why bring a "God Damn Gun" to a presidential event

[BigTime]

Chris Mathews has finally lost it.

On Tuesday's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Matthews' guest was William Kostric, the man who brought a gun earlier in the day to protest President Obama's health care town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Kostric was wearing a (legal) handgun strapped to his leg and holding a sign referencing this Jefferson quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

The segment grew more and more heated as Matthews repeatedly asked Kostric why he came to the meeting wearing a gun. "Well, why did you bring a gun to a Presidential event today?"

"That's not even a relevant question," Kostric said, shrugging. "The question is, why don't people bear arms these days."

"Okay, you bought a sign that said 'The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants' and you're carrying a god damn gun at a Presidential event. I think those things make people wonder what you're about."

Kostric for his part, was unrepentant, and maintained that he was there in a totally non-violent capacity. "No one from New Hampshire was alarmed. Maybe some of the people they bussed in from Massachusets were alarmed. But we're not really concerned about them."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_256952.html

[trish]

Kostric came off as a real idiot, probably because he is an idiot. Matthews was Matthews. Under the Bush administration, Kostrc wouldn't gotten within two kilometers of the President; not because of the gun, but because of the sign.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the health care system. But Kostric admits he went to the meeting to express his concern about the erosion of our constitutional rights. When asked which rights are being taken, Kostric said there was a whole litany of them. When asked to enumerate some of them, Kostric couldn't name one constitutional right that was endangered. Instead he complained incoherently about the bailouts of the banks and welfare.

When you go to a discussion with a firearm it sends the message, "Disagree with me and you'll get shot." The right doesn't want a discussion. They want to end discussion. "Hear my voice (and only my voice)."

When you attend a presidential event with a firearm, the secret service will assume you just might be there to assassinate the President. These assholes are out of their fucking minds!

[techi]

It's not difficult to find a crazy person in America. That would hardly be news except that mainstream media is on a right-wing nutjob kick. Mainstream media likes to avoid talking about serious issues so lone nutjobs make great filler content.

From what I read he was carrying the gun openly, not a difficult target for security to weed out so whatever.

Personaly I wish the media would focus more on the wacko's running the country rather that lone nutjobs.

If I was in the media I'd be asking Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers and Timmy Geithner:

1) Why the hell is the stock market going up in the middle of an economic disaster? Where is this money coming from? 401K contributions are way down because of layoffs, wage cuts and hour cutbacks. Most of the country is broke so who the hell is pumping all the money into the market?

2) Have the Federal Reserve and US Treasury been printing money and pumping it directly into the stock market? If so then that's massive welfare for the richest 0.1%.

The price earnings ratio of the S&P 500 has gone up from 116.205 to 143.95 in the last 3 months. That's just nuts. The S&P500 PE would be over 50 even if we "recovered" to where companies were earning money like they did at the height of the housing bubble.

Up until the end of the cold war the PE ratio of the S&P500 mostly bounced around between 10 and 20. Those were reasonable numbers that related to the underlying economic production. PE numbers like 50, 116 and 143 do not relate to any sense of economic reality. The media should be asking our leadership what the hell is going on.

If Bernanke, Summers and Geithner leave Wallstreet completely detached from the economy it will kill the country.

As for losses of civil rights I'd bring up Posse Comitatus (NORTHCOM) and Habius Corpus (preventive detention).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus

Those rights have been taken away because the establishment has stolen an incredibly large amount of money from the public and they are extremly scared we'll revolt.

[trish]

I agree, the last eight years have been witness to an erosion of our rights. But the point I was making above is this: the town meeting was convened to discuss the health care bill, not our constitutional rights. Kostric attended the meeting only in order to derail its purpose. He says that his purpose was to demonstrate against the draining away of our constitutional rights, which he evidently thinks has something to do with welfare queens and the economic bailout.

