JG55

This statement keeps getting said "Don't say I didn't warn you ! " in regards to Quarles... Seems like a good season ender is being set up..

Anybody have one of these ? Saw video on them and it looks like it might do a good job for concealed carry.

Hannabi in Brentwood .. Excellent Sushi

i want to see if Quarles tries the Derringer up the sleeve routine he did earlier. There was just such an intensity to the scene.

Anyone see last nights show. The stand off between Raylin and Quarles was very intense. Too bad blondie interruped it.

Felix Baumgartner, stepping into the void from 71,580 feet. Photo: Jay Nemeth/Red Bull Content Pool Skydiving superstar Felix Baumgartner rode a pressurized capsule to the dizzying altitude of 71,580 feet this morning, paused to admire the curvature of the Earth and then … jumped. That’s when things got really wild. “Fearless Felix†reached 364.4 mph — more than 534 feet per second — during a freefall that reportedly lasted 3 minutes and 43 seconds. Then he pulled the cord on his parachute and landed safely 30 miles from Roswell, New Mexico at 9:50 a.m. All told, he spent 8 minutes and 8 seconds falling to earth, according to the folks at Red Bull Stratos, the name of the project. “I wanted to open the parachute after descending for a while, but I noticed that I was still at an altitude of 50,000 feet,†Baumgartner said. Baumgartner is only the third person in history to have jumped from such a height. As amazing as it was, the leap from 13.5 miles was but a test run for his truly insane plan for a record-setting stratospheric skydive later this summer from 23 miles up. Reaching that altitude is almost as impressive as falling from it. Baumgartner's capsule dangled beneath this 165-foot-tall balloon as it rose to 13.5 miles. Photo: Christian Pondella/Red Bull Content Pool To get so high, Baumgartner, an experienced skydiver and BASE jumper with more than 2,500 jumps under his belt, rode in a pressurized capsule dangling from a 165-foot-high helium balloon. The point of today’s jump was to test the capsule, his pressurized suit and other systems. The ascent, jump and landing took 1 hour and 40 minutes. It all went off without a hitch, though Baumgartner said it was just a bit cold at that attitude — more than 75 degrees below zero. “I could hardly move my hands,†he said. “We’re going to have to do some work on that aspect.†Baumgartner, 42, expects to break the sound barrier and freefall for at least 5.5 minutes when he jumps from 120,000 feet. Should he succeed, Baumgartner will eclipse the record Joe Kittinger, a retired Air Force colonel from Florida, has held since jumping from 102,800 feet (19.5 miles) in 1960. Kittinger, 83, has been a mentor to Baumgartner and is among his chief advisers, along with a former NASA flight director and an engineer who worked on the B-2 bomber. “Felix, you’re going to have one heck of a view when you step out of that door,†Kittinger told Baumgartner before the flight. “Enjoy the experience.†Only Kittinger and Russia’s Eugene Andreev have jumped from heights greater than 13.5 miles, and both men made their dives in the 1960s. Red Bull Stratos hopes to break three other records that have been on the books for more than 50 years. They include the highest manned balloon flight, the first person to break the speed of sound in freefall and the longest freefall. Baumgartner plans another test run, from 90,000 feet, before attempting The Big One this summer. The launch window is open from July through October. “This test serves as the perfect motivation for the team for the next step,†he said. UPDATED 6:30 p.m. EDT with additional details. UPDATED 7:15 p.m. EDT with photos from the jump. Baumgartner steps from the safety of his capsule into .... nothing. Photo: Jay Nemeth/Red Bull Content Pool Baumgartner, a little more than 8 minutes after stepping out of his capsule at an altitude of 13.5 miles. Photo: Christian Pondella/Red Bull Content Pool Baumgartner and life support engineer Mike Todd celebrate a successful jump. Photo: Jörg Mitter/Red Bull Content Pool Baumgartner with Joe Kittinger and the Red Bull Stratos capsule. Photo: Jörg

Sry, should of searched form before post

http://www.arsenalfirearms.com/products/af-2011-a1-double-barrel-pistol# What do you get when you merge two .45 caliber pistols into one with a sleek new design? A whole lot of compact stopping power, also known as the Arsenal Firearms AF2011. The folks over at the Firearms Blog found this incredible new design created by Arsenal Firearms, who provided these photos and the video below. The AF team is clearly proud of their achievement, writing on their site that: “To commemorate the legendary Colt 1911-A1 in the Centenary by making a true industrial market-ready double barrel .45 caliber pistol. We achieved success in the brief span of 6 months, after intense and round-the-clock 3D designing, stereolithographic modeling and parts machining.†This is not an entirely new concept, and there have been many other double barrel pistols created in the past. In fact, ten years ago a Swiss armorer named Vivian Mueller cut and welded together parts of the storied Sig P210 for a similar effect. He successfully created a long slide, double barrel 9mm pistol that shot well. But the AF 2011 is the first time two pistols have been welded into one in a design that is shelf-ready and meant for sale. That’s right — this model can be produced and sold in a mass market instead of just one-off collector pieces. Now you may be wondering how the AF 2011 performs. Sure, it looks cool, and it certainly can throw rounds downrange, but what kind of patterns can it put on a target? According to the AF team, the double barrel 2011 shoots cleanly and with good-enough accuracy: “The gun can be handled by any shooter… [and] holds amazing and surprising target performance for the shooter: in fact, it will group all the 8 double .45 caliber rounds (16 bullets) held in the duplex, single columns magazines, in a target of the size of an orange at 15 yards and of a water melon at 25.†Whether you think you have room in your collection for the AF-2011 or not, you probably want to see this amazing piece of gun craftsmanship doing what it does best. So below is a video that gives you the full effect of the AF2011. Right after he finishes off some shots, the test shooter in the video describes the stopping power in his hands: “This was 8 double rounds…. in other words, it was 4000 grains of payload sent downrange in about 5 seconds. to achieve the same result with a single barrel 9mm pistol we would need to shoot about 30 rounds, with two changes of magazines, in about 30 seconds.†As described on the AF site, “it will knock down a bull.†Check out the video of the AF 2011-A1 in action on the range, via YouTube: And in case you wanted even more specs from Arsenal Firearms: “The AF2011-A1 can be ordered either with 2 independent triggers and one sear group (left or right, with user-interchangeability for right or left operations) or with 2 triggers permanently joined and the choice of 1 or 2 sear groups. The AF2011-A1 is available in mirror finish Deep Blue or with a 3400 Vickers surface hardness White Ash Nitrite coating.†(H/T: firearms blog) http://www.theblaze....it-the-shelves/

Good responses thanks

Looking at adding a Kahr CM9 to my EDC. Those people who own one what has been your experience with it, in terms of reliability and accuracy. I have had a couple of Kahrs in the past that were Problematic, also had a couple that were good as Gold. Should of kept those. For me seems to be hit or miss... Cm9 Pros ? Cons ?

