Falsities, Lies, and Damned Lies

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We listen to Glen Beck every now and then, agreeing much of the time, and tiring quickly as he wades into trite interpretations of history, thought to be true because they are repeated authoritatively and frequently, but that are deadly, maliciously wrong.

 

     On this date, we had to listen to the horrid caning of a poor innocent Senator from Massachusetts who was sitting at his desk on the Senate floor at the end of a session, addressing letters to his constituents.   He was brutally beaten, nearly to death by a younger man, a Congressman from South Carolina with a weighty walking cane, popular at the time, of course, as weapons.   Why, at times the canes disguised the fact that the rapier's blade was conceal within, or even the ball of a .41 calibre rifled pistol cartridge.  Horrors!!

 

     The Senator from Massachusetts was a loudmouth abolitionist who assumed his own virtues as perfect and the faults of others as justification to destroy the lives of whomsoever he pleased.  In this case we have Sumner, not addressing mail to constituents, but rather marking envelopes with his franking stamp.  He was famous for sending his private mail out with the publicly paid for "Senators' Privilege".   Glen's tale follows the usual mainstream media reports of the day about the incident, although they were false.   Please regard the news of the day:

The Caning of Senator Charles Sumner:
     One of the most violent episodes in congressional history took place in this chamber on May 22, 1856. The Senate was not in session when South Carolina Representative Preston S. Brooks entered the chamber to avenge the insults that Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner had levelled at Brooks' cousin, Senator Andrew P. Butler. Sumner's "Crime Against Kansas" speech of May 19-20 was sharply critical, on a personal level, of Butler and several other senators who had supported the "popular sovereignty" provisions of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act. Sumner was addressing copies of the speech at his desk when Brooks began his attack, striking the northern senator repeatedly with a walking cane, which splintered with the force of the blows.
    Although two House members intervened to end the assault, Sumner, who had ripped his desk loose from the bolts holding it to the floor in his effort to escape, was rendered unconscious. He regained consciousness shortly after the attack, but it would be three years before he felt able to resume his senatorial duties.      The caning of Senator Sumner signalled the end of an era of compromise and sectional accommodation in the Senate, further heightening the discord that culminated in war after eleven southern states seceded from the Union during the winter of 1860-1861.

     We should like to briefly correct the record.  It was because Senator Sumner, who was a jackass, had spoken thusly against one of the most honourable men on the Senate floor:

       As an inclusion for their support of allowing a vote on Kansas's entry into the Union as a slave or free State, Sumner identified two Democratic senators as the principal culprits in this crime—Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina.  He characterized Douglas to his face as a "noise-some, squat, and nameless animal . . . not a proper model for an American senator."  Andrew Butler, who was not present, received more elaborate treatment.  Mocking the South Carolina senator's stance as a man of chivalry, the Massachusetts senator charged him with taking "a mistress . . . who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean," added Sumner, "the harlot, Slavery."

    A South Carolina Congressman by the name of Preston Brooks, a cousin of Andrew Butler, went to the floor, with a flexible dog-whip...something akin to a quirt, and that was used to discipline hunting dogs to maintain their attention on the quail and not the girls.  The Yankee press, un-schooled in the innuendo of people who had a complex, if out-dated notion of chivalry and honour,  did not pick up on the dog-whip thing.   They heard it was a cane, and it became a cane.

     Senator Butler was an elderly man, and his cousin much younger, although Congressman Brooks was known to be quite ill at the time.  Brooks went onto the floor of the Senate and demanded satisfaction for the insulting remarks about his cousin.   Sumner laughed and waved him off, with a back-hand wave as if quitting a fly.   With that insult, Mr. Brooks whacked the arrogant, boorish Senator twice on the forehead, and said something to the effect that he will never use the name of Andrew Butler again for any purpose, or worse would befall him.  In the meantime a frightened and cowardly Sumner stumbled out of his chair, and while attempting to flee, fell striking the side of his forehead upon the corner of his desk, dislodging the ink well, and falling in a heap of ink, blood, and blubber.

     Brooks strode out calmly.  Two other members from the Lower House who happened to be nearby came to help the hapless Senator from his embarrassment.  Later, the Senator allowed himself to be carried to the infirmary...pretending to be unconscious because of the "brutal beating".   To complete the tale, Sumner convalesced for three years, although there is not one comment from any source that would indicate that he was in any wise diminished.   He was simply milking the fame invented by the press, like (Sir Edmund)Hillary's "intestinal flu", "broken jaw", and "brain concussion" spiral of sequential mendacious medical magic of more recent note. (Some have said that Rhett Butler of Gone With the Wind was a character inspired to Margaret Mitchell by the "caning incident".)

     The truth of this is the fact that Sumner maintained active contact with the Capitol, frequently communicating with expensive telegraphics, while the critically ill Mr. Brooks resigned, although acquitted of charges by the Lower House for conduct unbecoming, and then was re-elected to his same seat.   He died of the consumption shortly before the end of that term and the outbreak of the War Between the States.

     But the Union side won the war, and the winners write the history.   The advantage of being an old curmudgeon is that I am too old and useless to punish at this point.   I have nothing that anybody would want to take from, save most of my family members.  Therefore El Gringo Viejo can speak the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.  El Gringo Viejo can write the truth about History.

 

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     The notion that Lincoln was somehow moved by his love of the Black man to launch into a War against slavery is ludicrous.  Lincoln could not have done such a thing because he was a consummate politician, ever mindful of the political currents and "popularity".   His closest allies were not the nut-case abolitionists, and certainly they were not the stuffy, anachronistic slave holders and traders beyond the Ohio and Potomac Rivers to the South.  He did find a safe harbour between those two poles;   the capitalists. 

     One thing capitalists hate more than anything is disorganised, inefficient, and prosperous small businesses and people who are not dependent upon....the capitalist.   New York and Philadelphia capitalists, bankers, and lawyers love to conscript the prole class into debt, material desire, and the 'treadmill", or at least the "revolving hamster cage".

    Another thing the capitalists hate...along with their brothers  the bankers and lawyers....is free markets.  They want their industries protected from imports and they want to use the American Navy and military to force funny looking foreigners to buy American products.

