Will America Break Up?

[American Patriot]

I was on FB last night. Bracken posted that, and another video. This guy gets on the thread... "Mick Rolling" (think, "Mick Jagger" and "Rolling Stones" as a place to pull a name from for example) and claimed to be a military guy and we were a bunch of paranoid morons and on and on.

He was basically a troll. Matt accused him of being a "paid shill" and getting paid by the post. He ignored those comments completely, and continued to throw random shit into the conversation as any well-trained troll would do to obfuscate and misinform, and misdirect. I will say he was pretty good at it, but I took it on my self to keep asking the same questions (they were never answered of course) and bring the conversation back to the subject.

We looked up the guy's profile, and he claims to have worked for Blackwater. One guy asked him "How long have you had these door-kicking fantasy, Mick?"

LOL

No, HONESTLY Ryan, people who are part of that sort of mercenary group have absolutely no qualms about kicking in doors and shooting non-compliant "citizens" (or subjects). They are the arm of a Tyrant and they will do whatever it is that gets them the most pay. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

I promise some of them WILL die by the sword.

[Ryan Ruck]

Liberals May Regret Their New Rules

April 5, 2015
By Kurt Schlicter



That photo is me about ten years ago, standing in the ruins of a land where people rejected the rule of law in favor of the rule of force. I think a lot about my year-long deployment to Kosovo these days. I think a lot about people today who, for short term political points, cavalierly disregard the rules, laws and norms that made America what it is. I think a lot about how liberals, especially those who boo God, should pray to Him that those rules, laws and norms are restored.

I am most certainly not smiling – I am squinting in the winter sun, having doffed my ever-present Ray-Bans. Behind me is – well, was – a village along the Ibar River in northern Kosovo. In the 1990s, it was full of Serbs and gypsies (The new, politically correct term is “Roma”). Back then, after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Kosovo was a province of Serbia. Without rehashing the centuries of ancient animosities and grievances, the Orthodox Serbs found themselves unrestrained by the political consensus that Josip Tito had enforced and began an escalating series of petty and not-so-petty oppressions against the Kosovar Albanians. The “K-Albs” are about 10% Christian but mostly moderate Muslims (we called them “party Muslims,” and our troops used to love to go on patrol through K-Alb towns during the spring when the gorgeous Albanian women were in full effect). They were a minority in Serbia as a whole, but a majority in the province of Kosovo.

Now, there’s no understanding Balkan hatreds – don’t even try. But basically, the tensions really kicked in after Slobodan Milosevic came to the battlefield at Kosovo Polje in 1989 on the 500th anniversary of the Muslim Ottoman Turks annihilating the cream of Serbian nobility. Thereafter, the campaign of exclusion and harassment against the K-Albs by Serbs ratcheted up. Where they had lived together in peace before, now the Serbs – unrestrained by laws, rules or norms – became increasingly despotic.

Eventually, the Serbs tried to drive out the despised minority K-Albs. NATO intervened and saved the Albanians, who promptly came back and drove the Serbs out. The Roma, perceived as allies of the Serbs, fled too. That village behind me wasn’t blown up by explosives. That damage was done by people, with picks and shovels and bare hands.

Which brings us to America in 2015. It’s becoming a nation where an elite that is certain of its power and its moral rightness is waging a cultural war on a despised minority. Except it’s not actually a minority – it only seems that way because it is marginalized by the coastal elitist liberals who run the mainstream media.

Today in America, we have a liberal president refuses to recognize the majority sent to Congress as a reaction to his progressive failures, and who uses extra-Constitutional means like executive orders to stifle the voice of his opponents. We have a liberal establishment on a secular jihad against people who dare place their conscience ahead of progressive dogma. And we have two different sets of laws, one for the little people and one for liberals like Lois Lerner, Al Sharpton and Hillary Clinton, who can blatantly commit federal crimes and walk away scot free and smirking.

Today in America, a despised minority that is really no minority is the target of an establishment that considers this minority unworthy of respect, unworthy of rights, and unworthy of having a say in the direction of this country. It’s an establishment that has one law for itself, and another for its enemies. It’s an establishment that inflicts an ever-increasing series of petty humiliations on its opponents and considers this all hilarious.

That’s a recipe for disaster. You cannot expect to change the status quo for yourself and then expect those you victimize not to play by the new rules you have created. You cannot expect to be able to discard the rule of law in favor of the rule of force and have those you target not respond in kind.

Liberals ask how a baker can believe that making a cake for a same sex wedding violates his conscience, but they don’t think about how the standard they are setting is that the government now gets to determine the validity of individual beliefs. Do they want us passing judgment on them?

Liberals imagine that their president can simply take whatever actions he pleases – including ones he previously admitted were unconstitutional – and that the next Republican president won’t do the same. Except then it will be to negate their cherished policies.

Liberals praise Harry Reid for lying about Mitt Romney and for ensuring the GOP’s voice can’t be heard on Capitol Hill, but they don’t think about what happens to them when they are out of power in an environment where slander is the norm and where minorities have no say. Conservatives have principles, but human nature is a powerful thing, and human nature favors payback.

The revolt has begun, peacefully. In 2010, and again in 2014, the Silent Majority returned and sent an unmistakable message to the liberal elite. When Bill Clinton got that message in 1994, he recognized that opposition and worked with it. But under Obama, the liberal elite acts to ignore and delegitimize the opposition. 2014 was not a tantrum; it was a warning, and the liberals are betting that they can bluff and bluster their way through it.

When you block all normal means of dissent, whether by ignoring the political will of you opponents or using the media to mock and abuse them, you build up the pressure. In 30+ years as an active conservative, I’ve never heard people so angry, so frustrated, so fed up. These emotions are supposed to be dissipated by normal political processes. But liberals are bottling them up. And they will blow. It’s only a matter of how.

Liberals need to understand the reality that rarely penetrates their bubble. Non-liberal Americans (it’s more than just conservatives who are under the liberal establishment’s heel) are the majority of this country. They hold power in many states and regions in unprecedented majorities. And these attacks focus on what they hold dearest – their religion, their families and their freedom.

What is the end game, liberals? Do you expect these people you despise to just take it? Do you think they’ll just shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, I guess we better comply?” Do you even know any real Americans? Do you think you’ll somehow be able to force them into obedience – for what is government power but force – after someone finally says “Enough?”

In my book Conservative Insurgency, I offer a scenario set in the late 2010s where the Texas governor refuses to allow Hillary Clinton to enforce an unconstitutional handgun ban within his state. It devolves into a brief, bloody spasm of violence, after which a sobered country walks back from the precipice and returns to resolving conflicts through the Constitution (albeit, with some lingering damage to our political and social norms). But there is no guarantee that things might not spin out of control the other way. And then liberals would be well advised to ask themselves who will be willing to fight and die to preserve their power and policies. In contrast, there are an awful lot of people willing to fight and die for their religion and our Constitution.

And let’s be blunt – these are the people with most of the guns and the training to use them. That’s the reality of the rule of force. I’ve seen it – it’s there behind me in that photo.

Now, this will no doubt draw the lie that I am somehow advocating violence. The current liberal habit of shamelessly lying about their opponents makes civil debate impossible. Similarly, the mockery of non-liberals before stacked audiences of trained seals a la Jon Stewart is part and parcel of the same strategy of delegitimizing any opposition. Closing down the option of discussion leaves their opponents with only the option of action. So far, the action has only been in funding campaigns for oppressed pizzerias and in the voting booth – though they’ve trying to nullify that too.

I’m not advocating violence – I am warning liberals that they are setting the conditions for violence.

And that better worry them, for the coastal elites are uniquely unsuited to a world where force rules instead of law. The Serbs were, at least, a warrior people. The soft boys and girls who brought us helicopter parenting, “trigger warnings” and coffee cups with diversity slogans are not.

