Shenanigans

I draw your attention to the US Constitution, Article II, section 1, paragraph 2:

"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."

Most states appoint their Electors according to the popular vote, but this is by no means the only way it can be done. For the election of 2020 the States have chosen their Electors, the Electors have cast their votes, and Joe Biden, for better or for worse, has been legally elected as the 46th President of these United States.

(As a side note, this illustrates the importance of voting in down-ticket races as well since the State Legislatures direct the appointment of electors, unless of course they allow themselves to be negated by the Governors during times of crisis like a bunch of pussies.)

How long he will  hold that title is another matter. I'm going to predict by January 2022 we will have our first female President. If Hillary is still kicking I would advise President Harris to beef up her security detail. But I digress.*

I believe this election was a massive fraud. I believe that in the six states in question Donald Trump was the actual winner and the Democrats had to resort to extreme measures in order to expand the margin of fraud in order to get Biden elected. I also believe that with the Democrats poised to take control of the Executive Department that absolutely no investigations will be done.

And of course since it is impossible to gather evidence if you don't bother investigating, there will never be any evidence of fraud in the 2020 election.

But the real damage is not in a Harris...excuse me, Biden...Presidency. A President, by design, is fairly powerless domestically, it's the Congress and Senate that makes the real difference. The Congress is held by a razor thin margin and the Senate has, at the time of this writing, yet to be determined (which means the Democrats are still trying to expand the margin of fraud enough to make a difference), and next election I believe the disaster that I predict the Biden/Harris administration will be will cause a shift back to the right in both chambers.

Not that it will make a great deal of difference. I have long since given up hope that the Stupid Party will ever grow a set, but that's a different subject altogether.

No, the real damage is that faith in the electoral system has forever been shattered. Right now the Democrats and leftists (BIRM) are having a huge celebration because they were able to cheat their way back into the White House. Soon you will start hearing the proclamations that there will never again be a Republican President (not that we haven't heard those claims from both sides many times), but there will be, and perhaps the next Republican President will be elected through the same sort of shenanigans that saw this Democratic President elected.

I doubt it, because Party of Stupid, but it could happen.

The biggest issue is that the fraud was so blatantly obvious that you have to be willfully ignorant or such a partisan hack that you don't care as long as your guy benefited to ignore it. At any rate, future elections will forever be tainted by what happened in this one. Since no one is going to prison for it there won't be any reason to stop the shenanigans, and it will just get more and more obvious until one day they are done away with altogether.

In other words, this election was the death of our Republic.

Sorry Ben.

*As January 2022 has come and gone it is obvious my prediction was incorrect on this point.

Oh, My Neglected Blog

Welcome back to what is becoming my seldom visited corner of the internet. It's been almost a month since I last posted. In that time we have inaugurated a new President, endured a flood of protesters as a result, and watched a stunning Super Bowl comeback.

Closer to home Eldest Son has finally moved out again, this time for the last time. That leaves only Youngest Son at home. We are finally moving forward with getting him tested and maybe we can get him some help on the learning front. I think he has come to grips with the fact that Occupy Dads House is not going to be a lifetime option, so he's showing proper enthusiasm for the project.

Today is a special anniversary for me personally as well. For the seventh of February 2015 I posted about my new Z scale model trains showing up at the Refuge. I took a few pictures of them, went out for the night with a Meetup group to hear a local band, returned home and went to bed.

It was a largely unremarkable evening overall, but a pretty girl smiled at me and laughed when I  attempted to be funny, and at the end of the evening she said she liked my car. We drove away, in separate cars but going the same direction. I found out she lived in the next town over from me, only 7 miles away or so. I hoped she would show up at the next event so that I could see her smile again.

This was, of course, the day I discovered that the lovely Mrs Hades and I occupied the same planet, and although I was blissfully unaware at the time my world would never again be the same.

Also two years ago I had not yet posted the February RotM, and then as now GFA had not showed up to give me a hard time about it. So once more, before that happens, I bring to you the next Last Refuge of a Scoundrel Redhead of the Month:

Redhead Girl by Ajsena

Enjoy!

Grrr

So I got the letter I've been expecting from the Infernal Revenue Service. They want their money back, and oh yeah, since they've been basically loaning me the money since April they want interest totaling a bit over $15 to go along with it (never mind that I loaned them the money interest free all year, the bastards). Cheap pricks can't even spring for postage.

It's no wonder the IRS is the most hated agency in government.

Yeah, I expected it, but there's no reason I can't bitch about it anyway.

Turd Flavored Icing

on the shit cake.

But at least there is bourbon.

I think I'll just pour myself a drink and watch the flames.

Hey, Range Partner!

This Jones fellow, he sounds like a sensible sort of person.

This Womack guy sounds like he might have a clue or two as well.

How do I get them to move up here closer to the Refuge?

If we had folks like that here in Franklin County maybe that new range would have opened up here instead of over in Nash County.

And if flies carried .45's...