But if you think Habeas Corpus was suspended because the Bush administration feared a revolution, then you’re as nutty as Kostric and his commandant, Rush. That administration was blinded to the rights of our citizens by the rage it felt against Islamic fundamentalism and the threat it posed to U.S. petroleum interests. The events of 9/11 were just a beautifully coincidental excuse to set the stage for war. Habeas Corpus was used to keep “terrorist” detainees in captivity. At the time there was surely no danger of a citizen revolt, nor is there now, for that matter. It’s true that the war spending had put us into debt to the tune of several trillion dollars to China, but at the time of the suspension of Habeas Corpus no one suspected the future economic ramifications that would follow. No one was thinking, “The citizens are going to revolt when they find out how much money we spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.”

I agree that Chris Matthews, and the media in general, are too easily manipulated. Mostly they’re allowing themselves to be manipulated by Fox “News” and their right wing paramours. The government doesn’t do such a good job at manipulation.

By all means, someone should be asking the questions you posed and others of Bernanke et.al. Independent economists seem to disagree with your assessment that we’re in the middle of a disaster. Most are saying we were at the brink and backed away. Personally, I don’t feel competent to judge the state of our current economy. So yes, Matthews and others should be asking real questions of people in power, and stop letting himself be distracted by the organized and crazy tactics of right wing nut jobs which are solely designed to distract!

[hippifried]

1) Why the hell is the stock market going up in the middle of an economic disaster? Where is this money coming from? 401K contributions are way down because of layoffs, wage cuts and hour cutbacks. Most of the country is broke so who the hell is pumping all the money into the market?

Because the stock market is the last indicator on the way down & the first indicator on the way up. Wages & employment are the opposite. First down & last up. The money never left the market. It just got tangled up & frozen in all the bank & insurance fiasco. You don't pump money in. You just break the log jam so it can flow. Kind of like a ketchup bottle.

As for losses of civil rights I'd bring up Posse Comitatus (NORTHCOM) and Habius Corpus (preventive detention).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus

Those rights have been taken away because the establishment has stolen an incredibly large amount of money from the public and they are extremly scared we'll revolt.

Nah. Habeas is still intact. The SCOTUS even upheld habeas on Guantanamo. They did it for basically the same reason that they slapped down Lincoln when he suspended habeas during the southern rebellion. It's not a power of the President, & requires an act of Congress. It just takes a while for SCOTUS to get to it. What, 6 years for Guantanamo? & by the time they got to Lincoln, the southern rebels had been bitchslapped & it was a moot point. He might have already been dead.
(Aside from that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?)

The Posse Comitatus Act isn't in the Constitution, & was virtually gutted in a pentagon appropriations bill in 2006. These clowns let New Orleans drown so they could get the military back into domestic law enforcement. They pushed the myth that they couldn't help because of the act, but there was never anything in there prohibiting the military from rendering humanitarian aid. The Gulf Coast didn't need martial law. They needed helicopters, inflatable boats, clean drinking water, & electrical power. All of which was available from the navy ships that followed the storm in & were parked right off shore. There's precident. In the '70s or '80s, a typhoon decimated power generation in Honolulu. A nuclear submarine in the vicinity rolled into the harbor & they basically ran a giant extension cord to the city so they could plug in. They had power to all vital services the next day. Anyway, the 2006 legislation, except for the appropriation itself, was completely repealed last year. Posse Comitatus is fully intact again.

There's not going to be a revolt. We get to virtually replace the government every 2 years if we so choose. The guy with the gun was just another idiot Pauline who had no clue what he was pissed off about. He wasn't getting inside the building or anywhere near the President with that gun, but the secret service didn't hassle him at all. It was just the TV yokels that got worked up, & the whole point of the Presidential appearance got lost in the BS, as usual. Gun guy wins.

[trish]

1) Why the hell is the stock market going up in the middle of an economic disaster? Where is this money coming from? 401K contributions are way down because of layoffs, wage cuts and hour cutbacks. Most of the country is broke so who the hell is pumping all the money into the market?

Because the stock market is the last indicator on the way down & the first indicator on the way up. Wages & employment are the opposite. First down & last up. The money never left the market. It just got tangled up & frozen in all the bank & insurance fiasco. You don't pump money in. You just break the log jam so it can flow. Kind of like a ketchup bottle.

