover-up of managerial embezzlement and misappropriation of thousands of dollars in government funds, and a retaliatory audit.  I have also heard credible accounts of, among other things, further improper giveaways, blatant sexual harassment, and anti-Semitism.  All of these matters have been swept under the rug.

Read the entire post, HERE.

Paul Ryan Talks Out Of Both Sides Of His Mouth – Again

I had high hopes for Paul Ryan, but alas, he seems to be trying to deliberately deceive the GOP’s conservative base on the nature of the House Republican plan for immigration reform legislation.Illegal_Immigrants_2

Mickey Kaus, former at his blog the Kaus Files and now from the Daily Caller blog and elsewhere, has been one of the more persistent reporters on the subject of immigration reform.  Earlier this week he reflected on the recent contradictions between the stories given by Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) before different audiences.  The text of the Daily Caller article appears below, with my slight editing for brevity:

Here is Rep. Paul Ryan talking  about the Republican leadership’s immigration plan on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos last Sunday:

“[F]irst we have to secure the border, have interior enforcement, which is a worker verification system, a visa tracking program.  Those things have to be in law, in practice and independently verified before the rest of the law can occur.  …  “So it’s a security force first, non-amnesty approach.  …  “And if we can get security first, no amnesty, before anything happens, we think that’s a good approach.”

When I saw that interview, I initially tweeted that Ryan “still pretends his plan is Enforcement-1st.”  But that wasn’t really accurate.  Ryan isn’t pretending his plan is an Enforcement First plan.  He’s not spinning.  He’s not obfuscating and he’s not shading the truth.  He’s lying.  I apologize for the error.

When Ryan went on ABC, he’d already gone on Chuck Todd’s MSNBC program a few days earlier and said, quite clearly, that the GOP leadership plan he’s talking about would give illegals a “work permit … while the border is getting secured, while interior enforcement [sentence trails off] …”

In other words, the border isn’t secured “before anything happens.”  Something happens!  Illegals get to work and live here legally (on “probationary” status that can later turn into permanent status).  The border security measures do not have to be “in practice” before “the rest of the law can occur” – the part of the “rest of the law” that makes illegals legal occurs immediately, long before security measures are in place (reducing the political pressure, of course, to ever get them in place at all).

Ryan must have known all this when he falsely described the GOP plan to Stephanopoulos half a week later.  In contrast to the  GOP leaders’ written immigration “principles,” Ryan did not artfully leave himself Clintonian wiggle room.  There is no wiggle room (“anything”).  It’s a flat contradiction.  He apparently didn’t care.  The job of conning conservatives into supporting the leadership’s amnesty plan – by making them think it’s “security first” when it’s “legalization first” – takes precedence over conventional Spin Etiquette (‘deceive, distort, dissemble but don’t flat out lie’).  Distorting and dissembling weren’t getting the job done, I guess.

That’s one reason why opponents of legalization suspect Ryan was trying to lull them into complacence when he suggested on ABC that the GOP leadership amnesty drive had stalled (“clearly in doubt”).  If it’s stalled, it’s only a temporary, probationary stall.  Amnesty is a zombie, as Breitbart‘s Jonathan Strong observes.  The only way to keep it at bay – or kill it for the 2014 term – is for opponents to keep the heat on.

Ryan’s diligent work on budget plans in past years is certainly praiseworthy, but his deceitful conduct in pursuit of immigration reform has been a big disappointment.  And we conservatives must keep this in mind when considering his appeal as a Presidential candidate.

Obama May Let Individual Health Insurance Policyholders Keep The Coverage For Another Three Years

From an Associated Press ARTICLE today (02/06/2014):

The Obama administration is considering an extension of the president’s decision to let people keep their individual insurance policies even if they GangstaGuvare not compliant with the health care overhaul, according to two top industry officials.

Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson said Thursday that the administration may let policyholders keep that coverage for an additional three years, stressing that no decision has been made. Policymakers are waiting to see what rate hikes health insurers plan for the insurance exchanges that are key to the overhaul’s coverage expansions.

So Medics Can Stop Carrying Tampons Soon?

From a new article in Popular Science:

When a soldier is shot on the battlefield, the emergency treatment can seem as brutal as the injury itself.  A medic must pack gauze directly into the wound cavity, sometimes as deep as 5 inches into the body, to stop bleeding from an artery.  It’s an agonizing process that doesn’t always work–if bleeding hasn’t stopped after three minutes of applying direct pressure, the medic must pull out all the gauze and start over again.  It’s so painful, “you take the guy’s gun away first,” says former U.S. Army Special Operations medic John Steinbaugh.

Even with this emergency treatment, many soldiers still bleed to death; hemorrhage is a leading cause of death on the battlefield.  “Gauze bandages just don’t work for anything serious,” says Steinbaugh, who tended to injured soldiers during more than a dozen deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.  When Steinbaugh retired in April 2012 after a head injury, he joined an Oregon-based startup called RevMedx, a small group of veterans, scientists, and engineers who were working on a better way to stop bleeding.

Read the rest HERE.

Are Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan Now Playing Possum?

In today’s Washington Examiner, reporter Byron York looks at the question of whether the Republican House leadership has begun a strategy of Illegal_Immigrants_2downplaying the odds of immigration reform passing this year in order to take the focus off the issue and to thereby facilitate a “stealth” plan for actually getting the legislation through.

An excerpt:

Republican Representative Paul Ryan, a leading House advocate of immigration reform, sounded decidedly cautious when asked on ABC Sunday whether Congress can pass a reform bill to send to the president this year.  “I really don’t know the answer to that question,” Ryan said.  “That is clearly in doubt.”

[snip]

But Ryan’s words still set off suspicions among opponents of immigration reform.  They’ve heard such pessimistic talk from reform advocates before and believe it has been an effective rhetorical tool for supporters of Gang of Eight-style reform.

