Creeping Tyranny

Don’t expect to wake up one day and find we’ve emerged from the sunshine of liberty and stepped into the fog of tyranny.  The transition will be subtle.  The Overton Window will shift to tyranny as the public, with the aid of media, popular culture and those in power row forward.

President Obama seems aware of this concept, with claims of Executive Authority (over the authority of Congress), and now this.

President Barack Obama used his time on a Google hangout Friday to say he wants to push ahead with some version of net neutrality regulations despite an appeals court ruling this month that struck down the existing Federal Communication Commission regulation over Internet providers.

He said that the government has to respect the court’s ruling “initially,” but that there may be other avenues for government regulation.

[Emphasis mine.]

Just what “other avenues” are considered in the Constitution?

Can’t think of any.

Time to Pile On Pelosi

Ed Morrissey posts a juicy piece at HotAir exposing a level of Pelosi’s incompetence that can only be call incompetent incompetence.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not my responsibility.”

“Things will be better.”

“There is no excuse.”

“I don’t think there’s corruption.”

“Do something about it.” [uh-huh, that’s John Stewart’s job?]

“I don’t know that.”

Senator Mike Lee’s Response to the Annual Presidential Campaign Speech

Full transcript available here.  Notably, Senator Lee addresses the administration’s false concept that government is the way to solve “inequality” when the administration’s notion of “inequality” is created by … the administration.

But where does this new inequality come from? From government — every time it takes rights and opportunities away from the American people and gives them instead to politicians, bureaucrats, and special interests.

Inequality – real inequality – is trapping poor children in failing schools to benefit bureaucrats and union bosses. It’s penalizing low-income parents for getting married, or getting better jobs.

It’s guaranteeing insurance companies taxpayer bailouts if Obamacare cuts into their profits.

Inequality is blocking thousands of middle-class jobs in the energy industry as a favor to partisan donors and radical environmental activists.

Inequality is denying viable, unborn children any protection under the law, while exempting unsanitary, late-term abortion clinics from basic safety standards.

It’s denying citizens their right to define marriage in their states as traditionally or as broadly as their diverse values dictate.

It’s the federal government hurting rural communities, especially in the west, by controlling and mismanaging public lands.

It’s changing laws without congressional approval, and spying on American citizens without constitutional authority.

And of course, Obamacare – all by itself – is an inequality Godzilla that has robbed working families of their insurance, their doctors, their wages and their jobs. Many Americans are now seeing why some of us fought so hard to stop this train-wreck over the last four years.

Government-driven inequality is the reason why, as hard-working families across the country struggle to make ends meet, six of the ten wealthiest counties in America are now suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Tyranny of the State – MD Police Stalk and Stop Tampa CCW holder

The probable cause for the stop is unspecified.  Presumably the police see the Florida plate, run it and see the CCW flag on the response.  In Maryland that must be probable cause for a stop and search.

Trouble, in fact, was the last thing on his mind a few weeks back as the Filippidises packed for Christmas and a family wedding in Woodridge, N.J., so he left the pistol locked in the safe. The state of Florida might have codified his Second Amendment rights, but he knew he’d be passing through states where recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions affirming the rights of individuals to keep and bear arms have been met by hostile legislatures and local officials.

“I know the laws and I know the rules,” Filippidis says. There are, after all, ways gun owners can travel legally with firearms through hostile states. “But I just think it’s a better idea to leave it home.”

So there the Filippidises were on New Year’s Eve eve, southbound on Interstate 95 — John; wife Kally (his Gulf High sweetheart); the 17-year-old twins Nasia and Yianni; and 13-year-old Gina in their 2012 Ford Expedition — just barely out of the Fort McHenry Tunnel into Maryland, blissfully unarmed and minding their own business when they noticed they were being bird-dogged by an unmarked patrol car. It flanked them a while, then pulled ahead of them, then fell in behind them.

Just Sayin…

Lois Lerner gives a face to the Federal Administrative Bureaucratic State.   Just sayin…

Russians Recorded Bomber’s Calls, FBI Calls Russians Islamaphobes

So today the news reports the Russians recorded a call between the Tsarnaevs where “one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother.”  (H/T Drudge).

Here’s the kicker:

As it was, Russian authorities told the FBI only that they had concerns that Tamerlan and his mother were religious extremists. With no additional information, the FBI conducted a limited inquiry and closed the case in June 2011.

Based on the FBI’s current training manual, connections between Islam and violence were purged:

An internal FBI investigation into its counterterrorism training has purged hundreds of bureau documents of instructional material about Muslims, some of which characterized them as prone to violence or terrorism.

2 + 2 = 4.

ICE Agents Are Suing Janet Napolitano

From August of 2012, finally there’s some publicity on this issue raising it to DD’s attention.

ICE agents are facing disciplinary actions for enforcing the law, so they’re suing:

Claiming they are being forced to carry out an illegal policy, 10 immigration agents filed a federal lawsuit in Texas on Thursday against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, seeking to overturn an Obama administration program that suspends deportations for illegal immigrants who came here when they were children. [emphasis mine]

If they don’t ignore the law, they’re facing disciplinary actions:

The agents said they faced disciplinary action by officials at ICE, as the agency is called, for arrests that conflict with its directives.

…

Two other plaintiffs said they were punished for making legitimate arrests.

“Radicalization” is a myth?

[Updated: fix attribution of the site hosting Walid Shoebat’s article.]

Walid Shoebat posts an exposé at The Right Scoop The Boston Bombers Radicalization (Myth vs. Fact)  after the Boston Marathon bombers were identified as Islamists.   Radicalization is not a “slow-cook” process:

Western research into ‘radicalization’ is all based on a myth; there is no slow-cooking-crock-pot and there is no process in which moderate Muslims get ‘radicalized’. Fact is, ‘radicalization,’ if indeed this term is the proper term, is not a process, but rather a button which can be pushed in seconds that transform Muslims into terrorists.

Was the older brother a “martyr?”

Americans need to monitor Tsarnaev’s funeral. Will he be washed and shrouded with white cloth or will he be buried whole in his original clothes in which he died? This makes a big difference, since the second choice would mean that the family believes in his martyrdom.

Get real, America!

Will Obama HEAR Dr. Ben Carson?

Everyone knows President Obama was present while Dr. Ben Carson spoke at the February 2012 National Prayer Breakfast.  But was Obama listening?  What filters did he apply?

“That’s where we end up, too, if we don’t speak up for what we believe.  … what we need to do in this P.C. [politically correct] world is forget about unanimity of speech and unanimity of thought.  And we need to concentrate on being respectful [with] those people with whom we disagree.”

Obama’s form of P.C. is straw man bully speech.  “There are those that say… [something offensive to Obama]” when, in fact “those that say” exist only in Obama’s speech writer’s imagination.

Do YOU hear Dr. Ben Carson?

Two Paths