| Friday, January 16, 2009 |
| No one, including the Brady Campaign, seriously believes that Barack Obama was elected president because of his support for gun control. But Brady is pretending that it provided Obama the margin of victory in November, and has provided him with a very long list of gun bans and other restrictions that it expects from him in return.
If for no other reason, Obama might want to tell Brady “no,” because if he were to do their bidding, they would be sure to demand that he do even more. That’s demonstrated by Brady’s statement that their current request “is not intended to present an exhaustive list . . . but does provide a starting point.” It includes: A California-style “assault weapons” ban. For several years, Brady has referred to California’s ban–which is far more restrictive than the federal ban of 1994-2004–as the “model” for the rest of the nation. Brady doesn’t say so, but it clearly supports–as does the Violence Policy Center–the California–like ban that Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) has proposed in Congress since before the 1994 semi-automatic firearm ban expired. Among its differences from the 1994 ban, the McCarthy bill would ban rifles like the AR-15, even if they do not have a flash suppressor, bayonet mount, or adjustable-position stock. It would ban the M1, the M1 Carbine, the Ruger Mini-14 series, the SKS, and many other semi-automatic rifles not previously labeled as “assault weapons.” And it would ban every semi-automatic shotgun, by banning its receiver. Brady wants .50 caliber rifles banned as well. A ban on standard magazines designed for self-defense. Brady calls them “high-capacity,” but magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are designed for self-defense, as demonstrated by the fact that most guns that use standard defensive magazines (those holding more than 10 rounds) are handguns designed for self-defense, and used for that purpose by private citizens, law enforcement officers, and military personnel alike. Now’s as good a time as any to dispel one blatant lie that Brady includes with its wish list. Brady says, “Beginning with the Brady Law in 1993, the assault weapon ban in 1994, and other Clinton Administration policies, our nation experienced an historic decline in gun crime and violence,” adding, “during the Bush years, gun crime increased as the Administration and Congress . . . allowed the assault weapons ban to expire [and] gave the gun industry special legal protection.” The truth is, violent crime began declining in 1991, three years before the Brady Act and the semi-automatic firearm ban, and more than a year before Bill Clinton took office. And, the nation’s violent crime rate has declined another eight percent since President Bush took office. Moreover, in 1998, the Brady Act’s waiting period on gun sales ceased, because it was replaced by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which the Brady Campaign has always opposed (though they try to take credit for it today, inappropriately referring to NICS checks as “Brady checks.”) And, contrary to Brady’s prediction that crime rates would soar if the semi-automatic firearm ban expired, the ban expired in 2004, and since then violent crime rates have been lower than anytime in the last 31 years. Repeal the recent Department of the Interior rule allowing state law to determine how firearms may be carried in National Parks and wildlife refuges. Brady offers no evidence to support its hunch that allowing permit-holders to carry concealed firearms “would increase the risk of gun crime, injury and death in the parks and wildlife refuges.” But as for Brady’s hunches, for the last 20 years it has predicted that allowing people to carry guns for protection will cause murder rates to soar, but people now carry guns for protection in 40 states and since 1999, murder rates have been lower than anytime since the mid-1960s. Repeal the Tiahrt Amendment and the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). Brady complains that the Tiahrt Amendment “restricts disclosure of the data to law enforcement,” and prevents the BATFE from disclosing firearm-tracing data to the public. The first claim is a lie. The amendment allows BATFE to provide the data to any law enforcement agency involved in a bona fide investigation related to a traced firearm. Tracing data is not released to the public so that, among other reasons, criminals won’t know that the police are investigating them. Brady should just tell the truth, for once: even though the BATFE and Congressional Research Service repeatedly state that tracing data are not reliable enough to draw conclusions about the criminal use of guns generally, Brady wants the data so it can concoct bogus claims to use in lawsuits against firearm manufacturers who comply with every applicable firearm law. These lawsuits are currently prohibited by the PLCAA, which Brady hopes to overturn. Require all firearm sales to go through NICS (advocated by Mr. Obama’s choice for Attorney General, Eric Holder), and allow the FBI to retain the records of all NICS-approved firearm transfers. It used to be that