In this way: If the public hears constantly that immigration reform is in trouble on Capitol Hill, that it has little or no chance of passage, then conservative activists, reassured that there’s no threat, aren’t likely to mobilize against it.  What’s the need?  It’s going to fail anyway.  But if the public hears that immigration reform is steaming ahead, that the House leadership is determined to pass a bill, or bills, that will end up in conference with the Senate’s already-passed Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform measure — if the GOP base hears that, it will recognize the risk, speak out, and at the very least make things more difficult for immigration reform advocates.

The full article is HERE.

Common Core Promoter: Your Children Are Belong To Us

EndCommonCore_LogoPenny Starr of CNS-News reports on some of the doings at an event held to promote Common Core earlier this week:

In addressing criticism of the Common Core national education standards, a panelist at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, said critics were a “tiny minority” who opposed standards altogether, which was unfair because “the children belong to all of us.”

At a CAP event to promote Common Core on Friday, CNSNews.com asked about the critics who say federal monetary incentives attached to Common Core is driving the states to implement the standards.

[snip]

Paul Reville, the former secretary of education for Massachusetts and a Common Core supporter, said,  “To be sure, there’s always a small voice – and I think these voices get amplified in the midst of these arguments – of people who were never in favor of standards in the first place and never wanted to have any kind of testing or accountability and those voices get amplified.”

[snip]

“Why should some towns and cities and states have no standards or low standards and others have extremely high standards when the children belong to all of us and would move [to different states in their educational lives]?”

“And the same logic applies to the nation,” Reville said.  “And it makes sense to educators.  It makes sense to policymakers, and it’s why people have voluntarily entered into this agreement.”

The full article is HERE.

Today is the First Anniversary of the Death of Chris Kyle

One year ago, retired Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle died in Texas at the hands of Eddie Routh, a man whom he had befriended and was attempting to help.  Last April, author Michael Mooney wrote THIS excellent article about the exceptional life and tragic death of the man who deployed four times to Iraq, who afterwards wrote the book American Sniper, and who is credited with a kill shot on the battlefield of 2100 yards.  Kyle was a warrior and an outstanding individual, and we should lament his passing.

Torch Energy Announces Termination of the Mill-Pond Wind Turbine Farm Project

MillPondPost_LogoWith my slight editing, the Carteret News-TImes reports, HERE, that Torch Energy:

… will abandon plans to develop a hybrid wind and solar facility near Mill Pond outside Newport.  “In light of the unlikely prospect of acquiring a variance from the county’s current tall structures ordinance, we have decided not to move forward with the project,” Torch Energy’s vice president of development, Rocky Ray, said in a prepared release.

[snip]

“All I can say is that the current ordinance in place had to have factored into their decision,” said (Carteret County Commission) Chairman Jonathan Robinson of the announcement.  “I’m sure that, and the climate, and the controversy that surrounded this proposal led to their decision (to terminate).”  Mr. Robinson said he felt the board acted in due diligence imposing the moratorium and would continue to look at the ordinance, despite the project retraction from Torch.

The variances necessary for the project, cited by Torch in the release, are likely alterations to the ordinance’s 3,300-foot setback requirement, said County Manager Russell Overman.   The proposed project would require smaller setbacks to the perimeter to facilitate placement of all 40 of the structures, according to information gleaned by county officials.  Mr. Overman said the county was given notice of the dropped proposal Friday afternoon.

This most-welcome result is due in substantial measure to the unrelenting efforts of several county residents, most notably John Droz, Jr. of Morehead City, whose expertise as a physicist and environmentalist lent gravitas to his leadership in bringing this to pass.  Kudos, John, and many thanks.

Immigration Reform: A Look Back

All of us will be hearing and reading a lot about immigration reform in the coming weeks, and a few of those missives may even be mine.  In the Illegal_Immigrants_2meantime, those interested in a look back at how our national immigration policy has evolved over the last century or so may wish to check out these two essays that I wrote on the subject about a year ago.

One helluva chopper pilot!

This post title may sound familiar to some.  I have linked to this one-minute video twice previously, once in a post on the Crystal Coast Tea Party’s Facebook page, and again on my vanity website, so I will apologize in advance to those who may have seen it before.  However, I think it displays exceptional helicopter piloting ability, and well worth a look for those who have not seen it.

The video shows a large double-rotor Chinook helicopter being used in the mountains of Afghanistan to extract a team of Special Forces soldiers back in 2008 or so.  The terrain was mountainous, and the extraction site so steep, that the pilot actually backed the hovering helicopter up to a crop cultivation step at the end of a valley, where the crew dropped the rear ramp onto the step long enough to load the team while the pilot maintained the hover.  You gotta see it to believe it.

[embedplusvideo height=”405″ width=”540″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/MCXmhC” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/SWb40UEXGMU?fs=1&start=111″ vars=”ytid=SWb40UEXGMU&width=540&height=405&start=111&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep5319″ /]

Rep. Pat McElraft Bores In On Amazon’s Collection of Sales Taxes

In response to questioning from Representative McElraft and others at the Tuesday meeting of the Legislative Government Oversight Committee, the legislature’s chief economist estimated that the extra sales tax collections in North Carolina resulting from the new Amazon collection policy (effective February 1st) will amount to about $30 million dollars, and possibly as much as $43 million.

Although there has been no official announcement as to why Amazon has suddenly capitulated in the lengthy struggle with the North Carolina Department of Revenue, it is rumored that Amazon has recently established a warehouse and shipping hub within the State, possibly in Greensboro.  If so, this would trigger the applicability of the “nexus” criteria articulated by the US Supreme Court in their decision that prevented states from forcing online retailers to collect sales taxes from buyers in states within which the retailer had no physical presence.