The Unintended (or Not) Consequences of Magazine Capacity "Restrictions"

The Arizona shooting has provoked predictable calls for various gun control schemes, each and every one a recycled proven failure, but the most clever and insidious is the banning of large (actually, regular) capacity magazines for semi-automatic firearms. Prior to the State of the Union Address, occasionally suspect Republican Peggy Noonan has recently suggested that President Obama fly this particularly odious flag, echoing Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign’s call for the same restriction. As most now know, this was one of many topics he entirely avoided, wisely—for him. Before I continue, some useful links:

(1) My commentary on the SOTU can be found here.
(2) Bob’s informative posts with video on magazine changes can be found here and here.
(3) Bob’s post on the Columbine killers is available here.
(4) My article on Justice Breyer at PJM is available here.

In preparation for what they hope to be a new front in a never ending battle, anti-gun forces are engaging in the continual re-branding of gun control, a re-branding occasionally made necessary when the public becomes wise to the most recent re-branding of a decaying carcass. The most recent re-branding seems to be the substitution of “restriction” for “gun ban” or “gun control.” Fortunately, for most Americans, a ban by any other name would smell as badly (apologies to Shakespeare).

Paul Helmke, who is trying to shame President Obama into overtly supporting gun “restrictions,” said: “Providing access to high-capacity magazines is beyond the pale. Banning them is a matter of public safety. There is no Second Amendment or God-given right to be able to maim and kill your fellow Americans with military-style ammunition. When the high-capacity magazine restriction was in place until 2004, it was effective. If our nation can agree that machine guns, cop-killer bullets, and plastic guns ought to be banned, surely we can agree that high-volume magazines have no place in our society.”

Also recently piling on the magazine capacity limit bandwagon was the Washington Post. While such a ban might sound relatively harmless to some--VP Dick Cheney recently—and uncharacteristically--suggested that it might not be such a bad idea--it is not only foolish but dangerous. Here’s why:

(1) THE (NON) EFFECT ON PUBLIC SAFETY: Set aside the fact that criminals don’t obey any law. Set aside too the fact that even if all firearms could be magically disintegrated by appropriate legislation, the murderous would simply use other more time-tested methods of killing. It should not be forgotten that some 7000 were killed in a single day at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 using the available hand weapons, which did not include firearms. At the Civil War battle of Gettysburg in 1863, both sides suffered approximately 51,000 casualties in three days of fighting using primarily single shot, breech loading rifles and muzzle loading cannon quite crude by contemporary standards. Some 5000 horses were also killed. The problem, in 1066, 1863 and today is human nature, not the tools employed.

Helmke’s claim that the 1994-2004 Clinton Gun Ban’s 10-round magazine limit was “effective” is easily disproved nonsense. It’s hard to imagine what Helmke means by “effective,” unless he counts as effective inconveniencing and annoying the law abiding while not in any way hampering criminals. My co-blogger Bob Owen’s recent article (see the link at the beginning of this article) on the Columbine killers—who would want their names mentioned here—eloquently makes that point. There are two primary reasons the gun ban was allowed to sunset: Congressional Democrats learned through bitter experience that the issue was electoral suicide, and after a decade under the joys of Progressive gun ban fantasies, no evidence could be found, or even plausibly manufactured, to indicate that any part of the law--of which the magazine capacity limit was a crown jewel--had any meaningful, positive effect on reducing crime or in any way improving public safety.

Helmke engages in additional sophistry. “Military style ammunition” is not, in fact, what is commonly in widespread civilian use. True military ammunition can be dangerous for civilian use because of its over-penetrating properties. Machine guns have never been banned in America, merely tightly regulated, and incidents of their criminal misuse are essentially nonexistent. There is no such thing as a “cop-killer” bullet, nor have “plastic guns” ever existed. They are figments of the fevered gun banner imagination, outright lies, inventions out of whole cloth meant to play on the emotions and gullibility of an uninformed public. The public can hardly be said to agree on the necessity of banning things that don’t exist and have never been banned. Arguing for a limitation on magazine capacity with nonexistent and false examples is, to the informed and rational, less than convincing.

(2) THE PRACTICAL ARGUMENT: Limiting magazine capacity, so the argument goes, would limit the number of victims that could be shot before a shooter had to change magazines, giving bystanders (unarmed, of course) the chance to attack and disarm the shooter. This is likewise nonsense. While it is true that with, say, a 30 round magazine, one can potentially fire thirty rounds in a shorter time than someone armed with two magazines of 15-round capacity, the difference is tactically negligible.

Semi-automatic pistol magazine changes done by the skilled take as little as one second. Even those with only average skills can change magazines in 3-6 seconds. The same is true for revolvers, which commonly hold only six rounds. With widely available and commonly used speed loaders (inexpensive plastic devices shaped like a revolver cylinder that allow all six cartridges to be simultaneously inserted into the cylinder), revolvers can be reloaded within 2-8 seconds, again, dependent upon the skill level of the operator. Bob has posted several revealing posts and videos that clearly illustrate this reality (see the links at the beginning of this article). The point is that the time required for magazine changes is practically insufficient to allow effective intervention by bystanders who would most likely find themselves running toward a shooter just as he finished inserting a fresh magazine and closed the slide--not a good place to be. And if Helmke and the rest of those who would ban all firearms had their way, all possible bystanders would be disarmed.

In Arizona, the shooter was reportedly overwhelmed not because of the time required for a magazine change. He did—according to some accounts--make a successful magazine change, but his weapon malfunctioned on the second magazine and he apparently lacked the skill to clear it. An alternate possibility is that he didn’t fully insert the second magazine and it dropped to the pavement--there are reports of a magazine on the ground and of a bystander seizing one of his magazines at some point--but it’s impossible to know for sure with currently available information. That, and the very close proximity of witnesses--he apparently walked into the middle of a crowd and started shooting--made it possible to disarm and restrain him without additional injuries. With proper training, all malfunctions to which semi-automatic pistols are susceptible can be cleared in one to four seconds. In short, those who overpowered the shooter--who would surely want his name to be mentioned here--were not only brave, but lucky.

However, a shooter can eliminate all of these problems by doing as the shooter at Virginia Tech--who would also like to have had his name mentioned--did by simply employing multiple loaded weapons. That killer used two handguns, a Glock 19 (as did the Arizona killer) in 9mm, and a Walther P22, a .22 caliber handgun with a 10 round magazine. Instantly available in those two handguns, without reloading, were 27 rounds. By simultaneously employing two handguns, one can fire 30 or more rounds even faster than a single handgun with a 30 round magazine.

Anti-gunners would not want it to be known that the killer could easily have done as much--or more--damage with an improvised bomb, by driving an SUV into the crowd, or through a variety of other methods it would be best not to publicize. Consider too that what gun banners call “large capacity magazines,” are usually those specifically designed for a given handgun and are, as such, magazines in common, every day use, in no way special or unusual. Such magazines are not considered “large capacity” by their manufacturers or by those who understand and own firearms. The AR-15, for example, perhaps the most ubiquitous semi-automatic, intermediate cartridge rifle in America, has a standard magazine of 30 rounds. Manufacturers do manufacture magazines of lesser capacity, but over the years, the 30 round magazine has become standard. “Large,” like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

While most incidents of civilian shootings involve relatively few rounds, there are certainly circumstances where a magazine capacity of more than 10 rounds can save, and has saved, innocent lives. Citizens, up to two millions times each year, use firearms to stop criminal attacks, usually without firing a shot. A group of criminals sizing up a woman in a parking garage late at night would surely take into account the 15 round magazine of her handgun as she drew her weapon. The practical--as opposed to theoretical--case for limiting magazine capacity simply does not exist.

(3) THE LEGAL ARGUMENT: One of the facts that must surely be most grating to Helmke and certain Congressional Democrats is the outcome of the Heller and McDonald cases. From 1994-2004, the state of 2nd Amendment jurisprudence was unsettled. The Supreme Court had never definitively ruled on the meaning and scope of the 2nd Amendment. Helmke, and those in tune with him, constantly declared that the 2nd Amendment did not confer an individual right to keep and bear arms. The Heller and McDonald cases conclusively established that the right to keep and bear arms is without question a fundamental, individual right that does apply to the states and that extends to firearms in common civilian use, which would surely include semi-automatic handguns, revolvers, and most semi-automatic rifles that resemble their military cousins such as the AR-15. These decisions have taken considerable wind out of the sails of anti-gunners, and all but the most virulently and irrationally anti-gun Congressmen have shown little interest in running headfirst into what is now far more clearly a constitutional and electoral buzz saw.

It is not just the two decisions that worry gun-banners, but their non-enumerated, implications. Admittedly, the full scope of this fundamental right has not yet been absolutely delineated. Unquestionably, one may keep commonly available firearms, including handguns, in one’s home, and this surely includes the magazines, ammunition and related accessories in common, lawful use. Still in some flux is the issue of bearing firearms, though the twin decisions--to say nothing of common sense--imply that one cannot meaningfully exercise the right without the ability to carry firearms--not only in the home--in some substantive way. All but two states--Illinois and Wisconsin--allow some form of concealed carry, with 38 currently having “shall issue” systems where qualified applicants may not be denied a concealed carry permit. It is highly likely that Wisconsin, having recently elected a Republican majority legislature and Republican governor, will soon join the other 38.

The experience in all of these concealed carry states is consistent: Those who are willing to apply, go through rigorous vetting and training and pay substantial costs, are far more law-abiding than the general public. Their permits are suspended or revoked primarily for minor technical violations of the law such as accidentally carrying a handgun into a prohibited location. Such revocations commonly comprise only a hundredth or thousandth of a single percent of all licensees in those states.

Researchers such as economist Dr. John Lott and others have found that concealed carry states have uniformly experienced drops in violent crime, and anti-gun predictions of gunfights over shopping carts and at fender benders have failed to materialize. Even partisan anti-gun researchers have, after mighty labors, been able to say no more than that concealed carry has produced no measurable effect on crime. In this field of study, they are in the decided minority.

If the right to keep and bear arms is truly an individual right and the plain words of the 2nd Amendment retain their equally plain meaning, arms may certainly be bourn outside the confines of the home. The right to self-defense, and its necessity, cannot be said to begin and end at one’s front door. The positive American experience with concealed carry is ubiquitous and supports the rationality of concealed carry using commonly available weapons and their component parts--such as the magazines designed for them--and accessories. Restrictions may be imposed on the exercise of a fundamental right only if a compelling state interest can be clearly demonstrated, and it’s clear that no such interest adheres.

Ah, but the Constitution would prevent such restrictions? Ideally yes, but if Mr. Obama is able to appoint several Supreme Court justices, the ideological balance of the court would be swayed from those who wish to interpret the law as written, while considering the historical record which faithfully reflects the intentions of the Founders, to those who see the Constitution as a mere impediment to desirable Progressive policies. Justice Stephen Breyer, who typifies this liberty destructive mindset, was discussed in my recent PJM article (see the link at the beginning of this article).

(4) THE SLIPPERY SLOPE: Slippery slope arguments can be irrationally alarmist. Yet, considering the nature of those who wish to impose such restrictions, including their long records of deception, misdirection and hyperbole, this particular slippery slope is all too real. For those willing to take the time to conduct a bit of research, it’s easy to find the statements, oral and written, of gun banners, which reveal their unmistakable, ultimate goal of complete bans and even confiscation of all firearms. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) for example, said on February 5, 1995, on 60 Minutes, "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it.” In this statement, Feinstein committed the stereotypical DC Beltline gaffe: She accidentally told the truth, the truth most other anti-gunners are usually careful to keep under wraps.

Why allow 10 round magazines? Does this indicate that gun banners are comfortable with allowing lunatics to shoot 11 (10 +one round in the chamber) people before reloading? And if ten rounds is good, wouldn’t any other arbitrary, lower number, such as six or even one, be better? Gun banner strategy has always been incremental. Their internal documents, which from time to time surface, reveal that they have always intended to get whatever restrictions they could manage, by any means necessary, as transitional steps on the way to complete bans and confiscation. Those wondering about the consequences of honest citizens being deprived of firearms need conduct only a bit of research into the experience of the British and Australians--who have no 2nd Amendment or anything like it--to understand the deadly consequences of such policies.

Two recent anti-gun maneuvers, designed to circumvent Congress and the law, serve to illustrate the point. In July, 2010 the Center For Biological Diversity petitioned the EPA to ban all lead ammunition. Lead is an essential component in all bullets. Ban lead and you ban shooting; this is an old anti-gun tactic. Despite the fact that the EPA had no such power, and that ammunition was excluded--by law--from such attempts, the Obama EPA attempted an end run around the Constitution and the Congress. Fortunately, publicity and other pressure caused the EPA to back off--for the time being.

Also in 2010, BATFE Special Agent in charge of the Chicago Field Division Andrew Travers was nominated by President Obama to head the agency. Travers has a long anti-gun record, including the kind of blatant exaggeration and outright deception about weapons and their characteristics common in anti-gun advocacy organizations. With Travers as the head of the BATFE, substantial under-the-radar harm could, and almost certainly would, be done to the rights of Americans. Such attempts to circumvent the law and Congress by regulation are fast becoming a defining characteristic of the Obama Administration. As this is being written, the disposition of Travers’ appointment is unknown.

Ultimately the slippery slope to the elimination of individual freedom always begins with self-appointed elites assuming the power to determine what each individual “needs.” In the strictest sense, most people don’t need firearms. But then again, most people don’t need fire extinguishers either--until the unexpected moment that they do--and at that moment, they need one immediately, badly, and nothing else will do. So it is with firearms, in or out of the home.

Allowing the elite to begin by choosing how many rounds may be carried in magazines seems--to some--a small matter. After all, that doesn’t absolutely eliminate handguns. But it is a foot in the door, the door to the eventual elimination of a fundamental American right. If government has the power to allow citizens only 10 rounds why not five? If minimizing casualties at mass shootings is the goal, why not allow citizens only one magazine of five rounds? And if one magazine of five rounds is “effective,” why wouldn’t single shot handguns be even more “effective” for “public safety?” And after declaring such policy to be “effective,” why wouldn’t doing away with magazines entirely be best? And when guns able to fire single rounds are inevitably found to be ineffective anyway, who really needs them? After all, no one really needs a handgun, with the exception of criminals who will always be able to obtain whatever they think they need because they have a significant advantage over the law-abiding: As criminals, they don’t obey the law, any law.

So. A magazine limit “restriction” will have no effect on public safety. It will not deter or affect criminals. It makes life more dangerous for the law-abiding. It will not, in any reasonable, practical way, reduce the potential danger posed by lunatics who want to commit mass murder. It would arguably violate the Constitution as well as tramp on state’s rights. And it would certainly put America on the slippery slope to outright gun bans and confiscation, particularly if Mr. Obama was able to upset the ideological balance of the Supreme Court such that the 2nd Amendment was left in place, but rendered meaningless. Other than all of this, it’s a great idea.

When Americans give up the ability to choose what are no more than common, everyday firearm parts and accessories, it is a short path indeed to more and more “restriction” and less and less freedom. This is what the enemies of freedom intend. This is their reason for being, and they believe they have an opportunity, an opportunity which may last only another two years, to achieve as much as possible. Perhaps they’re right, but only if law abiding Americans who wish to continue to exercise the most fundamental right, the right to preserve their lives and the lives of those they love, and who also hope to preserve freedom against destructive change, are willing to give up that right, round by round and accessory by accessory, starting with handgun magazines.

If 1994 Magazine Ban Democrats Want to Bring Back Was In Effect, More Could Have Died in Tucson

As a group, politicians seem utterly unable to consider the "law of unintended consequences." They are quite good at reflexively throwing a new law up to address past events, but rarely consider the effects their laws will actually have.

A prime example is the magazine ban provisions of the 1994 Crime Bill. Most people remember the Ban on Scary-Looking Cosmetic Features and a ban on manufacturing magazines of more than ten rounds, but the media forgets that the immediate and unexpected reaction to that law was that gun manufacturers responded by making handguns limited to 10-round magazines as small as possible. The result was an entirely new class of subcompact handguns that packs a considerable amount of firepower into a much more concealable package. This gave concealed carry permit holders far more choices, and increased the possibility that they would leave home armed.

Increasing the number of Americans going armed in public was the exact opposite of the intention of those that passed the 1994 Crime bill, but that was the direct result.

The same politicians have not learned, and are now proposing that they bring back that flawed and ineffective law. They don't seem to grasp that the law they would resurrect very well would have made the carnage in Tucson far worse than it always was.

Anti-gun groups and the media were quick to seize upon the fact that Jared Loughner was able to empty a 33-round magazine in a matter of seconds. What most didn't tell you is precisely why his rampage ended.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik shed more light on how the gun was secured during the shooting. A woman grabbed a magazine of ammunition away from the shooter. The shooter, according to Dupnik, was able to grab another magazine - but the spring in it failed. As the shooter's second magazine failed, two men were able to subdue the shooter until law enforcement arrived.

Detachable firearm magazines are typically composed of four parts:

• the magazine body
• the baseplate
• the follower
• the spring

The more cartridges a magazine holds, the longer the magazine body must be and the longer the spring must travel. This increased movement means that larger magazines are generally more prone to failure.

This appears to be what occurred in Tucson.

It now appears that Loughner's second 33-round magazine suffered some sort of failure. If he had only the ten-round magazines that some politicians would force upon us, the odds are that he would have had to change magazines more times, but that takes just a second. Literally.

Of course, many people take longer to change magazines. For example, I don't have the time to practice regularly as I should, so it takes me 2-4 seconds.

The citizens that disarmed Jared Loughner had the chance to do so because his extended magazine failed, and he didn't know how to clear it. That gave them the time needed to make their move. If he had ten-round magazines—like those Eric Harris used to such devastating effect at Columbine in a firearm designed to comply with the Crime Bill—the number of dead and wounded could have been far, far higher.

Laws have unintended consequences. If Congress wants felons to have more reliable firearms, reinstating the 10-round magazine ban would be the most effective way to do it.

WaPo: We Know Precisely How to Stop Massacres

The Washington Post has, err, posted an unsigned op-ed calling for the reinstatement of the Scary-Looking Cosmetic Features Ban provision of the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill. You may know it better as the "assault weapons ban," but my description is more factually accurate.

The Post claims that as the ban sunset in 2004, it was just becoming effective. That's quite a bit of a stretch, and certainly not an opinion founded upon empirical data. It is a claim that would not stand up to even a cursory pass by someone familiar with the scientific method. Despite this, they confidently claim:

Jared Lee Loughner appears to be a deeply disturbed young man who should never have been able to obtain a weapon of any kind, let alone the kind that easily transforms a lone gunman into a mass murderer. The data from Virginia show that the federal ban worked. Lawmakers should not wait for another Tucson-like tragedy to resurrect this common-sense law.

They strongly assert throughout the article that reinstating the ban would prevent mass murder. The ban, in their memories, was mass-murder repellent.

Let me introduce you to the Hi-Point 995 carbine.

All you really need to know about it for the moment is that it was designed during the Scary-Looking Cosmetic Features Ban, and was designed from the beginning to use ten-round magazines.

I'll let you go to Wikipedia for the full description of this particular firearm if you are interested in reading up upon it in more detail.

As the Post said, "Lawmakers should not wait for another Tucson-like tragedy to resurrect this common-sense law." They are so right.

We need all guns to be as safe as the Hi-Point 955.

Here's another photo of the in-every-way Post-approved Hi-Point 995.

It has been rather tightly cropped, though you can see it more detail at this page if you really must.

The owner of this particular Hi Point 995 used only Post-approved ten-round magazines in this firearm developed during the ban.

To be specific, the shooter used ten of the 13 Post-approved ten-round magazines in his possession, firing this ban-developed firearm a total of 96 politically-correct times during the April 20, 1999 rampage through Columbine High School.

I'm glad the Post is so cock-sure that reinstating a failed law will save lives.

Me, I have my doubts.

From a Dictator, to Something Worse

Like much of the rest of the world I'm drawn to the growing unrest in Egypt. It appears that the events are approaching critical mass, and that Hosni Mubarak's dictatorial rule may be coming to an end.

The collapse of any dictatorship is something all humanity should celebrate, but we need to remind ourselves that those that may replace the existing dictator are more bloodthirsty than the tyrant they replace.

The Muslim Brotherhood is likely to take control of Egypt if Mubarak falls. The Brotherhood is the ideological home and is the birthplace of the ideology that brought us Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. Coptic Christians, already under siege from radical Islamists, could face an attempted genocide if the Brotherhood comes to power and let's loose their fundamentalist followers.

Like Afghanistan under the Taliban, Egypt could easily become a terrorist state and a threat to the United States.

Associated Press Falls For "Pallywood"-Style Stunt in Egypt

Glance at this gritty cellphone video from Egypt, and you might think you're watching video of protester being gunned down by riot police.

Now watch it again.

You'll note first that the shot does not come from the distance. Bullets fly far faster than sound, and yet this protester is dropping to the ground as the shot is going off. It also sounds to my ear like a pistol shot; one coming from the side of or behind the camera, at that.

Second, the man drops like a sack of potatoes. This suggests a central nervous system shot to the head or spine. He flopped back completely prostrate, where a through-and-though wound from the government forces to his front would dump substantial blood from an exit wound at the rear.

There is no blood.

This was a poorly staged scene, ladies and gentlemen.

And the media has shamefully fallen for it.

Again.

A Blind Spot for Mass Murder

Media Matters utterly failed in their attempts to smear Tea Partiers in recent weeks, as they attempted to blame the group for the actions of Jared Loughner.

Going back to the same dry well again, they are now trying to blame the Tea Party for the death of Brisenia Flores, the daughter of an alleged drug-dealer gunned down by criminal extremists attempting to rob drug dealers to support vigilante border control operations.

Was Shawna Forde an extremist when to comes to stopping illegal immigration? It certainly appears so. Is a she a murderer? Her trial should answer that question soon enough. Does she represent Tea Party values?

Of course not, despite the propagandists at Media Matters trying to imply otherwise.

It is interesting that Media Matters has be able to come up with the most flimsy of excuses to hold an entire nationwide group of normal people responsible for murder, while somehow turning a blind eye to the mass murders that occurred directly as a result of the ideologies they support.

Don't expect for these accomplices to have a cross word to say about Stalin or Che, and don't expect them to spend any time lamenting the hundreds of newborn babies killed by serial killer Kermit Gosnell and his staff. One of the most prolific mass murderers in America, he somehow can't be seen by Will Bunch, Eric Boehlert, or Oliver Willis.

Eugenics and infanticide are embraced by the Left; hug a tree, but kill a child. If he wasn't dead, Menegle would fit right in with this Soros-paid bunch of socialist sociopaths.

These loathsome creatures would indict hundreds of thousands for the murders actions of one, but can't find a cross word to say about one who killed hundreds or thousands. They seem intent on reserving themselves seats in Hell... a curious goal for a group that doesn't care about truth and justice in this world, or apparently, the next.

Napolitano's Focus On Molesting Grandmothers in Airports Is Letting Iranian Suicide Bombers Slip Across Our Southern Border

Or at least that is in one inference that can be made by this story out of Arizona:

A book celebrating suicide bombers has been found in the Arizona desert just north of the U.S.- Mexican border, authorities tell Fox News.

The book, "In Memory of Our Martyrs," was spotted Tuesday by a U.S. Border Patrol agent out of the Casa Grande substation who was patrolling a route known for smuggling illegal immigrants and drugs.

Published in Iran, it consists of short biographies of Islamic suicide bombers and other Islamic militants who died carrying out attacks.

According to internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection documents, "The book also includes letters from suicide attackers to their families, as well as some of their last wills and testaments." Each biographical page contains "the terrorist's name, date of death, and how they died."

Perhaps the most asinine claim made in the article is a blatant lie by a unnamed DHS spokesman:

"At this time, DHS does not have any credible information on terrorist groups operating along the Southwest border," a Department of Homeland Security official said in a statement.

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) called upon DHS to investigate Hezbollah's actions along the U.S.-Mexican border in June of last year.

The mainstream media, investment magazines, and even political think tanks have been writing about the issue as long ago as 2009, and rumors of US covert action against Islamic terrorist groups in Mexico and other Central and South America countries dates back even further.

Is DHS really expecting us to believe that the border they refuse to protect isn't the easiest and most logical infiltration route for terrorists, just as it is for cartels?

We will see the Mexican border shut iron-tight in a matter of days after the next massive terrorist strike in this nation is linked to terrorists waltzing into this nation, armed to the teeth as they did in Mumbai.

When that happens, I hope the American citizenry holds the political class (both parties) responsible, and puts those responsible for allowing this to happen in prison where they belong.

Field and Dream

It's the hour when the sun is high and your heels are blistered. The sky is cold, the trees bare of anything to keep the slight drizzle of this morning away from you. Your thighs ache in ways they haven't in too long and your vision is focusing, not on the task at hand, but on some hoped for mirage in which a chair and a cold beer will magically appear. You're tired, wet, and cold, wishing only for the heat of a small fire to warm you from the inside out.

But someone else wants to go on. You look into those big, beautiful brown eyes and you can't say no.

It's pheasant season and there is someone that is not done hunting yet.

I've watched him skirt and track, making J hook maneuvers that would make a fighter pilot proud even if he was a beginner. I'd watched him point. Yes. point. He did it first at about 6 months of age, pointing at a Baby Ruth wrapper on the ground. Then it was a ball cap dropped by someone, then a pigeon. I called the lady I got him from. She said "lab's don't point, that's just a puppy thing". Tell that to Barkley. He points at birds, bacon and if company is over, to that pair of underwear I accidentally dropped on the floor while putting laundry away (thanks Pal, that's NOT what I had in mind here).He's just gone a few times, not trained from birth like most hunting dogs, just learning as he goes, watching other dogs. Mostly we're out for the hike, and the sky, the birds today are secondary. "What do you think Barkley? A couple more miles?" I'd say. People would probably think me daft, sitting and talking to my dog, but out in the field or just sitting some evening quietly watching the fire, I can talk softly about the things that will matter to me the rest of my life. And he only reacts to the heft of my words or the urgency of tone as I talk about missing people I love, and the nature of death and fate and the way I've had to look deep into my own capacities to become the person I am. He just looks and he listens. At least until there is that sound, the tiny whoosh of air being displaced by winged creatures with the brain the size of a pea and a breast that calls out for succor or bacon. It's time to hunt!
We've walked for what seemed like 10 miles, while the others fan out up ahead with their dogs much more experienced in the field, leaving we junior birdmen to trail behind, watching for brass, looking out for wake turbulence. It's sort of nice, being just a tiny group, the single monotony of our goal, striding forward, chests heaving, moving fast, the world suddenly coming to a stop with a small sign from a retriever.

It's that glorious moment in time where the motion of a wasted world of daily activities, of cell phones, meetings, and doing chores, comes down to that one moment of freedom and decision. That moment when the world accelerates and then just suddenly stops, there on the precipice, there in that space between dog, hunter and bird. A moment in a hunter's life, that evocable quality of living, where the forward motion towards the game stops, but then loops back, towards you. A loop that completes a circle of predator and prey, waiting only for the curl of a dogs body, the curl of your finger, to close that circuit, and release it all with one sharp sound that breaks the lie of containment.

He stands almost motionless, only the subtle tremble in his eyes, a despair of ever being released from the hold that's been placed on him, a responsibility he picked up willingly, if only for you. Yet as much as he's trying, he might well rush forward, caught up in the moment, trying to please, it's a learning curve for both of you, but that free and loving heart is heavenly to see.

Barkley's had enough training to be a good bird dog yet. I started too late, after years of being a spoiled house dog. He'll never win any awards as a rocket scientist. He still sits patiently by the spot next to the counter where once a meatloaf fell on the floor, as if there's a secret beef shrine there and if he waits long enough, another will reappear on its alter. He'll chase the same ball for an hour, convinced he's on some major breakthrough in retrieval tactics. And he's consumed an entire pizza, a sock, a paperback book Tam brought for him (The Perfect Puppy, go figure), a jalapeno pepper and a dead worm, all with the same gusto.

We may not get a bird today, he will make mistakes as will I. But we will forgive one another, help one another learn. For we are family. For me, not a substitute for something lacking in my life, but an outlet for the warmth I harbor in my soul, seeking a place for the waters of my emotion to go when all else is damned up. He's my confidant, he's my fashion critic (jeans and t-shirt again? Well if you insist), he's the soft hearted Kleenex if I cry.

He's given me renewed hope in the capacity of a heart, as his ability to love is boundless. He'll stay on alert, face aching with a grimacing growl, keeping predators at bay while I'm at work. He's been the soft nuzzle of concern on my neck after a coughing fit during a bad winter cold, and he welcomes the friends that I shoot with into the house while keeping those that wish to harm at bay. Now, he is getting. older, grey starting to show up in that black hair. Yet still, when woken by my soft snore from the family room couch he'll move from the fire, to my side as swift, as strong as ever. Looking at me with brown eyes more humorous and honest than anyone I know, a soft paw on my arm, content simply to be by my side because I'm there. Like the rest of my friends, his needs are simple, his demands of me only warmth, faithfulness and time to go out and play.

He's taught me that money doesn't matter, he's as happy with a stick as an expensive toy; satisfied with a sleeping bag in a tent with me more than a luxurious pillow top mattress. Life is simple, someone to love and something cold to drink, well loved toys to play with and a safe place to sleep. I know he will love living further out in the wild, with less bills and more values, going where I go, with an open heart.I think I can give my best friend a little more time outdoors, maybe a bird for dinner if we're lucky. That's all we need, some open sky and something in the distance to seek, a bird or perhaps a dream. Perhaps, that's all any of us really need.I give him one last little pat as we get up and move out towards a fading sun. His muscles rippling like silk under my hands, yet more precious than anything man made. He races ahead, legs leaving the ground all at once, an outstretched leap towards his future, as if he had lost contact with the earth.

From the grass up ahead, a bird, the glint of the sun off the barrel. Life coming back, full circle.
- Brigid

Quick Takes, January 27, 2011

ITEM: In the “oh man, is this cool or what?” department, the US Navy has transformed promising theory into more promising reality by successfully testing the proof of concept hardware for the Free Electron Laser (FEL) program at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. This could be an enormous step forward over current laser technology which requires either enormous quantities of chemicals or huge electric generating plants to produce beams of sufficient power and range. According to the Navy, a FEL laser can be adapted to deal with cloud cover, precipitation or humidity, all significant issues for any ship-born system. The research team expects to have a full power prototype, capable of instantly shooting targets out of the sky by 2018. Godspeed and hurry up.

ITEM: Here we go again. Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) took office promising to, once and for all, produce indisputable proof that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. However Abercrombie has not been able to produce the actual, long form birth certificate. According to Dr. Jerome Corsi on WorldNetDaily (story here), Abercrombie said the issues will have “political implications for the 2012 election that we simply cannot have.” So has he produced the birth certificate? Not quite. He said that to date, only some sort of unspecified “listing” or “notation” of Obama’s birth has been located in the Hawaii Department of Health archives. Abercrombie said “It was actually written, I am told, this is what our investigation is showing, it actually exists in the archives, written down.” Uh huh. We don’t want to reignite another birther outbreak, but wait: Abercrombie has done that himself, and who can’t produce their own birth certificate anyway? Sheesh.

UPDATE: Now Gov. Abercrombie’s office has announced that his quest for the holy birth certificate will end in failure. Apparently the Gov. has discovered that state law prevents the release of such records--if they exist--without the approval of the individual involved. This raises several questions: Why can’t/won’t Mr. Obama authorize the release and end this issue once and for all? Why did the Gov. Bring this up in the first place? Didn’t someone on his staff have a clue about privacy laws? And the most important question: What’s wrong with that guy? Were evil, Obama-hating right-wingers beaming anti-Obama rays into his brain when he wasn’t wearing his tinfoil hat? In any case, I’m sure this whole episode will clear up the birther issue...double sheesh.

UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: Four days later, here we go again, again. Journalist Mike Evans, a long time friend of Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie, has now recanted his story that Abercrombie told him that he could not find Barack Obama’s original, long form birth certificate anywhere in Hawaii records (here). Evans now claims that he never spoke to Abercrombie and that he “misspoke.” Good grief. How do you make a mistake about whether you actually spoke to someone? Either you did or you didn’t. If you didn’t, you have nothing to say about what they said. And why was Abercrombie foozling around for weeks making repeated statements about what appeared to be an epic quest to try to find something that should have taken a single phone call and a 10 minute records search to locate? And people wonder why this issue won’t go away. One could easily be forgiven for thinking that Abercrombie and Evans were “persuaded” to recant and shut up. That is certainly a standard and often used Obamite tactic. I’m no birther, but Mr. Obama has the power--always has had it--to make this go away at will by producing the genuine article for verification by an independent authority. That he continues to keep so much of his past tightly under wraps only contributes to this continuing rodeo. Yee-hah!

ITEM: Who says that Obama Foreign policy hasn’t accomplished anything except derailing the Middle East Peace Process? From the Seattle Times, during the State visit of Chinese Premier Hu Jintao, the White House announced the dramatic signing of a new deal for the sale of 200 Boeing civilian airliners worth 19 billion to China. Hope! Change! Smart Diplomacy! Economic progress! Not so much. The actual deal involves already secured orders from as far back as 2007 during the--gasp!--Bush Administration. And 19 billion is only the window sticker price. The Chinese will actually pay only about 11 billion for the aircraft. But other than giving a completely false impression of competence and economic foreign policy acumen, the White House press release was, as Dan Rather surely would have put it, “false but accurate.”

ITEM: And in other feckless foreign policy news, what concessions were “smart diplomacy” and “outreach” able to wring from the Chinese during Hu Jintao’s state visit? None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Dick and Squat. To be fair, the US is in a poor position to demand anything of China due to two years of smart economics, but that--like bad weather, bad breath, indigestion, global warning and acne--is, of course, George W. Bush’s fault. Ooops! No, sorry! These days it’s Sarah Palin’s fault! Former NYT columnist Leslie Gelb thinks this a stunning success. She writes: “On the plus side, Obama restored much of America’s credibility for being tough and serious that he had lost in Bejing a year ago. That’s important and will count as problems arise in the next two years.” Well thank goodness! And I thought Mr. Obama was simply incompetent. Silly me.

ITEM: And the hits just keep on coming! Via The Epoch Times, via Ann Althouse (here), at the White House state dinner honoring Hu Jintao, Chinese pianist Lang Lang (I didn’t know Pandas could play the piano!) played a Chinese propaganda song from the Korean War era that insults America. Ms. Althouse quoted Yang Jingduan, a Chinese psychiatrist now living in Philadelphia who had been a doctor in the chinese military: “In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the U.S....It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating...” Does anyone at the Obama State Department know anything about, you know, affairs of state? Oh well. At least it’s clear that while the Chinese have no respect for us or fear of us, we make up for it by being seen as a paper tiger.