I know the endgame of discarding the rule of law for short-term advantage because I stood in its ruins. Liberals think this free society just sort of happened, that they can poke and tear at its fabric and things will just go on as before. But they won’t. So at the end of the day, if you want a society governed by the rule of force, you better pray that you’re on the side with the guns and those who know how to use them.

[Ryan Ruck]

U.S. Split Along Racial Lines on Backlash Against Police, Poll Finds

May 3, 2015

Americans are bracing for a summer of racial disturbances around the country, such as those that have wracked Baltimore, with African Americans and whites deeply divided about why the urban violence has occurred, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has found.

A resounding 96% of adults surveyed said it was likely there would be additional racial disturbances this summer, a signal that Americans believe Baltimore’s recent problems aren’t a local phenomenon but instead are symptomatic of broader national problems.

When asked to explain recent events in Baltimore and other cities that have seen confrontations between police and members of the African-American community, blacks and whites viewed the situation differently.

Asked to choose between two possible explanations for recent events, 60% of blacks said they reflected “long-standing frustrations about police mistreatment of African Americans.” Some 27% of black respondents said the disturbances were caused by people who used protests over an African American man dying in police custody “as an excused to engage in looting and violence.”

But among whites, the balance of opinion flipped: 58% said people were seizing an excuse to loot, while 32% said the events reflected long-standing frustrations with police.

While most people in the survey predicted further racial disturbances this summer, a smaller share expected them to hit close to home. The poll found that 53% of whites and 46% of African Americans said it was likely there would be a racial disturbance in the metropolitan area nearest to them.

Full results of the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, including public opinion of the 2016 presidential contenders, will be released on Monday evening.

The survey was conducted April 26-30, during which time Freddie Gray, an African American who died in police custody, was buried, and the city saw protests and violence. The polling was completed before Friday’s announcement by the Baltimore state’s attorney that six police officers were being charged in Mr. Gray’s death.

Some 508 adults were asked questions regarding Baltimore and racial disturbances. The margin of error was plus-or-minus 4.35 percentage points for all adults. The margin of error is higher for subgroups.

Prepare accordingly...

[Ryan Ruck]

Could have posted this in the thread about the IRS targeting Conservatives but, as VDH points out, it is a symptom of a bigger problem.

America’s Politicized Tax Enforcement Is a Harbinger of Decline

May 7, 2015
By Victor Davis Hanson

Why did Rome and Byzantium fall apart after centuries of success? What causes civilizations to collapse, from a dysfunctional fourth-century-B.C. Athens to contemporary bankrupt Greece?

The answer is usually not enemies at the gates, but the pathologies inside them.

What ruins societies is well known: too much consumption and not enough production, a debased currency, and endemic corruption.

Americans currently deal with all those symptoms. But two more fundamental causes for decline are even more frightening: an unwillingness to pay taxes and the end of the rule of law.

Al Sharpton is again prominently in the news, blaming various groups for the Baltimore unrest. But Sharpton currently owes the U.S. government more than $3 million in back taxes, according to reports. His excuses have ranged from insufficient funds to pay them to sloppy record-keeping and mysterious fires.

Sharpton, a frequent White House guest, apparently assumes that his community-organizing provides him political exemption from federal tax law. He seems to be right, at least as long as the current administration is in power.

The Clinton Foundation is expected to refile its tax returns for 2010, 2011, and 2012 after failing to separate government grants from donations. If an average citizen tried to amend his taxes for such huge sums and from that long ago, he would probably be under indictment.

News reports of undocumented donations from foreign governments caught the foundation underreporting its income. The well-connected Clinton clan apparently had assumed that their political status ensured them immunity.

In the current political landscape, ideology also offers cover for tax noncompliance. Two of the most liberal talking heads at the MSNBC cable news network, Touré Neblett and Melissa Harris-Perry, known for their advocacy of higher tax rates on the affluent, turn out to be both quite well off and quite unwilling to pay their fair share of taxes. Reports indicate that Neblett and Harris-Perry both owe more than $50,000 in delinquent taxes.

Who will police the tax police?

Former IRS official Lois Lerner and her subordinates were found to have targeted conservative nonprofit groups for excessive federal scrutiny. While testifying before Congress, Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and investigators later found that two years of her e-mails had gone missing in a mysterious computer crash. Lerner has not been charged.

Under the current system, the very wealthy have the pull and capital to navigate around the 3.7-million-word IRS tax code. Billionaire George Soros, a proponent of big government and higher taxes, reportedly could face a tax bill of approximately $7 billion after years of deferrals.

Nonparticipation in the tax system and noncompliance are recipes for social and cultural disaster — as we see with the current climbing tax rates, huge deficits, and unsustainable national debt.



Our laws are becoming as politicized as our tax system.

Whatever one thinks of illegal immigration, it’s undeniable that under the Obama administration, federal immigration law enforcement is now predicated on politics. The law as it was written suddenly has ceased to exist — at least for particular groups at particular times and places.

In the last six years, the enforcement of federal laws has depended on their apparent political utility. If elements of the controversial Affordable Care Act were deemed politically risky, then their implementation was ignored until after an election. If the Environmental Protection Agency could not see its agenda passed through Congress as federal law, then it implemented its green policies by fiat.

If the Obama administration reaches a controversial agreement with Iran that will not meet the Constitutional test of ratification by two-thirds of the Senate, then it will not be called a treaty and instead be imposed by presidential executive order.

Prosecutors have never been more ideologically driven. Senator Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) opposes administration policies on Cuba and Iran — and then suddenly faces federal indictments on charges covering a period from 2006 to 2013.

In the tragic Freddie Gray case, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby all but assured an angry crowd that she had provided them indictments for murder and manslaughter and thereby expected calm in the streets in return. She indicted six Baltimore policemen on charges that are likely to be reduced or disproved in court, but those charges served the short-term purpose of defusing unchecked rioting and looting. Warping the law was thought to be more effective in easing tensions than enforcing it.

Increasingly in the United States, the degree to which a law is enforced — or whether a person is indicted — depends on political considerations. But when citizens do not pay any income taxes, or choose not to pay taxes that they owe and expect impunity, a complex society unwinds.

And when the law has becomes negotiable, civilization utterly collapses.

[Ryan Ruck]

Could have posted this in the thread about the IRS targeting Conservatives but, as VDH points out, it is a symptom of a bigger problem.

America’s Politicized Tax Enforcement Is a Harbinger of Decline

May 7, 2015
By Victor Davis Hanson

Why did Rome and Byzantium fall apart after centuries of success? What causes civilizations to collapse, from a dysfunctional fourth-century-B.C. Athens to contemporary bankrupt Greece?

The answer is usually not enemies at the gates, but the pathologies inside them.

What ruins societies is well known: too much consumption and not enough production, a debased currency, and endemic corruption.

Americans currently deal with all those symptoms. But two more fundamental causes for decline are even more frightening: an unwillingness to pay taxes and the end of the rule of law.

Al Sharpton is again prominently in the news, blaming various groups for the Baltimore unrest. But Sharpton currently owes the U.S. government more than $3 million in back taxes, according to reports. His excuses have ranged from insufficient funds to pay them to sloppy record-keeping and mysterious fires.

Sharpton, a frequent White House guest, apparently assumes that his community-organizing provides him political exemption from federal tax law. He seems to be right, at least as long as the current administration is in power.

The Clinton Foundation is expected to refile its tax returns for 2010, 2011, and 2012 after failing to separate government grants from donations. If an average citizen tried to amend his taxes for such huge sums and from that long ago, he would probably be under indictment.

News reports of undocumented donations from foreign governments caught the foundation underreporting its income. The well-connected Clinton clan apparently had assumed that their political status ensured them immunity.

