There are some very odd things happening.  Some are predictable, some are worrying, some are both!

First, the war against Christians by America's elite continues apace.  You may have heard the recent news about Jennifer Keeton, the lady Augusta (Georgia) State University counseling student who has been told she has to squelch her religious beliefs if she wants that Masters degree.  Well, she ain't the first to face that hurdle.  Julea Ward of Eastern Michigan University beat her to the court--AND LOST!

Court Upholds Expulsion of Counseling Student Who Opposes Homosexuality
By Todd Starnes
Published July 28, 2010 | FoxNews.com

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a public university that removed a Christian student from its graduate program in school counseling over her belief that homosexuality is morally wrong. Monday's ruling, according to Julea Ward's attorneys, could result in Christian students across the country being expelled from public university for similar views.

"It's a very dangerous precedent," Jeremy Tedesco, legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, told FOX News Radio. "The ruling doesn't say that explicitly, but that's what is going to happen."

U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Ward's lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University. She was removed from the school's counseling program last year because she refused to counsel homosexual clients.

The university contended she violated school policy and the American Counseling Association code of ethics.

"Christian students shouldn't be expelled for holding to and abiding by their beliefs," said ADF senior counsel David French. "To reach its decision, the court had to do something that's never been done in federal court: uphold an extremely broad and vague university speech code."

Ms. Ward's loss in court bodes ill, not only for Ms. Keaton, but for ALL of us.  Imagine your job depends on you supporting something you believe is wrong and the courts enforcing that.  This exactly what is happening.  Our universities have become big Red-China-style "reeducation camps."  Not good.

The war against the church and the bible continues.  Another attack comes from Anne Rice the  author (interview with a vampire ring a bell?)  She made a big deal of converting from atheism to Christianity a couple of years ago.  But, now...?

Anne Rice Breaks Up With Christianity via Facebook
. . .
On her official website she posted the following announcement via her facebook feed this afternoon:"I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of ...Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen." 

Here we see it again -- "I refuse to be anti-gay."  Politics trumps the Bible.

OK, when some goofy author refuses to take the Bible seriously, big deal.  Ha-ha, moving on.... But when a major church group or three does it, that's a trend.

Lutherans Offer Warm Welcome to Gay Pastors

With a laying on of hands, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sunday welcomed into its fold seven openly gay pastors who had until recently been barred from the church's ministry.

The ceremony at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco was the first of several planned since the denomination took a watershed vote at its convention last year to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed relationships to serve the church.

"Today the church is speaking with a clear voice," the Rev. Jeff R. Johnson, one of the seven gay pastors participating in the ceremony, said at a news conference just before it began. "All people are welcome here, all people are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved unconditionally by God."

. . .

The Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ also allow gay ministers. And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s general assembly voted at its convention earlier this month to do so, though the vote will become church law only if is ratified by a majority of the church’s 173 regional presbyteries. Two smaller Lutheran denominations, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, do not ordain ministers in same-sex relationships. 

(For the record, we are Missouri Synod members.)  What of these churches? What message do they send?

Romans 1:26-32 (RSV)

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural,

[27] and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

[28] And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.

[29] They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips,

[30] slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,

[31] foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

[32] Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them. 

"...but approve those who practice them."  That is what these churches are doing.  That is what Anne Rice is doing.  That is what out Universities and the American Counseling Association are trying to force their students into doing.  And that is what the court now says the students must do to graduate.

May God help us, for we are in deep trouble.

Victor Davis Hansen has an interesting and not too long piece titled From Rev. Wright to the Sherrod Affair:

Let me go back a few months, and elaborate how we got here in just 18 months to national hysteria that now breaks out at any given moment over any given otherwise minor incident.

1) Rev. Wright Was No Niebuhr. No one put a gun to Rev. Wright’s head when he went off on Italians, Jews, and whites in a spate of 19th-century racial quackery. What was unusual about the Wright buffoonery was not just his street-corner venom (a 7 on the Farrakhan and old Al Sharpton scale), but two little remarked on phenomena. One, the Trinity Church congregation in the video background seemed to give him a standing ovation at his most hateful moments — and it shocked America that such a villain could find so many willing listeners. And in both his book, The Audacity of Hope, and in the pre-public discovery of Wright, the would-be president of the United States had seemed to think Wright was not only a spiritual font, but some sort of modernist philosopher, an undiscovered Chicago Niebuhr of sorts. That was the issue — that the hateful Wright was winning audiences and influential devotees and well may have continued to do so before his exposure — not just the Hannity/Beck hype every night.
. . . 
Ms. Sherrod was done a disservice in having her comments edited in a fashion that did not represent what she was trying to say. Yes, but it is also not a wise thing to go before the NAACP to offer a confessional about how one has evolved from seeing oppression in terms of white culpability, to understanding it in terms of the culpability of those “who have.”  In other words, the role of minor federal agricultural officials is not confessionals to lobbying organizations about the unfairness of present American culture. One is free to do it, but one is almost asking to be quoted out of context in doing so.  (The antithesis would be something like a border-dwelling federal official, who had lost a relative to Mexican smugglers, speaking before a zealous close-the-borders, mostly white group about how he came to no longer see the problem in terms of brown people, but now largely in terms of poor people, white and brown alike. Now that would be an insane thing to do, and a Republican administration, battling selectively edited videos on the Daily Kos and Huffington Post, would have fired him).

