The Aircraft Owners’ and Pilots’ Association, which represents small-plane owners and operators across the United States, said it has received dozens of complaints from members “subjected to random searches” by Customs and Border Protection, local police, or both.
“None of the stops resulted in anything being found,” said Steve Hedges, a spokesman for the owners and pilots association.
“In most cases, the pilots were stopped and held while their planes were searched. … I’m told one pilot was asleep in a motel room with his wife when agents kicked the door down and took them back out to the airport to search his plane, only to find nothing there.”
So yeah, it’s pretty clear this cat’s out of the bag; DEA/CPB/TSA/WTF are targeting pretty much anybody flying small aircraft between pot-legal and –illegal states, assuming they’re up to no good. Sorry, but Joe Cessna on an IFR flight plan who happens to stop in Colorado for avgas is not the same as somebody skimming the Gulf of Mexico (i.e. masking radar) in a clapped-out Beech 18 and landing on some grass strip in Florida. We can usually guess what that guy is up to.
I keep repeating it, because they just keep doing it: our government has come off the rails and is operating way beyond its constitutional authority. This has to stop before civil disobedience (and unrest) becomes the only recourse we have.
Figures this crap would start reaching a boil right about the time I find a cheap way to fly:
Back in the Saddle, Sep. 2013
UPDATE: Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association (AOPA) is not taking this quietly. Though given this Administration’s history with FOIA requests, we probably won’t see much without legal action. Fortunately that’s not something AOPA’s shy about.
Remember Buckyballs? They were all the rage until a year or so ago. If you’re wondering what happened to them, read on…though if you have high blood pressure you’re guaranteed to blow an artery over this one:
On July 10, 2012, the Consumer Product Safety Commission instructed Maxfield & Oberton to file a “corrective-action plan” within two weeks or face an administrative suit related to Buckyballs’ alleged safety defects. Around the same time—and before Maxfield & Oberton had a chance to tell its side of the story—the commission sent letters to some of Maxfield & Oberton’s retail partners, including Brookstone, warning of the “severity of the risk of injury and death possibly posed by” Buckyballs and requesting them to “voluntarily stop selling” the product.
It was an underhanded move, as Maxfield & Oberton and its lawyers saw it. “Very, very quickly those 5,000 retailers became zero,” says Mr. Zucker.
“Underhanded” is putting it mildly, although it wasn’t long before they went straight to “vindictive”:
Nonetheless, the commission pressed ahead with its war on Buckyballs. Most infuriating was the commission’s argument that a total recall was justified because Buckyballs have “low utility to consumers” and “are not necessary to consumers.”
And exactly who the hell is authorized to make such a determination? Since when did we hand ourselves over to a Central Economic Politburo? Oh, right…around about 2008:
Maxfield & Oberton resolved to take to the public square. On July 27, just two days after the commission filed suit, the company launched a publicity campaign to rally customers and spotlight the commission’s nanny-state excesses. The campaign’s tagline? “Save Our Balls.”
Online ads pointed out how, under the commission’s reasoning, everything from coconuts (“tasty fruit or deadly sky ballistic?”) to stairways (“are they really worth the risk?”) to hot dogs (“delicious but deadly”) could be banned. Commission staff were challenged to debate Mr. Zucker, and consumers were invited to call Commissioner Inez Tenenbaum’s “psychic hotline” to find out how it was that “the vote to sue our company was presented to the Commissioners on July 23rd, a day before our Corrective Action Plan was to be submitted.”
Running this man’s company out of business wasn’t good enough: despite years of legal precedent to the contrary, Zucker is now being personally sued by Your Benevolent Government. It’s pretty clear this guy has been targeted.
At best, this is the kind of invasive nanny-state nonsense that’s been all the rage in Europe for years. At worst, it’s another sign of our descent into Banana-Republicanism. Neither option has ended well. You can’t just upend the system of laws that undergird your society without eventual catastrophe. What investor in their right mind would commit their time and money to anything in a capricious system, knowing it can suddenly turn against him for no good reason (which is more likely if he hasn’t made the right friends)? From Argentina to Zimbabwe, every country that’s gone down this path has ended up in squalor.