ITEM: Like a swarm of well dressed locust, more than 200 mayors have descended on Washington famished for federal bailouts, and have apparently been given at least the hope of stripping bare juicy taxpayer crops. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said they had a “great meeting” with Mr. Obama. “What was clear to me, this is a president who is focused on our cities,” he chortled. Uh, am I missing something, or aren’t these the same mayors whose lunatic progressive policies have flushed their cities down the fiscal commode? Give thanks, dear readers, that the entire Congress is no longer controlled by the Progressives. Were that the case, the mayors would be installing money pipelines directly to DC. Truly, we live in--as the ancient Chinese curse goes--interesting times.

iTEM: And the winners of January’s Captain Louis Renault Award are: The U.S., Russia, France, England, Germany and China, the six powers negotiating with Iran to convince the mad mullahs to stop uranium enrichment. The talks collapsed on January 22 when Iran said: “nanner, nanner nanner,” while simultaneously sticking out its tongue while inserting its thumbs in its ears and wiggling its fingers. Captain Louis Renault, for those not familiar with “Casa Blanca,” was the policeman who was “shocked, shocked” to discover illegal gambling going on in Rick’s Place, just before his gambling winnings were delivered to him.

ITEM: According to MSN, Marc Higgins, 21, of Connecticut has been charged with murder and assault after stabbing Mathew Walton, 21, to death, and stabbing three others, apparently at random. Higgins was angered at a party when some present made fun of his farting. Yes, farting. He left and returned with two knives and began attacking people indiscriminately. According to the Hartford Courant, Higgins told police that he wanted to teach people that they shouldn’t “trifle” with him. No doubt Higgins was inspired by Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Republicans trying to repeal ObamaCare, the Tea Party and those guys selling Ginsu knives on late night TV. The usual suspects will surely introduce a bill to limit the number of blades and accessories available in Swiss Army knives. I’ve always been worried about the destructive potential of those little toothpick thingies. I do have one pertinent question: How is it possible to have killed or injured anyone without a 30 round magazine? I don’t get it...

ITEM: So Sarah Palin is unelectable? She’s inexperienced, she’s...you name it, as long as it’s derogatory. It doesn’t take much reading of the Founders to discover that they well knew that a professional political class could arise--and would be a disaster. They hoped that our elected representatives would come from the general public, serve their limited time in the Congress, and return to real lives. How then could anyone be elected to Congress without massive prior experience? By an examination of their character and reputations which tends to help to predict future actions. Interesting, isn’t it, that we’ve become what the Founders feared. By any reasonable standard, they might well have admired a self-made, accomplished, intelligent, strong and successful candidate for national office, a doer, not one to vote “present” to avoid political footprints. And she’s the one who is unelectable... Sigh.

ITEM: A group of 13 Somali pirates in control of a Norwegian-owned ship run by South Koreans off the east coast of Africa received a wake up call from South Korean Naval Special Forces on Jan 21. The operators rescued the 21 man crew, killed eight pirates and captured five. So should it ever be. Congratulations to the South Korean government and to all involved.

ITEM: In the positive negative trends corner, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that labor union membership has dropped from 12.3% of the workforce to 11.9 in 2010. Of 14.7 million union members, 7.6 million are in the public sector. At one time, unions achieved necessary, even noble ends, but those days have long since passed and most unions now exist as greedy, corrupt arms of the Democrat party, arms that have materially contributed to the fiscal plight of many cities and states. With the possibility of doing away with secret ballot elections for union certification now a distant memory, unions justifiably continue to recede into oblivion. While I have no animosity toward hard working Americans (I are one), unionized or otherwise, it’s hard to feel anything but relief at these statistics.

ITEM: The State of The Union Pep Rally and Insomnia Cure! For my article on that epic event--or whatever it was--go here.

ITEM: Well, that sucks! According to Fox News, a 44-year old New Zealand woman made her way to the emergency department of an Auckland hospital complaining of a loss of movement in her left arm. Doctors traced the problem to a hickey on her neck near a major artery and concluded that the suction effect of the hickey bruised the artery, dislodging a clot which caused a minor stroke. The doctors administered an anti-coagulant and the woman recovered. Who’da thunk it? Mom was right about hickeys after all!

And on that warm and fuzzy note, thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you next time!

IFAKs Saved Lives in Tucson

@ITSTactical points to a Washington Post article about the lives saved in Tucson because responding deputies were equipped with military-grade Individual First Aid Kits (IFAKs) optimized to deal with the most common causes of battlefield trauma and death. The small kits—not even the size of a child's lunchbox—have saved lives in combat overseas and did the same at the site of Jared Loughner's attack.

Doctors and law enforcement officials told reporters here that the incident would have been much worse without a small brown kit devised by David Kleinman, a SWAT team medic who had become concerned about rising violence.

Kleinman cobbled together the Individual First Aid Kits out of simple items used by combat medics in Iraq and Afghanistan: an emergency bandage pioneered by the Israeli army; a strip of gauze that contains a substance which coagulates blood on contact; a tactical tourniquet; shears that are sturdy and sharp enough to slice off victims' clothing; and sealing material that works especially well on chest wounds.

I purchased my first IFAK in mid-2010. As I spend a decent amount of time at shooting ranges, and the skill level and safety practices of people at ranges varies widely, it simply seemed prudent to have such a kit as part of my range bag in case someone suffers the results of a negligent discharge or catastrophic failure. I'm also looking to pick up some relevant first responder training so that I can use the kit more effectively, but the brilliance of the kit is that it uses equipment that requires minimal training.

As ITS brought this article to my attention, I think it only fair that I provide a link to their site, where they sell a similar kit they call an ETA. Considering the amount of time I spend on the road each week (minimum of 250 miles) I'm thinking about picking up a pair of these to keep in my vehicles to deal with the more common scenario of running across an accident scene.

I hope I never find myself needing to use any sort of blow-out kit like these, but if they're needed, I hope to God that I have one nearby.

GUTLESS: No Leadership in Either Party

If you are 40 years old or younger, you will never collect a dime from Social Security. Odds are that you will not receive any benefits from Medicare, or Medicaid, either. All three entitlement programs will have collapsed into nothingness.

This is a mathematical certainty that neither the Democratic nor Republican speakers would address last night. President Barack Obama incredibly called for more spending in his second State of the Union Address, apparently learning nothing of the abject failure of his policies issued since his first SOTU.

Wonkish Paul Ryan could not bring himself to address the proximate pachyderms either in his Republican response to the President's address.

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are dead men walking. They cannot be saved. Pretending otherwise, and letting the American people believe that entitlements go on forever is the greatest of disservices. It is poor consolation that neither party with survive the inevitable collapse.

Update: Social Security is officially broke. That took even less time than I thought!

There Be Monsters

There is a culture of murderous violence in this nation that is directly responsible for one of the most prolific serial killers in this nation's history. You won't be bombarded with wall-to-wall coverage, allegations, and idle speculation about the perpetrator and his numerous accomplices on MSNBC, CNN, the network news or among the heavyweights of the newspaper op-ed pages.

They've given this one a pass. After all, it's just a little genocide.

My latest article at Pajamas Media.

A SOTU Analysis As Dignified as the SOTU

Mr. Obama’s hair is back to dignified, adult gray, not quite as gray as at the Tucson Memorial, but it now appears that he’ll change his hair--as well as his rhetoric--to suit the occasion. Bets on Vegas betting lines on the issue?

He has invoked Tucson/Rep. Giffords twice within the first few minutes. He wouldn’t be using a tragedy to score cheap political points, would he? Well, he did simultaneously invoke the “dreams” of the 9 year old girl who was killed, but that’s not cynical or anything. I wonder if they handed out t-shirts tonight too?

He’s observing that “...the public have determined that both parties will NOW work together.” Hmm. I think they “determined” that a long time ago, but Mr Obama and the Dems told them “I won,” and “elections have consequences,” didn’t they?

Ah! It’s not about the next election, but jobs! That must be why official unemployment is about 9.8% (certainly higher in reality). Mr. Obama, who is in perpetual campaign mode, would certainly never even think, let alone pursue, anything else when jobs hang in the balance.

He keeps harping on “together.” “...thanks to the tax cuts WE passed in December...” WE passed tax cuts? I thought that fell into the category of the Dems and Mr. Obama grudgingly agreeing not to RAISE taxes, not to allow the single largest tax increase in American history to automatically occur, only because the public was holding an electoral gun to their heads (it’s a metaphor! I’m not encouraging holding an electoral gun--whatever that is--to anyone’s head, let alone shooting them with it, which might get them elected to an office they didn’t want, or something) and it would plunge America into bankruptcy so fast that Obama wouldn’t have a chance at reelection. It didn’t have anything to do with actually cutting taxes, did it?

Ah! The steps he has taken over the last two years have “...broken the back of the recession!” Will miracles never cease? Is there nothing that The One cannot do?! I doubt many Americans outside the Dem. side of the Beltway would share that opinion. I mean that he actually did anything to fix the economy and that the recession has had any part even mildly bruised to date. He’ll harp on this throughout the speech which will last about 75 minutes. He is persistent, particularly when he’s dead wrong and lying to the public...

I’ll never understand why some people think the man a modern Demosthenes. I’ve taught college and high school speech. On his best day, I’d give him a B; most days, no more than a C. He’s completely dependent upon a teleprompter, his vocal rhythms and inflections never change, and his pitch and volume fall, as off a cliff, at the ends of most sentences or phrases. His gestures are limited, stilted and stereotypical, and if he doesn’t suffer nerve damage from his constant left-right-left, head movement, reminiscent of a cheap fan, I’ll be amazed. He probably still thinks that when he does that, the public believes that he’s making eye contact and meaningfully connecting with the audience rather than reading from the teleprompter screens.

Tonight, particularly during the first half of the speech, he’s halting, unsure, pausing too much at the wrong times. Is he just having trouble reading? Didn’t practice enough, or is the script scrolling at the wrong speed or in a jerky fashion? Hard to tell, but he’s a bit more clumsy than usual.

Uh-oh. Here it comes: We have to “...out-innovate, out-educate-outbuild the rest of the world.” Now comes the “investing...”

So that’s how we’ve always done it! It was Joe Biden who claimed that government was behind virtually every important advancement practically ever. Mr. Obama tells us that the government will encourage innovation and will “...spark the creativity and imagination of our people.” He doesn’t specifically say we’ll have to “invest” in that sparking, but that’s the point, of course. I always thought the American people did that quite well without government help, but apparently Ben Franklin, Henry Ford, Jonas Salk, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and countless others would have been helpless absent massive government “investment” support. Silly me.

Double Uh-oh. Now he’s invoking the race to the moon. Ah, of course! We have to “invest” in research and innovation. And what will that be, pray tell? Biomedicine, information tech, and “...especially clean energy.” Finally! It rears its feeble head!

Let’s see, clean energy will improve our security, it will save the planet and “create countless new jobs,” just like all of the clean energy jobs that have been created the last two years, you know, like all the shovel ready jobs the President finally admitted didn’t exist...oh.

NEWSFLASH: We’re going to “break our dependency on oil with biofuels.” Oh, like ethanol? Right. It makes food scarce, actually starves people in the third world, has only about 80% of the power of gasoline, is corrosive to engines, and requires huge government subsidies to exist at all. Other than that, sure, we’ll be awash in biofuels any day now! Didn’t the DeLorean in one of the “Back to the Future” Movies run on banana peels?

NEWSFLASH: By 2015, we’ll have one million electric vehicles on the roads! Yup. On the roadsides; out of electricity.

How are we going to accomplish these wonders? More “investment?” Nah. We’re going to cut all of the money we’re giving the oil companies and give it to clean energy companies. There will be “...no subsidies for yesterday’s energy,” no sir! We’re going to “...invest in tomorrow!” Well, he did promise to make energy prices skyrocket. That ought to get it off the launching pad.

WE HAVE A GOAL! By 2035, 80% of our energy will come from clean energy sources. Even the Dems in the chamber can’t produce any more than tepid and very brief applause at that whopper. He does give lip service to wind, solar (which promises to produce up to 2% of our energy needs--intermittently), “clean coal” and “nuclear” sources, but of course he isn’t allowing any permitting for nuclear plants and has sworn to destroy the coal industry and is making good on his promise just as fast as he can. He also knows that he can count on his environmentalist allies to tie up any such projects in years of lawsuits. But it won’t be so bad. By 2035 we might have access to say, an hour of electricity a day? Perhaps it will even be at night! Oh goodie!

Tepid and halting applause is the order of the day. I mean weak applause, lasting only a few seconds, is the norm, not the exception, and much of it is accompanied by obvious groans, moans, and even booing, as when he announces that he’ll replace No Child Left Behind (may it suffer the torments of the damned) with “Race To The Top,” which, as far as I can tell, is a program primarily designed to reward unions and union members for putting on shiny PR faces. That one really did’t impress anybody in the chamber. Even the smug Cheshire Cat grin on Mr. Biden’s face faded a bit--quite the accomplishment.

Some of the biggest applause came when he praised teachers, saying that we should respect them more. He even went so far as to suggest that he’s all for local control of education. Uh-huh. I’ll buy that one as soon as he abolishes the Department of Education.

Uh-oh. Here it comes: “Higher education” must be “in the reach of all Americans.” Apparently whether they want it or not. That’s why, he tells us, he took over the student loan business from that infamous Enemy of the People, the greedy banks! That doesn’t impress the crowd either. By the end of the decade, we’re going to have “the highest proportion of college graduates in the world!” Whether they want to or not! I guess the American people are just too dumb to know whether they want or need to go to college. I withdraw my suggestion that we do away with the Department of Education. That one impresses them a bit more, but not much.

IMMIGRATION NON-ENFORCEMENT DEPARTMENT: We need to address the issue--in a bi-partisan way, of course--because if we don’t then all of the “undocumented workers” who graduate from college will leave America and compete against us and that would be bad and wrong--or something. We’re kicking out people who would otherwise work in “research labs,” or “open a small business,” or something. And we’re going to work together--just like Mr. Obama and the Dems have been doing for years now--to “protect our borders,” and to “enforce our laws.” That one really didn’t impress the crowd. Apparently acknowledgement and disapproval of hypocrisy and blatant lying is back in fashion in the Congress, at least for tonight. Even the Dems couldn’t come up with much enthusiasm for this.

RAILWAYS TO NOWHERE: So that’s how we’ll do it! We’re going to invest untold gazillions in high speed rail and high speed internet. He’s not giving specific numbers tonight, but he wants to spend--I mean “invest”--lots. Now he’s comparing us to China (again--he’ll do that a bunch tonight) and Europe, and as always for him, we’re not looking very good. I don’t know. I just don’t hear that clamor for high speed rail in restaurants and coffee shops. You just don;t hear that many folks pining for the direct, high speed rail route from DesMoines to New Orleans. But Amtrak has been such a stunning success. We’ve only lost...how many hundreds of billions subsidizing it? But Joe Biden used to ride it, so that makes it...a government boondoggle?

Ah-hah! I knew it! The last two years we’ve been rebuilding America! Mr. Obama’s policies have created “thousands of jobs for the hard hit construction industry.” Well, maybe making signs advertising all of those “shovel ready” jobs, which Mr. Obama, last October, admitted didn’t ever, actually, you know...exist.
He really must think that the American people are complete idiots.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! Yes! All of this will be “completely paid for...” and he doesn’t really say how, exactly. Fairy dust, apparently.

WE HAVE ANOTHER GOAL!! Yes! In 25 years, 80% of Americans will have “access to high speed rail!” In some instances, it will be “faster than flying.” At his point, Mr. Obama took the kind of brave, forward looking, progressive excursion off the teleprompter for which we love him so much and quipped that it would be faster than flying “...without the pat downs.” I’ll bet that was part of the script. So did the crowd, who, for the most part, groaned--not at all happy-making sounds in the house. Mr. Biden thought it was hilarious. Perhaps he has the Secret Service “pat him down” whenever he flies on a government plane? Good times; good memories. Speaker Boehner, sitting to Mr. Biden’s left, was less than amused. He flies commercial. So do we. But wait a minute! Couldn’t Mr. Obama do something about those “pat downs?” He’s the President after all, and...oh. Never mind.

SO THAT’S HOW IT HAPPENED! Want to know how the tax code got so screwed up, so “rigged,” as Mr. Obama put it? That’s right. It was another Enemy of the People: Lobbyists! They did it. Would that be the plethora of lobbyists Mr. Obama solemnly swore never to employ, but did anyway? He tells us we have the highest corporate tax rates in the world. That’s the first point truth has put on the scoreboard tonight! Bring out the cheerleaders! He observes that it “makes no sense.” But wait a minute...he’s the POTUS. Couldn’t he have done something about that during the last two years...what? Oh. He did? He made it worse? On purpose? Right.

So how is he going to fix things? He’s going to “simplify,” “close loopholes,” and “lower the corporate tax rate.” Well if it was that easy, why hasn’t he done it before? He’s been POTUS for more than two years, and...oh. Never mind.

Hey! He’s done some deals with China that will “support” 250,000 jobs. Support with what? How? When? Is that the same as actually having 250,000 real, actual, you work and someone pays you money for more than a week, jobs in the private sector that actually contribute to wealth and the tax base, or is that like pseudo-medicines on late night TV that “support prostate health,” or give you erections that last for more than four hours so you have to call a doctor right away, and what’s the deal with two apparently naked people reclining in two cold, separate bathtubs out on the tundra anyway? I dunno, but at least it’s more entertaining than this speech...

Oh, and we have some sort of deal or something with Korea that will support, or create, or provoke, or annoy “7000 jobs,” or something.

WELL, THIS ONE GOT AT LEAST SOME APPLAUSE: He’s going to ruthlessly root out unnecessary regulations that are “burdens on business.” Apparently the same business that he has been ruthlessly trying to run out of business for two years (like the insurance industry?) and calling to the White House to threaten. Ah, but there’s a caveat, you see! He will also rigorously enforce “common sense safeguards that protect the American people.” What one hand giveth, the other taketh away, even more so. Hey, but didn’t he just create, with ObamaCare, so many new regulations and disincentives and new costs for business that he could remove old 100 regulations a day from now until eternity and still have so many regulations that, if stacked end on end, would reach all the way to, well, eternity? Yup. He really does think we’re morons.

WELL THANK GOD--I MEAN, THE ONE. He saved us all from another evil Enemy of the People! Mr. Obama “passed reform that finally prevents the health insurance industry (cue the sinister, evil insurance industry cackling track) from exploiting patients!” But wait a minute: Aren’t some 80%+ of the public happy with their current level of insurance industry “exploitation?” And isn’t the “reform” he’s talking about ObamaCare? You know, the takeover of health care that will, by itself, bankrupt the nation and bring us the wonders of socialized medicine that has Canadians fleeing over the northern border every day to avoid? The reaction of the crowd: Mild, unenthusiastic Dem. clapping, and annoyed and angry muttering and thinly veiled imprecations from the rest of the chamber. Looks like at least some of the Dems have been listening to voices of The People--the bastards.

On the positive side, Mr. Obama will go along with doing away with businesses having to file with the IRS whenever they do $600 in trade with anyone. That was just one of simply loads of little, unrelated to health care surprises in the 2700 page bill, you know, the one Ex-Speaker of the House (it feels soooooo good to say that) Pelosi said we’d have to pass before we could learn its contents? Rumor has it that another little known part of the law requires all Americans to wear organic lettuce in their underwear, but to wear it on the outside so Department of Agriculture Inspectors can check. That should “save or create” some federal jobs.

And Mr. Obama is not going to “re-fight the battles of the last two years” over health care. Wait a minute...what battle? Didn’t the Dems just steamroller that one against the wishes of the American people? Anyway, he wants to “fix what needs fixing and move forward.” Yeah. Into bankruptcy and the glories of socialized medicine. Swell. At least the crowd caught on and responded with tiny applause and a cacophony of boos and catcalls.

GOOD NEWS! He said it lots of times, so it must be true: The worst of the recession is over! Remember how he broke its back earlier? And did you know that the government “spends more than it takes in,” and that that “is not sustainable?” He even said--stop laughing right now! I mean it!--that “government should live within its means.! I wonder who told Mr. Obama? Does he believe anything he reads on the teleprompter? Do the people who write it?

So, he’s going to freeze domestic spending for the next five years! That will save “500 billion” in a decade. So that’s what? Two hundred fifty billion in five years? So why did he say a decade? But wait a minute, he’s racked up four trillion+ (that we know of) new debt in just two years, and that’s not counting ObamaCare, so if we freeze at current levels, we’ll still be in the hole by numbers understandable only by astronomers and math geeks, and that doesn’t count ObamaCare. So that isn’t actually “saving” anything...? Yup. He thinks we’re total idiots. The audience gets it too. One or two claps forlornly echo. Maybe there is some hope for at least some Dems...Naaaah!

We’re also going to cuts billions out of the Defense Budget, but only for things the military really doesn’t need. The camera focuses on Defense Secretary Gates. He is not overflowing with enthusiasm. Mr. Obama will “listen to proposals” for reducing the deficit, but “not on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.” You know, like labor unions, General Electric, Fannie and Freddie, ACORN or whatever they call themselves today... I somehow suspect that any substantive cuts suggested by Republicans will be quickly discovered to be on the backs of our “most vulnerable citizens.”

LESSONS IN POLITICAL HUMOR: Thus far, Mr. Obama has tried to make several jokes. They’ve all fallen flat. Even the Dems aren’t laughing. Rodney Dangerfield he isn’t.

WHAT? Mr. Obama is going to “cut spending through tax breaks and loopholes.” Uh...right. No one in the house has any idea what he’s talking about. Even the bobble-heads who have been consistently bobbling all night when Mr. Obama so much as blinks are confused and momentarily stop bobbling.

Of course. He trots out the blatant falsehood that repealing ObamaCare will somehow cost the nation a quarter of a trillion dollars. Right. Fail to spend untold trillions and that will cost a quarter of a trillion that isn’t being spent. Perhaps he learned that while he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. You know, the one for which he really didn’t edit or write anything? But he will “look at” malpractice lawsuit reform. Hasn’t he promised to “look at” a great many things? And hasn’t he, having “looked,” immediately returned to the socialist path of the glorious revolution? Thought so.

Of course, of course. We have to have a “bi-partisan solution” to “strengthen Social Security for the future,” but “without slashing benefits for future generations,” or relying on the “stock market.” But no one is suggesting cuts for those currently in the system...Oh, right. He won’t authorize any cuts for anyone, ever! And no involvement of another running dog Enemy of the People, the stock market, which by the way, he bragged has rebounded! So I guess they’re not so evil, or maybe they are, or something...

YET ANOTHER ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! “We can’t afford a permanent extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.” Oh, you mean that 2% that pay the majority of all income taxes instead of the 50% who don’t pay any? That 2%? The 2% whom you have determined have reached the point where they made enough money?

I GUESS HE REALLY IS THE SMARTEST MAN IN THE WORLD! Mr. Obama has discovered that it would be a good idea to “simplify the tax code.” Genius. And it only took him two years to figure it out! The camera pans to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-Brady Campaign). He is smirking the smirk to end all smirks, which is extra-smirky even for him, and he’s the smirk-meister. I know exactly what he’s thinking: “Yeah, like THAT’S going to happen!”

NOW HE’S THE SMARTEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE! Mr. Obama has also discovered the necessity of “reorganizing government.” He make his point by providing the example of the salmon who are under the jurisdiction of one federal agency when in salt water, but another when in fresh water. Then he does it. He makes a drug joke, well, sort of. He says, “and I understand it’s even worse when they’re smoked!” Odd, unsettled sounds rebound about the chamber. He grins like a dim witted freshman fraternity pledge, waiting for the audience to “get it.” I’m waiting for him to say, “when they’re smoked, you know, smoked? Get it?” but he somehow avoids it. Some of them actually gasp and titter nervously as he soaks in the adulation that really isn’t there. Embarrassed laughter, groans, and rolling eyes throughout the house. What dignity and decorum. He has class and style, that one. I wonder if it was an ad-lib or actually part of the script. Which would be worse? Ten points for a correct answer.

And we’re going to get even more government transparency from the most transparent administration in history! Did you know I have a bridge for sale in San Francisco Harbor? Must be seen to be appreciated! Call 1-800...

Mr. Obama is going to veto all bills that contain earmarks. Mr. Biden is convulsed with laughter. I had no idea vetoing earmarks was such a laugh riot. Mr. Boehner looks like, maybe, he wants to cry.

Mr. Obama is promising a “...new level of engagement in our foreign affairs,” and swearing that we will “defeat determined enemies wherever they are...” Sounds good. It’s just kind of a shame that he can’t tell the difference between our enemies and our allies and particularly that he gets them exactly mixed up. I’m expecting a declaration of war against England any day now, particularly since he wasn’t invited to the wedding. I bet they were afraid of getting another iPod with his speeches again, or maybe more cheesy movies that don’t play on European DVD players.

By this point I’m struck by the realization that Mr. Obama almost sounds like an American President who is actually, you know, on America’s side. He’s making lots of patriotic noises this evening and talking about how swell America is and Americans are, even, apparently all those God and gun clingers who hate everyone who isn’t like them. Sad that our expectations of our President have sunk so low that one the rare and fleeting occasions when he actually behaves like an American President, it’s noteworthy. He continues to live down to our expectations.

AH, SO THAT’S WHO THEY ARE! “American Muslims are a part of our American family.” Well sure, all of those who don’t want to practice Sharia and aren’t trying to kill or convert every infidel by force, anyway. This one was multi-culti and diverse enough to get a standing ovation, by most of the Dems and some Republicans. Sigh.

COMEDY GOLD DEPARTMENT” Mr. Obama is now talking tough on terrorism. His inspired leadership has the terrorists on the run in Pakistan. Well, with the help of the Pakistani intelligence agency, sure. And the START treaty was a great accomplishment that will “lock down nuclear weapons” so they “won’t fall into the hands of terrorists.” Oh, the great accomplishment so great the Russian Duma won’t pass it? And now that you mention nucs falling into terrorist hands, what about the Iranians? Well, we have “tougher sanctions on Iran than ever before!” That’ll scare them a whole bunch more than all of the tougher sanctions we’ve had on them before these tougher sanctions before the previously tough sanctions. And what about the North Koreans? Well, Mr. Obama is continuing to keep “insisting that the North Koreans give up their nuclear weapons.” I suppose they’ll just shell another South Korean island or torpedo another South Korean ship in the face of such forceful, manly insistence. Perhaps if, instead of giving them billions as we usually do when they kill people, Mr. Obama threatens “tough sanctions?”

FOREIGN DISENTANGLEMENTS: In March Mr. Obama is traveling to to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador to “forge new alliances” in our backyard. He didn’t say whether he was going to continue to order the State Department to pressure Honduras to reinstate their lawfully, constitutionally deposed Marxist ex-president. Also no word on the mutual defense pact between Iran and Venezuela or all of the MANPADS Iran sold them, or the medium range, nuc-capable missiles Iran will soon install in Venezuela.

Mr. Obama also “stands with Tunisia,” and “supports the democratic aspirations of people everywhere.” He almost sounds Kennedyesque for a second, but only for a second. Yes, he’ll bear any burden to fight for liberty, except in, for instance, Iran, or Tunisia, or pretty much anywhere in Africa, or Georgia--not the state, the country, but come to think of it, he wouldn’t defend them either--or well, just about anywhere. But he’ll absolutely “stand with” them. If they can make it to DC, and if he can fit it into his schedule, if he isn’t golfing, or on the campaign trail, or on vacation, or working on the new civility, that is.

WELL, HE JUST HAD TO SLAP SOMEBODY IN THE FACE! Last year it was the Supreme Court (only five of the nine were present tonight), and this year--drum roll please Maestro--The Joint Chiefs of Staff! Mr. Obama pays ritual lip service to our troops and their families and promises fidelity, yaddah, yaddah. The troops know the difference between a POTUS who actually respects them and one who sees them primarily as props for photo opportunities. But he gamely speaks the words to polite applause. And then he makes a troop related announcement that is REALLY important: That’s right: Gays will now be able to serve openly! Dems go wild. Republicans are still, silent, or polite. The camera focuses on the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are doing their best to impersonate Mount Rushmore, but it’s not hard to imagine what they’re thinking, and it’s not fit for even this scruffy little blog. Oh yes, and he calls on colleges to embrace ROTC, not like he’s actually planning on enforcing the law or anything to make that happen. He certainly hasn’t to this point. But to be fair, I’m sure that Mr. Holder has been very busy trying to secure soccer tournaments to provide important jobs for millions of those in the badly depressed New Black Panther voter threatening, hotdog, peanut and beer service industries.

QUICK! A GLASS OF WATER! I’M GAGGING! Now he does it. He’s actually praising our democratic system, you know, the one he swore to “fundamentally change?” The one that he, and the Dems, ran like a tinpot dictatorship for the last two years, cutting Republicans completely out of the legislative process and ramming through legislation that a clear majority of the public opposed? That democratic system? The one full of evil business Enemies of the People, who he now, by the way, embraces and wants to “spark” with “investment.” Hey! I’ll bet THAT’S why he hired GE’s CEO! They have lots of sparks there! I have a sneaking suspicion that “investment” is a code word for spending ludicrous amounts of borrowed money that we don’t have and haven’t a prayer of paying back, but I guess I’ll have to take Mr. Obama at face value...

Oh yes, and he’s observing that “we all still believe in the rights enshrined in our Constitution,” that is, unless, you know, any of them might be, sort of, well, inconvenient, or you know, stand in the way of righteous Progressive...progress, then I guess “we all,” doesn’t REALLY include Mr. Obama and the Dems, because after all, the Constitution is a “living document,” which Progressives seemed determined to kill at the earliest possible opportunity, but it’s a nice sentiment, even if it’s one that no one with an IQ larger than their shoe size believes Mr. Obama really means. The crowd wildly applauds on the “applaud the principle, not the man, principle.

And now he’s calling America “the greatest nation on Earth.” Wait a minute...Didn’t he used to say that on the campaign trail, but add: “... and I need you to help me fundamentally change it?” Why yes, I believe he did. Wouldn’t that be kind of...contradictory?

And now he’s talking about the “ordinary people who dare to dream.” He’s invoking the majesty of the little people! All the haters and God and gun clingers in flyover country! Before he asks God to bless America, he virtually shouts that “we do big things!” Indeed. Like destroying the finest medical system ever known to man and spending us into oblivion.

SUMMARY:

According to Fox News, the speech was interrupted 80 times by applause, but it was, overall, the most tepid, brief, embarrassing applause I’ve ever seen at the annual national pep rally...ooops! I mean at a State of the Union speech. Despite the fact that every time Mr. Obama clears his throat or belches, the Media or Obama’s adoring followers (I know, I’m being redundant) proclaim it the greatest speech since the Gettysburg Address, maybe even better, I somehow suspect that somewhat fewer of them are going to praise this one quite so effusively. We’ve all heard it all before, over and over again from the most over-exposed POTUS in American history. It’s a another world’s record! And he doesn’t think he’s explained himself enough to the American people. It’s a problem of “messaging.”

Mr. Obama provided no specifics, no numbers. Many talking heads have wondered if Mr. Obama’s new stances are the result of a genuine Road to Damascus conversion or merely cynical rhetoric masking the same old Socialist drives temporarily tucked under red, white and blue cover. Most are saying that it’s too soon to tell. Nonsense. Much of what Mr. Obama said tonight is the exact opposite of what he has been saying--and doing--all of his life, to say nothing of the last two years. In normal company, in the company of the “ordinary people who dare to dream,” that’s know as “lying.” Progressives call it “messaging.” Mr. Obama messaged the American people up one side and down the other tonight while making it clear that he won’t entertain any real reforms or cut any real costs.

So is this new Barack Obama a political calculation born of political necessity? Is he yet a socialist wolf in centrist clothing waiting for the chance to cast off imperialist chains with a second term? Is rhetoric cheap and easy, but actual change impossible for a committed movement socialist? Do bears play in the woods? Is the Pope a Catholic?

So. Mr. Obama is going to freeze spending, cut defense, reorganize government, reform the tax code, and save simply scads of money--while simultaneously spending more and more scads of money, including not repealing the single largest, bankrupting entitlement/governmental power grab in history. Oh, that's right, he's not going to be "spending money." He's going to be "investing in the future." And he really, really loves and respects America, the troops--particularly if they're gay--and the Constitution and the ordinary people who dare to dream, and exactly how stupid does he think we are again?

Live-Tweeting The State of the Union

At @confederateyankee.

Live-blogging is so 2009.

Tha-Thump: Browner Under The Bus

You have outlived your usefulness to the One, eco-drone. Be gone!

Carol Browner is leaving her position as White House "energy czar," and a staff shake-up is likely to eliminate her post altogether, according to Democrats familiar with events.

The czar position, and Ms. Browner herself, have been lightning rods for critics of the president's environmental-policy agenda and a reassurance to its supporters, who liked having a top official in the White House devoted to their priorities.

Of course, Browner isn't really gone, she's just playing a bit part in Obama's little passion play. She'll be back wrecking the economy in short order, as she's tied her self worth (and her financial portfolio) to the pursuit of the Green agenda.

Reality Check For the NY Times: Piven's Strategy Inherently Calls for Violence

The New York Times long ago ceased being a news organization, and now exists primarily as a propaganda organ for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. It is no surprise that they no only ignore the violence being called for by leading leftist ideologues, they also try to spin the aggressors into being the victims.

The thing is, the left is calling for socialism, and calling for it via violent action.

Calls for the escalation and manipulation of violent rioting have long been central to Piven's strategy. Her 1977 book with Cloward, Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, detailed the rationale behind the infamous crisis strategy of a decade before. The core argument is that the poor and unemployed are so isolated from the levers of power in America that their greatest potential impact is to withhold "quiescence in civil life: they can riot."

At the heart of the book, Cloward and Piven luxuriously describe instances of "mob looting," "rent riots," and similar disruptions, egged on especially by Communist-party organizers in the 1930s. Many of those violent protests resulted in injuries. A few led to deaths. The central argument of Poor People's Movements is that it was not formal democratic activity but violent disruptions inspired by leftist organizers that forced the first great expansion of the welfare state.

Piven has called for violence her entire career, and did so recently in The Nation.

The socialist Left can lie about the Tea Party being violent and themselves being the victims all the want. That's bull, and we have the truth, spilling from the mouths of their philosophical and "moral" leaders.

Olbermann's Downfall

You knew it was inevitable.

