Oh Boy….

Yikes:

ATF UPDATE: Jones pick as ATF chief is in deeper trouble. “Earlier this week, Donald Oswald, a former Minneapolis FBI director and self-described Democrat, wrote to alert the Senate Judiciary Committee to Jones’ ‘atrocious professional reputation within the federal law enforcement community.’ . . . The newest flashpoint involves operation ‘Fearless Distributing,’ a Milwaukee sting operation in which the ATF set up a phony storefront targeting gun traffickers. A recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found what it called a string of mistakes, including a military-style machine gun that ended up on the streets, and a robbery of the agency store that netted $35,000 in merchandise.”
This agency doesn’t seem to be ready for primetime.
via Instapundit » Blog Archive » ATF UPDATE: Jones pick as ATF chief is in deeper trouble. “Earlier this week, Donald Oswald, a for….

Reason I say, “Oh Boy….” for is this: I have heard from sources that are of the Alex Jones credibility that the ATF basically is an agency unto itself. I have also heard that they do not take too kindly to insults of this sort. So, if I were Glenn Reynolds, I would be real careful about making jokes at the expense of the ATF. As some of you know, I am also an Amateur Radio Operator, or Ham for sort. Well, once back in the late 1990’s, when I was a part of the BBS scene; I heard of a guy, who made a posting on a land-line bulletin board, basically mocking the ATF, saying something along these lines. Well, a week later the ATF was at his doorstep. They ended up busting the guy on an illegally modified AR-15. modified for automatic fire. The person ended up doing 15 years for that little stunt.

Now to be honest, I did not give that story much credibility; so, I used some of my contacts in the local and state governments around here, via Amateur Radio, to check on this story and sure enough it was true. As to what, if anything, prompted the raid, they could not tell me. But, the facts was, someone got a hard-on for a poster on Bulletin Board and it went downhill from there.

So, to Glenn and everyone else; I simply say this: Be careful. All it takes is some irate FBI or ATF agent to get a hard-on for you and you are done my friend. The Government does not need a reason to raid your house anymore. All they have to do is think you are doing something illegal and they can come in, with a no-knock raid and take everything you own; even if you did nothing wrong and getting your stuff back is like a nice day in hell.

Again, I would like to think that nothing would come of what Glenn wrote; but if I were in his shoes and I had a big traffic blog like his, there would be no way in Hades that I would ever write anything of that sort on my blog. There are too many agencies out there data mining, and there are too many agencies with people snooping; especially at the Pentagon.

In short: Watch it and be safe….and smart.

Ronald Brownstein at National Journal confirms what I have believed for a while

That is that the Democrats have basically told the “Blue Dogs” to piss off and die:

With his suddenly aggressive second-term agenda, President Obama is recasting the Democratic Party around the priorities of the growing coalition that reelected him—and, in the process, reshaping the debate with the GOP in ways that will reverberate through 2016 and beyond. On issues from gay rights to gun control, immigration reform, and climate change—all of which he highlighted in his ringing Inaugural Address last week—Obama is now unreservedly articulating the preferences of the Democratic “coalition of the ascendant” centered on minorities, the millennial generation, and socially liberal upscale whites, especially women. Across all of these issues, and many others such as the pace of withdrawal from Afghanistan and ending the ban on women in combat, Obama is displaying much less concern than most national Democratic leaders since the 1960s about antagonizing culturally conservative blue-collar, older, and rural whites, many of whom oppose them. —- Why Obama Is Giving Up on Right-Leaning Whites – NationalJournal.com

I can tell you now; if the Democrats believe that this sort of thing will be good for the future of the party; and for winning elections — they are very wrong. Because there are not enough white city liberals to win an election. The Republicans did do some outreach to the heartland and to some typically very liberal areas, with some good success. Could you imagine, if the Republicans finally were actually able to get someone to connect with those people?

I also believe that another reason the white, rural, Conservative Democrats are feeling alienated from the Democrats is because every time there is a shooting of some sort; the Democrats want to try to push though some sort of gun ban. Which is quite frankly, stupid. Because whether the Democrats want to admit it or not; Guns are a part of the culture of America and this goes way back into history. The United States of America was founded at the end of gun. We fought wars to make our separation from the British stick with guns. We also quelled a southern rebellion with guns.

So, this whole entire idea that we have to disarm society is quite frankly un-American. The Democrats need to learn that lesson, or they will pay dearly for it in the next coming elections in 2014 and 2016. Because the American people are just not going to pick a political party that wants to make us into Europe. Just is not going to happen at all.

More via Memeorandum

The Late Night Music Express–Special Memorial Edition- Presents: Elvis Presley

Remembering a special dog.

Barney Bush 2000-2013 – May he rest in peace. More Barney pics here.