When entire agencies of unaccountable paper-hangers start making things personal, then before too long the citizenry is left to decide between two bad choices: obey or revolt. Given our history, my money’s on the torches and pitchforks though Uncle Sugar’s doing everything possible to tamp down those leanings.
One burning question I have that wasn’t answered in this piece: what is Mr. Zucker’s political affiliation? Because that seems to be a thing with this crowd.
Regardless of your ideological bent, it’s clear that our nation is at an historical crossroads if not an outright impasse. Our federal government has gone off the rails established by the Constitution, and we are powerless to change it. At least, if we’re counting on our elected representatives to do something about it. They’re too invested in the status quo, so why would they want to reform anything?
More importantly, what can we do about it? While tar, feathers, and pitchforks might be emotionally gratifying (if not downright appropriate), there is a better way.
And the best part? It’s already spelled out for us in Article V of the Constitution:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States.
So the amendment process originating in Congress as we’re all familiar with has a corollary that until now most of us probably weren’t familiar with: we have the authority to originate Amendments ourselves, beginning at the state level. And if they pass the three-fourths-of-the-states threshold, then guess what? They become part of the Constitution and there isn’t a damned thing the Congresstards can do about it.
If you listen to Mark Levin, then you know where this came from because I’m certainly not smart enough to have figured it out myself. I was incredibly excited about this undertaking when he first started talking about it a few weeks ago, and now that his book’s finally out I’m itching to read it.
The big question is are there enough of us with the will to restore our country to something resembling its founding principles?
As this movement builds momentum, I have no doubt that it will reveal stark differences between ideologies within each party. Honest liberals like Ron Wyden (D-OR) will probably be a lot more receptive to it than the leftist thugs who currently run his party. Likewise, there’s a huge chasm between principled constitutionalists like Ted Cruz (R-TX) and statist tools like John McCain (R-Crazytown).
There’s an enormous difference between garden-variety liberals who think the rich should pay more or that gay marriage is no different than desegregation, and leftists who embrace those ideas in the service of marshaling forces towards something far more radical. If you don’t believe me, then believe Saul Alinsky. The slimy sonofabitch knew exactly what he was doing and entire institutions have sprung up to train up activists in his methods. The “New School” and Midwest Academy are two leading examples, and our President is a disciple. That’s not made up, and it’s not a fevered tin-foil-hat fantasy. He’s a radical as is most of the current Democrat leadership.
The Alinskyites knew that collectivism could only be imposed on America from the inside-out; no Red Dawns or Worker’s Revolts here. So he set about figuring out how commie radicals should infiltrate establishment institutions until they reached the point where they held the power and could use it to impose their will. That is, turning our nation into something that our founders (hell, even our grandparents) wouldn’t recognize: a socialist “utopia.” In a country where states cannot tame the federal beast, citizens quickly become subjects to the whim of a credentialed elite who frankly couldn’t find their own asses with both hands and a map.
In other words, Socialism is just Communism with better manners.
Yet it all ends up the same way: in ruins. The EU is falling apart, having run head-first into Thatcher’s axiom about socialist states eventually running out of other people’s money. Even the homogeneous cultures of Norway and Sweden are beginning to rethink their commitments to an overly-generous welfare state. I expect they’ll resolve it in a more civil manner than the Club Med basket-case countries, but one shouldn’t hope for too much.
And while we can mourn the distant memories of principled Democrats like Sam Nunn, Pat Moynihan, and Scoop Jackson, the really sad truth is we have no effective oppostion whatsoever. The Republicans are only marginally better than the Dems in that they’re not actively trying to subvert the country. But the party leadership is made up of corporatists, which is the end state of politicians who are pro-business but too clueless to recognize when they’re being played.
If you don’t really appreciate the difference between Big Business and Free Markets, it’s not too long before you’re supporting all kinds of lefty nonsense while shirking your constitutional duties and crapping all over the people who make up your core voting bloc. You end up standing for nothing but your own re-election because you’ve never quite internalized the fundamental principles of free people and free markets in a free country.
Eat it, commies. WE THE PEOPLE still hold the power, and it’s high time we started using it.