In the current political landscape, ideology also offers cover for tax noncompliance. Two of the most liberal talking heads at the MSNBC cable news network, Touré Neblett and Melissa Harris-Perry, known for their advocacy of higher tax rates on the affluent, turn out to be both quite well off and quite unwilling to pay their fair share of taxes. Reports indicate that Neblett and Harris-Perry both owe more than $50,000 in delinquent taxes.

Who will police the tax police?

Former IRS official Lois Lerner and her subordinates were found to have targeted conservative nonprofit groups for excessive federal scrutiny. While testifying before Congress, Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and investigators later found that two years of her e-mails had gone missing in a mysterious computer crash. Lerner has not been charged.

Under the current system, the very wealthy have the pull and capital to navigate around the 3.7-million-word IRS tax code. Billionaire George Soros, a proponent of big government and higher taxes, reportedly could face a tax bill of approximately $7 billion after years of deferrals.

Nonparticipation in the tax system and noncompliance are recipes for social and cultural disaster — as we see with the current climbing tax rates, huge deficits, and unsustainable national debt.



Our laws are becoming as politicized as our tax system.

Whatever one thinks of illegal immigration, it’s undeniable that under the Obama administration, federal immigration law enforcement is now predicated on politics. The law as it was written suddenly has ceased to exist — at least for particular groups at particular times and places.

In the last six years, the enforcement of federal laws has depended on their apparent political utility. If elements of the controversial Affordable Care Act were deemed politically risky, then their implementation was ignored until after an election. If the Environmental Protection Agency could not see its agenda passed through Congress as federal law, then it implemented its green policies by fiat.

If the Obama administration reaches a controversial agreement with Iran that will not meet the Constitutional test of ratification by two-thirds of the Senate, then it will not be called a treaty and instead be imposed by presidential executive order.

Prosecutors have never been more ideologically driven. Senator Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) opposes administration policies on Cuba and Iran — and then suddenly faces federal indictments on charges covering a period from 2006 to 2013.

In the tragic Freddie Gray case, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby all but assured an angry crowd that she had provided them indictments for murder and manslaughter and thereby expected calm in the streets in return. She indicted six Baltimore policemen on charges that are likely to be reduced or disproved in court, but those charges served the short-term purpose of defusing unchecked rioting and looting. Warping the law was thought to be more effective in easing tensions than enforcing it.

Increasingly in the United States, the degree to which a law is enforced — or whether a person is indicted — depends on political considerations. But when citizens do not pay any income taxes, or choose not to pay taxes that they owe and expect impunity, a complex society unwinds.

And when the law has becomes negotiable, civilization utterly collapses.

[Ryan Ruck]

Indiana Will Defy Obama On Climate Change Plan

June 24, 2015

Indiana will not comply with President Barack Obama's plan to battle climate change by requiring reductions in emissions from coal-fired power plants, Republican Gov. Mike Pence said Wednesday.

The proposal as currently written, known as the Clean Power Plan, will make Indiana electricity more expensive and less reliable and hurt economic growth in Indiana and across the nation, Pence wrote in a letter to Obama.

The plan targets pollution from the coal-fired power plants that Indiana relies on. Pence said the Indiana coal industry employs more than 26,000 people.

"If your administration proceeds to finalize the Clean Power Plan, and the final rule has not demonstrably and significantly improved from the proposed rule, Indiana will not comply. Our state will also reserve the right to use any legal means available to block the rule from being implemented," Pence wrote.

Indiana is not the only state to defy the president on the issue. Oklahoma's Republican Gov. Mary Fallin issued an executive order in April prohibiting her state from developing a plan to reduce its carbon dioxide emission from power plants.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release the final rule in August. As proposed by the EPA last year, the plan would require Indiana to reduce its 2005 level of carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2030. Each state is responsible for drawing up an effective plan to meet its goal.

"Our nation needs an `all of the above' energy strategy that relies on a variety of different energy sources," Pence wrote to Obama. "Energy policy should promote the safe, environmentally responsible stewardship of our natural resources with the goal of reliable, affordable energy. Your approach to energy policy places environmental concerns above all others."

By not complying with the rule, Indiana would refuse to file a state plan to meet its carbon emissions goal. As a result, the EPA would impose a federal plan on Indiana, which the state then would likely challenge in court.

EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison issued a statement saying the draft final rule that "will deliver a clean, affordable and reliable electricity supply, drive American innovation and American jobs, and that will demonstrate U.S. leadership within the international community."

"In the EPA's nearly 45-year history, emissions from power plant pollution have decreased dramatically, improving public health protection for all Americans, while the economy has grown. EPA's plan will not change that," Harrison said.

Pence's letter was praised by the coal industry and investor-owned utilities but panned by an environmentalist.

"Governor Pence has shown repeatedly that his allegiance lies not with protecting our families, but with protecting the profits of Big Coal and dirty fossil fuels. We deserve better," said a statement issued by Jodi Perras, Indiana representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign.

The Union of Concerned Scientists said in a statement that Indiana can meet its 2030 goal by reinstating an energy efficiency standard that it repealed last year, encouraging greater use of renewable energy, and creating a regional program that allows Midwest states to work together to reduce emissions.

Mark Maassel, president of the Indiana Energy Association, which represents the state's investor-owned utilities, said the group believes "the Clean Power Plan will be extremely costly for Indiana customers, which also means it's also bad for the economy. It's very questionable whether it will be supported in the courts."

A federal appeals court earlier this month threw out a lawsuit from a coalition of Indiana and 14 other states that claimed the EPA exceeded its authority last year when it proposed climate change plan.

[Ryan Ruck]

Boy Hit, Race Tensions Sparked

Black citizens become irate as white driver not cited

July 18, 2015


Racial tensions ensued between the unidentified woman who was screaming obscenities to the white woman who struck the 2-year-old boy in an accident on State Street in Alton. An Alton police officer restrains her from going any further down the street to where the woman was being questioned by the police. She was not cited and police believe the incident was unavoidable.

Tempers flared and racial tensions sparked Saturday morning after a young African American boy was struck by a vehicle, the white driver not cited by the Alton Police Department.

The incident occurred at approximately 11:55 a.m. in the 1200 block of State Street.

According to Alton Police Department spokesperson PFC Emily Hejna, a 2-year-old boy was hidden between two parked cars before he entered the roadway. The female driver slammed on her brakes, but was unable to avoid striking the child. Hejna said no adult was within arm’s reach of the child, according to the report she received.

Hejna said the boy suffered “very minor” injuries, but was taken to an area hospital as a precaution. He was treated and released.

Tensions flared when the driver, who remained at the scene and cooperated with with police, was not charged with any driving infractions and released from the scene. The boy’s mother and others at the scene accused police of only letting the driver go because she was white and the boy was black.

“At no time does race come into play during any investigation we do,” Hejna said. “We examine the information and facts of each case. We treat everyone equally.”

Hejna said the investigation is ongoing, but appears the accident was unavoidable and it’s unlikely the driver will be cited.

Individuals at the scene and the boy’s mother became heated and were witnessed becoming hostile toward police, but nobody was arrested and no charges were filed.

“Race was not a factor at all in this incident,” Hejna reaffirmed.

The Alton Police Department has made deliberate efforts to improve race relations with citizens over the last year, holding meet-and-greets in predominantly African American neighborhoods and hiring Jason Harrison, a 31-year-old African American chaplain appointed to act as a liaison between the department and the black community.

[Ryan Ruck]

Black Activists Call for Lynching and Hanging of White People and Cops

August 28, 2015

Members of the #FYF911 or #FukYoFlag and #BlackLivesMatter movements called for the lynching and hanging of white people and cops. They encouraged others on a radio show Tuesday night to “turn the tide” and kill white people and cops to send a message about the killing of black people in America.