Indeed, the double-standards just keep piling up.  Not only on race, either.  Imagine if a group of conservative "journalists" (in quotes because I now view the word with contempt) had gotten on a list and conspired to elect McCain.  What if they had conspired to suppress unwelcome news and to highlight welcome news or even make up stuff about Obama supporters?  Would that not have been Hillary's "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" that so threatened the very fabric of our nation (gasp)?

We all know the answer to that.

Enough of the double standards.  "Journalists?"  HAH!

A little game some like to play is "Name That Party!"  when there is really bad news about a Republican, it seems as if they mention the party prominently.  But when some Democrat is caught with his pants down or his hand in the cookie jar?  Well you have to read a while before it mentioned.

That's on bad stuff.  What about the good?  The inverse, of course!

Congressman: Stop horsing around with sports votes

WASHINGTON - House Democrats and Republicans have put aside their differences this year to honor the likes of golfer Phil Mickelson, the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, NASCAR driver Jimmy Johnson and the Penn State women's volleyball team.

But when it came time this week to memorialize the start of the 142nd season of the Saratoga race course in New York, one freshman lawmaker decided he'd had enough.

"It's an absolute embarrassment," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, announcing on the House floor a vow to vote against all future sports resolutions.

He worried that there were kids in the visitors' gallery who would go back home and, asked whether Congress was talking about war or debt, reply: "Oh no, they were honoring a race course."

"It's terribly frustrating," Chaffetz said.

Care to hazard a guess? Of course, there is no need.  We all know!

The freshman Republican did appear to win a few converts: The bill passed by a mere 396-14, a high number of "no" votes for the kind of commemorative resolutions that often pass unanimously.

You hear it over and over in the illegal immigrant debated:  "You can't deport them all!"  Well, it's true.  12 million people.  That's too many to just round up.

But they all got themselves here.  They all came for a reason.  Take away that reason, or give them a good reason to want to leave....

Migrants sell up, flee Arizona ahead of crackdown

PHOENIX, July 25 (Reuters) - Nicaraguan mother Lorena Aguilar hawks a television set and a few clothes on the baking sidewalk outside her west Phoenix apartment block.

A few paces up the street, her undocumented Mexican neighbor Wendi Villasenor touts a kitchen table, some chairs and a few dishes as her family scrambles to get out of Arizona ahead of a looming crackdown on illegal immigrants.

"Everyone is selling up the little they have and leaving," said Villasenor, 31, who is headed for Pennsylvania. "We have no alternative. They have us cornered."

The two women are among scores of illegal immigrant families across Phoenix hauling the contents of their homes into the yard this weekend as they rush to sell up and get out before the state law takes effect on Thursday.

Now, a BULLSHIT alert!

"They wanted to drive Hispanics out of Arizona and they have succeeded even before the law even comes into effect," said Aguilar, 28, a mother of three young children who was also offering a few cherished pictures and a stereo at one of five sales on the same block.

No, we don't!  We want Hispanics who are citizens to stay.  They do add to our culture and our nation.  American culture is formed from bits and pieces borrowed from other cultures.  The BEST bits and pieces.  We taste them, mull them about, and make them our own.  German Christmas traditions.  Birthday pinatas.  Italian food.  It all goes in the pot. 

One thing that I believe we should borrow from our Hispanic neighbors is the quinceanera.  Hell of a great idea!  Girls at that age need a boost to help them over the hump.  A reminder of strong family ties. And a reminder of the value of chastity.

Being in San Antonio, I work with -- and for!-- Hispanics.  They are generally very good men and women who work hard and honestly.  Them we need to keep.

The ones who cut in ahead of the line, don't want to become Americans, and prey upon our social welfare system?  Not so much.

The question is how to convince the good that we are not attacking them.  Truly a difficult problem.

Rick Fleming was a good friend of mine, back when we were both young-turk captains at what was then the Air Intelligence Agency (AIA).  Rick was a super-geek who (at about the time I retired) took over the Technology Demonstration Center for AIA.  Very cool stuff.