Brady claimed that the only private transfers that it wanted run through NICS were those taking place at gun shows. Now, it’s all private transfers, including gifts between family members and sales or trades between friends. And, it wants the FBI to record all transfers. Translation: Gun and gun owner registration, no two ways about it. Allow a NICS check to reject someone whose name is on an FBI watch list. This is yet another idea recommended by prospective Attorney General Holder and Obama adviser Rahm Emanuel. The obvious problem with it is that you can get on one of these lists by having the same name as a suspected criminal or terrorist, and if you are on a list, you may not be able to determine which one you are on, much less get yourself removed. Sen. Ted Kennedy even ended up on a “no fly” list, for reasons that have not been made public. Prohibit the sale of more than one handgun to a single individual in a 30-day period, in order to thwart “large-volume” illegal gun traffickers. Federal law already requires a dealer to report to law enforcement authorities whenever a person buys more than one handgun in a five-day period. This proposal amounts to the rationing of a constitutional right with no crime-reduction benefit. Require all new guns to micro-stamp ammunition with serial numbers linking the owner in a federal gun-owner registration database. Most crimes are solved by other means, not by ammunition markings, and criminals could easily deface the firearm parts that would bear the serial numbers. Brady’s agenda isn’t about solving crimes; for them micro-stamping is another way of achieving gun and gun owner registration. Require consumer safety standards for firearms. Even the vehemently anti-gun Violence Policy Center has said this would lead to standards too difficult for firearm manufacturers to achieve, thus ending firearm production. We close with yet another Brady lie, “These proposals are clearly constitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Second Amendment decision in District of Columbia v. Heller and they pose no threat to the interests of law-abiding gun owners.” Heller clearly said that laws cannot deprive people of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for defensive purposes. As for “the interests of gun owners,” we’ll follow the Supreme Court’s example, and let gun owners speak for themselves. The Court declared D.C.’s handgun ban unconstitutional because gun owners consider handguns to be the type of firearm best suited for self-defense. |
Archive for the ‘Gun Control’ Category
The Brady Bunch has a wish list… Again
January 18, 2009Gun Salesman of the year!
January 17, 2009Outdoor Wire Names Obama “Gun Salesman of the Year” By Jim Shepherd Jan 14, 2009 – 7:22:08 AM In recognition of the unprecedented demand for firearms by nervous consumers, The Outdoor Wire has named President-elect Barack Obama its “Gun Salesman of the Year”. For me, it was a simple fact of recognizing that without President-elect Obama’s frightening consumers into action, the firearms industry might be suffering the same sort of business slumps that have befallen the automotive and housing industries. It’s credit where credit is due. Mr. Obama has consistently voted against individual rights to firearms, appointed a re-tread Clinton administration full of gun banners, and made it plain to anti-gun groups that despite what he might say to the contrary, he’s on their side That history, along with the unquestioned support of anti-gun organizations has spooked consumers into a buying frenzy for firearms that could be outlawed in another Assault Weapons Ban. Manufacturers are months behind on orders for semi-automatic pistols, AR-style rifles, and anything with so-called ‘high-capacity magazines, buyers we’ve surveyed across the country seem to have a single explanation for their rush to purchase firearms – Obama. The buying panic is not limited to people you might be described as aficionados or even ‘gun nuts’. Recently, I was in a gun store when a gentleman came and said he’d never wanted to own a gun before, but wanted to get one while he still could.” Since the November Presidential election, firearms sales have been at unprecedented levels. For December 2008 the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) recorded a twenty-four percent increase in background checks for 2008 (1,523,426) over December 2007 (1,230,525). This follows a forty-two percent (42%) increase in November 2008, the highest number of NICS checks in the system’s history. Those FBI background checks are required under federal law for all individuals purchasing firearms from federally licensed firearms retailers. In other words, gun sales have never been better. Sales are so good that on Tuesday, January 6, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued a notice to all federal firearms licensees that “an unprecedented increase in demand for ATF Form 4473 had run supplies low enough that dealers were temporarily given permission to photocopy the form until supplies caught up with demand. Completion of a form 4473 is required whenever a federal firearms licensee sells a firearm.
