Unforeseen Contingencies

The Benghazi scandal, the IRS scandal, and now the AP spying scandal: corruption, coverups, political intimidation, spying on and interfering with the press... what a lovely spectacle.  The IRS and AP scandals are particularly important, because the MSM is finally confronted with things it will cover.  I don't think Media Matters will be able to keep up with this.

I predict that things will get much worse for Obama and his regime.  We'll see that this rot originated at the top and that there's much more.  And finally, finally the MSM is starting to take on the regime.  For the first time, an impeachment in the indefinite future seems not an utter impossibility.

Here's hoping!

Mike Vanderboegh at an Oath Keepers meeting in Connecticut, speaking on the dangers of collectivism.  Highly recommended.

I will have a report on Ted Cruz address at Hillsdale College (it was superb) but am about to hit the road west; blogging will be on hold for a bit.

IRS apologizes for targeting opponents of big government.  How nice, she even apologized twice for harassing proponents of freedom.  This must be what Obama meant by "change:" tyrants who apologize while they violate your rights.

I wonder if they will have to apologize when they impose mandatory RFID chips on people.

So the federal government seems to think.

DEFCAD files are being removed from public access at the request of the US Department of Defense Trade Controls.
Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information.

That's the message imposed on the top of the Defense Distributed's webpage for the 3D printer plans for their new Liberator handgun.  The federal government is now shutting down distribution if this information.  Note that this is not shutting down the manufacture of weapons, but rather the distribution of information they want forbidden.

The story is available at Gun Rights Examiner and also at Sipsey Street (see the comments).  The feds seem to be as uninterested in the First Amendment as the Second.  With this bunch -- Obama, Biden, Holder, Napolitano, et al. -- the rest of the Constitution is of no particular interest either.

Meanwhile, at the state level, more and more people are telling the feds to go to hell.  We're living in a world where the federal government increasingly sees us, the citizens, as the enemy.

I'm presently in [REDACTED] where I will hear Sen. Ted Cruz speak at [REDACTED] College commencement tomorrow.  Report will follow.

Addendum: Additional pieces on the governments' attack on Defense Distributed and Cody Wilson:

Forbes (news story)

Gun Rights Examiner (news summary)

WaPo (news story)

Rifleman Savant  (opinion)

I watched a good bit of the House Oversight Committee hearings on Benghazi yesterday.  They were riveting.  High ranking career diplomats testified, under oath, that the attacks on the Benghazi were terrorist attacks, that there was never any question that they were demonstrations in response to the Mohammed video, that attempts on the ground to come to the aid of the Benghazi consulate were thwarted from much higher up, that a coverup was put in place immediately following the America deaths, and that those who did not participate received angry calls from the administration and suffered retaliation.  But an even more important story is that the "mainstream media" still finds this not really newsworthy.  New York Times did manage to do a half decent job of covering some highlights this morning, but the MSM reaction is largely either to dismiss this as a witch hunt by Republicans or as a confusing story of conflicting claims on which good people can reasonably differ... both positions are deeply dishonest.

But really there's nothing here.  For example, Washington Post's "Fact Check" assures us:

Yeah, right.  It's astounding WaPo "Fact Check" can print this kind of BS and still have even a shred of public credibility.  Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice all repeatedly claimed that the video was responsible for the attack, and there's ample evidence that they knew this was not true.

I gather that this comment from NYT must be interpreted in the same fashion.

 If the testimony did not fundamentally challenge the facts and timeline of the Benghazi attack and the administration’s response to it, it vividly illustrated the anxiety of top State Department officials about how the events would be publicly portrayed.

Well, the testimony did fundamentally change the facts and timeline of the administration response.  But then NYT doesn't claim it didn't, it just says if it didn't...using a construction that says there was no change but later can be twisted to include the possibility there was.

I think the hearings confirm two things.  1) the current administration, including the president and the former Secretary of State, are enemies of the United States, pursuing their own power and own agendas, and 2) the MSM is far more interested in running interference for the, for political reasons, than in reporting news.

The media is working to protect a corrupt administration that is trying to fundamentally change America.  This is very dangerous.

Update: I suppose that by now everyone knows that the CIA has been smuggling arms to Syria, and has heard that Ambassador Stevens' trip to Benghazi might have been irelated.

"We" at UC are happy to present this guest post from Greg Summers, student of economics at Hillsdale College.