Rick eventually got out and co-founded Digital Defense, a high-value group of ex-security clearance holders who acted as "white hat" hackers, to help banks and such improve their computer security.

Until 15 minutes ago, I would have said "One hell of a great guy!"

I just now learned that Rick Fleming was sentenced to 20 years in prison back in 2008 -- for CHILD MOLESTATION!

He pleaded guilty in September and still faces trial in Chicago, where he is charged with seven counts of sexual exploitation of children in connection with the creation of child pornography in 2001 and 2003. One of the charges says he traveled from Texas to Illinois to have sex with a minor under the age of 16.

Fleming, 44, is the former executive vice president of security and risk management consulting for Digital Defense Inc., a network security firm he co-founded in 1999 in San Antonio.

In the San Antonio case, FBI agents alleged they found more than 500 explicit sexual digital images involving prepubescent boys being molested by other minors or adults.

Authorities said Fleming associated with other child predators, including William Martin, 35, of Wisconsin, convicted in 2005 and sentenced to 50 years for masterminding a ring of men who traveled across the country and videotaped their molestation of numerous boys.

As a Christian, I hope he finds forgiveness -- for who is beyond redemption?  But if I ever see him again, I fear my reaction.

For the last several days, the latest Journolist scandal has burned brightly.  

Not that anyone depending on the Express News would know it:

Wonder if many Express "News" workers were on the list.  Ah, such interesting topics!  How to bury the Jeremiah Wright scandal, dreams of watching Rush choke to death, wondering if they could get the government to shut down Fox News, celebrating the election....

Nah, nothing them San Antonio Express News rubes readers need worry their little heads about!

Hmmmm....

Via Instapundit:

DAVE PRICE WATCHES THE ENTIRE SHERROD VIDEO AND IS UNIMPRESSED: “Contrary to lefty spin, this context adds little and excuses less; . . . If this was a white Republican man who admitted to having discriminated against blacks no one would be reconsidering anything, except whether to also file criminal charges.”

Ann Althouse has a similar reaction: “...The fact that she later came around to helping the man doesn’t change the fact that she previously discriminated against him.”

The good professor also says this:

If a white Republican had made a similarly charged racial statement, we wouldn’t be hearing about “context” or the evils of digging up video. 

An unjust rush to judgment on a racial discrimination charge?  Maybe.  But it's amazing how everyone bends over backwards to be fair--IN THIS CASE.  Funny how that almost never happens.  Bet it doesn't again, either. 

After all, the Tea Party is RAAAAACIST!

Ken Emanuelson, of the Dallas Tea Party fame, posted this on Facebook:

...hopes everyone is aware that TEA PARTY EXPRESS is a fundraising project run by O.C.D.B. PAC, a team of paid political operatives, for the purpose of raising money for Republican candidates. It has one thing in common with the tea party movement : the name. That's it. Tea party activists need to call T.P.E. out for what it is and stop PUSSYFOOTIN' around. 

 Noted!

Nancy Goettman of Awake America calls me out: 

Robin, Why aren't you pushing Bryan Underwood,Francisco Canseco, and especially Clayton Trotter ?  These are your home boys !!!!!  They also have a great chance to win...all three.

Fair enough.  Here they are!

Bryan Underwood is running for the 28th Congressional District of Texas.    His take on the issues is here.  Check him out!  He's running againstthe not-so-wonderful Henry Cuellar.  Remember him?  After the San Antonio Tea Party folks arrived for their appointment at his local office, the staff locked the doors on them and boogied.  The same lady whom I believe later got Ciro so upset filled me in:

The appt with Cuellar's office was scheduled for 2pm on Thursday, Mar 18. Note that they had an APPOINTMENT. The group was escorted up to the 4th floor by a security guard. The office was dark and door locked, and it was apparent no one was there. The group waited around for about 15', then went out for coffee. At approximately 4pm, the group returned to the Federal Building and was escorted back up to the office. Again the door was locked and the office dark. At that point, a decision was made to "deliver" the email letters through (under) the door.

Also note that Rep. Cuellar's office was unstaffed for approximately 2-1/2 hours that day, therefore no one was available to take calls from other constituents. The vote on Healthcare legislation occurred three days later.

You like Obama Care, big bailouts, and the takeover of everything?   Forget Bryan.  You want the US Constitution honored?  Bryan's your man!

Francisco Canseco is running for the 23rd Congressional District of Texas against the volatile Ciro ("the zero") Rodriguez.  Let's recap Ciro's greatest "hit" here:

Canseco's take on the issues are HERE.  'Nuff said!

