Justice Department's "Chokepoint" on Gun Ownership

According to the Washington Times, the Obama Administration has developed a new technique to inhibit private citizens from gun ownership, contrary to the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
In 2011,The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) listed gun dealers at “high-risk” for loans. The basis for such decision is unknown, but we can speculate that it may have come from the Obama Administration.
As a recent follow-up, Eric Holder's Justice Department, which works for Obama, has developed a new initiative called Choke Point to open wide-ranging investigations of banks and payment processors associated with the businesses on the FDIC list. As of last year, Justice had issued more than 50 subpoenas to banks and payment processors. The banks have gotten this high-pressure message and rather than risk the complexities of investigation, they have significantly cut credit availability to gun dealers. This obviously reduces availability of guns to the public, as dealers are denied financing for expansion and the proper carrying of inventory.
An interesting aspect of the situation is that justice/Obama can do this, because the wording of the Second Amendment is that "Congress should make no law, etc." Apparently, the founding fathers did not anticipate the deviousness of future Administrations.
However, Congress can move to bring the situation into its proper perspective, in that it has constitutional authority to pass a law, which prohibits the Administration from these devious maneuvers, particularly with respect to public gun ownership.

US Position on Syria and Afghanistan

The Washington Times has three reports as follows:
Obama to push Syria escalation; most U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan by end of 2016.
Obama wants 9,800 troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
Obama to deploy U.S. military advisers to Syria.

We can dispose of all three in one fell swoop.
We have no "interests" in Syria. There is a civil war with no justification on our part that we should side with one position on the other. Assad was in power for many years and caused us no difficulty. Do we want to now make an enemy of him by sending in military advisers presumably to help the rebels? If we stay out, we make no enemies. If we side with one position or the other, we make an enemy. If we think that Syria is going to turn into a training camp for terrorists, we handle that when it happens by surveillance followed by drones to knock them out.
In Afghanistan, we said we were going to get out, which was a good decision. We should never been there in the first place. However, leaving 9800 troops or even one troop is not getting out. The Afghanis and Pres. Karzai do not want us there. We have no "interests" there. If we have a problem with terrorist training camps, handle them with surveillance and attack drones, as with Syria. If we don't like their production of heroin, use attack drones to spray their fields with herbicide.

Renewable Energy Gone Amok

Here's a little story from a Political Associate indicating how the federal government fritters away your tax dollars in massive amounts on ridiculous projects.
"If you are not sitting down, go ahead and get settled because what I am about to tell you is going to make you hot.
My nephew is in the Navy and when he first started telling me this tale I thought it couldn't be true.  He said that the Navy was forced by the Pentagon to spend $150 per Gallon on jet fuel made from algae.  Jet fuel (kerosene basicly) weighs in at 6.79 lbs per gallon.  A typical F 18E carries 14,400 lbs of fuel (green, yellow, red any color you want) in its internal tanks.  14,400/6.79 means that this plane carries 2120 gallons of fuel.  So a fill up for a 3-4 hour sortie burning algae jet fuel only cost 2120 x $150 or $318,000 as compared to $6,360 for the conventional stuff.!!!  
Now if you are like me right about now you are thinking you are hearing a tall tale, so I am including below a link to an article about the program, all in the name of 'green'. 
http://rt.com/usa/157724-pentagon-green-jet-fuel-cost"

