Here is the open thread for Sunday, May 24th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
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Now onto my number four all time favorite band and I am going to cheat this week with two selections. Hey, its my list so its my rules, right? 🙂 Coming in at numbers 4A and 4B, are The Smiths and the Talking Heads.
First up is 4A and that distinction belongs to The Smiths. The first video I have decided to share is the song that turned me on to the band and that song is “Bigmouth Strikes Again.”
Next up is “This Charming Man.”
Lastly is “Miserable Lie.”
And now onto 4B, the Talking Heads. Up first is “Life During Wartime” followed by “Girlfriend is Better” and finally “Cities.” All of these versions are from the concert video Stop Making Sense.
The Republicans have been attacking Barack Obama for quite some time now as being an out of control, lawless, usurping President who cares not for the Constitution and the separation of powers contained within. They have been promising to “reign him in” and stop him from assuming powers not granted to him under the Constitution but today, when they had the chance, they voted to give him even more power.
Barack Obama has been pushing for fast-track authority on the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal he has been negotiating in private and today the President won a key battle when the Senate voted to give him the power he has been longing for–and yes, it was the Republicans who put it over the top.
The Congress is set to begin debating the re-authorization of the PATRIOT Act in the near future and of course proponents of the legislation are not only telling us the PATRIOT Act must me renewed but some are also seeking to make the NSA data-mining program legal after it was recently ruled illegal in the courts.
They tell us that we cannot return to a pre-911 mindset because we will all be in danger of another attack. (You know; that pre-911 mindset when the American people could reasonably expect the Federal government would not be collecting data on telephone calls made by people who were not suspected of doing anything wrong.)
However one may want to know how the PATRIOT Act is protecting us, or if it is at all, and according to the FBI the PATRIOT Act has not done a damn thing to thwart any major attack. Here is more:
Another Second Amendment victory in Washington DC
Ever since the District of Columbia v Heller decision which ruled that Washington DC’s handgun ban was unconstitutional Washington DC has been trying to pass gun control legislation which would basically render the decision null and void by making it nearly impossible for law-abiding citizens to attain concealed carry permits.
This came about after Washington DC decided to drop its appeal of the decision in order to focus on new gun control legislation. Here is more from a post I wrote just over a year ago about this decision:
Washington, D.C., will drop its appeal of a federal court ruling that overturned the city’s ban on carrying handguns in public, Attorney General Karl Racine announced Wednesday.
City attorneys will instead focus on defending concealed-carry laws adopted by legislators in the months after U.S. District Court Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. declared the ban was unconstitutional.
“We need to focus our energies not on litigating old laws, but defending new ones that our leaders enacted in good faith to comply with court rulings while still protecting public safety,” Mr. Racine said.
The legislation Washington DC decided to focus on would require residents to prove they had a good reason, in the eyes of the politicians, to carry a firearm and needless to say almost every single applicant was denied their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms:
With the possible exception of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul might be the only candidate on either side of the aisle who really opposes the PATRIOT Act in general but more specifically the NSA spying program. In my opinion this could be a winning issue for him and provide him with the chance to distance himself from every other candidate.
Last week the Senator from Kentucky promised to filibuster the PATRIOT Act and today around 1:00 in the afternoon he began the filibuster…sort of.
Because the Senate is debating the issue of granting the President fast-track authority on trade deals and because, according to this article, Senate rules will cut Rand Paul off in time to take a vote on the fast-track legislation nothing will be delayed so for all intents and purposes this is not a filibuster.
More countries caught ‘adjusting’ temperatures to make it appear as if the earth is warming
First we had the Climategate scandal back in 2009 in which thousands of emails from the IPCC were discovered that showed climate data had been manipulated in an effort to “hide the decline” in the earth’s temperature over the last decade or so, and more recently we have learned that NASA has been “adjusting” previous year temperatures to make it appear as if the earth is warming more drastically than it really is–if it is at all.
And now, if this story is correct, several other countries have also been “adjusting” historical temperatures to push the global warming agenda. Here is more:
Benghazi: Newly released documents show the Obama regime knew guns were running through Benghazi to Syria
Judicial Watch has gotten its hands on another 100 pages of previously classified documents and although they confirm what many of us have believed all along they are quite damning. Despite Susan Rice making the talk show circuit five days after the attack claiming the attack grew out of a spontaneous protest of a youtube video, and despite Barack Obama making the same claim in front of the United Nations fourteen days after the attack, these new documents show that the Obama regime knew within hours this was a premeditated attack which was planned ten days earlier.
Here is more:
The documents were released in response to a court order in accordance with a May 15, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against both the DOD and State Department seeking communications between the two agencies and congressional leaders “on matters related to the activities of any agency or department of the U.S. government at the Special Mission Compound and/or classified annex in Benghazi.”
Spelling and punctuation is duplicated in this release without corrections.
A Defense Department document from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), dated September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack, details that the attack on the compound had been carefully planned by the BOCAR terrorist group “to kill as many Americans as possible.” The document was sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Obama White House National Security Council. The heavily redacted Defense Department “information report” says that the attack on the Benghazi facility “was planned and executed by The Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR).” The group subscribes to “AQ ideologies:”
The attack was planned ten or more days prior on approximately 01 September 2012. The intention was to attack the consulate and to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for U.S. killing of Aboyahiye ((ALALIBY)) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 atacks on the World Trade Center buildings.
Republicans claim they have enough votes to grant Barack Obama fast-track authority on the TPP
Barack Obama has been seeking fast-track authority on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal he has been negotiating in private and now, according to this story, the Republicans are claiming they will have the votes later this week to give him the power he so desperately wants.
If the President is granted this authority (and it appears he will be) it will mean the Congress can only vote on the secret deal as written and will not be able to offer any amendments to the proposal. Also, if I have been reading the reports correctly this fast-track authority will apply to any future trade deal the President negotiates.
I find this to be interesting to say the least because the Republicans have been bitching and moaning about Barack Obama’s usurpation of powers through Executive orders and actions for quite some time now but now that he is asking for even more power they are more than willing to give it to him. And they are doing so because they really do not care about the Constitution or the American worker when they see an opportunity to forward their agenda. So much for checks and balances…
Racist Democrats target online ammo sales
House Democrats are set to introduce a bill which would crack down on online ammo purchases. Under this proposal a person could still buy ammunition online but before the ammunition is shipped to the purchaser that person would have to go to a gun shop and present a photo ID proving he or she is who they claim to be. Once this is done the ammunition will be shipped.
Here is more:
House Democrats are pushing legislation requiring face-to-face ammunition sales.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) has introduced the Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act of 2015. The bill unveiled Tuesday would require federally licensed ammunitions dealers to confirm the identity of individuals who arrange to purchase ammunition over the Internet by verifying a photo ID in-person.
“Far too many times, we have seen the shocking images of unspeakable gun violence that could have been prevented,” Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), one of the bill’s original cosponsors, said in a joint statement. “Our bill to limit the online sale of ammunition is a long-overdue common sense reform that I am hopeful will spark Congress to put aside party difference and come together to help prevent such senseless tragedies.”
The bill would stop short of imposing an outright ban on online ammunition sales, said Courtney Cochran, Watson Coleman’s communications director.
Cochran said buyers would still be able to complete an Internet sale, but would need to present a photo I.D. in-person at an authorized dealer before the shipment can be made.
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