photo: poigraem.net

I wrote the following article some three and a half years ago (March 2018) under the title “Tipping Point”.  At the time I felt the United States was losing its way and approaching a time when the freedoms we had all taken for granted would be lost to a “dark time” of national insolvency (bankruptcy), hyper-inflation, tyranny, socialism and eventually communism as we see it ruling places like Cuba;  where there is a small ruling class of brutal dictators and the rest of the population living in abject poverty and misery.  In my mind slavery in all but name.  It is happening here, now, in real time.  The “Tipping Point” being a majority population that believes in a “Santa Claus” central government and is too blind to see what is happening and no longer able to take care of themselves.  Have we reached a “point of no return” on this road to destruction?  

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TIPPING POINT

“When the public discovers they can vote themselves money from the public treasury, the [American] experiment will be over”-Tocqueville 1838.

Along with a good many other people I feel despair when I see a disaster happening right in front of me and I can do nothing to stop it.

One example is a friend who becomes addicted to a drug that will destroy their lives.  You can see it happening but no matter what you say or try to do, they will not turn away from the addiction.  It becomes the most important thing in their life.

This happened in my own life with a friend who became addicted to alcohol.  We tried to help him over an extended period of time but the addiction was too much and ultimately alcohol meant more to him than his life.

I have heard that “Meth” (methamphetamine), sometimes called “Crystal Meth”, is so addictive that as high as 99% of first time users will become addicted.  “Street Wise” Drug Pushers will give away “free” samples knowing they are creating a future paying clientele for their life destroying commodity.

Anything that creates an addiction also creates a form of slavery.

National Parks have signs that say “Do Not Feed The Animals”.  The reason for the signs is that they know that if you feed the animals many (or most) of them can become addicted to the food provided for them “free” and will lose the ability to feed themselves in the wild. 

I am not the only one seeing this happening in our country.

The United States is divided into opposing forces in the quest for the hearts and minds as well as the future of the American people. 

One group feels that American citizens will ultimately be happier, with greater self respect and knowledge of the real  joy of freedom,  if they are independent of the need to have government take care of them and prefer the pride of taking care of themselves with government restricted to the role of providing a National Defense and Public Safety – primarily protection from foreign enemies and domestic criminals – along with Emergency Services plus care for the Biblical “Widows and Orphans”.

The second group, much like the “Street Wise Drug Pushers” seeks to achieve power by first creating and then feeding the addiction of a voter base to government provided “free” programs to provide for their daily needs.  This group, either unwittingly, or under the misguided notion of charity (using other peoples money) seek power for themselves and in the process to build a dependent, addicted class of “clientele” to the governmental “pushers” of  dependency.

This second group will do anything to grow their power by creating a majority voter base.  Either by conversion of existing needy groups or importing new clients for supposedly “free” government services. Their plan is to achieve, maintain and expand a majority voter base to keep them in power and control.  Power and control being this groups own addiction and drug of choice. 

Which group is achieving the greatest number of new voters?

What I see, fear and observe is a greater and greater number of people who are, by choice or self inflicted circumstances, unable to care for themselves and are willing to become slaves to a more and more dominate and corrupt State and Federal Government holding out a false promise of security based on debt and the confiscation, often at gun point, of “other peoples property and money”. 

Government confiscation of personal property, including land for redistribution is happening in South Africa as this is being written.  Is the United States a candidate for something similar?

I am very much afraid that we have already passed the “tipping point” and the majority have become the “glassy eyed” drones of the “pushers” of government dependency.

Makes that cabin in the woods look pretty good.

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” Thomas Jefferson

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Bob Bandy – October 2021

photo: PNN

In the News:  Last Thursday, September 23rd,  California’s “brain dead” Governor, Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 173 into law.

“The bill forces the California Department of Justice to reveal information identifying firearm and ammunition purchasers to a research center at the University of California, Davis or any other university that requests them. This information includes many personal details like the buyer’s name, place of residence, date of birth, what, where, and when they have made firearm-related purchases, and much more.”

