11/06/2004
Abusing VPC Announcements
Via Kim through Say Uncle!, the VPC provides this helpful list for the younger shooter on your Christmas list.
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11/05/2004
Fuck You, Senator Specter
I was going to do a post-election posting about judicial nominations (as John of Argghhh! said "It's all about the Judges."), and suggest that the first item on the Senate's agenda come January (if not sooner) should be actually voting on judicial nominations. Then I saw this from the Houston Chronicle (via Drudge):
Specter warns Bush on high court nominations
PHILADELPHIA -- The Republican expected to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year bluntly warned newly re-elected President Bush today against putting forth Supreme Court nominees who would seek to overturn abortion rights or are otherwise too conservative to win confirmation.
Now, President Bush went out of his way to help Specter fend of a primary challenge from Pat Toomey. And this is how the ungrateful asshat pays him back? Senator Specter needs a serious slapping down-he's getting way, way too full of himself. Since Senator Specter used his 'clout' in the Senate to help himself in the election campaign, maybe the President should start by taking some pork away from Pennsylvania. There aren't many military bases in the Keystone State, but the Army War College is located at Carlyle Barracks, PA. And since that base is basically just a school for generals-in-training, there's nothing there that can't be moved to, say, Fort Leavenworth, KS, or Fort Benning, GA. Just start dropping hints that Carlyle is a good candidate for the BRAC list and watch this weasel squirm.
Now, on to why Majority Leader Frist and other GOP Senate leaders need to ensure that Specter does not get anywhere near the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee.
The president is well aware of what happened, when a bunch of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster," Specter added, referring to Senate Democrats' success over the past four years in blocking the confirmation of many of Bush's conservative judicial picks. "... And I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."
This arrogant prick is pretty much asserting that he has veto power over any judicial nominees that don't meet with his approval. This is the same guy who helped torpedo the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, resulting in the nomination of David Souter, and who now bemoans the lack of "legal heavyweights" on the high court. Whether you agree totally with Bork's legal opinions or not (and from what I know, I'm not to keen on his Second Amendment positions), he was a great legal scholar, whereas Souter is like some a kind of legal utitily infielder. I'll bet President Bush is really wishing he'd backed Toomey at this point.
Most disturbing:
Though he refused to describe the political leanings of the high court, Specter said he "would characterize myself as moderate; I'm in the political swim. I would look for justices who would interpret the Constitution, as Cardozo has said, reflecting the values of the people."
Emphasis added
"Interpret the Constitution...reflecting the values of the people?!" WTF?! You mean, instead of interpreting it to mean what the people who wrote it meant it to mean? The whole point of having a written Constitution is that the meaning DOESN'T FRIGGIN' CHANGE! If you want to go simply with the "values of the people," why not just have a national vote on everything, and whichever side gets 50% +1 vote wins. Screw the minority. Screw the rights of states. Screw limited government.
I've got a better idea. Screw you, Senator Specter.
EDIT: I've fixed it so this will stay on top for a while. Sample letters for the GOP Senate leadership will be forthcoming.
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11/04/2004
Is the NRA EBR-phobic?
Yesterday, with the election over, I received (another) fund-raising request/sweepstakes drawing mailer from the NRA-ILA The grand prize is 12 firearms from a group of about 25 or so they offered.
And for some reason, there was not a solitary Evil Black Rifle among them. Nice bolt-actions, semi-auto shotguns (turkey/duck hunter types), a nice over/under, revolvers, a few semi-auto pistols, even a reproduction Springfield 1861 rifle.
But not a single AR-15, FAL, M-1A, or AK clone to be found. Why not? I'd think including a post-sunset AR with collapsible stock, bayonet lug, and flash suppressor would be a great way to celebrate one of the NRA's political successes of the year. But the NRA acts like it is continually running scared from the Brady Bunch and their MSM allies. Don't want to be seen giving away an evil 'assault weapon' now, that just wouldn't do when we're trying to convince the soccer mommies we're not a bunch of extremists.
Screw the soccer mommies. How about having whomever gives the 'Cold, Dead Hands' speech at the next convention holding an Arsenal USA AK clone over their head? How about growing some balls, guys?
Incidentally, just in case I win, I filled out my selection with the more expensive guns. That way I can sell them and use the money to buy a Homeland Defense Rifle or two. Or some C&R rifles. I'm more interested in either of those than a 20 ga Benelli Nova slug gun.
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11/03/2004
Ouch.
"If Kerry had the moral integrity of a Richard Nixon, he'd concede." -Brit Hume, via NRO BattleGround.