One of the F***YoFlag organizers is called “Sunshine.” She has a radio blog show called, “Sunshine’s F***ing Opinion Radio Show.”

A snapshot of her #FYF911 @LOLatWhiteFear Twitter page at 9:53 p.m. shows that she was urging supporters to “Call now!! #fyf911 tonight we continue to dismantle the illustion of white…”



The radio show aired at 10:00 p.m. eastern standard time.



During the show, callers clearly call for “lynching” and “killing” of white people.

A 2:39 minute clip from the radio show can be heard here. It was provided to Breitbart Texas by someone who would like to be referred to as “Hannibal.” He has already received death threats as a result of interrupting #FYF911 conference calls.



An unidentified black man said “when those mother f**kers are by themselves, that’s when when we should start f***ing them up. Like they do us, when a bunch of them ni**ers takin’ one of us out, that’s how we should roll up.” He said, “Cause we already roll up in gangs anyway. There should be six or seven black mother f**ckers, see that white person, and then lynch their ass. Let’s turn the tables.”

They conspired that if “cops started losing people,” then “there will be a state of emergency.”

He speculated that one of two things would happen, “a big-ass [R’s?????] war,” or “ni**ers, they are going to start backin’ up.”

“We are already getting killed out here so what the f**k we got to lose?”

Sunshine could be heard saying, “Yep, that’s true. That’s so f**king true.”

He said, “We need to turn the tables on them. Our kids are getting shot out here. Somebody needs to become a sacrifice on their side.

He said, “Everybody ain’t down for that s**t, or whatever, but like I say, everybody has a different position of war.” He continued, “Because they don’t give a f**k anyway.” He said again, “We might as well utilized them for that s**t and turn the tables on these n**ers.”

He said, that way “we can start lookin’ like we ain’t havin’ that many casualties, and there can be more causalities on their side instead of ours.”

“They are out their killing black people, black lives don’t matter, that’s what those mother f**kers … so we got to make it matter to them.”

“Find a mother f**ker that is alone. Snap his ass, and then f***in hang him from a damn tree. Take a picture of it and then send it to the mother f**kers.”

We “just need one example,” and “then people will start watchin’.” This will turn the tables on s**t, he said. He said this will start “a trickle-down effect.” He said that when one white person is hung and then they are just “flat-hanging,” that will start the “trickle-down effect.” He continued, “Black people are good at starting trends.”

He said that was how “to get the upper-hand.”

Another black man spoke up saying they needed to kill “cops that are killing us. The first black male said, “That will be the best method right there.”

Breitbart Texas previously reported how Sunshine was upset when “racist white people” infiltrated and disrupted one of her conference calls. She subsequently released the phone number of one of the infiltrators. The veteran immediately started receiving threatening calls.

One of the #F***YoFlag movement supporters allegedly told a veteran who infiltrated their publicly posted conference call, “We are going to rape and gut your pregnant wife, and your f***ing piece of sh*t unborn creature will be hung from a tree.”

Breitbart Texas previously encountered Sunshine at a Sandra Bland protest at the Waller County Jail in Texas, where she said all white people should be killed. She told journalists and photographers, “You see this nappy-ass hair on my head? … That means I am one of those more militant Negroes.” She said she was at the protest because “these redneck mother-f**kers murdered Sandra Bland because she had nappy hair like me.”

#FYF911 black radicals say they will be holding the “imperial powers” that are actually responsible for the terrorist attacks on September 11th accountable on that day, as reported by Breitbart Texas. There are several websites and Twitter handles for the movement.

“Palmetto Star” describes himself as one of the head organizers. He said in a YouTube video that supporters will be burning their symbols of “the illusion of their superiority,” their “false white supremacy,” like the American flag, the British flag, police uniforms, and Ku Klux Klan hoods.

Sierra McGrone or “Nocturnus Libertus” posted, “you too can help a young Afrikan clean their a** with the rag of oppression.” She posted two photos, one that appears to be herself, and a photo of a black man, wiping their naked butts with the American flag.



“Fuk Yo Flag (#FYF911)” describes the movement on its website as:

The most powerful movement in the world right now. We, the people, are psychologically and physically breaking free of the imperialist, colonialist, and racist empires by burning representations starting on September 11th 2015.

Why September 11th? We recognize that these imperial powers attacked their own citizens on 9/11 in an attempt to gain more power from its people.

We are not disrespecting any citizen that may have died during these attacks on this day,instead we are acknowledging that, from this day forward, we are holding ALL imperial nations responsible for their needless deaths!

On 9/11 we will be burning American flags, confederate flags, police uniforms, and ALL representations of organized evil and oppressive nations.

We also will be raising the Liberation flag and building on a new nation for the people. This is an INTERNATIONAL movement and a day of unity, progressive action, and liberation.

To all OPPRESSIVE AND ORGANIZED EVIL after #FYF911 the people will not be bound to you any longer!!

FUCK YOUR FLAG!! Hashtag #FYF911 to see what people are doing in your area.

[Ryan Ruck]

Dis-Integrating America

Pat Buchanan predicts racial divide, outrage will increase not decrease

August 28, 2015

The Wednesday morning murders of 24-year-old Roanoke TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were a racist atrocity, a hate crime. Were they not white, they would be alive today.

Their killer, Vester L. Flanagan II, said as much in his farewell screed. He ordered his murder weapon, he said, two days after the slaughter of nine congregants at the African-American AME church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“What sent me over the top was the church shooting,” said Flanagan.

To be sure, racism does not fully explain why Flanagan, fired from that same WDBJ7 station, committed this act of pure evil.

Black and homosexual, he said he was the target of anti-gay slurs from black males and racial insults from white colleagues. He had gotten himself fired from other jobs in broadcasting. He carried a grab bag of grudges and resentments.

Yet, in the last analysis, the Washington Post headline got it right: “Gunman’s letter frames attack as racial revenge.”

Other news organizations downplayed the racial aspect. But had those murdered journalists been young and black, and their killer a 40-something “angry white male,” the racial motivation would have been front and center in their stories.

Now, Black America is surely as sickened by this horror outside Roanoke as was White America by the Charleston massacre.

But it is hard to see how and when we come together as a people. For racial crimes and race conflict have become “the story” everyone seizes upon – since Ferguson in the summer of 2014.

On the first anniversary of Michael Brown’s death, protesters blocked public buildings in St. Louis and St. Louis County, shut down I-70 at rush hour. In Ferguson, hoodlums rioted and looted for days.

What justification was there for such lawlessness?

Explained some in the press, it was to protest the failure to prosecute a white cop who had killed an “unarmed black teenager.”

Left out of most stories was that Brown, 18, had knocked over a convenience store, throttled a clerk half his size and was unarmed only because he failed to wrest a gun away from Officer Darren Wilson, whom a grand jury declared had acted in self-defense when he shot the charging 290-pound Brown.

Since then, we have had the Eric Garner incident on Staten Island, where a 345-pound black man, suffering from diabetes, asthma, obesity and heart disease, died of heart failure after being wrestled to the ground by five cops, none of whom was charged.

Came then the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, while in police custody. There, six officers have been charged. Then came the death of a 12-year-old black kid in Cleveland, who was waving a toy gun.

As the incidents pile up, with white cops shooting black suspects, and black criminals killing white cops, the news goes viral, and America divides along the lines of race and color, and between black and blue.

Though, let it be said, the violence in Ferguson and Baltimore was child’s play compared to Watts in ’65, Detroit and Newark in ’67, and D.C. and 100 other cities after Dr. King’s assassination in 1968.