Americans are increasingly becoming involved, or at least knowledgeable, about politics given the recent bevy of "beautiful" crises. Ironically, this long sought after development may have culminated a moment too late; Americans' voices fall short of the demands of special interest groups.  The sickly economy and an indifferent administration only inflame the sentiments of the people, specifically the primary tax base - the middle class. People are understandably angry that in a time of immense potential abundance our government can't keep its own checkbook in order. And after each government screw up they come back for more. So we have the most vital socioeconomic group subsidizing negligence and being forced to pander to special interests.  Those who don't benefit are furious.

The media offers little assistance with FOX/MSNBC being laughable and the other networks containing little more that watered down journalism. The number of important events that are unreported, or barely mentioned, is impressive. For example, look at the pathetic late reporting on the Gosnell trial or the passing of CISPA - the most significant piece of legislation on the internet ever drafted - or Congress pulling a bait and switch on reforming insider trading laws for politicians. Where is the media in all this? Why are these stories not worth the public's attention?

There also appears to be negativity brewing towards classical liberal types - surprisingly from both parties. Harry Reid recently labeled libertarians (he referred to them as Tea Party members) as dangerous anarchists who want to strip away government which is "inherently good". But then, perhaps this is a hopeful development; it reflects a certain fear on the side of politicians. The man who complains the loudest usually is threatened by something.

There is hope in the long run. The harder anyone tries to silence rational ideas the more the silencer looks bad, and this especially true in the Information Age. Social media has created unprecedented access to information, and internet groups like Anonymous (however erratic their behavior may be) pose a strong defense against government interference. However, as computer and internet technology industry develops many of those advantages will fall away. But that is where humanity can innovate and find new methods of distributing information. Most people are hard to silence if they're motivated enough. Ideally, a peaceful, reasonable realignment of policy will occur soon.

The probability of that?

I couldn't even begin to guess.

Click on photo for shirt caption.

New York Times is convinced it is time to surrender, it appears.  Unforeseen Contingencies thinks differently.

North Korea has sentenced an American citizen, Bae Joon-ho, to 15 years hard labor for "hostile acts" against the nation. The trial lasted all of a day, and no doubt met the usual standards of fairness typical of communist jurisprudence. It's very likely that his "crime" was engaging in Christian mission work.

Here's how New York Times headlined this in their afternoon email update:

North Korea's Sentencing of American Puts U.S. in a Bind

By CHOE SANG-HUN

To which "we" at Unforeseen Contingencies can only reply "yeah, right."

Sometimes the apparent helplessness and lack of courage of the "progressives" is hard to fathom.  North Korea has us "in a bind?"  My first reaction at seeing how NYT is framing this was to think of the following response the U.S. could give.  Barack Obama could announce, publicly, that the United States is giving Kim Jong-un 24 hours to release Mr. Bae.  Otherwise, starting 24 hours from now, each day the North Koreans keep Bae in custody, the United States will sink a North Korean merchant vessel on the high seas or in North Korean waters.  And if the North Koreans kill or otherwise harm him, we will sink every North Korean merchant vessel on the high seas or in North Korean waters, and if they ever get a new one we'll sink it, too.  We don't care what Jong-un says, if he likes he can denounce Bae and the U.S. in the strongest terms and claim it is from his from magnanimity that Bae is released -- but release him or else.  Jong has 167 days.

Of course, this would require that the United States had a president who was not a dithering coward.  Unfortunately, Barack "chemical weapons are a red line!" Obama seems to be an utterly helpless man who loves to make big pronouncements but has a difficult time making any real policy decision, especially if it is at all hard.  But at least Obama didn't surrender (yet).  And there might be better responses than UC's proposed response; the United States are very strong and North Korea very weak. But the NYT's position that "we are in a bind" and perhaps should send Jimmy Carter to apologize -- good grief.  That's more pathetic than Obama himself!

Update 6 May: President Park of South Korea is on a similar page: "North Korea engages in provocations, threats. This is followed by negotiations and assistance. ... it's time for us to put an end to that cycle."  Let's hope she can put some backbone into America's campaigner-in-chief.

That's "bad press" as in "the mainstream media are incompetent."  And maybe it's not just them.