That kid is 7 yrs old. Prety smart !!!

now it lets me post can a moderator check to be sure I didn't lose my benefactor status when we transfered to the new forum

Tried to post but all I got was a message telling me to enter topic

Warren Buffett: Baptist and Bootlegger How America’s favorite billionaire plays politics to make money Peter Schweizer from the March 2012 issue In 19th-century America, there was a concerted effort to ban alcohol sales on Sunday. “Blue laws,†intended to protect the sanctity and sobriety of the Sabbath, were pushed by what seemed like an odd alliance: Baptists and bootleggers. Baptists backed the ban publicly on moral and religious grounds, while the bootleggers lobbied for the ban privately to boost their own bottom lines. Blocking legal alcohol purchases for even one day each week meant more opportunities for their illegal sales. Bans were enacted state by state, and many blue laws still exist (in Arkansas, Indiana, Minnesota, and Mississippi, for example), although restrictions have been steadily disappearing in recent years. Economist Bruce Yandle immortalized the phrase “Bootleggers and Baptists†in a 1983 Regulation magazine article of the same name, making the point that ostensibly opposing sides will happily collude when it serves their mutual interests. The old paradox continues in modern-day Washington. Politicians enrich their friends and allies—and sometimes themselves—by coming off as earnest “Baptists†for a worthy cause. Lobbyists for big corporate interests, by contrast, are widely considered bootleggers, no matter how nobly they cloak their arguments. This arrangement has created an opening for a third way: What if a capitalist could somehow manage to sound like a Baptist? Consider Warren Buffett. Often seen as a grandfatherly figure above the rough-and-tumble of politics, Buffett appears to be immune to the folly and excess of finance as well. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska, in a house he purchased in 1958 for $31,000. He made a fortune for himself and his investors at the business conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway through the humble-sounding approach of value-based investing. He uses folksy expressions: “You don’t know who’s swimming naked,†he said during the height of the financial crisis, “until the tide goes out.†He frequently takes to the nation’s op-ed pages with populist-sounding arguments, such as his August 2010 plea in The New York Times for the government to stop “coddling†the “super-rich†and start raising their taxes. Buffett the Bootlegger But this image does not always reflect reality. Warren Buffett is very much a political entrepreneur; his best investments are often in political relationships. In recent years, Buffett has used taxpayer money as a vehicle to even greater profit and wealth. Indeed, the success of some of his biggest bets and the profitability of some of his largest investments rely on government largesse and “coddling†with taxpayer money. During the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, Buffett became an important symbol on television. He filled the role of fiscal adult, a responsible father figure in the midst of irresponsible Wall Street speculators. While pushing for calm and advocating specific market interventions in both public and private, however, he was also investing (sometimes quietly) so he could profit once his policy advice was implemented. This put Buffett in the position of being both Baptist and bootlegger, praised for his moral character while shaking his finger all the way to the bank. In the summer of 2008, when several investment houses and the government-sponsored mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac teetered on the brink of financial collapse, Buffett was “uncharacteristically quiet,†as the London Guardian observed. It was only on September 23 that he became a highly visible player in the drama, investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, which was overleveraged and short on cash. Buffett’s play gave the investment bank a much-needed cash infusion, making a heck of a deal for himself in return: Berkshire Hathaway received preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend yield and an attractive option to buy another $5 billion in stock at $115 a share. Wall Street was on fire, and Buffett was running toward the flames. But he was doing so with the expectation that the fire department (that is, the federal government) was right behind him with buckets of bailout money. As he admitted on CNBC at the time, “If I didn’t think the government was going to act, I wouldn’t be doing anything this week.†Buffett needed the bailout. In addition to Goldman Sachs, which was not as badly leveraged as some of its competitors, Buffett was heavily invested in several other banks, such as Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp, that were also at risk and in need of federal cash. So it’s no surprise that Buffett began campaigning for the $700 billion Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP) that was being hammered out in Washington. The first vote on the bill failed in the House of Representatives on September 29. But Buffett was in a unique position to help reverse its fate. During the 2008 presidential campaign Buffett was mentioned as a candidate for Treasury secretary by both John McCain and Barack Obama. But it was clear where his loyalties lay: He had been a financial supporter of Barack Obama going back to 2004, when Obama ran for the U.S. Senate. Each had been impressed when they met, and Buffett said at a 2007 fundraiser in Nebraska that the two “had a lot of time to talk.†During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama made it clear that while he received plenty of advice on the campaign trail, “Warren Buffett is one of those people that I listen to.†Obama added that the Oracle of Omaha was one of his “economic advisers.†Several senators and congressmen were shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway and therefore in a position to earn big returns by passing the bailout bill. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), for example, held between $1 million and $6 million in Berkshire stock, by far the largest asset in his portfolio. Initially resistant to the bailout bill, Nelson ended up voting in favor of it. Buffett’s support was hardly the deciding factor in passing the bill. But his Baptist-bootlegger position was strong in both directions: Many people heeded his advice, then he (and they) made a lot of money after the bailout. Throughout the financial crisis and the debate over the stimulus in early 2009, several members of Congress were buying and trading Berkshire stock. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) bought Berkshire shares four times over a three-week period in September and October 2008, up to $130,000 worth. He bought shares during the debate over the bailout, during the vote, and after the vote. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) bought the stock, as did Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who bought up to $500,000 worth just days after the bailout bill was signed. Some legislators also followed Buffett’s example by buying shares in Goldman Sachs after the bailout. Among them were Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), and Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.). Early in the financial crisis, Obama, then a senator and his party’s presidential nominee, had been cautious and lukewarm about a possible bailout. But in the days following Buffett’s multibillion-dollar play for Goldman Sachs, and with fears of economic collapse mounting, Obama became a powerful champion of the government rescue. As the top Democrat in the country, he had an important vote. The New York Times reported that Obama “intensified†his efforts to “rally support for the $700 billion financial bailout package†after September 28, 2008. The plan was necessary, said Obama, “to safeguard the economy.†Publicly, Buffett struck a posture of cheering on the bailout from the sidelines. “I’m not brave enough to try to influence the Congress,†he told The New York Times in a September 24 article. But Buffett’s actions directly contradicted his words. Days later, he participated in a conference call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other House Democrats during which he pushed them to pass the bill, warning that otherwise the country faces “the biggest financial meltdown in American history.