Now THAT'S a response to a jackassjournalist!

^{From GFZ}

Two from OGAM,

first, it's Bill of Rights Day.

Second, a more detailed rundown of the "Don't let a horrible act go to waste" blood-dancing by the Usual Suspects^tm.

About that murderer in the mall in Oregon,

I hadn't heard this part before.

What? The sun and cloud cover and such may be big drivers

of the climate?  Who could've foreseen such a thing?

Oh, right...

Lots more here.


From Oleg, a link to some defensive-rifle-use tests.


A quote I still like:
ar must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

Things to take care of, catch you later

Yeah, the blood-dancing is in full swing, with Nanny Bloomberg-

surrounded by armed cops and his private armed security- right up at the front, as usual.

And that fascist(literally and accurately, I'd say, either that or communist) Mikey Moore is calling the NRA 'anti-freedom'.  Which is real interesting, coming from someone who wants to trash most of the Constitution and have the government controllling all parts of our lives(as he sits in his million-$-plus apartment, or his Deity-knows-how-expensive lakefront house and whines about the rich not paying their fair share).

Speaking of blood-dancing...


And they'll keep it up.  If they thought they could get away with it, they'd have the body of one of the kids on a stand they'd wheel around with them.  All for the greater good, of course.

They won't want actual crazy people locked up or institutionalized, oh no, that would violate their rights!, but they very much want to trash parts of the Constitution, because those parts stand in their way.

And we're paying

her salary.
Another green energy sinkhole.  This one eating money since Jimmy Carter, too.


Over in Britain, the question now is will anything be done about the people who knew what this bastard was doing, and did nothing?


And DHS makes another stab into our lives:
Transit authorities in cities across the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations, according to documents obtained by a news outlet.

The systems are being installed in San Francisco, Baltimore, and other cities with funding from the Department of Homeland Security in some cases, according to the Daily, which obtained copies of contracts, procurement requests, specs and other documents.

The use of the equipment raises serious questions about eavesdropping without a warrant, particularly since recordings of passengers could be obtained and used by law enforcement agencies.
 "Warrant?  We don't need no stinkin' warrant, we're FEDS!"

Speaking of feds, some people want to know what the EPA has been saying in their violation-of-regs secret e-mail accounts set up to get past the law.


I've only flown a couple of times, and since I don't like the idea of being either irradiated or groped by TSA I won't again unless I have to; I'll have to make sure, in that case that it's not on Delta Airlines.  That this crap happened at all is horrible; that they're trying to just make it go away instead of doing something is disgusting.


Bitched about the 'theft under color of law' that is the death tax yesterday; this time it's the all too often nothing-but-theft-under-color-of-law known as asset forfeiture:
In a decision filed last month, Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini called the state’s civil asset forfeiture law “state-sanctioned theft” and ordered a lower court to re-examine a recent forfeiture case in Centre County. Though the state is expected to appeal the ruling, Pellegrini’s decision may set a new precedent for these types of cases, making it more difficult for the state to seize private property believed to have been used in a crime and guaranteeing defendants the chance to be heard in court before property is taken.


"That woman doesn't like my album cover!  She's a RACIST!"  Etc. ad nauseum,  lather, rinse, repeat.  With fans throwing in actual racist comments, the usual.


Yeah, put this in a tax bill and send it to Obama:
If the country is going to turn redistributionist, then we might as well do so whole-hog — given that eight of the wealthiest ten counties in America voted for Obama. Why not limit mortgage-interest deductions to just one loan under $100,000 — while ending tax breaks altogether for second and third vacation houses?
...
 Clinton administration apparatchiks such as Jamie Gorelick, James Johnson, and Franklin Raines — without much banking experience — reaped millions of dollars working at Fannie Mae as it went nearly bankrupt. If you leave government and immediately make more than $1 million, why not pay a 50 percent tax on your income for five years — given that “somebody else made that happen”? Why does Google have tax havens in the Caribbean, and why do six-figure-income college presidents have their taxes paid by their universities?


 And now the library calls, so I'm off.
Shut up, Og.

Ah, the wonders of solar energy...

Unlike Riverside’s 500 megawatt natural gas-fired facility, which pays $6 million a year in property taxes, a solar plant being built a few miles away will pay next to nothing, just $96,000.  When Riverside balked at its own upfront infrastructure costs and tried to impose an impact fee, the industry sued.