What kinds of people are for gun control?
January 16, 2009H/T to BobF
Rep Bobby Rush was the founder of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. If his law were to pass, you know his constituents wouldn’t be following it.
By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDailyRep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill.
U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., is hoping to pass a firearm-licensing bill that will significantly rewrite gun-ownership laws in America.
Among the more controversial provisions of the bill are requirements that all handgun owners submit to the federal government a photo, thumb print and mental heath records. Further, the bill would order the attorney general to establish a database of every handgun sale, transfer and owner’s address in America.
The bill claims its purpose is “to protect the public against the unreasonable risk of injury and death associated with the unrecorded sale or transfer of firearms to criminals and youth.”
Rush’s proposed bill, H.R. 45, is alternatively known as “Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009,” named after an Illinois teenager killed by a gunshot.
According the bill’s text, “On the afternoon of May 10, 2007, Blair Holt, a junior at Julian High School in Chicago, was killed on a public bus riding home from school when he used his body to shield a girl who was in the line of fire after a young man boarded the bus and started shooting.”
The bill then argues that interstate firearm trafficking and children dying from gun violence create legitimate cause for the federal government to monitor gun ownership and transfers in new ways.
If passed, the bill would make it illegal to own or possess a “qualifying firearm” – defined as any handgun or any semiautomatic firearm that takes an ammunition clip – without a “Blair Holt” license.
To obtain a “Blair Holt” license, an application must be made that includes a photo, address, all previous aliases, thumb print, completion of a written firearm safety test, release of mental health records to the attorney general and a fee not to exceed $25.
Further, the bill makes it illegal to transfer ownership of a qualifying firearm to anyone who is not a licensed gun dealer or collector. Exceptions to this rule include transfer to family members by gift or bequest and loans, not to exceed 30 days, of a firearm for lawful purposes “between persons who are personally known to each other.”
The bill also requires qualifying firearm owners to report all transfers to the attorney general’s database. It would also be illegal for a licensed gun owner to fail to record a gun loss or theft within 72 hours or fail to report a change of address within 60 days.
And if a minor obtains a weapon and injures someone with it, the owner of the gun – if deemed to have failed to meet certain safety requirements – faces a multiple-year jail sentence.
H.R. 45 is a resurfacing of 2007’s H.R. 2666, which contained much of the same language and was co-sponsored by 15 other representatives and Barack Obama’s current chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. H.R. 2666 was assigned to the House Judiciary committee, where no action was taken.
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=86039
Just say no, to Eric Holder
January 16, 2009| Gun Owners of America Opposes Attorney General Nominee — Urge Your Senators to Vote “NO” on Eric Holder |
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8001 Forbes Place Suite 102
Springfield VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Barack Obama is wasting no time poking a sharp stick in the eyes of gun owners.
The incoming President’s choice for U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, is an anti-gun extremist who has assailed gun owners since his days in the Bill Clinton administration.
As Janet Reno’s top deputy, Eric Holder was the go to guy on gun control issues. In a 1999 statement, Holder told members of Congress not to cave in to “the special interest that value the cold hard steel of guns more than the lives of children, neighbors and police officers,” and urged them to pass legislation that would have destroyed the gun show industry.
In 2000, Holder was instrumental in the Clinton Administration’s effort to strong arm firearms manufacturers into voluntarily accepting regulations that had stalled in the Congress.
Again, GOA and its members took the lead in opposing Holder and the Clinton Administration and slowed down implementation of the agreement until it completely went away when Clinton left office.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, Holder pushed for more gun control and greater restrictions on gun shows, even though the terrorists were armed with box cutters that could be purchased at any hardware store.
The Holder/Reno brief also took the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective government right, not an individual right.
Gun Owners of America has asked all members of the U.S. Senate to reject this anti-Second Amendment activist.
Another “Top” list
January 12, 2009I just knew that there had to be more top (ten) lists. Either for this past year, or for the new year. I found another one, and it is great!