There's been a good deal of hand-wringing and casting of insults over the lack of knowledge that Americans exhibit on the Chechnya.  Well, "we" at Unforeseen Contingencies would like to take this opportunity to defend our fellow Americans.  No, not the imbeciles who confused the Czech Republic with Chechnya, there's no excusing that idiocy, but if people aren't very familiar with Chechnya, I can hardly blame them.  Following the MSM (mainstream media) would not have helped.  The MSM currently seems utterly confused by the Chechen connection.

On Philadelphia Public Radio (WHYY) on April 19 the Marty Moss-Coane Show* carried an interview with Chechnya "expert" Emma Gilligan of University of Connecticut.  She was supposed to talk about the history of Chechnya and the conflict with Russia, to help explain how this fits in with current events.  I was quite interested, expecting to hear about the origins of the conflict in the 1700's and the long tumultuous history that followed.  Instead we were treated to a brief bit about how it all began with Boris Yeltsin.  Then Gilligan expressed surprise that Chechens would be involved in an attack outside Russia, since they are really only concerned with Chechnyan independence.

Good grief.  If that's what 'experts" think, no wonder the MSM is lost.  I would think anyone who lived in Russia for a spell would know better than this.  I am certainly no expert, but I've followed Kavkaz Center (KC) for some time.  KC articles regularly refer to an alleged international conspiracy of nation-states warring to destroy Islam, an alliance of the United States, Russia, Israel, and India.  Leaders interviewed in KC see themselves as part of the Caucasian Emirate (sometimes the Northern Emirate)  and the front line in the ongoing battle to establish a world caliphate.  But you don't have to read KC to know that Chechens have regularly fought in the war of radical Islam against the rest of the world, including in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.

But following the MSM won't help much.  One would have to read the foreign press for that.  Of course, until recently, most Americans didn't have much need to know about Chechnya.  But now that it's of interest and possible importance, the MSM -- which should know what the hell is going on -- seems lost.  Why?  At one point I didn't believe this, but I think it's obvious now that the MSM frequently sees its role as one of advocacy first, news as an afterthought, and is often poorly equipped to do news and serious analysis.

This morning I read in Haaretz that the Tsarnaevs are being investigated for possible involvement in a 2011 triple murder.  This story appeared in the U.K. press two days ago.  So far as I can tell, NPR, NYT, and WaPo are still oblivious, although Fox had it yesterday and CNN seems to have just picked this up.  I would think that this is worth noting, even if the investigation proves a dead end.  But the "most serious" "news" outlets have been asleep at the switch.  Perhaps WaPo just has been too busy explaining why it is utterly irrelevant that the Tsarnaevs were Muslims and that Islam doesn't have any unique problem with extremist maniacs, while NYT has its hands full trying to explain the rejection of Obama's plans for gun control: he's just too kind and gentle, it seems.

That's why "we" at Unforeseen Contingencies maintain links to the foreign press from around the world.  They cover more than "all the news that fits."  It still might not be enough to really know what's going on in the world, but at least one will have a better chance than those who stay in the NYT/NPR/MSM echo chamber do.**

* Incidentally, I don't mean to criticize Marty Moss-Coane here.  Her show is is one of the most thoughtful I've heard and her guests tend to be extremely interesting.  BTW, I'm unsure of the link I've provided here, because the URL references "Orphan Master," a different interview on North Korea...one that is well worth hearing.

** I nearly forgot to mention: BBC is reporting that Chinese military sources say North Korea is preparing another nuclear weapon test.  Not "fit to print," I guess.

Mike Vanderboegh speaks at a pro-freedom, pro-Second Amendment rally in Connecticut.  For philosophical and moral clarity, strategic thinking, and plain inspiration, you can't beat this.

He asks that this be spread far and wide, so have at!

My name is Mike Vanderboegh and I'm a smuggler. I am from the great free state of Alabama and I am a Three Percenter.

If you need to pigeonhole my politics I consider myself a Christian libertarian. I believe in free men, free markets, the rule of law under the Founder's Republic and that the Constitution extends to everyone regardless of race, creed, color or religion.

I most especially believe in the right of the people to keep and bear arms as the ultimate guarantor of liberty.

I have also been called a "seditionist" by members of the current regime. If faithfully fulfilling my oath to the Founders' Republic and unrelenting hostility to those who would undermine and overthrow it makes me a "seditionist" then I cheerfully plead guilty.