So Riverside has hundreds of square miles carpeted with solar panels and no jobs to speak of and barely any revenue to show for it.
But surely, as promised, this has led to cheap, reliable and renewable energy, right?
Yeah, not so much:

Solar also promised to be a cheap source of power, fueled by the sun. What the industry didn’t say is the technology only converts a fraction of the sun’s energy, and the intermittent nature of sunshine does not produce the power promised.
And Stanford economist Frank Wolak, a California energy expert, said solar could boost consumer energy bills up to 50 percent, a finding similar to the state Public Utilities Commission. Solar power from two recently approved plants range from $100 to $200 per megawatt hour, at least 8 times higher than the $16 consumers pay for natural gas.
“It’s probably 50 percent more (than coal or natural gas) today,” Benoit said. “Five years ago, it was probably a 100 or 150 percent more costly to generate a kilowatt with solar. The cost of these panels has come down dramatically. But still, getting back to the old equation, do you want to spend a little bit more to be green? And the legislature and the governor in California have said clearly, we’re going to do that.”

 Yeah, no matter the cost to those who actually pay for it.
Another echo of "Under my plan, electricity costs will necessarily skyrocket."
And where are the enviroweenies protesting all those panels covering up all that land?
Oh, right:

“There’s been a policy to fast-track and install these utility-scale renewable energy installations that are on the scale of five to 10,000 acres each,” said April Sall of the Wildlands Conservancy. “We’ve seen thousands of acres of the desert bladed and now undergoing utility-style construction to basically convert that from pristine habitat that included those sensitive plants and animals, to becoming potentially a dust bowl.”

Now imagine if these actions and plans were those of “Big Oil”.  Yup, you don’t have to imagine long, do you?  But in this case?

The two largest green groups in the U.S., the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, have remained silent on the impact of Big Solar on land use and endangered species, which is not so with gas, oil or coal. Sall and other local environmental groups say the Washington-based organizations see climate change as a bigger threat and therefore won’t get involved.

Hmmm... I wonder how much OPM they're taking in on this?  Or are they also so effing stupid they believe this?
Mix of both, maybe?

Special considerations for Democrats and illegal aliens

Authorities in Hudson County notified ICE agents in early October that they suspected Sanchez was an illegal immigrant who was a registered sex offender and who may be eligible to be deported. ICE agents in New Jersey notified superiors at the Homeland Security Department because they considered it a potentially high profile arrest, and DHS instructed them not to arrest Sanchez until after the November election, one U.S. official told the AP. ICE officials complained that the delay was inappropriate, but DHS directed them several times not to act, the official said.
This is my surprised face.
And this is one of the more stupid things I've read in a while:
 It was not immediately clear why federal immigration authorities would not have been notified sooner about Sanchez's status. Really? Is it also not clear why local media doesn't want to talk about it?


Speaking of media, if a tea party group had done anything remotely like this, it would've been NEWS!!  But union jerks and socialists did it, so...
You may also have heard the story of the hot dog vendor whose equipment and supplies were deliberately destroyed by the union protesters. 
But unless you read conservative blogs and websites, you have not heard that the union protesters shouted racial slurs at the man, including the N-word.


This is a big one:
 Now, NCTC can copy entire government databases—flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited. Data about Americans "reasonably believed to constitute terrorism information" may be permanently retained.

 The changes also allow databases of U.S. civilian information to be given to foreign governments for analysis of their own. In effect, U.S. and foreign governments would be using the information to look for clues that people might commit future crimes.
 If you can't see the wide-open doors to abuse in this crap, you're a fool.  And if you trust these agencies not to abuse this(whether directly, or by handing it to/doing favors for politicians), you're a bigger fool.
What?  Constitutional limits?  It is to laugh:
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution says that searches of "persons, houses, papers and effects" shouldn't be conducted without "probable cause" that a crime has been committed. But that doesn't cover records the government creates in the normal course of business with citizens.  (Really?)


Congress specifically sought to prevent government agents from rifling through government files indiscriminately when it passed the Federal Privacy Act in 1974. The act prohibits government agencies from sharing data with each other for purposes that aren't "compatible" with the reason the data were originally collected.