Nicely done hippifried. Thank you.

[hippifried]

You're welcome.

One more point about the gun guy:
He didn't do anything. He was protesting. He wasn't being confrontational at all. He's a nut, but this is America. You're allowed to be a nut. You're allowed to be an asshole. There were lots of people protesting. Lots of loud & obnoxious ones. The only reason this guy was singled out at all was because he was strapped, & that's allowed too. Chris Matthews just handed over the podium to that asshole Wayne LaPierre.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with the NRA per se'. I grew up in an NRA household. I took the classes. I own guns. I'm ambivalent about last year's SCOTUS ruling on the Second Amendment. I'm a little shaky on the rush for concealed carry, but I have no problem with open carry. I'm skeptical of those who claim they keep an arsenal at home to protect themselves from burglers & home invasions, but I'm comfortable with an armed populace. I don't hunt anymore because I'm old & don't like packing Bambi out of the wilderness, but I still like to go out with friends to stalk & kill the mighty beer can.

My entire gripe with Wayne LaPierre is that he took the only legitimate organization that was dedicated to the safe use & manufacture of firearms, & lobbying on behalf of enthusiasts, & turned them into a right wing lunatic fringe group. They've lost their credibility & there's nobody else. Even President George H W Bush very publicly renounced his lifelong membership in the NRA over the antics & craziness of Wayne LaPierre. This jackoff handed the keys to the castle over to the klan/nazis & paranoid fruitcakes. "...From my cold dead hands..." was never the slogan or motto of the NRA. Now everybody who owns a gun of any kind or for any reason is either seen as a criminal or some kind of whack job. This clown just pisses me off to no end, & he's still there, pulling the strings behind all the various figureheads who supposedly but don't really lead the organization. If ever somebody deserved to be shot...

Ok. Rant over. I guess that was more than one point. Oh well.

[techi]

But if you think Habeas Corpus was suspended because the Bush administration feared a revolution, then you’re as nutty as Kostric and his commandant, Rush. That administration was blinded to the rights of our citizens by the rage it felt against Islamic fundamentalism and the threat it posed to U.S. petroleum interests. The events of 9/11 were just a beautifully coincidental excuse to set the stage for war. Habeas Corpus was used to keep “terrorist” detainees in captivity. At the time there was surely no danger of a citizen revolt, nor is there now, for that matter.

Attacks on Posse Comitatus and Habius Corpus by the Bush Admin were a power/control grab to reshape the power of the executive(President). An excuse is given to obtain the power and then it ends up being used for other purposes.

The primary reason given to justify putting Northcom on active duty was to help out with Katrina type situations. But as we've since learned, Cheney has had other idea's regarding the use of active duty troops.

A more obvious example outside of Posse&Habius might be our terror watch list. It's stated purpose at the time was to track terrorists yet what has it morphed into? A one million+ name monster. Do we really have one million+ potential terrorists in this country? I think not. The reason that the list is so long is that federal authorities have been putting anyone on the list that happens to piss them off. Abortion protestors, anti-war protestors etc...
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/w...stcounter.html

Am I crazy to think that the Bush administration was concerned that there'd be riots over the financial meltdown and that they planned on using the US military to restore law and order on US soil? How can it be crazy to think that when that's exactly what they planned:
Paulson reveals US concerns of breakdown in law and order
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...r-1750076.html

Keep in mind, I'm not saying we are about to riot/revolt etc... I'm just saying that is one thing that establishment is extremely scared of. And I can understand why they are scared, they know far better than the public exactly what it is that they have done.

It’s true that the war spending had put us into debt to the tune of several trillion dollars to China, but at the time of the suspension of Habeas Corpus no one suspected the future economic ramifications that would follow. No one was thinking, “The citizens are going to revolt when they find out how much money we spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.”

Oh, I think this has very little to do with war costs and far more to do with the bubble economy which Alan Greenspan was running. 3 Trillion in war costs is a huge waste of money but it's not all that big compared to the overall bubble economy collapse.