†The stakes were high for Buffett as well. If the bailout went through, it would be a windfall for Goldman. If it failed, it would be disastrous for Berkshire Hathaway. The first vote failed, as Congress faced enormous heat from voters angry about the prospect of aiding Wall Street. On the eve of the second TARP vote in the House, Buffett moved toward the fire again, buying a $3 billion stake in corporate giant General Electric (GE). As with Goldman, he was able to negotiate advantageous terms, receiving a 10 percent dividend on his shares. He also purchased the option to buy $3 billion in stock at discounted terms. GE was in even worse financial shape than Goldman, thanks to its financial arm, GE Capital. Eventually it would receive $140 billion in taxpayer capital to stay afloat. Buffett, a genius at public relations, said he had “confidence in Congress to do the right thing.†He appeared to be the private-sector savior of Goldman Sachs and GE, while giving members of Congress much-needed cover to bail out what had recently been among Wall Street’s most favored firms. Crony Capitalism Pays With the passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the Treasury Department was authorized to loan financial institutions a total of $700 billion, which gave it unprecedented authority to pick winners and losers. Access to TARP money was not guaranteed, and the terms of the loans were unclear. The process was opaque. As American Prospect Editor Robert Kuttner put it, the TARP proceedings were conducted “largely behind closed doors, and the design is by, for and in the interest of large banks, hedge funds, and private equity companies. Because there are no explicit criteria, it’s very hard to know†if anyone got special treatment. The entire process, he said, “reeks of favoritism and special treatment.†Having the correct political connections was critical. A National Bureau of Economic Research study by four researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, documented the power of such connections. Economist Daron Acemoglu and his colleagues found that when Timothy Geithner, a man who had spent his career shuttling back and forth between Wall Street and Washington, was announced as President Obama’s nominee for treasury secretary, it “produced a cumulative abnormal return for Geithner-connected financial firms of around 15 percent from day 0.†The stock market reflects the thinking of all investors, and they clearly believed Geithner would be able to reward his friends directly or indirectly. Conversely, when there was word that Geithner’s nomination might be derailed by tax issues, those same firms were hit hard with “abnormal negative returns.†Acemoglu et al. systematically examined companies that had corporate ties to Geithner, had executives who served with him on other boards, or had other direct relationships. They found that “the quantitative effect is comparable to standard findings†in Third World countries with weak institutions and higher levels of corruption. In other words, markets react to government actions in the U.S. the same way they do in a corrupt developing country. Crony capitalism pays, and the market knows it. Buffett, of course, was not the only one with connections in Washington. Goldman Sachs had a direct line to Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, its former managing partner, as well as incoming officials in the Obama administration. But Buffett was far better liked by the American public than were the executives at Goldman Sachs. He was therefore a much more effective advocate for bailout funds than Paulson could ever be. An April 2011 working paper by researchers at the University of Michigan School of Business found that “firms with political connections†were much more likely to get TARP funds than firms that were not well connected. The study looked at how much money companies contributed to election campaigns through PAC contributions and donations by executives as well as how much companies spent on lobbyists. Finance professors Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura found that politically connected firms, despite the infusion of federal funds, were outperformed by unconnected firms. In other words, poorly run but well-connected companies got the loot. The fact that politically connected banks got good deals from the Treasury was not lost on the banking industry. Robert Wilmers, the chairman and CEO of M&T Bank, told shareholders in April 2009, “The pattern is clear: The bailout money and the perks are concentrated among the big banks, the ones who pay the lobbyists and make the campaign contributions, while the healthy banks pay the freight.†Buffett needed the TARP bailout more than most. In all, Berkshire Hathaway firms received $95 billion in TARP money. Berkshire held stock in Wells Fargo, Bank of America, American Express, and Goldman Sachs, which received not only TARP money but also Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) backing for their debt, worth a total of $130 billion. All told, TARP-assisted companies constituted a whopping 30 percent of Buffett’s publicly disclosed stock portfolio. The folksy outsider with his home-spun investment wisdom, the Houston Chronicle concluded in an April 2009 investigative piece, was “one of the top beneficiaries of the banking bailout.†Buffett received better terms for his Goldman investment than the government got for its bailout. His dividend was set at 10 percent, while the government’s was 5 percent. Had the bailout not gone through, and had Goldman not been given such generous terms under TARP, things would have been very different for Buffett. As it stood, the arrangement with Goldman Sachs earned Berkshire about $500 million a year in dividends. “We love the investment!†he exclaimed to Berkshire investors. The General Electric deal also was profitable. As Reuters business columnist Rolfe Winkler noted on his blog in August 2009: “Were it not for government bailouts, for which Buffett lobbied hard, many of his company’s stock holdings would have been wiped out.†By April 2009, Goldman share prices had more than doubled. By July 2009, Buffett had already received a return of $2.5 billion from his investment. Later, astonishingly, Buffett would publicly complain about the bailouts in his 2008 letter to Berkshire investors, claiming that government subsidies put Berkshire at a disadvantage. As he put it, funders “who are using imaginative methods (or lobbying skills) to come under the government’s umbrella have money costs that are minimal,†whereas “highly-rated companies, such as Berkshire, are experiencing borrowing costs that…are at record levels.†Berkshire, of course, is simply a holding company representing a long list of investment assets—including investments in eight banks that were helped by the FDIC’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. As Winkler put it, “It takes chutzpah to lobby for bailouts, make trades seeking to profit from them, and then complain that those doing so put you at a disadvantage.†Unseemly but Legal One financial observer, Graham Summers of Phoenix Capital Research, claimed on the finance blog site Seeking Alpha in October 2008 that Buffett’s conduct during the financial crisis involved a “a serious conflict of interest…seriously bordering on insider trading.†But what Buffett did was entirely legal. It may have been an exercise in crony capitalism and manipulation, but he broke no law. He simply used his political connections to secure huge profits with taxpayer money. There are two main questions to ask about Buffett’s behavior. First, why do so many people continue to heed his policy advice without considering his enormous self-interest? Second, and more important, how did our politics get so warped by deep-pocketed, heavily invested advisers? After the bailout bill passed, Warren Buffett sat down and wrote Treasury Secretary Paulson a four-page letter proposing a larger solution to the financial crisis: a quasi-private fund backed by the U.S. government that would buy bad loans and other rapidly sinking investments. He proposed that for every $10 billion put up by the private sector, the federal government would kick in $40 billion. As Paulson put it in his memoir, “I knew, of course, that as an investor in financial institutions, including Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs, Warren had a vested interest in the idea.