Will Ron Paul win more delegates this week than Gingrich, Santorum?

Via The Battle of Atlanta

his week, Ron Paul is likely to win more delegates to the 2012 GOP convention than either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. In fact, he’s likely to win more delegates than Gingrich and Santorum combined.

“Hold it”, you’re saying, “How can that be? Rep. Paul’s polling in single digits in Florida. He’s going to finish behind Gingrich and Santorum, as well as Mitt Romney, in Tuesday’s Florida primary. How can that translate into beating any of his rivals at all?”

We’ll tell you how – because he’s not winning those delegates in Florida. He’s winning, or will probably win, at least a few delegates in Maine.

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Arizona governor signs bill to authorize state guard

Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill authorizing creation of a state guard.

That's a militia force that could be mobilized if the National Guard is unavailable or "for any reason" considered necessary by the governor.

Spokesman Matt Benson did not immediately return a call for comment on whether Brewer plans to create the force.

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Where Does the Second Amendment Apply?

The Independent Institute

Does the Second Amendment right to “bear arms” apply outside of the home? You would be mistaken if you thought that the Supreme Court has clearly settled the matter. It has not. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Court decided that the Second Amendment protected an individual right, and in McDonald v. Chicago (2010), it decided that Second Amendment rights could be enforced against state and local governments. However, the issue of whether those rights apply outside the home was not explicitly addressed by the Supreme Court—at least that’s the thinking in the nation’s lower courts.

The Fourth Circuit’s decision United States v. Masciandaro (2011) illustrates how the lower courts view the matter. The panel’s opinion issued two different views on the question. On the one hand, Judge Wilkinson said that the Supreme Court would have to state more explicitly whether the Second Amendment applies outside the home; on the other hand, Judge Niemeyer argued there is a “plausible reading” of Heller that the Second Amendment does apply outside the home. This decision—with its dueling view of where exactly Second Amendment rights apply—is entirely unsatisfactory, according to Independent Institute Research Fellow Stephen Halbrook.

“The state courts were well aware of the meaning of the right to ‘bear arms’ long before the Supreme Court decided Heller and McDonald,” Halbrook writes in the Wake Forest Law Review. “Just to cite a decision rendered in a state in the Fourth Circuit, the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1921 invalidated a ban on carrying handguns outside the home.... To the extent that the majority in Masciandaro eschewed ruling on—indeed, even recognizing—the right to ‘bear arms’ pending further explicit guidance from the Supreme Court, the Fourth Circuit missed an opportunity to contribute to this jurisprudence.”

No Right to “Bear Arms”? A Critical Analysis of United States v. Masciandaro, by Stephen P. Halbrook (The Wake Forest Law Review, 12/16/11)

Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, by Stephen P. Halbrook

The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms, by Stephen P. Halbrook

That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, by Stephen P. Halbrook

That The Union Not Be Abandoned To Its Enemies

Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia wanted to hold out against secession after Lincoln's election, and rightfully labeled the purely sectional Republican party as disunionist and an enemy of the Constitution. He properly reasoned that if Andrew Jackson could coerce South Carolina for nullification, why not coerce the guilty Northern States who nullified the federal fugitive slave law?

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"


"On the fifteenth of November (1860), following (Howell) Cobb, (Robert) Toombs and (Alexander H.) Stephens, Hill appeared before the Assembly and made an eloquent argument against immediate secession or any precipitate action. The speech is primarily a closely reasoned appeal for moderation and a plea that passion and prejudices be discarded in the face of the imminent crisis.

"What are our grievances?" asks Hill; and then he proceeds to enumerate them, outlining the discriminatory policies and propaganda of the Republican party and laying special emphasis on the nugatory action of various free-State legislatures, affecting the fugitive slave laws. Hill represents the Republican party as the really disunionist party, and quotes from various abolitionists who damn the Union and Constitution because they permit slavery. The grievances, then, are plain, and agreed of all Southern men.

Moreover, Hill believes the redress of grievances is not so hopeless a prospect in the immediate future. But suppose, for the sake of argument, redress of grievances within the Union is impossible, surely it is worth the effort; and all are agreed...that if such redress fails, then secession must come. But what are the remedies then, which are proposed within the Union.

First, the demand must be made by all the Southern States that the laws protecting slavery and requiring the rendering up of fugitive slaves must be enforced. The demand can be made as an ultimatum if need be. If necessary, let the federal government enact a force bill against any recalcitrant Northern State refusing obedience, as was done against South Carolina in 1833. Let the wrangling about slavery cease, and the entire machinery of government, if necessary, be put behind the enforcement of existing laws.

And Lincoln must come to this view. His only strength is in the law; he is bound by oath to carry out the law. A Southern president had once coerced a Southern State; now let a Northern president coerce a Northern State, if it comes to that. Hill insists that such a resolute attitude has never been taken by the Southern States, and he pleads that the Union not be abandoned to its enemies without making this effort to save it....He asks: "Is this Union good? If so, why should we surrender its blessings because Massachusetts violates the laws of that Union? Drive Massachusetts to the duties of the Constitution or from its benefits....Let us defend the Union against its enemies---not abandon it to them.

On December 6, (Howell) Cobb, in an address to the people of Georgia announcing his resignation from Buchanan's cabinet, averred that: "the Union formed by our fathers, which was one of equality, justice and fraternity would be supplanted on the 4th of March by a Union of sectionalism and hatred---the one worthy of the support and devotion of free men, the other only possible at the cost of Southern honor, safety and independence."

This was followed up on December 23 by Toombs telegram to the Savannah Morning News, after the failure of the Crittenden Compromise: "I will tell you upon the faith of a true man that all further looking to the North for your constitutional rights in the Union ought to be abandoned. It is fraught with nothing but ruin to yourself and posterity."

(Benjamin H. Hill, Secession and Reconstruction, Haywood J. Pearce, Jr., University of Chicago Press, 1928, pp 43-45)

That The Union Not Be Abandoned To Its Enemies

Ohio GOP Wants to Shut Out TEA Party

Ohio Republicans are rewriting the rules in an attempt to exclude TEA Party members from being members of the State Central Committee. As I’ve written a number of times, Establishment Republicans want Democrats out of office so they can spend our confiscated tax dollars their way.

Republicans haven’t been that concerned about spending limits, deficits, and long-term liabilities. In fact, they have used the looseness of the rules to pay their political benefactors with payouts to keep them in power. The Democrats are honest about their payouts; Republicans have learned to lie well.

We’re seeing how the RINOs want to take their Party back. Romney operatives, with the help of McCain and Dole, are trying to redistrict Allen West out of his seat.

[U]nder a redistricting plan put forth by the GOP-controlled Florida legislature, West could have a hard time winning a second term — a situation that has some conservatives suggesting a conspiracy by establishment Republicans, including GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. . . . Some are pointing out that House Redistricting Chairman Will Weatherford has been a Romney surrogate and suggesting the former Massachusetts governor wants to be rid of West — and, by extension, the Tea Party. (source)

Romney knows that if he’s elected, West will be a thorn in his side. Better a Democrat than a Republican who speaks his mind.

A similar thing is taking place in Ohio.

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Mark Vogl

I deleted the email you sent me by mistake, so please re-send. You had asked me to call you concerning the LoS.

Blood Money

Via Cousin John

Animated History Of Aviation

Via Theo Spark

Back Allen West

Allen West being redistricted out of existence in effort led by Romney Florida spokesman

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