What does banned guns in Europe tell you?

Thomas Jefferson said it perfect:

Piers Morgan resorts to name calling after losing Gun Control debate !!!

Under the Fedora 1924-2012

In November of 1924 Calvin Coolidge who came to the White House the year earlier after the death of Warren G. Harding, was elected in his own right to the presidency taking 35 states, 382 electoral votes and 54% of the popular vote vs John W. Davis’ 136 Electoral votes and 28.8% popular and Progressive Robert M. La Follete who managed 16.6% of the popular vote but carried only Wisconsin.

Despite the prosperity of the nation and his own personal popularity Coolidge did not choose to run for president in 1928 and would retire from public life dying in 1933 at the age of 60.

Twelve days after Coolidge’s election in the state he served as  governor,  a Sicilian woman named Grazia gave birth for the seventh and final time.  Grazia had come to America shortly before the eruption of Mt. Etna and follow up earthquake that destroyed the city where she and her future husband Antonio had lived.  He had left Sicily before her and after a brief time in Brazil, would settle in Fitchburg Massachusetts There he would become a barber, marry Grazia, and raise their family at the end of a dead end street.

Two of their 4 girls and two boys did not live to see their sister Mary born. Steven died at birth and the oldest girl had died at age three.  Mary would be baptized at the fairly new Italian Catholic Church, St. Anthony di Padua that her parents had been married in and would live her entire single life in the house on Matthews street where she was born.

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On February 22, 1937 Congressman James Paul Buchanan of the 10^th District of Texas died.  His wife was considered a shoe in for the special election but had not yet decided to run.  A congressional aide named Lyndon Johnson, wanted the seat.  He visited his father a former three term state Rep Sam Johnson for advice.  The elder Johnson as Biographer Robert Caro put it, didn’t have to think twice.  “She’s an old woman.  She’s too old for a fight.  If she knows she’s going to have a fight she won’t run.  Announce now—before she announces.  If you do she won’t run.”  Lyndon listened to his father.  Mrs. Buchanan didn’t run and after a hard fought victory he took his first step on the road to the White House.

In August of that year Angelina Garbarsi and her husband came from Boston to stay with their relatives on Matthews Street for two weeks as they did every year for the Annual two day Madonna Della Cava festival at Saint Anthony Di Padua celebrating a 13^th century Marian Apparition in Sicily.

While Mary & her family (including older sister Lucy, Angelina’s Goddaughter) were strong Catholics, the childless Angelina was considered particularly devout and saintly,  even for her time.  She attended daily Mass and had taken the vows of devotion in honor of the Madonna Della Cava including abstaining from meat on Wednesdays for life.  She had spoken to Mary and her godchild Lucy about the faith often during her annual visits and while Lucy’s devotion to prayer and her Godmother would be strong and lifelong, that November it would be Mary who would take that same vow  on her 13^th birthday that Angelina had taken the previous century.  She would never break it.

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June 1942 was a pivotal time for America at war.  Off the Island of Midway the American Navy under Admirals Fletcher and Sprague would win the critical battle of Midway sinking four Japanese Aircraft Carriers and destroying the cream of the Japanese naval air force.

That same month Mary graduated from Fitchburg High School.  Many members of the class of 42’ would go directly to war.  Some would not come back.  Mary’s older brother Johnny was already serving in Patton’s Army and would eventually be awarded the Silver Star for gallantry.  A cousin that Mary corresponded with regularly would be killed in action.   Mary would use her math and typing skills sharpened on a Royal Typewriter that her father skimped to buy her to good effect as a secretary but he drew the line when one of her friends offered her a chance to join her in the program flying military aircraft domestically freeing up the men for combat    It would be one of the biggest disappointments of her life and she would speak of it whenever an air show came to town.

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 In 1946 Winston Churchill gave the speech coining the term “Iron Curtain” to describe the state of countries made puppets under Soviet control at the end of World War 2.  It was a public declaration of the new reality of the conflict between the free west and the enslaved nations of the Communist world that would dominate life on the planet until the end of the 20^th century.

In 1946 Mary would lay out an ultimatum to a 25 year old sailor named Dominic.  They had met through a comedy of errors a few years earlier and when that sailor, who was a hardworking, gregarious carpenter returned from the Pacific he was anxious to marry her.  Mary bluntly refused if he remained in the navy.  Dominic wanted a future in the navy, but he wanted one with Mary more.  They would marry the next year and raise five children in their 40 years of marriage.