 But the Federal Privacy Act allows agencies to exempt themselves from many requirements by placing notices in the Federal Register, the government's daily publication of proposed rules. ... "All you have to do is publish a notice in the Federal Register and you can do whatever you want," says Robert Gellman, a privacy consultant who advises agencies on how to comply with the Privacy Act.
 Commenter at Sondra K left a link to this video: if you hear anyone start the "Well, if you don't have anything to hide, why worry?" crap, have them listen to the part starting at 8:00:



We're back to the feds thinking that stealing a large part of your estate in taxes just because you're dead, is 'fair'.  I have not the proper words to express what I think of the bastards involved in this(without resorting to extended bad language) theft under color of law.
While back I said something about this, and someone I used to know made the(expected from her) snotty comment about 'poor little rich kids not getting to keep it'.  I asked if the kids who have had to/will have to sell the family business or farm to pay this tax count as 'poor little rich kids'?  Never got an answer(didn't expect one from a socialist).


Last, for now, just to take some of the bad taste of considering the thieves in Sodom on the Potomac out of your mouth,

Now, why would Clinton not want people talking

to the Benghazi survivors?  Hmmm?
“My understanding is that we still have some people in the hospital. I’d like to visit with them and wish them nothing but the best but the State Department has seen it unfit for me to know who those people are—or even how many there are,” Rep. Chaffetz said. "I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where they live. I don’t know what state they’re from. I don’t even know how many there are. It doesn’t seem right to me."
 Probably because it's not right.  Just what all IS she trying to hide?


Diplomatic security agents did not have their M4 submachine guns on them as the attacks in Benghazi happened. They needed to go to a separate building to get their weapons and tactical gear; however, only one of the agents was able to return to Ambassador Chris Stevens, testified Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb on Capitol Hill to the House Oversight Committee in October.
 Well, when you have socialist gun bigots in charge, crap like this happens.
And even then, what kind of friggin' idiot orders the security to not have arms, or have arms and no ammo, at an embassy or consulate?  So distrusts the personnel that they want the arms LOCKED UP IN ANOTHER BUILDING?

And why should the personnel trust the idiots in charge who think this is a good idea?


Oh, yes...

I almost need a smoke after watching this*
Kevin's piece on the Illinois court ruling

Also from Kevin,
The young Afghan is hailed as the great hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants is to call his mother.
"Mom," he says into the phone, "I just won the Super Bowl!"
"I don't want to talk to you, the old woman says."You are not my son!"
"I don't think you understand, Mother," the young man pleads. "I've won the greatest sporting event in the world. I'm here among thousands of my adoring fans."
"No! Let me tell you!" his mother retorts. "At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn't get raped!" The old lady pauses, and then tearfully says,
"I will never forgive you for making us move to Chicago!!!!


From Og, a bit of history and regret:
5. And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?
RTWT



More "You see, it's all our fault, so don't criticize the Taliban or al Qaeda or raping children or torturing women or any of that, and all will be well!" idiocy.


Remember Bill Clinton deciding that if you made $200k/year it now meant you're a millionaire?  Yeah like that:

Affluent people are much more likely than low-income people to have health insurance, and now they will, in effect, help pay for coverage for many lower-income families. Among the most affluent fifth of households, those affected will see tax increases averaging $6,000 next year, economists estimate. [Emphasis added.]

That top fifth includes households making $75k or so a year. But, yes, please let’s do keep talking about “millionaires and billionaires.”
It’s Obama’s party. We’re just paying for it.



*To Japete types; no, I do not actually get sexual satisfaction from it; that's a bit of a metaphor; you might look that word up.

What the CSGV thinks of EVERYBODY:

If “law abiding citizens” are so safe ,why aren’t they allowed in the corporate offices? 

I’ll tell you why.  All a “law abiding citizen” really is, is a previously unconvicted felon waiting to commit his first crime.

Damn.  And these people think WE'RE nuts?

That was interesting

At the range this morning.  I'd just finished a string and was stretching my hands when the guy who'd fired several rounds from a scattergun attracted my attention: "Excuse me", and waved me over.  So I walk over. 
"Do you know how to load this?"
Remington 870.  So he'd apparently carried it to the range with the magazine loaded by someone(God, I hope he hadn't had one in the chamber), emptied it, and had no idea how to reload.

And he either DID have one in the spout, or pointed it downrange, snapped on the empty chamber and then racked it, because the location of the bolt release seemed to be a secret to him.

First actual Cletus I've dealt with in quite a while.