The Three Percent movement I founded has been denounced by that paragon of moral virtue Bill Clinton and I am a perennial "honorable mention" on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of dangerous folks. I have even been the subject of an eighteen and a half minute rant by Rachel Madcow on MSNBC and the current Attorney General of the United States knows -- and despises -- me by name because of the Fast and Furious scandal that, with my friend David Codrea, I broke the news of on the Internet. Eric Holder would not be surprised to know that the feeling is mutual.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence calls me an "insurrectionist" because I don't believe, as they do, in a government monopoly of violence, but rather in a literal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as a bulwark against tyranny. Well, as my friend Kurt Hofmann says, "It is better to be despised by the despicable than admired by the admirable" and I suppose my remarks here today will only reinforce my enemies' opinions of me. I think I can bear the burden.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, but also of the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto in 1943 and that of the Branch Davidians at Waco fifty years later to the day -- two examples of what happens when governments exercise a monopoly of violence.

It is proper, then, to contemplate the lessons of the date in history -- April 19th -- then, now and in the near future. What I say now I say with reluctance, sadness and not a little bit of dread, but say it I must.

FOR SILENCE IN THE FACE OF TYRANNY IMPLIES CONSENT -- AND I DO NOT CONSENT!

Neither do I believe that you consent, for you would not be here today if you did. But what I say is not easy to say nor easy to hear and many of you will not like it.

"An unconstitutional law is void." So says the standard legal text American Jurisprudence. That is certainly true. The tricky part is how we are to make that point when the local, state and federal executive and legislative branches as well as the courts are in the hands of the domestic enemies of the Constitution. Every one who is currently trying to take away your right to arms starts out by saying "I support the 2nd Amendment." Let me tell you a home truth from Alabama -- Barack Obama supports the 2nd Amendment about as much as Adolf Hitler appreciated Jewish culture, or Joe Stalin believed in individual liberty. Believe what politicians do, not what they say.

So what shall we do about this current spate of tyranny breaking out all over?

The facsimile of a semi-automatic pistol that some of you hold in your hands was smuggled into your state from the South. Manufactured in Georgia, trans-shipped to Alabama, it came across your state line in the trunk of a car. The fact that the authorities of your state have not yet banned "sponge guns" is immaterial. It could as easily been a whole trunk full of real pistols. Indeed, before this year no one thought that other firearms and related items would ever be banned -- but they have been. No one thought that the authorities of your state would pass laws making criminals out of the previously law-abiding -- but they did. If they catch you violating their unconstitutional laws, they will -- when they please -- send armed men to work their will upon you. And people -- innocent of any crime save the one these tyrants created -- will die resisting them.

Yet despite the cost, these unconstitutional laws MUST be resisted. For if not now, when? And if not us, who? This is no longer a "slippery slope" leading to firearm registration and eventual confiscation -- it is a precipice that some states have already plunged over and that the federal government threatens to follow. Arrests are happening NOW. When, if not now, shall we resist? Will we allow ourselves to be shoved back once again, from the free exercise of our God-given, natural and inalienable rights to liberty? -- Shoved back once more, muttering but compliant?

THAT IS HOW WE GOT TO THIS PLACE --- WE NEVER SHOVED BACK WHEN WE COULD DO SO WITHOUT VIOLENCE. Where does it stop? When we are all disarmed slaves?

The Founders knew how to answer such tyranny. When Captain John Parker -- one of the three percent of American colonists who actively took the field against the King during the Revolution -- mustered his Minutemen on Lexington Green, it was in a demonstration of ARMED civil disobedience. He might have retreated at the British approach, but he didn't. He might have ordered his men to lay down their arms, but he didn't. His defiance was silent but plainly stated. A veteran of the French and Indian War, he did not want a war. He knew intimately the horrors of war. BUT HE ALSO KNEW THAT SOME THINGS ARE WORSE THAN WAR. The British could not tolerate his silent defiance -- and someone fired a shot.

But even before the shot heard 'round the world, the colonists understood their weaknesses and their military needs and did something about it. They smuggled. They smuggled Dutch gunpowder and French flints. They smuggled tents and uniform cloth and artillery and ammunition. Boston was the high headquarters of anti-British smuggling and John Hancock was its prime minister. Connecticut was a small empire built on patriotic smuggling. The colonists knew what to do and they did it, regardless of the risk -- regardless of all the King's ministers and the King's soldiery.

They defied the King. They resisted his edicts. They evaded his laws and they smuggled. Lord above, did they smuggle.