“Can we all get along?” pleaded Rodney King, when South Central exploded in rioting, arson and looting after the L.A. cops who had beaten King were exonerated.

Answer: Probably not.

For what seems certain, ensuring that our racial divide widens and deepens, is that more incidents like those involving Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray are inevitable.

Why so?

First, violent crime, declining since the early 1990s, is rising again. And violent crime in black communities is many times higher than in the white communities of America.

Collisions between black suspects and criminals and white cops are going to increase, and some of these collisions are going to involve shootings. And such shootings not only trigger fixed, deep-seated beliefs about cops, criminals and injustice, they also cause an instantaneous taking of sides.

Moreover, this is the sort of “news” that instantly goes viral through the Internet, Facebook and 24-hour cable TV.

Liberals and Democrats take sides with the black community out of solidarity and to solidify their political base, while Republicans stand with the cops, law-and-order conservatives and the Silent Majority in Middle America.

The race issue has even begun to split the Democrats.

When former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a card-carrying liberal, attended a conference of Netroots Nation and responded to a chant of “Black Lives Matter!” with the more inclusive, “Black Lives Matter! White Lives Matter! All Lives Matter!” he was virtually booed off the stage.

O’Malley proceeded to apologize for including the white folks.

To many Americans, even many who did not vote for him, the election of Barack Obama seemed to hold out the promise that our racial divide could be healed by a black president.

Even Obama’s supporters must concede it did not happen, though we would, again, argue angrily over why.

[Ryan Ruck]

Million Man March Speaker Leads Chant of ‘Down, Down USA’

October 10, 2015

Crowds gathered at the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. were led in a “down, down USA” chant Saturday morning by a female speaker.

The Native American woman proclaimed that Muammar “Gaddafi is still alive” and called for President Barack Obama to pardon Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist who was convicted of murdering two Federal Bureau of Investigation officers in 1975. The woman then led the crowd in a chant of “down, down USA.”

“They have a whole race of indigenous people on reservations, concentration camps. They’re out there killing the indigenous people spiritually,” she said.

The woman followed a speech from Chief Ernie Longwalker of the Red Wind Nation who seemingly was unhappy about his time on stage being cut short.

“They’re telling me to stop,” he said. “We’ve given you 500 years. You only give us about five minutes.”

Thousands of black people and other minorities descended on the nation’s capital with banners and flags for the “Justice or Else!” rally — the 20th anniversary of the first Million Man March.

Watch the Native American woman’s speech and rally cry here.

[Ryan Ruck]

Here’s What’s Behind Our Obsession With Zombies

In a time when Americans are figuratively at each other’s throats, our monsters are our fellow citizens.

October 9, 2015

This is the Age of the Zombie, of the neighbor next door who yesterday smiled and waved to you as you backed your Volvo out of the driveway and today is slavering and growling and trying to chew off your face. Half of the direct-to-video movies on pay-per-view are about flesh-eating ghouls; “The Walking Dead” have overrun our television. Popular culture’s dark fantasies have always reflected our deepest fears about the real world. Today, in a time when Americans are figuratively at each other’s throats, our monsters are our fellow citizens.

In the ’50s, the Bomb loomed over the culture, and the sense that some anonymous functionary could push a red button in a silo in Minot or Semipalatinsk and that would pretty much be that. So we had your straight-ahead nuke melodramas, like “Fail-Safe,” and the aftermath films, like “Panic in the Year Zero” and “On the Beach.” But you also had the fantasies, like “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and “Them!,” where radiation turned benign nature malignant as extinct dinosaurs and enterprising ants became massive monstrosities via radiation.

What they shared was the common threat of impersonal doom. The nuclear war just sort of happened, with individuals sucked into it. The giant monster just sort of happened to wander through the city, unknowable, unstoppable.

Not so with zombies. Regardless of their various forms—running or stumbling, virally-induced or cause unknown—the zombie is an intensely personal, intimate nemesis. It is your friend, your spouse, even your kid, and it’s not going to kill you by radiation from a dozen miles away or via a huge claw that can’t even feel you squish as it stomps on you. A zombie is going to eat you alive, and linger while doing it. And it will all happen not in some ruined wasteland but in your own neighborhood, looking the same as it has always has except that some of its inhabitants are running from other inhabitants who want to have them for dinner.

Our Out-of-Control Society

What does it say that our collective subconscious senses less of a threat from fanatical outsiders who, in the last couple decades, have killed thousands of us via terrorism, than from each other?

Perhaps our ids are onto something. After all, foreigners are relatively easy to deal with. They blew up our buildings, so we went over and slaughtered thousands of jihadis and their medieval buddies. Except for a few attempts with various levels of success, they have been ineffective here since. Those who try shooting up Americans for Allah last a few minutes at best before they get shot down. The foreigners are a threat, but that’s under control.

What is out of control, or what seems like it is out of control, is our society itself. A pervasive unease in America is deepening. It is a sense that our society has become unstable, that the normalcy we took for granted is gone and perhaps not coming back. There is a sense that at the other end of the tunnel we have walked down is chaos. We are at the point where millions look at Donald Trump as the solution to our problems, not a symptom. It’s that bad.

Attacking the American Identity

It started sometime after Reagan vanquished the Soviets and the nuclear threat disappeared. History was supposed to be over, but it didn’t work out quite that way. We elected Bill Clinton, who superficially seems to be the last of the “regular order” presidents but was actually something quite different. The first president from the ’60s generation, he was also the first president who came to Washington with a coterie of fellow travelers who, in a very real sense, despised much of what America is—and many of their fellow Americans.

Hillary tried to reorganize health care, terrifying much of the country. Her husband warred on the right to keep and bear arms—sometimes literally, as at Waco. In reaction, you had Oklahoma City, which Clinton—in one of his vilest deeds—blamed upon conservative radio and, by extension, its conservative audience. Then you had his disgusting sexual antics, flagrant perjury, and the impeachment attempt. This drama was the opposite of normality.

George W. Bush’s election in 2000 was another dividing line, where half the country felt the other half was stealing the election. The terms “red” and “blue” America entered the lexicon. The Bush years coincided with the growth of the Internet and alternative media, which fueled polarization by rewarding the angriest and the bitterest voices. Not coincidentally, it was the early 2000s when the moribund zombie genre started to reanimate.

Then “No Drama” Obama became president by pretending to reject division, and instead doubled down upon it. He promised to fundamentally change America, which read as a solid plan to one half of the country and as a threat toward the other. He promised to punish his enemies and reward his friends, and he turned formerly neutral mechanisms of governance like the Internal Revenue Service upon those who opposed him. Friends and allies like Hillary Clinton and Lois Lerner committed federal crimes and are safe from prosecution. Shrieking social justice warriors police our culture and campuses. The Internet shames anyone with an unpopular belief. Minor functionaries in remote counties get tossed into jail for disobedience.

Americans are turning upon each other. Some lives matter, others apparently don’t. The Bill of Rights is now negotiable. The White House issues instructions to sophomores to hassle their elders about Obamacare at Thanksgiving dinner. Red and blue people barely mix anymore—these days, would you bring up politics at a party where you weren’t sure everyone else was on board?

Apocalypse Stories Are Conservative

The question is, “What’s next?” Does this chaos get walked back, or does it get worse? Will we tear ourselves apart? Mutterings about violence, succession, and even civil war intrude from the margins into mainstream conversation. Have you heard them, too? That didn’t happen a few years ago. We certainly have the means for such self-destruction, and the anger out there certainly could fuel the will. But the apocalypse now is not an equal-opportunity Armageddon; when it comes to chaos, some ideologues are more equal than others.

