By Nathan Barton

Isn’t this thing supposed to be PROTECTING against threats from the air, not be one?  In Pennsylvania, a multi-billion-dollar Army blimp crash-landed after wild chase by F-16s.  As reported by the Los Angeles Times, “After a wild four-hour jaunt above parts of two states, a runaway military surveillance blimp crash-landed in rural Pennsylvania on Wednesday, ending a bizarre incident that raised concerns — and many smiles — across the Northeast. Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled from New Jersey to help monitor the giant blimp after it tore loose from a ground mooring at an Army base in northern Maryland and took to the windy skies, according to the Pentagon.” (Tom Knapp noted “Cost of the program so far — $2.7 billion for two blimps.”)  This was the northern of two of these things that are supposed to be protecting DC.  Hmmm… maybe it wasn’t the wind?  Maybe the software got hacked, or the blimp got shot at by one of those drone guns?  Some people have already compared this runaway blimp to runaway government – which certainly shares other features with blimps. Enough is enough.

Mama’s Note: Just more of the circus… But my first thought when I read this earlier was to wonder why in the world they’d send “fighter jets” after a slow poke blimp. Overkill much? A helicopter would have done the job, I suspect.

Another term for one of the old Speakers of the House.  The Chicago Tribune tells us that Hastert pleads guilty to federal charge. “Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty Wednesday to evading currency-reporting requirements, but no further details came out about the underlying wrongdoing that led him to withdraw nearly $1 million in cash from four banks over 2 1/2 years. … Though the indictment only hints at the alleged wrongdoing, federal law enforcement sources have told the Tribune that Hastert was paying to cover up the sexual abuse of a student when Hastert was a wrestling coach and teacher at Yorkville High School. Hastert, who has remained free on his own recognizance since pleading not guilty in June, faced one count each of evading currency-reporting requirements and making a false statement to the FBI.”

This Republican thug – a former teacher – apparently was extorted to cover up his alleged sexual misconduct (when a teacher and coach) with a male student.  A fine piece of scum however you look at him.  Agora and MarketWatch both report him as a victim, and the facts support that: he is being punished for withdrawing his own money from his own bank accounts in some strange way that violated the law, kind of like another Chicago thug didn’t go to prison for killing people or selling bootleg booze or being a mobster, but for failing to file proper income tax returns…  but Hastert is NOT a sympathetic figure: he is sleazy and corrupt and must have been a WONDERFUL coach and teacher. Ugh.

Yet another clown in charge?  Probably. As Mama Liberty points out: This would sound pretty good if we could have any faith at all that he understands what “self government’ and “freedom” mean. I don’t think he does. Fox News provided a transcript of Paul Ryan’s remarks after being elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, leading one of the most despised institutions in the Fifty States: “… I often talk about the need for a vision. I’m not sure I ever said what I meant. We solve problems here—yes. We create a lot of them too. But at bottom, we vindicate a way of life. We show by our work that free people can govern themselves. They can solve their own problems. They can make their own decisions. They can deliberate, collaborate, and get the job done. We show self-government is not only more efficient and more effective; it is more fulfilling. In fact, we show it is that struggle, that hard work, the very achievement itself that makes us free. …” Grand words, if (as Mama points out) he uses the words properly and means what he says. Given his history, that is doubtful. He is definitely a neo-con, which means he is more hypocritical than your average politician, if not as sleazy and corrupt as Hastert.

At least Kim and his thugs are honest about it, even if the media is not. The Redding Record Searchlight has a weasel-worded story about how North Koreans are doing forced labor abroad.  “Forced labor” is the politically-correct word for SLAVERY.  North Koreans are being SOLD as slaves by their government.  “Tens of thousands of North Koreans are being sent to work abroad in conditions that amount to forced labor to circumvent U.N. sanctions and earn foreign currency for the country, amounting to between $1.2 billion and $2.3 billion annually by one estimate, a U.N. investigator said Wednesday. Marzuki Darusman, the special reporter on human rights in North Korea, said in a report to the U.N. General Assembly and at a news conference that the workers are providing a new source of money to a country facing a ‘really tight financial and economic situation.'” The UN thug, in other words, is trying to justify slavery.  Of course, we can pretty easily argue that (for 99.9% of the population) just LIVING in the “People’s Democratic Republic of Korea” is slavery: Except that slaves are usually considered valuable enough to not starve them to death on purpose.