Clayton Trotter is taking on the V*I*L*E Charlie Gonzalez for the 20th Congressional District of Texas.  Why do I callChalie boy vile?  Because while he pretends to be a Catholic, he PROUDLY supported "Partial Birth Abortion."  He even defended it in a response to my "letter to the editor" in the Express News, way back when. Also, as many have said to me, don't bother calling or writing if you disagree with this scion of liberalism.  Bah!  

I've met Clayton several times, long before he was a candidate.  Over a year ago, we interviewed him, and selected him as a speaker at the 2009 Independence Day Tea Party.   HELP ELECT CLAYTON TROTTER!

(Oh, yeah, Clayton's take on the issues is HERE.)

Racists!  That's what the NAACP called us.

Just like always, the left L*I*E*S by accusing us of what they actually do,

Brietbart posted the video.  This woman was addressing the NAACP!  Did any of them call her out?  Challenge her?  Object in any way?  OF COURSE NOT!  They gave her an award.

Too bad she just resigned.  She should have been fired!

I'm waiting for the NAACP to strip her of her award (as if that would ever happen).   Remember:  Only white people can be racists!

UPDATE 21 July 2010:

It turns out that once we got the full video, she eventually turned the story into a sort of "I have learned not to be racist" lesson.  Good for her, if she did (I've not seen the full video).

It behooves us as good citizens to admit our errors, as she evidently did, and I do here.  Yeah, we did rush a bit to judgement.  Not nearly as fast, nor over as little, as does the other side when they attack one of us.

But that crowd...they weren't yet in on the ending when she said what was in the excerpt.  They just sat there, no one objecting.  That is still most bothersome and the real point of the story.

Imagine an ex-KKK guy telling a Tea Party about burning a cross on a guy's lawn, and that it's a while in the story before he describes eventually learning that humanity trumps race.  If there were such a video of a Tea Party crowd failing to react AT THAT INSTANT, would it not be condemned?  Sauce for the goose, as they say....

UPDATE 2 (just barely later):

More from the video, about blacks selling their land.  Tell me this obsession with race isn't, perhaps, racist:

"...and guess what.  They have a white man already lined up to buy it."

NAH!  She's no racist!  NAH!  They're not racists!  Of COURSE not!  (Unless maybe....)

Remember th two Voyager spacecraft?  Voyager 1 just passed 12,000 days in space.  An article in PopSci reminds us what they've sent back and where they are headed.

 Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Jupiter in March 1979, coming to within about 217,000 miles of the planet's center and making detailed observations of Jupiter's moons. During its flyby of Saturn in November 1980, the spacecraft's cameras and remote sensing instruments revealed stunning images and information about Saturn's rings and atmosphere, as well as its giant moon Titan. In early 1990, Voyager 1 captured the now-famous image known as "Pale Blue Dot." As the spacecraft was on its way out of the solar system, astronomer Carl Sagan commanded it to turn its camera and take a picture of planet Earth dangling in the vastness of space.

 Just how far out are these twins.  VERY far out. In these images from Heavens Above, that inner orbit is Saturn!  The orbits of Earth, Mars, the asteroids and even Jupiter are just too small to see.

Voyager 1 is the fastest machine ever built, by the way.  It's clipping along at 17.071 kilometers per SECOND (that's 10.6 miles per second).  It takes over 15 HOURS for a radio message from Earth to get there.

First, the very term, "America's Ruling Class," is something you all understand.  That fact alone aught to make you angry.  "Ruling" class?  We have "rulers" in America?

Yeah.  Bit of a problem, that.

The American Spectator has a somewhat longish (but well worth understanding) article on the bastards.

Never has there been so little diversity within America's upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America's upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and "bureaucrat" was a dirty word for all. So was "social engineering." Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday's upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.

Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the "in" language -- serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.

The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century's Northerners and Southerners -- nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, "prayed to the same God." By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God "who created and doth sustain us," our ruling class prays to itself as "saviors of the planet" and improvers of humanity. Our classes' clash is over "whose country" America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark's Gospel: "if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."

Dr. Renyolds, the Instapundit, discusses what to do:

First: Mockery. They are very mockable, and they are very thin-skinned. That leads them to erupt in embarrassing ways. Use their sense of entitlement against them.

Second (and related): Transparency. One-party government makes you stupid, and although composed of both Democrats and Republicans the political class is basically its own party, and these people are pretty stupid. Point it out, repeatedly. Use FOIA, ubiquitous videocameras, and other tools to make the stupidity show.