U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion, Treasury Inspector General Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aQEI97EY.fs0
The $23.7 Trillion isn't just straight giveaways, there are credit lines and loan guarantees counted in that. We'll get some of that back but still... 23.7 Trillion puts some perspective on how far the financial system was over leveraged.

By all means, someone should be asking the questions you posed and others of Bernanke et.al. Independent economists seem to disagree with your assessment that we’re in the middle of a disaster. Most are saying we were at the brink and backed away. Personally, I don’t feel competent to judge the state of our current economy.

Heh, ya, everyone has thier favorite economists. I mostly pay attention to the progressive economists as opposed to the behavioralists, austrian school or chicago boys. People like James Galbraith, Dean Baker, William Black, Michael Hudson.

In general, I view a jobless recovery as no recovery at all.

[q1a2z3]

You're welcome.

One more point about the gun guy:
He didn't do anything. He was protesting. He wasn't being confrontational at all. He's a nut, but this is America. You're allowed to be a nut. You're allowed to be an asshole. There were lots of people protesting. Lots of loud & obnoxious ones. The only reason this guy was singled out at all was because he was strapped, & that's allowed too. Chris Matthews just handed over the podium to that asshole Wayne LaPierre.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with the NRA per se'. I grew up in an NRA household. I took the classes. I own guns. I'm ambivalent about last year's SCOTUS ruling on the Second Amendment. I'm a little shaky on the rush for concealed carry, but I have no problem with open carry. I'm skeptical of those who claim they keep an arsenal at home to protect themselves from burglers & home invasions, but I'm comfortable with an armed populace. I don't hunt anymore because I'm old & don't like packing Bambi out of the wilderness, but I still like to go out with friends to stalk & kill the mighty beer can.

My entire gripe with Wayne LaPierre is that he took the only legitimate organization that was dedicated to the safe use & manufacture of firearms, & lobbying on behalf of enthusiasts, & turned them into a right wing lunatic fringe group. They've lost their credibility & there's nobody else. Even President George H W Bush very publicly renounced his lifelong membership in the NRA over the antics & craziness of Wayne LaPierre. This jackoff handed the keys to the castle over to the klan/nazis & paranoid fruitcakes. "...From my cold dead hands..." was never the slogan or motto of the NRA. Now everybody who owns a gun of any kind or for any reason is either seen as a criminal or some kind of whack job. This clown just pisses me off to no end, & he's still there, pulling the strings behind all the various figureheads who supposedly but don't really lead the organization. If ever somebody deserved to be shot...

Ok. Rant over. I guess that was more than one point. Oh well.

You guys really need to get a hold on reality.

The second amendment is not for sportsmen. It has two major reasons for existence:

1. If the government gets insane (like it is under obama) the second amendment is there to allow the people to terminate the government and start over. I can hear you guys getting pissed about this, but go read some quotes from Lincoln:

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it. "

The Declaration of Independence says:

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,"

2. The right to bare arms is allowed so that the people can self-train to be part of the army, and do other stuff that requires a weapon. When the country was started every man who had a weapon was needed for the fight against England. According to the constitution I should be able to own an aircraft carrier, F-18s and some nuclear cruise missiles. These are arms. Up until 1933 we could all own a Thompson machine gun. The politicians started getting scared and we let them get away with stupid decisions in 1939 SC.

obama takes this to a new level with his call to create a domestic defense force (aka ACORN) than rivals the strength of our military. You can see the video on youtube. Listening to a conservative talk show the other day several members of our military said that our government would have to take away their arms before they would let the government take away the arms of the people. Zelaya could have a roommate from the way this talk show sounded. obama would have to cut the military budget in half to do this. I hope the section 31 guys in our military are planning for this. Sounds like treason to me.


