Page Nine

FBI Not Arrested

The lamestream media told you:
"The nation's top two law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday that the FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans," according to an AP report with no byline.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
No arrests are expected in this case, since the nation's top two law enforcement officials didn't do the actual prying, will deny any personal culpability, and you can't "arrest the FBI" named as the culprit in the story.

"The only difference between this offense and all the others the FBI routinely commits is that this one is in the news for some reason," said an observer who wishes to remain anonymous. He echoes the sentiments of "news" readers everywhere. In addition to occasional scandals, malfeasance, lost weapons and computers, waste, inefficiency, inter-agency bickering, ineptitude, deceit and complaints, the FBI does a lot of good work bringing serious criminals to justice.

Unlike the FBI and the tens of thousands of agents and bureaucrats in its headquarters and 400 satellite offices, a citizen who runs afoul of the law, even for paperwork errors, faces time in prison, confirming critics fears that the tyrannical nature of government is advancing unchecked.

"There's a remote possibility someone will be fired over this," one observer observed, "but if you or I flagrantly and repeatedly broke federal law, getting fired would be the least of our worries."

Federal employees who are fired instead of being imprisoned for crimes are often hired by other agencies, or even the private sector, at an increase in salary. The few who are imprisoned must wait until they get out to get new jobs with pay raises.

Tags: justice system, FBI

Gasoline Prices Rising

The lamestream media told you:
Gas prices have gone up at least twenty cents everywhere, the AP reports with a straight face in a story with no byline.

"Concerns over falling gasoline inventories from decreased refinery production and fewer imports have boosted oil and gasoline prices lately," they say. The government reported that gas inventories dropped by more than analysts had expected, AP says in a brief squib.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Anyone who drives, walks or rides public transit can see the big signs with big gas prices getting bigger, so saying the price went up hardly qualifies as news, unnamed analysts say.

"The bafflegab about 'concerns' and 'refinery production' do little more than hide any semblance of news, and sounds like old-world communists managing the public with mindless verbiage," critics point out. "Wheat production is up in sector four," while the public starves.

To qualify as news, the report would need to tell who has these concerns, who is in charge of raising the prices everywhere (a complete mystery to American "news" consumers), and why the people in charge imported less oil and refined less gasoline, deliberately forcing these increases. Prices, as people know, do not increase themselves. The rumor that imports were lowered so prices would rise could not be confirmed at press time.

"We're being soaked, and the media is hiding the culprits," says one gasoline user who owns a pickup and an SUV.

The AAA, often quoted when fuel prices rise, is a private consumer club of drivers and has no direct connection to fuel prices, oil giants or the perpetrators. "But the publicity is good for the club," one AAA member noted.

Why the government would report gasoline inventory numbers, when private industry manages the supplies, refining, inventories and pricing, was unexplained by the AP, as usual. In the interest of fairness, it should be explained that reporters are encouraged by their bosses to rely on official sources.

Tags: gasoline prices, gasoline

Criminals Facing Gunfire

The lamestream media told you:
"Criminals in Texas beware: if you threaten someone in their car or office, the citizens of this state where guns are ubiquitous have the right to shoot you dead," reports Reuters, from Dallas.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Texas today joined a growing list of states determined to remove barriers that could jeopardize or impede citizens who protect themselves from unprovoked violence instigated by vicious hardened criminals.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, on signing the Castle Doctrine bill, said the right to defend yourself from imminent harm is intuitive to human nature, and that Texans can protect themselves from criminals, and receive protection from state law when they must use deadly force in self defense.

Effective on Sep. 1, 2007, the new law creates a legal presumption that a criminal forcibly and unlawfully entering an occupied home, automobile or place of work is entering to do harm to the occupants, making deadly force justified.

It removes so-called "duty to retreat" language under such circumstances, and establishes clear civil immunity for anyone involved in a justifiable defensive deadly force situation -- preventing nuisance lawsuits from being filed by criminals or their family members. Lawyers who bring such suits used to be disbarred, a practice no longer followed.