"Well, yeah, we knew the tax was there, and didn't like it,

but we voted for it anyway.  Now we don't want it to happen."
Then maybe you SHOULDN'T HAVE VOTED FOR IT, YOU BASTARDS.
Sixteen Democratic senators who voted for the Affordable Care Act are asking that one of its fundraising mechanisms, a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices scheduled to take effect January 1, be delayed.  Echoing arguments made by Republicans against Obamacare, the Democratic senators say the levy will cost jobs — in a statement Monday, Sen. Al Franken called it a “job-killing tax” — and also impair American competitiveness in the medical device field.
 But in the name of Supporting The Lightworker, you voted for it anyway.  Aren't you just wonderful, showing real concern for it now?

I would state exactly what I think of them, but I'm trying to refrain from such language.


Same kind of crap I've heard when I bring up something not reported in a 'approved by lefties' media outlet: "Oh, that's Faux News, you can't believe that!", etc.  Shut one guy up when he asked "If it's real, why hasn't CNN or NPR reported it?"(this was on Gunwalker) and I replied, "Considering that it's not just Fox, it's also a reporter at CBS, that is a damn good question; why HAVEN'T your favorites reported on this?" 
He didn't have an answer.  And didn't like the question.


Ah, more of those things we only get to find out about AFTER the bill was passed: more taxes in Obamacare.

A little more on the union thugs in Michigan

As the union members attacked the Americans For Prosperity tent, a woman cried out “there are people under there, oh my God” (at 1:20). At 1:40, as union members start walking on top of the collapsed tent, a man shouted “hey, there are people in there” but again the crowd didn’t stop, and the union members continued walking on the collapsed tent defiantly as the crowd shouted obscenities and cheered.

On the little ol' .22

He told me of a few misadventures surrounding the piece but, it was his parting remark that stuck with me "If you are lucky enough to travel around the world armed and doing it mainly alone do yourself a favor always carry a .22 pistol, regardless of anything else you pack."
Whole piece here.

 I may have linked to this before; no matter, if you've seen it once it's worth seeing again.

I met a girl in the park the other evening. There was an instant spark between us and she immediately dropped to her knees and laid on the grass at my feet. As we lay making love, I thought "These taser guns are well worth the money."

Wait, but Britain is Brady and CSGV paradise,

this is unpossible!
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold. 

The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year  -  a rise of 89 per cent. 

In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.

This counts as a WIN;

especially in Illinois:
In a split opinion (see below), the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling in two cases downstate that upheld the state's longstanding prohibition against carrying concealed weapons.
Illinois is the only state with an outright prohibition on concealed carry.
"We are disinclined to engage in another round of historical analysis to determine whether eighteenth-century America understood the Second Amendment to include a right to bear guns outside the home," Judge Richard Posner wrote in the court's majority opinion.
"The Supreme Court has decided that the amendment confers a right to bear arms for self-defense, which is as important outside the home as inside. The theoretical and empirical evidence (which overall is inconclusive) is consistent with concluding that a right to carry firearms in public may promote self-defense," he continued.
"Illinois had to provide us with more than merely a rational basis for believing that its uniquely sweeping ban is justified by an increase in public safety. It has failed to meet this burden," Posner wrote.
In plain language, "Saying 'Because we're Illinois, and we want it this way!' doesn't cut it."

How unions demonstrate what wonderful people

they contain.

A: If this the best their preferred method of telling people what they think, there should be shotguns next time.  Especially for when they attack the tent full of women and kids.
B: If the authorities do NOT go after these bastards, the people involved should file every kind of ethics and criminal and dereliction of duty charge possible.

Added: the Presidential spokesweasel:
White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to condemn the increasing violence and threats by union members in Michigan, merely telling reporters Tuesday that “the president believes in debate that’s civil.”
When asked by a reporter about a claim by Michigan state Democrat that “there will be blood” should Republicans pass a union-choice law in Michigan, Carney professed ignorance and then downplayed the comment.
“I haven’t see those comments, and I’m not sure they mean what someone interprets them to mean,” he said.

Want some patches to annoy all the right people?

Available here.

And, especially after reading this, we need lots of people with the attitude.
I'm now going to borrow a post from Sipsey on this.  From here to the end of this post is all the Dutchman(red emphasis is mine):

My thanks to the several readers who brought this post at Western Rifle Shooters which highlights this thesis presented by William Presson, Chief Inspector of the United States Marshals Service, Denver, Colorado, "to the Faculty of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree."