How long do you think it will take some gun control zealot at one of these University “research Centers” to make these supposedly Constitutionally Protected Private Information lists available to members of the press and anybody else who wants to use them for political purposes?

These idiots won’t even care that they are providing potential gun thieves not only a shopping list but also a road map for locating just the firearms they want, free for the stealing.

This is what living in an Idiocracy like California is all about.  I hope citizens and trial lawyers sue our governor and legislators for all the deaths and destruction that will be carried out against law abiding gun owners.

Knowing that he is putting lawful gunowners, their families and property at risk of death, injury or loss would make Gavin Newsom criminally liable for signing this legislation.  If he makes claim to not knowing something this obvious would make him “brain dead”.

The complete article follows:

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BREAKING: CA Gov Launches Revenge Strike on Gun Owners

(Big League Politics) – California gun owners will soon have personal and normally private information released to “gun-violence researchers” across the country, with Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom signing Assembly Bill 173 into law on Thursday.

The bill forces the California Department of Justice to reveal information identifying firearm and ammunition purchasers to a research center at the University of California, Davis or any other university that requests them. This information includes many personal details like the buyer’s name, place of residence, date of birth, what, where, and when they have made firearm-related purchases, and much more.

“This bill would name the center for research into firearm-related violence the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis,” the bill’s text reads. “The bill would generally require that the information above be made available to the center and researchers affiliated with the center, and, at the department’s discretion, to any other nonprofit bona fide research institution accredited by the United States Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, as specified, for the study of the prevention of violence.”

With the state of California already recording all gun and ammunition transactions performed by licensed firearm dealers in a state registry, the infrastructure for sharing the personal information of firearm owners is already set up. This law expands that level of record-keeping even further by requiring the registration of “firearm precursor parts.” The registry will soon be made available to Universities all around the state.

The Reload reported that the primary sponsor of the bill, Assemblymember Phil Ting (D.), did not respond to a request for comment.

Various pro-second amendment activists decried the bill.

“Although the stated intent of this legislation may be to prevent violence, the data that the bill would require DOJ to release includes the personal and confidential information of lawful firearm owners who legally purchase ammunition and firearm parts,” Roy M. Griffith Jr., Legislative Director at the California Rifle & Pistol Association, said in a letter to Governor Newsom. “The identities and confidential personal information of individuals should only be provided by DOJ or other state entities to law enforcement agencies when conducting an investigation that has a specific need for it. No other entity – not even research institutions – has sufficient justification to have access to an individual’s private information.”

Griffith also pointed out the extreme lack of transparency in how members of the state government chose to pass the bill.

“This language amended into a ‘budget bill’ in the final week of the legislative session, providing no opportunity for review or public comment,” Griffith said. “Democracy truly has sunk to an all-time low in California!”

“We are in support of the study and research of illegal firearm-related crime to prevent violence, however, this can be done without violating the constitutional rights of all Californians!” he said.

California is well known for having some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, with many arguing that much of the legislation inherently violates the second amendment of the United States Constitution. Another recently contested law was the state’s requirement to undergo a federal firearms background check for a simple ammo purchase, which was blocked and then reinstated in the state’s court system on April 23, 2020. The case remains ongoing.

bigleaguepolitics.com/california-gov-signs-anti-privacy-legislation-targeted-at-gun-owners/

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This is outrageous and life threatening.  Please share this article with gun owning friends, their families and any other person you might feel is interested.

Bob Bandy – September 2021

seedkin.com

I make no claim of being a prophet.  Three years ago – October 2018 – I posted the following article – “The Garden” – for the first time. That article was based on something I had read some 20+ years earlier from another author (name forgotten) who predicted what is happening today all around us.  It was one of the most shared, copied and requested articles I have ever written.  The original article is copied below the divider.

Unfortunately what was foreseen in the original article has come to pass.  We live in a badly fractured land filled with mistrust, corruption, anger, finger pointing, hate and lies. 