     Another think capitalists like is to make everybody have to use what the capitalist want them to use....like one common gauge of rail for the railroads.

     So the existence of a pool of labour, being dealt with in an archaic manner, with miniscule wages, and modest benefits, and no personal sovereignty, who seem to be largely satisfied with their crummy lot in life really drove the capitalists in the North absolutely bonquers.   The capitalists just absolutely knew that they could take advantage of those complacent labourers much more efficiently than a bunch of lacksidaisical Southern pseudo-aristocrats.

    And let's not even talk about the Southern upper-class and middle class favouring the notion of free trade.   Just because they exported more value with their rice, cotton, tobacco, sugar, molasses, rum, and myriad of other products. even including some finished goods, than the entire Yankee economy exporeted with its fancy factories, did not give the Southerners the right to dictate foreign economic relations.   And besides, with all that tobacco, rice, King Cotton, sugar and other products, the Southerners could buy any foreign products they wanted, and the Crowns abroad really liked the quality and treatment the States in the South provided.   The Southerners did not charge duties.   The charged nothing  beyond harbourage and pilot service.  It was only the useless Central Government of the United States that charged tariffs, excise, and other taxes at the ports of entry.   New Orleans dwarfed New York in terms of activity and recovery of lucre for the government in Washington, D.C.

     Read what comfortable words speak Truth to the issue.   This is meant for all those who love Father Abraham....because to love Father Abraham is akin to loving Father Obamaham.   To wit:

Economic Factors Leading to the War of Northern Aggression 

 

by James W. Jackson <= (click)

jjackson@jccc.edu

 

One of the quarrels between the North and the South concerned taxes (tariffs) paid on goods brought into this country from foreign countries. Southerners thought those tariffs  unfair and were aimed specifically at them, as the South imported a wider variety of goods than Northern people. Moreover, Southern exporters sometimes had to pay higher amounts for shipping their goods overseas and to pay unequal tariffs imposed by foreign countries on some of their goods.  Also, Southern banks paid higher interest rates on loans made with banks in the North. The inequities grew worse after several "panics," including one in 1857 that affected more Northern banks than Southern. Southern financiers found themselves burdened with high payments to save Northern banks that had suffered financial losses through poor investments. These small annoyances were insufficient to cause a major breach between the two parties, with the exception of the tariffs.   As there was no federal income or other direct tax, the federal government depended on indirect taxes as its primary sources of revenue. Most 'duties, imposts, and excises' were collected at ports throughout the United States; ports monitored by Federal garrisons. For the thirty years from 1831 to 1860 the tariffs amounted to about eighty-four per cent of federal revenues, but during the 1850s tariffs amounted to ninety per cent of federal revenue. As the ports in the South had the most traffic, they paid seventy-five per cent of all tariffs in 1859. For example:                         "New Orleans was the largest city in the South and was the centre of the cotton & sugar export. Trade products of the Mississippi River Valley were shipped for sale to New Orleans and almost 2,000 sea-going vessels and 3,500 river steamers with tonnage of 1,200,000 tons entered the port of New Orleans during the year before the war." (Confederate Finance and Supply, W. Power Clancy, Cincinnati Civil War Round Table.)       The tax imbalance which benefitted the North at the expense of the South grew even more lopsided under the Buchanan administration. The Morrill Tariff was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President  Buchanan on March, 1861, just two days before Buchanan left office and Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated. The new law made some significant changes in how duties were assessed on goods entering the country, and it also raised rates. This new tariff had been written and sponsored by Justin Smith Morrill, a Congressman from Vermont. Southern states were opposed to the new tariff, because the  law clearly favoured industries based in the northeast and further penalize the southern states, heavy importers and exporters of European goods. Moreover, the Morrill Tariff was unpopular in England, which imported cotton from the South, and in turn exported goods to the South, and surprisingly in New York City, the largest port in the North. In 1860, ad valorem taxes — tariffs on imported goods collected at ports — provided $56 million of the $64.6 million of federal revenue, much of which came from New York City. The cities and states with large ports would certainly prefer to keep the tariff revenue for themselves, rather than have the money go to Washington. Secession would allow the states and New York City to do just that. New York City’s Mayor Fernando Wood announced that if the country was going to break apart anyway, he would like his city to secede not only from “this foreign power” of the State of New York, but also from the “odious and oppressive connection” with the Federal government.   In 1861, after intense debates and state-wide votes, seven states passed secession ordinances, while secession efforts failed in the other eight slave states. Following declarations of secession, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbour. South Carolina wanted control of the harbour and of the revenue it produced.  U.S. forces occupied  Fort Sumter, a fortress controlling the entrance of Charleston Harbour. An earlier  attempt by U.S. President  Buchanan to reinforce and resupply Ft. Sumter using an unarmed merchant ship, failed when she was turned away by shore batteries on January 9, 1861. South Carolina authorities then seized all Federal property in the Charleston area, except for occupied Fort Sumter.   On January 28, 1861 the Senators from the seceding states made their final speeches in Senate chamber before leaving Washington. Senator Alfred Iverson of Georgia spoke these  memorable words:   "You may acquiesce in the revolution, and acknowledge the independence of the new confederacy, or you may make war on the seceding States, and attempt to force them back into a Union with you. If you acknowledge our independence, and treat us as one of the nations of the earth, you can have friendly intercourse with us; you can have an equitable division of the public property and of the existing public debt of the United States. If you make war upon us, we will seize and hold all the public property within our borders or within our reach."    Undoubtedly, Senator Iverson was referring to the lucrative ports; the value of exports through the Port of Savannah alone exceed $20 million in 1860.   The resupply of Fort Sumter became the first crisis of the administration of President Lincoln. He notified the Governor of South Carolina, that he was sending in supply ships, which resulted in an ultimatum from the newly formed Confederate government: evacuate Fort Sumter immediately. Lincoln set a trap in the Ft. Sumter standoff by sending  the supply ship into harms way, provoking the South to fire the first shot. They did. That first shot fired by the South galvanized Northern support for the Union, but it also caused  other southern states to join the Confederacy.  On April 13, the fort was surrendered and evacuated. The die was cast. The tidal wave of support for the Union overwhelmed Southern sentiment in the North. New York City, alongside the rest of the North, proclaimed its loyalty to the Government in Washington.   Five days after the evacuation of Ft Sumter, Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the seven seceding States (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana,  Mississippi, and Texas). The proclamation stated that to protect the "combination of persons, public  peace and the lives and  property of quiet and orderly citizens" Lincoln ordered a blockade  of the ports of these states in insurrection. The choice by Lincoln, a lawyer, to use the word blockade was a puzzle to Europeans...a nation blockades it own ports? Blockade is an agency of war only between independent nations, a nation closes it insurrectionary ports and blockades the ports of an enemy nation. Lincoln had raised the ante, the Southern states were not in insurrection but were identified by Washington as belligerent.   Eight days later, the President issued another decree extending the blockade to include North Carolina and Virginia, making the blockade complete from Cape Henry to the Mexican border. Virginia and North Carolina were cast as belligerent, even though they had not seceded from the Union. They soon did.   To the question as to why Lincoln simply did not 'let the erring sisters go and depart in peace', the prospect of losing three quarters of the Federal revenue stream obviously played a major role in his decision.  Certainly, other factors contributed to the war, but as history is written by the winners, it is totally unsurprising that Northern writers latched on to the high moral issue of ending slavery, rather than more complicated  issues, which  might favour the Southern cause. For example, in September of 1862, President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, to take effect January 1, 1863, and free slaves in those states or regions still in rebellion against the Union. If any southern state returned to the Union between September and January, whites in that state would not lose ownership of their slaves. Clearly, the federal government was more interested in regaining power over the run-away states than in freeing slaves. The Northern banner of  "Preserve the Union," might have more accurately read "Preserve the Taxes".   In conclusion, as the crisis between the North and the South reached the critical stage at Ft Sumter in April, Lincoln could have avoided war by abandoning the fort to the South Carolina government and allowing the seven succeeding states to keep their ports. True, the federal government would have had  to find sources of revenue, other than tariffs,  to avoid bankruptcy (something the war forced them to do anyway), but certainly a less costly option than the devastating war that followed.   Moreover, historians and others who cling to conventional views of the war's causes seem never able to untangle themselves from their contradictions.   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