Reading From the Same Playbook

 Now the EPA has also lost emails due to hard drive crashes?



Someone please tell me what brand of hard drive the .gov is using...so I can put all the evidence on one.

A Question

Do we, as free American citizens, have the right to defend ourselves against criminal actions by invaders of our own homes?

What if those doing the invading have the sanction of the State?

I am watching these shenanigans happening in Connecticut and now they are happening in a couple of other places as well (New York, for example).

(Note: It would serve lawmakers well to remember that the American Revolution started in the New England states over government attempts to seize privately owned weaponry, and while such sentiments seem to have been squashed out of most of the residents there it doesn't appear to be gone altogether. This pleases me.)

I am hopeful that calmer and cooler heads will recognize that, much like the 55 mph speed limit, Americans will ignore laws they don't feel are good ones.

I fear, however, that the point will have to be made by bloodshed.

Lawmakers would do well to recognize that "don't want to" doesn't mean "won't" but given their amazing ability to ignore every bit of evidence around them I'm not sanguine about the prospect.

And It Means Nothing

I've gotten two emails in the past week that should have had pitchforks hoisted and torches lit. The fires should be burning merrily under bubbling vats of tar and the feathers should be stacked in neat bundles next to the piles of rails. But besides those directly involved in the proceedings nothing is being said by anybody, particularly anybody in the news (insert shocked face here).

The first email was a GRNC alert regarding Operation Something Bruin, in which N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission agents in collaboration with U.S. Forest Service personnel engaged in the usual tactics (entrapment, midnight "no knock" raids, etc) ostensibly to catch bear poachers, although very few convictions have resulted from the 4 year $2 million operation.

Even though I am a hunter and a shooter, I heard nothing at all about this operation until I got the GRNC alert. I'm not in the mountains, but you would have thought that such a thing would have gotten some attention at least, on the gun boards if nothing else. But there was nothing.

The second email was about yet another congressional "investigation", this one regarding the IRS targeting conservative groups, most notably True the Vote in Texas. Last week TTV President Catherine Engelbrecht provided testimony before Congress detailing the entire affair.

From the Email: "Catherine, her husband, her company and her nonprofit, have been repeatedly targeted, first in frivolous lawsuits by the Texas Democratic Party (which the Democrats lost, every single one, but they didn’t care, because it cost about $1 million for Catherine to defend – money fortunately provided by others as they are not rich), then outrageous, unprecedented demands from the FBI, the IRS and the ATF. Watch her testimony and share it. If you are a Democrat, don’t smirk. You are just as capable of being targeted as anyone if you defy any aspect of Obama’s despotic agenda. And sooner or later you will be forced to, because it IS despotic."

This one of course I have heard about, as has anyone else who has been paying attention, but there again, outside of a few mentions on Fox News the media has been strangely silent...one might almost say, complicit.

Two completely unrelated cases except for this: in both cases members of federal agencies engaged in tactics that they themselves would call terroristic if it wasn't them doing it. In both cases the enormous power of the federal government was brought to bear in order to intimidate, harass and terrify. And in both cases the agencies involved patted themselves on the back for a job well done, and no federal agents are going to jail for breaking the very laws they are supposed to be upholding and shredding the very Constitution that they have taken an oath to defend.

Gunwalker. Bengazi. Pigford. Solyndra. Voter intimidation and failure to prosecute even though there was clear evidence. ACORN. Blatant abuses of power. The list goes on and on and on.

And until someone holding a federal ID goes to PMITA prison, it doesn't mean a damn thing.

Death and Taxes

I didn't change my filing status on my retirement pay from married to single, so now everything I overpaid on my regular paycheck is going to make up for what I underpaid on my retirement pay. The only good thing, I guess, is I don't owe anything else.

Think about that for a minute though...everything that was overpaid on 70K single with zero exemptions is being taken to make up for what was underpaid on 20K married with 2 exemptions, a bit over 4K altogether. On 20K. One fifth. In addition to the amount already taken out (not quite 1K).

Single people sure pay a buttload of taxes.

On The Shut-down

I am reminded of a limerick. Stop me if you've heard it.

"There was a Cro-Magnon named Dave..."


Yep, it's all about the cave. I'm disappointed, but not surprised.

The Bright Spot

At least I'll finally be able to enjoy a spaghetti dinner without having to resort to criminal behavior, starting today.

It doesn't quite make up for the $625 a year kick in the nuts the US.gov just gave me, but it's something at least.

Thanks 52!

I just got the Obamacare bill.

Youngest Son's premiums are increasing by 50%.

Affordable Care Act my aching ass.

Bastards. DIAF.

Taken To The Woodshed

I certainly was, in comments at Ace's, by some uber-patriotic twit who took offense to my opinion that it's going to burn, there's nothing I can do to stop it, so I'm going to sit on the porch and drink icy drinks and watch the light show cause life is way too short to be pissed off all the time.