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1968 would begin with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam a military disaster for the Communists but a Propaganda victory leading to the defeat of South Vietnam and causing Lyndon Johnson to not seek re-election. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy would be assassinated within a few months of each other and in November Richard Nixon would win his first term as president. 

Just before Christmas in 1968 Mary & Dominic would move their five children to a much larger house built next door to Grazia who had been widowed the year before.  It was largest home the family had ever had with 4 bedrooms three bathrooms to be shared by the children ages 5-20.  Ironically, within a few years 3 of the five children would be married and gone. 

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In 1974 Richard Nixon resigned as a result of the Watergate scandal, a transformative event in American political history that is still felt today.  Nixon was ill in body and mind at the end.  He would recover physically and pols would consult him privately on serious matters but the miracle necessary to recover his public reputation would not come in his lifetime.

It would be a different story in 1974 for Mary.  For the second of three times the miraculous would intervene in Mary’s devout catholic life.  This occasion was in a near empty basement chapel at St. Bernard’s Catholic Church.

After Sunday Mass at St. Anthony’s Mary would attend the healing services of Fr. Ralph DiOrio at St. Bernards making prayer intentions for her ailing mother.

Mary didn’t tell Fr. DiOrio about illness that reduced her to an all milk diet keeping her from the spicy Italian foods that she so loved.  After all she had somehow survived a horrific gas explosion more than a decade before, her terrible burns inexplicably healing without scaring thanks to a cream nobody heard of,  purchased by her husband days before, from a salesman nobody knew that he applied directly afterwards from a jar nobody could find.  That explosion and two unrelated illnesses had brought her so close to death that by age 50 she had already received the last rites three times.  Between that and a life that included some gunplay in defense of her business & children during a long incapacitation of her husband, a limited diet was certainly not going to elicit complaint.

But that particular Sunday after the service ended Mary’s son approached the priest telling him of her illness and asking him to pray for his mother.  Fr. DiOrio calling Mary over declaring:  “You’ve been coming here all these weeks and you never told me you were sick?”  When Mary deferred citing her mother’s illness the priest insisted on praying over her.  At the touch of his hand she collapsed.  When she revived 15 minutes later he ordered her to go home and eat “A good Italian meal” She went home and feasted on Italian food.  To the amazement of her doctor who she visited that week, her illness was gone.

Later that same year she would get a job at the Safety Fund Bank in Fitchburg.  Before the end of the year her experience from the business they owned brought her the position of head teller.  She would stay their till her retirement.

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1994 was a year of political change in the country.  For the first time since the 50’s the GOP controlled the House of Representatives and the country would shortly move from deficit to surplus.  The Republican Revolution and Contract With America would mark a resurgence of the GOP for years.

1994 would be a year of change for Mary.  Her mother had died in 1986, Dominic died in 1987 and her final child would marry and move out the very next year.  With an empty house Mary had thrown herself into her work but at age 70 she decided it was time to leave.  Her life remained busy.  She worked the polls for the city, attended daily Mass, and served the church in the senior’s group, and as a Eucharist Minister to the sick & homebound where one final time the miraclious would visit.

But the biggest change in her life was, for the first time in her life she had abundant free time for her grandchildren.  Most were now teens, some had children of their own, but the two youngest 1 & 3 would get considerable attention from her in their formative years.  By 2006 both of them and their father would take the Madonna Della Cava vow Mary had taken almost 60 years before.  For her it was a source of considerable pride.

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2012 was a big election year for America; Barack Obama was re-elected and in Massachusetts Scott Brown was defeated after winning a special election two years before.

2012 was a full year for Mary.  She watched her youngest grandson graduate from her Alma Mater 70 year after her class of 42.  Her oldest daughter watched over her living in the house Mary was born in 88 years prior helped by a grandchild and his family.  She spent the year surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and her older sister Lucy still active at 91.

She still had her New Testament, falling apart from daily reading as two others had before.  She had her pistol, but not her bullets, unknown to most and over her objections her oldest son had taken her ammo. She never owned a computer, a cell phone (let along a smart phone), a credit card or cable TV and she was happy. 