     And all of the above does not even begin to take into consideration that the Northern Capitalists were adamant about forcing the Southern railroads to abandon English gauge.   To wit:

The gauge of 4'8.5" was always adopted by more new railways than any other, but from the late

1830s to the early 1860s the proportion of new mileage built to that gauge steadily dropped from 87 per cent to 44 per cent. This decline was due both to the introduction of broad gauges and to the relatively faster growth of regional networks using 4' 10" and 5'0". As a result, the 4'8.5'' gauge's share of mileage in service declined over the same period from 80 to 55 per cent. 

    The first sentence of the above paragraph points out that what is now American Standard Gauge began to drop from 1830 to 1860 from 87% to 44% of all new mileage rail construction.    The OROG can imagine what the Coast to Coast, Damn the Indians capitalists thought about breaking loads going into Tennessee and points South, just because a bunch of feudalistic hayseeds  saw the rails as serving humans of different Duchies, instead of lugging lead ingots from industrial centre to industrial centre.

     These are the backers of Mr. Lincoln's vision of America.  He won.  We lost.

Lamentably, in winning the War,  the city of Washington, D. C. became the centre of sovereignty, and the individual began to become more like an inconvenience to efficiency.

 

 

Enough for now.  More Later.

El Gringo Viejo

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A Potpourri of Quick Points - Our Week-end Special

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We are trying to begin something like a weekend entry of quick points.  We are envisioning rapid-fire points that folks can use for a conversation ender, or a comeback just before you turn on your heel and leave the conversation and your liberal-talk person standing his/her ground with the drool dripping off'n his/her chin.   Of course...we are doing this....with all due respect....at the end of the day.....in a bi-partisan spirit of co-operation.....and free health care for all, not just the one per cent. 

 

 

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    As the OROG can probably tell, we have tired of trite phrases, along with the rest of the hard working American people in the middle class....to the point that El Gringo Viejo is going in for hair transplants so that he will have something to pull out when he becomes exasperated at the agar-agar and Styrofoam packing peanuts that are shovel-readied into every conversation.

 

  If Hannity goes through his litany of the offenses of the left-think dumboes in the Congress or White House, one by one with the change of every guest set one more time, El Gringo Viejo will burn down his television.

 

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     "Gore said the fingerprints of man-made climate change are now increasingly visible in extreme weather events, fueled by a warmer atmosphere that retains more moisture. He pointed to Hurricane Sandy, which caused insured losses of about $25 billion when it hit the U.S. East Coast last year, as well as drought that cut U.S. crop yields."   (!?)

 

     In this matter El Gringo Viejo will let the world and Universe have it on the chin.  To begin, the Hurricane Sandy affair, like Hurricane Katrina, was repainted, corsetted up like Miss Scarlet, post-partem, with a corset wench, and bathed in a thousand pounds of cheap, smelly cosmetics.   The sad and bitter truth is different and much sadder.

     One of the greatest losses to New York City, the State of New York, and to America in general was the burning of Staten Island.  A million Union members and other assorted self-entitled people are going to send us endearing e-mails and threats, but it will neither cover up nor ameliorate the facts.

     Given the well-analysed path of a relatively weak to low-medium strength hurricane, any Fire Department worth its salt would have remembered that all electricity in and on Staten Island should have been cut off, 12 hours before the arrival of the storm.

     Further, we fault the middle and upper echelon of  the New York City Fire Department for failing to remember or for never having reviewed the architectural configuration of the Twin Towers.  It seemed strange even as the events were unfolding that entire companies of firemen were going up to the highest points possible in those buildings when there was genuinely not the remotest chance of achieving any positive effect.   With the fires essentially becoming smelting engines, drawing in tons of oxygen into a kerosene and general combustible (plastics, paints, etc.) fuelled fire....temperatures would have to increase to the melting point of any structural steel, especially in the particular configuration of the Twin Towers.

