The Truth About Guns in Mexico

After hearing enough of the inflated and downright false statistics of the guns in Mexico being provided by the U.S., I’ve decided to get right down to the facts. First of all, when you hear these statistics, consider the source. I personally believe that anything that comes out of the mouth of Hilary Clinton or Dianne Fienstein—especially when it has to do with guns or self-defense--to be dramatically skewed.

Of all the guns in Mexico, simply because there are some U.S. guns, does not mean they have all come from legal channels in the U.S. Gun smuggling goes both ways. In the event that the U.S. government issues guns to the Mexican Military in an effort to fight whatever wars rage in their land, it’s important to note that such guns would come with a caveat to be used for such purpose. The fact that they are still ending up in the hands of drug-runners and immigrant criminals is not a reflection on the U.S. government, rather an expose on the corruption of government officials in the U.S. In addition, according to Mexican Congressman, Robert Badilla, over 150,000 Mexican military members have abandoned their military duty and have taken their guns with them.

The saying has been spread about by truly ignorant politicians and their loyal subjects (a.k.a. the mainstream media) that 90% of the guns in Mexico came from the U.S. This is yet one more example of a lazy, knee-jerk media we have reporting our news to us today. In fact, 83% of the guns in Mexico do not even have serial numbers or can even be traced via U.S. technology as they come from Asia, Israel, South Korea, China, Spain and Columbia. However, of the guns that have been found WITH serial numbers, 90% OF THOSE GUNS have come from the U.S. This fact means that only 17% of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico have come from the U.S.! And that my friends, is how such a ridiculous rumor has been perpetuated.

For more information on this topic go to http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.

The Name Game

by Kellene Bishop

“A rose by any other name is still a rose.” Isn’t it interesting how our government has camouflaged its selected names of programs and legislation in order to falsely influence the American people as to what these issues really are? You’ve heard of oxy-morons such as “military intelligence” in jest, I’m sure. But when it comes to many of the name games our government plays, there’s nothing funny about it.

1) National Security Letters: The name implies that these are letters which provide or promote security to our nation, when in fact they are used abusively by the FBI, CIA, DOD, and NSA to as a weapon against law-abiding citizens. Additionally there is no limit to the amount or type of information which can be seized via an NSL. And they are now to be complied with without exception. Today, in order for any federal agent (FBI, DOD, or CIA) to write an NSL, they must only comply with the requirement that they claim—not provide any evidence thereof—that the desired records may be related to an ongoing terrorism investigation or intelligence activities. These warrants require the production of “any tangible things” such as books, records, documents, lists, etc, without any consideration given to any reasonable time frames or costs to produce such information. Oh, and by the way, there is NO judicial oversight on the use of these, not even from Congress. As if that’s not enough, whoever receives such a “letter” is legally gagged from telling anyone about them, even if it’s your own attorney who receives it. The attorney can’t even tell YOU that he’s about to turn over all of your files to the FBI. Now how’s that for national security?

2) Federal Reserve: Contrary to what their own website states, as well as that of other government agencies, there is nothing “federal” about the Federal Reserve. They are not a part of the US Government. In fact, in an interview with Alan Greenspan, when asked, “What should be the proper relationship between the chairman of the Federal and the President of the United States?” Greenspan responded, “Well, first of all the Federal Reserve is an independent agency. And that means basically there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take, so long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don’t frankly matter.” While the Federal Reserve behaves as a 4th branch of our government, there is no governing authority over them other than for Congress to rule that we will no longer do business with them. Good luck with that, right? In addition, there is no longer any “reserves” backing the currency issued by the Federal Reserve. We don’t even require them to issue a report that tells us how much currency is in circulation so that we can be sure our money still holds its value. Ultimately, the Federal Reserve name is just as contrived to deceive as was a local computer company in my neck of the woods called “Totally Awesome Computers” (It went bankrupt).

3) Carbon Credits: Wow. This name sounds like the U.S. taxpayers might actually get a credit for something, right? Wrong. These two words combine to become the most threatening level of taxation that our nation has ever seen. As a result of the passage of a “Carbon Credits” program, countless energy companies will be required to pay for the air they use. As a result, they will of course pass these fees on to their consumers. Electricity, gasoline, natural gas, kerosene, coal, and even solar energy just became significantly more expensive. As the result of this “credit” every American household can expect an average of a $3,000 INCREASE to their electric bill every year. That’s just ONE source of energy you use. If I continue to tell you about all of the other ramifications, I’m afraid that there will be a run on the pharmacies for anti-depressants nationwide.