The official statement from the President Bush:

Laura and I are sad to announce that our Scottish Terrier, Barney, has passed away. The little fellow had been suffering from lymphoma and after twelve and a half years of life, his body could not fight off the illness.
Barney and I enjoyed the outdoors. He loved to accompany me when I fished for bass at the ranch. He was a fierce armadillo hunter. At Camp David, his favorite activity was chasing golf balls on the chipping green.
Barney guarded the South Lawn entrance of the White House as if he were a Secret Service agent. He wandered the halls of the West Wing looking for treats from his many friends. He starred in Barney Cam and gave the American people Christmas tours of the White House. Barney greeted Queens, Heads of State, and Prime Ministers. He was always polite and never jumped in their laps.
Barney was by my side during our eight years in the White House. He never discussed politics and was always a faithful friend. Laura and I will miss our pal.

Rest in peace.

AdBrite RIP

I was wondering why my site was loading funny. Went to check AdBrite’s site and got a 404. I checked and sure enough, the recession got these guys too.

Advertising exchange AdBrite is shutting down, after an attempt to find a buyer for the company failed. CEO Hardeep Bindra is telling partners that the company, which has 26 employees, will close by the end of the month, and is selling off its assets. In an interview, Bindra says he had been trying to sell off the entire company, but sales talks “unfortunately fell through a couple weeks ago.” AdBrite raised a reported $40 million since 2004, much of it from Sequoia Capital. It was best known for many years as the creation of Philip Kaplan, who had achieved notoriety during the end of the Web 1.0 boom for his FuckedCompany site. For years the company described itself as the “largest independent ad exchange, rivaling Google and Yahoo.” — Sales Talks Fell Through, So Ad Exchange AdBrite Shuts Down – Peter Kafka – Media – AllThingsD

I would blame google, but I really just do not believe that it was their fault. Web Advertising has taken a massive beating since the recession of 2008. I guess for now, I will just have to stick with Infolinks. I took all of the banners out for AdBrite, so things will not be as cluttered as they were before. I just hope I do get what little is coming to me from those guys. It was not much; but it was a little bit at least.

Ed Koch RIP

Video:

The Story via the New York Times:

Edward I. Koch, the master showman of City Hall, who parlayed shrewd political instincts and plenty of chutzpah into three tumultuous terms as mayor of New York with all the tenacity, zest and combativeness that personified his city of golden dreams, died Friday morning at age 88.
Mr. Koch’s spokesman, George Arzt, said the former mayor died at 2 a.m. from congestive heart failure. He was being treated at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital.
Mr. Koch had experienced coronary and other medical problems since leaving office in 1989. But he had been in relatively good health despite — or perhaps because of — his whirlwind life as a television judge, radio talk-show host, author, law partner, newspaper columnist, movie reviewer, professor, commercial pitchman and political gadfly.

He will be, however, remembered for this:

Out of office, Mr. Koch remained influential in New York politics. He crossed party lines to support Mr. Giuliani in the 1993 mayoral election, an endorsement crucial to Mr. Dinkins’s defeat. But Mr. Koch later turned against Mr. Giuliani, flaying him as “a good mayor but a terrible person” and refusing to endorse him for a second term.
Mr. Koch endorsed Mr. Bloomberg’s successful races for mayor as a Republican in 2001 and 2005, calling him about “as Republican as I am.” (Mr. Bloomberg later refashioned himself as an independent.) And when Mr. Bloomberg engineered a legislative finesse of term-limits laws to run for a third term in 2009, Mr. Koch backed him and called for an end to term limits.
In presidential races, Mr. Koch went back and forth. He supported the losing Democratic ticket of Al Gore and Joseph I. Lieberman in 2000, but joined the Bush-Cheney re-election bandwagon in 2004 and promoted the Republican National Convention in New York, urging New Yorkers to “make nice” to conventioneers. By 2008, he was back with the Democrats, supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the nomination and, when she lost, switching to Mr. Obama.

Now, I do not normally speak ill of the dead; but I will say this: Mayor Koch switched to a Republican stance, because of terrorism and what it did to NYC — that ,I fully understand. I was one of the many who watched 9/11 unfold on television in 2001 on CNN. I found it to be totally unbelievable that we were witnessing an attack on American soil. It was worse than pearl harbor. At the time, I was not really politically active. But, I found the Democrats response to 9/11 and the subsequent cries for “no war” to be sickening. At the time, I felt that we should bombed the entire Arab world for what happened on that day.

Koch also understood that what happen on 9/11 was a horrible thing and when the Democrats decided to play the role of “lets all just get along,” Koch switched sides. It earned him the praise of the people of NYC at the time; but it earned him the scorn of the political elite of the Democratic Party.

As for the man’s sexuality, I could honestly give two flips about that; if he was gay at all. You would have never known it about him, he never looked the part at all. Except for that high-pitched Curly Howard sounding voice of his — which is very common in that ethnic group.

Put very simply; the man was a leader, something that New York City needed at the time; and he did well at leading the city during a very tough time. One thing he said in that video up there, that I posted; which I found to be very poignant is “You don’t spend money that you do not have!” I only wish that our leaders in Washington D.C. would truly learn that lesson; before America goes into a meltdown. My friends, that is not a Republican or a Conservative position; that is a position of common sense. Something that is sorely lacking in this modern day and age.

Rest in peace Koch, you damned well earned it.

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