Third: Money. Codevilla writes: "Our ruling class's agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof." The coming budget crisis - already here, really, but still largely denied by the rulers - is an opportunity to defund a lot of this patronage stuff. They'll try, of course, to cut the muscle and preserve the fat, but that won't work very well if they're closely watched (see above). Cut them off in other ways, too. Don't support the media, nonprofits, and politicians who support them with your money.

Also, make sure that money flows TO things you like: Businesses, alt-media, politicians who aren't part of the problem, etc. Build up countervailing institutions that don't depend on the government to survive.

Fourth: Organize and infiltrate. Take over party apparats from the ground up. Create your own organizations that can focus sustained attention - the "ruling class" relies on others having short attention spans while it stays focused on amassing and protecting power.

Finally: Don't act like a subject. Rulers like subjects. Don't be one. As a famous man once said: Get in their face. Punch back twice as hard. Words for the coming decade?

There's even more good advice at the link, like GET INVOLVED!

So --

General Meeting
“Boots On The Ground”
When: Sunday July 18 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Where: Scottish Rite Cathedral
308 Ave E, San Antonio, TX 78205

Save the Earth!  Lower your "Carbon Footprint!" Bicycle to work!

Al Gore doesn't really believe it.  If he did, he wouldn't jet about, live in multiple energy-guzzling mansions, and otherwise consume (eat) so much of the Earth's resources.  He doesn't even try.

Neither does The One.  Ed Driscoll notes the latest "let them eat cake" incident:

President Obama, July 17, 2010, as reported by the Maine’s Morning Sentinel newspaper:

“Arriving in a small jet before the Obamas was the first dog, Bo, a Portuguese water dog given as a present by the late U.S. Sen Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.”

As the Professor notes, “I don’t want to hear one goddamn word about my carbon footprint.”

He's enjoying his cake, but wants you to hunker down with some stale bread.  Well, at least the oil leak stopped!

Oh, yeah.  Leonardo doesn't really believe, either!

The Tea Party is racist, says Think Progress.  They even have a video with proof (they say). Pajamas Media has a great report:

Stephen Glass, Redux? ThinkProgress.org Publishes Completely Fraudulent Video Labeling Tea Partiers Racists

Activist 2 is a favorite of Think Progress, and no wonder: he says exactly what they hoped to hear a tea partier say, exclaiming: "I'm a proud racist, I'm white." Think Progress liked this clip so much they played it not once, but twice.

The problem is, Activist 2 isn't a tea party protester. He is a tea party crasher.

Think Progress is well aware of this, as they pulled the few seconds of video from a nearly six-minute video of actual tea party protesters singling him out for scorn and chasing him away!

Another great report is at the Washington Examiner, filed by Bob Owens:

Think Progress and the Eighth Circle of Hell 

 "Tea Party Activist4" was never even at a Tea Party! Think Progress attempted to pass off a clip of this 2006 racist rant. It's too bad for them that the Tea Party wasn't formed until years later.

(Well, in fairness, they're almost the same report on the facts.  But the tone is a bit more caustic.)

Think Progress are liars, it seems.  Leftie liars.  Lilly-livered-left-leaning-Lenin-loving-libera-liars, even!

Hey, didn't some Lenin-loving-leftie write a book about liars?  Oh, yeah, Franken.  Now THERE is a man who knows liars (he caucuses with them).

Let me say that again:  The NRA thinks you are stupid!  Why do I say that?  Because they openly floated the idea of supporting Harry Reid.

Let the Gun Owners of America give you 44 reasons why that's a bad idea:

Is Harry Reid pro-gun or anti-gun?

--You decide

Nevada Senator Harry Reid claims to be a defender of the Second Amendment. Is that really the case? You decide. Here is a list of votes he has cast over the past twenty years in the U.S. Senate:

1. June 28, 1991-Voted for a 5 day waiting period for handgun purchases (Vote No. 115).

2. November 19, 1993-Voted to eliminate the five-year sunset in the Brady Bill's five day waiting period, which would have made the waiting period permanent (Vote No. 386).
. . .
41. November 19, 2009-Reid voted to confirm the highly controversial Richard Hamilton to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Hamilton has stated that the Founding Fathers intended judges to amend the Constitution through "evolving case law" (Vote No. 350).

42. December 24, 2009-Reid used his position as Majority Leader to pass the ObamaCare legislation. This bill will allow the BATFE and FBI to troll through the ObamaCare database for gun owners who would be disqualified because of their medical information (Vote No. 396).

43. March 25, 2010-Reid voted against an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) to prevent Veterans from losing their Second Amendment rights without due process of law (Vote No. 94).

44. HARRY REID WILL CONTINUE TO VOTE AGAINST GUNS UNTIL HE IS DEFEATED!

Go to their page -- there are links to the votes, etc., plus quite a few more reasons.