†The bootlegger’s interest does not necessarily mean the Baptist’s ideas are wrong. The Treasury Department considered Buffett’s proposal, but with Paulson leaving at the end of President George W. Bush’s term, it would fall to the incoming secretary, Tim Geithner, to act on it. Geithner tweaked the plan and announced the Public-Private Investment Program in March 2009. It was largely seen as a boon to banks, especially large banks with a lot of bad debt. What did Buffett do in the six months between writing the letter and watching the adapted policy get approved? He bought more bank stock. According to Berkshire’s quarterly reports, Buffett’s firm bought 12.4 million shares of Wells Fargo during this period and another 1.5 million shares in U.S. Bancorp. When Geithner announced the Public-Private Investment Program, bank stocks rallied and Buffett’s holdings did very well. We don’t know the exact price that Buffett paid for these millions of shares because he is not legally required to list the dates he bought them. But we do know those bank stocks all jumped after Geithner unveiled his program. Wells Fargo, which was trading around $20 per share early in 2009, jumped to $30 a share in the weeks following Geithner’s announcement. U.S. Bancorp did even better: It had hit a low of $8 a share in February 2009 but vaulted to more than $20 a share by May. And of course Buffett already owned tens of millions of shares in a host of financial companies, such as American Express and M&T Bank, which also benefited. Buffett did very well with Goldman Sachs and GE too after they received their bailout money. His net gain from General Electric as of April 2011 was $1.2 billion. His profits from the Goldman deal by then had exceeded the gains of July 2009, reaching as high as $3.7 billion. He had bet on his ability to help secure the bailout, and the bet paid off. In the fall of 2010, Buffet wrote a “Thank You, Uncle Sam†op-ed piece in The New York Times, praising the role that the government played in stabilizing markets throughout the crisis. There was no disclaimer or disclosure of how much he personally gained from TARP or the Public-Private Investment Program. He simply endorsed both as good public policy. At the bottom of the article he was identified this way: “Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.†With tongue in cheek, journalist Ira Stoll, the former managing editor of the New York Sun (and current columnist for reason.com), suggested the bio might have been more accurate with a bit of rewriting: “Warren Buffett, the largest crony capitalist in the world, shareholder of GE, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, M&T Bank, and American Express, as well as competitor of private equity and hedge fund firms that have been threatened with new taxes and regulations, and behind the scenes, insider adviser to most of the government officials mentioned above.†Again, to be clear, even though Buffett was the one who proposed the public-private partnership, there is absolutely nothing illegal about lobbying for a policy while investing in the companies that stand to gain most if that policy is adopted. But consider this: Had Buffett instead pushed a private investment house to make an acquisition that would benefit certain stocks while quietly buying shares in those same stocks, he would have been vulnerable to charges of insider trading. Indeed, this is what his lieutenant David Sokol was accused of doing in 2010, landing him in legal hot water. Sokol, who resigned amidst insider trading accusations, apparently bought shares in Lubrizol, a chemical company, and then encouraged his employer, Berkshire Hathaway, to buy a large stake in the company, thereby driving up the price of the stock. All Buffett did differently was use the federal government instead of a private company to boost the fortunes of certain stocks. This is why crony capitalism is so perennially attractive to financiers: It’s legal, and it’s often more remunerative than the illegal private-sector version might be. Because government officials are dealing with other people’s money, they are less likely than a private firm to drive a hard bargain. Buffett has long believed that corporate-government partnerships provide excellent investment opportunities. While he’s famous for owning Dairy Queen and other all-American private companies, two of his largest holdings are in railroads and regulated utilities. He regularly lobbies on their behalf and counts on significant public money to make them more profitable. After the 2008 financial crisis appeared to be easing, Buffett turned his attention to championing the Obama administration’s stimulus program. When he went on television to hawk the stimulus, he was never asked what he might personally be getting out of the deal. A candid answer would have taken up many valuable minutes of airtime. Railroad Job In late 2009, Buffett made his largest investment ever when he decided to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF). It was not just an endorsement of the railroad industry’s financials; it was also a huge bet on the budget priorities of his friend Barack Obama. As The Wall Street Journal reported, “Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s planned purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. represents a bet that upcoming Washington policies to improve infrastructure and combat climate change will be a boon to the freight-railroad industry. President Barack Obama has said railroad investment will be a cornerstone of his transportation policies, given the environmental benefits and improved mobility that come with taking cars and trucks off roads.†Others in the railroad industry saw Buffett’s involvement as very helpful, precisely because he was so politically connected. “It’s a positive for the rail industry because of Buffett’s influence in Washington,†Henry Lampe, president of the short-haul railroad Chicago South Shore & South Bend, told the Journal. Buffett bought BNSF just as the Obama administration was beginning a series of initiatives to rapidly expand the government’s spending on railroads. After Buffett took over the railroad company, he dramatically increased spending on lobbyists. Berkshire spent $1.2 million on lobbyists in 2008, but by 2009 its budget had jumped to $9.8 million, where it more or less remained. Pouring money into lobbying is perhaps the best investment that Buffett could make. Obama’s plans to invest heavily in railroads, including a commitment to high-speed rail, put BNSF in a position to benefit handsomely. BNSF already has talked to Seattle officials about leasing or selling its rail lines for an intercity project, and that’s just a start. A map of BNSF lines around the country overlaps nicely with the government’s proposed high-speed rail lines, from Seattle to Florida, California to the Northeast. Buffett is geographically and strategically positioned to profit from those government-funded rail systems, should they be built. The 2009 stimulus package includes $48 billion (of the total $787 billion) for infrastructure improvement, a chunk of which is headed for railroads. How much will BNSF benefit? It’s hard to calculate. Type “BNSF†on the Recovery.gov website, which tracks grants, subsidized loans, and contracts signed under the stimulus, and you find 1,800 entries, including everything from a $36 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security to money from the Environmental Protection Agency. Buffett also owns MidAmerican Energy Holdings, which received $93.4 million in stimulus money. General Electric, in which he owns a $5 billion stake, was one of the largest recipients of stimulus money in the country. Buffett famously puts his folksy investment ideas in an annual letter to Berkshire investors. He rarely mentions the bootlegger stuff involving lobbyists, government funds, bailouts, and stimulus grants, preferring the Baptist language of social good. “We see a ‘social compact’ existing between the public and our railroad business, just as it is the case with our utilities,†he said in his 2010 letter to shareholders. “If either side shirks its obligations, both sides will inevitably suffer. Therefore, both parties to the compact should—and we believe will—understand the benefit of behaving in a way that encourages good behavior by the other. It is inconceivable that our country will realize anything close to its full economic potential without it possessing first-class electricity and railroad systems.†He added that both businesses “require wise regulators who will provide certainty about allowable returns so that we can confidently make the huge investments required to maintain, replace, and expand the plant.†The term social compact sounds benign. But when did American voters agree to turn one of the richest men in America into one of the biggest recipients of taxpayer subsidies? In August 2011, Buffett vacationed with President Obama on Martha’s Vineyard, and they discussed the economy. Shortly after that, he agreed to host an Obama re-election fundraiser in New York City where contributors could buy $35,800 VIP tickets to meet Buffett and talk about the economy. As fellow investor Steven Rattner pointed out in his 2010 book Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry, “Warren Buffett has shown that superb investing need not entail the months of due diligence and deliberation that private equity firms typically apply to a deal. Buffett has been known to make successful multibillion-dollar bets on the basis of a few meetings or phone calls.†That is particularly true if he calls Washington. Warren Buffett is a financial genius. But even better for his portfolio, though worse for the rest of us, he is a political genius. Peter Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. This article is adapted from his book Throw Them All Out by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