On Nov 6th Mary voted for Scott Brown, Two years earlier Brown was the first member of the GOP she had ever voted for in 64 years and talked of it to Robert Stacy McCain.

This year after voting for a Republican for president for the only time of her life she greeted the poll workers whose tasks she had once shared still angry her Scott Brown sign had been stolen.

10 days later on her 88^th birthday she renewed her license but a few days later took ill.  She was hospitalized.   Her daughters never left her side and her children and grandchildren visited her daily.

16 days after her initial doctors visit and five days after returning home, my mother Mary died in the house next door to the one she was born in.  She lived a long useful eventful life full of faith and family and had positively touched the lives of others.

Her life might seem an anachronism to people today, I think America would be better off if they saw it as an example.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people in Connecticut and throughout the world who are impacted by violence

Rest In Peace:

Charlotte Bacon (6),

Daniel Barden (7),

Rachel Davino (29),

Olivia Engel (6),

Josephine Gay(7),

Ana M. Marquez-Greene (6),

Dylan Hockley (6),

Dawn Hocksprung (47),

Madeleine F. Hsu (6),

Catherine V. Hubbard (6),

Chase Kowalski (7),

Jesse Lewis (6),

James Mattioli (6),

Grace McDonnell (7),

Anne Marie Murphy (52),

Emilie Parker (6),

Jack Pinto (6),

Noah Pozner (6),

Caroline Previdi (6),

Jessica Rekos (6),

Avielle Richman (6),

Lauren Russeau (30),

Mary Sherlach (56),

Victoria Soto (27),

Benjamin Wheeler (6),

Allison N. Wyatt (6)

Merry Christmas … Love and Blessings . . .

I will be making a conscious effort to wish everyone
a Merry Christmas this year …
My way of saying that I am celebrating
The birth Of Jesus Christ.
So, I am asking my email buddies,
if you agree with me, to please do the same.
And if you’ll pass this on to
Your email buddies, and so on… maybe we can prevent one more
American tradition from being lost in the sea of “Political Correctness”.

In GOD we TRUST

Love and Blessings

No drink for the Republican…. (… funny)

A union shop foreman walks into a bar next door to the factory and is about to order a drink to celebrate Obama’s victory when he sees a guy close by wearing a Romney for President button and two beers in front of him. He doesn’t have to be an Einstein to know that this guy is a Republican. So, he shouts over to the bartender so loudly that everyone can hear, “Drinks for everyone in here, bartender, but not for the Republican.”

Soon after the drinks have been handed out, the Republican gives him a big smile, waves at him, then says, “Thank you!” in an equally loud voice. This infuriates the union official.

The union captain once again loudly orders drinks for everyone except the Republican. As before, this does not seem to bother the Republican. He continues to smile, and again yells, “Thank you!”

The union thug once again loudly orders drinks for everyone except the Republican. As before, this does not seem to bother the Republican. He continues to smile, and again yells, “Thank you!”

The union guy asks the bartender, “What is the matter with that Republican? I’ve ordered three rounds of drinks for everyone in the bar but him, and all the silly idiot does is smile and thanks me. Is he nuts?”

“Nope,” replies the bartender. “He owns the place.”

Interesting read !! OIL – You better be sitting down when you read this!

As you may know, Cruz Construction started a division in North Dakota just 6 months ago.

They send every Kenworth (9 trucks) we had here in Alaska to North Dakota and several drivers.

They just bought two new Kenworth’s to add to that fleet; one being a Tri Drive tractor and a new 65 ton lowboy to go with it.

They also bought two new cranes (one crawler & one rubber tired) for that division.

Dave Cruz said they have moved more rigs in the last 6 months in ND than Cruz Construction moved in Alaska in the last 6 years.

Williston is like a gold rush town; they moved one of our 40 man camps down there since there are no rooms available.

Unemployment in ND is the lowest in the nation at 3.4 percent last I checked.

See anything in the national news about how the oil industry is fueling North Dakota ‘s economy?

Here’s an astonishing read. Important and verifiable information:

About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest.

The host said to Forbes, “I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer;
how much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?” Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, “more than all the Middle East put together.”

The U. S.. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big.

It was a revised report (hadn’t been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota,
western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana.

Check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska ‘s Prudhoe Bay , and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable( 5 billion barrels), at $107 a barrel, we’re looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

“When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor.

They had no idea..” says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature’s financial analyst.