The zombie genre is essentially conservative. Survival is always based upon the actions of individuals and small groups, and the government is either useless or an active threat (Max Brooks’ fascinating book “World War Z” is something of an exception, while the movie adheres to tradition). The survivors are not unlike the pioneers, trying to carve a life out of a wilderness while dodging Indians who take scalps not as trophies but as snacks. City slickers need not apply.

As conservatives do, the zombie genre likewise recognizes the necessity, even the obligation, to keep and bear arms. The people who refuse to use guns die; those who hesitate to pull the trigger allow their friends to die. Those who fight prevail. Interestingly, we have a generation of kids who attend schools where they are taught the lie that violence never solves anything and where they will be suspended for fighting back when a bully punches them. Yet on Sunday night they cheer a show that celebrates heroes who ruthlessly make gory headshot after gory headshot. Sure, the heroes wring their hands like liberals, but the ones who survive are the one who choose firepower over feelings.

It may not be a zombie apocalypse, but much of America expects some kind of apocalypse. In a beautiful city a mile or so from the Pacific one recent sunny Saturday morning, a line developed outside a gun store well before it opened. In the Age of the Zombie, the end of the world will take place not far away but at close range, and many Americans seem to have resolved to go down fighting.

Kurt Schlichter is a retired Army colonel who holds a masters in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College. He is also a trial lawyer and a writer. The views expressed here are his own.

[vector7]

Obama, Hillary Toying With ‘Civil War’ Over Gun Confiscation

by AWR Hawkins2 Nov 20158,245



On November 2, The Daily Beast pointed to recent statements from President Obama and Hillary Clinton regarding the implementation of Australian-style gun confiscation and suggested “civil war could erupt on American soil” if any administration actually tried to confiscate privately owned firearms.

The Daily Beast theoretically agreed that “confiscation on a massive scale” may be “the only way to solve American gun violence,” but they pointed out that it was not realistic and suggested Hillary risks causing irreparable divisions by talking about confiscation then mocking gun owners as conspiracy theorists waiting for “black helicopters” to come take their guns away.

According to The Daily Beast, confiscation was workable in Australia because there was no Second Amendment and the government only had to take 650,000 guns. That is a far cry from the “350 million” believed to be in Americans’ hands.

Yes, “350 million.”

But even more important than the number of guns is the depth of American “devotion” to them. And The Daily Beast observes that it is this devotion–this dedication to the philosophy and tradition underlying the right to keep and bear arms–that turns the mere mention of confiscation into something that could literally rip the country apart.

The Daily Beast put it thus, “The prospect of confiscation—as much as it might, theoretically, reduce drastically or even eliminate gun crime altogether—is simply impossible in the United States.” They pointed to statements by Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson, who stressed that Jews could have curtailed the Holocaust had they retained their guns. The Daily Beast suggests Carson hit on something “Second Amendment enthusiasts are fond of arguing,” namely, “that gun rights are enshrined in the Constitution not only for the sake of hunters or people who want to protect their homes and businesses from criminals, but also to allow the population to resist an overreaching government.”

Breitbart News previously reported that Founding Father James Madison used Federalist 46 to make that very point–that armed citizens could band together and resist their government, should it tend toward tyranny. And he pointed out that this demonstrated American exceptionalism inasmuch as citizens of other nations, lacking arms, also lacked the ability to resist.

The Daily Beast addressed the way Hillary mentioned confiscation only later to mock gun owners for fearing the government might come after their guns:

Clinton can joke all she likes about Americans fearing “black helicopters” taking their guns away, but it is no exaggeration to suggest that civil war could erupt on American soil were the U.S. government to attempt anything remotely resembling what was done in Australia.

The column in The Daily Beast is aptly titled, “Yes, They Want to Take Your Guns Away.”

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...-confiscation/

[Ryan Ruck]

Gov. Cuomo: Are Opponents Of Refugee Plan Going To ‘Fight The Federal Government’ With Their Militia?

November 18, 2015

NYC police commissioner to brief at 11pm from @TimesSquareNYC. Heading to studio for @msnbc. #Paris #TimesSquare

— Craig Melvin (@craigmelvin) November 19, 2015

We believe it was President Obama who was calling out Republicans Tuesday night for their irresponsible rhetoric concerning the plan to settle Syrian refugees in the United States without reviewing the process used to vet them. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo apparently took that as his cue to really ramp up the irresponsible rhetoric in a visit to Rochester today.

.@NYGovCuomo visits #ROC and speaks on minimum wage and Syrian refugees. https://t.co/21RXbikhwj #WROCTV pic.twitter.com/TBa4XdhZXS

— News 8 - WROC-TV (@News_8) November 19, 2015

Cuomo reportedly told attendees at a union meeting who were there to discuss the minimum wage that anything less than allowing Syrian refugees to resettle in the United States would be unconstitutional.

Besides, what did the states opposed to the influx of Syrian refugees into their borders have to say about the situation anyway? WROC-TV reports:

“I understand the threat. But, we don’t want to lose who we are as a country in the midst of it,” Cuomo said. So, if the federal government continues to allow Syrian refugees to resettle in the U.S., so too will New York. According to Cuomo, anything else would be unconstitutional. “To the extent that these states are saying I’m going to prohibit them. You can’t prohibit the federal government. What are we going to do: call out the National Guard and fight the federal government with our militia?”

That said, citizens of New York State should just relax, especially about that ISIS video showing images of Times Square.

I want every New Yorker to know that their security is our absolute highest priority. Statement: https://t.co/7PHrRBLOqG

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) November 19, 2015

Be careful what you wish for Comrade Cuomo...

[American Patriot]

I dont believe a Governor decides what is constitutional, that's for judges... and the people.

[Ryan Ruck]

Texas Secession Passes State Republican Party Resolutions Committee Vote

December 6, 2015

A resolution that would put Texas secession on the ballot for Republican primary voters has cleared its first hurdle by passing the Republican Party of Texas’ Resolution Committee. The committee met during a regular meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC).

The resolution was submitted to a vote by the resolutions committee after language was agreed upon.

Six people spoke for the resolution and no one spoke against it. The resolution passed by a vote of 7 to 4.

As passed, the wording of the resolution is as follows:

If the federal government continues to disregard the Constitution and the sovereignty of the State of Texas, the State of Texas and its people should reassert its prior status as an independent nation.

Those members of the committee voting in favor of the resolution include: Bonnie Lugo, SD13; Terri DuBose, SD19; Karl Voigtsberger, SD8; John W. Beckmeyer, SD28; Naomi Narvaiz, SD21; Henry Childs, SD19; and Marvin Clede, SD17.

Opposed to the resolution were: Committee Chairman Mark Ramsey, SD7; Davita Stike, SD14; Sam Dalton, SD20; and David Halvorson, SD12.

The resolution will now be submitted on Saturday to the full body (62 members) of the SREC.

The committeewoman who presented the resolution, Tanya Robertson, SD11, said Texas independence should be put before the voters because Texans are dissatisfied with Washington D.C. representatives and excessive federal government spending.

Robertson told Breitbart Texas, “We made it through the Resolution Committee and will take it up on the floor tomorrow at the regular SREC meeting. Thanks to the seven members of the SREC Resolutions Committee who voted to move the Texas Independence initiative to the floor for a fair debate. They listened to the conservative grassroots of Texas today and it is very much appreciated!”

The SREC committeewoman who represents parts of Harris, Galveston, and Brazoria counties added, “The committee veered from the agenda today and accepted testimony from the Texans who were observing today. All of the testimony was passionately in-favor of allowing Texans to voice their opinion on this issue. Our prayer is that the body of the State Republican Executive Committee will adhere to the will of the conservative people of Texas.”

Texas Nationalist Movement President Daniel Miller told Breitbart Texas, “We’re obviously excited and hopeful. This was not the first step or the last step. It was another step. We know that Texans want a vote on independence and we’ll continue to work to ensure that Texans get it.” “It’s interesting to note that our proposition received more committee votes than nearly every hot button issue. People want to be heard on this issue.”