My Letter To A Presidential Candidate

Dear Mr. Candidate:

I’ve been following your campaign for awhile, and I might be willing to cast a vote for you. Over the last several decades, I’ve had the chance to live with presidents of both parties, and I’ve a learned a few things, particularly in the last two years. So I have some advice; I hope you’ll listen.

Remember when Rush Limbaugh said that he hoped that Mr. Obama failed? Remember how Progressives went berserk? “How dare he!” They cried. “He wants America to fail!” That situation clearly illustrates our current national dilemma. You see, Progressives equate Mr. Obama and America. They think he is our voice, our face. Some of them even think he’s some kind of a deity, a god who transcends such a petty office as the Presidency of the United States and whose destiny is to remake America in his image. They’re wrong, badly wrong. It's not about the man; it's about his policies.

Mr. Candidate, the President of the United States is nothing more than a man, and someday I have no doubt, a woman. He’s a man hired by We The People, to serve as America’s chief executive. He is not great. He is never worthy of worship. Any greatness that attaches to him is the greatness of the office. He wears it as a fine garment, a garment worn only as long as he holds the office. It, like every other trapping of the office, is something for which he has been allowed, by the people, to temporarily care. The office is great because of the greatness of America and her people, particularly those who have, for more than two centuries, sacrificed so much to build, secure and maintain that greatness.

So while you’re running, and particularly if you are fortunate enough to be trusted to be America’s temporary chief executive, there are some important things you ought to know, and more importantly, believe. I know that some of them will seem, well, elementary, but my experience of the last few years has taught me that some things likely need to be said.

* You must be personally humble. “I” should be a tiny part of your private vocabulary and an even smaller part of your public vocabulary. But in your representation of America’s values and interests, you must be proud, fierce, resolute and honorable, for the people you represent are all of those things and more. Those who are full of hubris never end well, nor does their nation.

* You must believe that America is the greatest, kindest, most free, just and generous nation ever to exist in the tide of time, because, well, because it is.

* You, as did Ronald Reagan, must believe that America is Mankind’s last, best hope, and that if we lose freedom here, there is nowhere left to run. All of your official actions must be informed by this sacred faith.

* Many disdain the idea of a “caretaker” presidency, but you must embrace it. If you are to honor your oath of office, if you are to truly be a public servant, that’s really your most important job--to take care of America. As with the Hippocratic Oath, resolve to do no harm, and leave America better and stronger than she was when you took office. History will take care of itself; you take care of America.

* Your job is also to pursue America’s interests, not those of victim groups, unions, billionaire donors, or those of a fictional, hopelessly utopian one world government.

* The UN does not share America’s interests. You must not share those of the UN.

* Global Warming is the biggest scientific hoax of all time. If you fall for that, you’ll fall for anything.

* When war is necessary, the Commander in Chief must wage it effectively and ruthlessly with speed, violence and overwhelming force. Half measures cost lives. Fight to win or don’t fight at all. The only “exit strategy” is unconditional victory.

* American soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen deserve every bit of support and praise you can give them, that and far more. They know when a POTUS really cares about them, and they know when he values them only as props for photo opportunities. Despite what certain northeastern Senators think, they’re very smart. You don’t find the best and brightest in the Halls of Congress, but on the battlefield. You should thank God for that, Mr. Candidate.

* The POTUS bows to no man, figuratively and literally. This too, is part of our national tradition and faith.

* Evil exists. The leader of the free world is its primary and most important opponent in the world. If you don’t know that, if you can’t act on it, you’re worth nothing.

* The POTUS must know, without the slightest doubt, that socialism, and it’s uglier, more murderous relative--communism--are the eternal, irredeemable enemies of democracy, freedom, and particularly, America. Do I really need to tell you that you should not associate with or appoint people who are socialists, communists, or who admire communist tyrants and mass murderers? Didn’t you mother talk to you about running with bad crowds?

* America’s economic system is capitalism. Its expression is free enterprise. It’s engine is small business and the rest of the private sector. Do you notice that government has no part in that? Do you realize that government can only hinder and interfere?

* Ronald Reagan was also right when he said that the most horrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” He wasn’t kidding. Neither are we.

* You can’t save money by spending more money. You can’t repay loans by borrowing more money. The POTUS doesn't gain the power to alter reality--really.

* Government jobs don’t create wealth, they consume it.

* The POTUS must secure equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. The former encourages self-reliance and builds a strong work ethic; the latter destroys both.

* Fully developing and using America’s natural resources for the benefit of all Americans and for the freedom of the world is not an option but a sacred trust.
To make American’s energy costs “necessarily skyrocket,” is to purposely harm and betray those you are sworn to serve and protect.

* A vibrant free economy inspires innovation, invention and new technologies. Government takeover of industries, unnecessary regulation and taxes do not. Scientific breakthroughs are made by free men, not slaves of government. They are motivated by self-interest as well as altruism and can’t be mandated or bought.

* “Smart diplomacy” is diplomacy that faithfully and relentlessly furthers American interests. Doing otherwise is weakness, stupidity and sometimes, treason.

* The POTUS must know that in defending American interests, he is defending freedom everywhere, and that guiding foreign governments toward greater freedom by example and persuasion is far, far more important than hearing them say they like us. Nations don’t have egos or feelings which can be stroked or hurt. They have interests.

* Mr. Candidate, A POTUS must know that terrorism is warfare, not crime, and must approach it with the utmost resolve and ruthlessness. The terrorists are in it to win. Are you? Will you be?

* A POTUS must believe that he--and all branches of government--have only those powers granted them by the people. He must not cross that line, ever.

* The POTUS must respect all of the Constitution, including all of the Bill of Rights. The Constitution, the rights of Americans, are not entrees on a buffet.

* He must believe that without the right to self defense--including the means to act on it--the other rights are meaningless, so he must see that the Second Amendment is honored, not infringed, everywhere and in every way.

* The second most important right is the right to be left alone by government. Will you do that? Leave us alone?

* Mr. Candidate, never insult the American people. They’re a lot smarter than you imagine, and they have much longer memories than you imagine.

* The American people are more than smart enough to determine if they need or want to go to college.

* A POTUS who does not sometimes doubt that he is up to the job is a fool. If he lets the public, and particularly our enemies, see that doubt, he is a dangerous fool.

* The American people know the difference between competence and justified confidence, and feckless arrogance.

* Teddy Roosevelt was right: The Presidency is a bully pulpit. Use it sparingly and only when it’s important. The people really don’t want to see you more than their favorite TV programs, their children or their spouses.

* When the POTUS is campaigning, he’s not taking care of America.

* A teleprompter is not a substitute for substance. The ability to read a script is not synonymous with intelligence or eloquence.

* When the people rise up against his policies, no POTUS should imagine that it’s a failure of “messaging.” It’s his policies. The people are smarter than you imagine, remember?

* The people believe that words have plain, understandable meanings, in speech and in the law. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

* Any POTUS who does not, every day, take a moment to say in sincere awe, wonder and amazement, “I’m sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office,” is not worthy to be there.

* Any POTUS who thinks anyone owes him anything is a fool. It’s not all about you. It never was and it never will be.

Well Mr. Candidate, that’s about it for now. We both know I could go on and on. The American people know these things. They have a hard time understanding why people like you--politicians--don’t. They figure that politicians are either not too bright, or are criminals, socialists, communists or all four. We’re hungry for a President who actually believes in America and is honored to defend her. We haven’t seen that for a few years. Give what I’ve had to say some thought. Maybe I’ll vote for you. We’ll see if your record and actions match your rhetoric.

Yours,

An American Voter

Media Continues Praising The Terrorist Left

John has a must-read observation up at Powerline about the Left's attempts to demonize conservatives, lionize their own radicals, and control what is deemed "acceptable" public speech.

He highlights the New York Times attempt to doctor the reputation of Frances Fox Piven, a radical socialist activist that helped formulate the Cloward-Piven Plan. In essence, the plan is to destroy capitalism by overwhelming the government with cries for unsustainable entitlements. If this vaguely sounds like the sort of "change" that SEIU, ACORN, the MSM and and the controlling progressive wing of the Democratic Party is advocating, the congratulations; you're onto them.

Barack Obama has been mentored his entire life by radicals the desired to implement the Cloward-Piven strategy. Think I'm exaggerating? Look at his influences.

His mother was a radical leftist and guided his formative years. He was mentored by Frank Marshall Davis, a self-described bisexual child-raping communist with outspoken political ideas. He crossed paths repeatedly with Marxist domestic terrorists and suspected murderers Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, first in New York while a student at Columbia, and later in Chicago. Obama attended the Trinity United Church of Christ for more than 20 years, a church built from the ground up on the quasi-religion of Black Liberation Theology, a bastardized hybrid of 60s black separatism and Marxist liberation theology practiced in South America.

All of these influences embrace the theory that the way to destroy capitalism is to overwhelm the entitlement system, and when viewed from that perspective, is isn't difficult to understand why the progressive left is pushing for programs such as Obamacare that all know we can't afford. They know that such a massive entitlement system with bankrupt the government. They are counting on it.

The Left knows that openly overthrowing capitalism is a non-starter, and the Cloward-Piven plot was their rather ingenious way of convincing people that they are entitled to new "rights" that only massive government programs could provide. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and other entitlement programs are the vehicles that these radicals will leverage in an attempt to destroy this nation from within.

The only antidote to such a plan is a counterweight; Americans dedicated to shrinking government, eliminating or radically restructuring entitlement spending, and bringing federal government spending back to manageable levels. Sound like any Tea Party you know?

It is imperative that the radical left destroy the Tea Party, which is why they will seize upon any possible excuse to demonize them. Immediately blaming the Tea Party for Jared Loughner's rampage was a pre-planned, coldly-calculated and entirely unabashed attempt to control political speech in this nation. It is propaganda of the most naked kind.

Why I Carry a Firearm

Because bad guys rarely shoot themselves.

Because rapists consider a whistle as foreplay.

Because I can't throw a pit bull at 1200 feet per second.

Because my Acme Dehydrated Boulders are in my other bag.

Because I'd look stupid pushing my firearm around in a stroller.

Because a cop that isn't in my purse is at least 10 minutes away.

Because lightning never hits the bad guy at the opportune time.

Because Steven Seagal isn't here to hide behind (literally, not figuratively).

Because the only belt I earned in martial arts is the one that kept my shirt on.

Because throwing a jar of angry bees just pisses off the average armed burglar.

Because a running chainsaw is just hard to get through the aisle at Quick E Mart.

Because to run, I need a sports bra that makes me look like I'm expecting an assassination attempt.

Because with a Smith and Wesson, it doesn't matter that I have the upper body strength of Justin Bieber.

Because if you think an underwire bra is uncomfortable, try a couple of ninja stars in your shirt pocket.

Because when I say (deadpan) "Stop, or I'll kick your butt" it doesn't sound as scary as when Chuck Norris says it.

Because tying angry Grizzlies to the front, side and rear of my car might stop the carjacker, it's a bitch in traffic.

Because as a law abiding citizen, the United States Constitution affirms that right, and my city and state support it.

Because the world is not the one I grew up in.

- Brigid (c) Confederate Yankee 2011

Before Talking About Guns...

First learn something about them. My latest at Pajamas Media, firmly directed with disdain towards an ignorant Congress and the dog-dumb journalistic class.

MIKE'S NOTE: By all means, read Bob's informative--as always--article. Of course, if they won't bother to read the bills they pass, how can we expect them to read anything about the topics of those bills? Feh.

Olby Out... But Why Should I Care?

The political blogosphere and Twitter have been in a uproar over Keith Olbermann's abrupt departure—some are saying a firing—from MSNBC.

The "highest-rated host on MSNBC"—which is damning with faint praise, indeed— will reportedly be off the air for some time as part of a contract buyout, but will soon be part of some sort of online venture.

I think it's great. He wasn't worth watching on television. He'll be even easier to ignore online.

NFC and AFC Championships Sunday Promise More Fun Than Olbermann's Firing

So the Jets and the Steelers are matching up for the AFC championship, and the Packers are lining up against the Bears in the NFC.

I'm sure the folks getting their sports betting news from BetUS have a far better idea of the match-ups than I do, but I'm not afraid to make predictions. It isn't like anyone is listening to me anyway.

The Jets looked solid last weekend, but a lot of folks are convinced that the game was fluke. I'm not one of them. While I've always liked the Steelers, I think the Jets are peaking at the right time, and I think they have enough in the tank to win by 10.

On the NFC side, I suspect it is going to be a down-to-the wire game, but think the Bears pull it out in the end by a field goal or less over the Packers.

Garbage In ; Garbage Out, or The CBO Said What?!

“Garbage in, garbage out.” So goes the venerable computer aphorism which tells us that the quality of what a computer produces is dependent upon the quality of the data input. Enter faulty data into a computer and it will spit out faulty conclusions. This is the very essence, an essence not well understood and cunningly concealed, of the work product of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), particularly during the last two years.

Trying to stave off the ObamaCare repeal effort, Dems have taken to claiming that not only will ObamaCare reduce the budget deficit, if repealed it will actually increase it! So says the CBO, lauded as the bi-partisan, highly respected arbiter of congressional fiscal responsibility and sanity. ABC’s George Stephanopolous, former Clinton Administration talking head, said of the CBO, “They’re the only game in town; they’re the referees.” Also providing able assistance is the lamestream media, only 16% of which has, to date, informed the public of ObamaCare CBO sleight-of-hand.

The ultimate problem with any figure produced by the CBO is that it is required to do its calculations and projections based entirely on the figures and assumptions provided for it by its congressional masters. It is therefore common for the CBO to produce reports with wildly varying, even directly contradictory, cost estimates relating to the same issue and/or bill over time.

Let’s say that Senator Leghorn Harumph Fogbreath (D-State of Confusion) wants to pass a bill that will mandate the elimination of salt from the national diet. The figures and assumptions he provides the CBO for the first five years under the bill go something like this:

(1) Establishment of Federal Bureau of Salt Enforcement: $300 billion
(2) Annual FBSE operating budget: $100 billion = $500 billion
(3) Annual FBSE advertising budget: $200 billion = $1 trillion
(4) Annual office Supplies and salt-free, organic lunches: $100 billion = $500 billion
(5) Annual security to protect everyone involved from an enraged public and crazed chefs: $200 billion = $1 trillion

The CBO dutifully retires to its chambers and spits out a five year initial cost of $3 trillion dollars for operating expenses and $300 billion initial start up costs. Senator Fogbreath is outraged, but a sly old Washington hand, he directs his staffers to come up with some more accommodating assumptions, and the CBO again retires to work its actuarial magic:

(1) Savings due to positive health benefits: $3 trillion (roughly three million Americans X $1000 in health savings. Why $1000 per person? Why not? We're making this up as we go!). Ooops. That’s $3 trillion a year. $3 trillion times 5 = $15 trillion!
(2) Money saved from salt production applied to the production of new super efficient solar, wind and moonbeam technology: $1 trillion per year = $5 trillion. We expect dramatic breakthroughs any day now...
(3) Surprise discovery of largest gold deposit known to man under the floor of the first floor congressional aide’s men’s restroom: $1 trillion per year = $5 trillion. It could happen...
(4) Increased tax revenue due to more productive workforce due to eliminated water retention: $2 trillion per year = $10 trillion. No more salty dogs; Arrrrr!

The CBO does its voodoo and Senator Fogbreath proudly announces on the floor of the senate that his bill will produce new revenues and savings totaling $32 trillion dollars! Oh, minus $300 billion initial start up costs, but that’s just pocket change in the congressional big leagues. And that, gentle reader, is exactly the way the CBO works.

Let’s set aside, for the moment, common sense which tells us that spending huge amounts of money we don’t have on top of a massive and ever-growing national debt cannot possibly save money and surely cannot reduce the deficit. Only ceasing new spending can even begin the process of deficit reduction. Harken instead unto the Dems, who tell us that ObamaCare must not be repealed, because it will save $230 billion over ten years. However, it will work this miracle only if, in the process--and this is a feature, not a bug--taxes are increased by $770 billion and spending by $540 billion. Repeal ObamaCare and the $230 billion in savings will be lost, lost! And where did the Dems get these figures? From the CBO who dutifully crunched the numbers and assumptions given them by the very Dems lauding the results.

These numbers are fairy dust and Unicorn tails. The true costs of ObamaCare, using realistic figures and assumptions, easily run two to four times the projected costs and there are no--absolutely none--savings associated with it. Even if we forget the enormous start up and continuing personnel costs, if ObamaCare succeeds in meeting its ultimate goal of driving all private insurance companies out of business and forcing the establishment of a single (tax)payer system as Mr. Obama dreams, our tax revenues will plummet even as governmental outlays skyrocket. In addition, much of the implementation and management of the bill is relegated to unaccountable bureaucrats who will establish and enforce rules, rules that will mandate untold additional expenditures over and above the wildest imaginations of some of the wildest money spending, deficit increasing imaginations in existence--congressional Democrats.

It’s already well known that Dem pronouncements are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Mr. Obama’s by comparison require an entire salt lick block. But with the help and directions of the Dems, CBO pronouncements should currently be taken with sufficient salt to pay a Roman Legion. Senator Fogbreath would be proud.

Another Leftist Assassin, Hidden by His Allies

Every heard of Casey Brezik?

I didn't either until just a little while ago. He's just the latest of a line of radical domestic terrorists weaned on the hatred and various derangement syndromes of the radical left, and hidden by their allies in the press.

At some point, wearing black clothes and a bullet-proof vest, 22 year-old Casey Brezik bolted out of a classroom, knife in hand, and slashed the throat of a dean. As he would later admit, he confused the dean with Nixon.

The story never left Kansas City. It is not hard to understand why. Knives lack the political sex appeal of guns, and even Keith Olbermann would have had a hard time turning Brezik into a Tea Partier.

Indeed, Brezik seems to have inhaled just about every noxious vapor in the left-wing miasma: environmental extremism, radical Islam, anti-capitalism, anti-Zionism and Christophobia, among others.

In his "About Me" box on Facebook, Brezik listed as his favorite quotation one from progressive poster boy, Che Guevara. The quote begins "Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism" and gets more belligerent from there.

On his wall postings, Brezik ranted, "How are we the radical(s) (left) to confront the NEW RIGHT, if we avoid confrontation all together?"

Brezik's wild-eyed ranting is the product of spittle-flecked demagogues like Olbermann, racist Marxists like Jeremiah Wright, terrorists like Bill Ayers and Berhandine Dohrn, and bombastic politicians like Alan Grayson, James Clyburn, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and a bitter, clinging Barack Obama.

Because of their incitements, we have radical murdering zealots like Berzik, Andrew Mickel and Carlos Hartmann, union goon beating down opposition their opposition and threatening their children in their homes, and thugs chasing down and brutalizing political staffers. It is what they do, and what the media has always hidden.

Soros-funded mouthpieces at Think Progress and Media Matters exist to camouflage the intent of their language and politics, and the bloody extent their fellow travelers are willing to go to implement their leftist sharia. They are violent and radical, and because of their blinkered myopia, expect that we are the same.

They cry out against the violence they expect in us, but see most acutely in themselves. It's called "projection," and steeped in a denial of just how violent many of them have become.

Quick Takes, January 20, 2011

ITEM: Why can’t Democrats actually behave as though they are attending a memorial service while attending a memorial service? Is it in their DNA to turn solemn occasions for reflection and prayer into crass political pep rallies? To paraphrase Mr. Obama: “At some point, I think you’ve worshiped Barack Obama enough.” See the indispensable Michelle Malkin’s live blogging here.

ITEM: Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo) has come up with a brilliant scheme that will unite the nation behind President Obama’s recent call for civility: Republicans and Democrats will engage in--GASP--mixed seating at the State of The Union Address! I can see it now: Instead of one side of the chamber leaping to its feet, screaming incoherently, drooling, and beating their hands together until they peel the skin from their palms when Mr. Obama says “and,” every other person in the entire chamber will do it. Hope. Change. Progress. Civility.

ITEM: This might be the best argument for the death penalty I’ve ever heard: The Tucson killer, who would want his name to be prominently mentioned here, according to Fox News, apparently photographed himself in the near-nude with the handgun he used to kill six people. If you have the stomach for the whole story, red g-string and all, go here.

ITEM: Ann Althouse wasn’t the only person to notice it. At the Tucson memorial service, Mr. Obama’s hair was quite gray. At the time, it caused me a moment’s pause--between the 50+ incidents of pep rally hooting and clapping--to reflect on how the demands of the job affect each president. But only a few days later Mr. Obama’s hair has transmogrified to a youthful black with not a hint of gray! The honorable Ms. Althouse suggests that the grey affectation was done to signify age, wisdom and gravitas, while the newest version of the presidential ‘do signifies youthful energy for the limitless progressive transformations lying ahead. Perhaps. But imagine the lamestream media outcry, the many psychologist/experts commenting ad nauseum if George W. Bush’s locks suddenly changed from gray to black overnight. Double standard? Hypocrisy? Nah.

UPDATE: A thought just occurred to me: Did the dye job go from black to gray for the memorial service, or from grey to black thereafter? Which would be more revealing of a lack of character?

ITEM: Bob wrote about Rep. Steve Cohen's (D-Tenn.) comparison of Republicans with the worst crimes of Nazism. Praise be, on Wednesday the good Representative clarified his Tuesday remarks that directly compared Republicans to the Nazis and invoked the Holocaust. “I don’t think I was comparing the Republicans to Goebbels. I was saying that lies are lies and Goebbels was the great perpetrator of lies and that’s a danger, and if you look at Goebbels you can see the lie that he told about Jews which he constantly did, became considered fact in Germany that the Jews were evil, and people got involved and didn’t stand up.”… “I think civility is not lying, and if you can’t come up and say that somebody is lying when they’re lying, then the lie becomes the truth. That’s not uncivil to say somebody lied.” Well, thanks for clearing that up Rep. Cohen. This is undoubtably the new Democrat civility we've been so anxiously awaiting. Hope. Change. Derangement. Blood Libel.

ITEM: Noted Constitutional scholar Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) announced Wednesday that ObamaCare not only has “created jobs” and will create jobs, but repealing it will kill Americans. She also announced that repealing ObamaCare was a violation of the 5th and 14th Amendments. Uh, what?! But wait; there’s more! In an interview with Fox’s Neal Cavuto, she repeated the refrain, but with a bit of multi-media assistance: An aide holding a poster of an elderly person receiving medical care behind her as a backdrop. That’s right; the Dems are now carrying portable ObamaCare backdrops for interviews. What’s next? Wheeling gurneys with desperately ill patients everywhere with them so that they can be prodded to gasp or weakly lift a finger in support of ObamaCare?

ITEM: Noted historian and Constitutional Scholar Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) also chimed in on Wednesday with the observation that people should be required to purchase insurance because the preamble of the Constitution guarantees the “pursuit of happiness,” and the 14th Amendment guarantees “equal protection under the law.” Lewis also noted that health care is not a privilege but a right. OK, let’s put aside that the “pursuit of happiness” appears in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, and that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment has never remotely been construed to mean what Lewis is suggesting, and the fact that there is no such thing as a “right” to health care. Other than that he has a point, or something...

ITEM: By a vote of 245-189, the House of Representatives voted to repeal ObamaCare on Wednesday, January 19. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has already sworn that the measure will never receive a vote in the Senate and many Democrats are calling the House vote a political stunt while simultaneously spouting cooked-book propaganda asserting that ObamaCare will actually lower the deficit. So let’s see if I understand this principle: If I’ve maxed out five credit cards, have four or five consumer loans including my mortgage, and make only enough to make the minimum payments on my debts, the path to fiscal solvency requires me to obtain and max out five or six new credit cards, obtain as many additional consumer loans as possible, and immediately seek a much lower paying job. Got it.

ITEM: Who said Barack Obama’s foreign policy hasn’t accomplished anything but debasing America? At a state dinner for Chinese Premier Hu--affairs that are usually reserved only for our close allies--President Obama had stunning news: “under a new agreement, our National Zoo will continue to dazzle children and visitors with the beloved giant pandas.” That’s right; we get pandas for five more years. The tens of thousands of Chinese political prisoners in gulags, and the scientists behind China’s massive military buildup could not be reached for comment.

ITEM: And the feel good--or feel something--story for this edition of Quick Takes comes, via Fox News, from the Land Down Under--Australia--where a 19 year old man and woman were inspired to float down the flood-swollen Yarra river, buoyed in body--and possibly spirit--only by two inflatable sex dolls. Unfortunately, the young woman lost her airy partner on a rough patch and was forced to cling to floating debris until she and her male partner--who did not lose his inflation aid-- until they were rescued. The police, dealing with serious flooding, were somewhat less than amused, announcing that inflatable sex toys are “not recognized flotation devices.” Senior Constable Wayne Wilson retained a sufficiently dry wit to note that “The fate of the inflatable dolls is unknown.” Insert your own pun here.

See you next time!

New, Calm Political Rhetoric: Dem Compares Republicans to Nazis Over Obamacare Repeal

On the bright side Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) isn't claiming that repealing Obamacare would be unconstitutional, like the dumbest member of Congress, Sheila Jackson Lee, (D-TX).

On the other hand, Cohen decided to compare the Tea Party, conservatives, and the majority of Americans that want to overturn government-ruined health care by comparing them Nazis implementing the Holocaust.

In an extraordinary outburst on the House floor, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) invoked the Holocaust to attack Republicans on health care and compared rhetoric on the issue to the work of infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

"They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels," Cohen said. "You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing, blood libel. That's the same kind of thing."

And Congressman Cohen didn’t stop there.

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it--believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover," Cohen said.

Citing Polifact's lie of the year—or absurd over-generalization, take your pick—is a fabrication in and of itself.

But comparing the majority of Americans that want to overturn Obamacare to a genocidal regime that put millions to death in hell holes... To Nazis....

To the monsters that did this...

This is a blood libel. A real one.

By one who should know better.

When the First and Second Collide

A Massachusetts man has had his firearms and ammunition seized by local police for a blog entry he wrote in the wake of the shooting of Arizona Congressional Rep.Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Tucson on January 8.

39-year-old Travis Corcoran entitled a blog entry, "1 down, 534 to go."

Police are investigating the "suitability" of 39-year-old Travis Corcoran to have a firearms license.

"We certainly take this as a credible threat, and credible until we prove otherwise," said Arlington police Captain Robert Bongiorno.

In his blog Corcoran writes, "It is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable to shoot indiscriminately. Target only politicians and their staff and leave regular citizens alone."

Police visited Corcoran's home and found a "large amount" of weapons and ammunition, which have been removed.

The length of the suspension, or whether Corcoran's license will be revoked will be determined by the outcome of the investigation.

A debate has broken out about limits of the freedom of speech has broken out in the comments of the news story that is worth reading.

If the media is telling the entire story—and with the site apparently down, there is no way to be entirelysure—I tend to agree that the police have done the right thing in this instance. While Corcoran is not directly making threats himself against elected officials, he is certainly inciting violence. He is not using hyperbole. He is not merely saber-rattling in some sort of rhetorical way. He directly says "Target only politicians and their staff..." which is about as a direct of an incitement as one can make without naming specific politicians.

In my opinion, this goes over the line.

Corcoran, a comic book store owner, tagged his now offline blog with the following tags:

Anarchocapitalism, guns, dogs, entrepeneurialism, science, science fiction, War on Terror, Catholicism, extropianism.

I'll let you infer from that what you will.

College: The Uncivil "Right"

At a Martin Luther King Day event hosted by Al Sharpton, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that education is “the civil rights issue of our generation” and the “only way” for young people to pursue the “American dream.” A CNS news article on the speech is available here. A pdf download of a related article by Charles Murry is available here. An article on college student learning is available here.

Duncan also said that he was hopeful because “...for all the challenges we have faced, we have the solution here and the President has drawn a line in the sand. He said by 2020 we have to again lead the world in college graduates. We are not going to get there unless many more young people of color are part of the solution unless, until we’re giving them those kinds of opportunities there’s no way to hit the President’s goal.”

Well. Calling education a “civil rights” issue is plainly silly and diminishes the significance of the struggle to secure genuine civil rights, past, present and future. America has always recognized the importance of education and has, since before the founding of the republic, established a system of free K-12 education in recognition of that importance. No one is being systematically denied the opportunity to obtain that free, public education. Nor are “young people of color,” academically capable and determined or not, being denied elementary, secondary and college educational opportunities. In fact, quite the opposite may be reasonably and successfully argued, reducing Mr. Duncan’s comments on this matter, particularly considering the venue, to mere pandering.

To this point in his administration, Mr. Obama has concentrated on belaboring the utopian idea that everyone should attend and graduate from college--ideally at government (taxpayer) expense. To that end, he used the vehicle of ObamaCare to federalize the entire college student loan industry. If he does indeed intend everyone to attend college on the federal dime, federalizing the student loan industry would be a necessary prerequisite, a prerequisite far more necessary and compelling than proven student suitability for college level study and success. Such federalization becomes even more essential if one intends to pick winners and losers in the college funding race, particularly if those winners are to be members of politically favored victim and/or lobbying groups.

There has been, of late, a great deal written on the “higher education bubble,” due to the growing realization that a number of unfortunate trends in higher education are undeniably yielding their unintended consequences. Among them are:

(1) Decades of Affirmative Action have encouraged students who are not academically prepared for genuine college-level work to assume large loan burdens only to drop out of college after a year or more of frustrating, unproductive effort.

(2) Various state and federal incentives have attracted students who, in the past, would not have considered college, and who, like unprepared minority students, commonly drop out with onerous debt burdens and without obtaining a degree.

(3) The glut of unprepared, unqualified students has filled college coffers, but has also required the hiring of a ultitude of remedial reading, writing and math tutors to allow the unprepared to have the most minimal chance of keeping their heads above ever-receding academic waters.

(4) Many colleges and universities have slowly but surely dumbed down their curriculums and graduation requirements. The establishment of “studies” departments and degrees has contributed to this degradation of academic rigor.

(5) More and more, a college degree is no longer a guarantee of financial success, or even of increased earning power, particularly for those with degrees in the various “studies” pseudo-disciplines. Even those with law degrees are often finding the employment picture bleak.

At one time, an employer could be relatively certain that a job seeker holding a college degree had a predictable, minimum base of knowledge, proven academic ability, the ability to reason and write, and a certain degree of responsibility and perseverance. This is no longer true, and it probably has not been true for longer than colleges would like to admit. Today, possessing a college degree might indicate no more than that its holder had sufficient time and money to muddle through a watered down program of study, a program that took five or six--or even more--years.

At present, approximately 25% of the population earns a college degree. Even at that level, virtually everyone knows a number of college graduates who apparently learned little or nothing during their college years. I don’t speak only of those who majored in waking up in pools of their own vomit, but people who managed to obtain a degree with bare minimum grades and multiple attempts at passing core courses, even watered down courses.

In fact, a study of more than 2000 college students of traditional age followed them through a four year course of study (2005-2009). NYU Sociologist Richard Aram is publishing the results in his book “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” which will be available this month (see the link at the beginning of the post for a related article). Among the findings: During the first two years of college, 45% made no improvement in critical thinking, writing and reasoning skills. After four years, 36% made no significant gains. Unsurprisingly, the study revealed that the most serious students who devoted the most time to their studies, particularly those who studied alone, received the greatest benefit from their college education.

And now for a bit of public heresy: Most people simply aren’t smart enough to be successful in genuine college-level classes. By successful, I mean earning acceptable grades, passing every class, and gaining substantial knowledge and growth from the experience. There is a reason only about 25% of the population possesses a college degree and that reason is, at its heart, one of intelligence. Charles Murray, in his compelling essay “Intelligence and College” (a pdf is available at the link at the beginning of this post) argues convincingly that an IQ of 115 is the minimum IQ necessary for genuine college success. Absent that level of IQ, students will find themselves struggling merely to avoid constant failure. Such students may eventually graduate simply because they’re not quite bad enough to consistently fail in their writings and other college endeavors, but they--and society--might well be better served if they pursued other career choices.

Even as I write these words, I can hear the cries of outrage in a citizenry steeped in the culture of self esteem. As a teacher of high school English and a veteran of military and civilian police work, among the first things I tell my students every year is that I care nothing at all for their self-esteem, but I do care about their self respect. Having high self esteem means nothing more than thinking highly about oneself regardless if those feelings have any basis in objective reality. I knew many criminals with unbounded self esteem, yet they were among the most wretched human beings I ever had the misfortune to meet. If you left your mouth open near them, they’d try to steal your teeth. Self respect is earned, earned by continuously judging yourself based on external criteria such as societal expectations and norms and the expectations and needs of the significant people in your life, people such as parents, teachers, ministers, supervisors and employers and spouses.

The self esteem culture that has contributed to our educational problems. Once a teacher or school accepts the idea that if students regard themselves highly, they will mystically, magically become high achievers, all manner of mischief can, and does, occur. Feelings rather than achievement become the accepted standard of performance. The dumbing down of curriculum becomes a foregone conclusion. Students are not allowed to win--at sports and academically--lest someone’s self esteem be bruised. Grade inflation becomes the norm, and unqualified students in college demand high grades merely for showing up most of the time and making the occasional, cursory attempt to do some work.

Our national educational schizophrenia is perhaps best reflected in the comparison of intellect with athletics. While many shrink in horror from the idea that some people are simply smarter than others, that they are, due to their genetic endowment, their work ethic and their upbringing, far more academically capable than others, they have no difficulty at all in accepting the reality that some people are far more athletically capable than others and for the same reasons. We waste not a moments concern for those whose self esteem might suffer because they will never play in the NBA, the NFL or in major league baseball, yet we agonize over kindly and responsibly informing people that they are likely not well suited to play in the big leagues of academia.

I don’t argue for one-size-fits-all policies or practices. There is no doubt that some people below the 115 IQ line can, through determination and hard work, obtain a college degree and arguably benefit much more from that experience than students with greater academic potential who don’t trouble themselves to work hard or fully avail themselves of the opportunity for learning and growth that college can provide. No one who truly wants to give college their best college try should be prevented from the attempt, but there is nothing wrong with helping them to understand the reality of the difficulties they will face versus the potential payoff for those years of effort.

And this is where Mr. Duncan and Mr. Obama do a great disservice to those they supposedly serve. College is simply not for everyone any more than the military, plumbing, welding, designing fashions or singing opera are for everyone. Having a higher percentage of college graduates per 100,000 of population than other nations is a vain, meaningless bragging point that does not help the nation economically or intellectually. Yet, considering the progressive tendency to see people only as members of easily quantified, dependent victim and lobbying groups rather than individuals with individual strengths and goals, individuals who depend upon themselves rather than governmental largess, it’s understandable. And despite the irrational economic theories of progressivism, there is not enough money in the world to bankroll college for every American citizen, even if there was a career that legitimately required a genuine college education awaiting every graduate. There is not, and there never will be.