2008 in review: Top questions Barack Obama did not answer
By Mark Alexander
Perhaps you’ve noticed an abundance of “Top Ten” lists in recent weeks. As usual, the mainstream media has churned out a variety of year-in-review pieces of late. Two events vied for top billing on all those lists — the financial meltdown and the presidential election. At present, it isn’t clear which of those debacles presents the greater threat to our nation.
The factors leading up to the economic collapse in the last two quarters are clear (see Economics 101). What is not clear, however, is whether we can limit the damage to a mere recession.
On the other hand, we have learned that Barack Hussein Obama (as he prefers to be named for his oath of office) is a charismatic master of deception and deflection. What we haven’t learned, therefore, are the answers to a plethora of questions about his citizenship, his mentors, his faith, his worldview, and his tragic childhood — a childhood which gave rise to the pathological narcissism that launched his political career and guides him to this day.
Not that many of those questions weren’t asked. Plenty of them were posed in our profiles of Obama but were met with obfuscation, prevarication and equivocation.
So, who is this guy?
In one sense he answered that question in his political autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope”: “I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
That explains who he is in the glassy eyes of his messianic following, but who is he really? Who is Barack Hussein Obama, the president-elect of the United States of America?
In pursuit of an answer, I have compiled a list of some important questions directed at BHO that he did not answer in 2008.
Where to start … how about the beginning: Are you a natural-born citizen, as constitutionally prescribed in Article II, Section 1 and Amendment XX, Section 3, for the office of president?
When the question of citizenship came up a year ago, I presumed that this issue was a “straw man” — that your strategy was to send some adversaries on a rabbit trail to nowhere, only to release your official birth certificate just prior to the election. But you didn’t do that.
I believe that you were born in Honolulu, but I have been to the hospital where you were, ostensibly, born, and they could not produce any birth records or tell me who the attending OB might have been. Of course, 1961 is many years past.
Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle has sealed your on-file birth records, making them unavailable for verification. You refuse to request that the documents in question be made available for examination by dispassionate analysts.
To obtain a driver’s license, one has to provide some proof of citizenship — so why did you not comply as a presidential candidate? Surely you can influence the state of Hawaii to release your original birth certificate for public inspection, so this lingering question can be put to rest before your inauguration.
We know that you hold constitutional rule of law in contempt, but in the unlikely event that it is revealed sometime after your inauguration that you are not a natural-born citizen, we would be faced with a serious constitutional crisis. When do you plan to release your original birth certificate?
Moving on, given your strange childhood and broken family (similar to that of Bill Clinton, the last unmitigated narcissist to occupy the White House), you indicated that your primary childhood mentor was a communist, Frank Marshall Davis.
How did his mentorship shape your understanding of the role of government and economics?
You claim that you never heard any of the anti-American and black-supremacist rants of your mentoring pastor, Jeremiah Wright. However, you spent 20 years in Wright’s church, he officiated at your marriage and the baptism of your children, and you identified him as a “father” figure.
Is it possible that you have been so steeped in his racist rhetoric and hatred for America that you failed to recognize it for what it was?
You claim that terrorist William Ayers was “just a guy in my neighborhood,” and that you were “just eight years old when he was a terrorist.” However, you were 34 when Ayers used his radical celebrity to launch your political career from his living room. You were 40 when this unrepentant terrorist was featured in a New York Times article (on the morning of September 11, 2001) and quoted in the opening paragraph proclaiming, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Ayers added, “America makes me want to puke.” You were working on your second major “philanthropic” project with Ayers at that time, and when interviewed for your first Senate run, you claimed that your primary qualification for public office was your role with the ultra-Leftist Annenberg Foundation — an appointment that you received from Ayers.
So, what is the real nature of your relationship with Ayers?
Regarding your ties to the Socialist New Party, the ACORN crowd, Rod Blagojevich, Tony Rezko, Saul Alinsky, Father Michael Pfleger, Khalid al-Mansour, Kwame Kilpatrick, Louis Farrakhan, Rashid Khalidi, Raila Odinga and other haters, hard Leftists and convicted felons, are we to assume these were just “guys in your neighborhood”?