Screw the NRA!  Why?  They keep trying to screw you!

Ah, the joys of Obama-Pelosi-Reid-care!  Your are now going to get to pick up the tab for abortions! 

Yea?

Don't like that idea?  Thank your local Democrat!  Charlie and Ciro both voted for it!  Want to do something about it?  Send an email with your zip code to Sharon Hall, SATP's organizer for Neighborhood Groups.  She'll get you hooked up and plugged in.

Interesting little problem in Jolly Olde England:

The true scale of Britain's national indebtedness was laid bare by the Office for National Statistics yesterday: almost £4 trillion, or £4,000bn, about four times higher than previously acknowledged.

It quantifies the burden that will be placed on future generations, and it is the ONS's first attempt to draw together the "off-balance-sheet" liabilities that have been accumulated by the state. The figures imply a huge "intergenerational transfer" - broadly in favour of today's "baby boomer" generation at the expense of younger people and future generations.

Darned if that isn't similar to what we face here.  Except for the part that our Lords and Masters, who rule us from Washington, in the District of Corruption, have yet to admit to the "off-the-books" liabilities. 

GOA -- Gun Owners of America --raises the alarm:

The hearings on Elena Kagan to be a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court are over.

Senate Democrats slammed them through quickly, in the same way they did ObamaCare. And, like ObamaCare, they made sure that Senate Republicans would not have the material they needed to review Kagan's record -- withholding, for example, large amounts of Clinton administration legal advice on a claim of executive privilege.

(If you missed GOA's testimony at the Kagan hearings, you can view it here)
. . .
Elena Kagan will follow philosophically in the footsteps of Sonia Sotomayor. During her confirmation hearings, Americans were promised that Sotomayor believed the Heller case in 2008 established "that the Second Amendment right is an individual right." But in the recent McDonald case, Sotomayor joined the minority in wanting to both overturn Heller and deny that the Second Amendment protects a "fundamental" right.

So, Justice Sonia Sotomayor lied her way onto the bench. And "cagey Kagan" is doing exactly the same thing. Please make sure you take action!

ACTION: The Senate Judiciary Committee will probably be voting on the Elena Kagan nomination soon -- which means the proverbial ball is now rolling. So contact your Senators and urge them to oppose Kagan for the U.S. Supreme Court. And please urge your family and friends to do the same.

You can use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center to send a pre-written message to your Senators....

 Now, why do I reference GOA instead of the NRA?  Because I believe the NRA has fallen victim to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions. 

What does this have to do with the NRA?  Red State has a couple of data points to consider:

Shocking Emails Show National Rifle Association Worked to Prohibit Rifles From National Parks

NRA Openly Floats A Harry Reid Endorsement

Go sign up for the GOA emails, OK?  Oh, and make a few calls, as mentioned above.

I know which one I'd pick.  Zero!  Come election day, my ballot will NOT be cast for Ciro!  By now, you've probably seen or heard about this:

The  guy sitting in the background, wearing the yellow shirt, appears to be Bill Rice.  Good thing it didn't escalate, he's seen enough trouble!

The voice of the lady challenging him also sounds very familiar.  When I asked my "suspect" she answered "Take the red pill or the bill pill. It's your choice."  I'll take the red pill, Miz D.!

Ciro has gotten himself into a real bind here.  He really needs to have these meetings with constituents.  But he never knows when the Tea Party will show up.  The more warning he gives of a coming event, the bigger the crowd.  I counted 70 of us one hot summer day last year.

What's a fake "Blue Dog" to do?  Poor Ciro.  Hope you enjoy your pending retirement!

1.   Sgt Mom, AKA SATP's Julia, has a great post on "The Won," complete with other great observations on the  difference between the hope and the actual change.  She includes this bit of brilliance:

Not having a pundit-approved crystal ball at my disposal, I couldn't begin to guess - but I will venture one small prophecy: that the Icecapades will be hosted in Hell before another small-time, relatively obscure and totally inexperienced - yet somehow charismatic minor pol, spat up from the unsavory bowels of a big-city political combine will be elected to such a high office. Not all the efforts of all the media punditocracy will be able to make that happen again . . . and we'd better do more than pray it doesn't. We can probably endure another two and half years of the Won, but I don't think we could survive another of his ilk, or the rank stupidity of those who put him there in the first place. 

Indeed, that nails the problem.  Obama is not the problem.  Reid & Pelosi are not the problems.  The entire collection of nut-case, America-hating liberals is not the problem.  An electorate that would  and did put them in power is the problem.  As Bill Bennett is fond of saying (quoting some dead white guy Greek philosopher): The two most important questions are who will teach the children and what will they be taught.