Federalizing all aspects of college is yet another Obama attempt at the federalization of American life. It, like all other such attempts at tyranny, benefits only our would-be masters--the self-styled intellectual elite--and the enemies of freedom, internal and foreign. It breeds debilitating dependence on the nanny state rather than empowering independence and the growth of those who produce rather than consume wealth. One might reasonably believe that this, not the welfare of individual American students, is foremost in the minds of Mr. Obama and Secretary Duncan.

Ultimately, perhaps Mr. Duncan should concentrate on enforcing the greatest American civil right: The right to be left alone by government.

A Change in the Wisconsin Wind

Two states, and two only, deny their citizens the right to carry concealed weapons: Wisconsin and Illinois. The District of Columbia, of course, also bans concealed carry, but despite the best efforts of many Democrats, DC is not a state, at least not yet. However, it seems that change is in the Wisconsin wind.

With the recent election of a Republican governor and Republican majorities in both houses of the Wisconsin legislature, it seems a foregone conclusion that concealed carry will become law this year. Gun ownership has always been high in Wisconsin, and two attempts to pass concealed carry in recent years were vetoed by Democrat Governor Jim Doyle, but now Republican Scott Walker is in the governor’s mansion and has expressed his support for such measures.

In a recent Lacrosse Tribune story picked up by Reuters (available here), the anti-gun position was prominently represented. According to Jeri Bonavia, executive director of “Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort,” “We really don’t believe that more people carrying guns in public is beneficial in any way. In fact, we think it’s harmful.” Reporter John Rondy commented, “A college dropout opened fire on a crowd gathering for an event by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona on January 8, killing six people and wounding 13, including Giffords. The shooting has raised questions about permissive U.S. guns laws.”

For anti-gun “activists,” any occasion raises questions about “permissive U.S. Guns laws.” Changes in the weather, cattle stampedes, the existence of Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, George W. Bush, any criticism of Barack Obama or his policies, hangnails, bad breath, any occasion at all. Gun banners see the need for more gun bans in the ocean, clouds, the stars, the smile of a child, reflected in a lover’s eyes, perhaps even as a cure for global warming, which guns, like virtually everything else in the known universe, surely cause.

Illinois is, until decades of Democrat corruption and mismanagement cause it to become completely bankrupt and lead to its inevitable collapse, hopeless. It will likely remain, for some time, one of the last anti-gun bastions in the nation. But Wisconsin may, in the near future, rejoin the constitutional republic that Ben Franklin helped to establish and feared we might lose. The ultimate verdict on that matter remains out, but with this small light of hope in Wisconsin, there is renewed reason for hope and perhaps early congratulations to the people of Wisconsin who have taken the first steps to taking back their government.

Pour a Dram of Whiskey

In the dark recesses of the world, under the cover of jungle, underwater, are cities, cultures and beings that vanished for no known reason. The dinosaurs, creatures so large that it seems only plausible that they would only have died out by something as major as an asteroid, gone, only to be brushed from the earth by those that study the bones.

There are Mayan cities that emptied overnight, the way a chrysalis of a butterfly is left behind, empty, stark in it's primitive beauty. So much still there, the monuments, and granaries, terraces and temples, structures of empiric power and small dwellings formed by families united by generations. Emptied with no anthropological clue as to riot, invasion or deadly disease carried in on silent winds.
Then there are the ghost towns of the West. Small towns that once bustled with the collective energy of a burgeoning nation. Times were tough, and life was often cheap, but the land was the draw that brought them in, and the duplicity of the land itself what siphoned them off.

If you have children, they ask you the questions. Where did they go? What happened to that way of life? The words go pale and waxen in your mouth as you try and answer. Who wants to tell a child that our hold onto civilization is only as strong as our history. How to you explain birds that no longer fly and great horned creatures that walked the earth of their ancestors only to disappear completely.

Look back into history, cities disappear, countries realign. Whole societies grind to a hand, the precise cause of death uncertain. The stars somehow aligned overhead by political alliance, high priests of nuclear ability, climate, and promise. All running like fault lines underneath what appears to be placid landscape. Disturbances ignored by the media as larger things erupt and spew black, cumulative movements unseen. The sheep graze placidly while Tectonic plates of divergent cultures and religion, rub, shifting, jockeying for power until one day something will give way. A city will vanish, perhaps an entire way of life, lost as easily as a set of car keys. Ghost towns tumbling in the wind, withered and white like buffalo bone, turning quietly to dust, the roar of their numbers only an echo.

We believe that because we've always been the dominant political and economic power in this country that it will always be so. Legions nod in affirmation to change and power shifts, believing that because it always has been, it always will be. We live as a nation on credit, buying with plastic, borrowing on faith. My folks paid cash for everything, not expecting their government or their neighbor to bail them out, and as such they survived the great Depression. They owned their own land and measured everything by soil and water and sweat, not stopping and whining if the tractor broke or the mule died. They went to war, leaving their legacy to a generation of strong women who would tend to it until their return. Passing on something you could hold in your hand, not press into an ATM machine.

I was one of that baby boomer generation, growing up in the late sixties and seventies on Patriotism and old Westerns. Do you think any of us as little kids would have watched Gun Smoke if Marshall Dillon, when confronted by evil, started a petition drive? No. Our heroes were people like Matt Dillon and the Cartrights, the Rifleman, and for my older brothers, the Lone Ranger. The shows themselves all had a elemental core of justice, fair play, truth, sportsmanship. Firearms were common and shown in a positive light, as instruments of protecting the weak, weapons to defeat evil.

Marcotte The Latest in Long Line of Leftists Pushing Gun Control After Tucson

I really try not to ready anything by Mandy Marcotte if I can help it. Her worldview is generally overshadowed by a pervading anger and her reasoning, such as it is, is warped and generally illogical. Unfortunately, I ran across her latest post in the U.K. Guardian, an appropriate location for an America-hating leftist, as she whined about America's refusal to conform to what she views as sensible gun control.

As usual, the rant quickly broke down into another shrill feminist rant against penises, which according to Marcotte, are now and have always been the bane of human existence. That particular complaint is of course never worth addressing with someone so steeped in illogic, but the following claim was worth destroying:

It's stunningly obvious that if gun laws were even slightly more restrictive – if background checks were more thorough, if semi-automatic weapons were more restricted, if you couldn't buy 30-round magazines – we would have more survivors of this attack today. Or we may have never had an attack at all.

Based upon past experience reading her half-literate rants, when Marcotte claims that something is "stunningly obvious," you can know for a fact that the next comment she utters will be completely incorrect. This is typically because her fixed and intolerant worldview simply makes her incapable of recognizing that much of what she "knows" is a fallacy, or because her powerful prejudices make it impossible for her to see any other side of an issue.

More extensive background checks on handguns, restrictions on semi-automatic firearms, and reduced capacity magazines would not guarantee few casualties when a lone gunman attacks. If anything, historical fact teach us just the opposite.

Gunmen who plot these attacks are unhinged mentally, but they are not stupid, and the tend to plan their attacks with the goal of generating as many fatalities as possible, as efficiently as they can.

Loughner probably chose the Glock 19 after considering a number of factors, including it's relatively compact size, controllability, ubiquity, and affordability. Glocks are among the most common handguns in America, and the Glock 19 one of the most popular variants of the most popular 9x19mm centerfire pistol caliber on the planet. The Glock also has factory-made 30+ round magazines that can be purchased as an aftermarket accessory. These facts are most likely what led Jared Loughner to select the weapon he did.

Marcotte makes the unwarranted assumption that if he did not have access to this kind of weapon, with this capacity magazine, that his rampage could not have been so bloody. This is an opinion based on her particular weakness of incredible ignorance compounded by insufferable arrogance.

Let us presume for the sake of argument that Marcotte and her fellow progressive/socialist/Marxist allies had her way, and laws were in place to keep Jared Loughner from purchasing a semi-automatic handgun or high-capacity magazines, and those laws functioned completely as designed. Let us presume that those laws kept Loughner from purchasing handguns of any kind. What would be the likely outcome?

Rather obviously, it would mean that Loughner would have had to find an alternative weapon with which to carry out his intended goal of assassinating Gabrielle Giffords and as many random bystanders as possible. Loughner's most natural next choice would either be a rifle or shotgun, or constructing a crude bomb.

If he filled the trunk of his aging muscle car with propane canisters and fashioned a crude detonator, he could have emulated the successes of your typical terrorist car-bomber, killing dozens, wounding perhaps hundreds.

But what if he went the "easier" route, and went with the sort of common long arms that even radicals such as Marcotte would be forced to allow, such as bolt-action deer rifles, and 12-gauge pump shotguns?

Well, then you would have a gunman with weapons with much greater range and far greater destructive power per bullet, which was the recipe for disaster that Charles Whitman brought to the bell tower of the University of Texas, Austin in 1963, where he killed 16 and wounded 32 in 1966.

Marcotte doesn't seem to quite grasp the law of unintended consequences, nor does she know enough about the subject matter she has pretended to master to know that when you take away less lethal, shorter range weapons such as pistols, your invariably push would be-shooters towards longer-range, more powerful weapons that keep any would be Samaritans at a much greater distance... or to devices with far more capacity for carnage, such as crude but brutally effective bombs.

Marcotte's British readers know the terror of those devices, with the Tube Bombings killing 52 and wounding roughly 700.

Would-be elites such as Marcotte love to delude themselves into thinking that they are intelligent enough to control their fellow man.

Predictably, they have never been right.

Loughner Not the Only nut in Tucson, Just the Only One That The MSM Wants to Discuss

After having spent the better part of a week attempting to slander and libel the Tea Party movement and conservative leaders for Jared Loughner's rampage with a Glock 19, we've discovered that one of the things that had driven Loughner was a hatred of George W. Bush.

One of Loughner's victims, Eric Fuller, played along with and for the media, reiterating claims that the Tea Party and conservatives were somehow to blame for the murders. The media loved echoing Fuller's claims... until he was arrested for making death threats against a local Tea Party official and involuntarily committed for mental evaluation.

Now we find out that Mr. Fuller, like Mr. Loughner, was also a fanatic in his own right, and also someone who hated George W. Bush.

Loughner appears to be criminally insane, and quite a few armchair pundits are in general agreement that he seems to be displaying traits of paranoid schizophrenia. Fuller is "just" a rabid liberal.

Why doesn't that make me feel any better?

Tea Party Official Concerned That Death Threat Democrat May Be "Canary In A Coal Mine"

Days after blood-libeling conservatives and Tea Party supporters for Jared Loughner's blood rampage last Saturday, Eric Fuller was arrested for making a death threat towards an Tea Party official and involuntarily committed to a mental health evaluation. Some are speculating that trauma from the shooting may be to blame for Fuller's outburst, and that is entirely possible.

But it now appears that Fuller may have been confrontational prior to the shooting as well, getting into a verbal altercation at the Giffords event last weekend prior to the shooting that required an aide to Giffords to separate Fuller from the still unidentified second party.

Trent Humphries, the Tucson Tea Party official threatened by Fuller, has received
numerous other threats as well, and wonders if the threats will translate into action.

"I had nothing to do with the murders that happened or the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords," Humphries said. "And I wonder, if he (Fuller) is crazy or is he the canary in a coal mine? Is he saying what a lot of other people are holding in their hearts? If so, that's a problem."

Based upon comments made from self-described progressives in social media and on blogs since last weekend and on cable news, dishonest rhetoric and hate towards the right is indeed very much in the hearts of those on the left. What is far less certain is whether or not progressives are willing to convert their vile rhetoric into physical acts.

The Fallacy of Progressive Thought

The recent shooting in Tucson provides yet another opportunity to examine the dank, moldy recesses of the Progressive mind. In order to embark upon this counter-intuitive, frustrating journey, one must understand that Progressive belief, theory and policy is non-falsifiable. In other words, it cannot, by any means, human or Divine, be proved false. It is, in essence, as I pointed out in my recent PJM essay (available here), an article of faith, and any reality that does not comport with it is not reality at all and can and must be ignored. At the same time, Progressive belief, theory and policy can, upon the pronouncements of a contemporary maximum Progressive leader, change in an instant. Despite the fact that said change may be the exact opposite of the past absolute Progressive truth, a truth abandoned just seconds earlier, the Progressive mind sees no contradiction or hypocrisy, such qualities being reserved solely for Conservatives, particularly Sarah Palin.

Relieved of the necessity to analyze their beliefs, theories and policies through the application of experience, logic and reality, Progressives believe that any problem that exists has one of two--or both--causes:

(1) Conservative opposition, which hinders or prevents the full wonders that will be realized when Progressive policy inevitably establishes perfect social justice, equality, diversity and absolute peace.

(2) Insufficient Progressive policy has been applied, or it has not yet had sufficient time to work its miracles.

Before continuing, here are several links readers may wish to explore:

(1) For video illustrating the reality of the speed of magazine changes, go here.
(2) To quickly research the specifications of Glock handguns, go here.
(3) The website of economist/criminologist Dr. John R. Lott may be found here.
(4) For a more complete report on Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) bill to establish a 1000 foot no gun zone surrounding certain officials, go here.

This understanding of Progressive thinking may be now applied to the renewed calls for gun control arising out of the Tucson massacre. One week on, we know considerably more about the motivations of the shooter, who would like to have his name prominently mentioned here. Not only is there no evidence that he was a conservative, the only political leanings ascribed to him by those who knew him were liberal. That said, it seems clear that his motivation was exclusively derangement--not mental illness that would prevent his punishment--and an impulse to do evil, yet his derangement was not so debilitating that it prevented him from, over a period of time, planning his attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) for the imagined slight of failing to properly answer his nonsensical question at a townhall meeting. The other deaths and injuries seem to be a matter of evil convenience. They were there, he had the time and the ammunition, so why not?

Many people, conservative and progressive, have suggested many causes and related factors in an attempt to understand what, when logic and common sense are employed, is not at all hard to understand: The shooter was deranged, violent and evil. He did what he wanted to do and he liked it.

Let’s consider some of those issues and the reality related to them. As we do, remember that wherever reality does not completely agree with Progressive belief, theory and policy, it will be disregarded by Progressives. Also keep in mind that I use “Progressive,” “Leftist,” and “Liberal” interchangeably because Leftists and Liberals, reading the results of polls that invariably indicate that most of the American public have little regard for those terms and all relating to them, have adopted “Progressive” in a failed attempt at re-branding.

NEW GUN CONTROL LAWS WILL PREVENT SIMILAR FUTURE ATTACKS. Consider that every policy now being proposed (they’re all retreads of past failed policies) must, by the most basic understanding of human nature, fail. All such policies are rendered useless before they are ever sent to paper, because all gun control laws are obeyed only by the law abiding who are no threat to anyone. Are we to believe that a criminal planning mass murder will be deterred by the potential violation of any lesser law? Will the killer, armed and prepared, ready to attack a school, see a “gun-free school zone” sign, and chastened by the thought of violating such an awesome recitation of the law, simply go home? To purchase a gun, the buyer must complete federal form 4473 which asks a number of questions. One wrong answer and the dealer may not sell a gun to that buyer. Among the questions is whether the buyer is a drug addict or unlawful user of drugs. The shooter was clearly a chronic drug abuser, yet obviously lied--broke a federal law--in order to buy the gun. Yet, Progressives ignore this most basic understanding of human nature.

THE SHOOTER WAS MENTALLY ILL, YET WAS ABLE TO LEGALLY BUY A GUN. We now know that the shooter had been displaying odd, anti-social behavior for many years and had recent contacts with various law enforcement agencies, yet was completely capable of behaving in a rational manner when he had those contacts. He was, for example, stopped by a wildlife officer three hours before the shooting for running a stop sign. There is no doubt that the involuntary commitment laws of some states can be made more effective, but unless we wish to give the police the power to involuntarily commit people who are merely odd, eccentric, or who utter inappropriate, even anti-social comments at the wrong places and times, this issue must be approached with the utmost caution.

THE SHOOTER HAD BEEN DENIED MILITARY SERVICE, YET WAS ABLE TO LEGALLY BUY A GUN. People are denied military service every day for a variety of reasons including flat feet, less than perfect vision, a wide variety of minor physical issues, low military aptitude test scores, or, as is reportedly the case with the killer, failing a drug test. Unless we are truly willing to deny fundamental rights to such people, including those who have, upon occasion in their youth, used drugs, this is a non-issue.

WHEN THE WILDLIFE OFFICER STOPPED HIM, HE COULD HAVE SEARCHED HIS CAR, FOUND THE GUN, AND PREVENTED THE SHOOTINGS. Any police officer making a traffic stop can search a driver or his car only if he has probable cause. Probable cause is observations, circumstances, or facts that would lead a reasonable police officer to believe that a crime has been committed and a specific person has committed it. Observing only a stop sign violation, a police officer has no reason or legal justification to search the driver or the vehicle, and even then, would usually not have the power to search a trunk if the driver could not easily access it from the driver’s seat. In this case, considering what is known about that stop, there was no probable cause to do more than issue a ticket for the observed traffic violation. Even if a search turned up the gun, it was not illegal for the shooter to possess or transport it.

WE MUST REINSTITUTE KEY FEATURES OF THE CLINTON GUN BAN SUCH AS BANNING “ASSAULT WEAPONS” AND LIMITING MAGAZINE CAPACITY. In effect from 1994-2004, the ban accomplished, in terms of crime prevention or reduction, nothing at all. It succeeded only in inconveniencing honest gun owners. The bill sought to ban or regulate “assault weapons,” something which does not actually exist except in the minds of gun banners who consider any firearm they don’t like--particularly those with a military, utilitarian appearance--to be “assault weapons.” The weapons they claimed were the favorites of criminals such as common semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 family, were involved in so few crimes as to be virtually statistically negligible, a fact that did not change during the decade the law was in force. Likewise, limiting the magazines of semiautomatic handguns to 10 rounds accomplished nothing but annoying and inconveniencing the law abiding. The effects of the law were so obvious that even the BATFE admitted that it could not support the Brady Campaign’s claims that the ban caused a decline in violent crime. Even the always anti-gun Centers for Disease Control admitted that there was not enough evidence to support anti-gun preferences. Many anti-gun groups did, stuck in Progressive thinking, suggest that it was--after a decade--too soon for the law to work its progressive wonders. Democrat politicians, having seen the electoral effect of supporting such idiotic, anti-freedom measures on their ranks, were quick to watch the ban slip beneath the waves for the final time.

THE GLOCK 19 IS A UNIQUELY DEADLY WEAPON, DESIGNED ONLY FOR KILLING LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. The Glock 19 was designed to be a somewhat smaller version of Glock’s full-sized, successful model 17 pistol which is commonly carried by uniformed police officers. With a magazine capacity of 15 rounds of 9mm ammunition, it is in the middle of the capacity range of Glock pistols with the 19 round G17 at the top and the 10 round G26 at the bottom. Ironically, the G26, which is much smaller and more easily concealable than the G19, was designed during the Clinton Gun Ban around 10 round magazines and has been very successful since. The G19 is among the most popular and common self defense handguns available today. The 9mm round the G19 fires, in continuous use for more than a century, is in the middle of the effectiveness range for defensive handgun cartridges and is currently the most common semiautomatic handgun round. The Glock 19, like all Glocks, was designed to be a reliable, accurate handgun useful for self defense and a variety of other legitimate purposes. It has no uniquely dangerous capacities or features that distinguish it from similar handguns marketed by other manufacturers. Anyone who characterizes the G19 otherwise is uninformed or is trying to misinform the public.

SINCE THE KILLER USED A MAGAZINE WITH A CAPACITY OF APPROXIMATELY 30 ROUNDS, ALL MAGAZINES MUST BE RESTRICTED TO 10 ROUNDS. This suggestion reveals a profound lack of knowledge of firearm ability and use. While it is undeniably true that a large capacity magazine can hold, and potentially allow one to fire more rounds in a shorter time than a smaller capacity magazine, even for untrained shooters, the time difference involved is negligible. The Tucson killer reportedly fired 31 rounds, yet the Glock 19 has a normal magazine capacity of 15 rounds (+ one in the chamber for a total of 16), and can fire thirty one--which requires one magazine change--in only one to six (at the absolute most) seconds more. Visit Bob’s post with video that clearly illustrates this issue at the link at the beginning of the article. One must weigh the advantages to the honest and innocent. Larger capacity magazines provide significant advantages to the honest--particularly women--who sometimes find themselves facing multiple attackers. They are also a great training aid on the range. Because shooters don’t have to constantly stop to reload low capacity magazines, their training can be less tiring and more effective. Despite many researcher attempts to support anti-gun theories, there is no evidence whatsoever that limiting magazine capacity has any effect on limiting the number of victims in mass shootings, or in reducing crime.

BANNING CONCEALED CARRY WILL HELP. THERE WAS AT LEAST ONE PERSON ON THE SCENE OF THE TUCSON SHOOTING CARRYING A CONCEALED WEAPON, AND IT DIDN’T HELP. Joseph Zamudio, 24, who was carrying a concealed handgun, was one of several people who helped to subdue the shooter when his handgun malfunctioned on its second magazine. Zamudio’s gun was not a factor because he was in a nearby store when the shooting began. By the time he arrived to help, the killer’s handgun had malfunctioned and had been taken away from him, and correctly realizing that there was no need to draw or use his own weapon, he helped to restrain the killer. The point is that concealed carry is effective in two primary ways: It actually reduces violent crime in states that allow it, and it is the only truly effective means of immediately stopping--even intercepting--violent attacks.

The research of Dr. John Lott has been often attacked by anti-gun groups, but has never been refuted. Visit his website via the link at the beginning of the article. Those states which have passed concealed carry provisions have uniformly experienced reduced rates of violent crime. This is so because every criminal knows that they can’t know who is carrying a concealed weapon, and must assume that everyone they meet might be. In my long police career, I learned that criminals fear--and avoid--the potentially armed citizen far more than the police because, unlike the police, they are unpredictable. Dr. Lott is not the only researcher who has found this effect. In fact, since the Heller decision, violent crime in the District of Columbia has dropped, despite that fact that the DC government is doing all that it can to continue to obstruct lawful ownership of handguns. Criminals are wisely assuming that more and more of their potential victims may be armed.

Concealed carry is also effective at the scene of violent crimes, but only if the person carrying a handgun is actually present just before or at the initiation of the attack, as Zamudio was not. Had Zamudio--or another person similarly armed and prepared--been present, they might well have stopped the killer before he fired a single round, or at the very least, have significantly limited the volume of his fire. In armed encounters, seconds count and the Police--who have no legal duty to protect any individual citizen--are, at best, minutes away. Concluding that concealed carry is ineffective because someone who was not actually present during the event did not stop it is not, to say the least, a logical or rational conclusion.

GUN FREE ZONES MUST BE ESTABLISHED AROUND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is apparently having a Progressive moment. He is planning to introduce a bill that would establish a 1000 foot gun free zone around members of Congress. Those interested in the full story should visit the related initial link. All available evidence clearly indicates that gun free zones are as much a predictably obvious failure as they are an obvious danger. Almost all of the mass shootings of recent years have taken place in gun free zones such as schools. The reason is obvious: Killers can expect their victims to be unarmed, because honest people obey the law, even laws that could mean their death if attacked. Killers also know that they will almost certainly be able to kill many before the police can hope to intervene. Conversely, dishonest people do not obey gun free zone laws any more than the multitude of other laws they break. This is true because they are criminals, because they commit crimes. I know that I sound as if I am talking to seven year olds, but in terms of accepting logic in this matter, Progressives may not have reached that mental age.

Should Rep. King be successful in his desires, he will be establishing a nightmare for those who enforce the law and for those who obey it. One thousand feet is a distance greater than three football fields. Even on a clear day, with binoculars and no intervening obstructions, the average person would be hard pressed to confirm that a congressperson was within 1000 feet of them, and this assumes that every citizen would be constantly on the lookout for congressmen to avoid breaking this particular law. Merely driving past a venue where a congressman was speaking indoors would render citizens utterly unaware of their presence instant federal felons. A citizen standing 1005 feet from a congressman would become instantly criminally liable if the congressman took two steps in their direction. Perhaps most ironically, the law would ensure that if an armed criminal broke just one more law and approached a congressman with evil intent, no honest citizen would be able to stop them. The net effect of the law Rep. King proposes would be not only to criminalize honest citizens who are making no affirmative act toward lawbreaking, and would actually make congresspersons less safe in the case of an actual attack. Surely Rep. King would declare that it is not the intention of the law to criminalize the law abiding as I have suggested. My response would simply be: “I’m glad to hear it. So don’t pass the law.”

Doubly ironically, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) wants to allow congresspersons to carry concealed handguns in DC and on the House floor. Reportedly, many more than one might imagine already do. Of course, he is not yet suggesting that this privilege be extended to actual, common residents of the District, who, through no fault of their own do not happen to be congresspersons, just to congresspersons who are, apparently far more than common folk--by the virtue of being congresspersons--deserving of the ability and means to protect their lives. To be fair, Gohmert apparently has said that congresspersons should not get "special privileges." Still, that's not quite the same as working to extend the same rights to everyone.

To be completely fair, Rep. Gohmert’s idea is reasonable and based in reality. There is an old saying that a Conservative is a Progressive who has been robbed at gunpoint. It is tragic that the injuries and deaths suffered by countless common citizens have apparently meant so little to so many of our congressmen. It took the near-mortal wounding of one of their own to awaken them to the reality that evil exists and may work its will on anyone--congressman or elementary school teacher on her way home--at any time. This is a worthy realization, if it leads them to avoid hasty, ill-conceived laws that will harass and annoy only the law abiding, while enacting laws that will support and extend freedom and the right of every law abiding person to self-defense.

The examples I’ve provided indicate rather clearly the illogic and ineffectiveness of the various proposals and concerns raised by Progressives (and a few honest if confused congressmen). May I be so bold as to suggest that my contention about the nature of their thinking is supported by their continuing support for measures that have always been a failure and always will be a failure? One may, of course, observe that longing for such restrictions on liberty is not only a result of faulty thinking, but is clearly indicative of an overwhelming desire for power over the lives of others. This too is a fundamental characteristic of Progressive thought, but that’s a topic for another time.

Blood-Libeling Democrat Arrested for Death Threat

Eric Fuller, one of those wounded in Jared Loughner's ramapage last weekend and who blood-libeled Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and the Tea Party in days since (in all absence of facts), has been arrested for making a death threat against a Tea Party Leader:

Local station KGUN is reporting that Eric Fuller a 63-year-old military veteran who was shot in the back last Saturday while attending Rep. Giffords' "Congress on Your Corner" event, became enraged by the statements of some of the participants at the town hall events and threatened the life of Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries.

Is he now going to claim he was influenced by his earlier hate speech?

No Winners. Just One Fewer Losers.

Surprisingly (to me at least) the jury has acquitted a gun fair organizer in the the death of a child that shot himself to death with a machine pistol.

A Massachusetts jury acquitted a gun fair organizer of manslaughter in the 2008 death of an 8-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself in the head with an Uzi submachine gun.

A Hampden Superior Court jury found former Pelham Police Chief Edward Fleury not guilty on Friday of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Christopher Bizilj (buh-SEEL') of Ashford, Conn. The charge carried up to 20 years on prison.

Fleury was also cleared of three charges of furnishing machine guns to minors.

The jury returned the verdict on its first full day of deliberations. It got the case on Thursday after closing arguments.

Fleury's firearms training company co-sponsored the annual Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman's Club, about 10 miles west of Springfield. Christopher was shooting a 9 mm micro Uzi at some pumpkins on Oct. 26, 2008, when the gun kicked back and shot him in the head.

Since first hearing about the case in October of 2008, my first thought was always, "what kind of idiot parent puts a submachine gun in the hands of a child?"

In this case, it was Dr. Charles Bizilj, the boy's father. You would thing a trauma room doctor would have enough presence of mid and enough sense not to arm a child with a weapon he could have no reasonable expectation of controlling, but this apparently wasn't the case.

Fleury won't spend the next 20 years in jail, which is something, but the family has still lost a son and the father has his own stupidity to blame. It's a harsh sentence for a mistake, and one I would think that is almost unbearable.

Parents, be smart with your kids and machine guns. I would have thought it didn't need to be said...

Eric Fuller's Blood Libel

You can be both the wounded survivor of a massacre and a vile,opportunistic, jerk:

A wounded survivor of the Tuscon shooting that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is blaming Sarah Palin, House Speaker John Boehner, Fox TV host Glenn Beck, and former Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle for the tragedy.

"It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target," Eric Fuller said in an interview with Democracy NOW.

"Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled — senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even 9-year-old girls," he added, referring to the death of Christina Taylor Green.

We now know from interviews with multiple people that Jared Lee Loughner did not actively follow politics, didn't listen to talk radio, or watch cable news. The one person who did describe him having any sort of political bent at any time remembers that several years ago he could have been described as very liberal.

These are all well-know, published facts. Eric Fuller, however, has chosen to keep right on demonizing political figures on the right, even though there is even indication that Loughner was in his own insane little world and may have been completely unaware that Boehner, Palin, Angle and Beck even existed, outside of possibly knowing their names.

Mr. Fuller, I'm glad that you served your nation in the past, but you are doing it a great disservice now. You dishonor yourself. You dishonor the dead.

And you spread far more bile and hatred than anyone else you would blame.

UFC Fighter Who Challenged Obama Suspended from Coaching by School System

Never, ever commit blasphemy:

An Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter has been placed on administrative leave from his job at a Minnesota high school after he insulted President Obama's intelligence and challenged the commander in chief to a fight.

Jacob Volkmann told Fox News Radio that he is under investigation by White Bear Lake High School, where he has worked as a part-time assistant wrestling coach for three years.

"They didn't like how I was representing the school," he said. "They said I was representing them bad because of what I said about the president and his policies."

Remember kids, dissent is only patriotic when used to bash Republicans. Volkmann challenged Obama to a sporting competition in the ring with a referee and judges, but the real affront to the educators was his insulting the President's intelligence and questioning his policies. That simply isn't allowed.

The Road and the Radio

The streams run out of the higher elevations, veins that let the mountain bleed. The water rushes, tumbles and races to its destiny, to be drunk deeply or left to stagnate in a secluded pool. The sky breaks out in articulate warmth, there on those last days of the conceit of winter. Soon the sky would warm the land, warming me. In the fields, the planting of grain, in the barn, the protective low of a cow with her young.

It was the very end of the 70's. It would soon be Spring, in the year that the fire took down the hillside behind the house, the year the marching band went to State. It was when I learned about freedom and speed, the year I learned to drive.

It was the year in which I learned about the hard outcome of choice.

I'd been emboldened by movement all my life. Looking at my "baby" pictures, there I was in pajamas with feet, racing down the hall. Scribed in the album, a note in my Mom's handwriting -"Always on the move!" When my older brother got his first bike, I wanted one too, though if I could have put a JATO bottle on the back of it I would have been happier. There were skates and vacation boogie boards and sometimes just the rushed dash through a sprinkler, the water dripping from my hair like jewels.

I was captured by movement, machinery and speed and now there were keys in my hand, a vehicle just waiting to take all of our compressed heat and explode it into sound.

Dad taught me the basics. My older brothers taught me the essentials. I didn't just learn how to drive, I learned how to drive in the snow, in driving rain, in the ice to get out of a skid. I could do cookies in the snow out in the middle of a large deserted parking lot all day long if they let me. Someday those skills would save my life.

I had visions of what car I wanted. an old muscle car or high performance vehicle. I didn't want some safe, placid girl car, I wanted THIS.

Or perhaps a 68 Camaro, 66 Vette, 67 Barracuda. Classics of past decades. Probably not likely to happen on a buck an hour babysitting (though I got the Cuda 10 years later). No, I got a dinged but reliable, hand-me-down 74 Volkswagen Bug. Not exactly what I had planned. Even worse, it had no radio. No radio? Dad said when he bought it, he had the choice of the radio or the locking gas cap and went for the cap. Soon we had an 8 track tape player squirrelled under the dash out of sight and I discovered that you CAN put glass packs on a Volkswagen if only to crank up the annoyance factor of being a teenager.

Dad set a few rules. We would pay for our insurance if our grades fell below honor roll. We paid for our own gas and any damage. If any of the kids got the lecture about drinking and driving it wasn't I. Koolaid was still more my style. But I'd drive. Oh Lord, I'd drive, miles and miles with the window down, drawing in deep breaths of freedom, the wind in my face. Dad did check on me, once chuckling with "so it takes 33 miles to go to the library and back?" Dad was just lucky we weren't out trying this (which we could have if we could have gotten away with it).

Then came the day I came home from school and said I wanted to learn to fly a plane. I could get my license at age 17. Let's just say I was met with less than enthusiasm. After the not so gentle reminder that he was not going to pay for it, Dad told me his concerns. He loved me, but said he didn't believe me able to cope with the extra studies of that, combined with school work and the hard task of fueling the planes to pay for my lessons. Physically, out in the elements, a lot harder than any other part time job I had. My first day, getting checked out to drive the big fuel truck to take care of the King Air's and small jets that came in on a 7 degree day, my Dad told the family I wouldn't last the week. I did.

With my red hair and Celt ancestry the pilots called me the "Gas Lass" but there were many days I'd come home, reeking of JP4, so exhausted, battered and sore I wanted to cry. So I'd sit alone in my room and say out loud "I'm going to be a pilot" just listening to the sound of it, the discord between a parents words and mine. And I stuck with it, paying for it all myself, never having my toys or education handed to me on a platter with a VISA card like so many of the kids today.

The hard physical work, the challenges, helped us grow up. I think mastering a machine, be it of the aerial or earthbound type, was a turning point. Responsibility, wonder. I looked down an open road and see only possibility. I could stand next to the runway and smell it, the wind and the ice of physics raining down and however much I loved this open new world I knew it was not a sheltered one. The world can wrap its benign arms around you, then without feeling, cast you to your death. It was not a place for fools or sissies, even as I soloed at age 16, I realized that.

Soon my friends were driving with bigger, faster cars, and the speed would increase. We even found a road where if you hit this rise just so, and at a certain speed and angle, you could go airborne, aka Dukes of Hazard. We drove off into the hills with that sense of immortality that only the very young and the very stupid seem to have. Driving without fear, without thought, sacrificing only some rubber and the occasional fender to the gods of the roads.

I learned to do burnouts and donuts, and once, when I came upon a boy I thought was mine, to find him with someone else, I learned to spin out quietly from a driveway with noise that makes no sound, no wound on the drive of pavement or motion, just the soft shuddering sound of the tear of raw silk. We were teens, there was tears and drama, hook ups and break ups. It was the season of curving roads and youth, where we were immortal, no adult responsibilities to block that open road.