 Another time, almost the same place:                                                

 

     On July 28th, 1945, a U.S. Army B-25D bomber crashes into the Empire State Building in heavy fog, killing 11 people in the building and all three of the plane’s crewmen.
The plane, on its way to Newark from Bedford, Mass., was commanded by Lt. Col. William F. Smith Jr., a West Point grad and veteran of over 30 World War II bombing missions. After encountering thick fog while approaching New York City, he contacted LaGuardia Airport to attempt to land there. Visibility was too low, however, and LaGuardia’s control tower instructed him to continue to Newark, maintaining at least 1,500 feet while crossing Manhattan.

     Perhaps Smith mistook the East River for the Hudson and began his descent to Newark too soon, or maybe he just got disoriented in the fog. Whatever the case, soon the plane had descended to around 500 feet and was on a collision course with the 850 foot RCA Building (known today as the GE Building) at 30 Rockefeller Center. A last moment turn averted disaster, alas temporarily. Flying south at 225 mph, they were only seconds away from the Empire State Building.
      Witnesses along 5th Avenue and 34th Street, who looked up when they heard the noise of the props, said they saw a plane flying toward the building, only to climb steeply and disappear into the clouds. And then they heard an explosion. The first thought on many minds was that the faltering Japanese had launched a desperate Kamikaze attack in New York. But it was only a disoriented American pilot who had tried to outclimb the world’s tallest building, and the building won.
At an altitude of 913 feet, the 15-ton bomber impacted the Empire State Building’s 34th Street face between the 78th and 79th floors, carving an
18 ft x 20 ft hole in the building’s limestone facade.
      Despite flaming debris slicing elevator cables within the building and engines and debris flying into neighboring buildings, all of the dead were contained to the floors immediately impacted and burned by the plane. Somewhat ironically, the offices destroyed were occupied by War Relief Services and the National Catholic Welfare Council, both Catholic organizations dedicated to helping European refugees of the ongoing war.
     Hundreds of firemen were dispatched to the highest fire in city history, a distinction that would remain until Sept. 11, 2001. (Sadly, it is still the only fire at such a height that was ever successfully controlled). Their spectacular efforts kept damage to the building very minor outside of the impact floors.

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     Even Hizzoner, Mayor Giuliani, was almost trapped, and almost bought the entire agricultural enterprise during the collapse of the first tower, and I remember, when it fell, commenting that I was surprised that it had taken that long.   The pancaking was predictable, given the nature of the fixing of each floor onto the floor below.   The Empire State Building is much sturdier, and did in fact take a blow from a B-25 Mitchell bomber during the World War II period, 28 July 1945.   Of course, considering size, weight, passengers, and so forth, it would have taken 10 B-25s to even approximate the weight of the Boing 767 with its nearly full load of kerosene.   And, it should be further noted,  the Boing 767s were flying more than twice the speed of the Mitchell B-25.   The Empire State Building was struck on a Saturday, and the fire was controlled in 40 minutes.  It was fully re-opened the following Monday, except, of course, for the Catholic Relief Agency office that had been almost destroyed.

 

     In any regard, the entire effect of Hurricane Sandy on New York and New Jersey was due to it juxtaposition....and had nothing to do with the hyperintensification brought on by any notion of Global Warming/Cooling/Climate Change.     Considering the really rough Galveston, Texas hurricane of 1900 that killed as many as 12,000 people and totally destroyed the entire city....one can only imagine what New Orleans and/or New York and New Jersey would have looked like after being hit by such a storm.   Sorry Al.....Star Kist wants shysters who don't rough up masseuses.

 

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   Now, consider the basic question.   Who is going to win a issue that includes the existence of a 17% government shut-down?   As a pretty fair, minor-league social and demographic analyst it would be my estimation that the Democrats will be portrayed and perceived as winning by the Obsolete Media.   After all, as the alphabet networks perceive things, only the Democrats are good and think about the poor, while the Republicans are bad and think only about themselves.  And racism, of course.

     So, allow El Gringo Viejo to point out certain weaknesses in the Wall Street Journal - National Broadcasting Corporation poll of a week ago.  It showed that the Republicans were hated by the Pope and the Easter Bunny and the Good Ship Lollipop and by their mothers. But here are some problems:

 

                      (1)     The sample was the smallest that is accepted for a nation-wide assessment of opinion.  It was slightly over 800, while most agencies try to use at least 1,300 on upwards of 2,500.

 

                    (2)     Basic filtering questions were not asked.   Normally, at a minimum, the potential respondent is asked (a)   Are you a registered voter  (b) Did you vote in the last presidential elections, and if so, would your tell us your preference in that election.  This sample included...."all adults".

 

                     (3)     The question, "With which party do you identify yourself, if any?   Democrat, Republican, or Independent?"  was not asked until the interview was over.    This was after the following question....

 

                    (4)      To whom do you assign the blame for the Government shutdown and the budget impasse?

 

                     (5)       This part is critical, because it allows the questioner to subjectively throw the response form into which pile he/she wishes in terms of filling his quota of desired responses.  And, as it worked out, the company wants to say the responses came out naturally as 43% Democrat, 32% Republican, and 25% Independent.    Well, Gringo Viejo, just why is that so interesting?  Huh?   Huh?

     It is because that just happens to be the division of percentages that had been proposed as a correct sample division between the parties.   Advantage, 11% to the Socialist Democrat Workers' Party.  It shows that the Big Business swells and the media people and popular culture people had devised a poll that would have to reflect the outcome that was desired by the people doing the poll.  

 

                  (6)      And then finally, it just turned out that in the sample there just happened to be 20% of the respondents were government employees.   And, not just government employees, but union thug, central government employees.  They also failed to point out that a majority of the Republicans surveyed were very disappointed with the Republicans performance, because they had not been bombastic and aggressive enough.