Oh, really? The Hill relates that Bernie Sanders wants to “give” states the freedom to treat pot like alcohol.  “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called to end marijuana’s federal classification as one of the most dangerous illegal drugs during a Wednesday-night town hall event with college students. … Marijuana is currently classified by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a Schedule 1 drug, which means that it has ‘no currently accepted medicinal use and a high potential for abuse.’ Other Schedule 1 drugs include LSD, heroin and ecstasy, a fact that Sanders called ‘absurd.’ … Sanders’s call to remove it from the federal government’s scheduling entirely would put it on par with tobacco and alcohol, and states would be able to determine whether the drug should be legal without federal retribution.” This is STILL October of 2015; he still has another 15 months in the Senate.  If he REALLY believed this, he’d have already introduced legislation in the Senate.  So I can conclude that this is pure propaganda.

I will touch a bit more on the GOP race, and Wednesday’s debate. As I first suggested, it was as much a debate between the candidates and the moderators as between just the candidates.  Mrs. Carly Fiorina said something important enough to quote from the Official Transcript. “Crony capitalism is alive and well, and has been so in Washington, D.C. for decades. What’s crony capitalism? Crony capitalism is what happens when government gets so big and so powerful that only the big and the powerful can handle it. So why are the pharmaceutical companies consolidating? Why are there five even bigger Wall Street banks now, instead of the ten we used to have on Wall Street? Because when government gets big and powerful, the big feel like they need to get even bigger to deal with all that power, and meanwhile, the small and the powerless — in this case, 1,590 community banks — go out of business. You see, folks, this is how socialism starts. Government causes a problem, and then government steps in to solve the problem. This is why, fundamentally, we have to take our government back. The student loan problem has been created by government. Government trying to level the playing field between Internet and brick-and-mortar creates a problem. The FCC jumping in now and saying, “we’re going to put 400 pages of regulation over the Internet,” is going to create massive problems. But guess who pushed for that regulation? The big Internet companies. This is what’s going on. Big and powerful use big and powerful government to their advantage. It’s why you see Walgreens buying Rite Aid. It’s why you see the pharmaceuticals getting together. It’s you see the health insurance companies getting together. It’s why you see the banks consolidating. And meanwhile, small businesses are getting crushed. Community- based businesses and farms are getting crushed. Community banks are going out of business. Big government favors the big, the powerful, the wealthy and the well-connected, and crushes the small and the powerless.”

She clearly gets at least PART of it: GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM.  BUT, not just BIG Government. Government in general.  By its very nature, it is corrupt, aggressive, eager to get MORE power and MORE control and MORE money. The solution is NOT to “take our government back.” The solution is to GET RID of involuntary government. To stop feeding the parasites, to get the camel out of camp, not just his nose out of the tent. ANYthing less will lead to the same problem we have today. It started with allowing the state governments to convert from being the King’s ministers to “The People’s” ministers instead of realizing that Americans could and should govern themselves. NOT elect tyrants for a couple of years or a four-year term. AND certainly not allow those to appoint scumbag nazgul and bureaucrats to lord it over us. Even if they sometimes do something good

An example of “something good” – but THREE years later, and three years too late, can be seen in Michigan – Detroit, in specific. World Net Daily reports that a judge has ruled against the Wayne County Sheriffs Office which used its uniformed thugs to drive people preaching the Bible away from a public park because a small mob of Muslim teens was throwing bottles and rocks and threatening more violence against the christians. This happened in 2012: the cops seemed to be defending the Muslims against – not violence, but just words. The “Bible Believers” (name of the group) have finally won their lawsuit against the sheriff’s deputies for violating their First Amendment protected right of free speech. Was justice served? Hardly: the decision might finally be right – but THREE years later? Please, don’t try and convince me these people were treated justly.