On those free afternoons we'd pile in the cars, heading up into the hills to seek the source of the water and ride it on down. Cresting the hills with windows open, the wind as fluid, hot and hard as love, a swift current that will pull you under, to drown, gasping. We'd drive for miles with just the sensation of rushing space as deep as the water. We'd drive until dark, unrelenting and unrepentant, curfews nipping at our heels, leaving only in our wake the sound of cicadas and the breathing of night taking in the remnant smell of high octane.

Soon enough there would be graduation and college, likely sans car to cut expenses. These days would vanish with a mute, befitting, hollow sound, which would drive for only a moment upon us, with the dreadful still hush of motion stopped, too abruptly to mourn. Adulthood looming where vehicles became simply transportation again, something to shuffle kids around, a transport to work. We could not comprehend that someday, for many, life would become an emptying suitcase of enthusiasm. We swore if we ever had to buy a station wagon we'd kill ourselves.

We had our future, we had our past and in those moments, as wheels hit the pavement, and gravel flew, sometimes we had both at once.

It was once said in an age-old axiom, that an object cannot occupy two positions at the same time Perhaps in those microscopic realms beyond any conceivable experiment of physics it will be possible somewhere, there in the darkened edges of our life, where quantum mechanics reaches out to the human world. And we could be in two places at once. Or occupying the same position at two different times. Or fervently wishing we could

On weekends I still worked at the airport to pay for my lessons. Other days, I had a part time job in the local funeral home, doing some light bookkeeping, dusting the caskets in the display room, mostly being there to answer the phone and provide coffee and comfort if a family came in late at night. I'd work a 12 hour shift, noon to midnight a few days a week, an easy summer work for more than minimum wage, though my friends teased me about my choice of jobs. The call came in late, two brothers, in a small car, not unlike mine, hit head on as they crossed the center line on a curve marked "no passing".

I was there when they brought them in. Though I didn't know them really, just remember seeing them around town in their car. I had more than one evening in their company there at the funeral home, wondering if they had second thoughts of their decision as they slept suspended within the hard vaults of their regret.

Would they have made the same choices if they'd known? We've all had days like that, when simple things went awry, plans made that mattered little to you, mattered much to others, things said, bridges burned, moments that repeated themselves for weeks or months in your head. If only I'd done this, if only I'd said that. Moments in which you wish you could turn back on itself, as if you've never been there. Moments that repeat themselves in your memory, minute by minute, wrong place, wrong time.

After that local tragedy, our parents lectured us about the dangers of speed, of road signs and why they are there. Some kept their kids grounded, not allowing the to drive at all. Certainly such a place is safer; where no smudge of desire affects debate, prediction is not contaminated by untried theory and actions aren't clouded by concealed agendas. Still, it is a world flat and colorless as tap water. It's a world whether hiding at home or out with the wind in your face we pass an anniversary without awareness. That of our own passing.

My Dad did not lecture, he knew what I'd seen was its own lesson. In a life fully lived we engage our fate deliberately, we speak the words we may later regret, but we have to say them. We engage life as a indefatigable opponent that others will wish to tiptoe by, so not to awaken it. We risk our necks, and we risk our hearts, both. So although I slowed up, it was not by much. But I didn't make it to 21 by not scaring the wits out of myself, in a car, and in that little airplane I flew on the weekends

We've all had that experience. The one that makes you reticent to get back near what caused the situation in the first place. "Getting back on the horse" as they call it. Sometimes it's a near accident, sometimes it's the real thing. One of those days that was meant to be spent in quiet order when suddenly fate reaches out place its hand on your shoulder, sometimes a reminder, sometimes an order home. The earth is full of fight and friction but when that moment happens, the world hangs motionless in the moment, a cooling mass in space, even as you articulate your sudden surprise.

Sometimes you get lucky and survive, but the event leaves physical scars. But for most, the scars can't be seen and can only be traced by gentle hands, with hesitant trepidation, somewhere in the dark.

I learned that as a teen, as I dusted the coffins of those who had lost their particular battle. I learned later, as I studied the bones and pieces of life past and present, that fate is, and always will be ravenous for the flesh of the foolish, rarely frustrated or even thwarted. It sits and waits with great patience, for yesterday and today are the same to it, indivisible, timeless. Sometimes it slumbers under God's stroking hand as He watches like a parent from a distance as we do something particularly foolish, sometimes it wakes hungry, alone and seeking.

I have been witness to that too many times. The phone has rung and I've grabbed gear and bag, tox boxes and survival equipment. The vehicle is as high as mine, four wheel drive, needed where I'll go. The cold echoes off the pavement in which the only shadow is its form. It's a large truck, extended cab, with a short bed. Much like my truck at home, but that one doesn't have the cool little lights on top to get the gawkers off the road ahead so I can go to work.

As I climb in, I catch a reflection in the side window of my truck and see my own face. The face is of an adult, yet overlayed with the the plaintive need of the youth in all of us, seeking release, wanting to leave a parent's watchful eye and just feel the world soar past. I silently open the truck door, as if sneaking out, and fit my form into the leather seats, an old familiar embrace which no amount of days or a few extra pounds can change.

With a shuddering tremble of a racehorse at the gate, the truck backs out into the drive.

I have no curfew. My Dad is slumbering a thousand miles away and won't be waiting up for me. I might be home in 6 hours. I might be home in 20. For now, it's just me and my ride, miles of road interspersed with the angular cuts of barren fields, ringed with blue sky, windows rolled up as a futile barrier to the cold. As the truck moves onward, snow begins to fall. I watch the side of the road as ghosts of those who risked all, wave at me from tiny markers that note their passing, and my foot comes off the gas, the snow falling with astonishing clarity.

You need to look close as you balance the deep satisfaction of taking a risk and winning, with the need for caution; for weighing all the odds, the options, the infinity of what you are launching yourself into, is not easy.You take a risk of losing your life or losing your heart, both with consequence, both risks sometimes worth taking.

The snow hits the hood and melts, swimming like dew before a rush of air. One moment life and form, then the next melting indistinguishably into the wind. Ahead is only the miles, with nothing to do but take in the occasional broken road sign and empty barns breaking up those small patches of cleared earth, whorled with hard work, small square islands of grain. The air is cold with the white smoke of brittle leaves, snow on the ground, fire in my heart. Up ahead a horizon, up above a sky, inscrutable, desolate above the land it looms. Staying home won't make you safe, any more than ignoring the world will somehow make it safe.

I'm wondering if this rig will go airborne if I hit the rise just so, but I don't. I'm entrusted with its use, and I'll treat it like my own vehicle, with the wisdom of miles, knowing when it's time to speed past that demarcation between what I should do and what my heart tells me to do. Calculating the miles the speed, the wind, the traffic, weighing the risks of life versus loss. The passing landscape is bounty and beholder, the open road its postulate. The asphalt flows past, as do the signs, of feed stores, of gas stations, of tiny fixed crosses there by the road. Reminders that despite our freedoms there are lines you that are written into infinity. Once you cross them, you can never go back.
--Brigid

A Few Words on Blood Libel

On Twitter yesterday I ticked off quite a few vehement leftists for supporting Sarah Palin's decision to use the phrase "blood libel" in describing how blatantly biased media branded conservatives in general, the Tea Party in specific, and a handful of political figures in particular as somehow being responsible for inciting Jared Lee Loughner to go on his shooting spree in Tucson.

I can only ascribe their anger to the effectiveness of the comparison, which portrayed those pushing this dishonest meme in a very bad light, and lumped them in the corner of Russian thugs, medieval zealots, and murderous Muslim extremists that have used (and still use) the original blood libel against the Jewish people.

These leftists shrieked that using such a term was offensive to the Jewish people, and that it can only be used in referring to the original meaning.

Really?

Jim Geraghty isn't the first to notice that the term has been used repeatedly in common usage, and in that context is not dissimilar from the use of "witch hunt," though certainly infused with more power in our contemporary language.

The simple fact of the matter is that when someone is falsely accused of shedding blood, that is a blood libel.

Stop.

Period.

End of story.

The Appalling Media Double Standard on Reporting Political Violence

I wrote a column by that title for Pajamas Media back in May of last year. It's amazing how well it has stood up over time, concluding:

Again, the progressive media turned a blind eye to real violence because the source of that violence was a bit too close to their ideological home. It was no mistake that MSNBC's Contessa Brewer hoped that the Times Square bomber was a tea party protester; it is a view that is common among a media that is a symbiote of the Democratic Party. Progressive media have spent the last decades turning a blind eye to the depravity, violence, and terrorism that mark the radical fringe of their beliefs.

Never mind the stench of the smoke and the steady fall of ash. The media refuse to report, because they refuse to believe that their allies are capable of such actions.

Radical leftists are typically more violent than those on the right, but the media buries these stories—like those I documented—as quickly as possible, while over-promoting threats that serve their ideological needs. And as we've learned in these disgusting last few days, the threat doesn't even have to come from the right for the leftist media to make the charge that it does.

Quick Takes, January 13, 2011

ITEM: According to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services Brenda Sprague, new passport applications will be “gender neutral.” Blanks will no longer ask for “Father” and “Mother,” but will now list “Parent one” and Parent two.” Why? ““We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago,” Sprague said.” Sprague denied that the change was motivated by political correctness. Well of course. More and more people are recognizing that there is absolutely no difference between men and women. Unconfirmed rumors are circulating that under a little known provision of Obamacare, hospitals may lose federal funding if an insufficient quota of men are not proved to be giving birth.

ITEM: Having cut off production of the F-22 stealth fighter, currently the most advanced in the world at only a bit over 180 aircraft, the Obama Administration apparently felt no embarrassment or alarm whatever at the release of video of China’s Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter. The J-20, which resembles the F-22 in many ways, appears on first glance to have benefitted from stolen American technology. It completed its first test flight this week. China is currently working on an unprecedented technological military build up. This too does not seem to embarrass or alarm the Obama Administration. You?

ITEM: Congresscritters and the Obama Administration are claiming that repealing Obamacare would actually cost money and would “explode the deficit.” The lamestream media is taking up the hue and cry. Let’s see if I have this straight: Repealing a bill that will spend upwards of three trillion dollars (or more), establish more than 100 new federal bureaucracies, hire tens of thousands of highly paid, mostly unionized governmental employees in the IRS alone, that is already causing insurance and medical costs to skyrocket, that will give free insurance to tens of millions, etc. etc. is far more costly and damaging to the economy than not spending all that money? But of course. Have I mentioned that I have a miraculous fuel additive that will allow your car to get 500 MPG? Only $99.99 if you call in the next 15 minutes! It also removes body fat and wrinkles!

ITEM: Those darned kids these days. Seventeen year old Sammy Parker weighs only 75 pounds. Stricken with cerebral palsy, Sammy cannot speak or walk. Until his recent surgery for a life-threatening heart ailment, his father Rick carried him upstairs to his bedroom every night. Enter Rudy Favard, the son of Haitian immigrants. Co-captain of the Malden Catholic high school football team in Boston and an honor roll student, Rudy was glad to help, and so four nights a week, he drives to the Parker home and carries Sammy to bed. The complete article can be found here. This is America. This is the best we can be, and Rudy is not alone. There is real hope.

ITEM: Under President Obama, gas prices have risen 55% in only two years! We’re number one! We’re number one! Shortly after his appointment, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that he wanted to “...figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.” At that time European gas cost $7.00 to $8.00 per gallon. Remember that President Obama, while on the campaign trail (yes, I know; he’s never left), promised that “energy prices would necessarily skyrocket” if he got his way. Memo to self: When a Democrat politician promises to destroy the economy, that’s the only thing about which he is not lying.

ITEM: So that’s what caused it! Former Speaker of the House (Ahhhhh! To paraphrase James Brown: “That feels good!”) Nancy Pelosi has, for the sake of posterity, explained why Democrats were so soundly spanked at the mid-term election: George W. Bush did it. But of course! Global warming? Bush did it. No global warming? Bush did it. Lost your car keys? Bush did it. Got a pimple? Bush did it. Amazing what a man certified by the left as a low-grade moron can accomplish. Can we pass a constitutional amendment requiring that all federal politicians be pre-tested and certified for adulthood?

ITEM: There is no lack of competition for the “Most Deranged Commentary by a Politician Commenting On Deranged People” award, but I hereby nominate Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) and Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry (D). On the Imus show, Kerry noted that the Arizona killer was “mentally ill and deeply troubled,” and that he wouldn’t address his political beliefs--immediately before announcing that his attack was motivated by those who want to appeal ObamaCare(?!). Clyburn suggested that the attack was somehow motivated by or related to the recent reading of the Constitution in the House of Representatives and unspecified attempts to “delegitimize the President.” “All that stuff is uncalled for,” he said. I just know that somehow, somewhere, George W. Bush is involved...

ITEM: Speaking in Abu Dhabi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared the Arizona killer with Arab terrorists, drawing no distinction between them and calling both “extremists.” But of course. There is obviously no difference between organized and well financed groups of Jihadis who have declared war on the United States and western civilization, who commit horrendous atrocities without a second thought, and a deranged pothead loner with a handgun. That’s why Mrs. Clinton gets the big bucks and all the perks. Nuance. Sophistication. Vision. Hope. Change. I used to think that she could not have been worse that Barack Obama. I’m no longer sure...

ITEM: Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has announced plans to make carrying a firearm within 1000 feet of certain “high-profile government officials” a federal offense. Great. That’s more than three football fields. As with so many gun laws, this proposal would do nothing more than create an entirely new class of criminals out of law abiding gun owners who had no idea that a “high profile government official” was within 1000 feet of them. “But that’s not what we intend with this law,” its supporters would surely say. OK then. Don’t pass it.

ITEM: He did it again. President Barack Obama has, in his serial insults of Great Britain, set another world record. But in a press opportunity with French President Nicolas Sarkosy Obama said: ‘We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people.” It’s hard to imagine a more direct insult to the British other than, perhaps, Mr. Obama’s previous serial insults. THe British press has not been amused. With a President and Secretary of State like this, who needs enemies?

ITEM: The Democrat controlled Illinois legislature, having driven the state into bankruptcy, at the urging of Gov. Pat Quinn took the bold and courageous move of increasing personal income tax rates 67% and business rates 46%. No Republicans voted for the increase. The governors of Indiana and Wisconsin are said to be ecstatic and are advertising, or planning to advertise, their business friendly climates. That’s Progressive thinking for you: “Our policies have propelled the state into bankruptcy, but that’s only because we haven’t inflicted even more of the same policies on the state. Just wait; you’ll see.” Yes, they will. Congratulations to Wisconsin and Indiana and to the owners of Illinois home and business moving companies!

ITEM: A few questions about President Obama’s speech at the Tucson memorial service on Wednesday evening: Why would anyone think a university athletic arena an appropriate venue? Repeatedly and loudly cheering the President? At a memorial service? Handing out t-shirts beforehand? Did it remind you too of the Wellstone memorial/Dem. pep rally? Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder speaking before the President? A 34 minute speech, after other lengthy speeches? Why was the POTUS there at all, to say nothing of the other administration figures? Is this yet another occasion all about Mr. Obama? Is this his attempt to be, like Bill Clinton, the comforter in chief? Will he rush to comfort victims of tragedies around the nation from now on? Just asking.

CORRECTION: It seems that the source from which I received an armed citizen report isn't quite as reliable as I might have hoped. Since I can't unquestionably verify it, I'm removing it. Thanks to George and Professor Hale for catching that one!

See you next time!

Ever the Gun-Grabber, Lautenberg Lies About Failed Gun Law in CNN Op-Ed

It seems all I have done the past several days is "correct" obvious attempts by the leftist media/political machine to create false narratives about the gun and magazines used by Jared Lee Loughner in his deadly assault last Saturday, and when I haven't been dealing with that, I've been dealing with pundits and politicians lying about the failed 1994 "assault weapons ban" that expired in 2004.

To hear them tell it, the ban kept blood from flowing in the streets and ended threats of gun violence. That is a neat trick, as the ban did not radically affect the violent crime rate during its entire existence, nor did violent crime spike as a result of the ban expiring. To those with knowledge of the ban's actually language and effects, this is less than surprising. After all, the ban did not in any way address the lethality, range, rate of fire or accuracy of any firearms. It was nothing more or less than a ban on the name of certain firearms, along with a list of cosmetic features that bore no relation to how well firearms functioned. A perfect example of a "banned" gun was the Tec-9 pistol.

Demonized by liberal gun-grabbers as the kind of "assault weapon" favored by criminals, it underwent utterly cosmetic changes—the elimination of the barrel shroud and threaded muzzle—and was out on the street as the AB-10 the very next day. Gun-control advocates claimed victory, but accomplished precisely nothing in terms of saving lives or reducing crime.

So it goes with Senatorial vulture Frank Lautenberg, who wants to use the bodies of Jared Loughner's victims as pulpit to press forward once again with gun control schemes. His editorial at CNN today is replete with half-truths and lies, with this being the most objectionable.

If the shooter didn't have access to the high-capacity magazine that he used, he would have stopped to reload sooner and lives might have been saved.

Loughner's magazine was attached to a 9 mm Glock 19 semi-automatic handgun, which is the preferred weapon of deranged madmen. In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho used the same model in the Virginia Tech shooting spree, which claimed 32 lives.

The Senator has carelessly libeled hundreds of thousands of police officers, military servicemen and women, and law-abiding citizens around the world that rely upon Glock pistols, and like all would-be tyrants, he would use the actions of a loathsome individual to justify his attempt to usurp the freedoms of the rest of society.

He then goes on to argue:

This is common-sense legislation, and there is no justification for keeping these large-capacity devices on the market.

The sad irony is that high-capacity magazines were illegal from 1994 until 2004 when the federal assault weapons ban was in place. In addition to dangerous gun magazines, this groundbreaking law also outlawed AK-47s, Uzis and other semi-automatic firearms.

These are the kinds of guns soldiers used on faraway battlefields; they don't belong in our communities.

The unintended irony of his pronouncement that such magazines are suitable for military and hence militia use is not doubt lost upon him, but that is dwarfed by the magnitude of the lie he continues to spread.

These so-called "high capacity" magazines were never illegal to buy, sell, trade, possess or use during the entire life of the ban. They were freely available for commercial sale, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, were bought, sold, and used.

The law banned the import of foreign high capacity magazines, and marked new magazines manufactured after the law went into effect for law enforcement use only. All previously manufactured magazines were completely legal, even those thousands of brand-new magazines sitting in packages in the warehouses of wholesalers and retailers, which were never in serious threat of being depleted.

Likewise, "AK-47s, Uzis and other semi-automatic firearms" were never in short supply during the laughably labeled "ban." You could walk into gun stores across the breadth of America and pick up AR-15 or AK-pattern rifles, or many other semi-automatic firearms. Manufacturers simply shrugged their heads at the absurdity of the law passed, and went about releasing the same functional weapons, with minor and superfluous cosmetic differences.

The simple fact of the matter is that the petty tyrannies that men like Lautenberg desire to impose on others merely restricts the rights of the lawful, at the expense of liberty.

That, of course, is far harder to sell than his fiction that he's done something worthwhile in the past that he'd like to replicate.

After all, who would buy the claims of the honest liberal politician proclaiming, "I want to re-impose upon you a law that failed before?"

The Westboro Left, Calculated Lies, and Wellstone II

Matthew Sheffield has a very interesting post up at the Washington Examiner:

Fred Phelps, the crazy leader of the Westboro Baptist Church cult, has become infamous for blaming any bad event on the evils of homosexuality. Earthquake in Haiti? Blame the gays. Combat troop deaths in Iraq? Ditto.

Phelps' logic works thusly: God literally hates people who engage in homosexual conduct and unless societies take the steps to ban and punish such action, God is going to destroy them. Any natural disaster or mass murder is, accordingly, the will of God being carried out on the "sinners" who refuse to listen.

If that type of "logic" sounds familiar, it should be. It's exactly the same as the explanations the far left is resorting to in its efforts to pin the recent Tucson, Arizona shooting onto conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Glenn Beck, and the right generally.

Rhetorically, there is very little difference between the ranting of the Westboro cult and rhetoric vomited forth on the pages of the New York Times and Newsweek in recent days. Facts are irrelevant to reporting on this massacre Leftists immediately seized upon as an opportunity to demonize conservatives and squelch free speech.

Eerily, liberal Democratic politicians and their allies in the leftist media seem to have once again coordinated a two-pronged assault against civil liberties, using deception and outright lies. Perhaps most disturbing of all is that they've given up all pretense of tying their efforts to facts or reality.

The 22-year-old that shot 20 people—killing six—has become an excuse for the left to blame the Tea Party in specific and conservatives in general for the massacre, attempting to tie the shooter and the slayings to the patriotic rhetoric used to capture the House in the 2010 mid-terms.

Actual reality is utterly irrelevant in liberal massaging on the tragedy. Jared Lee Loughner has been identified as being "very liberal" by a classmate who knew him in high school, in a band, and community college. His documented history of abusing marijuana, admiration of flag-burning, dislike of the Constitution, and anti-war views that held the Bush Administration as "war criminals" for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan closely coincide with the progressive liberal world view.

Despite this, most conservatives and moderates on both sides of the aisle recognize that Loughner's rampage is far more closely tied to mental illness than any political philosophy. Meanwhile, liberals hoping to find a way to turn this outburst of violence into a ghoulish opportunity—as evidenced in the Krugman editorial and alternate-reality Newsweek article linked above—are forging ahead with rhetoric to restrict free speech, while simultaneously promoting restrictions on civil rights and declaring intentions to further alienate and insulate themselves from the very people they are supposed to represent.

The always excellent James Taranto notes the authoritarian and repressive political putsch on display in an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal:

To describe the Tucson massacre as an act of "political violence" is, quite simply, a lie. It is as if, two days after the Columbine massacre, a conservative newspaper of the Times's stature had described that atrocious crime as an act of "educational violence" and used it as an occasion to denounce teachers unions. Such an editorial would be shameful and indecent even if the arguments it made were meritorious.

The New York Times has seized on a madman's act of wanton violence as an excuse to instigate a witch hunt against those it regards as its domestic foes. "Instigate" is not too strong a word here: As we noted yesterday, one of the first to point an accusatory finger at the Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin was the Times's star columnist, Paul Krugman. Less than two hours after the news of the shooting broke, he opined on the Times website: "We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was."

Evidence indicates that Loughner's obsession with Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords years before the Tea Party formed, but leftists persist in constructing an alternate reality where the Tea Party and a handful of conservative politicians and pundits are is the root of all evil. Facts are utterly irrelevant in a worldview so skewed; Sheppard's likening of the radical left to the Westboro hate cult grows more apt with every dishonest attempt to draw false parallels between the Tea Party and conservatives and the maniacally-grinning, left-leaning madman.

Sadly there is reason to believe that this hateful rhetoric attempting to demonize and isolate the Tea Party comes straight from the White House itself, author's of the theory that you should never let a tragedy go to waste if it can be used to extract a political gain. Hence the false characterizations and outright lies in hopes of generating support for the draconian gun control laws that the Administration favors, but lacks the fortitude to openly champion.

And of course, we look with trepidation and sadness upon what may likely transpire later today, when President Obama is scheduled to speak in Tucson.

This is an opportunity for a real statesman to attempt to bridge the political divide and promote healing, but nothing in this President's past suggests he is capable of delivering a speech that isn't calculated and self-serving. It appears that we face the probability of another Wellstone funeral, as the memorial has taken the tone of a politicized union rally.

There are few things more shameful than using the corpse of of a child as a campaign stage, but we've long past the point of thinking that this radical Administration is capable of any decency at all.

Update: Sarah Palin labels the media/political smears as "blood libel," which is both controversial, and accurate, as Dan Riehl observes.

They're Greek To Me

My latest article on understanding Progressive thinking is up on Pajamas Media. It can be accessed here.

Bet on Stupid

With college football now over, the folks doing online sports gambling at betus.com have one less sport to wager on this time of year. I'd suggest they put together a line on which opportunistic politicians and social commentators will make the dumbest statements or propose the most preposterous laws in the wake of Jared Loughner's 20-victim rampage in Tucson this past Saturday.

Peter King's self-serving, dim-witted, and no-doubt unconstitutional attempt to build a 1,000 foot gun-free zone around politicians is certainly a candidate to win the prize for dumbest proposed law, though the attempt by a bevy of Democrats to resurrect the laughably ineffective "assault weapons ban" of the 1994 federal crime bill is a close second.

The most competitive betting would take place on who is making the dumbest comments regarding the murders, with Pima County Sheriff Dupnik being a contender, along with Paul Krugman, and pretty much the entire stable of anchors and commenters at MSNBC.

The would-be elitists on the left all want to capitalize on the shooting and hope to to use the actions of a deranged individual to libel their political enemies. We can't be sure what perverse suggestions or solutions they will offer next, but it's a sure bet it will be vitriolic and stupid.

Lautenberg Reminds Us Why The Founders Want Us Armed

A US Senator announced Monday he would soon present legislation to ban high-capacity ammunition clips after a gunman used one in an attempted assassination of a US lawmaker over the weekend.

"The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly. These high-capacity clips simply should not be on the market," Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg said in a statement.

The Senator from New Jersey is partially correct (though they are magazines, not clips, which are something completely different). The standard-capacity and high-capacity magazines of semi-automatic firearms does enable shooters to have a formidable amount of firepower.

But they most certainly should be on the market, and in the hands of every responsible adult.

Provided such devices, adequate arms, ammunition, and fortitude, even just one person can mow down a crowd... or keep a lynch mob at bay, send rapists to the morgue, stop would-be tyrants, another coup d'etat, or genocide.

Such weapons systems serve as a great equalizer. The Founders intended arms to be used by a "well-regulated" militia comprised of patriotic citizens to keep would-be tyrants at bay, whether those tyrants were Redcoat tyrants of centuries ago, or the mentors and fellow travelers of a sitting President that plotted an American holocaust.

The Founders would applaud rank-and-file Americans having AR-15 carbines, AK-pattern rifles, and yes, semi-automatic pistols with what the gun control industry has chosen to call "high-capacity" magazines. Further, they wanted us to have these arms so that would-be tyrants—the very same legislators attempting to now ban magazines and firearms—could be kept from using the power of the elected elite and the color of law to run roughshod over our freedoms.

We have the Second Amendment not to protect us from wild animals or protect our right to plink at cans, but to keep the powerful and corrupt from becoming tyrannical.This fact is offensive to those now intent on imposing their will upon the populace, and why they push for "sensible" gun control—civilian disarmament—at every turn.

Why Magazine Limit Laws Don't Save Lives

Gun control advocates are hoping to use the bodies of those killed by Jared Loughner as a podium to spread their views. New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy—Democrats all—are using the tragedy to rush forward a ban on magazines of more than ten rounds, claiming that by limiting the number of cartridges held in each magazine, the number of casualties in shootings would be reduced.

Really?

Here is a magazine change of a Glock 19 pistol (the kind used in the shooting in Tucson and at Virginia Tech) by a shooter with average skill.

He fires two shots, drops the empty magazine, reloads, and fires two more shots within three seconds. That includes shooting two rounds from each magazine, not just the magazine change, which takes roughly a second. Such results are not atypical, and skilled competition shooters are even faster.

The bills being proposed by these freedom-hating lawmakers aren't about guns.

They're about control.

Get Olbermann, Matthews, and Behar Their Sedatives. New Revelations Paint Picture of Jared Loughner as Being an Insane Left-Winger

Before tonight revelations from friends and acquaintances of Jared Loughner had already paint a picture quite counter to that of a conservative.

Loughner was identified as being "very left wing," abused drugs, found humor in aborted fetuses (once proclaiming they could be fitted with suicide vests as "baby bombers" according to one offended classmate), hated God and was a 9/11 Truther... all beliefs more consistent than the political left than right.

Now we find that that Loughner was a vitriolic anti-war left winger as well.

Reality isn't what the media would like it to be. Expect this story to die soon.

What, you don't expect them to report Loughner was a product of their hate speech from the last decade, do you?

Here, In Reality

A lot of memes are dying a bitter death as more information comes out about Jared Loughner's rampage at Gabrielle Giffords' townhall. Despite dishonest attempts by a corrupt media and their left wing allies to blame conservatives and the Tea Party movement for the shootings, the truth has emerged.

Loughner—according to those who knew him in high school and college—was very liberal when he was younger, but began displaying behavior that became increasingly erratic, and his obsession with Giffords began before the Tea Party ever existed.

Another meme is also suffering its downfall in the wake of the massacre in Tuscon. For years, left-wing gun control advocates have claimed that concealed carry laws allowing the general population to carry arms would result in carry permit holders gunning down each other and the public at large in the panic of a violent episode. Well, a concealed carry permit holder was at the scene of Saturday's attack.

He helped subdue the shooter. So much for another leftist meme.

Long-time CY reader Bill Smith noted via email:

According to the above piece, it seems that there WAS a private, armed citizen on scene with a pistol who, in the midst of the chaos, managed to keep his head, assess the immediate situation, and not draw his weapon.

That is, he did NOT become a "cowboy" even though he was -- as some idiot saw fit to point out elsewhere about this shooting -- within some sort of significant distance from the OK Corral -- and start blazing away with his weapon.

He did not even draw his weapon.

He, did, however, start running TOWARD the shooting.

He became intimately involved in the struggle, and saw what he thought was the shooter holding the gun. Instead of using his own weapon to shoot the shooter, he used his considerable size, and strength to "[force] the muzzle to the ground." He was then made aware by others -- and was sufficiently in control of his own faculties to immediately understand -- that this was NOT the shooter. At about the same time, the innocent man dropped the gun, and our armed citizen decided to stand on it, and try to get to the police on his cell phone.

"Zamudio [ -- our armed citizen -- ] said he never pulled his gun out. He saw that the slide on the shooter's gun appeared to be empty and decided the shooter was not in a position to fire."

"I don't know about being called a hero," he said. "I feel like everybody should think that's what you are supposed to do in a situation like this - go and help," Zamudio said.

My question is, does our armed citizen, Mr. Zamudio, fit the picture so often painted of armed citizens by the Brady Campaign? Or, don't many of us recognize him from thousands of shooting ranges, gun clubs, matches, hunting camps, and classes around the country, who just enjoy their sport legally and responsibly, and pass along its values to younger shooters coming up, because that's how we were taught when we learned to shoot when we were kids. For the present purposes you may want to read these rules starting with # 4, but it seems that our armed citizen had all four of these rules present clearly, and simultaneously in his head from the moment he strapped on his weapon that morning on his way to his Mom's art show:

RULE 1: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED

The only exception to this occurs when one has a weapon in his hands and he has personally unloaded it for checking. As soon as he puts it down, Rule 1 applies again.

RULE 2: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO DESTROY

You may not wish to destroy it, but you must be clear in your mind that you are quite ready to if you let that muzzle cover the target. To allow a firearm to point at another human being is a deadly threat, and should always be treated as such.

RULE 3: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER TIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET

This we call the Golden Rule because its violation is responsible for about 80 percent of the firearms disasters we read about.

RULE 4: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET

You never shoot at anything until you have positively identified it. You never fire at a shadow, or a sound, or a suspected presence. You shoot only when you know absolutely what you are shooting at and what is beyond it.

The vast majority of those citizens that choose to go armed do so to be a benefit to society, not just themselves. Mr. Zamudio isn't atypical.

He's simply one of us.

Text of the So-Called "Assault Weapons Ban" That Liberal Journalists Can't Seem to Find or Understand

Consider this a public service (HTML) (PDF).

TITLE XI--FIREARMS

Subtitle A--Assault Weapons

SEC. 110101. SHORT TITLE.

This subtitle may be cited as the `Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act'.

SEC. 110102. RESTRICTION ON MANUFACTURE, TRANSFER, AND POSSESSION OF CERTAIN SEMIAUTOMATIC ASSAULT WEAPONS.

(a) RESTRICTION- Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

`(v)(1) It shall be unlawful for a person to manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon.

`(2) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to the possession or transfer of any semiautomatic assault weapon otherwise lawfully possessed under Federal law on the date of the enactment of this subsection.

`(3) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to--

`(A) any of the firearms, or replicas or duplicates of the firearms, specified in Appendix A to this section, as such firearms were manufactured on October 1, 1993;

`(B) any firearm that--

`(i) is manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action;

`(ii) has been rendered permanently inoperable; or

`(iii) is an antique firearm;

`(C) any semiautomatic rifle that cannot accept a detachable magazine that holds more than 5 rounds of ammunition; or

`(D) any semiautomatic shotgun that cannot hold more than 5 rounds of ammunition in a fixed or detachable magazine.

The fact that a firearm is not listed in Appendix A shall not be construed to mean that paragraph (1) applies to such firearm. No firearm exempted by this subsection may be deleted from Appendix A so long as this subsection is in effect.

`(4) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to--

`(A) the manufacture for, transfer to, or possession by the United States or a department or agency of the United States or a State or a department, agency, or political subdivision of a State, or a transfer to or possession by a law enforcement officer employed by such an entity for purposes of law enforcement (whether on or off duty);

`(B) the transfer to a licensee under title I of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 for purposes of establishing and maintaining an on-site physical protection system and security organization required by Federal law, or possession by an employee or contractor of such licensee on-site for such purposes or off-site for purposes of licensee-authorized training or transportation of nuclear materials;

`(C) the possession, by an individual who is retired from service with a law enforcement agency and is not otherwise prohibited from receiving a firearm, of a semiautomatic assault weapon transferred to the individual by the agency upon such retirement; or

`(D) the manufacture, transfer, or possession of a semiautomatic assault weapon by a licensed manufacturer or licensed importer for the purposes of testing or experimentation authorized by the Secretary.'.

(b) DEFINITION OF SEMIAUTOMATIC ASSAULT WEAPON- Section 921(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

`(30) The term `semiautomatic assault weapon' means--

`(A) any of the firearms, or copies or duplicates of the firearms in any caliber, known as--

`(i) Norinco, Mitchell, and Poly Technologies Avtomat Kalashnikovs (all models);

`(ii) Action Arms Israeli Military Industries UZI and Galil;

`(iii) Beretta Ar70 (SC-70);

`(iv) Colt AR-15;

`(v) Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN/LAR, and FNC;

`(vi) SWD M-10, M-11, M-11/9, and M-12;

`(vii) Steyr AUG;

`(viii) INTRATEC TEC-9, TEC-DC9 and TEC-22; and

`(ix) revolving cylinder shotguns, such as (or similar to) the Street Sweeper and Striker 12;

`(B) a semiautomatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of--

`(i) a folding or telescoping stock;

`(ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;

`(iii) a bayonet mount;

`(iv) a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; and

`(v) a grenade launcher;

`(C) a semiautomatic pistol that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of--

`(i) an ammunition magazine that attaches to the pistol outside of the pistol grip;

`(ii) a threaded barrel capable of accepting a barrel extender, flash suppressor, forward handgrip, or silencer;

`(iii) a shroud that is attached to, or partially or completely encircles, the barrel and that permits the shooter to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being burned;

`(iv) a manufactured weight of 50 ounces or more when the pistol is unloaded; and

`(v) a semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm; and

`(D) a semiautomatic shotgun that has at least 2 of--

`(i) a folding or telescoping stock;

`(ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;

`(iii) a fixed magazine capacity in excess of 5 rounds; and

`(iv) an ability to accept a detachable magazine.'.