I’d hoped this New York Times story on warp drive research contained was actual news, but it’s just a rehash of stuff I linked to last fall so apparently there’s been no actual progress. That’s what happens when you let the NYT get your hopes up:
Dr. White likened his experiments to the early stages of the Manhattan Project, which were aimed at creating a very small nuclear reaction merely as proof that it could be done.
They tried to go through and demonstrate a nuclear reactor and generate half a watt,” he said. “That’s not something you’re going to market. Nobody’s going to buy that. It’s just making sure they understood the physics and science.”
While I think this is way cool and exactly the sort of ragged-edge R&D that NASA should pursue vigorously, my enthusiasm is curbed by the thudding crash of lumbering reality. In particular, this stuck out like a sore thumb:
For NASA, Dr. White’s warp speed experiments represent a rounding error in its budget, with about $50,000 spent on equipment in an agency that spends nearly $18 billion annually. The agency is far more focused on more achievable projects — building the next generation Orion series spacecraft, working on the International Space Station and preparing for a planned future mission to capture an asteroid.
Emphasis mine.
What, exactly, has NASA “achieved” in terms of new vehicle development since barely dragging the Shuttle across the finish line thirty-odd years ago? It’s an easy answer: think of a whole number that falls between 1 and -1. Null. Nil. ZERO. And the amount of money they’ve spent on all those cancelled projects? Well, it’s something approaching the exact opposite of zero.
So yeah, this would all sound a lot more impressive if I had more confidence in the guvmint’s ability to see any high-tech project through to completion, much less on time. Or on budget. Of course, they’re real good at stuff like tapping our cell phones or reading our e-mails (“Yes, Verizon? I’m interested in your ‘share EVERYTHING’ plan…). But when it comes to next-level tech projects that don’t involve violating their constitutional limits? Yeah, not so much.
Having sold the fusion facility in its current incarnation as a device for testing the reliability of nuclear weapons, the lab’s leaders now are back to selling it as an energy machine. The lab’s director told CBS’s “60 Minutes” earlier this year that NIF’s aim is to generate “clean, limitless power.” He said that would free the United States of greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on Mideast oil, and that commercialization of the technology could begin in ten years.
Good grief. Sounds like they’re setting up a plot device for the next Marvel Avengers movie. Come to think of it, NIF wasn’t a total waste since it made for a really cool set in the new Star Trek movie. So there’s that.
National Ignition Facility: it may have accomplished more as a Star Trek set.
It’s all fun and games until someone has to climb inside the warp core.
It’s looking less like comedy and more like prophecy.
Speaking of prophecy, Ayn Rand was on to something. Tell me, does this sound familiar?
A few houses still stood within the skeleton of what had once been an industrial town. Everything that could move, had moved away; but some human beings had remained. The empty structures were vertical rubble; they had been eaten, not by time, but by men: boards torn out at random, missing patches of roofs, holes left in gutted cellars. It looked as if blind hands had seized whatever fitted the need of the moment, with no concept of remaining in existence the next morning. The inhabited houses were scattered at random among the ruins; the smoke of their chimneys was the only movement visible in town. A shell of concrete, which had been a schoolhouse, stood on the outskirts; it looked like a skull, with the empty sockets of glassless windows, with a few strands of hair still clinging to it, in the shape of broken wires.
Beyond the town, on a distant hill, stood the factory of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Its walls, roof lines and smokestacks looked trim, impregnable like a fortress. It would have seemed intact but for a silver water tank: the water tank was tipped sidewise.
If you’re less inclined to read her otherwise turgid prose, there’s always RoboCop. Better Half and I lived briefly (very briefly) outside Detroit back in the ’90s when it was already a well-known $#!+hole, pretty much the big-city hell this Southern boy imagined it would be. We were quite happy to leave it in our rear-view mirror one snowy morning.
So is this an isolated incident? Doubtful. Despite the insane blatherings of certain MSNBC hosts (whom I refuse to link), this was not a result of Republican meanies. This is what happens when unsustainable policies are left to run their course in the hopes that they can keep squeezing blood from a stone.
“Bin Laden is dead, and Detroit is alive.” It was a laughable line then to anyone who was paying attention. Now it’s just sad.
Judging by the deluge of new disclosures, it certainly feels like a dam is breaking. It should be clear by now that our government has been turned against us. The thugs within their ranks have become emboldened by the Leftists in charge.