The Reuters wire service, running editorial comment where news belongs, said, "Sympathy for violent offenders and criminals in general runs low in Texas, underscored by its busy death row... A conservative political outlook and widespread fondness for hunting also means Texans are a well-armed people capable of defending themselves with deadly force."

Tags: deadly force, Castle Doctrine bill, Rick Perry, Texas, justifiable defense, Reuters

Senator Loses Handgun

The lamestream media told you:
"A top aide to Sen. James Webb was charged Monday with trying to carry a loaded pistol and extra ammunition into a Senate office building, U.S. Capitol Police said," according to the Washington Post on March 27. The firearm was taken into protective custody, along with the aide.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
A top aide to a freshman Democrat was caught trying to bring a fully loaded semiautomatic handgun and extra fully loaded magazines through security and into a Senate office building it was learned today.

The notoriously anti-gun Washington Post referred to the device as a loaded pistol, and as a firearm, abandoning its usual terminology when guns are in the hands of armed people committing criminal acts. They failed to note in their lead that the perpetrators were both Democrats.

"They managed to get a quote from a Sgt. spokeswoman," noted the Uninvited Ombudsman, "that, 'I don't think he intended to harm anybody,' which the perp was also quoted as saying, implying they might 'go easy' on him."

We'll be watching to see if elite Democrats gets the same justice the public might expect for a similar act. So far, a massive feeding frenzy of followup stories has failed to materialize for unknown reasons.

Real research and reporting finds that: Perp was arrested under a local D.C. statute -- Carrying a pistol without a D.C. license (up to 5 years), unregistered pistol (up to 1 year), and possessing ammunition for an unregistered pistol (up to 1 year). One felony count and 2 misdemeanor counts. If convicted, it also includes loss of right to vote, hold office, keep and bear arms, more.

The spokeswoman, Kimberly Schneider, was also quoted as saying, "Any senator who has a gun permit and wants to bring a gun onto congressional property must unload the gun and make sure it is 'securely wrapped.'"

No such law is known to exist, but laws making such actions federal felonies do exist, and went unreported. Webb is a former Marine, his aide is a former Marine, and Webb has reportedly gone shooting at the NRA HQ range in Virginia.

The safety aspect of carrying a fully loaded very dangerous semiautomatic handgun with extra bullets in multiple clips in a briefcase and "forgetting about it," as well as why any Senator would even need such a thing, was not discussed by the Post.

They did however find space to say the gun was unregistered, the ammo was unregistered, and the Senate aide had no license. The consequences of a Senator's ownership of an unregistered gun was not mentioned, but we'll be watching that too.

No one was harmed in the incident.

Tags: James Webb, Kimberly Schneider, gun registration

From the Comments: Department of Peace

Linda Henderson wrote in the comments to "Department of Peace":

Well, it seems clear why this column is named the "Uninvited" Ombudsman. The dismissive and arrogant nature of your report on the Dept of Peace legislation (HR 808), was heavy on the superficial fiscal critique, without analyzing in depth the reality of spending our tax payer money on the wrong end of the equation.

The World Health Organization identified that we spend $300,000,000,000 a year on interpersonal violence in this country alone.

What is so scary for you about having our government research the underlying causes of this violence and address them on the front end? Nonviolent conflict resolution is not a left or right issue...it is a less expensive means to a less expensive end. Rather than falsely conjuring up fears about more bureaucracy and people taking away your guns...perhaps you could bring yourself to consider the wisdom of this proactive initiative to address murder, rape, domestic assaults, gang violence, racial violence, school shootings, prison overcrowding, mental health crisis, homelessness...the list goes on.

As to your allegation that the Defense Dept would have to clear everything with the Dept of Peace before it could act...this is simply not supported by a reasonable reading of the legislation...which by the way...this supporter of the bill has in fact done many times.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply to my assessment of the Dept. of Peace proposal. On re-reading it I see it is a bit more snide than I would prefer. Thanks for making me aware of that. Further proof that, despite the rumors, I'm only human.