(c) PENALTIES-

(1) VIOLATION OF SECTION 922(v)- Section 924(a)(1)(B) of such title is amended by striking `or (q) of section 922' and inserting `(r), or (v) of section 922'.

(2) USE OR POSSESSION DURING CRIME OF VIOLENCE OR DRUG TRAFFICKING CRIME- Section 924(c)(1) of such title is amended in the first sentence by inserting `, or semiautomatic assault weapon,' after `short-barreled shotgun,'.

(d) IDENTIFICATION MARKINGS FOR SEMIAUTOMATIC ASSAULT WEAPONS- Section 923(i) of such title is amended by adding at the end the following: `The serial number of any semiautomatic assault weapon manufactured after the date of the enactment of this sentence shall clearly show the date on which the weapon was manufactured.'.

SEC. 110103. BAN OF LARGE CAPACITY AMMUNITION FEEDING DEVICES.

(a) PROHIBITION- Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 110102(a), is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

`(w)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be unlawful for a person to transfer or possess a large capacity ammunition feeding device.

`(2) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to the possession or transfer of any large capacity ammunition feeding device otherwise lawfully possessed on or before the date of the enactment of this subsection.

`(3) This subsection shall not apply to--

`(A) the manufacture for, transfer to, or possession by the United States or a department or agency of the United States or a State or a department, agency, or political subdivision of a State, or a transfer to or possession by a law enforcement officer employed by such an entity for purposes of law enforcement (whether on or off duty);

`(B) the transfer to a licensee under title I of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 for purposes of establishing and maintaining an on-site physical protection system and security organization required by Federal law, or possession by an employee or contractor of such licensee on-site for such purposes or off-site for purposes of licensee-authorized training or transportation of nuclear materials;

`(C) the possession, by an individual who is retired from service with a law enforcement agency and is not otherwise prohibited from receiving ammunition, of a large capacity ammunition feeding device transferred to the individual by the agency upon such retirement; or

`(D) the manufacture, transfer, or possession of any large capacity ammunition feeding device by a licensed manufacturer or licensed importer for the purposes of testing or experimentation authorized by the Secretary.'.

`(4) If a person charged with violating paragraph (1) asserts that paragraph (1) does not apply to such person because of paragraph (2) or (3), the Government shall have the burden of proof to show that such paragraph (1) applies to such person. The lack of a serial number as described in section 923(i) of title 18, United States Code, shall be a presumption that the large capacity ammunition feeding device is not subject to the prohibition of possession in paragraph (1).'.

(b) DEFINITION OF LARGE CAPACITY AMMUNITION FEEDING DEVICE- Section 921(a) of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 110102(b), is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

`(31) The term `large capacity ammunition feeding device'--

`(A) means a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device manufactured after the date of enactment of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition; but

`(B) does not include an attached tubular device designed to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber rimfire ammunition.'.

(c) PENALTY- Section 924(a)(1)(B) of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 110102(c)(1), is amended by striking `or (v)' and inserting `(v), or (w)'.

(d) IDENTIFICATION MARKINGS FOR LARGE CAPACITY AMMUNITION FEEDING DEVICES- Section 923(i) of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 110102(d) of this Act, is amended by adding at the end the following: `A large capacity ammunition feeding device manufactured after the date of the enactment of this sentence shall be identified by a serial number that clearly shows that the device was manufactured or imported after the effective date of this subsection, and such other identification as the Secretary may by regulation prescribe.'.

There is of course more to the bill, and this section of the bill, but this is the language that is relevant to the MSM's erroneous claims that the Glock 19 and the magazines used by Loughner would have been illegal if this ban were still in place.

Clearly, Glock handguns were never banned in any capacity, and higher-than-standard capacity magazines such as used in Loughner's atrocity were legal to own, buy, sell and possess during the lifetime of the ban. It was only illegal to manufacture new magazines after the law went into effect.

Predictable: Gail Collins Recycles Brady Campaign Lies

Dear Gail Collins,

You are entitled to have your own opinions about firearms, but you are not entitled to your own reality. That means you should not parrot the speech of people with a vested political and financial interest in lying, like, say, a spokesperson for a gun control organization who is paid to pass along absurdities such as this.

If Loughner had gone to the Safeway carrying a regular pistol, the kind most Americans think of when they think of the right to bear arms, Giffords would probably still have been shot and we would still be having that conversation about whether it was a sane idea to put her Congressional district in the cross hairs of a rifle on the Internet.

But we might not have lost a federal judge, a 76-year-old church volunteer, two elderly women, Giffords's 30-year-old constituent services director and a 9-year-old girl who had recently been elected to the student council at her school and went to the event because she wanted to see how democracy worked.

Loughner's gun, a 9-millimeter Glock, is extremely easy to fire over and over, and it can carry a 30-bullet clip. It is "not suited for hunting or personal protection," said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign. "What it's good for is killing and injuring a lot of people quickly."

First, Collins' is factually wrong when she asserts that a Glock 19 is not "a regular pistol." It is perhaps the single most "regular" pistol in the United States, being one of the family of the most popular sidearms purchased and used by civilians, military and law enforcement around the globe, and it uses the most common centerfire pistol caliber in the world (9x19mm). It is perhaps possible for Collins to be more wrong in her characterization of the Glock 19, but I fail to see how.

Then we have Paul Helmke, of the Brady Campaign, who claims that the Glock 19 is "not suited for hunting or personal protection."

He is perhaps half right. I don't know of anyone who would advocate the use of a compact 9mm pistol for hunting, but that doesn't mean it could not be done. It would be too small to take big game humanely, and is generally regarded as too large of a bullet for small game such as rabbit or squirrel, but I've heard the occasional anecdotal stories of mid-sized handguns being used to dispatch predators such as coyotes and feral dogs.

Helmke is of course laughably dishonest when he claims the Glock 19 "is not suited... for personal protection."

Personal protection is the entire reason the Glock 19 was created!

It was conceived of, designed to be, and marketed as a personal protection handgun from the ground up. It is particularly well-suited for concealed carry by law enforcement and citizens, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, have been sold just to fit that role, just in the United States.

Perhaps it is too much to expect either competence or honesty from left-wig ideologues such as Collins and Helmke, but I do appreciate the fact that they don't even attempt to hide their dishonesty.

And the Parade of Idiots Continues...

As we discussed in some detail yesterday, the writers and editors of Salon are remarkably incompetent when it comes to fact checking their claims about the expired "federal ban on firearm cosmetics" (if we are to describe what the bill actually did).

Apparently the Village Voice is similarly staffed with writers and editors that simply can't be bothered read the actual law.

As Gail Collins points out in today's Times, the Saturday shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others -- six fatally -- at the shopping mall parking lot was deadlier than the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in nearby Tombstone. And Loughner never would've been able to buy his Glock with its extended clip if the Federal Assault Weapons Ban hadn't been allowed to sunset in 2004. Which means, as Collins writes, that if the 22-year-old had been limited to your standard assassin's pistol, we might well have lost a congresswoman, but "not a federal judge, a 76-year-old church volunteer, two elderly women, Gifford's 30-year-old constituent services director, and a 9-year-old girl who had recently been elected to the student council and went to the event because she wanted to see how democracy worked."

The Glock 19 used by Loughner was never banned by federal law, nor was the sale, ownership or possession of the aftermarket extended magazine that he used in the shooting. The only thing covered in the expired federal bill was the manufacture of new magazines after the law went into effect. Any new or used magazine made prior to the ban could be sold in retail stores, and in actuality, that is precisely what occurred. There was a shortage of standard capacity magazines for more obscure firearms, but standard capacity magazines and high capacity magazines like those used by Loughner were available for sale—quite legally—during the entire life of the ill-conceived law.

The Politics of Political Rhetoric

In the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) and 19 others outside a Tucson supermarket, the usual rhetoric about political rhetoric has been flying wildly about. “Contemporary political rhetoric,” contemporary wisdom says, “is uniquely harmful. It is far more venomous and dangerous than ever before, and something ought to be done about it.” Political graphics, such as those with what appear to be telescopic sight crosshairs “targeting” the states of political opponents are particularly likely to incite the unstable to violence. Nonsense.

A cursory reading of the history of American political campaigns and political cartoons reveals that, in many ways, our political discourse is, by comparison, reasonably polite and restrained. Few of the political figures we revere today escaped having their parentage, intellect, honesty and personal morals and habits publicly questioned in less then delicate and tasteful terms. And while we do have more or less instant means of communication that our predecessors lacked, the kind of obscene, witless nastiness often seen there is commonly confined to a few very specific and partisan websites where those inclined to fling feces through the bars of their cyber cages are able to fling it almost exclusively at, and to the deranged delight of, each other. Most people become aware of it only as the result of bloggers who seek out such vitriol for the purpose of illustrating the derangement of their political opponents and post it as representative examples. Thankfully, it represents the thinking and juvenile tendencies of only a tiny portion of the population, a portion that likely still laughs uproariously at fart jokes some ten years or more on from high school.

As much as politicians of some stripes decry the use of military terminology and metaphor in political advertising and rhetoric, both sides use it freely and it is a staple of our everyday language. One could search exhaustively and never find anyone actually incited to violence by rhetoric about “targeting,” politicians for defeat, or about waging “war on poverty,” or “war on illiteracy,” or about “focusing like a laser” on this or that initiative. In fact, one commonly finds equally bloodthirsty rhetoric surrounding high school football games and even in school songs that, among other things, incessantly shout “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

For those who have followed political discourse over the years, much of this is reminiscent of the obscenity wars that have, for the time being, settled down to a low simmer. “Pornography is the theory, rape is the practice,” was a common feminist article of faith. Many demanded censorship, alleging that exposure to porn caused all manner of horrors. Fortunately, actual research did not establish the kinds of connections censors hoped to find. In one famous experiment prior to widespread access to the internet, college boys were confined to rooms containing filing cabinets filled with the more commonly available pornography such as Playboy, Penthouse and several less classy offerings. After a short period of initial interest, the guys became quickly bored and returned to reading Sports Illustrated, watching TV and similar fare. The largest problem encountered turned out to be keeping kids from stealing the magazines to show their roommates when the experiment ended.

Whether the issue is porn or overheated political rhetoric, let’s try a thought experiment. Let's assume that some small percentage of the population--usually male--will be, in some way, affected or inspired by exposure to overheated political rhetoric or what most would consider pornography. Are you really willing to censor speech and imagery based on what the most deranged among us might do?

Before you answer, consider the case of Ted Bundy, serial killer. After Bundy was captured and shortly before being executed for his many crimes, Dr. James Dobson of Focus On The Family, then a prominent anti-porn crusader, produced a video interview in which Bundy directly claimed that porn was the root cause of all of his evil. What Dobson did not tell his viewers was that the kind of porn Bundy favored and that was discovered in his possession upon his arrest was brochures advertising cheerleading camps. No nudes, no violence, no depictions of intercourse or snuff killings, just smiling, bouncy cheerleaders. Dr. Dobson would have you believe that Bundy killed because porn made him do it. I know better. Bundy killed because he was evil, and because he liked it. It’s that horrifying and that simple. Everything he did was illegal; the imagery he favored was not. Short of killing him twice, no law could have been more effective in dealing with Bundy or anyone like him.

The point, of course, is that we often make the mistake of assuming facts not in evidence. Because we are “normal,” we assume that deranged criminals will be incited to violence by, well, depictions and descriptions of violence. With the politically correct tidal wave of recent years, mild jokes that might be welcomed one day can be firing offenses on another. Too many people seem to believe that they have an absolute right never to be exposed to anything that they might find offensive or disturbing, or any idea or belief with which they might disagree. Thank goodness we have not yet empowered those who would be only too happy to try to enforce such a right to have at it.

When faced with senseless violence, it is only human nature to try to make sense of it, to try to explain it in a way that can assure us that a similar fate will not befall us or those we love. It is also perfectly natural to believe that we can legislate against human nature, that we can write laws that will in some way make us feel safer or that will “send a message” about what we think is right. The problem is that feeling safer isn’t being safer, and sending messages is best reserved for advertisements or texting. Neither is remotely effective in stopping the deranged whose motivations are almost certainly nothing most people could or would ever imagine.

There are a great many political “leaders” and “community organizers” and ”community activists” out there who would be only too delighted to gain the kind of political power that some might be tempted to give them in a vain attempt to ensure their safety. But the truth is, no one can do that. No one can ensure that anyone will be absolutely safe, not even the Secret Service who could not intercept or stop assassination attempts on John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

Sometimes, as frustrating as it is, we have to simply accept that tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us, and as resilient as human beings can be, we are also remarkably fragile. We certainly can and should call out and shame those who step over the line of reasonable political discourse, but that does not include those who use common, non-threatening metaphors and imagery. But for now, the most meaningful, effective thing we can do is to offer our humble, sincere prayers for the physical and spiritual healing of the victims and their families. We can also give thanks that we live in freedom unprecedented in human history and resolve to do all that we can that, as Abraham Lincoln said, “...government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

Salon Posts Completely False Article About Giffords Shooting

Some guy named Justin Elliott is claiming that the Glock 19 and magazines used in the Giffords shooting yesterday would have been banned by the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

The only thing he got right in his article was the punctuation.

The semiautomatic handgun used in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and more than a dozen other people on Saturday would have been illegal to manufacture and difficult to purchase under the Clinton-era assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.

According to police and media reports, the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, legally purchased a Glock 19 with a high-capacity magazine in November at a gun store in Tucson. Under the assault weapons ban, it was illegal to manufacture or sell new high capacity magazines, defined as those that hold more than 10 rounds. The magazines used by Loughner had 31 rounds each, according to police.

Unfortunately for Elliott and the dolts he has for editors at Salon, his claims are almost entirely untrue.

The Glock 19 was completely legal and freely available during the entirety of the laughably ineffective law. It was never illegal to purchase, manufacture or own at any point, and Glock actually introduced 11 new models to the US market during the time Elliot claimed they were banned.

Likewise, the 31-round magazines used in the shooting have never been banned from civilian ownership, or commercial and retail sale. Only the manufacture of new magazines was banned during the time the law was in effect. Sale, ownership, possession and use was always perfectly legal as a federal matter.

Elliott's post isn't just wrong, it's embarrassingly wrong.

Update: Salon has since updated the article, and it's still wrong:

The high-capacity magazine of the semiautomatic pistol used in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and more than a dozen other people on Saturday would have been illegal to manufacture and difficult to purchase under the Clinton-era assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.

According to police and media reports, the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, legally purchased a semiautomatic Glock 19 with a high-capacity magazine in November at a gun store in Tucson. Under the assault weapons ban, it was illegal to manufacture or sell new high-capacity magazines, defined as those that hold more than 10 rounds. The magazines used by Loughner had 31 rounds each, according to police.

Salon was embarrassed enough to partially correct the claim about the gun (without having the integrity to acknowledge their gross error), but is still completely incorrect in claiming that so-called "high-capacity" magazines were illegal to sell during the ban.

They most certainly were not.

Shooters could buy high capacity magazines—new or used—during the entire ban.

But Elliott still isn't done being incompetent, even in the revised article.

Such as this false claim, which still remains:

Between 1994 and 2004 when the assault weapons ban was in effect, gun manufacturers such as Glock could not market handguns with high-capacity magazines. If the ban were still in effect, it's less likely that Loughner could have obtained a gun with a high-capacity magazine. Stores could legally only sell used high-capacity magazines at that time, and new magazines could not be manufactured.

Manufacturers could indeed legally manufacture and market guns capable of using high capacity magazines during the entire life of the so-called ban. What they could not do is manufacture new high capacity magazines after the law went into effect.

Elliot is still incompetent, as are his editors. It is obvious that Joan Walsh's magazine is far more interested in misleading their readers and pushing a radical agenda than telling anything resembling the truth.

MIKE’S UPDATE:

There are a number of additional mistakes and misrepresentations in the article, as well as plainly misleading statements. Among them:

MISREPRESENTATION: “If Loughner had been using a traditional magazine, "it would have drastically reduced the number of shots he got off before he had to pause, unload and reload -- and he could have been stopped," Daniel Vice, senior attorney at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, tells Salon.”

FACT: The standard Glock 19 magazine holds 15 rounds, With one round chambered, that’s a total of 16 rounds. With one additional magazine (Glocks are factory shipped with two magazines), a total of 31 rounds. To “unload,” one need only press the magazine release which causes an expended magazine to drop free from the magazine well and takes only a fraction of a second, or perhaps a bit longer than a second for an untrained operator. Inserting a loaded magazine and releasing the slide to chamber a round would commonly take no more than six seconds for an untrained operator. I have no idea what Vice considers a “traditional” magazine, but even if it was a Clinton ban magazine of only 10 rounds, the shooter would still have 21 readily accessible rounds. Vice is trying to suggest that there would be substantial time differential with “traditional” as opposed to “extended” magazines, but that differential would have been far less significant than he suggests. The best means of stopping the shooter would have been one or more honest citizens carrying their own weapons in the crowd, but the Brady Center opposes that as well. It’s tragic that none were apparently present.

MISTAKE: “State laws are also an issue....‘Even if folks had seen Loughner with the gun walking up to the congresswoman, it was perfectly legal until he started firing,’ Vice says.”

FACT: The applicable Arizona laws are:

“13-1202. Threatening or intimidating; classification
A. A person commits threatening or intimidating if the person threatens or intimidates by word or conduct:
1. To cause physical injury to another person or serious damage to the property of another; or...”

“13-1204. Aggravated assault; classification; definition
A. A person commits aggravated assault if the person commits assault as prescribed by section 13-1203 under any of the following circumstances:
2. If the person uses a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.
B. A person commits aggravated assault if the person commits assault by either intentionally, knowingly or recklessly causing any physical injury to another person, intentionally placing another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury or knowingly touching another person with the intent to injure the person, and both of the following occur:”

13-1202 is a misdemeanor and 13-1204 is a felony offense. Vice could not be more wrong if he tried. “Loughner with the gun walking up to the congresswoman...” is violating both statutes, particularly if he had the weapon in his hand. The laws pertaining to self defense and use of deadly force would also have empowered any armed bystander to, at the very least, point their weapon at Loughner and challenge him. The second he began to raise his weapon toward anyone--arguably, particularly the congresswoman--he could have been immediately shot.

MISREPRESENTATION: “He [Vice] also notes that Glock pistols are particularly easy to fire, letting off rounds as quickly as the operator can pull the trigger. "They are very good at killing people quickly," he says.

FACT: Any handgun, revolver or semi-automatic pistol like a Glock, will fire “as quickly as the operator can pull the trigger.” Vice is suggesting that Glocks, apart from other types of firearms, are somehow uniquely adept at “killing people quickly.” This is nothing more than an attempt to demonize a tool and to mislead those not well acquainted with firearms. While Glocks are rugged, reliable handguns, they possess no unusual or unique “killing” abilities. No firearm does. It is more than a mere issue of semantics to observe that it was Loughner who killed six people, not the tool he used.

MISLEADING: “‘Our gun laws are so weak that someone who couldn't get into the military, who was kicked out of school, and who used drugs walked into a gun store and was able to immediately buy a semiautomatic weapon,’ he [Vice] says.”

FACT: Many people are not accepted for military service, some are kicked out of school, and many have used illegal drugs at one time or another, yet these are not, by themselves or together, a bar on possession of legal ownership of firearms, or even to driving, in any state. While the Brady Center has, over the years and under various names, tried to ban virtually all gun ownership by various devices, unless Vice is suggesting that anyone who has ever been unfit for military service, been ejected from school, or has used illegal drugs should be forever banned from buying a gun--this would require nationwide laws and a massive computerized registry--he is being particularly misleading here.

One of the supreme ironies and unintended consequences of the Clinton Gun Ban was that it actually inspired the design and manufacture of a variety of new, particularly concealable weapons and the foundation of a variety of manufacturers. It was Glock that led the way with the Glock 26 in 9mm, designed for the 10 rounds to which all newly manufactured magazines were then limited. Needless to say, the design was a runaway success and spawned many successful copies from other manufacturers.

Just Like Virginia Tech; CBS Spreads Lies to Further Their Gun Control Agenda

It pisses me off how the hacks in the MSM take every horrific shooting like the one today in Arizona to further their favored cause of gun control. Not only do they try to demonize and entire class of citizens (gun owners) and firearms (everything is "high-powered" or "high capacity" or an "assault weapon" or "military-style"), they also lie about the effect of gun laws they champion, claiming these seemingly magical laws would have prevented such a crime.

CBS is guilty of fabricating such a lie:

A source with knowledge of the gun involved in Saturday's shooting says the weapon used was a Glock 19 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

Importantly, the source said, the gun had a high capacity magazine that can hold up to 30 or more rounds, two to three times a normal magazine capacity; and witnesses said the magazine stuck out about 12 inches. The Glock website confirms that, reading that the standard magazine hold 15 rounds, while the high capacity magazine Loughner had can hold up to 33. One reports says the magazine was probably purchased separately.

The high capacity magazine was banned while the federal assault weapons ban was in place during the Clinton administration; the ban was allowed to expire during the Bush administration.

Any detachable magazine fed firearm--which includes the most common target rifles, hunting firearms, and the most common self-defense and sporting pistols--can use a "high-capacity" magazine. Someone simply needs to make it.

But the claim that such magazines were ever outlawed is an abject and bald-faced lie.

Magazines holding between 10-100 rounds were perfectly legal to buy, sell, possess, own, and shoot the entire time the so-called "federal assault weapons ban" was in place. They were available in every sporting good store that wanted to carry them, via catalog sales, or on the Internet, just as they are today.

The "ban" simply made it illegal to build new magazines during that time period, which affected the supply of magazines for many firearms very, very little. It simply made the less common and higher demand magazines a bit more expensive.

CBS knows this. They know they are selling a lie to a public reeling in shock from a horrible massacre.

And that is exactly what they intended to do, to further their political agenda.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Shot, At Least 6 Killed at Town Hall Shooting

I just got home from a very enjoyable day with my parents, my brothers, and their families, to discover a man in Arizona just ripped families apart, forever.

A shooting rampage at a town hall-style event Saturday in Tucson, Ariz., left six dead, including a federal judge, and critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who police said was the target of the attack. There were more than a dozen others wounded.

Giffords is in intensive care but expected to survive after being shot in the head at close range.

The local sheriff seems to think there may have been accomplices, but comments I've read about him elsewhere make me suspect he doesn't know what he's talking about. That would give him something in common with the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, who seems to have gone off the deep end quite some time ago, with a history of substance abuse and bizarre statements many are interpreting as signs of mental illness.

Descriptions from those who knew him make him sound a bit like Andrew Mickel, an Indymedia blogger that assassinated a police officer in hopes of triggering a civil war, and who is now on California's death row. At the moment, though, I could care less about the shooter or his motivations.

My prayers are with the families of those killed and injuries and the shock and agony they are enduring. My thoughts are of my family, how precious they are to me, and how I must focus on living every day with them like it is my last, because some day, it will be.

God be with us all.

Michael Vick More Important to Obama Than Family of Soldier Killed In Combat

Not that anyone didn't already know this by now, but our President is a shallow, self-absorbed buffoon:

It was bad enough that after Sgt. Sean Collins was killed in Afghanistan his parents received a senator's letter of condolence with the wrong name.

But the soldier's father says the White House added to the sting by subsequently turning down a request for President Obama to personally call Collins' mother.

Pat Collins, a retired lieutenant colonel, told Q13 FOX in Seattle that the family was told last month that the president could not fit it "into his schedule" to call mother Linda Collins about their son's death. Pat Collins, who initially made the request with the White House, said he would've understood, except for the fact that around the same time, Obama found an opening in his schedule for a much-publicized phone conversation with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie.

Barack Obama is an embarrassment who belittles the high office he holds every day he occupies it. I cannot wait for the day that he departs.

Juan Williams Rides Again

After an exhaustive investigation into its firing of Juan Williams, National Public Radio has announced that it acted entirely legally, that its Senior Vice President for News, Ellen Weiss, is resigning, that its CEO Vivian Schiller will lose her 2010 bonus, and, oh yes, NPR sort of kind of wishes it had handled things a little, you know, differently and will take steps to ensure that it handles such things sort of kind of differently in the future. Those interested in reading NPR’s various statements and the statement of their ombudsman, Alicia C. Shepard, can find that information here.

For those who have not closely followed the case, in October of 2010, the news broke that Juan Williams, who had worked for NPR for a decade, had been fired for a statement he made on an edition of The O’Reilly Factor. Williams, billed as a liberal commentator on Fox, told O’Reilly that he experiences a moment of anxiety when he sees people in obviously Muslim garb about to board the same aircraft on which he is flying. Williams was careful to note that this did not mean that all Muslims should be considered terrorists. Weiss soon fired Williams--by phone. She refused to speak to him in person and generally treated him shabbily.

One might think that Williams’ progressive friends and colleagues would have immediately rushed to his aid in outraged defense of diversity and the First Amendment. One would be wrong. While some few progressives did offer some words of support, Fox News not only ran with the story in a big way, but promptly hired Williams at a salary far higher than he lost at NPR. Public outcry against NPR was swift and merciless, and there were public--and most frightening for NPR--Congressional cries for complete federal defunding of all public broadcasting.

In the immediate aftermath, Williams’ comments were restrained. He did explain the shabby way he had been treated by Weiss, and expressed his opinion that he was fired because NPR is a progressive shop that does not tolerate other views. He also suggested that his firing was the direct result of NPR’s long-standing discomfort with the fact that he often appeared on Fox programs. One might reasonably wonder why Williams worked for NPR for 10 years knowing its nature as he did, but that’s an issue for another time.

NPR immediately struck back accusing Williams of being a serial violator of their ”standards.” At a news conference defending NPR, Schiller crudely commented that William’s comment regarding his anxiety in seeing Muslims boarding an aircraft indicated that he needed to see a psychiatrist. Her comments raised such a firestorm across the nation that she was quickly forced to issue a lengthy written apology to affiliated stations and NPR staff. She was not specific about her wrongdoing, but merely expressed regret that the process was not well handled. She said: "In any event, the process that followed the decision was unfortunate — including not meeting with Juan in person — and I take full responsibility for that.” Of interest is that NPR affiliated stations around the nation were, at the time, actively engaged in one of their periodic fund raising drives, fund raising which NPR’s actions directly jeopardized.

Responding to the news of the outcome of the NPR investigation, an investigation in which he declined to participate, Williams restated his belief that NPR is a closed, liberal shop that does not tolerate other beliefs, opinions or stories. Williams characterized Weiss, who had worked at NPR for three decades, as one primarily responsible for that orthodoxy, an orthodoxy that prevents NPR from fully and competently covering the news.

Is NPR a closed, liberal shop more concerned with progressive opinion and causes then in truth? In the years that I have, upon occasion, followed NPR programs, I’ve had no doubt whatsoever about the progressive nature and practice of NPR. It should not be forgotten that on October 9, 2003, NPR’s Terry Gross, on her “Fresh Air” program, lured Bill O’Reilly by promising to discuss his recently published book, but instead unleashed a hostile progressive ambush that was so egregiously partisan and unprofessional even NPR’s ombudsman agreed with O’Reilly. It would not be unreasonable to suspect that lingering hostility over that incident had some bearing on NPR’s treatment of Williams. Progressives tend to have long memories about such things.

One need only read the NPR stories available at the link to understand that Williams is entirely correct in his assessment of NPR. Like so many progressives, NPR employees apparently live in a hermetically sealed bubble such that no other ideas or beliefs intrude upon their consciousness. Their worldview allows for no conclusion other than that their thinking is fair, balanced and the only thinking any intelligent, rational human being could possibly have. Their outlook is so far to the left that even Juan Williams, a man who has never described himself as other than liberal, can seem, to them, to be an evil conservative attacking the one, true faith.

Particularly revealing is the statement of Ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard, which must be read in its entirely to be fully appreciated. Shepard begins her statement with a thinly veiled attack on Williams: “Juan Williams once again got himself into trouble with NPR for comments he made at his other job, at Fox News. And NPR's reaction has unleashed an unprecedented firestorm of criticism directed not at Williams – but at NPR.” Shepard goes on to describe the thousands of outraged listeners who bombarded NPR in response to its treatment of Williams, and attempts to invoke reader sympathy because NPR was treated so badly. Shepard does eventually get around to admitting that NPR treated Williams improperly, but sticks to the party line that he essentially deserved it. Shepard defends NPR’s dedication to diversity: “It's not about race. It's also not about free speech, as some have charged. Nor is it about an alleged attempt by NPR to stifle conservative views. NPR offers a broad range of viewpoints on its radio shows and web site.”

Anyone taking the time to read NPR’s own reporting on this matter may have considerable difficulty in detecting any commitment to “...a broad range of viewpoints.” What the objective reader will likely find is an organization deeply offended that any dare question it. They will find an organization that is blatantly partisan and one-sided in its thinking and presentation of “news.” They will find an organization that is far more interested in protecting itself than in admitting wrong doing or in preventing wrong doing in the future, particularly wrong doing toward those who stray off the progressive reservation.

Ironically, the primary person benefiting from this debacle is Juan Williams, who while clearly liberal, is a generally reasonable, personable commentator who can actually engage in debate without resorting to name calling, red-faced expectorating and righteous indignation. Also benefiting is Fox News which continues its institutional practice of constantly employing liberals to balance conservative opinion on its many opinion and commentary programs, all of which continue to dominate cable news, providing a model of balance that any objective analysis would reveal NPR incapable of matching.

There seems little doubt that NPR’s public pseudo mea culpas have little to do with any recognition of individual or institutional wrong doing. What worries NPR is that Congress, newly energized by a Republican-controlled house, will follow through on its threats and defund NPR. While NPR has, over the months following William’s firing, tried repeatedly to minimize the amount of money it receives from the Federal government and its effect on NPR’s viability, without that government support, NPR would almost certainly quickly go the way of Air America and every other failed attempt at openly, exclusively progressive media.

Newsweek magazine, for example, not long ago announced that it would no longer trying to present unbiased news, but would be a journal of elite liberal opinion. Shortly thereafter, on August 2, 2010, it was purchased for one dollar by liberal stereo billionaire Sidney Harman and currently exists as his wholly supported project. Such was the fate of the late, unlamented Air America until its wealthy liberal benefactors tired of throwing away good money.

Obama administration attempts to regulate the internet, which are still ongoing, clearly reveal that progressives understand that their message cannot stand on its own in the marketplace of ideas without government support, financial and regulatory, to handicap not only openly conservative commentary, but unbiased, professional news presentations.

The Congress should defund all support for “public broadcasting.” The First Amendment creates no obligation for government to subsidize any expression, nor does it create a right to such subsidies. Let NPR strike out boldly on its own. Allow it to operate free of the fetters of government funding. Let it burst forth, once and for all, as a proud source of elite, liberal opinion, free to express its true beliefs without the need to keep up dishonest and distasteful appearances. How much better and more righteous would NPR executives feel if they could say, “sure we fired Williams. He deserved it. He betrayed the one, true faith. He sounded like a conservative and we don’t allow that.” We’ll all be the better for having the extra bandwidth when NPR goes the way of its predecessors.

Mewling Obama Supporter Calls Secret Service, Attempts to Inform on UFC Fighter

The petty little tyrants just can't stand dissenting views, can they?

UFC lightweight Jacob Volkmann, following his UFC 125 win over Antonio McKee, declared that he wanted to fight President Barack Obama for his next fight.

[snip]

After defeating McKee, Volkmann was asked who he would like to fight next. Volkmann first requested Clay Guida, then said "Actually, Obama. He's not too bright … Someone needs to knock some sense into that idiot. I just don't like what Barack is doing."

[snip]

The Secret Service showed up both at his residence and during a youth wrestling camp he coaches.

[snip]

"This guy had the whole interview on a piece of paper and it had my picture and everything," said Volkmann. "He was like 'is this what you said?' and I said, 'yes it is.' He's like 'I want to let you know I'm a little embarrassed for coming here and doing this because obviously nothing happened.' He actually apologized for coming, but he had to come. He wanted to make sure I wasn't going to D.C to hurt the President.

"The thing is, I got home and I checked my e-mail and I had about 20 e-mails and one of them, one of ladies had actually contacted the FBI and the Secret Service, and she was telling me that she was going to do it."

The person who contacted Volkmann, according to the fighter, was a member of the election committee that worked for President Obama's campaign.

Volkmann's comments were clearly rhetorical, and requesting someone to compete in an organized sporting event with rules, attending physicians, a referee and panel of judges can in no way a threat.

But because our timid little President is so delicate and easily offended, the Secret Service has wasted our tax dollars to harass a citizen and small business owner for comments that would have elicited a yawn under the previous administration, where liberal death threats against President Bush were a staple of their protests.

Democrats aren't tough enough to face domestic criticism. We should hardly be surprised that they are so easily rolled by our nation's real enemies.

An Honest Question About the Debt Ceiling

So we seem to be facing a problem:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned congressional leaders Thursday that the government could reach its borrowing limit by spring and failure to raise it could affect millions of American jobs.

The government will reach the limit between March 31 and May 16, Geithner said in a letter to congressional leaders. Not increasing the $14.3 trillion debt limit could lead to job losses, he said.

Inaction could drive up interest rates and make it more costly for U.S. companies to borrow money.

Geithner's warning is directed chiefly at Republicans, who are vowing to block an increase in the debt limit and use the fight to restrain government spending.

If we refuse to raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit, interest rates could go up and jobs could be lost in an already depressed economy. I get that.

But which is worse? Hitting our debt limit, or raising it again, only to hit it in the near future with even more catastrophic results? It would seem better for the nation to run out of money we frankly don't have now, instead of piling up the debt and defaulting on it later, hurting both us and our creditors in other nations that much worse when we finally do default, which we assuredly will as we keep kicking the proverbial can down the road, borrowing far more than we have the financial resources to repay.