http://constitution.hillsdale.edu/ Hillsdale College is offering a Constitution Class starting Feb 20th for those that are interested. Check the link above to get more information and sign up.

February 14, 2012 Media Matters memo called for hiring private investigators ‘to look into the personal lives’ of Fox employees By Tucker Carlson Published: 10:51 PM 02/13/2012 | Updated: 10:58 PM 02/13/2012 By Tucker Carlson Bio | Archive | Email Tucker Carlson Follow Tucker Carlson Get Tucker Carlson Feed Tweet A little after 1 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2009, Karl Frisch emailed a memo to his bosses, Media Matters for America founder David Brock and president Eric Burns. In the first few lines, Frisch explained why Media Matters should launch a “Fox Fund†whose mission would be to attack the Fox News Channel. “Simply put,†Frisch wrote, “the progressive movement is in need of an enemy. George W. Bush is gone. We really don’t have John McCain to kick around any more. Filling the lack of leadership on the right, Fox News has emerged as the central enemy and antagonist of the Obama administration, our Congressional majorities and the progressive movement as a whole.†“We must take Fox News head-on in a well funded, presidential-style campaign to discredit and embarrass the network, making it illegitimate in the eyes of news consumers.†What Frisch proceeded to suggest, however, went well beyond what legitimate presidential campaigns attempt. “We should hire private investigators to look into the personal lives of Fox News anchors, hosts, reporters, prominent contributors, senior network and corporate staff,†he wrote. After that, Frisch argued, should come the legal assault: “We should look into contracting with a major law firm to study any available legal actions that can be taken against Fox News, from a class action law suit to defamation claims for those wronged by the network. I imagine this would be difficult but the right law firm is bound to find some legal ground for us to take action against the network.†Frisch went on to call for “an elaborate shareholder campaign†against News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News: “This can take many forms, from a front group of shareholders, to passing resolutions at shareholder meetings or massive demonstrations are [sic] shareholder meetings.†Given the leaky nature of electronic communications, it’s unusual to see the term “front group†used approvingly in office email. Yet Frisch continued: “We should also hire a team of trackers to stake out private and public events with Fox News anchors, hosts, reporters, prominent contributors and senior network/corporate staff.†(RELATED: More stories in the ‘Inside Media Matters’ investigative series) Preparing his bosses for the potential cost, he added that, “If we need to buy tickets for events that these people will be speaking at, so be it.†The memo goes on to suggest new and unusual ways to harass Fox News: “detailed opposition research†on the network’s staff and executives, attacks against Fox News employees on Facebook and other social media, mailing anti-Fox News literature to their homes and placing “yard signs and outdoor advertising in their neighborhoods.†At one point, Frisch suggests putting “a mole inside of†the network. The cloak-and-dagger tactics seemed to make Frisch jumpy. “Fox is likely to retaliate,†he wrote. Media Matters should find “ways to protect the privacy of our employees and the security of our office.†David Brock apparently took this warning seriously. By the next year, Media Matters had two security guards in the office, and Brock’s personal assistant was carrying a holstered Glock to protect him. NEXT: How many of these tactics did Media Matters actually engage in? How many of these tactics did Media Matters actually engage in? Sources inside the organization either don’t know or won’t say, although one did confirm that Media Matters dispatched trackers to events featuring Fox News employees, including to at least one where News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch spoke. What’s clear is that Media Matters believed it had many allies in the media and the left-wing political world. “We should consider sponsoring some of the top progressive blogs,†Frisch wrote. “They are upset with MMFA for not putting more money into the blogosphere and this would be a good opportunity to mend fences.†Ditto for various other parts of the Democratic coalition: “We should work hard to enlist LGBT, Hispanic, African American, Women, Religious Leaders and Groups against Fox News.†In another section, Frisch suggests convincing liberal film documentarian Michael Moore to make “a major documentary about Fox News and Fox News personalities.†In at least two places, the memo makes suggestions that in retrospect look like prescient predictions. The first concerns Rupert Murdoch: “Murdoch’s problems in the U.K. (hacking the cell phones of prominent Brits) are hardly known to U.S. news consumers. We should do our best to bring embarrassing Murdoch news to the attention of his U.S. audience.†The effort appears to have succeeded. Finally, the memo suggests that drones in the Media Matters research department ought to ghost-write an extended hit on the network: “[W]e should write a book under David’s name that savages Fox News and Fox News employees. The market for this is likely huge.†Is it? We’ll see next week, when that book is released. Tucker Carlson is The Daily Caller’s editor-in-chief, a former CNN and MSNBC host, and a current Fox News Channel contributor. Follow him on Twitter.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/02/remember-when-no-one-understood-why-abc-asked-about-contraception-at-the-nh-republican-debate/