If you were a Civil Service Employee, could you pass a background check to receive a basic “Secret” clearance? If not, why should the American people trust you as the steward of their security? (OK, I know the answer. “No.”)
When you turned 18 years of age, did you register with the Selective Service System as required by law?
Regarding your “realtor” friend Rezko, how do the unusual circumstances surrounding the purchase of your Chicago mansion differ from the purchase made by former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) of his California house — a purchase that ended with his arrest and conviction?
George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” All committed Socialists understand this principle. In 100 words or less, can you compare and contrast Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations with Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto? In 50 words or less, can you describe any significant difference between International Communism and National Socialism?
Whom do you hold accountable for the economic fiasco, and what is your plan to ensure it doesn’t recur? What is your plan to halt the imminent inflation resulting from the Fed’s printing of money to fund TARP and all the additional handouts?
Why do you think government can provide better and more efficient health care than the private sector? Keep in mind, yours is the same party that was regulating the housing market when it became the first economic domino to fall.
Can you explain how excessively taxing large corporations (which, in turn, pass these “fees” on to the consumer) provides economic “stimulus,” or how this makes lower- and middle-income Americans wealthier?
The motto of your campaign was “change,” but you have never specified what that change means — change from what to what? Based on the goals you have spoken about, it appears that you (and your handlers) would like to change our country from a democratic republic to a socialist/Marxist one. Would you please disabuse me of this notion?
You campaigned about needing “new blood” in Washington. Given this, how do you explain your selection of so many people from the Clinton and Carter administrations?
Our national debt stands at $10 trillion, and rises at a rate of roughly $75 million per hour each day. Do you see any problem with such large numbers, and if so, do you have a plan to fix it?
What is your plan to rein in congressional spending?
Define “rich.” As in “taxing the rich.” The amount appears to have varied depending upon which speech you and Joe Biden made during the campaign. $250,000? $200,000? $150,000? None of these pre-income tax amounts would qualify anyone as being rich, and yet, you voted to increase taxes on the “rich” at the $40,000 level.
During Bill Clinton’s administration, he raised taxes and government revenue collections decreased. George W. Bush reduced taxes and revenue collections increased. Why?
What yardstick will you use to determine when our troops should return home from OIF and/or OEF? How will you measure success? Given that the surge strategy in Iraq has, without question, worked, why is it that you cannot simply admit you were wrong?
What is it about leaders of states who sponsor terrorism and harbor terrorists that makes you believe peace is negotiable with them? What makes you think that Iran, Syria and terrorist entities such as Hamas, Fatah and Hezbollah will adhere to anything they might “agree” to in a signed document?
What is your position on amnesty for illegal immigrants? What is your vision for immigration reform, generally?
Vice president-elect Joe Biden said, “Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama. … Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he’s gonna need help. … He’s gonna need you … to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”
What in heaven’s name was he ranting about?
In regard to your so-called “National Service Plan” you stated, “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded [as the military].” That sounds like a force of like-minded socialists, young pioneers, brown shirts, Obama youth, ready to trade brooms for guns.
What were you talking about?
On the subject of guns, you said of the Second Amendment (the palladium of all other rights), “I believe in the Second Amendment. Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I said that throughout the campaign. I haven’t indicated anything different during the transition. I think people can take me at my word.” However, your nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, reaffirmed in the recent Heller case his long-held position that the Second Amendment confers no rights of individual gun possession by private citizens.
Can we still take you at your word?
What is your position on the Enumerated Powers Act (H.R. 1359), which would require all legislation introduced in Congress to “contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority” empowering Congress to enact it?
And on the subject of constitutional authority, on 20 January, you will be taking this constitutionally prescribed oath: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Exactly what Constitution are you swearing to “preserve, protect and defend” — that which was written by our forefathers and defended by the blood of Patriots for generations since, or its vestigial remains, the so-called “Living Constitution” as amended by Leftist judicial diktat? After all, you said you would nominate Supreme Court Justices who met your ideological test rather than those who were impartial jurists.
If the latter, should anyone take your role as commander in chief seriously?