As reported by Breitbart Texas, Texas Republican State Party Chairman Tom Mechler has predicted that he did not believe there was support within the State Republican Executive Committee to approve the resolution.

Dwayne Stovall, who ran against Senator Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) during the last election and is currently running against Representative Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), told Breitbart Texas, “Listening to committee members discuss a resolution on independence was a great example of how little understanding most of us have about the federal system of government on which the U.S. Constitution is based.” Stovall supports the right of Texans to vote on the issue of Texas independence.

If the resolution passes the SREC and is submitted to primary voters, it would be a non-binding resolution.

[American Patriot]

I am saddened.

America won't be the same without Texas.

But, then I am gladdened that Texas will not be the same with out the United States Government.....

LOL

[Ryan Ruck]

Beyond Distrust: How Americans View Their Government

November 23, 2015

General opinions about the federal government

Since the late 1990s, the public’s feelings about the federal government have tended more toward frustration than either anger or contentment. That remains the case today: 57% feel frustrated with the government, while smaller shares either feel angry (22%) or are basically content (18%).

Yet while the public’s sentiments about government have not changed dramatically, Americans increasingly believe the federal government is in need of sweeping reform. Fully 59% say the government needs “very major reform,” up from 37% in 1997.

Overall attitudes about government – from the feelings it engenders to views of its performance and power – are deeply divided along partisan lines. And, like public trust in government, the partisan tilt of these opinions often changes depending on which party controls the White House. However, it is notable that on several measures, including perceptions of whether government is a “friend” or “enemy,” Republicans are far more critical of government today than they were during the Clinton administration.

More are frustrated than angry at government



Anger at government is more widespread today than it was in the 1990s. Only on rare occasions, however, do more than about a quarter of Americans express anger at the federal government.

During the partial government shutdown in October 2013, 30% said they were angry at the government – the highest percentage in nearly two decades of polling. Since then, the share expressing anger at government has declined; currently, 22% say they are angry at the government.

Since the late 1990s, majorities have expressed frustration with the federal government – with one notable exception. In November 2001, during the period of national unity that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 53% said they were basically content with the federal government, while just 34% expressed frustration (and only 8% said they were angry).



Currently, 32% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they are angry at the federal government, compared with 12% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. The share of Republicans who are angry at government has declined since the fall of 2013 (from 38%); over the same period, anger among Democrats has fallen by about half (from 25% to 12%).

Throughout most of the Obama presidency, a quarter or more of Republicans have expressed anger at the government; during the George W. Bush administration, GOP anger was consistently no higher than 10%. Conversely, Democratic anger at government peaked in October 2006, when 29% expressed anger at government.



Currently, 37% of conservative Republicans express anger at the federal government, compared with 24% of moderate and liberal Republicans. There are no significant differences in the shares of liberal Democrats (11%) and conservative and moderate Democrats (13%) who are angry at the government.

Among demographic groups, whites and older Americans are especially likely to express anger at the government. A quarter of whites say they are angry at the federal government, compared with 17% of Hispanics and 12% of blacks.

Roughly three-in-ten adults ages 50 and older (29%) say they are angry, about twice the share who say they are content with government (13%). Among those younger than 30, the balance of opinion is reversed — just 12% say they are angry with government, while 28% say they are basically content.

Biggest problem with government? Congress, politics cited most often

Asked to name in their own words the biggest problem with the government in Washington, 13% specifically mention Congress, including 11% who cite gridlock or an inability to compromise within the institution. Nearly as many (11%) name politics and partisanship, while 7% mention the size or scope of government and 6% cite corruption.



Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are more likely to name Congress than are Republicans: 17% of Democrats say this, compared with 10% of Republicans.

Among those who call out politics as the biggest problem, several specifically mention those in the opposing party: 9% of Republicans name Barack Obama, Democrats or a “liberal agenda” as the main problem, while 7% of Democrats point to Republicans or a “conservative agenda.”

The size of government and corruption are mentioned more frequently by Republicans than Democrats: 11% of Republicans say government plays too big a role, compared with 4% of Democrats. And while 10% of Republicans mention corruption, just 3% of Democrats do so.

Overall, just 5% of the public cites debt or overspending as the biggest problem with the federal government, while 4% each mention the economy or jobs and health care.

More Republicans (8%) than Democrats (4%) name the deficit and fiscal irresponsibility as the leading problem, while Democrats are somewhat more likely to mention health care (6% vs. 1%).

Most say the government needs sweeping reforms

In 1997, most Americans (62%) said the federal government was “basically sound” and needed only minor reforms or said it needed very little change. Far fewer (37%) said it needed “very major reform.” By 201o, those attitudes had flipped – more said the government needed major reform (53%) than said it was sound or needed little change (45%).



Today, 59% say it needs very major reform, while only 39% say the federal government needs little or no change.

Most of the change since the late 1990s has come among Republicans: Fully 75% of Republicans and leaners now say the federal government needs very major reform, up from 43% in 1997 and 66% five years ago. The share of Democrats saying the government is in need of sweeping reform has risen more modestly since 1997 – 44% now, 31% then – and has barely changed since 2010 (42%).

The public’s overall rating of the government’s performance also has become more negative. Most Americans now say the federal government is doing either an only fair (44%) or poor (33%) job running its programs; just 20% give it an excellent or good rating on this measure.

In 2010, 28% gave the government a “poor” rating for handling programs and 20% did so in 1997. As is the case in views of government reform, the increase in poor ratings for government performance have come almost entirely among Republicans.

Half of Republicans and Republican leaners (50%) now say the government does a poor job running its programs, compared with 46% who said this in 2010 and just 29% who did so in 1997. Conservative Republicans and Republican leaners are particularly likely to rate the government’s performance as poor. About six-in-ten conservative Republicans (59%) say this, compared with 36% of moderate and liberal Republicans. However, moderate and liberal Republicans are not particularly positive about government either: 49% rate its performance as only fair, and just 14% say it is doing an excellent or good job.

Among Democrats and leaners, only 18% currently say the federal government does a poor job running its programs, which reflects just a 7-percentage-point increase since 1997. Half of Democrats (50%) rate government’s performance as only fair, while 30% say it does an excellent or good job.

Is government a ‘friend’ or ‘enemy?’



Asked to place themselves on a scale from 1 to 10 “where ‘1’ means you think the federal government is your enemy and ‘10’ means you think the federal government is your friend,” 27% of registered voters say they think of government as an enemy (1-4), up 8 points since 1996. The share of voters who place themselves in the middle of the scale (5-6) has declined from 44% to 39%. A third (33%) currently say they view the government as a friend (7-10), little changed from 36% in 1996.

Today, 35% of Republican voters view the federal government as an enemy, up from 22% in 1996. Similarly, 34% of independents take this view, a 13-point increase from 19 years ago.1

In 1996, Republicans were somewhat more likely to view the government as a friend (34%) than as an enemy (22%). Today, that balance of opinion is reversed: 21% say they see it as a friend, while 35% see it as an enemy.

Half of all Democrats (50%) see the government as a friend; only 12% see the government as an enemy. These views are similar to opinions among Democrats in 1996.

Few think the government is run ‘for the benefit of all people’



About three-quarters of the public (76%) say the federal government is “run by a few big interests,” while only 19% say the government “is run for the benefit of all the people.” This view is little changed over the past five years, and is on par with views in the early 1990s.

The sense that the government is run by a few big interests has long been the view of most Americans, with majorities consistently saying this for much of the past 15 years (one exception is in 2002, about a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, and a time of relatively high trust in government). Public views of the influence of big interests have largely tracked with movements in public trust in government.