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/12/inside-media-matters-sources-memos-reveal-erratic-behavior-close-coordination-with-white-house-and-news-organizations/ Inside Media Matters: Sources, memos reveal erratic behavior, close coordination with White House and news organizations By Tucker Carlson, Vince Coglianese, Alex Pappas and Will Rahn - The Daily Caller 10:02 PM 02/12/2012 ADVERTISEMENT This is the first in a Daily Caller investigative series on Media Matters For America. Daily Caller reporters Alex Pappas and Will Rahn contributed to this report. David Brock was smoking a cigarette on the roof of his Washington, D.C. office one day in the late fall of 2010 when his assistant and two bodyguards suddenly appeared and whisked him and his colleague Eric Burns down the stairs. Brock, the head of the liberal nonprofit Media Matters for America, had told friends and co-workers that he feared he was in imminent danger from right-wing assassins and needed a security team to keep him safe. The threat he faced while smoking on his roof? “Snipers,†a former co-worker recalled. “He had more security than a Third World dictator,†one employee said, explaining that Brock’s bodyguards would rarely leave his side, even accompanying him to his home in an affluent Washington neighborhood each night where they “stood post†to protect him. “What movement leader has a detail?†asked someone who saw it. Extensive interviews with a number of Brock’s current and former colleagues at Media Matters, as well as with leaders from across the spectrum of Democratic politics, reveal an organization roiled by its leader’s volatile and erratic behavior and struggles with mental illness, and an office where Brock’s executive assistant carried a handgun to public events in order to defend his boss from unseen threats. Yet those same interviews, as well as a detailed organizational planning memo obtained by The Daily Caller, also suggest that Media Matters has to a great extent achieved its central goal of influencing the national media. Founded by Brock in 2004 as a liberal counterweight to “conservative misinformation†in the press, Media Matters has in less than a decade become a powerful player in Democratic politics. The group operates in regular coordination with the highest levels of the Obama White House, as well as with members of Congress and progressive groups around the country. Brock, who collected over $250,000 in salary from Media Matters in 2010, has himself become a major fundraiser on the left. According to an internal memo obtained by TheDC, Media Matters intends to spend nearly $20 million in 2012 to influence news coverage. Donors have every reason to expect success, as the group’s effect on many news organizations has already been profound. “We were pretty much writing their prime time,†a former Media Matters employee said of the cable channel MSNBC. “But then virtually all the mainstream media was using our stuff.†The group scored its first significant public coup in 2007 with the firing of host Don Imus from MSNBC. Just before Easter that year, a Media Matters employee recorded Imus’s now-famous attack on the Rutgers women’s basketball team, and immediately recognized its inflammatory potential. The organization swung into action, notifying organizations like the NAACP, the National Association of Black Journalists, and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, all of which joined the fight. Over the course of a week, Media Matters mobilized more than 50 people to work full-time adding fuel to the Imus story. Researchers searched the massive Media Matters database for controversial statements Imus had made over the years. The group issued press release after press release. Brock personally called the heads of various liberal activist groups to coordinate a message. By the end of the week, Imus was fired. Media Matters soon became more sophisticated in its campaigns against non-liberal cable news anchors. Lou Dobbs, then of CNN, was a frequent target. “As part of the Drop Dobbs campaign,†explains one internal memo prepared for fundraising, “Media Matters produced and was prepared to run an advertisement against Ford Motor Company on Spanish Language stations in Houston, San Antonio, and other cities targeting its top selling product, pick-up trucks, in its top truck buying markets.†Ford pulled its advertising from Dobbs’s program before the television ad aired, but Media Matters kept up its efforts, working primarily with Alex Nogales of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and with the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other self-described civil rights groups. In November of 2009, Dobbs left CNN. “We got him fired,†says one staffer flatly. “Certainly Media Matters deserves a lot of credit for the work they did,†Nogales said in an interview. “They’re very effective.†Glenn Beck, the former Fox News Channel host, drew the ire of a wide spectrum of liberal groups while his program aired nationally. But according to several people who watched the process from the inside, it was Media Matters that orchestrated much of the opposition to Beck. “We called it ‘fingerprint coverage,’†explains one former staffer, “where you know it was the result of your work.†As an example, he cites the left-wing group Color of Change, co-founded by the controversial former White House “green jobs†czar Van Jones, which received much of the credit for pressuring advertisers to drop their sponsorship of Beck’s show. But in fact, he says, Media Matters developed the campaign that cowed Beck’s sponsors. Media Matters, according to its 2010 tax filing, gave a $200,000 grant to Citizen Engagement Laboratory, Color of Change’s parent group. The purpose of the grant, according to the document, was for a “campaign to expose Glenn Beck’s racist rhetoric in an effort to educate advertisers about the practices on his show.†High profile though these victories against conservatives were, Media Matters has perhaps achieved more influence simply by putting its talking points into the willing hands of liberal journalists. “In ‘08 it became pretty apparent MSNBC was going left,†says one source. “They were using our research to write their stories. They were eager to use our stuff.†Media Matters staff had the direct line of MSNBC president Phil Griffin, and used it. Griffin took their calls. Stories about Fox News were especially well received by MSNBC anchors and executives: “If we published something about Fox in the morning, they’d have it on the air that night verbatim.†But MSNBC executives weren’t the only ones talking regularly to Media Matters. “The entire progressive blogosphere picked up our stuff,†says a Media Matters source, “from Daily Kos to Salon. Greg Sargent [of the Washington Post] will write anything you give him. He was the go-to guy to leak stuff.†“If you can’t get it anywhere else, Greg Sargent’s always game,†agreed another source with firsthand knowledge. Reached by phone, Sargent declined to comment. “The HuffPo guys were good, Sam Stein and Nico [Pitney],†remembered one former staffer. “The people at Huffington Post were always eager to cooperate, which is no surprise given David’s long history with Arianna [Huffington].†“Jim Rainey at the LA Times took a lot of our stuff,†the staffer continued. “So did Joe Garofoli at the San Francisco Chronicle. We’ve pushed stories to Eugene Robinson and E.J. Dionne [at the Washington Post]. Brian Stelter at the New York Times was helpful.†“Ben Smith [formerly of Politico, now at BuzzFeed.com] will take stories and write what you want him to write,†explained the former employee, whose account was confirmed by other sources. Staffers at Media Matters “knew they could dump stuff to Ben Smith, they knew they could dump it at Plum Line [Greg Sargent’s Washington Post blog], so that’s where they sent it.†Smith, who refused to comment on the substance of these claims, later took to Twitter to say that he has been critical of Media Matters. Reporters who weren’t cooperative might feel the sting of a Media Matters campaign against them. “If you hit a reporter, say a beat reporter at a regional newspaper,†a Media Matters source said, “all of a sudden they’d get a thousand hostile emails. Sometimes they’d melt down. It had a real effect on reporters who weren’t used to that kind of scrutiny.†A group with the ability to shape news coverage is of incalculable value to the politicians it supports, so it’s no surprise that Media Matters has been in regular contact with political operatives in the Obama administration. According to visitor logs, on June 16, 2010, Brock and then-Media Matters president Eric Burns traveled to the White House for a meeting with Valerie Jarrett, arguably the president’s closest adviser. Recently departed Obama communications director Anita Dunn returned to the White House for the meeting as well. It’s not clear what the four spoke about — no one in the meeting returned repeated calls for comment — but the apparent coordination continued. “Anita Dunn became a regular presence at the office,†says someone who worked there. Then-president of Media Matters, Eric Burns, “lunched with her, met with her and chatted with her frequently on any number of matters.†Media Matters also began a weekly strategy call with the White House, which continues, joined by the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. Jen Psaki, Obama’s deputy communications director, was a frequent participant before she left for the private sector in October 2011. Every Tuesday evening, meanwhile, a representative from Media Matters attends the Common Purpose Project meeting at the Capitol Hilton on 16th Street in Washington, where dozens of progressive organizations formulate strategy, often with a representative from the Obama White House. In the past several years, Media Matters has focused much of its considerable energy on the Fox News Channel. The network, declares one internal memo, “is the de facto leader of the GOP and it is long past time that it was treated as such by the media, elected officials, and the public.†At the end of September 2009, Burns made the case publicly in an interview on MSNBC. Fox, he said, “is a political organization, and their aim is to destroy a progressive policy agenda.†Less than a month later, in language that could have been copied directly from a Media Matters press release, White House communications director Anita Dunn leveled almost precisely the same charge, dismissing Fox as “more a wing of the Republican Party.†Were the lines of attack coordinated? “To my knowledge, there wasn’t coordination,†says a source. But at times there has seemed to be a kind of mind meld between the Obama political team and Media Matters. During the 2008 presidential campaign, for example, author Jerome Corsi wrote a highly critical book about the Democratic candidate, titled “The Obama Nation.†The Obama campaign responded immediately with a detailed memo. The title of that memo, “Unfit For Publication†(a play on Corsi’s 2004 book, “Unfit for Command,†about then-presidential candidate Senator John Kerry), was the same title used by Media Matters just weeks before in a similar memo about the same book. The irony of Brock’s relationship with the White House is that at certain points he has been openly hostile to Barack Obama, especially in conversations in social settings. Described by some who know him as a passionate and emotional Hillary Clinton supporter, many Democrats believe Brock maintained regular contact with the highest levels of Clinton’s campaign and its advisers. As late as 2010, Brock was still exchanging personal emails with longtime Hillary Clinton consigliore Sidney Blumenthal, in which the two seemed to grouse about Obama and bond over their shared connection to Hillary. The intensity of the 2008 campaign, say those who knew Brock at the time, seemed to exacerbate his bouts of what appeared to be mania, a condition from which he had apparently suffered for some time. In 2002, the Drudge Report reported that Brock had “suffered a breakdown†the year before and was treated in the psychiatric ward of Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington. During a 2008 meeting of the left-wing umbrella group Democracy Alliance outside San Diego, Brock’s unusual behavior drew considerable attention. According to a fellow attendee, “David completely lost his ####. He started getting incredibly aggressive. He alienated important people in the progressive movement, like John Podesta [of the Center for American Progress] and Anna Burger [of the Service Employees International Union]. Lots of drama. There were a lot of conversations about David’s mental health.†Two years later, at another Democracy Alliance meeting shortly after the 2010 election, Brock behaved in a way one prominent liberal who was there described as “erratic, unstable and disturbing.†Brock’s aggression, this person said, was “hard to ignore and noticed by a number of people,†generating “quite a bit of concern†about his condition. A number of demonstrably Brock made around this time only reinforced those concerns.All of this, sources say, has caused anxiety for prominent Democrats. Brock’s profile has risen recently, mostly due to American Bridge 21st Century, the political action committee he founded and runs. Brock boasted loudly and in public that American Bridge would be an answer to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads GPS, a claim some found unsettlingly grandiose. At some point, Brock received a prescription for his condition. “Some days he’d come in and you could tell he was on his meds because he would just sit in his office alone and not engage with staff,†says a coworker. Other days, “he’d be intensely engaged. He’d get manic, very reckless and grandiose. You’d see this level of self-confidence in him that would spiral.†Last spring, some at Media Matters headquarters and in other parts of the progressive world were caught off guard by an interview Brock gave to Ben Smith at Politico, in which he promised to wage “guerrilla warfare and sabotage†against Fox News. “It was insane,†says a coworker. “David was totally manic at the time. We were all shocked.†Friends say Brock, who has publicly admitted drug use in the past, was working obsessively and staying out late with compatriots. “They’d close [local bars] and party till six in the morning,†said one. A number of people in Brock’s orbit believe he was regularly using illegal drugs, including cocaine. “It’s not like he was trying to keep it a secret,†says a female friend of Brock’s. Sources back at the Media Matters offices describe an atmosphere of tension and paranoia. “Many of us lived in fear that at any point we could be fired,†one said. Brock believed he had received credible death threats, and employed a two-man security detail, at least one of whom was armed and acted as his driver. A new security system was installed in his house. He became concerned that one of his bodyguards was plotting against him. By 2010, Brock’s personal assistant, a man named Haydn Price-Morris, was carrying a holstered and concealed Glock handgun when he accompanied Brock to events, including events in Washington, D.C., a city with famously restrictive gun laws. Price-Morris told others he carried the gun to protect Brock from threats. Late in 2010, other Media Matters employees learned about Price-Morris’s gun, and he was fired due to their objections. No public announcement was made. According to one source with knowledge of what happened next, Brock was “terrified†that news of the gun would leak. “George Soros and a lot of groups connected to gun control are funding this group, and they wouldn’t be too happy that an employee of Media Matters was carrying a gun, especially when it was illegal in D.C.†Meanwhile, Brock became rigid and harsh with his employees — “viciously mean,†in the words of someone who witnessed it. “He spent a lot of time ripping up researchers. It was abusive. I never understood why more people didn’t quit.†One staffer recalls Brock saying he would like to fire a researcher for being physically repugnant. “David definitely does not like ugly people.†At times, Brock would become crazed with intensity, “obsessively†involving himself in research: “There was a point at which he would pore over every single piece of research we put out, 10 or 15 dense items a day. He would line-item all of it.†David Saldana, the former deputy editorial director at Media Matters, concedes that under Brock’s leadership, “there were very harsh penalties for getting things wrong. And justifiably so. … There was no room for weakness. Things had to be gotten right.†The atmosphere in the office was considerably more tolerant on non-editorial matters. “There were these two folks who got caught [having sex] in the communications war room on the weekend,†said one employee. “People came in, and lo and behold there were two of their colleagues doing the nasty on a desk.†Neither one was fired.