And a final question: At a Florida rally four days before the presidential election, you asserted: “[W]e want to do this, change our tax code (a.k.a. ‘redistribute the wealth’). … John McCain [calls] this socialistic. You know I, I, I don’t know when, when, uh, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.”
For the record, when you were an adolescent (by your own account, smoking dope and snorting coke) John McCain was a POW in Hanoi. Despite being a Naval Academy graduate and the son of a high-ranking admiral, McCain had requested combat duty and was assigned to the USS Forrestal. He was on the flight deck of the Forrestal during the inferno that killed 134 of his fellow sailors. He was flying his 23rd mission as part of Operation Rolling Thunder over Vietnam when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi. He was subjected to more than five years of horrific torture by the Communist NVA, including two years of solitary confinement.
You claim that John McCain has made “a virtue out of selfishness.” When will you issue a public apology for that odious remark?
Boy Scouts win against anti freedom bigots
January 12, 2009This was a long and bitter fight, and the morons almost won it.
COLORADO: Elbert County Stands-Up for Boy Scouts of America Shooting Center! On Tuesday, January 6 the Elbert County Board of Commissioners voted 3-0 to finally grant the Boy Scouts of America their Special Use Permit. This permit will now allow them to relocate the shooting range located at Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch, preserving the continuing education of the safe use of rifles, shotguns, handguns, and muzzleloaders. The Boy Scouts had applied for a Special Use Permit from Elbert County to relocate the shooting range facility, “The Travis Facility,” further into the interior of Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch. After having conducted extensive and costly testing to ensure that the new site followed all noise, lead, and environmental laws, the new site was chosen to accommodate the few anti-gun neighbors who had filed complaints. Due to these few anti-gun property owners who live near Peaceful Valley, the County had unfairly delayed approving the Boy Scouts permit request. This delay had been putting the 2009 shooting programs at risk of being canceled. Most importantly, without the Travis Facility, the Boy Scout community would have lost an essential firearms safety-training venue and put an end to one of the nations most highly recognized firearms education programs. Thank you to all who attended the meeting and voiced their support for the Boy Scouts of America who have, and will attend this valuable and important facility.
SCI Law Seminar for Hunters
January 12, 2009ATTENTION HUNTERS: Please Attend Safari Club International’s Wildlife Law Seminar on Saturday, January 24! For those who are planning to attend Safari Club International’s Annual Convention in Reno, Nevada, at the end of this month, please be advised of a seminar that will be given on Saturday, January 24. Entitled, “Wildlife Law: Issues and Controversies Regarding Wildlife Management and Use,” this seminar should be of particular relevance to hunters who are interested in the laws affecting the shipment of firearms and trophies across state and international borders, as well as those interested in current issues affecting the management of wildlife. The seminar will be held from 8:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., on Saturday, January 24, at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa, located at 3800 S. Virginia Street, in Reno. Admittance is $129, which includes the seminar, written materials, and single, same day admission to SCI Hunter’s Convention. Registration will close on Monday, January 12. For more information and to complete a registration form, please click here. To learn about SCI membership and their convention, please visit www.safariclub.com.
Corporate Responsibility, the Gray Lady, and CNN
January 11, 2009Corporate responsibility, The Gray Lady, and CNN. What do these two organizations have to do with the theme of being responsible business citizens? Not much it seems. They both appear to enjoy exposing secret material. Material that could easily get Americans and their allies killed.
The people that run organizations like those are anything but stupid. They are well aware of what they are doing, and of the possible results. Can their actions be called treason? Possibly. Irresponsible? Certainly! Publishing a story based upon sources that have to remain anonymous for reasons of security, should, to any rational person, be one big flashing light that says not to go there!
They will, and you can bank on this; say that they are protected by the First Amendment. Even as they seek to undermine the rest of the Bill of Rights, at least the parts that they don’t like. Well, you can’t yell fire in a theatre that isn’t on fire. Nor can you use fighting words and not expect to have ramifications result from your actions.