The Left hates us and it’s time we faced up to that ugly notion. They hate us because we refuse to yield to their notions of what’s best for us. Given the opportunity, I have no doubt many of them would turn violent. Spend a few minutes trolling lefty blogs and Twitter feeds if you need convincing. Of course, a lot of it is bluster from impotent pencil-necks so I’m only worried about the ones who achieve power.
The funny thing is, thoughtful Liberals (not Leftists – there is a distinction), Libertarians, and Constitutional Conservatives have common cause here. Fortunately it appears that people are slowly coming around to that, which is the only way this can end well. A Venn Diagram of all three groups ought to intersect with “civil liberty” square in the middle.
The Democrats have been taken over by their most radical elements and are openly attempting to “fundamentally transform” our country. They have a very limited window of opportunity which is why they’ve become so brazen. Republicans, on the other hand, haven’t really had much in the way of principles since the Depression. They generally take Constitutional governance slightly more seriously than Democrats, but in the end they’re led by spineless opportunists who will twist their principles beyond recognition for the sake of appearing bipartisan. If you only go through life trying to please everybody, eventually all you’ll do is piss everybody off.
It pains me to acknowledge that Reagan was an aberration tolerated by the party establishment only because he knew how to win. He won because his guiding principles were crystal clear and he did what he set out to do. Sticking to the fundamentals has overwhelming appeal if the people have reason to trust you. Our best chance right now is still to take over the GOP and force out the establishment weenies. That may change after a couple more election cycles.
We all have something at stake here. If the state is allowed to continue abusing subgroups of citizens, they can and will do it to all citizens. Don’t delude yourselves with the notion that you have nothing to hide, because it’s already started: there are so many laws, and so many more regulations carrying the force of law, that if the Feds wanted to wreck your life they could find a reason.
We have to rein in this behemoth or it may be too late. What does the Constitution matter if a bunch of overzealous enforcers, crafty lawyers, and slimy politicians continue to find “legal” ways to skirt pretty much every God-given right we have?
Where does it end? I don’t know, but I can tell you where it begins: right here, where you sit. Your neighborhood, your town. Just attend a few city council meetings to see what we’re up against. Look at the kinds of people who enter politics at the local level, and it’ll be easier to understand why they’re so disconnected at the national level: they were to begin with. These people have their own agendas and got where they were by knowing how to manipulate people.
Which is why we have to be wary, even with good news. How many politicians rode the Tea Party wave into DC only to reveal they were taking advantage of popular sentiment? I’m convinced a large percentage of politicians are in fact sociopaths, which only makes our task harder. Defeating those who operate without empathy or conscience is tremendously difficult, but it can be done. Stand up for what’s right in every small thing, and the big things will follow in time.
Speaking of Ace of Spades, I highly recommend reading his take on the NSA scandal. Short version: Snowden may well be more than a little disingenuous.
That’s putting it kindly. The longer this goes on, the more it appears he may be full of crap:
Snowden’s backstory is not entirely accurate. Booz Allen says that his salary was 40 per cent lower than thought and a real estate agent says that his house in Hawaii was empty for weeks before he vamoosed. Does the fact that he only worked for three months with Booz Allen and the NSA suggest he was planning a hit and run all along – that he took the job with the NSA with the intention of stealing the documents?
Sure looks that way. I’ve really not known what to make of this latest development in ScandalPalooza, but the longer it goes on the less faith I have in Snowden’s good intentions and veracity. And Ace makes a really good point about the big picture:
I am jealously guarding the primacy of my favorite scandals, the IRS, James Rosen, and Benghazi, plus the perjury. I do not like other scandals sharing the limelight. I do not think they add to my favorite scandals. I think they steal spotlight. I think they crowd the stage.
And I want my Stars front and center.
Here’s the thing: The IRS scandal is plainly a partisan illegal political scandal done for corrupt motives.
Unconstitutional ones, too. This gets to the very heart of the American experiment.
The NSA scandal, if it pans out, is an illegal scandal, yes, but unlikely done for partisan or corrupt motives. It would be a case of overreach and constitutional violation, yes, but probably not with partisan or corrupt motives.