Posted on February 9, 2012 by John Hinderaker in 2012 election, 2012 Presidential election, GOP Presidential Race 2012 Is 2012 Slipping Away From the GOP? For a long time, I was confident that Republican voters would oust Barack Obama in 2012, hold the House and, in all likelihood, take the Senate. Obama is a weak incumbent, who has been chronically unpopular since early in his term. His re-elect numbers are weaker than historically have ever worked for incumbent presidents. On paper, he is ripe for the picking. Nevertheless, if you are a Republican, the vibes are very bad. The presidential primary season has turned into a disaster, in my view. Mitt Romney has shown a discouraging inability to appeal to the party’s base, while the race has damaged both Romney and the party. Newt Gingrich, in particular, sacrificed the party to his own ego by launching left-wing attacks against Romney. Gingrich is gone as a Republican contender, but we will see more of him in the fall, in Obama ads. What a swan song for someone who once led the conservative movement! Rick Santorum is a bright guy who has performed well in the debates, and he is hot, this week, in the Republican base. But he doesn’t have the chance of a snowball in Hell of being elected president. He couldn’t even get re-elected to the Senate in his home state of Pennsylvania in 2006. The 2012 election will be almost entirely about the economy, although national security is always relevant to a presidential contest. It would be suicidal for the GOP to nominate a candidate whose signature issues are gay marriage and abortion. At the end of the day, the party won’t be that dumb. But the fact that the party’s base is flirting with Santorum manifests a lack of seriousness that may prove fatal in November. Meanwhile, President Obama is quietly staging a comeback. Optimism about the economy is growing at the same time that the Republican Party is, in most peoples’ eyes, making a fool of itself, so it is hard to identify the main cause of Obama’s resurgence. But you can see Obama’s comeback in Scott Rasmussen’s Approval Index. Currently, Obama is only -11, compared to -20 or -21, and his overall approval among likely voters is not too bad, at 50/49. Obama has been nowhere near even in the Approval Index since early in his term. He has, in that respect, an astonishingly low ceiling. Some would say that this makes him unelectable to a second four years. But it is hard to escape the sense that the Republicans are blowing it. Barack Obama has run the national debt up to $15 trillion. Who is talking about that scandal? Jeff Sessions. Paul Ryan. Us. Who else? You shouldn’t be able to get a haircut without hearing people talking about our children’s debt in the barbershop. And there are fewer Americans working today than when Obama took office, largely as a result of his administration’s moronic anti-growth policies. How can a president with such a poor record hope to be re-elected? Why does Obama even have a chance? The answer is threefold: 1) Barack Obama may be a horrible president, but he is the biggest moneybags in the history of politics. He will raise a billion dollars, plus his SuperPac. The Republican candidate, whoever he may be, will be swamped by Democratic Party, rich liberal and labor union money. And it is worth noting that a large majority of the GOP’s activists who now take such an arrogant attitude toward the Republican contenders will contribute little or nothing to the eventual nominee. 2) The press is now falling into ranks, forming a solid phalanx that will try to re-elect their candidate, no matter how disappointed in him they may be. For the next eight or nine months we will see the most nauseating political effort ever undertaken by the “mainstream†liberal press. 3) Sadly, the fratricidal Republican Party has blown its opportunity in the primary season to educate the American people on the economic and foreign policy fiasco that the Obama administration has been. So, do I think the 2012 election is slipping away from conservatives, Republicans, and the American people? Yes, I do. This is a year in which it was incumbent on conservatives to pursue, soberly, the overriding goal of evicting Barack Obama from the White House. We didn’t do that; in fact, it wouldn’t be far off the mark to say that we made fools of ourselves by chasing one will o’ the wisp after another. I fear that in November, we will pay the price.