At this point, refusing to raise the debt ceiling and dramatically cutting government spending would seem to be the only logical and fiscally responsible action out Congress can take. Continually raising the debt we owe to other nations would seem to be a clear and present danger to our economy and Republic.

What say you?

Quick Takes, January 6, 2011

Welcome to the first edition of Quick Takes for 2011. Let's get right to the lunacy:

ITEM: Katie Couric thinks what America needs is a Muslim version of the Cosby Show. Presumably, this would teach all the gun and God clingers a thing or two about tolerance. What Ms. Couric, and those like her, cannot tolerate is that religious tolerance is written into the DNA of Americans. We tolerate those professing any religion so long as they are Americans first, for if they are Americans first, they’ll be tolerant. The problem is and always will be that there are too many Muslims who are Muslims first, last and always, and who will actively try to impose Islam on and/or kill those who aren’t. How do you add a laugh track to that?

ITEM: DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano made a surprise visit to Afghanistan to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The topic: How to better police the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Well of course! She’s doing such a magnificent job of border enforcement, such as posting signs warning Americans that entire sections of Arizona are so infested with drug gangs and illegals that they’re not safe. It’s now official: So far has Napolitano sunk into self-parody, trying to parody anything she says or does is a lost cause.

ITEM: Chief White House economic advisor Austan Goolsbee has warned Congress that if they don’t raise the current 14.3 trillion dollar debt ceiling--we’re now at 13.9 trillion--an unprecedented economic crisis will occur and has further warned Congress not to “toy” with the issue. Let me see if I have this right: Goolsbee and his pals are largely responsible for the kind of economic theory that supports an absolutely unprecedented spending spree and are getting petulant when it appears that we won’t let them spend even more and raise the debt ceiling to hide their failure of intellect? And this is going to fix things? We’ve hired a group of particularly feckless foxes to guard our national chicken coop.

ITEM: Using his recess appointment powers, President Obama has appointed James Cole to the number two position at the Department of Justice. Cole was hung up in the Congress because of his blatantly public stance on the war on terror: Like Eric Holder and President Obama, he sees it as a law enforcement matter. In an 2002 op-ed, he compared 9-11 to rape, murder and child abuse. Some of our representatives inexplicably think that terrorists who have declared war on America should be handled like, well, terrorists who have declared war on America. While all presidents occasionally use the recess appointment power, some use it more wisely than others, President Bush’s appointment of John Bolton as Ambassador to the UN, for example. During his tenure, Bolton never failed to properly and forcefully work for American interests. Cole will arguably work against them. Heck of a job, Jimmy!

ITEM: In 2010, President Obama flew on Air Force One 172 times. That’s one flight every 2.1 days. The Air Force estimate of flight hours costs: $181,757. So for a trip with a flight time of eight hours, the cost would be $1,454,056. Mr. Obama also made 196 helicopter trips which also tend to be a bit pricey. Americans will be glad to know that Mr. Obama has recently announced that he plans to spend a great deal more time outside Washington, actually mixing and mingling with the great unwashed. He thinks his failure to do this during the last two years is the source of his difficulties. He also thinks we are involved in overseas contingency operations that there are 57 states and that Americans universally respect Joe Biden.

ITEM: Uh-oh. Looks like Mr. Goolsbee will have closure sooner than we thought. As of the last day of 2010, the national debt...wait for it...is officially over 14 trillion dollars! It’s the first time in world history a national debt has been so high! A new record! We’re number one! We’re number one! But it’s even better! It took Mr. Obama and the Congressional Dems a mere seven months to achieve that kind of greatness. And they want to raise the debt ceiling so they can go for a new record! Considering the current rate of increase, we’ll likely hit the current ceiling in, oh, 23 seconds? Nope. Twenty at best. Another new record! Yet another amazing accomplishment from the administration whose greatest accomplishment--according to VP Joe “The Sheriff” Biden--is winning the Iraq war. I mean, other than the fact that almost everyone in the administration has consistently opposed it...

SUB-ITEM: Galaxy-Class Hypocrisy Department: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.” Barack Obama in 2006--when Republicans were in charge--prior to voting against raising the debt ceiling. According to Robert Gibbs, Obama only said that because he knew no one would listen to him. Ah.

ITEM: According to The Weekly Standard, the Obama Administration, through HHS, is spending taxpayer money to direct Google searches to the Government’s website praising Obamacare as the slickest thing since sliced bread. So I googled “obamacare,” and a variety of variations and sure enough, the official government cheerleading site always come up first. Ben Smith of Polltico was able to get HHS to confirm the ad buy. Imagine the hue and cry if the Bush administration did that in support of any of its policies. Hope. Change. Transparency. Deception. Economic catastrophe.

ITEM: DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, during a recent trip to Israel, told Fox News that the Israeli system of screening air travelers--arguably the most effective in the world--was impossible in America because the Israeli system is “a very different model,” and because Israel is smaller and has less air traffic. The Israelis rely on well trained officers to actually look for the types of people and behaviors that are potentially dangerous rather than spending billions on poorly performing technological marvels and on body searching grandmothers and infants. Amazingly, many of those the Israelis watch most closely are young Islamic males from countries known to produce terrorists! But Secretary Napolitano is correct. The Israeli system could never work in America. It isn’t wasteful, requires intelligent, capable administrators whose primary concern is citizen safety rather than political correctness, focuses on the people most likely to be dangerous rather than “making statements about who we are,” recognizes that Israel is at war and clearly identifies the enemy and actually works. Can’t have that. We might be accused of failing to reach out to those who want to cut our heads off with dull knives on You Tube.

ITEM: Commentarymagazine.com has an article by Alana Goodman that is both fascinating and frightening. It seems that Brown University Alumni Matthew Reichel and Nick Young were worried about “one-sided” media coverage of North Korea, so they established a student visit program that has expanded to a semester-long study abroad excursion to the worker’s paradise. Now that I think of it, there is a surprising lack of media coverage of all the good North Korea is doing in the world. Of course, there's a surprising lack of media coverage of all the good Satan is doing in the world too, but...

Reichel says: “The US and North Korea don’t have established relations, and talks are indirect at best. And what we believe is that there is a need for a grassroots level of engagement that we haven’t seen yet between citizens. We feel that education is the best ice-breaker.”

Well of course. As most North Koreans outside of Pyongyang actually eat grass and tree bark daily in the often vain hope of prolonging their miserable, severely malnourished, growth-stunted lives, “grassroots” engagement is entirely appropriate. The good intentions of Leftists, combined with what they know about reality, combined with a dollar, will purchase a hamburger in any McDonalds--except in North Korea. Read the entire article (here) for the full version of leftist adventures in Wonderland.

ITEM: Presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs whose smug condescension and easy way with spin so blatant it has, upon occasion, nearly thrown the planet off its axis, will be stepping down immediately after the President’s upcoming State of the Union speech. However, for those who enjoy being looked down upon, having their intelligence insulted, lectured at, denigrated and lied to, Gibbs will continue to be in the public eye as he works to reelect Mr. Obama in 2012.

ITEM: It’s a pleasure to end this week’s Quick Takes with the news of Kathryn Gray, 10, of Canada, an amateur astronomer who recently discovered a previously unknown supernova. By painstaking work, she found the supernova in the galaxy UGC 3378. The galaxy is in the constellation of Camelopardalis, about 240 million light years away. Kathryn is reported to be “really excited” by her discovery. Well, yeah! Those darned kids these days, discovering supernovas and such... Congratulations Kathryn!

And congratulations to all of our readers who do their best in their busy lives to keep themselves informed, thereby helping to make a difference for us all.

Mark Twain Must Be Spinning Like A Lathe

As a teacher of high school English, I have the great pleasure to teach “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” every year. A part of teaching that indispensable work is discussing the issues that cause a great many people to try to censor it each and every year. I am always delighted to discover that my students--bless their little pointed heads--universally express surprise and outrage upon learning that people--on the left and right--want to censor the book. Yes, some of the kids have the vague feeling that they should feel uncomfortable with the word “nigger,” because it’s like, well, prejudiced or something, but they all understand that Twain was not using the word to denigrate blacks, but to help the people of his time see blacks through the eyes of Huck and Jim, as people equally worthy of respect and human dignity.

Comes now the equally indispensable Michelle Malkin (here) and Hot Air (here) to inform a public desperate for sanitized versions of literary classics of an outfit known as New South Books that is publishing a version of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” without the words “nigger” or “injun.” Both words will be replaced with “slave.”

It’s hard to know what Twain, arguably the greatest satirist America has ever produced, would have thought of this. On one hand, he delighted in stirring up controversy, so he doubtless would have enjoyed the fuss. But on the other hand, he worked for seven years on this book, agonizing over getting it right. He did, and the very words modern literary police find distressing are the very words that Twain used to change innumerable hearts and minds. I can think of no single book that has done more over a longer period of time to magnificently champion the cause of human rights without beating people over the head with outrage. Changing even a word is akin to a contemporary composer “improving” the works of Mozart or Bach to make them more “accessible” to contemporary listeners.

A related cautionary tale is the continuing saga over “niggardly,” a perfectly respectable adjective that means “cheap, closefisted or stingy.” The etymology of the word is probably Scandinavian, a part of the world not known for having anything to do with blackness. John Derbyshire of National Review Online wrote a delightful article about this, available here. In 2002 a North Carolina 4th grade teacher, Stephanie Bell, was reprimanded for using the word and condemned to “sensitivity training” when a parent declared herself offended. I had the displeasure of watching a “community activist,” if memory serves, on The O’Reily Factor soon after the incident. Said activist proudly proclaimed that even though she realized that the word actually had nothing to do with race, it sounded like “nigger,” or something, and therefore Ms. Bell ought to be fired. Since then, others have suffered for having similarly advanced vocabularies. Sigh.

As a writer of satire, Twain was more than aware of people who could not or would not “get it.” Arguably, an entire chapter of “Huck Finn” (be careful of accidental letter transposition) is devoted to this very topic. Considering the desecration of his masterpiece, Mr. Twain is doubtless spinning like a lathe. So should we all be.

The Erik Scott Case: Update 9.2: Intent

Since I posted Update 9 only a few days ago, the Clark County Commission has finalized the changes suggested by a commission established for that purpose. Local news articles (available here and here), have brought to light several significant details that were heretofore unclear, and the comments following those articles, suggest that much of the public may not fully understand the fundamental issues relating to the criminal justice system in general and inquests in particular. For those interested in the Nevada Revised Statutes relating to these matters, continue to scroll past this Update to Update 9 where I’ve included that information.

In this update, I hope to clarify some issues, and the involvement of some people, that I was not able to address in Update 9. I also hope to make the essential issues as understandable as possible.

WHAT’S NEW: Ombudsmen must be licensed to practice law in Nevada and will be randomly selected from a pool for each inquest. Before being admitted to the pool, they will undergo screening, including “oral interviews.” At the insistence of Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, ombudsmen must have at least 10 years experience as attorneys and cannot have sued Metro for two years prior to their service, nor for three years after. A “law enforcement official” will sit on the board that screens potential ombudsmen. Ombudsmen will be paid up to $1000 per day during the actual inquest, and up to $300 per day for preparation. Ombudsmen will be required to “seek facts” for the families of those killed, and for the public as well.

The measure passed on a 5-2 vote with Commissioners Tom Collins and Steve Sisolak voting against it primarily because they apparently oppose the idea of an ombudsman. Sisolak expressed concern that the CCC had insufficient input from the legal community. Collins, who favors the status quo, said “I think we give the public a very fair opportunity to attend and see what the outcome would be.” Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani was concerned that the new procedures be established before “we nickel and dime it to death.” However, new Commission Chairwoman Susan Brager made clear that she, and the majority, see this as a work in progress and that they intend to make changes as they see fit.

Also revealed was that the very idea of ombudsmen came from Sheriff Gillespie, who also proposed the idea that representatives of the family and the system meet in two pre-inquest conferences where police files will be “disclosed” to them and they will “determine the scope of questioning at hearing with the aim of digging into what happened during a fatal incident.” It was also Gillespie who asked that ombudsmen have at least 10 years of experience and that a “law enforcement official” sit on any ombudsman screening board.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: The justice system, and particularly the criminal justice system, is set up to avoid conflicts of interest. A number of such potential and obvious conflicts are now apparent, and others may eventually become obvious. They are:

(1) An ombudsman cannot “represent” more than one client. An ombudsman is traditionally a disinterested third party that mediates disputes between two or more parties with their consent and agreement to abide by his decision. As the CCC expects their ombudsman to “seek facts”--to represent the families of those killed by the Police and the public--there are many inherent conflicts of interest. It is possible that the CCC knows this; Sheriff Gillespie almost certainly does, as I’ll explain shortly. While such families are members of the public, their interests will of necessity be very different than those of the public at large. The public, for example, has an interest in expecting police officers to be competent and truthful. They have an interest in seeing that their tax dollars aren’t squandered defending officers who break the law. Families of victims, in general, share these interests , but fundamentally, they wish to expose potential wrongdoing and punish, through punitive financial damages, governmental wrongdoing in the hope of preventing it in the future. The public, on the other hand, does not wish to see its taxes rise to pay for such punitive damages, and because they are not personally involved, will usually have little interest in pursuing such matters to their conclusion.

(2) The roles of the District Attorney as prosecutor and the Ombudsman are also in conflict. Both supposedly represent the people, yet in our system, only one legitimately can. One might argue that the DA’s office has, over the years, become essentially defense attorneys for Metro and Metro officers, but that does not relieve them of their ethical and statutory duty to represent the people’s best interests in the pursuit of justice. And if the DA’s office is in fact nothing more than a representative of Metro against the interests of the people, an “ombudsman” with ill defined powers, rather than a fully and clearly empowered private attorney, will not competently represent either families or the people.

(3) The Police have a significant conflict of interest in any involvement in the process of choosing ombudsmen. Sheriff Gillespie has powerful interests in seeing that his officers are always exonerated so that he, and Metro, are not sued and publicly embarrassed. Indeed, he also has an interest in hiring only competent, honest officers and in firing those who are not, but Metro seems not terribly concerned about that in general, and such concerns will inevitably become secondary after a citizen has been killed and the wagons are circled.

(4) The Metro Police Union has a conflict in any involvement in these matters. The loyalty of the Union is to its continuing existence and enrichment, and to the officers it represents. Because the officers are the primary involved party in inquests, and potentially may be criminally charged and may be sued in civil court, any involvement by them or their representatives in establishing or running such a system is an inherent conflict of interest. Officers may be reasonably represented by an attorney, hired by themselves or by the union, but the union should not be involved, indirectly or directly, in any part of the process. And while telling officers not to cooperate with the criminal justice system or the police agencies that employ them may not be a specific violation of the law, it is, at best, ethically troubling.

FACTS:

(1) Inquests in most states serve to answer two questions: What was the cause of the victim’s death, and was that cause non-criminal or criminal?” In many states, inquests are not charged to name those involved if the death is criminal. In Nevada, that is required, but regardless of the findings of any inquest, prosecutors are not required to prosecute.

(2) The criminal justice system is inherently adversarial. It was designed that way so that the truth would out. Anyone suggesting that any part of that system should not be adversarial or that the police are somehow being mistreated by an adversarial system are either woefully misinformed, lying to the public, or both.

(3) Any officer who cannot professionally deal with adversarial questioning is a weakling and should not be a police officer. In a professional agency, their days would be numbered and that number would be small indeed.

(4) Law Enforcement Officers are citizens, and as citizens, they retain all of their rights under the Constitution. They, like any citizen, may invoke their right against self-incrimination; they may, in common terms, “take the Fifth.” However, there is no such thing as an unrestricted right, and the exercise of some rights in some ways may legitimately result in consequences.

(5) When a citizen “takes the Fifth,” in a criminal case, judges are obliged to instruct a jury that they may not draw any conclusion about their innocence or guilt. Human nature being what it is, jurors might drawn the logical, adverse conclusion anyway. In any case, apart from putting themselves in potential jeopardy at the hands of a jury, the average citizen will not normally be otherwise inconvenienced or punished for exercising a fundamental right.

(6) No one, civilian or police officer, may ignore a subpoena. It is not a matter of choice. For both, the consequence is contempt of court, punishable by up to a year in jail (in most jurisdictions) and/or fines. However, police officers may also suffer administrative penalties up to and including firing, and in some states, revocation of professional credentials, without which one may not work as a police officer. Some states also make willful dereliction of duty a criminal offense.

(7) No one, civilian or police officer, may choose not to testify if subpoenaed. One may not tell the judge that they will not testify, nor may they merely sit and remain mute. In such cases, a judge will order the witness to answer questions. If they refuse, unless they take the Fifth to every question, they can, and usually will, be found in contempt of court.

(8) Police officers may choose to cooperate with official investigations or they may not, but if they refuse, they are not protected from consequences. There is no right to refuse to cooperate. In fact, participating fully and freely in all investigations is expected of all police officers. It is just a part of the job for all officers who are expected by the public to always behave honestly and faithfully. Doing otherwise is like a firefighter suddenly refusing to handle hoses or to cooperate in arson investigations. Such refusal may invoke penalties up to and including firing, and again, possible revocation of professional credentials. In Nevada, state law specifics that officers refusing to cooperate with investigations may be charged with insubordination, which can lead to firing.

(9) If an officer refuses to participate in an investigation and/or takes the Fifth, there is no requirement that their employer, their peers, and the public ignore what they’ve done. In fact, an officer who will not participate in an investigation of their own actions or who takes the Fifth must be prepared to be fired, for they have placed themselves outside the boundaries of trust absolutely necessary for every police officer. An officer who will not cooperate in police investigations--this sounds like a bad parody--or whose integrity is called into question is essentially useless. They can no longer do the job for which they have been hired.

(10) Taking the Fifth does not apply in civil proceedings in the same way that it does in criminal proceedings. Since one’s life and liberty are not in jeopardy in a civil proceeding, a jury may generally consider taking the Fifth to be an admission of involvement or guilt and act accordingly.

INTENT: It is now apparent that substantial portions of the changes in inquest procedure were the brain children of Sheriff Gillespie. This is significant in that one may gain a potentially clear picture of his intent from his actions and statements.

Gillespie opposes families being represented by private attorneys. Of course he does. They would be focused, competent advocates for those families not subject to interference with or control by Gillespie.

Gillespie can’t, politically speaking, appear to ignore those calling for fundamental change, so he demanded ombudsmen. Not only that, he will have a role--likely akin to veto power--in choosing them. They must, again at his “suggestion,” have at least ten years of experience in the law. Finally, they cannot have sued Metro for two years prior to their ombudsman duties and may not sue Metro for three years thereafter. And the best, and most stealthy, part is the two pre-inquest conferences where supposedly all information will be shared and the scope of the questioning at the inquest will be determined.

Sheriff Gillespie was undoubtably reelected because he is a capable politician, arguably supported by the kind of corrupt political establishment for which Las Vegas has become justly infamous. All of these provisions appear, on their face, reasonable and defensible, but just under the surface their real reason for being awaits public discovery.

Since 1976, Coroner’s Inquests have been used to avoid discovery and limit liability. Inquests not only provide apparent exoneration for Metro, but provide political cover for a DA’s decision not to charge officers. If all potential legal action can be stopped at an inquest, if no officer is charged with a crime and is therefore, afforded a preliminary hearing and a trial, Metro is in control. Metro has developed a long-standing reputation for stonewalling, for refusing to hand over, reports and other related documents to defense attorneys and attorneys pursuing civil suits. By avoiding preliminary hearings, Metro can avoid court orders to produce such information and the publicity the information would produce.

The last thing Gillespie wants is to have an effective advocate for an aggrieved family at an Inquest. Their demands for information could not easily be ignored or put off. Their questioning of officers and other governmental employees could easily produce damaging information. By establishing ombudsmen who serve multiple masters, Gillespie can limit potential damage. The rest of his rules are the means by which he limits damage and exerts control.

Requiring ombudsmen to have ten years of experience seems reasonable, but it is a control mechanism. This would allow Gillespie to know those attorneys better and to judge how they might act. It would also eliminate younger attorneys who might be prone to aggressively pursue the truth if that truth would tend to indict Metro. Some of the Clark County Commissioners were worried that this rule would limit the number of attorneys available for ombudsman duty. They are right to worry about this, but should be worried about much more.

Allowing a law enforcement representative to directly have a hand in choosing ombudsmen, again, appears reasonable, but it is a conflict of interest, and in practice could be essentially a Metro veto. Would anyone care to bet that such representative would be Sheriff Gillespie, or at the very least, one of his most trusted fixers? If the ombudsmen are to be truly independent, competent professionals chosen under established rules, why does Metro need a direct hand in the process? Shouldn’t they have full confidence in the process the Sheriff himself has set into motion and claims to support?

Requiring ombudsmen not to have sued metro for two years prior to service might seem facially fair and reasonable, but again, there is an ulterior motive. Metro certainly does not want lawyers who have actually done battle with them involved in an inquest. Such attorneys will almost certainly not have a positive view of Metro, but worse, will have intimate and damaging knowledge of Metro’s structure and methods, knowledge that could prove very harmful and embarrassing if put to use in an Inquest. In essence, Metro is arguing for experience in their 10 year rule, but arguing against it in this rule.

Requiring that ombudsmen not sue Metro for three years after serving as an ombudsman might also seem reasonable. However, this is yet another attempt to keep lawyers who know too much about Metro and its methods from being in a position to cause damage. There is a pressing statutory reason, a reason with which Sheriff Gillespie must surely be familiar:

NRS 41.036  Filing tort claim against State with Attorney General; filing tort claim against political subdivision with governing body; review and investigation by Attorney General of tort claim against State; regulations by State Board of Examiners.

1.  Each person who has a claim against the State or any of its agencies arising out of a tort must file the claim within 2 years after the time the cause of action accrues with the Attorney General.

2.  Each person who has a claim against any political subdivision of the State arising out of a tort must file the claim within 2 years after the time the cause of action accrues with the governing body of that political subdivision.

In plain language, in Nevada, attorneys have two years after the wrongful death of a citizen to file a lawsuit. Gillespie knows that inquests commonly take place within a few months of such deaths, and certainly within a year. The three year rule is simply a means of preventing lawyers experienced in dealing with Metro and knowledgable in their ways--particularly dangerous to Metro--of suing them. The statute of limitations will have run out.

The idea of conferences before an inquest where everyone will share and share alike and agree on the scope of questioning is a political master stroke. One can’t help but admire Gillespie’s political savvy as much as they suspect his self-serving cynicism. Sheriff Gillespie can stand before he public and say that he is so concerned for the families of victims that they have not one, but two opportunities to get information and determine the scope of questioning. What could be more fair?

But why should there be any necessity to agree on the scope of questioning? State law establishes essentially three questions to be answered by inquests: Who was killed? What caused their death? If a potentially criminal matter, who was responsible? Therefore the scope of questioning should include any and all lines of questioning into any matter that might fully answer those questions. This should simply be included in Clark County inquest rules.

This provision is yet another cynical attempt to control the process. Remember that families are not allowed their own attorneys, so the only entity present that truly knows the ins and outs of the system will be Metro, and knowledge is power. As I mentioned in Update 9, Metro has a long-standing reputation for refusing to cooperate in the exchange of information. There is no reason to believe that this practice will change, yet the process will give Metro at least two advance opportunities to discover what the families know and to prepare to counter them at the inquest. And of course, Metro will do everything possible to limit the scope of questioning. They might simply outmaneuver a family still in shock with grief. They might simply refuse to cooperate and allow things to become a stalemate, secure in the knowledge that a Justice of the Peace who will presumably be in charge of resolving such stalemates, will likely give a family less than they might otherwise get.

SUMMARY: While some of the Clark County Commissioners are doubtless doing their best to improve the inquest system, any man-made construct has unintended consequences. It is also possible that Sheriff Gillespie’s motives are likewise laudable and the truth of the changes I’ve outlined here are merely unintended consequences. However, that would be yet another amazing coincidence in a case full of amazing--and troubling--coincidences. Surely a man of Sheriff Gillespie’s experience is fully aware of what I’ve explained. It is reasonable to expect that any Sheriff would do his best to benefit his organization. However, such benefit can never come at the expense of the public and of the law and that is what appears to be happening here.

There is, however, something that Sheriff Gillespie can do at any time to begin to rebuild, little by little, public confidence. In the death by taser case of Anthony Jones currently awaiting an inquest, Metro officers Mark Hatten and Timothy English have been suspended (with pay), and reportedly have refused to cooperate with investigators. There is some indication that they have cooperated in a limited fashion, perhaps by making some brief initial statement to first line supervisors or perhaps by writing some sort or report, but news accounts have not been sufficiently specific on those issues to know with certainty. If these officers are refusing to cooperate, as their union is currently demanding, and as has been reported, Sheriff Gillespie can and should charge them with insubordination--as state law specifically authorizes--and begin proceedings to fire them. If the Sheriff is truly concerned with public welfare and upholding the law, he can and should do no less.

The most simple and effective way of dealing with all of these issues, a way that would immediately begin to restore public confidence in the Las Vegas criminal justice system is to allow private attorneys to represent--without restraint or limitation before or after the inquest--families of victims in inquests. For indigent families, public defenders or other attorneys should be appointed. However, as I’ve pointed out in this update, this appears to be the last thing Sheriff Gillespie, and his supporters, want.

Ultimately, each reader will have to decide whether the likely outcomes of the inquest changes are merely the unintended consequences of good intentions, or whether they reveal, on the part of Sheriff Gillespie and others, a very different kind of intent.

SCOTT FAMILY STATEMENT: The family of Erik Scott has issued a press release to the Las Vegas media. The media has reproduced only a portion of the release in the stories linked at the beginning of this update, so as a public service, I reproduce the press release, in its entirety, here:

“The stated PPA [Las Vegas Metro Police Protective Association] policy of having law enforcement union members refuse to cooperate with investigations of officer-involved shootings and other potential abuses of police power invokes the image of a grade-school playground bully demanding that only his version of the fight be related to the principal, or the bully and his gang will refuse to cooperate at all. If that’s the way Southern Nevada police officers choose to behave, so be it. That’s perfectly fine with us and other victims’ families.

Such petulant, childish refusals to cooperate with already-questionable internal investigations may finally stimulate two backlash responses from incensed citizens and lawmakers:

• Institute a system whereby ALL officer-involved shootings that result in death must be investigated by an outside agency, ideally a U.S. Justice Department version of the National Transportation Safety Board. This federal body will have the authority to solicit testimony from any person involved in the shooting, including all officers involved.

• Pass a Nevada law similar to California Government Code 3300-3311, the “California Peace Officers Bill of Rights.” Under this statute, California police officers can elect to not cooperate with an investigation of potential police misdeeds, but, in making that choice, risk being charged with insubordination and subsequent dismissal. Officers have the right to invoke their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, but may lose their job, if warranted.

Las Vegas-area police unions are accustomed to having complete control of homicide investigations involving officers for so long that they cannot conceive of being held accountable for their actions, under the new coroner’s inquest ordinance. But in refusing to cooperate, those unions are prompting even more outrage and wrath from their employers, the citizens who pay police salaries. When will the unions realize that those halcyon days of Southern Nevada cops doing whatever they please—and getting away with it—are over?”

Pajamas Launches a New Blog

The Tatler. It's based upon an early 18th century British news and gossip magazine, and will be a group blog featuring commentary from a number of bloggers and personalities you probably already know, including Glenn Reynolds, Roger Simon, Bryan Preston, and some guy named Bob.

Ace, Fire up the Ewok: I Just Got a Boehner

You pronounce it however you want, but this is gold.

Senate Democrats announced that they would obstruct and attempts by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives to overturn Obamacare.

In turn, Speaker-Elect Boehner's office has issued their own terse reply.

Senators Reid, Durbin, Schumer, Murray and Stabenow:

Thank you for reminding us – and the American people – of the backroom deal that you struck behind closed doors with 'Big Pharma,' resulting in bigger profits for the drug companies, and higher prescription drug costs for 33 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D, at a cost to the taxpayers of $42.6 billion.

The House is going to pass legislation to repeal that now. You’re welcome.

- Speaker-Designate John Boehner's Press Office

It's game on, folks, and if the incoming Speaker has the fortitude to stick to this sort of pro-American, anti-Obama message, it could spell even larger gains in the House and the collapse of the Democratic Senate in the 2012 elections.

Like WaPo's Ezra Klein, HuffPo Writer Terkel Confused By Constitution

Think Progress shill Amanda Terkel is not very bright, and seems easily confused by the Constitution like a certain boy blogger we know who can't grasp the plain meaning of documents more than 100 years old (guess we can count out his review of The Mabinogi: A Book of Essays that I worked on as a grad assistant).

Terkel whines:

The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Someone should inform out dim liberal friend that, that isn't "according to" Scalia. That's "according" to a plain text reading of the Amendment itself.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The only gender references in the document plainly refer to males... do we need to highlight that? Furthermore, this is a commonly understood reading of the document that is utterly uncontroversial. The single sex nature of the 14th Amendment is the reason that an Equal Rights Amendment creating a Constitutional basis for equality between the sexes has been proposed time and again since 1923.

As William Jacobson notes, Terkel and her liberal allies simply don't know the Constitution.

Perhaps the failures of the liberal education system in this country are at fault. Can you think of any other reason liberals consistently claim The Constitution says things, that it clearly does not?

UFC Fighter Wants Obama. "Someone's Got To Knock Some Sense into That Idiot"

12-2 UFC Lightweight Jacob Volkman is a chiropractor by trade, and does not appreciate what the President has done to American health care or small business.

Via "CareyB," who found this at Hope for America.

Missing the Main Course

My peers on both sides of the political blogging aisle seem very interested in Republican Rep. Darrell Issa and his promised investigations into the corruption of the Obama Administration, but after seeing what he says he intends to investigate, I'm actually a bit disappointed in the items he hasn't listed:

• the firing of Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who had his sights on Kevin Johnson, a prominent Obama supporter
• the buy-off of Joe Sestak which Issa once called "Obama's Watergate" and in which Issa suggested three felonies took place
• Pigford and Pigford II, which were fraud-filled payouts to people who claimed to be farmers, that some describe as then Senator Obama's attempt at reparations for slavery
• The Black Panther/DOJ Voter Intimidation case that the Administration dropped after winning, and the alleged refusal by the DOJ Civil Rights division to prosecute minorities
• the Administration's bullying of car companies and Wall Street
• abuse of power by the Administration, including the massive and unconstitutional expansion and assertion of executive power

The list could of course go on.

Some are speculating that Issa's current list is just a jumping-off point to get the ball rolling, but I suspect that it is a bit less ambitious than that. Congressmen love power, and the prospect of leverage. I would not be surprised at all that the items listed above are nothing more or less than items the GOP will use for political blackmail.

Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I suspect the threatened investigations are all about the pursuit of power, with justice and the eradication of corruption merely being a pleasant side effect.

The Tea Party may have succeeded in sending a message in 2010, but the entrenched political machines won't go down without a fight. I'm expecting a lot of resistance from both Democrats and Republicans to the calls for real change, and if we have any hope of seeing this kind of corruption eradicated, the Tea Party is going to have to secure more victories in 2012, and driving the old guard on both sides out of Washington is the only way to do it.

What Is Going On In Arkansas?

I read the other day of the deaths of a thousand blackbirds that fell dead out of the sky in Arkansas. The original claim by "experts" was that there must have been some sort of cloud-to-cloud lighting that lit up the flock, but now that the total is over 5,000 birds, that theory just doesn't seem to hold water. And speaking of water, at least 100,000 drum (the freshwater fish, not the saltwater game fish, or the musical instrument) have died in an Arkansas river, and the toll may go into the hundreds of thousands. disease is suspected instead of pollution since only one species was killed (other native fish seem to be unaffected), but when you have two bizarre die-offs within days and within fairly close proximity, you have to start wondering if this is a coincidence, or if the die-offs are somehow tied together to the same biological organism.

There is no word yet an whether or not if any of the fish and fowl have come back from the dead with a dietary preference for brains, but we'll keep a look-out, just in case.

The Erik Scott Case, Update 9: Mindset and Mutiny

Webster-Merriam defines “Mutiny” as “forcible or passive resistance to lawful authority.” The threatened mutiny of Las Vegas Police against lawful authority is the primary subject of this update. But first, a list of sources:

(1) Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) dealing with Coroners may be accessed here.
(2) NRS dealing with Peace Officers may be accessed here.
(3) Kevin Scott’s (brother of Erik Scott) letter to the Clark County Commission (CCC) may be accessed here.
(4) Bill Scott’s (Erik’s father) letter to the CCC may be accessed here.
(5) A LV Review-Journal Story on Metro recruit training may be accessed here.
(6) A LV Sun story on threatened Police mutiny may be accessed here.
(7) A LV R-J story on threatened Police mutiny may be accessed here.
(8) A LV R-J story on a citizen killed by police tasers may be accessed here.

“Someone’s gonna have to get killed before they do anything.” So goes the common citizen’s refrain about intransigent, uncaring government, and like most such aphorisms, it is often true because it reflects a significant, unpleasant truth about human nature: We tend to ignore injustice and danger until the threat of personal consequences becomes too great to ignore.

And so it has been in Las Vegas for decades, but it didn’t take someone getting killed. It took a great many someones getting killed by the police--some 200 since 1976--and finally, one particular someone: Erik Scott, killed by three Metro officers on July 10, 2010. Although his death was the starting point for the process of change, even that wasn’t enough to force glacially slow local politicians to take the smallest steps toward correcting decades of injustice.

As I’ve noted in previous updates, when the Metro police shot Scott, they shot the wrong man. Scott was not someone with a shady past, engaged in criminal wrongdoing. He was a West Point graduate who served honorably as an officer of armor. He was a hard working, upstanding citizen licensed by the state to carry concealed weapons. He was, arguably, doing nothing more dangerous than shopping. In shooting Scott, Metro enraged the wrong family, a military family, a proud, just family. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, responding to Japanese elation after the attack on Pearl harbor, said: “I fear that all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” So has Metro done, for all indications are that Scott’s family will not rest until those responsible for Erik’s death are exposed. For the Scott family, this does not appear to be about money. There will almost certainly be no token, low ranking fall guys, no settlement, no sealed record. This shooting will not go down the memory hole, as have all the others, with the conclusion of the Coroner’s inquest.

The process of change began with a tool unavailable to many previous Metro victims: The internet. Through that medium, a few billboards, and the simple yet apparently threatening symbolism of Erik Scott remembrance ribbons displayed on citizen’s vehicles (which continue to provoke thuggish police harassment), unprecedented pressure was brought to bear on the Clark County Commission (CCC), particularly after the Coroner’s Inquest which showed a newly awakened Las Vegas citizenry and many around the nation how little regard Metro, and Las Vegas politicians, had for truth and the lives of citizens. The public learned that since 1976, only one of 200 inquests has found a police officer culpable in a shooting. So obvious was the bias, so clumsy the official cover up, so craven and unconvincing the police and prosecutors, even the CCC could no longer ignore the status quo and quickly established a commission to consider and recommend changes to Inquest rules and procedures.