The belief that government is run by a few big interests spans all demographic and partisan groups. Majorities in both parties now say that a few big interests run the government, though this view is somewhat more widely held among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (81% say this) than among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (71%).

Size and scope of government



Currently, 53% favor a smaller government that provides fewer services, while 38% prefer a bigger government with more services. These opinions have changed little in recent years, but on several occasions in the 1990s, 60% or more favored smaller government.

The partisan divide over the size of government is not new, though it is particularly wide today. Eight-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (80%) favor a smaller government, 15 points higher than did so in January 2007, while Democratic views have remained largely unchanged (31% favor a smaller government, compared with 32% in 2007).



There also are ideological divisions within each party. Nearly nine-in-ten conservative Republicans (87%) prefer a smaller government, while a smaller majority (71%) of moderate and liberal Republicans say this. And among Democrats, two-thirds (67%) of liberal Democrats prefer a bigger government with more services, but a narrower 53% majority of conservative and moderate Democrats say this (36% prefer a smaller government, with fewer services).



By more than two-to-one (62% to 27%), whites prefer a smaller government that provides fewer services. A majority of blacks (59%) – and an even larger share of Hispanics (71%) – favor a larger government with more services.

About half of 18- to 29-year-olds (52%) would rather have a bigger government providing more services; only a quarter of those ages 65 and older (25%) say this. The gap between older and younger people is seen within parties as well: 35% of younger Republicans favor a bigger government, compared with 6% of Republicans 65 and older. Younger Democrats are more supportive of bigger government than older Democrats (65% vs. 48%).

Lower-income households stand out for their support of bigger government: 49% of those with family incomes of less than $30,000 prefer larger government, the highest share of any income category.



A separate question frames the issue of the scope of government somewhat differently: Should government “do more to solve problems,” or is it “doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals?” The public is evenly divided, as it has been since the question was first asked in 2010: 47% say the government should do more to solve problems, while 48% say it is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals.

There is a wide partisan gap in views of how much the government should do. Two-thirds of Democrats (66%) say the government should do more to solve problems; 71% of Republicans say it is doing too many things better left to others.

Government viewed as ‘wasteful and inefficient’

The perception of government as wasteful and inefficient has endured for decades. But partisan views of government wastefulness, like trust in government, change depending on which party controls the White House.



Overall, 57% of Americans say that “government is almost always wasteful and inefficient,” while 39% say it “often does a better job than people give it credit for.” This balance of opinion is largely unchanged over the past decade.

Currently, three-quarters of Republicans fault the government for being wasteful and inefficient. That is little changed from recent years, but higher than the share of Republicans who described government as wasteful during George W. Bush’s administration. Republicans are now about as likely to criticize the government for being wasteful as they were in 1994, during Bill Clinton’s administration (75% now, 74% then).



Just 40% of Democrats view the government as wasteful and inefficient, which is in line with previous measures during Obama’s presidency. Democrats were more likely to say government was wasteful during the Bush administration. However, Democrats were less likely to view the government as wasteful during Bush’s presidency than Republicans have been during most of the Obama and Clinton administrations.

As with other questions about the government’s performance, there are internal ideological divisions within each party in views of government efficiency. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, there is a 15-percentage-point gap between the proportion of conservatives (81%) and moderates and liberals (66%) who say the government is always wasteful and inefficient. And liberal Democrats (64%) are more likely than conservative and moderate Democrats (52%) to say the government does a better job than it gets credit for.

As a career, government viewed as more appealing than politics

Though many Americans express anger or frustration about the federal government, nearly half (48%) say if they had a son or daughter finishing school they would like to see them pursue a career in government.



The share saying they would like a child to pursue a career in government is down 8 points since 2010, but careers in government continue to be seen as more appealing than careers in politics: Just 33% say they would like to see a child enter into politics as a career.

Since 1997, Democrats have viewed both political and governmental careers more favorably than Republicans. Though just 38% of Democrats and Democratic leaners would like to see a son or daughter pursue a career in politics, that number falls to 29% among Republicans and Republican leaners.

But partisans are further apart on views about a career in government. Today, a 58% majority of Democrats say they would like to see a child work in government, while just 38% of Republicans say this, a wider partisan divide on this question than in the past.

[Ryan Ruck]

A Military Coup in Our Future?

As America further degenerates…

May 3, 2016

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

One of the problems with being a pessimist is that you can never celebrate when you are proven right.

If what you want from politicians are quick and easy answers, someone is sure to supply them, regardless of which party you follow. History can tell you where quick and easy answers lead. But, if you don’t want to bother reading history, you can just wait and relive its catastrophes.

What is “economic power”? What can Bill Gates stop you from doing?

I don’t understand how people who cannot predict the weather five days in advance can predict the climate decades from now.

One of history’s painful ironies is how often people on the brink of disaster have been preoccupied with trivialities. With a nuclear Iran with intercontinental missiles looming on the horizon, our intelligentsia are preoccupied with calling achievements “privilege” and playing other word games.

Of life’s many surprises, encountering an old flame, years later, is in a class by itself.

Some people seem to think that Donald Trump has great abilities because he is a billionaire. But being born rich and getting richer is not exactly a Horatio Alger miracle.

Of all the disheartening signs of the utter ignorance of so many American college students, nothing so completely disheartened me as seeing on television a black college student who did not know what the Civil War was about. Fifty years ago, it would have been virtually impossible to find a black adult, with even an elementary school education, who did not know what the Civil War was about.

Global warming, due to greenhouse gasses, is the latest in a long series of one-factor theories about a multi-factor world. Such theories have often enjoyed great popularity, despite how often they have turned out to be wrong.

One of the most richly rewarded skills in politics is the ability to make self-interest sound like idealism. Nowhere is this tactic more successful than in so-called “campaign finance reform” laws — spending restrictions that prevent challenger candidates from buying enough publicity to offset the free publicity that incumbents get from the media.

At one time, it seemed as if the free world had defeated the world of totalitarian dictatorships twice — first the Nazis and then the Communists. But, with the slow but steady expansion of government control over our lives and the spread of the idea that people who deny “climate change” should be punished as criminals, it seems as if totalitarianism may be winning, after all.

People who want to redistribute wealth often misunderstand the nature and causes of wealth. Tangible wealth can be confiscated, but you cannot confiscate the knowledge which produced that wealth. Countries that confiscated the wealth of some groups and expelled them, destitute, have often seen the economy collapse, while the expelled people became prosperous again elsewhere.

Some people think that Ted Cruz would not have as good a chance against Hillary Clinton as would Donald Trump. They say that Cruz does not have a sparkling style of speaking. But, after months of hearing childish insults from Trump, the public may be ready for some serious adult talk by someone with substance, who can cut right through Hillary’s shallow evasions.

To me, beautiful music is whatever music makes you glad to be a human being, whether it is “Musetta’s Waltz” from La Bohème or “Muskrat Ramble” from New Orleans. Much of what passes for music today makes me wish that, if there is such a thing as reincarnation, I can come back as a dolphin.

Republican leaders seem to be worried that Donald Trump will get the nomination and lose the election. Those of us who are not Republicans should worry that Trump will get the nomination and win the election. After all, the fate of the country is a lot more important than the fate of a political party — and in far greater danger.

As this country continues to degenerate, we hope that it never reaches the desperate stage where only a military coup can rescue it from catastrophes created by feckless politicians. But, if that day ever arrives, we can only hope that the military will do their duty and step in. It is one of the few institutions dedicated to something besides individual self-interest.

When a guy like Sowell is talking like this, you'd better hold on to your butts.

[vector7]

Cruz more disciplined and strategic

[Malsua]

Cruz more disciplined and strategic

I liked Cruz for pretty much all the reason this guy outlined as bad.