Apparently he thinks I should be marching two by two up and down the battlements to die gloriously in combat against all enemies foreign and domestic, never mind that "our side" can't even be assed to make a harshly worded statement concerning all the usurpation of powers that has occurred in the last six plus years, much less join battle against the same.

So I'll just keep the blender busy enjoying the fireworks, and then when the fires die down I'll see what happens next. I know my downhill neighbors are of like mind, so perhaps we will sit on our rooftops pointing out targets to one other until we run out of ammo. But until it comes to that I'm not going to get wrapped around the axle about things I cannot change, which is why you won't see a lot of* ranting and raving on this page.


Besides, this guy does it so much better.

*note that I said "a lot of", not "any", because I do reserve the right to rant and rave on my page as I wish, even though I don't exercise it regularly.

Sequester

There has been some pain felt on the individual level, mostly with the military and military contractors (which IMO should never have been included since they are, in fact, one of the responsibilities assigned to the USG by that document that none of them even bother to read), but by and large the sequester has not touched the average American.

This is akin to the lefties chant about having a war and no one shows up.

As the stories regarding cities like Detroit roll in, and as the sequester fails to make any impact on the lives of average Americans, the panic strategy might full well backfire on the politicians who used it as a scare tactic. Not only that, but since the average American is feeling little to no pain regarding the reduction of government they might start to get the idea that it's not such a bad thing.

In my opinion the next target should be politicians paychecks.

Big Brother Is Watching You

The other than network news has been full of the revelations, prompted by the Verizon order revelation, that the Government is watching us. That the .gov is collecting domestic call logs under the dubious cover of the Patriot Act and FISA (here's a hint...the F in FISA means Foreign, not Federal) is troubling at best, and downright frightening at worst.

Here's a hint to all the would-be political masters on Capitol Hill (or Beacon Hill, or whatever snobby knob your sacred cows gather on); never grant political powers to your friends that you wouldn't grant to your enemies, because your friends aren't always friendly and your enemies will one day be in charge.

Rabble Rouser

Nice work Sean, well done.

Note To Congress

Will. Not. Comply.

Put me on your lists. Bring friends and ammo. This is my line in the sand.

On a related note, maybe someone can explain to me why patriotism and expressing a desire for our government to operate according to the rules that were set in place for them makes one a suspected terrorist, especially when most of the violence (with notable exceptions; notable, it seems, for their exceptionalism) seems to come from leftists?

Taking Stock

When I bought the Maverick 88 it had the pistol grip stock on it, but I switched it back over to the factory stock. I don't really know why, I guess I just thought a pistol grip on a shotgun was a bit much.

But, considering what just happened in New Yawk, and considering that recent polls show that 52 percent of my fellow Americans think they should be able to restrict my rights regardless of what "that little book" says, I've decided to put the scary black pistol grip stock back on it.

The only problem is my shell sock doesn't fit the pistol grip stock since it is thinner along its length. Adjustments must be made I guess, it fits if it is pulled back over the sling swivel attach point. I don't have a sling for it anyway so I won't miss it...yet. Maybe I should put a tacticool mall-ninja adjustable stock on it, then I can hang one of these bad boys on it...and a tri-rail for the forward sling attach point...

To hell with being nice. I aim to misbehave.

What You Do Instead Of Something

One of the first things I was taught about leadership is not to issue orders you know are not going to be obeyed.

An example of this would be the national speed limit, a law that is routinely scoffed at even by those who are supposed to be enforcing it. When I first moved to North Carolina I was speeding down US1 at ten over the limit when a marked state patrol car came zooming up behind me. I was sure I would get a ticket, but he passed by in the left lane without even looking over at me.

I caught up to him at a gas station up the road and mentioned that I thought he was going to pull me over. He just grinned at me and said "Welcome to North Carolina, where everyone thinks they are Dale Earnhardt JR...and one of us is!"

The New York Senate has just passed sweeping anti-gun legislation that bans, among other things, magazines over seven (!) rounds (my Glock is OK but the Saiga, even with the 10 round magazine it was delivered with, would not be), semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines and one (!) military feature (meaning, practically all of them), and ammunition purchase tracking. None of the banned magazines are grandfathered (they must be sold out of state within one year) and registration of grandfathered rifles is mandatory and must be re-certified every five years. The bill is expected to pass easily in the assembly and of course the governor will sign it.

Proponents claim this will reduce gun violence. All I see is tragic boating accidents happening in the next year. But, the lawsuits should be epic.

For what it's worth, if there are any .223 Saiga magazines looking for a new home, my doors are open.

Put Some Iron In Their Rods

Viagra apparently requires a prescription, but is there anything comparable that does not?

I propose we in the gunnie community supply whatever supplement is legal to purchase without a prescription to our Senators and Congresscritters to give them the gumption for the upcoming fight.

I think we should probably send a double dose to Weepy Boner.

What say you?

HT: Shall Not Be Questioned, from where I purloined many of my links.