Whether you agree with this or not you must either have a revolution in America or you must have a constitutional convention to change the constitution. Of course the left has been getting lefties appointed to the SC and other courts over the years. Of course the republicans don't care because they are only interested in money and nothing else. Businesses should have been taking the government to court for years over crazy social and tax laws. I remember when Shell Oil fired a homo for using the xerox at work for printing up fliers for a large scale fudge packing party. Now they hand out awards for the recreational colon employee who exceeded a sales goal. They go from supporting morality to embracing perversion - butt they are making lots of money for the stockholders.

obama wants to enslave America be destroying its economy - American business assholes stand there and say how much chain do the gulags need boss? Can we interest you in the latest torture tools? These are really cheap in bulk. Were having a sale on cyclon-B it works great on conservatives. Yes sir, we business assholes have ethics but no morals !!! I'd kick out multinational companies in a heart beat.

What conservatives want is states to control there own destiny. Texas can have lean budgets, buy one-way airplane tickets for the homeless and let them fly to New York and Los Angeles - if they decide to get on the plane that is. Bloomberg was suggesting this idea the other day. We can pass a law that prevents most abortions here and no taxpayer funded abortions. We can allow prayer in the classroom - it would be for everyone. Even the atheist kid could pray to nothing. We could teach a religions around the world class so kids get to learn about all the religions - but Charles Mansonism would not be in the list. We can get taxes really low and people can enjoy the fruits of their labor - instead of being taxed and having to labor for "fruits" like those idiots in California. You just know that single payer deathcare will cover sex change nightmare surgery for obamas favorite class of nuts.

Texas and other southern states need to stop accepting all federal money. They can then kill off lots of crazy federal red tape (unfunded mandates) and most of all refuse to implement the obama deathcare system. The governor should activate the national guard and tell them to ignore obama. If several other states do the same obama and his goons have to back down. The 55 MPH speed limit died because states had the balls to tell father federal government to fuck off.

The socialist states could have a tax raising on their population weekly and they could do all kinds of feel good nonsense like Earth day and global warming -duck and cover drills, they could have a victim of the week club and celebrate the woman who recently had an abortion by publishing it in the newspaper (would they include a picture of the fetus?) - just like gay marriages. Most of all they could send undocumented moonbats to the southern states to work and send the money back to California to help pay their taxes.


All I can say is violence is the ultimate authority. Some will say violence never solved anything - I would suggest asking the city fathers of Hiroshima - that's right they are dead.


Just remember there were plenty of people sitting around in 1770 saying, revolution? God that can't happen! The King won't let it happen. The King was way wrong! Many of us will not stand by and become slaves. Only one third of the people wanted to tell King George to take a hike. We got rid of him. The states exist to support many social experiments. The left read 1984 and wants it really bad. I just hope to live long enough to see one lefty being used as spare parts for another more important lefty. I want all government, local, city, state and federal to fit inside a 10% window of my salary - everyone's salary. When the taxpayer is doing well so will the government. If I am doing bad so will the government. If someone wants to make a donation to a government program let them do it. I will give mine to a Christian charity. Tax money should never travel to some higher government entity and then back to where it started. The money should have stayed local to begin with.

Don't shoot anyone Hippi...

[techi]

Because the stock market is the last indicator on the way down & the first indicator on the way up. Wages & employment are the opposite. First down & last up. The money never left the market. It just got tangled up & frozen in all the bank & insurance fiasco. You don't pump money in. You just break the log jam so it can flow. Kind of like a ketchup bottle.

If you want to liken the stock market to a ketchup bottle then it's a 20 ounce ketchup bottle with over 50 ounces of ketchup crammed into it and someone has thier finger on the lid.

PE's much above 20 simply do not make any sense for large cap companies. The PE of S&P 500 is currently at 146, and once corporate earnings recover to the best they've EVER been then the PE will drop to a mere 50. We're gonna return to an equilibrium of 20 ounces of ketchup in the bottle, one way or another. It can be fixed via the market tanking, via inflation or by an extremely long period of absolute market stagnation.

There's not going to be a revolt. We get to virtually replace the government every 2 years if we so choose.

We're talking about the Bush admin fearing one, not us fearing one.

Personally I can see us having law&order issues if problems continue to get worse and fresh Congress's continue to fail at addressing the issues. It all depends on how bad they let things get and it's all very much avoidable if we change course on financial and economic policy.