“This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years,” reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette .

It’s a formation known as the Williston Basin , but is more commonly referred to as the ‘Bakken.’

It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada .

For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end.

Even the ‘Big Oil’ companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago.

However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken’s massive reserves,
and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil,
those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL !!!!!!

That’s enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight.

And if THAT didn’t throw you on the floor, then this next one should – because it’s from 2006 !!!!!!

U.. S. Oil Discovery – Largest Reserve in the World

Stansberry Report Online – 4/20/2006

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world.

It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction.

In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted.

With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?

They reported this stunning news:
We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.

Here are the official estimates:
8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
18 times as much oil as Iraq
21 times as much oil as Kuwait
22 times as much oil as Iran
500 times as much oil as Yemen
and it’s all right here in the Western United States !!!!!!

HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil!
Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy. WHY?

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we’ve got more oil in this very compact area
than the entire Middle East , more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post .

Don’t think ‘OPEC’ will drop its price even with this find? Think again! It’s all about the competitive marketplace, it has to.

Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?

Got your attention yet? Now, while you’re thinking about it, do this:

Pass this along. If you don’t take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time
you complain about gas prices, by doing NOTHING, you forfeit your right to complain.

Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to every one in your address book.

By the way, this can be verified. Check it out at the link below !!!!!!

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911 > ; http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911 >

Cruz Construction:
http://www.cruzconstruct.com/ ; ;

Under the Fedora: Back from Hiatus

While life has been busy for me the rest of the world has gone on:

The biggest news being in Egypt as an actual people’s revolution is taking on the Muslim Brotherhood while the MSM and Americans ignore it:

Fast forward a bit and we are more than two weeks into a second uprising in Egypt after the newly elected Muslim Brotherhood president Morsi took dictatorial powers for himself less than 24 hours after he won praise for taking the heat off the Muslim Brotherhood for not fighting Israel brokering a cease-fire between Israel & Hamas.

There are not only no cheers this time but it seems the western media in general and the US media in particular find this revolution unimportant and those fighting it not worth the trouble to cover.

While the media is keen on protecting Obama the press is missing something huge first the very fact of the revolution against the Muslim Brotherhood:

If with the protections that the laws of United States and Western Nations provide, follows of Islam feel intimidated, how must worse must it be is when you live in a nation where a person can disappear without effort, where the authorities are used to being obeyed, where the press isn’t free, where you find yourself monitored and where the religious, social and cultural norms are against you to the point where even if people don’t take part in acts against you, they either approve or understand?

Given that situation the revolt is huge as would the results:

If this revolution succeeds even slightly, say with the meaningless replacement of Morsi with another Muslim Brotherhood hack, that success will be an earthquake equivalent to Lech Walesa first day in the shipyard in Poland standing up and fighting.

It took a decade for Walesa’s activism to bear fruit and another decade for the freedom of Poland and the nations behind the Iron curtain to follow. It might take ten times that in a culture that doesn’t have the same history for this to bear fruit.

I can’t overstate the importance of this, if this happens it could be radical Islam’s doom.

While our government hasn’t been willing to endorse these peaceful rebels they are starting to get on board in Syria:

A plan to provide military training to the Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime and support them with air and naval power is being drawn up by an international coalition

Assad is a murderous bastard of a dictator, however the people who are fighting him, who now possess chemical weapons btw, are no ray of sunshine either

A few days later, we returned to the issue of victims, of whether or not they are all shabiha, and his friend Mohammad. At the end of the day, I told him, he was a Syrian killing other Syrians. “I used to think about the people I’d killed, I’d think about their parents,” he says. “Yes, we are all Syrian, but we didn’t create these differences, they did. It is because I am Syrian, because these people, these civilians who are dying are Syrian, that I am doing this, that I am standing with and for my people. Those who are not standing with their people are not Syrian, they are traitors, and traitors must die.”:

This is real trouble:

ask yourself, if he was willing to kill his fellow Syrians, his fellow Muslims and his childhood friend, how much easier will it be for him to kill or blow up an infidel westerner if his religion calls upon him to do so?

When the fighting in Syria and elsewhere is done, hundreds to thousands of men like this will be unleashed on the world following a religious doctrine that tells them if they slaughter us they get paradise.

This is a preview of coming attractions, you can deny it or ignore it but that won’t stop it from happening.