Entitled Enhancing Security -- Projecting Civil Authority into America's Uncontrolled Spaces, here is the abstract of this 74 page plan for a seamless American National Socialist enforcement state:

Actions taken or not taken by law enforcement agencies, in ungoverned spaces reduce USability to forestall hostile actions on US soil. The current organization of the United States civil authorities and their limitations to impact “Ungoverned Spaces” within th eUnited States poses problems to accomplish the goals of our National Security Strategy to “Prevent attacks on the Homeland” and “Enhancing security at Home.” To that end,this thesis examines areas of the United States that function as “Ungoverned Spaces” and possible strategies to maximize Inter-agency and interoperable government control through joint operations between civil authorities and Department of Defense forces.Finally, the author analyzed the gaps in the ability of law enforcement to project civil authority into ungoverned spaces and the historical short falls of civil law enforcement in past events. The recommendations suggest; the creation of a full time paramilitary police force trained, and maintained in sufficient size and strength to police our nations ungoverned spaces, established as a full time National Guard unit. Satisfying the author’s recommendations on the use of the National Guard as a paramilitary police force, he examined the historical and a current legal precedent the author believes allows it is legal to deploy National Guard troops under Title 32 as law enforcement entities.

As Pete at WRSA comments:

See page 52 (page 60 in the .pdf) for the punch line(s), but do at least scan the whole thing as an example of OpFor mindset.

My fave quote thus far (.pdf pp. 63-64):

…The very nature of this nation’s separation of power and balance of governance laid out by our founding fathers to protect the citizens of the United States has become fractured by time and a changing global footprint of state and non-state actors. The very mechanisms of democracy and the separation of power to protect this nation from government tyranny have also created a national vulnerability. It has created an aversion to a national police force or the use of the military as a paramilitary police force and has created multiple large governmental organizations competing for the same resources with little unity of effort. The author refrained from attempting to formulate a National Guard paramilitary police force structure, he believes that topic is beyond the scope of this thesis and is a future topic to be examined. The current thought and discussion in DoD Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA) doctrine is that the military cannot be the lead agency in homeland security missions needs to be reexamined.

With the draw down of U.S. forces from the wars in the Iraq and Afghanistan, the military will need to find an increased role in homeland security missions to augment their Homeland Defense mission and maintain Congressional funding (WRSA emphasis added). With over ten years of experience in stability operations and the current legal exceptions to the PCA,the author does not see a reason the military could not function in a law enforcement capacity in joint operations with civil law enforcement authorities or as a lead federal agency with the appropriate training and oversight to project civil authority into the United States’ ungoverned spaces…

Pete headlines his post: "Reichssicherheitshauptamt: American Occupation Forces In The Homeland" and he is right to do so. Reichssicherheitshauptamt, for the uninitiated, was the Reich Main Security Office run by SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, until he was assassinated by Czech resistance fighters in 1942.

Wikipedia reports the aftermath:

Infuriated by Heydrich's death, Hitler ordered the arrest and execution of 10,000 randomly selected Czechs. But after consultations with Karl Hermann Frank, he tempered his response. The Czech lands were an important industrial zone for the German military, and indiscriminate killing could reduce the region's productivity. Hitler ordered a quick investigation. Intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the towns of Lidice and Ležáky. A Gestapo report stated that Lidice, 22 km north-west of Prague, was suspected as the hiding place of the assailants as it was known that several Czech army officers, then in England, had come from there. Further, the Gestapo had found a resistance radio transmitter in Ležáky. On 9 June, after discussions with Himmler and Karl Hermann Frank, Hitler ordered brutal reprisals. Over 13,000 people were arrested, deported, and imprisoned. Beginning on 10 June, all males over the age of 16 in the village of Lidice, and the village of Ležáky, were murdered. All the women in Ležáky were also murdered. All but four of the women from Lidice were deported immediately to Ravensbrück concentration camp (four were pregnant – they were forcibly aborted at the same hospital where Heydrich had died and then sent to the concentration camp). A number of children were chosen for Germanization, but 81 were killed in gas vans at the Chełmno extermination camp. Both towns were burned and the ruins of Lidice were levelled. At least 1,300 people were massacred after Heydrich's death.

The massacred men of Lidice.

My first question was raised by this acknowledgment:

I would like to thank the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and theUnited States Marshals Service for this opportunity to attend college at Ft. Leavenworth,KS. It has been an honor and privilege to attend this school with the men and women of our armed services; I am humbled to be able to make their acquaintance. It has been apleasure to attend college with my classmates and learn from the talented staff of instructors at CGSC.