I have been tormented with the realization that there is little that I can do to “fix” what is wrong in Washington D.C. or Sacramento or so many of the broken cities around the country. My readers know that I have written about these issues for some 12 years.  While I receive much appreciated comment and agreement, little has changed in what has become  a downward spiral that I witness continuing.  I don’t have the power to correct what is happening.  

I vote for change and nothing changes.  I have no representation at either a State or Federal level to Champion my Values.

The one area where I can make a difference is in my own life.  I can practice what I believe and try to plant seeds of hope in my own sphere of life.  My family, friends, neighbors, where I worship and those strangers I come in contact with in the normal course of living.  I can demonstrate that I am not a racist, or a “whatever-phob”.  I can tell the truth, keep my word, help a neighbor or friend.  I can practice what I believe, not just in words but by what I do.  

If enough of us do this we can carve out a space or sanctuary around us that resembles, on perhaps a smaller scale, the world I grew up in and cherished.

I can’t fix the mess in Washington or Sacramento but I can work on fixing “me”.  I can plant seeds of hope in my own little garden.

So, in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets.  Matthew 7:12

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Here is the original article

THE GARDEN

Many years ago, twenty or more, I remember reading about a time in the future when the writer believed the United States might very well “Balkanize” itself.  That is turn into a fatally fractured land and people, where reconciliation into any kind of unity becomes impossible.  Or, in other words, goodbye “E Pluribus Unum”.

A people who become so divided along idealogical as well as cultural, religious, political, and ethnic identities that a unified effort for the “greater good of all” becomes impossible. 

A time when our national diversity, instead of being our unifying strength, is instead used as a weapon of destruction.

Elements within our previously “United” government and society become fortresses of non-negotiable demands.  These elements threaten the total destruction of our way of life unless their specific demands are granted.  They will use any means to achieve their goals.  Violence, fear, intimidation, destruction of families, corruption on a national scale and any other means to get their way.  

Following the leadership of writers such as Saul Alinsky and funded by anti-American zealots such as George Soros, these elements seek to impose a society which is in direct conflict with the values and institutions envisioned by our Founders and treasured by most.  For their agenda, co-existence is not an option.

In the process they are planting a garden, the rows of this garden contain the seeds of Lies, Hate, Anger, Rage and Bitterness.  Tell me, what do you harvest if these are the seeds you plant and cultivate?  

They have also infiltrated and corrupted many previously thought incorruptible government agencies and departments like the FBI and Department of Justice,  just to name two.

These,and other Agencies and Departments have become  populated too often by self serving un-elected demigods wedded to the principle that they are entitled to lifetime pay and benefits and are not answerable to the taxpayers.  What is now being referred to by many as the “Deep State”.  

If the average citizen did the things these bureaucrats are allowed to do, the citizen would find him or herself in prison while the government employee or elected official seems to have an endless “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. 

Cross them in any way and they have the power and the taxpayer paid for resources to hound you, bankrupt you and ruin your life just for the fun of it.

I don’t think of Washington D.C. as a Swamp.  It is better defined  as a “Cesspool”.

Original Article – October 2018

Bob Bandy – September 2021

photo: Politico.com

Will Nancy Pelosi impeach Joe Biden?  An interesting question.

If she does not, she is a hypocrite.  When Donald Trump was president she had him impeached twice.  Both times on a party line vote and on “Trumped up” (forgive the pun) charges using her stooges, the morally and ethically bankrupt Congressmen Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler.  The charge…  a “sort of”, “maybe implied”, “cross your fingers”  threat to a foreign leader of a “delay” in U.S. Federal Aid.  A claim denied by the foreign leader.

Now we have President Joe Biden who took an oath of office to uphold the United States Constitution and Laws Of the United States who is in public and blatant violation of the Constitution and Supreme Court decisions on multiple occasions in addition to a factual lie to the American people, to wit:  “We won’t leave Afghanistan until every American is evacuated”. 