 

 

THE LIBERTY AMENDMENTS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Two Choices What is there to say that hasn't been said? What can be said that will make a difference? There probably is no magic word or words, at least not by this writer, or not by any other among us, those who care so strongly about the truth of God and the rights he gives us as expressed in the United States Constitution. As was expressed by my very good friend, El Gringo Viejo, those who stood up for the Founders and Fathers of the United States should be given all the credit for trying to make the point if not the difference that could have slowed the momentum of the progressive Marxist march toward total destruction of the way of life we have taken for granted. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Louis Gohmert, Dr. Ben Carson and several others showed character in support of and dedication to the liberty that is at stake because of Obama and his signature legislation, Obamacare. We have to stand with these brave men if we are to survive as freemen. Under no circumstances should we abandon the polls. We have to elect more men like these; however, that in itself will not stop the progressives from reeking havoc on the Constitution. The 17% of the government shutdown over a resolution out of the House of Representative that would have fully funded the government sans Obamacare was denied by Harry Reid and President Obama ostensibly to keep the country from "being held hostage" by the Tea Party. In reality it was a test of wills, an attempt to intimidate and break the will of the majority of Americans who detest the Obamacare atrocity. What did they choose to display as a result of the shutdown? They closed national parks and memorials to Veterans, many of those on private property or built by private funds. They also threatened disability pay-checks for Veterans. The media went all in to make this arbitrary choice of closures appear as painful as possible. There are two potential choices available to the population to preserve the Republic and the Constitution and/or our individual liberty and security. The first choice is to preserve the Constitution and the United States. The second choice is to separate by state from the Union. In order to restore the Constitution as it was intended by the framers we need to look at what has happened. The position we find ourselves in now is a Congress divided and a radical for President. The House of Representatives are elected by the people. The House is responsible to the people of the states locally precinct by precinct. Our House today is Republican and mostly conservative due to the majority of the population who rejected progressivism and Obamacare in the election of 2010. The Senate was originally elected by the state legislatures and were responsible to represent the states equally having two Senators from each state. But, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution changed the way Senators were elected from being chosen by the legislature to being elected directly by the people of the state. The impact of this took away the representation of the states in the United States Congress. Therefore, the Senators feel little or no responsibility to the states from which they are elected. So, we have a Senate and a President that are aligned against conservatism and the Constitution. That being the case, there is no way Americans will have a voice as long as Progressives are in control of the government. They will only grow stronger as they can purchase elections with free stuff. As Obamacare gets installed and accepted there is little chance the government will observe the Constitution. They will continue to legislatively, judicially, and by executive order rewrite the Constitution until we are no longer a Constitutional republic. Still considering the first choice, and knowing where we are, we need to understand what we can do to return to what the founders intended and restore the Constitution. There is an important writing by Mark Levin, The Liberty Amendments, which spells out the problems and possible practical answers. He explains that the Constitution needs to be amended, not reconstructed, to reinforce the original intent. The way to do this is by the Fifth Amendment. By this amendment there are two ways to do it. All amendments to date have been offered and approved by the Congress. That is one of the ways it can be amended. As long as the Congress proposes and approves them, there is no possibility for positive reform, only further rewriting, defamation, and destruction of our fundamental document. However, there is another way to amend the Constitution by the states and the people of the states spelled out in the Fifth Amendment. This method has rarely been attempted and little considered. This way the state legislatures can propose amendments as follows: "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, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." Even though this method has never been used it is a very valid way to circumvent the federal government in the amendment process. The Congress or the President cannot prevent, change, or alter this process. They have no say whatsoever! In his book, Mark lays out possible amendments that will strengthen the Constitution to bring us back to the fundamentals intended by the framers. We will not try to rewrite his book here but his suggested amendments would be: 1) Term Limits 2) Repealing the 17th Amendment 3) Restoring the Judiciary to its proper role 4) Limiting Taxation and Spending 5) Limiting bureaucracy 6) Defining the Commerce Clause 7) Limiting Federal power to take private property 8) Allowing State Legislature to Amend the Constitution 9) State Authority to Override Congress 10) Protecting the Vote These amendments can be seen as summarized at Liberty Amendments Summary. The second choice for Americans to be free of this progressively Marxist/Socialist society is for the states to individually secede from the Union as desired. We will not go into the process in this writing but it is almost a last resort. To secede is an individual state prerogative and process. It would necessarily be a hugely traumatic event with so many considerations and preparations that the result could end in an American civil war not unlike the first one. The economics and ties the states have to the Federal government and interstate relationships would make this choice almost impossible. We did say "almost" but what cost is there for liberty? "Give me Liberty or give me death" (attributed to Patrick Henry at the Virginia Convention of 1775). We will certainly have more to say about secession at a later time. In conclusion it is the opinion of this writer that the only right and real solution to restore the constitution is in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Mark Levin has marked a path. It is up to us to proceed. How many of you are willing to work on this? How many of you will talk to everyone you know about the Fifth Amendment, whether they want to hear it or not? How many of you will educate yourselves on this one really possible way off this mortally destructive path? If you have any kind of communication ability i.e. web sites, email, telephone contacts, letter writing, any social skills at all. Contact your state legislatures any way possible and inform them about the Fifth Amendment, read the book The Liberty Amendments and pass it on to others. If you can afford at least one extra copy give it away for Christmas or any other occasion as a gift. It is available at most book stores, public libraries, and electronic media. It is cheap! It will be one of the best gifts one can give. There has to be a surge by conservatives and the Tea Party to make this work. It will not be easy. We need 34 states to convene and coordinate the amendments. We have 30 states now that have Republican Governors. There are more that have Republican legislatures either part or in full. The possibilities are in our favor if we only communicate. We have to prevail. If we cannot strengthen the Constitution to rid ourselves of this insanity then it is time to consider secession.      EL ZORRO     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tired of It! If you dish it out...see if you can take this, Obsolete, Politically Correct Media!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ku Klux Klan members march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. in 1928.   They are marching behind an American Flag.

  Should that emblem be cast away as well,
 as a nostalgic remnant of identity?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Founded in 1915 and inspired by the Reconstruction-era organization of the same name, the second Ku Klux Klan shared with its nineteenth-century namesake a deep racism, a fascination with mystical regalia, and a willingness to use violence to silence its foes. It also professed anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism as strongly as it affirmed racism. The “secret” society had 3 million members during its heyday in the early 1920s; roughly half its members lived in metropolitan areas, and although it enjoyed considerable support in the South, the Klan was strongest in the Midwest and Southwest. In this photograph, forty thousand members of the Klan march down Pennsylvania Avenue on August 8, 1925. Organized to counter reports of faltering enrollment, this “konklave“ succeeded in attracting national attention but marked the peak of Klan power in the 1920s. (Library of Congress) 

     Notice that the article points out that the Klan was strongest in the North and to a lesser extent in the Southwest.  One might note that the Stars and Stripes were the banner of choice of the Ku Klux Klan.  Its strength in the South had ebbed substantially by this time.