As to your other points,

1- In reviewing the merits of the proposal, I saw no need, as you suggested, to examine existing federal spending patterns (a huge subject worthy of scrutiny to be sure), so there is none. The gigantic spending proposal for DOP was a sufficient topic in and of itself.

The WHO "interpersonal violence" budget (spending?) figure you quote seems highly politicized and not germane, but I imagine it would make a fascinating study I'm sure. What does it comprise? Who spends the most? On what exactly? Protection and aggression costs combined?

From the comments

"Fun Bob" wrote in the comments to "Gun law update: CORRECTIONS":

I appreciate you going to the trouble to publish a comprehensive errata and own up to your errors. However, I would rather see you correct the text in the original post and make note of the corrects with your errata published later.

I want to link to your original post but I must also provide a link to your errata and any readers I send your way are going to have to flip back and forth--mentally filling in the correct text for themselves as they go. Too much trouble. So much so that I hesitate linking your excellent analysis.

Dear Fun Bob,

Thanks for the observation, and I agree.
You can get the corrected version, now posted on my website here:

http://www.gunlaws.com/GunLawUpdate.htm

Integrating the fixes was a lot of effort as you surmised. The corrections themselves received acclaim though -- thanks for admitting the errors, and some new info and insight was provided; I'll run some replies in the next Page Nine. Had I just corrected the original release, I don't think many would have bothered to read it again -- and tried to sort out the new tidbits from the familiar.

So hopefully this is the best of both worlds.

If you run the update or other reports, would you like a link in Page Nine?

Yes! Counterintuitive Man looks at voting statistics from his friend Professor Joe Olson, at Hamline University (Minn.), no?

Concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Number of States won by:
Gore: 19; Bush: 29

Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Department of Peace

The lamestream media told you:
Nothing.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
The left wing of the Democrat party, lead by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), has introduced a bill to form the swell sounding U.S. Dept. of Peace.

This would be a cabinet-level position, with a Secretary of Peace, Undersecretary of Peace, and dozens upon dozens of other officials, each with a staff of their own. The starting budget will be only eight thousand million dollars ($8 billion), and will grow only as fast as everything else at the federal level.

According to a presentation attended by The Uninvited Ombudsman, the new Dept. will avoid the usual bureaucratic waste and inefficiency because it will be, "an umbrella group" absorbing other agencies, and "it will be streamlined and efficient." Why other federal agencies can't also operate that way was unexplained. The Dept. will be better than a private operation, a non-profit, or a think tank, organizers are sure.

Promoters are quick to point out that the Dept. of Peace will "research, facilitate and articulate peaceful nonviolent solutions to conflict." They are less quick to point out that the new Dept. will have policy making powers, social engineering programs, indoctrinations for school children called "educational programs," enforcement powers, and more, in its 5,000-word enabling statute, HR 808.

As currently written, the Dept. of Defense will have to confer with the Dept. of Peace before it can do anything. It was not clear from the discussions if any of the bill's supporters have read the bill.

Not to overlook an opportunity for backdoor gun control, the Peace Dept. will, "(5) analyze existing policies, employ successful, field-tested programs, and develop new approaches for dealing with the implements of violence, including gun-related violence and the overwhelming presence of handguns."

The reason the lamestream media missed this story are unclear.

Tags: Dennis Kucinich, HR 808, U.S. Dept. of Peace

Gun law update: CORRECTIONS

Apologies friends and fans --
I must have been half asleep --
let me start with the easy errors,
and progress to the more involved issues:

WRONG:
"1- Second Circuit Court Ends D.C. Gun Ban"

RIGHT:
1- U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Ends D.C. Gun Ban

WRONG:
"By now you've probably heard that the federal 2nd Circuit Court has overturned..."

RIGHT:
By now you've probably hard that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned... [the 2nd Circuit is up New England way.]

Next 100 Hours

The lamestream media told you:
The first 100 hours of Congress under Democrat rule was amazing.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
You weren't told much about Congress under the second 100 hours, confirming critics' fears that the media only reports what the government tells it to report.

Tags: Congress