And it’s the latter that hang someone. Mistakes or differences of opinion do not. If the NSA turns out to be an overreach, but one done without partisan or corrupt motives… well, no one’s getting impeached for going too far to protect the American people from a terrorist attack.
George Bush got reelected on that platform, for crying out loud. He practically announced, “I intend to go too far.”
Yes. There is seriously frightening stuff going on, but the NSA kerfuffle ain’t one of them. In fact, it doesn’t surprise me at all. I kind of figured it was something they were already up to, since pretty much the whole world routes through American internet servers. It is not the same thing as collecting phone records on every single Verizon customer, but it’s quickly being conflated with it.
Don’t let yourselves get played. Benghazi didn’t burn over a stupid YouTube video, and the NSA tracing foreign internet traffic won’t bring down the Republic. A weaponized IRS, DOJ, and EPA turned against roughly half the population just might.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF MAJOR-LEAGUE DOUCHEBAGGERY.
Call me lazy, but I’m a firm believer in learning from the mistakes of others rather than making them myself. Via The Anchoress (h/t Ace), an essay from 1941 that’s as fascinating now as it surely was 72 years ago: Who Goes Nazi?
The answers may surprise you. Or not:
It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Wow. Any of it sound familiar? Know anybody like that?
Nope, no Nazis here. Move along…
The longer I live, the more interesting history becomes thanks to a perspective which can only be gained by living a full life. The sweep of time became blindingly obvious to me when too many of our citizens so easily forgot the economic and cultural lessons of the 70’s and 80’s. Keynesian economics never works, and Socialism is just Communism with better manners.
Though we like to pretend otherwise, we’ve absolutely forgotten the brutal lessons of the 30’s and 40’s, namely that appeasing tyrants works out exactly the way Churchill described: like feeding an alligator in the hopes that he ignores the really tasty meal…you. Doesn’t work. Never did. Never will.
No Nazis here either. Oh, wait…
And by the way, Keynesianism didn’t fare any better back then either. While a lot of people have come around to the realization that the New Deal actually prolonged and worsened the Great Depression, it wasn’t entirely ended by WWII either. It would only end when FDR passed from this Mortal Coil, taking his “bold, persistent experimentation” to the grave with him.
Never mind that such a construct implies that we citizens are the lab rats…all for our own good, of course, which is how this stuff always begins. Tyranny is sneaky like that.
So the question is, which era are we about to repeat? I suspect the answer is “a little of both,” which raises another question: which side will we be on this time? Which side do you choose?
…a man who came into office hell-bent on restoring faith in government is on the verge of inspiring a libertarian revival.There have always been (at least) two Barack Obamas. There is the man who claims to be a nonideological problem-solver, keen on working with anybody to fix things. And there is “The One”: the partisan, left-leaning progressive redeemer.
…
The dilemma for Obama is that neither is panning out because both incarnations rely on trust. The president never had much trust among Republicans, and he lost what he had when he opted to steamroll the stimulus and, later, Obamacare, on a partisan basis.
Of course, that’s not how most Democrats have seen things. They’ve seen the last five years as a tale of Tea Party–fueled madness and racism. The conviction that conservatives are crazy, stupid, and/or bigoted in their opposition to Obama is what has allowed the two Obamas to exist side by side. Both iterations could blame the Republicans for any shortcomings or failures.
…
And then the floodgates opened. The IRS compromised the integrity of the domestic agency that is supposed to be the most immune to politics. Worse, the White House’s best defense was that it was simply asleep at the switch as the agency went rogue — in ways that just happened to align with the president’s oft-expressed ideological and political preferences.
This one’s hard to clip from because every paragraph is worth reading. So hop to it!
On July 10, 2012, the Consumer Product Safety Commission instructed Maxfield & Oberton to file a “corrective-action plan” within two weeks or face an administrative suit related to Buckyballs’ alleged safety defects. Around the same time—and before Maxfield & Oberton had a chance to tell its side of the story—the commission sent letters to some of Maxfield & Oberton’s retail partners, including Brookstone, warning of the “severity of the risk of injury and death possibly posed by” Buckyballs and requesting them to “voluntarily stop selling” the product.
I’d hoped this New York Times story on 
It’s looking less like comedy and more like 
The Chiles Files 