     The Klan genuinely was the darling of the Progressives and Elite Marxists and Social engineers like Margaret Sanger's crowd, and the friends of dear Eleanor....Roosevelt that is.  Horrid people, just like Obama.   But, like Michelle said, ".....all this over a piece of cloth?"



 

Published by the New York Daily News. Cute, but no banana.   If anyone would like to review the marches of the Ku Klux Klan, for instance, during its resuscitation by the Progressive movement, the Communist Party, and the Margaret Sanger crowd it will be noticed that their great march back in the 1920s on the Mall in Washington, D.C. was accompanied by strictly American Flags.   Using the logic and whatever other thought process the Daily News employs, it could be imputed that  Old Glory is the banner of the Ku Klux Klan. 

 



Obsolete Media Outlet continues
to equivilate un-like things and
to tell the public what can be
said and not said by the un-
washed provincial class.

 

 

      El Gringo Viejo will not impute anything.   He will simply state that the Daily News is drawing its own picture which pleases them.  It makes them feel superior.  In their ignorance of the facts and their certainty that their illogic will lead them to the Truth, no matter how false it is, they are content that they are superior to the rubes in fly-over country.  They are certainly superior to the hicks who think that governments damage their nations when they run deficits to the point that, one day, everyone wakes up in a country with more than 17,000,000,000,000 greenback, Yankee dollars worth of Central Government debt.

 

 

 

A series of quick truths follows.

 

    The States of the Confederacy, with all of its foibles and weaknesses, contributed more soldiers to the Wars against Spain, Germany, and the Axis powers than any other section of the re-established American union.   Both of the most decorated soldiers from the two World Wars came from Confederate States.   Sergeant Alvin York from a place not far from my mother's home area in Tennessee, and Lieutenant Audie Murphy (battlefield commission) from the Republic of Texas.   This statement takes nothing away from the other Regions of the American Union nor from those from those areas who served nobly and honourably.

 

     The Swaztika...an ancient artistic design employed by many and diverse cultures throughout the Earth....was usually associated with the Divine or Cosmic or Natural ordering of forces affecting the Planet.   It was employed by a group of madmen and a willing Nation of incredibly intelligent and incredibly gullible and stupid people.   It was adopted by a people who seemed to be willing to vote like stupid, mentally defective, self-centred dolts who believed in undefined Hope and Change as a national industrial policy.  They fell for the seduction of free everything and the promise of the Glory of the National Socialist Democratic Workers' Party paradise.  Ah!  Socialism; under any configuration it always winds up making a one-point landing shortly after take-off.

     Abraham Lincoln chose to make a stand to keep the Union together.  In that the northern part of that Union was composed of people who had no stain upon their soul and who could judge the nature and inner beliefs and understandings of another group due to the superiority of the Northern people over any other, there was a War Between the States to settle the issue that northern people were and are better than Southern people.

     Abraham Lincoln made it clear that he "....in no wise would ever say that the black man is in any way equal to the white man."    He also stated and/or wrote on several occasions that if he could save the Union by maintaining slavery he would do that, and that if he could save the Union by abolishing slavery, he would do that.   He also pointed out that once the War could be terminated favourably for the Union, it would supply a good number of Negroes to work in the establishment of a Transoceanic Canal in either Nicaragua or Panama, since the Negro was better suited to that climate and the kind of work that would have to be done.

     Abraham Lincoln knew that that within a generation or a generation and a half, mechanisation would render the "peculiar institution" in the Southern States obsolete.  He also had to have known that manumission was certainly a better path to social and cultural solidity of the Negro race in America.   Manumission always meant that that some stuffy old White man/woman had well determined that that particular Black man....who was actually owned by that White man / woman....had been established as a true person and worthy of acceptance as a sovereign in a Republic.  It showed that there was very reasonable probability that the Black man being manumitted was skilled and probably literate to some degree, and that he had a Faith in Providence and had proven responsibility and truthfulness in his dealings.   Such process of manumission also pertained to Black women, depending upon the White owners' discretion.  It was a cumbersome, subjective procedure but manumission was valued much more than emancipation, because the process of emancipation was impersonal and guaranteed by no one.  It was guaranteed by no process that could be readily understood by White man or Black at the time that emancipation was imposed.

     True it should be better to be a free man than a slave, but what if the Black man really, really, really were not ready to face the slippery situations in Southern AND Northern society that were presented by White folks of low degree or ill motive?   In the metropoli of the South, fully one-third of all the skilled tradesmen in 1860....shortly before the outbreak of the War Between the States.....were Black.   Literacy in many areas of the Black folks was at or near the levels of the White folks.  Laws against the teaching of reading, writing, and ciphering to Negro children were simply disregarded in most places, as were laws requiring a manumitted Negro to evacuate the State of his residence at the time of manumission.   It was a stupid law, because the manumitted Negro was, by definition, some kind of yeoman and/or gentleman and a positive feature within the community where he/she was manumitted.

Harriet Beecher Stowe



Harriet Beecher Stowe
as Pocahontas playing
Elizabeth "Fibbing
 Fawn" Warren

     Revisiting the issue of tradesmen, it is well to point out that the status of such individuals was enhanced because of the fact that they were frequently free-standing small businesses, with an employee or perhaps even several.   The normal Yankee is frequently surprised to learn that the fourth biggest owner of slaves in the late 1850s was, in fact, a black man.

     One of the great ironies of the period that marked the beginning of hostilities between the North and the South was that episode in Lower Manhattan wherein a Negro preacher was on a street-corner delivering a soap-box speech.   He was exhorting the gathering to oppose the coming War, and to understand that the Negro situation in the South was not fairly depicted in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.   He was essentially saying that the Simple Truth was not, at times, the Truth, the Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.