THE LAW: Before continuing, let’s examine the law relating to Coroner’s Inquests. The applicable state statutes are Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 259.050, 259.090, 259.100, and 259.110:

NRS 259.050: Investigation into cause of death; inquest.
1. When a coroner or the coroner’s deputy is informed that a person has been killed, has committed suicide or has suddenly died under such circumstances as to afford reasonable ground to suspect that the death has been occasioned by unnatural means, the coroner shall make an appropriate investigation.

2. In all cases where it is apparent or can be reasonably inferred that the death may have been caused by a criminal act, the coroner or the coroner’s deputy shall notify the district attorney of the county where the inquiry is made, and the district attorney shall make an investigation with the assistance of the coroner. If the sheriff is not ex officio the coroner, the coroner shall also notify the sheriff, and the district attorney and sheriff shall make the investigation with the assistance of the coroner.

3. The holding of a coroner’s inquest is within the sound discretion of the district attorney or district judge of the county. An inquest need not be conducted in any case of death manifestly occasioned by natural cause, suicide, accident or when it is publicly known that the death was caused by a person already in custody, but an inquest must be held unless the district attorney or a district judge certifies that no inquest is required.

NRS 259.090:Inquest: Summoning and examination of witnesses; examination of decedent; adjournment.
1. The justice of the peace may issue subpoenas for witnesses, returnable as the justice of the peace may direct, and served by such person as he or she may direct.

2.  He or she must summon and examine as witnesses every person who, in his or her opinion or that of any of the jurors, has any knowledge of the facts, and he or she may summon a qualified surgeon or physician to inspect the body, or hold a postmortem examination thereon, or a chemist to make an analysis of the stomach or the tissues of the deceased and give a professional opinion as to the cause of the death.

NRS 259.100  Witness failing to attend punishable for contempt.  Any witness failing to obey the subpoena of the justice of the peace may be attached and fined for contempt in like manner as in a justice court.

NRS 259.110  Rendition of verdict: Certification; contents.  After inspecting the body and hearing the testimony, the jury shall render their verdict and certify the same by an inquisition in writing, signed by them, and setting forth the name of the deceased, when, where and by what means the deceased came to his or her death; if by criminal means, the name of the person causing the death.

ANALYSIS: Nevada law basically requires each county coroner to investigate unattended deaths. An attended death would be an expected death, such as the death of one suffering a terminal illness in the hospital, or the obvious death by natural causes of an elderly person. If a death seems criminal, the district attorney (DA) and sheriff are involved. However, a DA or a district judge may, apparently at their discretion, certify that no inquest is necessary. A justice of the peace is appointed to conduct the inquest and is empowered to subpoena witnesses of various kinds, who may be imprisoned and/or fined for contempt of court should they fail or refuse to appear. Finally, the inquest jury is responsible for a verdict, in criminal cases, that establishes how the person was killed and who was responsible. Those interested in the more procedural portions of the statute I’ve omitted here may access the link at the beginning of the update.

Let us also take a moment to familiarize ourselves with the obligations of Nevada Peace Officers (the statutory term for all Nevada law enforcement officers), particularly NRS 289.120 and 289.027:

NRS 289.020  Punitive action: Prohibited for exercise of rights under internal procedure; opportunity for hearing; refusal to cooperate in criminal investigation punishable as insubordination.

3. If a peace officer refuses to comply with a request by a superior officer to cooperate with the peace officer’s own or any other law enforcement agency in a criminal investigation, the agency may charge the peace officer with insubordination.

I’ve left out the first two sections of this statute which refer to peace officer’s rights in administrative processes. Those interested may access that information at the link provided in the beginning of the update.

NRS 289.027  Law enforcement agency required to adopt policies and procedures concerning service of certain subpoenas on peace officers.

1. Each law enforcement agency shall adopt policies and procedures that provide for the orderly and safe acceptance of service of certain subpoenas served on a peace officer employed by the law enforcement agency.

2.  A subpoena to be served upon a peace officer that is authorized to be served upon a law enforcement agency in accordance with the policies and procedures adopted pursuant to subsection 1 may be served in the manner provided by those policies and procedures.

ANALYSIS: Nevada officers are required by law to participate in criminal investigations and if they refuse, may be charged with insubordination. Such a charge may result in dismissal or lesser punishments at the discretion of the officer’s employer.

There are two primary types of subpoenas with which the police regularly deal: The subpoena ad testificandum and the subpoena duces tecum (legal terminology is in Latin). A subpoena ad testificandum is an order to present oneself at a particular place and time to give testimony. A subpoena duces tecum is an order to bring documentary or other physical evidence. Police officers know that if they are subpoenaed, they will be testifying and they automatically bring any and all physical or documentary evidence with which they have any relation. Such evidence is usually spelled out on the subpoena and/or they speak with the prosecutor beforehand to determine exactly what they want the officer to bring. In any case, in the criminal justice system, “subpoena” encompasses both types of testimony.

NRS 289.027 simply allows an agency to accept subpoenas on behalf of individual officers rather than requiring that an officer be individually served--the actual subpoena placed in that officer’s actual hand--by one empowered to serve subpoenas. Considering the sheer number of subpoenas issued, this is a necessary time and labor saving device and is common throughout the nation. The process normally works like this: The prosecutor’s office sends the day’s subpoenas, which are usually little more than documents listing the defendant’s name, the officer’s name, the case number, the prosecutor’s name and the date and time of the hearing, to the secretary designated to handle them. That secretary places them in the officer’s mailboxes. This may also be accomplished by e-mail. They also commonly review them to determine when an officer will need to appear, and if an officer won’t be back on duty to find the subpoena before that date and time, will give them a call to let them know about the subpoena. Even so, sometimes officers don’t get subpoenas until after a hearing. In such cases, hearings are usually simply rescheduled because everyone involved understands that such things happen due to the very nature of the system.

THE COMMISSION: The overwhelming majority of those watching the televised Erik Scott Coroner’s Inquest came away with a very bad taste in their collective mouths and deluged the Clark County Commissioners with expressions of their displeasure and outrage. The primary emerging issue was the obvious lack of complete, competent questioning, leading to a pre-determined result that has, with only a single exception since 1976, favored the police. As a result, the CCC established a commission, seating (in alphabetical order):

Christopher Blakesley, Professor at UNLV Boyd School of Law (Commission Chairman)
Richard Boulware, NAACP
Chris Collins, Police Protective Association (Metro Police Union)
John Fudenberg, Clark County Coroner's Office
Doug Gillespie, Metro Sheriff
Phil Kohn, Clark County Public Defender
Bill Maupin, retired Nevada Supreme Court justice
Margaret McLetchie, ACLU
David Roger, Clark County District Attorney
Jose Solario, a former school board member (1993-1994), was added to the Commission at a November 3rd meeting of the CCC, apparently in response to demands for a hispanic member.

THE FRUITS OF THE COMMISSION: The Commission was given 45 days to make recommendations. Among the most contentious issues was that of if, and how, the families of police shooting victims should be represented. Under current inquest rules, families are allowed to submit questions to the presiding justice, but the justice may decide to ask some, all or none. According to the Scott family, only a fraction of their submitted questions were asked, and not always in the format submitted. Other than that, they had no role whatever. From the beginning of the process, Chris Collins, the police union representative, threatened that officers would refuse to participate in any inquest should the process become at all adversarial.

The CCC tentatively approved the recommendations of the Commission on December 7th with the final vote, after some tinkering, to be held on January 4, 2011. Some essential features of the new rules are:

(1) Juries will be replaced with “inquest panels” which will make “findings of fact,” rather than finding fault.

(2) Two pre-inquest meetings will be held with all parties involved.

(3) Investigative files are to be shared with officers and the families of those killed by officers.

(4) Both sides would determine the “scope” of questioning which will be focused on what happened.

(5) Officers may have a union attorney present during the inquest.

(6) An “ombudsman,” who would be a local attorney, will be appointed to represent families.

While a potential improvement on the current system, each of these proposed improvements has its own problems. As state law makes clear, at the end of any inquest, the jury, “inquest panel,” or whatever the CCC eventually calls it will still be required to issue, in writing, a signed statement “...setting forth the name of the deceased, when, where and by what means the deceased came to his or her death; if by criminal means, the name of the person causing the death.” The potential change seems to suggest the Clark County is attempting to get away from assigning any sort of blame by becoming a fact finding panel, but if the case is potentially criminal, that’s not an option Clark County can legislate away with semantic sleight of hand.

While two pre-inquest meetings are mentioned, it’s difficult to believe that the police will, in any way, participate in good faith. It is unlikely that the Prosecutor will be amenable to cooperating with victim’s families even though the Prosecutor’s job is to represent the public. Even should Clark County establish criminal sanctions for failing to appear, the police can show up and simply fail to meaningfully cooperate. Metro has a long established reputation for refusing to fully cooperate with requests for files, evidence, documents, etc. As previous updates have suggested, if the police are mishandling evidence, failing to properly document evidence and their actions, or simply lying, one might as well request old candy wrappers which would have the same reliability and value as evidence. And with the newly added wrinkle of officers refusing to participate in police investigations, there will likely be little of value to share, which is, of course, the point. The process, as proposed, does nothing to address these issues.

Regarding both sides determining the “scope” of questioning, this is apparently a sop to the police which will invalidate the entire process. The police have made plain that they intend not to cooperate in any way and consider anyone asking them questions that might reveal them to be less than knights in shining armor to be completely out of bounds. It takes little imagination to understand that the scope of questioning agreed to by the police will be very narrow indeed and will not be conducive to revealing the facts or the truth, or at the least, any version of the facts or truth contradictory to the official Police version of events.

Why, by the way, would officers who may refuse even to show up, and who will certainly refuse to cooperate or testify, need a union attorney at an inquest they will not attend?

A significant issue is that of the ombudsman. The mere fact of establishing such a position makes it clear that he--or she--will not be directly representing the victim or their family. By definition and common practice, an ombudsman is a neutral professional adjudicating matters between opposed parties while directly representing none of those involved. In the criminal justice system, there are two parties: The State, represented by the District Attorney and the accused, represented by their attorney. At inquests, the state--and in Las Vegas, the Police--is represented by the District Attorney. At present, the families of victims have no voice, no representation at all. Therefore, whom will the ombudsman represent? The people? The DA is supposed to do that. The Victim and their family? If that was the intention of the CCC, no ombudsman would be necessary and private attorneys would simply be authorized, with the option of public defenders appointed for indigent families. Why would the family of a victim, or the public for that matter, have faith in an ombudsman who doesn’t really represent them and their interests at all? Is this actually progress or merely the appearance of progress?

As this update is being written, these and other contentious issues revolving around these potential changes are still being considered. At the moment, Sheriff Doug Gillespie apparently supports the changes, including the ombudsman, but is demanding substantial police input in choosing ombudsman. This would, of course, raise reasonable questions as to the independence and effectiveness of any ombudsman. As a party with a direct and compelling personal and institutional interest in an outcome favorable to him and to Metro, the Sheriff should have no direct hand in such appointments, such involvement being the virtual definition of conflict of interest.

MINDSET: Most interesting--and disturbing--is the response of the Metro police, as communicated by their Union President Chris Collins, who represents approximately 2,800 officers. According to Collins, not only will officers--even those who merely witnessed the actions of fellow officers--fail to testify at inquests, they will refuse to make statements to investigators--usually Metro homicide detectives--after a shooting or death caused by other means. Apparently Collins has gone so far as to suggest that officers will refuse to honor subpoenas.

Collins objected to the idea that officers might have to repeatedly testify about their actions. Remember that in the past, officers have typically had to testify only at an inquest, and even so, their testimony, as in the Erik Scott case, has been less than complete. “now we’re saying ‘screw it’--you only have to answer twice instead of four times: Answer in the deposition and the federal case and skip the homicide investigation and skip the inquest,” Collins said.

Collins apparently believes that all officers will have to do is to simply inform the judge and prosecutor before the inquest that they won’t answer questions--in essence telling them that they intend to take the Fifth--and they’ll be able to ignore subpoenas. Collins said that skipping inquests will be good for officers because it will allow them to avoid the embarrassment and discomfort of pleading the Fifth Amendment to every question from the witness stand.

Reaction to Collins and his threats, express and implied, has been equally interesting.

CCC Steve Sisolak (he voted against the proposed changes): “They said this was what they were going to do. I don’t know if everyone thought they were bluffing.”

CCC Chairman Rory Reid: “Just to say ‘we’re going to take all our marbles and go home.’ doesn’t seem like a reasonable response.”

ACLU Attorney Allen Lichtenstein: “What they’re really saying (is) they’re happy enough to show up when they’ll only be asked questions by friendly DAs, but when they’re asked tough questions by people no in their corner, they don’t want to participate.”

CC DA David Roger (he was against the proposed changes) doesn’t think not having officer’s statements will affect his decision making process. “We talk to homicide detectives all the time where they don’t have statements from suspects.” Indeed DA Rogers, but such suspects aren’t usually police officers and the victims aren’t usually killed by the police. There may be some small difference there that DA Rogers appears to be missing.

The mindset of the police, represented by Collins and Sheriff Gillespie, is at least consistent: Abject and utter contempt for the public and the law. Collins and Gillespie express their contempt somewhat differently, but neither apparently believe themselves to be public servants (a representative of public servants in Collins’ case), but rather, masters of the public.

Part of the problem is undoubtably the fact that Metro officers are unionized. This is far from universal throughout the nation. Unionized officers are often able to get away with things that would be unthinkable to non-unionized cops elsewhere. I do have some sympathy for police unions. I have known law enforcement agencies where officers were mistreated, denied their rights to safe--under the circumstances--working conditions, due process and equal protection under the law, and if that was all that unions worked to protect, I’d have no difficulty with them. However, when unions began to see themselves as more important than the public officers serve, bad things inevitably happen as they have in Las Vegas for many years. Then Governor of Massachusetts Calvin Coolidge, in a Sept 14, 1919 telegram to AFL President Samuel Gompers wrote: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.” I couldn’t agree more, yet some states and municipalities essentially surrender to unions this kind of tyrannical power.

MINDSET OUTSIDE OF LAS VEGAS: In the world of law enforcement and the criminal justice system outside of Las Vegas, in competent, non-corrupt law enforcement agencies, such talk on the part of police officers is confined to under-your-breath locker room or coffee shop bull sessions, quickly done to let off steam, and as quickly abandoned. Few would think of saying such things in public, to say nothing of actually saying them. This is so not only because it would be politically foolish and dangerous, but because most would consider it to be dishonorable.

The job of a police officer is in many ways hopelessly complex, but it can be boiled down to its essentials. Police officers deter crime, investigate crime, write complete, factual and honest reports about everything they do, and testify--as often as necessary--about what they do. Particularly for more serious and convoluted crimes, it is not uncommon for an officer to testify many times in many kinds of hearings such as inquests, preliminary hearings, motion hearings, actual trials where an officer may initially testify once but be called back once or more, and even potentially, motion hearings post trial. And while most officers will testify only once or twice in a given case. it is entirely possible that they could testify five or more times in a given case. Every honest officer knows, understands and accepts this. It’s as much of an essential part of the job as a doctor’s frequent hand washing. An officer whining about being abused because he had to testify multiple times regarding any case would be laughed out of the room in most agencies. If he didn’t learn his lesson, his supervisors would surely conduct an attitude adjustment/reality infusion session.

This is where the importance of complete, factual and truthful reports comes into play. A Sgt. might tell a given officer “be sure you cover your ass on this one,” yet he is not telling an officer to lie. He is telling the officer to be sure that his report is complete, detailed, factual and that he leaves nothing out. People arrested by the police will often lie to avoid punishment and to make themselves look as good as possible to their friends and family. An officer’s best defense is a well written and complete report accompanied by the same from other officer/witnesses.

Most neophyte officers learn embarrassing lessons on the witness stand when defense attorneys force them to explain why they failed to document details in their reports. Most of the time, it’s nothing but an honest oversight by tired, overworked officers writing one too many reports hours after a busy shift, but after one exposure to that kind of heat, competent officers don’t make the same mistake again. Before signing an officer’s report, it is a Sergeant’s duty to be sure to direct an officer to clarify unclear writing and to include any details he may have inadvertently left out. After an officer completes a report, after a supervisor reviews and signs it, that report is never again altered and necessary corrections or additional details that come up are documented on supplementary reports with the same identifying case number as the original. This is done to avoid even the hint that an officer might have, for any reason, changed a report after the fact.

Many additional reasons for such attention to detail should be obvious to readers, but the most compelling reason is that no officer can know which report he’ll need to remember and when. In a given year, any officer will write hundreds of reports and deal with hundreds, even thousands of people. No one can remember with perfect clarity every report they’ve written and every detail therein. I’ve had to testify, for example, at a civil trial held many years after an unremarkable traffic accident and was thankful indeed that I always wrote highly detailed reports, reports that went far beyond minimum requirements. In fact, really good reports can often ensure that an officer won’t have to testify. Defense attorneys reading such reports know that they don’t want to take on that officer on the witness stand and work the best plea bargain they can get. No competent officer likes to say “I can’t remember because I didn’t bother to write it down” on the witness stand, yet all competent officers expect to testify--as often as necessary--and take pride in their preparation and skill in giving credible, convincing testimony.

In the world outside Las Vegas, officers who find a subpoena in their mailbox or in their e-mail in-box immediately obtain a copy of the related reports and get in touch with the assistant prosecutor who will be handling the case to see if there is anything they need. It would not occur to them to fail to appear in court. If anything, that would be worse than failing to show up for duty as not only would they face certain sanction from their agency, they might also be held in contempt of court. There would simply be no excuse, no sympathy from fellow officers or from supervisors whether an officer accidentally overslept or merely decided not to show up. Police work is an adult endeavor, an endeavor where reliability and honor matter. Honest, professional officers simply would not think of failing to show up when subpoenaed, ready to competently testify.

Refusing to cooperate in an investigation, refusing to write reports, to do one’s duty, can, will and should cause an officer to be fired. In such cases an officer who reasonably suspects that their legitimate, lawful conduct might be twisted against them for political reasons might say, “I’ll cooperate fully and hand in a complete report as soon as I’ve had the opportunity to speak with my attorney.” While such an officer might be disciplined, such discipline has a reasonably good chance of being overturned later, and if the officer has a good relationship with his superiors, no discipline may result. All officers know that the best interests of their agency aren’t always necessarily theirs. But in such a case, unless an officer has committed a crime and will invoke the Fifth Amendment, the worst offense of which they’ll be guilty is not completing reports and speaking with their superiors as soon as they desired. Such an offense will generally be survivable, even reversible.

The idea of taking the Fifth Amendment is also highly problematic for competent officers. Every officer involved in a citizen death should, by all means, fully cooperate with the resulting investigation, just as soon as he has the advice of his attorney. Even in good agencies, politics can always potentially play a role and a respected, competent officer might unexpectedly find himself a political scapegoat. Only in such a circumstance, where what’s really happening is clear not only to the officer involved but to his or her fellow officers, can an officer ever get away with taking the Fifth. Even so, some people will always believe the worst regardless of the eventual outcome. Taking the Fifth where it is not clearly and unmistakably justified is tantamount to throwing away every scrap of credibility an officer has worked years to build. It is a betrayal of public confidence, and fellow officers--to say nothing of the criminal justice system--can never again trust that officer. Even threatening to take the Fifth would, at minimum, cause alarm among an officer’s peers and supervisors. At minimum, if such an officer was retained, they would likely find themselves relegated to important filing duties and never allowed to work the street again.

MUTINY: Implied in the threats of Metro Police as expressed by Collins is also refusal of officers involved in a citizen death to complete reports relating to the incident. After all, if you wrote a complete report about the incident, what would be the point of refusing to testify about what you wrote, which, if complete and truthful, would be as potentially incriminating as verbal testimony? On the other hand, if one’s reports were deceptive, refusing to testify or taking the Fifth would become an unlawful better choice. From the apparent standpoint of the Metro officers Collins represents, the best of all possible worlds would simply be not to write reports, not to cooperate with investigations and not to testify, or if forced, to take the Fifth.

By their own admission, the Metro Police now intend to refuse to cooperate in any way in the lawful investigation of any death in which they have a role. Why? Because the house no longer has the advantage. The stacked deck, the wired roulette wheel, the loaded dice have been discovered and the Police might, for the first time in more than 30 years, have to play by the rules, the same rules observed by police officers around the nation.

If an officer’s actions are reasonable and lawful, if their reports are professional, complete and truthful, if the investigation of their actions is professional and not as shot through with anomalies as a Swiss cheese, an officer should have no fear of testifying to their actions as often as required because the facts, the truth, will not change. The very fact that their testimony does not change, that the facts are unassailable will only lend credibility to them and to their actions. However Mr. Collins has made clear that they don’t see things that way. They aren’t used to such rough treatment--actually having to testify in an adversarial hearing--and they’re not going to take such abuse! That the American criminal justice system is by design and nature adversarial seems to somehow have escaped them. Apparently irony is not a part of the curriculum at the Metro Police Academy, but more on that shortly.

The law on such matters is quite clear. Any citizen, police officer or civilian, may invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at any time, and in police work as in the civilian context, they generally may not be punished for so doing. However, in Nevada, any officer who fails to cooperate in an investigation or who fails to honor a subpoena may be charged with insubordination (for the latter, not specifically by state law, but because insubordination is generally considered to be refusal to obey orders and/or follow established procedures), which could conceivably, in some circumstances, be a firing offense. In addition, an officer ignoring a subpoena, as opposed to having a reasonable explanation, can expect to be cited for contempt of court, which can lead to imprisonment and/or fines, particularly if they have advertised their intention to break the law beforehand, as every Metro officer, through their union representative Chris Collins, has now done.

Keep in mind, however, that the right against self incrimination applies only to the individuals directly involved. Officers who are witnesses, before, during or after the fact of a police shooting, have no such right. And it seems obvious that in Las Vegas, no officer may reasonably portray themselves as a political scapegoat. The entire system, at least up to the office of the Prosecutor, seems to be set up to ensure that no officer will ever be prosecuted for the unjustified killing of a citizen, the Erik Scott case being the most egregious, recent known example of this potentially criminal status quo.

Indeed, no officer who has witnessed, in any way, other officers involved in the death of a citizen may legitimately refuse to write a report, refuse to participate in an investigation, ignore a subpoena or refuse to testify, and to testify as many times as necessary. The only possible reason for such refusal could be to protect other officers from the consequences of criminal wrongdoing. This seems to concern Collins and those he represents not at all. That Collins seems completely secure in asserting that such criminal dereliction of duty is not only appropriate but necessary is a telling indicator of the level of corruption in Metro and potentially, in the entire Las Vegas criminal justice system. Should officers blatantly break the law and local judges exact no immediate and meaningful penalty, there can be no further doubt that the rule of law does not exist in Las Vegas.

Astute readers will notice that I haven’t yet addressed an important issue: What about police supervisors and administrators? What about the Sheriff? Don’t they have any duty to deal with this? Absolutely. Officers willfully refusing to participate in investigations or refusing to honor subpoenas should be immediately relieved of duty and suspended, their issued badges and weapons confiscated. The Sheriff should immediately announce that this will be the policy of Metro with no exceptions. Further, he should confer with the chief administrative judge of the Las Vegas system and negotiate a policy, in writing so that it can be widely disseminated, that any officer failing to honor a subpoena in such matters will be immediately arrested and brought before the involved judge to show cause why they should not be held in contempt of court. Should his excuse lack integrity, he will be found in contempt and immediately jailed and fined. In most states, such an offense provides sufficient justification for firing of a law enforcement officer and revocation of their certification and justifiably so.

I’ve observed in previous updates that honest, professional agencies care a very great deal for their public image. The slightest hint of impropriety is promptly attended. Having officers publicly promising to break the law and refusing to participate in investigations relating to the police killing of citizens would be unimaginable virtually anywhere else in America. Any competent, non-corrupt police executive would be handling the matter as I have suggested and doing so publicly to try to minimize public relations damage and to restore public confidence. Otherwise, what citizens have long suspected--officers can and will kill citizens with impunity--can only be considered by the public to be confirmed by the Police themselves.

Does this sound harsh, paranoid even? What the Metro Police are doing is nothing less than declaring mutiny. Mutiny against lawful authority. Mutiny against those from whom every iota of their power comes: The People. They are putting themselves outside the law, above it. They are declaring that when they kill a citizen, none shall have the power to review their actions, not their employer, not the courts because they are accountable only to the highest power: Themselves. How can any citizen possibly be criticized for thinking the absolute worst of every officer employed by Metro, up to and including the Sheriff? How can any citizen fail to fear for their life when they have contact with Metro Police?

TEST CASE: There is a case in the pipeline that will likely be the first test case in the new inquest system. On December 11, 2010, Anthony Jones, 44 was shot with a Taser “several times,” according to Police spokesman Sgt. Jon Sheahan. As is usual Metro practice, only the sketchiest of details have been released. According to the Police, Jones was pulled over by police about a mile from his home. The Police claim that Jones ran and violently resisted the officers, Mark Hatten (35, employed by Metro since 2007) and Timothy English (24, employed by Metro since 2008). Jones died at Valley Hospital Medical Center shortly after the incident.

As with the Scott case, even after the inquest, it is difficult to make definitive judgements. Jones was shot “several times.” By one Taser? Multiple Tasers? Was he shocked simultaneously by multiple Tasers? This seems likely, otherwise, why would two officers be suspended? If only one officer used his Taser on Jones, the other officers would be mere witnesses, unless they in some other way potentially contributed to his death. It should go without saying that those who manufacture Tasers do not recommend shocking people with multiple weapons simultaneously. Such practices allow electricity to transit the body between the barbs of the two (or more), weapons and has, for example, the very real potential to stop the heart or disable the nervous system in fundamental, deadly ways.

It is certainly true that some people die after being subjected to a single Taser shock. But once again, based on the information currently available, Metro is involved in a suspicious citizen death. If long standing trends hold true, we’ll know little more after the Inquest and all officers involved will be absolved regardless of the new changes, that is, if the officers involved elect to participate.

TRAINING: In one of a recent week-long series of reports on Metro basic police training, the Las Vegas Review-Journal had this interesting passage: “Not so for Thomas Mendiola. A recycled recruit who graduated with Class 6-09, he was one of three officers who shot and killed a man with a gun outside the Summerlin Costco store last summer. The officers’ actions were deemed justified by a coroner’s inquest jury, but the controversial shooting helped lead to changes to the inquest.”

Officer Mendiola, readers of this series will recall, was one of the two officers who repeatedly shot Erik Scott in the back after Officer William Mosher had already shot Scott in the chest and thigh. The article did not explain why Mendiola washed out of an earlier basic training academy or how he redeemed himself sufficiently to be on the street in uniform on July 10, 2010, the day he shot and killed Scott. However, this will surely become an item of some interest at the upcoming civil trial.

What is also interesting is the tone of the articles. The Metro Academy is apparently a six month long affair obviously styled as a pseudo Marine boot camp, complete with screaming, abusive drill instructors, endless pushups and similar exercises, and what appears to be an intensive emphasis on the probability of an officer facing violent death at any moment.

Ultimately, the series focuses on former real estate agent Nathan Herlean, a recent academy graduate out of field training and patrolling on his own. Herlean is one of eight officers on his graveyard shift. Of that number, the most experienced officer has only 2.5 years on the job. Recall too that the three officers who shot Scott had scant police experience. Herlean is perhaps just a bit wired.

“On duty or off, he's always on alert, like someone flipped a switch that never turns off.”

“He took a vacation to San Diego and couldn't relax. He catches himself at stoplights staring down people in the next car.”

"’You're always on guard, but I don't want it to be that way,’ he says. ‘But I'm not going to win that battle.’"

“There's also the threat of getting killed on the job.”

“Herlean says he's scared of dying, and he figures he'll be shot at sooner or later.”

One cannot, with any knowable degree of accuracy, diagnose the nature of an entire police agency and its officers from press reports of basic training. That said, considering what is known about the behavior of Metro officers and of their superiors, a few general observations can be reasonably made. Their accuracy and applicability to the Scott case--and others--is up to readers, and the Las Vegas public, to judge.

While police agencies are para-military organizations, most have abandoned the boot camp model, understanding that intelligent, capable officers respond best to more adult forms of motivation and that limited training time is best utilized when officers aren’t in pain and sweating profusely. There is no doubt that physical training and ability are important, but more important is instilling in a police recruit and understanding of the necessity of maintaining a high level of fitness and the desire to continue that practice. From the appearance of some officers, including Off. Mosher, physical fitness standards at the Academy and post academy are not identical.

The series focused relatively little on the curriculum, but in more advanced police training, substantial time is spent in the classroom as more and more, police officers must be expert in not only local and state law, but in constitutional law and its interpretation and application. Most citizens don’t realize that the Constitution, and all of the related court decisions relating to law enforcement, have a very direct daily effect on police officers and the ways in which they carry out their duties.

Substantial time is also devoted to firearm training, but more is devoted to proper tactics and to knowing when and when not to shoot, as I’ve outlined in previous updates. Officer Herlean is no doubt like many new officers, but considering what I’ve read in the series, I am concerned that he, and other Metro officers, have been conditioned to see every citizen as a potentially deadly threat.

Every police officer must be alert; they are different than the rest of the public, with necessarily different responsibilities and perspectives. But apparently Herlean was never taught that he doesn’t always have to be on guard, at least not to the degree that he apparently is, and unless he is an aberration--different from most academy graduates--that should be of concern to all Las Vegas citizens.

Firearm guru Col. Jeff Cooper developed a color code system to illustrate relative awareness. Code white is the state of most people. They’re unaware of the world around them, oblivious to potential danger, hence unable to effectively and promptly respond if placed in imminent danger. Code yellow is the next step, and this is where every police officer should be. This state may be maintained indefinitely with no physical or psychological harm. It is a relaxed state of awareness that requires being aware of one’s surroundings and the potential for danger. No paranoia is involved. It allows one to quickly and properly react to potential danger because they can anticipate it, see it coming. Police officers and anyone who carries a concealed weapon should live in this state. A police officer who “...catches himself at stoplights staring down people in the next car,” is past code yellow and is inevitably going to do harm to himself and others.

I wonder if the Metro academy staff taught their recruits that it might be a good idea to smile at people upon occasion, and that not every citizen has murderous intent, or were they too busy screaming at them while forcing them to do push-ups?

No doubt, the attorneys for the Scott family will have found the LV R-J series interesting and will have a number of equally interesting questions for Metro witnesses.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Previous readers of this series will notice that I have been substantially less reluctant to criticize Metro than in past updates. Perhaps the threatened Metro mutiny--they don’t appear to be kidding, nor do they appear to have any sense of humor of which they are aware--has finally convinced me that Metro no longer deserves any benefit of the doubt.

That said, I still understand that I could be wrong about matters great and small. We still know relatively little about the Scott case and every partial revelation of information has raised far more questions and concerns than have been answered. As always, if I am wrong, I welcome contact from Metro officials or individual officers to set the record straight and I will be glad to make any necessary corrections, promptly and prominently. I know that most Metro officers are likely dedicated and honest men and women, but as far as I know, I’ve yet to hear from any. Their insights will be appreciated and their confidence kept.

My thanks to our faithful readers for their comments, support and insight. I hope this series continues to inform and perhaps, to spur the Las Vegas public and their elected officials to action that will correct what appear to be serious problems with their police force. I’ll continue to follow and report on this case, and I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

UFC 125 Tonight

I owe a shout-out to Stephan in the previous post for pointing out that UFC 125 is tonight. Frankie Edgar is defending his lightweight title against Gray Maynard, the TUF 5 alum that is the only person to have been beaten Edgar in his 14 pro fights. I checked out the sports betting news by BetUS and was mildly shocked to see that Edgar is the odds on favorite to retain his title. I disagree with the pros, and expect Maynard to decisively out-point Edgar to take the title. The conventional wisdom is that you can't take the title on points in a close fight, but I think Maynard simply has Edgar's number. Actual Result: Draw

Edgar-Maynard may be the headliner, but the fight I'm most interested in seeing is between two of my favorite fighters, the bad boy Chris Leben versus the Marine officer and combat hero, Brian Stann. Both fighters are tough strikers with knockout power, but Stann's almost purely a puncher, while Leben has serious ground game, even through he prefers to stand and trade punches. I'd kind of like to see Stann win this one, but doubt he will unless he is one of the few people that can find a soft spot in Leben's chin. I predict the Crippler takes out the Silver Star recipient in the first or second round by strikes or submission. If it goes to the third round, I think the odds swing back to even, giving Stann's cardio a chance to pull out a victory. Actual Result:Stann KOs Leben, 1st Round

For some reason, I just can't seem to bring myself to care about the Brandon Vera vs. Thiago Silva fight. If Vera can get his knees going he has a shot, but I'm predicting Silva grounds and pounds him after following a staggering punch in mid-to-late in the first round. Actual Result:Silva by decision

Further down the ladder, I'm predicting:

• Diaz over Kim (submission) Actual Result: Kim by decision
• Gomi over Guida (split decision) Actual Result:Guida by submission
• Davis over Stephens (submission) Actual Result: Stephens by KO
• Poirier over Grispi (strikes) Actual Result:Poirier by decision
• Tavares over Barone (strikes) Actual Result: Tavares by KO, Round 1
• Brown over Nunes (submission) Actual Result: Nunes by split decision
• Soto over Roberts (decision) Actual Result: Roberts by submission, Round 1
• Volkmann over McKee (strikes) Actual Result: Volkmann by split decision

Keep in my that I suck at guessing the winner of any given fight, and in any given slate of fighters there always seems to be at least one significant upset.

Update: Added results.

And Now, the Bowls That Matter

Remember college bowl season as a kid? There were just a handful of bowls, and only the very best teams got a post-season bid. It's a far cry from the scene of today, where any empty stadium that can find a sponsor and a pair of teams without a losing record suddenly has a "bowl game" from a matchup that would only draw regional television otherwise. I'm sure the folks at gambling sites see a benefit to this, and the universities pick up a little more money for their athletic programs and some advertising for their recruiting efforts, but lets face it: unless we're watching top-ten teams or a real playoff system, it's just fluff.

That said, most of the fluff games are over. The New Year is here, heads are pounding, eyes are bleary, and the bowls that matter are just around the corner.

I'm ready for some football; just as a soon as I put away this Christmas tree...