CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL COMMENTARY
Pro-Constitution, Anti-Globalist, Anti-Socialist, Anti-Communist, and usually with an attempt at historical and economic context ************************13th Year ----- 2009-2021*****

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Bluegrass Bruce: NRA Endorses Sen. Lamar Alexander Despite Anti-Gun Votes

UPDATE BY Eddie Howell -- A subsequent article by Bluegrass Bruce finds that it's questionable whether NRA has actually endorsed Sen. Lamar Alexander. He apologizes for incomplete fact-checking as do I. Please read the later article. Thanks.
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Bluegrass Bruce: NRA Endorses Sen. Lamar Alexander Despite Anti-Gun Votes --  The NRA is supporting moderate Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander in his primary against Tea Party challenger Joe Carr, despite Alexander’s poor track record on gun issues in Congress. Alexander is merely the latest in a string of questionable endorsements that the group has made in this year’s Republican primaries.


Alexander sided with Democrats when gun rights were on the line in 2013. When Rand Paul tried to lead a Republican filibuster of the Obama’s background check bill, Sen. Alexander joined Democrats and provided a crucial vote to allow debate. He also voted to confirm Obama’s gun-grabbing Attorney General, Eric Holder.


Several other gun groups are opposing Alexander, including Gun Owners of America and the National Association for Gun Rights.


In their endorsement of Joe Carr, GOA said: “Washington establishment insiders — who care more about their reelections than your constitutional rights — are being defeated by an electorate fed up with the status quo. It’s time for the same kind of change in Tennessee.”


Unlike Alexander, Carr has an unblemished record on gun rights. In its endorsement, GOA said:


“Time after time in the state legislature, Rep. Carr stood up for gun owners’ rights. Joe voted to protect the privacy of concealed carrypermit holders, and he voted to expand concealed carry to all restaurants so you are better able to protect yourself and your family.Joe voted to eliminate the unconstitutional requirement that gun buyers submit a thumbprint to Tennessee firearms dealers."


GOA added that Alexander has a “C” rating from the group and he refuses to fill out the group’s survey.


This is far from the first time that the NRA has chosen to support a moderate Republican with a weak record on guns over a more worthy conservative challenger. The group endorsed several moderate candidates
in 2014 including Mitch McConnell, Mike Simpson and Thad Cochran.


Like Alexander, Mitch McConnell won the NRA’s support despite having a history of weakness on gun issues. In 1991, McConnell voted for Joe Biden’s crime bill that imposed a waiting period on handgun sales. In 2004, he supportedBarbara Boxer’s bill to prohibit the sale of guns without a safety storage device.


McConnell also voted with the Democrats to allow debate on Obama’s background check bill. Just like Alexander.


The NRA needs to go back to picking candidates according to their record on gun rights — period. If gun issues are not important to the NRA,then what is?


Thursday, July 24, 2014

Bluegrass Bruce: Obama’s Biggest Regret? Failure to Pass Background Checks

Bluegrass Bruce: Obama’s Biggest Regret? Failure to Pass Background Checks:  A few weeks ago, Obama said that his biggest disappointment as President was Congress’ failure to pass background check legislation . Yes, you read that correctly. Of all the things he has bungled and ignored over the past six years, Obama thinks that his failure to limit the Second Amendment is the worst failure his presidency.

Really? That’s all he can come up with?

There are about seventeen million things that he should regret more than failing to take away gun rights from law abiding Americans. In case he forgot, here is a short list to remind him of some of the big ones:

Abandoning Iraq and thrusting the country into civil war.
Using the NSA to spy on millions of Americans.
Spending the country’s future into oblivion.
Bailing out all of those banks and companies that were “too big to fail”.
The unmitigated disaster of Obamacare.

Instead, despite this endless list of screw-ups, Obama’s biggest regret is the fact that Congress didn’t pass a background checks law.

2016 cannot come soon enough.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

What Obama's "Leadership" Has Given Us: Condensed Version

Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma has summed up the major features of President Obama's leadership in a one-minute speech on the House floor. And he doesn't mention the economic failures, which would take a few more minutes.




 This is the same congressman who wasn't allowed to visit a federal facility for housing illegal alien children in his district.


From the website of Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma):

Congressman Bridenstine Denied Access to UAC Housing at Ft. Sill

Congressman Jim Bridenstine (OK) was denied access yesterday to the HHS facility at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma currently housing up to 1,200 unaccompanied alien children (UAC) who illegally crossed the southern border into the United States.
 Congressman Bridenstine said, “There is no excuse for denying a Federal Representative from Oklahoma access to a federal facility in Oklahoma where unaccompanied children are being held.  Any Member of Congress should have the legal authority to visit a federal youth detention facility without waiting three weeks."