    The fine points of his argument were lost when the Irish immigrants who were being conscripted hand-over-fist to go fight a War for a Union about which they knew nothing,  decided to silence the Preacher Man by taking him to a lamp-post and hanging him.  So much for racial tolerance north of the Mason - Dixon.   And yes, he died there in Manhattan that day.  Among the many ironies that day was that he was preaching in favour of what the Irish themselves were supporting during those dark hours.

     To this writer, the Confederate reliquary....be it banners, flags, tombstones, genealogies, stories/tales/lore about the War or just life in the South....is something that fascinates and entertains.   It also instructs, because this Writer knows what and who is good and what and who is bad.  We know that the entire ill of the present American Union, especially the ills suffered by Black people and White people and all the other sorts of people, was imposed upon us by Urban, White liberals and Marxists, frequently people of the Social Register who like to run our lives and "provide free things" for us.

Weary Willy
 made famous by Emmett
Kelly, America's most
recognised and beloved
clown.  He represented
the pathos of and a bit
of what little humour
could be made of the
'Hobos of the
 Depression.

    On the side-bar of this same blog, one of the things this writer lists as bad and disliked is the Ku Klux Klan.   Nathan Bedford Forrest, the most defamed Southern field commander (major general) was also, according to no less an authority than Robert Edward Lee, the best strategist and tactician of the War.   He established the Ku Klux Klan after the War as a Southern Veterans' Fraternity.  When carpetbaggers and scallywags began to use it to frighten and abuse Negroes...as well as white people who just wanted order.....he ordered it closed down.   He famously said, "There is no need to deal with the Black Man in this manner".   The only ones who gained, of course, from the excesses of the early Klan were the Reconstruction politicians....many of whom were recently arrived from the North. 

     If it comforts the effete and conceited self-endowed liberals in New York to somehow equivilate the ill-presented Confederate battle flag (it was square, not rectangular) or the image of a Red Man as a business trademark with the National Socialist emblem, that is fine.   It is also inaccurate.  Red Man with a red skin called the White Man with pale skin....paleface, white-eyes, gold hair, and several other things that cannot be mentioned here.  No offense taken.  There is nothing pejorative or insulting per se about using the term Red Skin, unless some pinky-pants liberal with conscience problems decides one day to deign it so.   Mon Dieu!   Do we have to apologise for calling a Cop something like ''Copper" .   Has the population become so narcissistic that each can demand that the entirety of the rest of the population not say "Hebe" for Hebrew, or Tex for a guy from Texas, or Brit for a guy from Great Britian, or Aussie.....and all that Mick ever meant was that the Irish were Mc while the Scot were generally Mac....so you had Mick and Mack.   And then, imagine the Brooklyn Dodgers, easily the most beloved team in Baseball...the Yankees being the most admire (Imagine that I was 16 years old before I learned that damnedyankees was two words)....but going back to the Dodgers, their nickname was "Da Bums" and their anthropomorphic emblem was Emmett Kelley.....America's favourite Clown for many decades.

 

El Gringo Viejo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gratitude: Attention, Louis Gohmert, Dr. Carson, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee

Ted Cruz
United States Senator
Republic of Texas



 We extend here an expression of gratitude for the efforts of these men and others not pictured who stood against the extension of debt against the interests of our children, grandchildren, and beyond.   Against all ridicule and unfair innuendo, they stood fast and demonstrated  the errors, deficiencies, and mistakes that the present administration and the Republican "stalwarts" are making while they make things convenient for themselves and disastrous for the productive sectors of American public.

 





 

Mike Lee

United States Senator

Utah



Dr, Ben Carson

Director of Pediatric
 Neurosurgery (Emeritus)
Johns Hopkins Hospital

 author and renowned

commentator

 

    The people who detract from the fact that there is certain national devastation awaiting those who think that we can continue to spend three and take in two in terms of the national exchequer are fools piloting a ship in the iceberg field with their eyes closed at midnight.

    The time for being "reasonable" and bi-partisan has long passed.   We are now in a debt morass that will soon bring a crisis that will mirror the Weimar Republic's experience with creative financing of national budgets.   Argentina will collapse soon, along with Venezuela in terms of the value of their currencies.  Brazil will follow.   The error?   Spending more than that which is taken in. Buying fealty of the "impoverished masses" with money that is freshly printed to be thrown at those who become accustomed to being cared for, however minimally.

     The Obama siren song of Free Medical Service brought to us by the Obama Socialised Medicine Initiative will soon be recognised as an administrative debacle forced upon a gullible populace by deranged National Socialist control freaks.  Our pleasantly to cumbersome medical system will be supplanted by an "efficient system" that will be ten times more cumbersome and one hundred times more inefficient.

     We laud and congratulate these men and the other personalities who supported them.  The thinking people support them.  The people who dream of some magic system that provides "free medical" will be waking up from their trances when the Pied Piper stops playing and they feel the shackles around their souls.  For that is the issue.  To be free and a son of Divine Providence  or to be a slave and the serf beholden to one's betters, grovelling for the next crumb or favour.



Louis Gohmert
Representative,
 Texas Ist District
United States House of
Representatives



 





      As stated by one more eloquent than this participant in life, we ask:   "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
      If life and liberty are granted El Gringo Viejo a little longer, it will be to aid to the degree possible in this fight, while he also persists in his support for an amicable withdrawal of thr Republic of Texas from what must be considered at this point a nation no longer capable of self-government.

     The American Union seems reconciled to the comforts of free services from the central government and to the certain knowledge that money grows inside of ugly buildings in Washington, District of Columbia.  The nation concerns itself so much with the avoidance of saying one or another word that might somehow destroy the life of the hearer, when, day by every night, the slaughter of the spawn of the dependent reveals the true human cost of self-induced bondage.   I would prefer to spend my time edifying projects of good will and prosperity, and not the bondage of political correctness and the worry about people who wish to contaminate themselves with incurable medical conditions and addictions.

 

     If we can stand alone, as we should, as the Republic that we are, we could certainly learn from the mistakes of the list of nations that have turned themselves grey and devoid of imagination, that are full of degeneracy, graffiti, and indolence, and devoid of thoughts of liberty.