I want to thank my thesis committee Mr. David P. Gunn, Mr. Richard Berkebileand Dr. John Kuehn. Without their assistance, guidance and mentoring this thesis wouldnot have come to fruition.

Can someone please tell me what we are doing sending a federal law enforcement bureaucrat to the Army's Command and General Staff College when there are many, many real Army officers who better deserve the slot that this proto-Nazi took?

Second, a glance at Presson's footnotes tells us that applying the straw boogeyman of "Ungoverned Spaces" to the United States is just that, and not what the author of the footnoted document had in mind. In testimony before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on the National Security and Foreign Affairs, United States House of Representatives on 14 February 2008, on "Ungoverned Territories," Angel Rabasa of The RAND Corporation clearly was testifying about international not domestic problem areas. Rabasa defined them as:

The term “ungoverned territories” does not imply the complete absence of power structures in the territories in question. We mean that, in these regions, the state is absent, unable, or unwilling to perform its functions.

Ungoverned territories can be failed or failing states, poorly controlled land or maritime borders or airspace, or areas within otherwise viable states where the central government’s authority does not extend. Ungoverned territories can thus be found along a continuum of state control. At the benign end of the continuum are otherwise healthy states that have lost control of some geographic or functional space within their territories. For instance, a state that otherwise functions reasonably well could be plagued with a high level of illegal immigration across poorly controlled borders and the presence of criminal gangs involved in that activity. At the other end of the spectrum are failed states, in which the institutions of the central government are so weak that they cannot maintain authority or political or social order beyond their capitals. . .

Characteristics of Ungoverned Territories

The first characteristic of an ungoverned territory is the lack of penetration by state institutions into the general society. A lack of state penetration could be measured by absent or nonfunctioning state institutions. For example, law enforcement entities may only be present in the capital or major cities of a state, leaving substantial territory outside the state’s purview. Health and welfare institutions may not reach into a substantial portion of the state’s rural areas or inner cities. This lack of presence allows other organizations to take precedence in determining the rules of everyday life. Thus, individuals may look to warlords, mullahs, or tribal leaders rather than state agencies for judicial processes. Or insurgent groups may offer the only health care or other social services available to the population.

The lack of state penetration is also reflected in low compliance with existing laws. In an ungoverned territory, the state is not the primary source of authority. It is no more likely to be perceived as legitimate than competing power centers or to be able to elicit compliance with its laws. Indeed, the state is simply one actor within an ecosystem in which many groups and entities interact with each other and evolve through adaptation to changes in the environment. In this situation, a “survival of the fittest” dynamic emerges. The state’s ability to reassert control depends on the health of whatever state institutions — particularly judicial and law enforcement — may be present, and whether those institutions have been subverted by corruption or competing local allegiances.

Aside from the overarching issue of the presence, or lack thereof, of state institutions in ungoverned territories, there are physical and social factors that contribute to the emergence of ungoverned territories. An important factor is inaccessibility. Ungoverned territories are often found in difficult terrain: mountains, jungles, or desert. These areas are generally economically marginal and sparsely populated conditions that retard economic development and diminish the state’s incentives to develop the infrastructure necessary to maintain a robust state presence. In the globalized world, however, inaccessibility is a relative concept. Even where physical infrastructure is least developed, there are options for travel and communications. Nevertheless, especially in states with weak administrative structures, such limited infrastructure might actually aggravate governance problems because anti-state forces can use it for their own purposes.

How much of this definition describes your neighborhood? The problem for Presson, as he makes clear in his introduction, is that aren't enough federal policemen to enforce the District of Criminal's diktat (and local and state LEOs may be unreliable to do so) so he wants a greater ability to punish scofflaws (as he sees them) by bringing in the military. The fact that this is contrary to the Founders' concepts of local and state government or even Posse Comitatus is irrelevant to Presson (who, presumably, took an oath to defend that very Constitution he now seeks to subvert).

Presson's federal masters, having achieved the erosion of the liberties and property rights of Americans for the past century to the aggrandizement of their power, must be very proud of their good little Nazi for his new plan to get more. The fact that we wasted taxpayer dollars to further his career by giving him a slot at the USC&GSC is merely outrageous salt in the wound.

I hope Presson remembers the fate of Heydrich, for there are many in this country who still remember Lidice.