Sell VA Hospitals to Private Industry

Aside from the Veterans Administration scandal of ineptitude and handling patients and the prosecution of administrators, we need to take a more basic look at government physical facilities.
We should start with the premise that government should never have physical facilities unless they involve security of US citizens. Here are a few of government physical facilities which should be permitted: the Capitol building and is various offices, the White House, all facilities of the military including Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard, various laboratories and test sites for weapon development, embassy buildings in foreign countries, and perhaps there may be one or two more.
Note that in the above list, nothing is included which can be supplied from private: commercial sources. For example, offices of the Internal Revenue Service can all be leased from private owners, if that is not now the case. Government ownership of property is a continuing infringement on the rights of citizens. We have continually been moving in the direction of government ownership as we expand the federal government and expand its socialistic concepts, which involve government ownership of all property.
This has not always been the case. During World War II, private industry facilities were converted by the owners to produce war goods, such as Army uniforms, airplanes, tanks and other military vehicles, ships, etc.. There were two exceptions: synthetic rubber and penicillin. With the Japanese controlling Southeast Asia, supply of natural rubber for vehicle tires and other uses was cut off.. Synthetic rubber compositions were developed by university professors, of which Carl Marvel was the leader. They settled on a composition of butadiene and styrene. The product was called Government Rubber Synthetic (GRS) and the government built several plants for its production. Penicillin had also been newly discovered by Alexander Fleming, but there were no facilities available for its production. The government built at least one production plant in Connecticut.
At the close of the war, the government sold off its GRS rubber plants and its penicillin production facilities to private industry; a return to private property rights and a reduction of physical property owned by the federal government.
In the case of the Veterans Administration, the government has a number of Veterans Administration hospitals. These hospitals are not particularly different from privately owned hospitals. The Veterans Administration should sell its hospitals to private industry. In other words, get out of the hospital business, in the same way that the government got out of the GRS rubber business and penicillin business after World War II.
Veterans have a magnitude of health problems, but none of these are particularly different than those handled by privately owned hospitals. It is only a matter of patient quantity. For example, there are many more veterans who have lost limbs from improvised explosive devices (IED's) than normally occur in the general population. But, the technology of treatment is not unknown or unused in private hospital operations.
Veterans with physical or mental disabilities, diagnosed by the branch of service from which they have been released should be given a veterans health card which allows them free private treatment at any hospital for the condition that they have been previously diagnosed.
Simply put, the VA should sell off its hospitals, and any of their other physical facilities and issue health cards to disabled veterans. The VA should act as a controlling body to assure that the private hospitals are doing the proper job in treatment of veterans, and should also concentrate on the other benefits that veterans should receive according to law. This latter has not come up in recent discussions, but I have had a particular difficulty with the VA supplying the proper educational support for my grandson, who was a tank driver in Iraq. The VA was had been so slow on its feet that without my personal financial support my grandson would never have achieved the education which now makes him an integral part of our society.

National Security Agency's Phone Record Collection

According to the Washington Times, the House voted Thursday to cancel the NSA’s bulk-data phone records collection program, marking an overwhelming show of bipartisanship that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago and delivering a stern message to the nation’s intelligence community that lawmakers want limits on what the spies are snooping. Backers touted the bill as the first major restriction imposed on government surveillance since the late 1970s and said if it becomes law, the National Security Agency will no longer be able to collect and query most Americans’ phone records.
The House bill had relatively good bipartisan support, but the Senate will have to approve the bill before it goes to President Obama for his signature. A favorable aspect is that Pres. Obama appears to indicate his support. Since the Democratic Senate generally follows the President's lead, there's a good chance that the bill will become law and therefore consistent with the 10th Amendment to the Constitution on property rights.

New IRS Tax Rules for Nonprofit Political Groups

The Washington Times says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will start over on rules governing the federal income tax status of tea party groups and other nonprofits.
It's about time, but it may be another political move to take the heat off the investigation of malpractice in the first place. Let's not be duped fellow Republicans. Keep pushing to find out who gave the orders to penalize opposition groups. 

Harry Reid Off-Base in Renaming Sports Teams

The Washington times says that Senate Leader Harry Reid and several other Democrats have suggested that the Washington Redskins change their name, because the name "Redskins" is racially offensive.
Team president Bruce Allen responded to Harry Reid in a letter. He suggested that if Mr. Reid would attend one of the games he would witness first-hand that the Washington Redskins are a positive, unifying force for the community in a city and region that is divided on so many levels. He also said the Redskins‘ name “originated as a Native American expression of solidarity” and that the team logo was designed by Native Americans in 1971.
He also noted that 90 percent of Americans in one poll didn’t find the team name offensive, and that an Associated Press survey earlier this year found 83 percent of Americans supported keeping the team name. The team also played up its recent charitable efforts through a new foundation that in just two months has funded 40 projects to help Native Americans. 
Sounds to me like a good response, but the key issue is whether Harry Reid should be messing around with the names of sports teams. Is that all he has to do as Senate Majority Leader?