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Send in the Lawyers
Even though I'd rather just shoot the bastards. FoxNews.com has called Ohio for Bush. Drudge is reporting that, with all precincts reporting, Bush won Ohio by just over 140,000 votes. But the Dems are disputing overidiot provisional ballots, apparently. I think there's something like 250,000 or so, which means that Kerry would have to get 185,000 of those votes to close the gap. They apparently have 3,200 legal personnel in the state. I guess they feel they have to do something with them.
Frankly, I'm not sure what that would gain them in the long run, since it would at best give them a 269-269 Electoral College tie, sending them to an overtime loss in the House. The only thing I can see it gaining them is getting their base more pissed off about another 'stolen' election.
Give it a rest people.
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I Like This Guy
Caught a bit of John Thune's victory speech on CSPAN this morning while I was putting on my shoes (Fox was in commercial. I'm not that much of a junky.) Towards the end, he said someting on the order of, "It's been a long few months, and there's some things that I've missed. So I've got a date with my 12 gauge and a cornfield."
Elections over, so you can be pretty sure it's not a photo op. And I'll bet he uses a semi-auto, too.
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11/02/2004
Opposing Point of View
In the comments on my post below (Kerry an Enemy of Property Rights), a blogger named Sam Miller (I'll even link to his page), posted what I believe to be the first comments on this blog that challenge my opinions in any way.
I'm touched. I've finally attracted the attention of the opposition. Of course, his comments had nothing to do with the topic at hand (property rights), probably because he knows that his preferred candidate (I assume), John Kerry, would be very difficult, if not impossible, to defend in that area. Instead, he prefers to spout off about President Bush not catching/killing Osama bin Laden.
His words:
Bush had three years to get Bin Laden,
and he didn't.
Although he made big words around it right after 9/11.
Clinton had what, seven years, not to mention offers from the Sudanese government to give us OBL, and didn't get him. Bush did manage to cut him off from a national government which openly supported him and force him to flee into the hills and live a life of hiding in caves. No, he's not dead, but he's got a whole lot less freedom of action that he used to have.
His approval rate was above 90% back then.
Since then he started a different war.
Sam, your picture on your blog shows you in some sort of military uniform. And yet you are unable to grasp the difference between a war, and different fronts within that war. The War is against global Islamofascism. Afghanistan is one front in that war. Iraq is not a different war-it is merely another front in the same war.
Saddam supported Palestinian terrorism against Israel by giving money to the families of suicide bombers. He harbored other terrorists, such as Abu Nidal, in Iraq. He used Al Qaeda affiliated proxies to fight the Kurds. After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, many Al Qaeda members, including Zawahiri, fled to Iraq. In addition, he was, through bribery on a massive scare, systematically undermining the sanctions that had kept him partially contained for over a decade. In part of the Deulfer report that the media has chosen to ignore, it stated that if we hadn't invaded Iraq, those sanctions would have collapsed by now, leaving Saddam with the freedom to reconstitute all his banned programs, and continue his collaboration with the likes of Zawahiri.
President Bush, after 9/11 and even after the invasion of Afghanistan, enjoyed incredibly high approval ratings. He could have just kept going on that course, and probably kept those ratings high and coasted to victory today. But he didn't. Instead, he launched, after much ado about, ultimately, nothing, in the UN (because the UN is a bunch of useless snivelling globo-socialist weenies) an invasion which was extremely unpopular with a large segment of the electorate.
Why would he do such as thing? Why do something that would anger large numbers of people and jeopardize his reelection?
Simple: because he's an actual leader, not someone who simply figures out which way the herd is moving and then gets out in front of it. Leaders do the right thing, even if it's not the popular thing. And invading Iraq was the right thing. It removed a regime that was hostile to America, indeed one that had been shooting at our forces since 1991. A regime that had been harboring terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda, as well as providing them with training (Salman Pak ring a bell?). A regime that virtually every intelligence agency in the world, including the French and Russians, believed possessed chemical and biological weapons. And it scared the snot out of other countries that give aid and comfort to the Islamofascists. Why else would Libya give up a nuke program that we weren't even bothering them about?
And Bin Laden is still at large. He even said he would not be that concerned about him.
He's still somewhere. And in his latest video release, actively campaigning for John Kerry. Of course, I'm sure it's all just a plot by Karl Rove.
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10/31/2004
Why America Will Win
Something I didn't notice in my company until we did our end of cycle inspection on Tuesday. In one room, in the same platoon, in adjacent bunks, there were two soldiers. One was Jewish, born in Israel. His yalmuke was visible in the top drawer in his locker. In the bunk next to him, a Muslim soldier, born in Jordan. Prayer rug hanging on the towel rack in his locker.
America. A country where two people, from countries and religions that would normally make them enemies, can live side by side. Both citizens and soldiers willing to risk their lives for the common cause of freedom.
Chew on that, Osama.
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