4) The G.I.V.E. Act: Once again, a very deceptive name. The only thing this act gives is unconstitutional orders. While admittedly it’s been scaled down a bit from its first version as HR 1388, (and changed HR and Senate numbers multiple times) it’s still ridiculously named. The original proposal under HR 1388 would REQUIRE citizens of America in a wide range of ages to provide a mandatory period of “service” to their communities in whatever fashion the government deemed necessary. In addition to that, the House of Representatives even added an amendment that stated that while individuals were in the process of providing this “voluntary” service, they were prohibited from engaging in numerous acts of free speech. Yup. That’s a GIVE act, alright. Giving American citizens the ole heave ho, at least.

5) The Patriot Act: This is the mother of all misnamed issues. I’m convinced that our Founding Fathers and all those who sided with them during the Revolutionary War feel that their true title of “Patriot” has been mercilessly molested. There is nothing Patriot or patriotic about this act. It consistently tramples on countless constitutional amendments in the name of protecting our nation from terrorism. Now we are instructed to not even use the word “terrorist” or “enemy combatants” but we’re still stuck with this offensive violation of our rights to free speech. The not-so-Patriot Act has Congress giving his agents permission to listen to our phone calls, read our e-mails, and obtain unlimited amount of personal information about us. The “war on terror,” which gave birth to this heinous beast, has quickly disguised itself as an enemy intrusion on American’s privacy, freedom of movement and thought, individuality and civil liberties. Does that mean that the terrorists have essentially won now?

Ultimately the lesson we all need to learn here is that we cannot afford to be mindless sheep armed with good hearts. We must be more proactive in discovering and educating ourselves with the abundance of truthful information that is available to us. Getting our misinformation from the mass media will be no excuse when we appear before our Creator and attempt to explain to Him how we let something so valuable as freedom disintegrate from our nation. Each and every one of us is endowed with the freedom to choose, thus God’s perfect law will require that each and every one of us be held responsible for what we did with those choices. I believe that an understanding of this responsibility is why our Founding Fathers sacrificed all that they had to give us the rights to freely choose freedom. Indeed, when we’re before the Creator of Truth, we surely won’t be able to play the politicking finger pointing game. The blame will be ours regardless of how the program was masqueraded.

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.

The Shell Game: AIG and the USA

I understand that when I write this it will be evident that I’m clearly not an ordinary American. And I’m completely OK with that. Here goes… I don’t believe that the AIG CEO should have been drawn in front of the cameras and skewered by Congressmen. I don’t believe that AIG honoring contracts to pay $165 million in bonuses is a heinous act. In fact, I feel that this whole parade of finger pointing at AIG is simply an effort to take the focus off of who is truly at fault in the first place. This whole debacle is merely the result of a government gone bad—publicly—making even more horrible mistakes as they try to fix their egregious errors, and getting caught with the consequences.

AIG is completely responsible for the debacle they created in the first place. Clearly they got carried away with their own sense of power and influence and wrote too many checks they could not cover. And they talked a good talk to many other key financial institutions worldwide to get them to play in their power game as well. So what did that get us? Financial ruin. Now let’s look at this for a moment… These people are supposedly uber-giants of expertise in financial management and yet they could not manage their own house! They got completely drunk with their power and just like an inebriated lug of a giant they lost their reasoning and functionality abilities and stumbled—hard! OK. So we’ve got a giant who’s in a drunken stupor about to self-destruct and take down questionably innocent bystanders in his wake. What do we do? Well, yeah, we give the alcoholic lush MORE power. No, we don’t take his license or privilege away. No, we don’t put him into any kind of treatment. Instead, we find him an even better “dealer” to work with (a.k.a. the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury) who can simply bail them out. We give him an even more audacious privilege of using the tax payer dollars and that of several generations to come to “get him back on his feet.” And then when he functions the same way he did previously, and even has the audacity to honor contracts, we react to publicly condemn him? Condemn the giant so that nobody is wise to the “dealer” who feeds and encourages his misbehavior. Now that’s quite the deception isn’t it? (Side bar: It’s interesting to note that Congress doesn’t really care about the legality of contracts. They don’t even enforce the most significant contract we Americans have to protect us, that of the U.S. Constitution.)

Here’s the perfect part of this deception, folks. If (and I’m SOOO inclined to say “when”) AIG can’t pay us all back, what happens to them? If they go bankrupt, what recourse do we, the tax payers who’ve been yoked with indentured servitude in order to lift this giant’s sorry caboose back up, get back? What’s our collateral on this loan we’ve been forced to issue at the risk of death, jail time, or social and emotional ruin? Not one blasted thing! Nothing. We probably won’t even get a sincere apology from a public official when it does go belly up. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the primary people making these decisions are themselves so completely disconnected from the real picture due to their own wanton consumption habits. They are endowed with their salary for the rest of their life, benefit from a royal health plan, and yet some even fail to pay their own taxes.