Kerry Interview On Benghazi

The Washington Times  says that John Kerry will testify to the Select Committee on the Benghazi attack.
Who cares? His testimony will be of no consequence. He was not Secretary of State at the time. He was not in Benghazi. He was not in the War Office of Washington during it. The only thing that he knows will be what he has been told by people of the State Department and others in the Obama Administration.
Why not interview the White House janitor. He was at least there at the time and may know more.

Prestigious Military Branches

According to the Washington Times, a poll shows that the Navy is considered by the public as the least prestigious of the several military branches.
I find this very strange and somewhat contradictory to my personal opinion. I have a high regard for all of the military branches, but I give a slight advantage to the Navy for its organizational ability and its adaptability to new technology.

Why Fire Shinseki?

The Washington Times says the Obama transition team was told about 3 audits showing the Veterans Administration misreported wait times for treating veterans.
But let's look at why Eric Shinseki should be fired. He did not adequately perform his duties as the chief operating officer. He continued to let his organization operate in a a deficient manner without any significant effort to make appropriate corrections.
Let's take a private Corporation for comparison. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) reports to the Board of Directors. The Board has given the CEO responsibility to operate a profitable, efficient company. To do that, the Board has also given the CEO various assets and controls. Two of these are money and opportunity to choose appropriate employees. If in subsequent operation the CEO, determines that he has insufficient assets, such as not enough money, or some kind of limitation on employees imposed by the Board, he has an obligation to go back to the Board to obtain what he needs to accomplish his major objectives. If he does not, he is a bust and must be relieved immediately by the Board and replaced with someone of greater capabilities.
In the case of Shinseki, he inherited a VA operation, which was continually expanding, because of injuries from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He obviously needed to expand the facilities in order to give appropriate care to wounded veterans. But, he did nothing. He did not ask Congress for more money to build more facilities or hire more people, nor did he ask Congress for power to fire inapt people in his organization. He is an obvious failure and must be fired himself Shinseki.

Veterans Administration Problems

Open email to House Speaker Boehner:

Dear Speaker Boehner,
It is said that some Republicans are calling for Eric Shinseki, Director of the Veterans Administration to fix the problems, rather than calling for his resignation.
But let's use a little logic on this.
If a controllable problem develops under the watch of an Administrator, he should be the last to be involved in trying to fix it.
Eric  Shinseki should be fired and replaced with an appropriate fixer.

The American Spring Operation Was a Bust

The Washington Times says the American Spring operation was a bust.

Operation American Spring was intended to be a mass patriotic demonstration of Americans to force leaders in Washington, D.C., to return to a more limited and constitutional style of governance — and to oust those leaders who weren’t listening. Among the group’s targets: Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner, as well as Attorney General Eric Holder, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, vice president Joe Biden and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Instead of millions or thousands, only a few hundred showed up.

The question is why the low turnout?

The answer probably lies in the facts of organization and the basic intentions of the intended demonstrators. I’ll guess that it was probably not well-organized. However more likely, low turnout was basically caused by lack of motivation in the so-called patriotic Americans. It was not likely that they approve of all is being done by Pres. Obama Mr. Boehner, Eric holder, etc., it only means that they probably felt that demonstration would accomplish nothing. In addition, they were too busy with their standard jobs trying to make a living and unable to get time off. This is in sharp contrast to demonstrations involving people who are on the government dole and have nothing to do anyhow.