Do you know who you local school board representative is?

2.  As Michelle Malkin points out, it must have been one of those awful, evil, uncivil, just won't sit down and shut up Tea Party people who sent a #$%^-bomb to the wife of an oil exec.  She quotes a KTRK report:

The woman was opening a package left at her doorstep in the 2100 block of Seamist Court Friday evening. She had found the shoe-sized box in front of her home about a day ago but didn't decide to open it until around 6:30pm Friday.

The woman, who officials said is in her 60s, took the box to the backyard and opened it on the patio. That's when it exploded.

Michelle's got some great snark:

Sources tell me that New York Mayor Bloomberg called Texas Governor Perry and advised him, based on Bloomberg's own past experience, that the prime suspect is probably a white male in his 40′s who is unhappy with the health care bill. 

Now, had this been the spouse of an abortion doctor, the heavens would have been rent getting that news to you, complete with multi-minute editorial comments on all TV newscasts about the evils of the Tea Party.

3.  If this rendition of the Star Spangled Banner by the Catus Cuties doesn't touch your heart, please go away.  By the way, the link on You-Tube is wrong.  Their web site is at TheCactusCuties.com.

4.  I have a friend, Kurt, who has a J.D. (law degree).  His take on the Chicago gun ruling sarts with a quote:

Commentators on the right and left urged the Supreme Court to reverse the 1873 cases and safeguard the right to bear arms through the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Such a move could have opened an avenue for individuals to claim new rights, some which might have pleased liberals, others which might have pleased conservatives.

[T]he text of the Privileges or Immunities Clause . . . command[s] that "[n]o State shall . . . abridge" the rights of United States citizens . . . the Clause establishes a minimum baseline of federal rights, and the constitutional right to keep and bear arms plainly was among them.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/06/28/is-his-gun-control-concurrence-justice-thomass-finest-hour/

As background, it is useful to know that Gura framed a challenge to the Chicago law based solely on the Privileges and Immunities clause. That is, had he brought the case and won, the result mentioned above would have occurred.

But the NRA stuck its nose into the case and insisted on arguing that Due Process applied.

In the area of challenging gun restrictions in court, the NRA has been a feeble handmaiden. They've won in straightforward cases applying state law - but they've never had the guts to take on the Feds directly. But when Gura filed the suits, NRA was not about to let the cases go on without forcing their way into the mix.

So instead of a ruling that said that Privileges and Immunities clause didn't apply and therefore, under that theory of law the Second Amendment should not be incorporated against the states (which I think would have been a hard ruling to render), or that the Second Amendment was incorporated against the states under application of the Privileges and Immunities clause (which would have opened up the possibility that we might be MORE free than what is written on paper), the NRA gave the Supremes an out, and a way to ignore the Privileges and Immunities clause... yet again.

Don't you love it when people "help" you so much they screw everything up?

I pretty much agree with that analysis.

You remember Eric Adam, right?

He was one of the "six people around a table" who constituted the San Antonio Tea Party at one point.  He was the guy who did the video that caught Glen Beck's eye.

He just sent the most interesting email:

Cheers to all of you ...

Cheers to those of you who believed in us from the beginning

Cheers to those of you didn't - but came around.

Cheers to those of you who still don't...

Cheers to the friends that were there...

Cheers to the friends that we have made since then.

And finally.. cheers to my counsel, my confidant, stepmother of my first 2 children, mother to my 3rd child due in December, my everlasting bride, and my best friend..Tara

May God continue to bless us as only He can, and may the angels protects us in all our ways.

Wow--CONGRATULATIONS!

(Sorry for the title...blame it on a recent visit to Woodstock.)

NASA's budget is now $100 Billion over the next five years.  Number one priority?  Fox News notes NASA chief Charles Bolden's interview on al Jazerra

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview.

Getting to space?  Exploring?  Building better rockets?  New weather satellites?  Not under Obama!

Found this Washington Examiner piece most interesting:

The NASA (non) feeding frenzy
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
07/07/10 8:35 AM EDT
>From a Nexis search a few moments ago:

Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the New York Times: 0.

Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the Washington Post: 0.

Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on NBC Nightly News: 0.

Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on ABC World News: 0.

Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on CBS Evening News: 0.

It's not "News" unless these demi-gods of journalism deign to take notice. Well, screw them -- we are noticing anyway!

I also have it from a private source that this report at our local fish-wrapper is missing a little something: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/man_arrested_in_sex_assault_of_girl_97671324.html

Man arrested in sex assault of girl
By Alia Conley - Express-News
Web Posted: 07/02/2010 11:29 CDT

San Antonio police arrested a man Thursday night in the sexual assault of a now-pregnant 14-year-old girl.
Rogelio Rodriguez-Garza, 24, is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child.