AIG clearly has their own problems. But just as I shake my head in disbelief when women refuse to leave their abusive husbands, I just can’t figure out what kind of maniacal plan the Secretary of Treasury and the Federal Reserve had in mind on this one. Who gave them the authority to determine that one business gets bailed out above another? That one business is any more important to our social fabric than another? That the consequences called Real Life don’t apply to these companies? Even worse, IF you’re going to perform such an unprecedented act, aren’t you at least willing to go through the homework of everything that act entails, i.e. reading all of the contracts that are presently in place, properly appraising just how much their other assets really are worth, etc?! Gentlemen, don’t approve the act of an AIG bailout 100% and then get mad when something happens that you didn’t know about – i.e.: the AIG bonuses. You had every opportunity to know everything there was to know. It’s called a test. A real life test. You know, the kind of real life testing that all of your schooling and life experiences are supposed to prepare you for so that you’re actually competent enough to take the job that the American people pay you to do! And clearly you screwed up! It’s your own freaking fault that you didn’t know about it! Just as it’s your own freaking fault that you overpaid for assets in the tens of billions of dollars! So let’s be perfectly clear about this… whoever closed the bail out deal with AIG in the first place is 100% responsible and should be FIRED and perhaps even have charges filed for willful negligence at best, or treasonous acts at worst.

How dare our government condemn Madoff when they are doing the EXACT same thing with all of our money? And lest anyone forget, yes – it’s OUR money, not the government’s. We earn it while we work on the frontlines while we simultaneously are shown how little responsibility and accountability means to those who are in power. And yet we still provide our tax dollars for the purposes of paying for a government to protect our freedoms.

The U.S. Government is mismanaging funds.

They are playing a shell game.

The Federal Reserve just keeps printing money and yet REFUSES to provide our country with an accounting of just how much money (via the M3 report) they are printing, thus we are unable to define for ourselves what our currency is really worth. How in the world is that any different than Madoff having his CPA send out false solubility reports to his investors?!

Oh, and one last point I’d like to make here. So, you have a government who has totally screwed up publicly enough that even the mainstream media can’t ignore it, and so what do the do to truly fix the problem? They paint every recipient of that $165 million bonus share as some kind of a criminal—even a terrorist if you will—against the sovereignty of this American people. And to show you just how big and powerful they are, they actually draft a bill which would directly tax all of these financial terrorists with a 90% tax! Using taxes as a weapon, you say? How can they do that? They can’t. It’s called a direct unapportioned tax, and it’s 100% illegal and completely unconstitutional, for the very same reasons why your present federal income tax is illegal. You don’t believe that our wonderful U.S. government would commit such an illegal act? Really? You just watched them try to do it right in front of your eyes against the AIG bonus recipients!

Of course the government did nothing to preemptively thwart the payment of the bonuses to AIG executives. That’s because, very much like the ridiculous stimulus bill, they didn’t even bother to comprehend the entire picture of their actions. This is the same government who overpaid by over $70 billion dollars for the assets it purchased from the companies it bailed out! Whether or not there was a senator who acknowledged and attempted to keep the bonuses in the contract is beside the point.

I say kudos to the AIG Executive who resigned in the New York Times today! And I don’t care whether or not he does donate any of his money to charity. Legally, contractually, it’s his money. The U.S. Government simply bought into a Lion’s Zoo and is now whining when they got bit! And now they are claiming foul because many of the vital AIG personnel refuse to work under such circumstances. Can you blame them? Sure you can’t relate to such a huge bonus in your own life. I get that. But it’s what the guy signed on for. It was part of the reason why he left his previous job to take a position with AIG 11 years ago. And now he’s being asked to work for free for an undetermined period of time while AIG fixes all of their screw ups and be persecuted by nearly an entire country in the meantime. Does that sound like a job you’d want to keep? Heck, when I heard during the live Congressional questioning that the CEO was working for $1 and taking all of the crap from Congress, I would have quit on the spot and told Congress that they can fix their own mess and not use me as a whipping boy.

Here’s some wisdom my mother taught me. “Be very aware of what people say about other people, because they are likely to be saying the same thing about you when you’re not around.” You’ve seen what the U.S. Government is willing to do when we are looking. Now, get a clue as to what they are doing when we’re not watching!

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.

Obama Lacks Class and Dignity—There I’ve finally said it!

By Kellene Bishop

I have been biting my tongue on this topic for a long time now, not wanting to appear like I’m not giving him a chance. But today was the last straw.

Barack Obama has absolutely no Presidential class or dignity.

I was shocked when he was making his “presidential” speech, after he’d already won the election, and saw fit to take pot shots at President Bush. I know I was raised by good parents, but I would think that any parent who’s raising a future president of the United States would raise them with an awareness of dignity and civility. I expect to hear that kind of anti-Bush rhetoric during the politicking leading up to the election, but not afterwards, and frankly I don’t think it’s been done in recent history either. Why? Because it lacks class! It’s petty. This was supposed to be his first day of presidential regality and he sees fit to use it to promote his “nanny nanny noo noo” nonsense against President Bush.