Something tells me that CNN, and it’s unnamed sources don’t want to own up to the responsibility they might incur when / if people get killed as a result of the article about the US refusing to help Israel take out Iran’s nuclear processing plant. If not, why no byline?
Just last week there were all sorts of complaints that Israel was not allowing real time reporting from inside the current war zone in Gaza. Well, the story that follows, is why.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush rejected several Israeli requests last year for weapons and permission for a potential airstrike inside Iran, the author of an investigative report told CNN.
Israel approached the White House in early 2008 with three requests for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex, said New York Times reporter David Sanger. His article appears in the newspaper on Sunday.
According to Sanger, Israel wanted specialized bunker-busting bombs, equipment to help refuel planes making flights into Iran and permission to fly over Iraq to reach the major nuclear complex at Natanz, the site of Iran’s only known uranium enrichment plant.
The White House “deflected” the first two requests and denied the last, Sanger said.
“They feared that if it appeared that the United States had helped Israel strike Iran, using Iraqi airspace, that the result in Iraq could be the expulsion of the American troops (from Iraq),” he said.
Before things get out of hand..?
January 10, 2009The sheer hypocrisy of the drug war is nothing new. By anyone’s standards it has been a losing battle since President Nixon declared it! Now, since those in high places have refuse to acknowledge that fundamentally this is an economic battle; violence has ravaged Mexico, and spilled over into the United States.Please note that in the following article said officials state that they fear that the violence will spill over… Perhaps they should check with the locals in San Antonio and Laredo, Texas for an outdated “update” so that they can get up to speed on this issue.
More to the point though is the absolute garbage tossed out by Michael Chertoff at the very end of the story. Hey! Jerk! Remember Compean and Ramos? The guys that were tossed under the bus by a renegade U.S. Attorney?
Gun Control, the Democrats are out for revenge
January 10, 2009Ever since the election I have been commenting about how the politics of revenge will become the law of the land. My RSS feed has been going nuts about new taxes, new confiscation, and assorted other schemes that the gun control crowd are coming up with in order to deny you of your Constitutional rights with regard to being able to properly, and effectively defend your self, family, friends, and country.
What follows is among the best that I have come across.
Alan Korwin
(Prior report with Brady gun-ban lists: http://www.gunlaws.com/newstuff.htm)
The powerful gun-ban lobby has developed its own language to color and disguise its true agenda — the disarming of law-abiding Americans in every way possible, and the end of effective self defense.
Their latest set of plans — used as a fund raiser (outlined below) — is filled with nice sounding terms that put a deceptive spin on their goals. Respect for the Bill of Rights is nowhere to be found, only clever end runs and literal destruction of rights Americans have always had.
Starkly missing from these plans is any direct attack on criminals — the whole game plan is aimed at firearms the public holds. It is a product of abject gun fear — hoplophobia — that afflicts the people behind the plan. They deny they’re hoplophobic, but just look at their plans, directed solely at restricting and eliminating guns — instead of the crime caused by criminals they nominally complain about. I noticed that all mentions of accident prevention, a former holy grail for the group, are gone.
The hypocrisy is unequivocal and self evident. Sarah claims, “We need to get these ‘killing machines’ off our streets.” Well, go ahead. Any person, on any street, operating any “killing machine” belongs in prison immediately under existing law, right? Everyone, even the Bradys, know this. It doesn’t matter if your gun is black, or too short, or holds the right amount of ammo.
The problem isn’t the “machines,” it’s the lack of law enforcement — in the bad parts of town and among the gangs where most of the problems occur (see maps: http://www.gunlaws.com/GunshotDemographics.htm). They will not admit this, and they do not address this.
Instead, they act out on their phobia and attack you and me. The real problem of crime and violence is just an excuse for them to work on disarming people who didn’t do anything.
The Federal Bureaucracy of Investigation, along with the Bureaucracy of Alcohol and Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives are in complete sympathy with the plan. The Brady plan will get them more staff, more office space, more of our money and more power, the acknowledged holy grail of bureaucrats.
Politically Corrected Glossary — of Bradyspeak
(See the entire glossary: http://www.gunlaws.com/politicallycorrect.htm)
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 