Now we find ourselves in a similar situation. The new King Barack and his minions have determined to disarm us. We must determine to resist them.

No one wants a new civil war (except, apparently, the anti-constitional tyrants who passed these laws and the media toadies who cheer them on) but one is staring us in the face. Yes, a civil war is staring us in the face. To think otherwise is to whistle past the graveyard of our own history. We must, if we wish to avoid armed conflict, get this message across to the collectivists who have declared their appetites for our liberty, our property and our lives --

WHEN DEMOCRACY TURNS TO TYRANNY, THE ARMED CITIZEN STILL GETS TO VOTE.

Just like King George, such people will not care, nor modify their behavior, by what you say, no matter how loudly or in what numbers you say it. They will only pay attention to what you DO.

So defy them. Resist their laws. Evade them. Smuggle in what they command you not to have. Only by our ACTS will they be impressed. Then, if they mean to have a civil war, they will at least have been informed of the unintended consequences of their tyrannical actions. Again I say --

Defy. Resist. Evade. Smuggle. If you wish to stay free and to pass down that freedom to your children's children you can do no less than to become the lawbreakers that they have unconstitutionally made of you. Accept that fact. Embrace it. And resolve to be the very best, most successful lawbreakers you can be.

One last thing before I go. On Thursday I smuggled a half-dozen 30 round AR-15 standard capacity magazines into Connecticut in deliberate disobedience of the new state diktat.

So to Martin Looney, Mike Williams, Larry Cafarro and John McKinney I'd like to say this:

I JUST COMMITTED A "D" CLASS FELONY, YOU TYRANNICAL MORONS -- PROVE IT -- WHICH YOU CAN'T -- AND CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.

And I'll tell you something else. When the new ammo restrictions go into effect the first week of July, I'll be back -- with two full crates of 7.62x39 ball ammunition and I will transfer said ammunition into the hands of a Connecticut citizen without the state's permission or paperwork.

And after I break their unconstitutional laws again, I'll be sitting in Frank Pepe's Pizza down in New Haven waiting for Looney and Company to come arrest me --

ANY TIME THEY THINK THEY CAN MAKE IT STICK AND FEEL FROGGY ENOUGH TO TRY.

Thank you.

I agree.  Resist the tyrants.

1. North Korea is preparing Scuds for firing, according to Yonhap News.  WaPo has missed this entirely, and NYT buried it way down on its "World." page.

2. spiked has a biting review of Andrew Simms' new enviro book Cancel the Apocalypse.  The end is nigh, says Simms: "Climate change, financial meltdown, the global peak and decline of oil production, a mass extinction event of plant and animal species, overuse of fresh water supplies, soil loss, economic infrastructure increasingly vulnerable to external shocks - it’s the age of the complex super disaster."  But if we just follow Simms' remedies -- consume less, stop economic growth, get rid of free markets, live green -- we can avert doomsday.  Hooray!

Here's a bit of spiked's response: "Now, aside from the reheated neo-Malthusian nonsense about the finitude of natural resources – history has repeatedly shown that there is nothing finite or natural about resources – what is striking is the function science performs in Cancel the Apocalypse. Simms effectively dresses up a moral-political vision of how we should live – informed by an essentially Romantic-Aristocratic rejection of modernity – in the garb of science. Moral-political demands that we change our behaviour, that we become content with less, that we stop seeking to better ourselves materially (a staple of left-wing aspiration for two centuries), are passed off as scientifically backed statements. If we don’t change our behaviour, if we don’t become content with less, if we don’t stop seeking to better ourselves materially, then we’re not just challenging Simms’ vision of the not-so Good Life - we’re defying the laws of nature. Likewise, the scientifically verifiable apocalypse – which is actually neither scientific nor verifiable – performs the same function: it turns the political demand that we live differently into a science-backed imperative. An argument that effectively devolves upon an ‘or else’."

"The difficulty for Simms and pals is that the vast majority of the globe actually wants the gains of modernity - political, social and material. And right now, with the economy continuing to flatline, I’m pretty sure most of us in the UK would also like quite a bit of the economic growth that Simms and his cohort of wellbeing-spouting plonkers think is so spiritually deleterious. And this is Simms’ other big problem: environmentalism is not only profoundly unpopular - its demands are pitted against the people."

I particularly like the line "there is nothing finite or natural about resources."  That's something hardly anyone understands, but it is absolutely true.  <== free book!