JAMES SIMPSON: Under a government “shutdown,” which even the media is beginning to call “partial shutdown,” a certain number of employees from each agency remain on the job. These employees are “exempt” from the shutdown. The media and their Democrats would have you believe that all but a few employees go home, with dire consequences to follow, while anarchist Republican legislators line the hallways cheering: “Don’t let the door hit you on the rear on the way out.”

As described in an earlier post, nothing could be further from the truth. Social Security checks will continue to be mailed, ships will sail and planes will fly. Most people won’t know the difference.

The table included here proves the point. (Click on the picture to enlarge) It was taken from the appendix of a Department of Homeland Security document titled, “Procedures Relating to a Federal Funding Hiatus,” dated April 8, 2011 – i.e. today. The “DHS Component” column indicates the acronym for the relevant agency, eg USSS = United States Secret Service; FLETC = Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, ICE = Immigration and Customs Enforcement, etc. The chart indicates that DHS has a total of 222,950 employees. It also indicates that of these, 189,362 are exempt. In  In other words,approximately eighty-five percent of DHS employees will continue to go to work. A mere fifteen percent will be temporarily furloughed.

Blaming America for Mexico’s problems has been something of a national pastime for Mexican politicians for many years. True to tradition, Mexican president Felipe Calderon has been blaming Mexico’s astronomically high murder rate on Americans who buy drugs and who sell guns, rather than on the Mexican drug cartels who commit a vastly disproportionate share of those murders, and the historic corruption in Mexico, from which the wicked cartels have spawned.

However, an article published by the Mexico City newspaper La Jornada suggests that el Presidente might better serve the good people of his country by looking to his southern border, instead of al norte.

As explained in English by the Latin American Herald Tribune, “The most fearsome weapons wielded by Mexico’s drug cartels enter the country from Central America, not the United States, according to U.S. diplomatic cables disseminated by WikiLeaks and published on Tuesday by La Jornada newspaper. Items such as grenades and rocket-launchers are stolen from Central American armies and smuggled into Mexico via neighboring Guatemala, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reported to Washington.”

The article also refers to “Fast and Furious,” an element of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “Project GunRunner” operation that allegedly knowingly allowed more than 1,700 firearms to be smuggled into Mexico from our country, including those that may have been used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata in February.

Increasingly, the question is who knew about the operation, and when.  President Obama has stated that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder were aware of the scheme.  Holder is said to have told his subordinates that letting guns “walk” to Mexico is wrong and should not be repeated. Read more…

Teacher-Terrorist Katherine Windels

According to the Milwauakee Journal Sentinel:

Windels was charged with two felony counts “bomb scare” and two misdemeanor counts of “computer message-threatening injury/bodily harm.” If convicted, each felony count carries a maximum penalty of three years and six months in prison and a $10,000 fine, and each misdemeanor count carries a maximum penalty of 90 days in prison and a $1,000 fine.

Her e-mails got a lot of play when they first appeared. They were particularly vicious. Here is the complete text of one:

From: XXXX
Sent: Wed 3/9/2011 9:18 PM
To: Sen.Kapanke; Sen.Darling; Sen.Cowles; Sen.Ellis; Sen.Fitzgerald; Sen.Galloway; Sen.Grothman; Sen.Harsdorf; Sen.Hopper; Sen.Kedzie; Sen.Lasee; Sen.Lazich; Sen.Leibham; Sen.Moulton; Sen.Olsen
Subject: Atten: Death threat!!!! Bomb!!!!

Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your familes will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks. Please explain to them that this is because if we get rid of you and your families then it will save the rights of 300,000 people and also be able to close the deficit that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for more information on possible scenarios in which you will die.
Read more…

Highlights from the AP fact check of last night’s speech reveal Obama’s proclivity for exaggeration and self-aggrandizement:

OBAMA: We are turning the operation over to NATO.

FACT: The US is NATO, so we are turning the operation back over to ourselves.

OBAMA: “Our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives.”

FACT: The operation is expanding militarily in an effort to unseat Gadhafi.

OBAMA: Seeking to justify the operation, he asserted this mission was vital to the national interest of the US.

FACT: Obama contradicted his own defense secretary, Robert Gates, who said the crisis ”was not a vital national interest to the United States.”

OBAMA: ”And tonight, I can report that we have stopped Gadhafi’s deadly advance.”

FACT: The regime continues to push back the rebels.

OBAMA: ”Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.”

FACT: Obama turned a blind eye to the uprising in Iran, the killings of Jewish innocents, and the genocide in Darfur.

Maybe you can explain the strategy behind Obama’s lies. Let us know if you have figured it out. Read more at the AP fact check.

Listen carefully to the conversation in this video. It illustrates the hypocrisy of the left.

Recently, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) — who in the early 1990s was the House sponsor of the Brady Act and the federal “assault weapons” and “large” magazine ban of 1994-2004, and the ill-fated, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink “Brady II” bill — introduced S. 436, the multi-faceted “Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011.” Its simplistic and misleading title aside, this bill dispels any doubt about the goal gun control supporters have had in mind ever since they began harping about “closing the gun show loophole” more than a decade ago.

Schumer’s “fix” bypasses the question of gun shows altogether. In fact, the term “gun show” appears nowhere in his bill. S. 436 proposes that virtually all private transfers, regardless of location, be subject to National Instant Criminal Background Check System checks. The exceptions would be extremely narrow; in many cases, even lending someone a firearm would be subject to federal regulation.

So how do you think such a bill would be implemented? Any time any private collector wants to sell his own property he would need to check with the federal government. That will be an aid to the government who wants register all weapons. The next step would be collect all weapons from its citizens. There is no end to the voracious appetite of these people who want to gobble up all of your rights and subjugate the American public.

Today we received the following links from one of our loyal readers. The NIP has a question regarding these videos. Either they are genuine or one or both of them is bogus. Suppose they are both genuine. If Obama admits he is not an American and was born in Kenya, what does his statement reveal about the depth of his understanding of the US Constitution? Perhaps Article 2, Section 1, is what he means by the Constitution being a “flawed document.”

On the other hand, the NIP believes that the first video is highly edited and is most likely fraudulent. The second video could be also viewed in a different context. Both videos makes one wonder why the President doesn’t release his birth records to clear this up once and for all. How hard would that be? Could it be that Obama wants this controversy to continue in order to discredit his opponents? What are we missing? Is this controversy meant to serve as a red herring to divert our attention to more weighty matters, like the “transformation” of America?