 

We leave the OROG to his/her peace and now retire to the kitchen to practice my alchemy.

El Gringo Viejo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   



The Fast and Furious Story Takes on More and More Life

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

These are stories that are known by those in the know and they are kept until well after Obama elections so that the American public cannot express disgust save by shaking the head and saying ,"God help us all."

     The number of people who were allowed to walk and conduct illicit business, ostensibly while coordinating with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives during the administration of Obama will never be known.  Some say that the Bush people lost five or six who disappeared into the cactus shroud, only to resurface later in some other part of Mexico, Latin-America, or even in the United States.  During this horrid presidency the number is measured by the scores.  The weaponry and explosives "lost" by the Obama people are implicated in the deaths of as many as 600 innocent men, women, and children along with various honest to somewhat honest cops, Army soldiers, and Naval Infantrymen.

     Now, even Columbia Broadcasting System will talk about it, but not the White House

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

CJNG Used "Grenade-Walkers" Against Police- 2 Years After Being Smuggled for CDS

Thursday, October 17, 2013
| Borderland Beat Reporter Chivis

Borderland Beat
 

Backstory:

The following is from WSJ report of September 2011:

Mexican authorities on Tuesday confirmed the capture of Jean Baptiste Kingery, an American citizen accused of smuggling grenades across the border to help arm drug cartels.

U.S. officials said earlier that Mr. Kingery had been arrested in late August at his home in Mazatlan, in the Pacific-coast state of Sinaloa, but Mexican police only confirmed the arrest Tuesday.

Mr. Kingery, from Arizona, allegedly purchased components to make hand grenades and other weapons in the U.S. and smuggled them across the border for use by the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico's major drug-smuggling outfits, Mexican officials said in a news release.

U.S. officials briefly had Mr. Kingery (at left) in custody in June 2010 but let him go after just a few hours, fueling an ongoing battle between prosecutors and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That followed a failed plan to use Mr. Kingery in a sting operation in early 2010.

The Justice Department and Congress are investigating the series of missteps in the case, which is similar to the botched "Fast and Furious" program that allowed suspected smugglers to buy thousands of U.S. firearms. The mistakes made in the Kingery case helped force the ouster last week of Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the ATF, and Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona, U.S. officials said.

Mexican officials said Mr. Kingery's arrest came after they broke up another grenade-smuggling ring in Baja California in April, which eventually led federal police to Mr. Kingery's hideout.

The following was reported today, this  from CBS:

CBS News has learned of a shocking link between a deadly drug cartel shootout with Mexican police last week and a controversial case in the U.S. The link is one of the grenades used in the violent fight, which killed three policemen and four cartel members and was captured on video by residents in the area.

According to a Justice Department Significant Incident Report (see as image below)  filed Tuesday and obtained by CBS News, evidence connects one of the grenades to Jean Baptiste Kingery, an alleged firearms trafficker U.S. officials allowed to operate for years without arresting despite significant evidence that he was moving massive amounts of grenade parts and ammunition to Mexico's ruthless drug cartels.

"Grenade-walking" part of "Gunwalking" scandal
New evidence in ATF's mysterious grenade smuggler case
Complete coverage of the gunwalking scandal

The gun battle took place last week in Guadalajara. Authorities say five members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel used at least nine firearms and ten hand grenades against Mexican police. If one of the grenades was supplied with the help of Kingery, as believed, it adds to the toll of lives taken with weapons trafficked by suspects U.S. officials watched but did not stop.

The Kingery case was overseen by the same Arizona U.S. Attorney and ATF office that let suspects traffic thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels in the operation dubbed Fast and Furious. The strategy was to try to get to the cartel kingpins, but it was halted after CBS News reported that Fast and Furious weapons were used by cartel thugs in the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on December 15, 2010. Weapons trafficked by other ATF suspects under surveillance were used two months later in the cartel murder of Immigration and Customs Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico on February 15, 2011.

Click to enlarge

On Wednesday, ATF told CBS News it has "no information" about the Kingery connection to last week's gun battle in Mexico.

As CBS News previously reported, documents show ATF began watching Kingery in "2004 related to AK47 purchases" he was believed to be trafficking to Mexico.

In 2009, ATF also learned Kingery was dealing in grenades; weapons of choice for Mexico's killer cartels. Documents show they developed a secret plan to let him smuggle parts to Mexico in early 2010 and follow him to his factory. Some ATF agents vehemently objected, worried that Kingery would disappear once he crossed the border into Mexico. That's exactly what happened.

Kingery resurfaced several months later in 2010, trying to smuggle a stash of grenade bodies and ammunition into Mexico, but was again let go when prosecutors allegedly said they couldn't build a good case. In 2011, Mexican authorities finally raided Kingery's factory and arrested him -- they say he confessed to teaching cartel members how to build grenades and convert semi-automatic weapons to automatic. The Justice Department has not provided an update on whether it's trying to extradite Kingery to the U.S., and an ATF spokesman said on Wednesday that he doesn't know the status of his case.

Sources:WSJ-CBS-DOJ

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

     In other films and pictures, El Gringo Viejo  noticed that the casings for many if not most of the hand grenades are Warsaw Pact era, probably originating in the Bulgarian or Polish black market, as are the guts in the brief depictions the OROG may be able to see in the various pictures.   Some of the shells are "pineapples", that are probably American or Red Chinese knock-offs. It seems  as if the "guts" are still Warsaw but modified to fit the "pineapples".

   Most of the already assembled grenades arrive in Mexico from trawlers that park about 20 miles off the Gulf Coast, and were shipped from cells within the Venezuelan Army.    The trawlers are off-loaded onto "pangas", a type of short distance fishing craft.  There are also erstwhile "militias" associated with the Venezuelan Army that are usually nothing more than "enforcers" for the government party or arms runners to the "resistencia" as manifested by the Frente Armada y Revolucionaria de Colombia, (FARC).  The weaponry and armaments are filtered through a conduit that originates in Eastern Europe or in Red China.

 

More Later.

 

El Gringo Viejo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~