An arrest warrant affidavit states Rodriguez-Garza was having sex with the girl for the past two years.

The girl told police when she turned 14, they both discussed having a child.

Rodriguez-Garza told the girl he was saving money to take her to Mexico, against the wishes of her mother, according to the affidavit.

So, what's missing? According to my source the editor made a conscious decision to keep out that the man was arrested by ICE -- the immigration folks -- because he's here illegally. So, the guy who started molesting this girl when she was just 12-years-old is an illegal alien? Can't report that, it seems! Is it because that might bolster Arizona's position, perhaps?

We are TIRED of this blatant manipulation of the "News" by the Propaganda Papers and the Main Stream (pro-liberal-Democrat) Media.

Why do they DO that?

Remember the old leftie dictum "There are no enemies on the left?"  Well, they've expanded that to include moslems and illegals.

Your average American Catholic/Lutheran/etc. may be a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to attending church, giving a full tithe, doing the good works, and living as the New Testament commands.  But they will admire and hesitate to speak ill of those who truly do.  Good nuns, like Mother Teresa will tend to get the benefit of the doubt.  There are no enemies closer to God.  Similar thing.

You average American leftie may be a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to attending the "down with America" rallies, support for illegals, giving to the ACLU, and bombing the Pentagon or a local ROTC office.  But they will admire and hesitate to speak ill of those who truly do.  Good hard-core lefties like William Ayers will get the benefit of the doubt.  Similar thing.

Maybe it's time to borrow a page from that playbook:  THERE ARE NO ENEMIES MORE CONSERVATIVE; THERE ARE NO ENEMIES MORE LIBERTARIAN!

Ron Paul?  Speak no ill of him.  Ignore, deflect, change subject, and attack the accuser on other grounds, however specious.

Sarah Palin?  Speak no ill of her.   Ignore, deflect, change subject, and attack the accuser on other grounds, however specious.

Get the idea?

Hope you're paying attention to the case of the New Black Panthers who were brandishing weapons at a poll, convicted, and then suddenly had the case against them dropped.  This video shows both what happend at the poll and gives a bit more about the guy involved (come on -- just 1 minute, 18 seconds.  Watch it!)

Gotta love that line, eh? "You want freedom? You gonna haveta kill some crackers. You gonna haveta kill some of they babies." Yep, a real prince of a guy.

But only white people can be racists!  So, of course the DoJ just HAD to drop the charges.  You see that, right?

Courtesy of the DoD, a number of Jihadis from Afghanistan came to America.  Just got this from my company's security people:

At least 11 of the 17 members of the Afghan military who went AWOL from an Air Force base in Texas and are considered deserters by their nation have turned up in the exact place you'd expect to find them in the year 2010. They're on Facebook. Some belong to the "Afghanistan Mujahideen" group, a page that features, among other content, videos from the American-born Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn, a.k.a. Azzam the American.

According to a nationwide be-on-the-lookout (BOLO) bulletin that was sent by the North Texas Joint Terrorism Task force to law enforcement agencies across the country last week, the 17 Afghan deserters walked away from the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base, where they had been studying English. The men have military identification that would give them access to secure U.S. military installations, the bulletin read.

That AF Base in Texas? Lackland. Right here in San Antonio.  Gee, I wonder if they want to be my Facebook "Friends," too?

There are few things that could keep me from the SATP Independence Day celebration.  A trip to Massachusetts and New York to see My-Lovely-Wife's family is one.  While there, we got in a trip to the place where the first shots of the American Revolution were fired -- the Battle Green in Lexington, MA!

Not only that, we were there on the day the Supreme Court finally ruled on the Chicago case.  Wow!

It's not a big place.  Just a small grassy park, surrounded by some old buildings.

 There are some monuments (like the Minuteman shown above)

 and some plaques

Eight men died at Lexington, and that happened before the British moved on to Concord.  Emerson was wrong-- the "Shot Heard Round The World" was really fired at Lexington.

Note this from that page I just linked: 

"About 700 British Army regulars, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were given secret orders to capture and destroy military supplies that were reportedly stored by the Massachusetts militia at Concord."

Notice how they just slide over "military supplies?"  Those were cannon--FIELD ARTILLERY!  The first shots of the War for Independence were fought over the right of citizens to "Keep and Bear Arms."

So too, with the cannon in Gonzales, TX.  Come and Take It!

The British tried in 1775.  They failed.

THANK GOD!

[Update 7 Jul 10:  Adjusted picture sizes to load faster and contrast to make inscriptions more readable.]