The bottom line is that it should not be assumed that the general public, particularly those who contribute to the economy, are satisfied with the present size of government and its operation just because the American Spring turnout was poor. The real test of how satisfied these people are will come in the forthcoming November elections, when they cast their votes. Even then, they may lose through a preponderance of government hangers on.

Continued Disregard of the Second Amendment on Gun Ownership

          The Washington Times reports that Washington DC has a law requiring that guns be registered every three years and that the registration applicants must submit photographs and fingerprints.

          Dick Anthony Heller recently challenged the constitutionality of the law as an infringement of the Second Amendment.

          The case came before Judge James Boasburg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia. This is the federal District Court. Appeals from the federal District Court would be taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the DC circuit.

           Recall that Pres. Obama has by judicial appointments been loading these courts with judges sympathetic to his ideas. He nominated Judge Boaburg to the federal District Court. The nomination was quickly confirmed by the Democratic U.S. Senate.

          In judge Boaburg’s upholding the constitutionality of the DC law on restrictions concerning firearms, he described at great length the need for the continuance of such law because of DC violence. He made no mention of the fact that the Second Amendment requires that there should be no restriction on public ownership of firearms. There are no ifs, ands,and buts in the Second Amendment.

          Unfortunately, if Heller takes his case to the United States Court of Appeals for the DC circuit, he will again lose, because it is packed with Obama liberals. The only possibility for success is to continue to pursue it to the US Supreme Court, which also has not been proven very reliable on interpreting the Constitution.

Vote "Yes" on HR 4438 American Research and Competitiveness

Open Email to House Speaker Boehner,

Dear Speaker Boehner,
Act4Chemistry is a segment of the American Chemical Society. Today I received the following email from them:
"This week, the House of Representatives will be voting on a very important incentive to promote innovation in America . H.R. 4438, the American Research and Competitiveness Act of 2014, would make permanent the U.S. Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit. This crucial piece of legislation provides companies a tax credit every year that they increase their R&D spending in the United States. The credit is needed to keep the United States competitive in the global race for R&D investment dollars, and a permanent R&D credit will significantly enhance the credit’s value. If U.S. companies cannot be sure that the credit will be available for the duration of an R&D project, typically 5-10 years for manufacturers, it undermines the value of this important incentive."
I strongly urge your people to push this through, with a proviso. If there is anything in the bill which increases the amount of funding for government research, it should be eliminated. Technology research is a function of private industry and should be retained as such. The tax credit does two things. It reduces taxes and encourages the development of technology by private industry. This is exactly what we want to go.

Job Loss from the Sequester

Open Email Speaker Boehner:

Dear Speaker Boehner,

            Fox News says the White House is bemoaning the loss of jobs caused by the sequester. The estimate is placed at 750,000. Pundits say that this is much exaggerated.

            There is no breakdown of the 750,000 between government jobs and private jobs, but let's guess that they might be about equal. If so, we should start cheering for the loss of  375,000 government jobs. Let's remember that our whole previous and still current objective was and is to reduce the size of government. Obviously, we are making headway.

            If there is a real loss of 375,000 private jobs, we can easily make that up. The 375,000 government employees are no longer in position to limit the development of private industry through establishing ridiculous controls. Perhaps those controls still in place will not be prosecuted, as has been prevalent with Eric Holder operations. However, he picks and chooses what laws he wants to enforce, so there is still some risk. To eliminate that risk, Congress needs to get back on the stick and specifically reduce the controls.

Better Economy in Ohio

Open Email to Speaker Boehner:

Dear Speaker Boehner,
You have written that the economy is starting to do well in Ohio in spite of the restrictions of the Obama administration.
As you aptly said, that is no reason to relax the effort to defeat the Obama administration to destroy the US economy in the interest of world redistribution of wealth.
Keep up the fight in the house and thwart the Obama administration agencies wherever possible.

Select Committee on Benghazi

Open Email to Speaker Boehner:

Dear Speaker Boehner,
Yes! Let's get on with establishing a new select committee to investigate the Benghazi attack.