Found this video on how to add pearce extensions to the Taurus TCP 380 Magazines. I tried it and it worked very well.

Perhaps you have missed the point. The public announcement of either an excommunication threat or actual excommunication would send a very strong signal to the catholic community that these actions can not be condoned as they do not just effect the one person but the many from their actions.. Obviously a person can excommunicate their-selves through wrongful actions but that is a personal matter that people may know of or not.. Here I believe we are talking about a very powerful public message that says to all the catholic community as well as the world this is so wrong we are willing to condemn publicly a person soul to hell. Seems pretty powerful to me…

[h=1]What Does It Take for a Politician to be Excommunicated?[/h]By Meep – February 4, 2012Posted in: Homepage Slider Way back in olden times, talking back to the Pope could get a monarch excommunicated and his entire country placed under interdict. The Church has softened up since then. But they still do whip out excommunication on the ruling class from time to time. For example, in the early 1960s, the archbishop of New Orleans ordered the parochial schools in his archdiocese to be desegregated. This did not sit well with several prominent Democratic politicians in the Big Easy, and they raised a big stink. Ultimately, they tried to pass mandatory segregation laws that would have applied to the parochial schools, in effect the state meddling with the Church’s business. So Archbishop Rummel excommunicated the leaders, well after warning them of their errors. At a public rally the day after Rummel’s announcement, Perez told an audience that no matter what the archbishop said, Catholic schools in Plaquemines would not integrate. He urged them to pull their children from parochial schools, and withhold contributions to the archdiocese. After several more public, heated exchanges with Perez, Rummel again sent letters to dissenting Catholic segregationists, in which he said they “promoted flagrant disobedience,†and that unless they backed down, they would be excommunicated. Many again relented, but Perez and two others did not. Rummel waited two weeks, and when he didn’t hear from the final three, he publicly excommunicated them for their “flagrant disregard†for his “fatherly council.†I am bringing this up due to the latest blather from the ex-Speaker of the House, and purported Catholic, Nancy Pelosi: Pelosi Declares She’ll Join Her Fellow Catholics In Their Near-Unanimous Support of Obama’s Insurance Mandate . . . Wait, what? Did you say you were standing with Catholics in support of Obama’s decision to mandate Catholic charities provide free abortifacients for its employees? “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.†I guess you did say that. Now, I guess I can understand the bishops not denying communion to politicians who keep laws restricting abortions from being passed. A sin of omission, I suppose, but open to interpretation. But when one supports an action of the state getting involved in the Church’s business—if you’re actively supporting Catholic charities being forced to pay for artificial contraception and abortion—I think we’ve gone from a sin of omission to a sin of commission. At the very least, communion needs to be withheld from such people. By participating in communion, after all, one is supposedly actually in communion with the Church. And, as we are not Protestants, this is not decided by popular vote. The Pope is the final say—that’s what it means to be Catholic, after all. Once you decide it’s what is popular amongst the laity that counts, or, if you were honest, what you find convenient to yourself—then you’re a Protestant. Go join the dwindling ranks of the Episcopalians, why don’t you? Then you can have all the contraception, divorce, abortions, extramarital sex, and gay marriages you wish. If nothing else, it is not charitable to allow people who are in blatant non-communion with the Church to receive the Eucharist—we’re talking mortal sin territory, after all. Sure, give them a shot across the bow in the form of a pastoral letter, especially since the bishops have allowed this nonsense to persist for so long. I am not all that sympathetic to the plight of the liberal, pro-life Catholics on this matter, which includes several bishops. If they are at all surprised at the hostility being shown to the Church—remember that verse about sowing and reaping? You have hitched your wagons to politicians who have been pro-abortion for decades. You’re really surprised that they are forcing you to abide by what they’re forcing everyone else to? You’re surprised that you’re getting thrown under the bus, too? You’re that naive? Enjoy your social justice. What Does It Take for a Politician to be Excommunicated?