Adding insult to injury, he crippled Washington D.C. financially by bankrupting them with the most lavish inaugural address in history, outspending Bush by over 4 to 1!

Our country is in MOURNING. Millions have lost their retirement, their jobs, their hope for a future, and he decides that elaborate excess is in the country’s best interest? During such an economic crisis, there are several U.S. Presidents that certainly would have firmly believed this to be undignified (Wilson, Roosevelt, Washington, Adams, etc.)

Since Obama has taken the reins of the Presidency, he continues to shift blame to what is going on in our nation to the previous President and the Republican party. Mr. President, be a man, not a martyr! Own up and fix it if you think it’s so bad! Don’t misunderstand. I’m not happy with how Bush performed his duties. And I feel that my convictions and beliefs have been betrayed in many aspects by the Republicans. However, Obama cannot continue to be believable in any way shape or form if he intends to put the blame of our country’s woes on the backs of any particular party or president. After all, Obama has stains on his hands for the mortgage mess we’re in as he was a part of insisting that government made economically questionable home loans. Obama screws up while taking the Oath of Office and sees fit to blame it on a Supreme Court justice? This is not behavior fitting of the president of our nation. Surely his mother raised him better than that! (How about the simple rule of “respect your elders?”)

How in the world does Obama think he’s promoting bi-partisanship when every time he speaks he sees fit to remind the American people that either a) They made a mistake in electing Bush in the first place (ouch…salt in the wound) or b) Our votes didn’t matter over the last 8 years because Obama is going to undo everything Bush ever did, or c) those who still do promote and believe in the Republican way of life are conquered human beings.

He continues to forget that the voters of this nation, to whom he is addressing, put Bush in office for two consecutive terms! And yet he sees fit to degrade that administration at every turn and to nullify ANYTHING that that administration did previously that Obama and the Democratic Party disagrees with. What good is the right to vote if your votes can merely be negated the next time someone comes along who doesn’t agree with them? To me that’s not a republic, that’s a monarchy. That kind of behavior is not indicative of a president of a free country, it’s indicative of a tyrant. And how does this behavior reinforce in any way his so-called goals of bipartisan cooperation. I’m starting to wonder seriously if we haven’t just been taken over by a King and his “King’s men.” In light of Obama’s complete disregard for the will of this nation’s people, he’s allowed for federal monies to be spent on stem cell research. Many people supported President Bush’s actions on stem-cell research. I, for one, certainly did, out of my devotion to the freedoms of the Constitution and my firmly held religious beliefs. It is immoral to take of the wealth from one people to give to another. And that’s exactly what he’s doing with this allocation. It is in violation of the religious beliefs of millions of Americans in our country as well. This isn’t even HIS money to allocate to such a cause. It is for the function of the government whose primary purpose is to protect the rights and freedoms of the people of this nation! Perhaps if we weren’t taxed so high, then private enterprise would still have money to fund such research themselves and not burden the American taxpayer with a process so repugnant to the senses of many.

I wonder how many other presidential policies he will attempt to reverse? Perhaps he’d like to teach George Washington a thing or two and decide to reverse his policy on the right to keep and bear arms… oh wait, Obama’s already trying to do that.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good"
-- George Washington

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
-- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

Or perhaps he’d like to reinstitute the Sedition Act which Thomas Jefferson specifically abolished. Perhaps he’d like to reinstate the errors of other presidents while he’s at it such as the internment camps which violated the rights of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Perhaps he’d like to get rid of the Declaration of Independence altogether so as not to be inconvenience with any conflict of conscience.

I don’t believe that the majority of our government-elected officials are serving the people any longer. They are serving themselves to get power and gain, and we apathetic sheep are allowing it. While Obama’s not even able to keep his campaign promises for an entire week, he’s sabotaging more of our country’s freedoms. Why doesn’t he show some dignity and put to rest the accusations of his heritage, to prove once and for all that he is legally able to be elected President of our nation instead of sending his dogs to the courthouse to use every convoluted and perverted law of privacy to protect that information from ever being released? If he has nothing to hide then why won’t he show this information instead of bullying his citizens in court, now at the cost to American taxpayers?

Here’s a warning “Mr. President.” If you are not able to even create a façade of class and decorum when you are in front of the cameras for all the world to see, then I suspect you are doing much worse behind our backs. Remember, the Declaration of Independence reads “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” I, for one, will not consent or stand idly by while you insult this great nation with your representation of us, nor will I allow you to strip us of any more of our liberties. You are truly the last straw—of the indignity of liberties lost. I will use all of my influence to right the real wrongs of our past leaders.

I suppose that if nothing else, I appreciate you for waking me up from my nap of stupor. Had it not been for your blatant and bold uncivilized behavior, I might still be sleeping.

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.