For this writing we won’t even consider his incompetence as Commander in Chief during the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle.

But, back to the Supreme Court and the Constitution.

1. He “thumbed his nose” at the Supreme Court when it declared that potential immigrants must be held on the other side of the United States Southern Border until properly processed for entry.  A ruling that President Biden has chosen to ignore and continues to not only allow mass crossings of the border but also provide those who come across with free transportation to cities throughout the Unite States where they are “dumped” on the local government to deal with.  Or, perhaps he believes he is planting the seeds for a future harvest of votes.

2. In violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution his administration continues to prohibit landlords the ability to evict tenants who do not pay their rent.  Such action requires action of Congress but he continues this with an edict from the unelected head of the CDC (Center for Disease Control) who reports to him.

3. His continual threat to compromise the Second Amendment by Executive Order to find a way to confiscate the civilian version, not fully automatic AR-15 rifle from taxpaying American citizens.  One can only guess if it is his intent to make a gift of those confiscated rifles to our new “International Partners”, the Taliban to add to their stockpile of more than 300,000 that were left behind in our withdrawal from Afghanistan.

I could list additional ways in which he has violated his oath of office but no need.  The above is certainly enough for House Speaker Pelosi to bring impeachment charges on.

There might be a very small resistance to such an Impeachment charge by some citizens that her move could be viewed as self serving because as Speaker of the House of Representatives, a successful Impeachment and removal from office of the President would move Ms. Pelosi one step closer to the Presidency herself.  The Speaker of the House of Representatives is second in line of succession for the Presidency under our constitution.

Of course there would still be a need to deal with the nearly invisible Vice President Kamala Harris who would be sworn in to replace the President if/when he is removed from office.  However, since the current Vice President is very unpopular even within her own party – she got only 7% of the vote from her home state during the primaries – it should be relatively simple to have her “pushed aside” with help from the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and perhaps a “nudge” from the “Friends of Bill & Hill” faction.  

Or, Speaker Pelosi might choose not to impeach the current president and just be satisfied with being recognized for the hypocrite that she is.

Whatever her decision, she needs to act before the 2022 mid-term elections where it is just barely possible, even with a “tainted” election process, that her party might lose the House of Representatives and her “golden opportunity” will have melted away.

Decisions, Decisions.

Bob Bandy  Sept. 2021

Rarely do I reprint an article in its entirety with little comment.  But this piece says it all. The incompetence of these leaders leaves them with the blood of countless troops and civilians on their hands not to mention the waste of Billions of Dollars of high tech armaments which were virtually gifted to America’s most ardent enemies.  They should all resign in shame, including their leader, the Commander in Chief.

Homeless camp downtown Sacramento next to Steinberg sign.

(Photo: Katy Grimes for California Globe)

Almost two years ago Sacramento, California Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the City Council approved a 22.5 Million Dollar one year plan for Sacramento’s homeless.  The plan was to provide housing and beds for some 750 homeless.  (Search “Tweedledum & Tweedledee” on this site) At the time I calculated that the cost per proposed homeless recipient to be $29,605 per person assisted and questioned if any of these decision makers owned a calculator.

“Mayor Steinberg also approved tiny apartments in a renovated old downtown hotel, which cost more than $445,000 per unit for about 250 square feet of living space, as the Globe reported. This project only benefitted the union contractors.” (see California Globe Aug. 6, 2021)

The homeless problem has continued to grow worse, not better.

Now Major Steinberg and the City Council has approved a 100 Million Dollar plan on a unanimous City Council vote.

This plan is targeting about 9,000 people living on the streets and byways of downtown Sacramento.

“The Council will authorize an inventory of sites with enough capacity to match the scope of the problem,” the mayor’s office said in a news release. “In addition to specific sites, the plan identifies strategies to tackle homelessness that include motel conversions, increased housing voucher usage and scattered site housing. The plan also includes the intent to create a larger “campus” model that could serve 350 people,” according to the news release.  (KCRA News)