I give credit to Canada they are taking a harder line with the rebels

“Canada told the Syrian opposition Tuesday it must reject extremism and embrace minorities before Ottawa will recognize its legitimacy as a successor to President Bashar Al-Assad, according to a federal official.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird explained Canada’s preconditions for official recognition at a meeting with representatives of the opposition Syrian National Coalition in Morocco on Tuesday, the official said.

Thank God somebody is

Incidentally there is also a cyber war going on in Syria, Stephan Faris writes about it here.

Speaking of rewarding bad behavior Brett Kimberlin who we have written about in these pages before had cases on both the federal & state level against him thrown out last week.

It’s actually worse than that: It’s not just bad characters, but bad behavior that have been emboldened. Why shouldn’t everyone with a grudge resort to the methods Kimberlin & Co. employed against Walker?

The targeting of political bloggers, the cyberstalking and harassment, are now all now acceptable tactics for which there is evidently no legal discourse. Thanks, Judge Potter.

And Attorney Dan Backer notes it’s even worse

“The precedent set here is just terrible,” Backer said, talking about how Judge Potter ignored Kimberlin’s violation of court orders to seal the discovery materials. “Why should anyone comply with discovery?”

Walker is penalized for obeying the Judges rulings while Kimberlin is rewarded for flouting them, sounds like the left on gun control.

As Glenn Reynolds says you get more of behavior you reward, more is coming.

If you want to know why Union thugs feel safe punching out Steven Crowder on camera this is why they know their faces won’t be on ABC, CBS or NBC.

I still want to know who writes the checks?

Speaking of villainy that is not being exposed Jay Nordlinger writes about the women in White in Cuba:

almost 100 members of the Ladies in White were arrested and beaten on Sunday. The Ladies are a Cuban democracy and human-rights group. For a story on the latest, go here.

I wish to name some of the women arrested and beaten. I will name, arbitrarily, three from the first half of the alphabet, three from the second. Marlene Abreu, Lisandra Farray, Tatiana López. Bárbara Pausa, Berta Soler, Olga Torres.

You want to know something cute? The dictatorship accused the Ladies of not respecting the “grief of the Cuban people” over the ill health of Comrade Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan strongman.

If you haven’t heard about the Ladies in White and their fight for justice in Cuba, you are likely an Obama voter.

Some sports, the New England Patriots absolutely destroyed the Houston Texans 42-14. This makes the third time in four weeks they have scored 42 or more points in their last 4 games (49 vs Jets 59 vs Colts). The difference in the teams is best illustrated by the patriots indifference to the result. The Texans called it the most important game in their franchise history while the patriots considered it an afterthought.

In the 21^st century The Patriots have won their division 83% of the time, appeared in the Superbowl 45% of the Superbowls winning 3 times out of 5 ( 27% of the total superbowls of the 21^st century).

To the players on the Patriots, the season will not be considered successful unless that 45% number becomes 50%, and that 27% number becomes 33%.

That must be how the Yankees of the 40’s & 50’s and the Celtics of the 50’s and 60’s felt. Fans should enjoy it, very frew teams ever reach that level.

A little cinema? The first of the Hobbit trilogy comes out this week, It’s one of the few movies I’m excited to see. That one of the shortest books Tolkien wrote on middle earth has been stretched to three movies is odd but if they are anything near as good as the Lord of the Ring’s series then Peter Jackson will be responsible for the two best trilogies of all time just ahead of the Godfather movies.

And yeah Godfather 3 was a good movie. It’s underrated because it is compared to the first two which were two of the greatest movies of all time.

Some religion, the Pope tweeted out his first ever messages Wednesday some thoughts on it here.

Finally this is the first Under the Fedora in three weeks, this is because in the space of 16 days my mother went from getting her license renewed at 88 to being on her deathbed unable to rise, eat, drink or speak.

The path from Doctor’s visit to Hospital to Intensive Care to Hospital Room to Home to die was very quick and reminds one that no matter what the Mayans say, you and I are all going to have our end of the world moment and need to be sure we are right with God.

I’m sure my mother is ready, it’s up to all of us to make sure we are.

Do they say “Merry Christmas”? …

Do they say “Merry Christmas”? .. if they don’t, tell them celebrate all of Christmas not just the part where they take your money.

ALL OR NOTHING