Friday, March 7, 2014

A Case for American Liberty: Rand Paul's CPAC Speech


Senator Rand Paul at CPAC: "[President Obama]s got a pen, he’s got a phone, he doesn’t care what the law is. A tyranny will ensue, and we must stop this President."

As Rand Paul points out in his outstanding CPAC 2014 speech, our liberties are not respected by the Obama Administration, and their lawless actions must be stopped. Senator Paul (R-KY) fired up the CPAC audience, not simply by his speaking ability (which is considerable), but by the compelling content of his speech. It is one that should not be missed or overlooked by Americans who value liberty. The speech  deserves a hearing. Whoever you support for president or whatever your political affiliation, if you are someone who values our liberty, please listen.




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Thursday, February 20, 2014

Obama the Lawless


By Eddie Howell

That time has arrived.
O.K., you can put me down as pretty much anti-government, that is, anti-Obama Administration. This administration's continuous power grabs and attacks on constitutional freedom must be stopped. The Administration's outrageous acts cannot be allowed to continue unabated. There are various steps that can be taken to keep them somewhat in check.

Apparently, congressional Democrats in both houses are not up to any kind of constitutional challenge to the dictatorial President Barack Obama. This is likely due to one or more of the following: Fear of jeopardizing their career, being OK with the status quo because they don't know and/or don't care about American freedom, the Constitution, or their constituents (other than as vote sources), or, like Obama himself, they just simply have a very strong Marxist/fascist mean streak. It's hard to believe nice people in high office would have such low regard for Americans' freedom. Many of these people apparently do have a low level of concern for these things, or else they're very afraid.

The Republican leadership has yet to show much of a desire to do anything about it, except for the occasional good-sounding statement. They are upset with their colleagues who are actually voicing concern, people like Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX). The fact that John Boehner (R-OH) is still House Speaker is rather remarkable in view of the leadership's acceptance of being steamrolled on such issues as the debt ceiling. The GOP controls only one house of Congress, but their leaders behave as though they control nothing. Actually, they control quite a lot since they have the power of the purse. Yet they are so lacking in skill and/or desire to plan any kind of strategy to oppose Obama, that they look helpless.

At this point, the best strategy, to me, seems to be this: Wait until after the 2014 elections, and if the GOP ends up controlling both houses of Congress (and the congressional elections are, after all, theirs to lose), then impeach Obama and remove him from office. Of course this is likely only in some fantasy. But Obama's malfeasance in basically every area rises beyond the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” because of his lawless behavior.

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” – Claude Frederic Bastiat

The Administration has plenty of willingness to go after people of opposing political views who might have disobeyed the law, for example Dinesh D'Souza, but care little for obeying laws that inconvenience themselves, such as Obamacare, which has been changed just about weekly, by executive action, without regard to Congress. The Administration has no concern about violating religious freedom, as illustrated by the Obamacare contraception mandates, or economic freedom, as evidenced by Obamacare itself. (Nor can the Supreme Court be relied upon to protect liberty, but that's another article).

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” – Thomas Jefferson

The history of the Obama Administration is a continuing story of abuse of power, obsession with increasing executive power, stonewalling on scandals, lie upon lie, attempts to destroy their opponents or people who might get in their way and vicious attacks on personal liberty.

The latest attack on American freedom today comes from the Federal Communications Commission, which is going to carry out a “study” of local news broadcasters about whether the regime is pleased with their performance regarding “critical information needs” of various audiences. This is extremely disturbing since the “study” could, and likely will, later be used to exert pressure on any who are politically inconvenient, the FCC being the licensing agency for local broadcasters and having power to shut them down by executive action. It is very clearly an act of intimidation to small, basically defenseless local broadcasters, who may feel the need to please the government and not risk losing their broadcast licenses. One member of the FCC had an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal warning of the dangers of the “study” (not to mention the million-dollar cost). Conservative House members plan to investigate and probably hold hearings.

As serious and potentially evil as this FCC action is, it is a relatively small thing in the agenda of the Obama Administration. They readily send government agencies (FCC, EPA, IRS, etc.) after people who are effective political opponents of theirs. It is clear that Obama's "pen and phone" Executive Branch is a special interest striving to promote itself and increase its power by whatever means it can get away with. It is foolish to suppose that we can rely on the federal bureaucracy to be concerned about citizens, especially those they don't like. The great irony is that We the People are paying for our own oppression.

I am confident that this state of affairs will not stand. I believe Americans are not so weak and docile as to continuously put up with abuse of their liberties and policies that undermine the economy, harm the United States in the world arena, and create ever-more citizen dependence upon government. To correct this, we should start by voting Democrats out of Congress, and replace a few Republicans as well.
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Further reading: Jay Sekulow, "Is Obama trying to kill a free press?," Fox News, 02/20/2014.
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