October 3-4, 2017
Oct 03 00:24 Dems, Pelosi call for gun control Oct 03 02:54 AG Sessions on America's greatness Oct 03 11:50 Angie Craig's uphill fight Oct 03 12:53 The Left's gun control 'instinct' Oct 03 18:11 US Construction Manager-in-Chief Oct 04 02:51 Tim Walz's fundraising appeal Oct 04 04:12 The frantic, solutionless left Oct 04 15:44 Trey Gowdy on Vegas shooting
Prior Months: Jan Feb ~ May Jun Jul Aug Sep
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Dems, Pelosi call for gun control
Watching Nancy Pelosi call for gun control in the wake of another shooting incident isn't a pretty sight. Nonetheless, it's part of the news cycle so I'll cover it. In her letter to Speaker Ryan , Ms. Pelosi called for the creation of "a Select Committee on Gun Violence."
Sen. Chris Murphy, (D-CT), posted this tweet , saying "To my colleagues: your cowardice to act cannot be whitewashed by thoughts and prayers." One of the people responding to Sen. Murphy's tweeted "There in lies the problem. We need to get the NRA out of politics and make common sense gun laws a priority!" That's the only proof I need to show that Democrats oppose the First Amendment and the Second Amendment.
The queen of never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, aka Hillary Clinton, outdid herself Monday by inventing "an ancillary argument that more people would have died if Paddock had used a 'silencer.'" After that, Gregg Jarrett took Mrs. Clinton to the proverbial woodshed:
But Clinton's claim that Paddock could have used such a device on his automatic weapon only underscores that Clinton is nothing, if not obtuse. Suppressors do not function well on automatic weapons. They tend to melt or malfunction under the intense heat of automatic fire. For this reason, there are only a few companies that even manufacture them for use on automatic weapons. And there is almost no marketplace for them.
Yet, Clinton is calling for a ban on a device that has no significant history of use in U.S. crime.
The law on suppressors is already strong. Pursuant to federal law, a person has to have a permit to own or possess one and only after undergoing a criminal background check. Violation of the law is a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison. If it is used during the course of a crime, the penalty is enhanced to 30 years.
I don't recommend Speaker Ryan creating a commission/committee to study gun violence, I'd recommend that their first assignment is to study gun violence in Baltimore and Chicago, then publish a report on those findings.
As poorly as the politicians behaved, civilians quickly turned into that night's heroes :
Thompson, a former EMT in Compton, California, and his friends broke into police cruisers to get medical supplies. "Our triage area was just civilians," Thompson says. "I had a firefighter with me, a trauma nurse, and we were going down the line, doing what we could." They marked their triage patients with Sharpies and lipstick, Thompson said.
I just wish our 'leaders' thought like this nation's army of Davids.
Posted Tuesday, October 3, 2017 12:24 AM
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AG Sessions on America's greatness
Lots of conservatives appreciate the job that AG Jeff Sessions has done thus far. Thanks to this op-ed on the threats to free speech in the United States, people have another reason to appreciate Gen. Sessions.
One of the most impactful parts of Gen. Sessions' op-ed came when he wrote "Our legal heritage, upon which the Founders crafted the Bill of Rights, taught that reason and knowledge produced the closest approximation to truth, and from truth may arise justice. But reason requires discourse and, frequently, argument. And that is why the free speech guarantee is found not just in the First Amendment, but also permeates our institutions, traditions and our Constitution. The Federalists against the anti-Federalists, Abraham Lincoln against Stephen Douglas, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. against George Wallace. At so many times in our history as a people, it was speech, and still more speech, that led Americans to a more just, more perfect union."
Gen. Sessions then wrote "This month, we marked the 230th anniversary of our Constitution. This month, we also marked the 54th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham. Four little girls died that day as they changed into their choir robes because the Klan wanted to silence the voices fighting for civil rights. But their voices were not silenced. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would call them 'the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity,' in a eulogy that still should speak to us today. This is the true legacy of free speech that has been handed down to us. It was bought with a price."
Antifa, the SPLC, By Any Means Necessary and other hard left organizations are trying to silence people. The best way of combatting this modern-day fascism is to insist on more liberty of all kinds. When you hear about warriors like Hannah Scherlacher and others on college campuses, support them to the fullest extent possible. In situations like this, pushing back is an indispensable tool.
This video shows the lengths to which they'll go to silence people:
I'd strongly recommend you read this article , too. These aren't people who play by the rules. They're fascists, which is defined as "a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism."
It's clear that Antifa and By Any Means Necessary will use any tools at their disposal.
Posted Tuesday, October 3, 2017 2:54 AM
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Angie Craig's uphill fight
Yesterday, amidst the heartbreak from Las Vegas, 2 candidates for Congress made their candidacies official. In CD-2, Angie Craig officially announced her rematch with Rep. Jason Lewis. Jason Lewis will defeat Ms. Craig again because he has a real economic plan that will benefit Minnesotans.
For instance, Ms. Craig's issue page talks about infrastructure. It says "Congress must invest in infrastructure revitalization by rebuilding our roads, highways, and bridges and increasing access to high-speed internet - especially in rural areas. Not only will this create good-paying construction jobs in the short-term, experience has shown that public infrastructure investment stimulates private sector jobs growth."
Notice that it doesn't mention pipelines. That's odd considering the fact that Flint Hills Resources is one of the district's bigger employers. If she's going to represent the entire district, shouldn't she represent the major employers in the district?
Rather than making the announcement in person, Craig's announcement came in the form of a statement. The statement said "I'm proud to launch my campaign today with the voices and support of so many great Minnesota leaders. I'm running for Congress to build a Minnesota for all of us . I want to work so that every member of every family is rewarded for their hard work with an outstanding education, the training or re-training for a good job, and a fair shot at a better life. Washington needs leaders that work for all of us here in Minnesota and with the broad support we've already built, I know I can be that leader for the Second District."
Again, how can you build a Minnesota for all of us if you're ignoring a major employer's needs?
Lewis for Congress spokesman Stephen Bradford spoke about his accomplishments:
Rep. Lewis was proud to receive the endorsement that counted in 2016, the endorsement of the voters, and is grateful for continued support from families, businesses, and unions across the 2nd District. He'll keep working hard on issues that matter to people at home, like reforming health care, lowering taxes, and his successful amendments to improve career and technical education.
There's no question about whether Rep. Lewis is representing his district. Education is a big issue in CD-2 because Lewis's predecessor, John Kline, was the chairman of the House education committee. Last time around, Lewis had to defend some things he said as a radio talk show host. That's been litigated already so that's ancient history. This time, Rep. Lewis gets to defend his policies and accomplishments.
Expect this seat to stay in Republicans' hands. In southern Minnesota, Carla Nelson announced her bid to replace Tim Walz in an unusual way:
State Senator Carla Nelson issued the following statement regarding the announcement of her candidacy for Minnesota's 1st District congressional election.
While I have decided to run for Congress, today is not a day for campaigning. This is a solemn day for our nation, a time when we need to come together and pray for the victims of Las Vegas, their families and all who have been affected by this tragedy. I look forward to the days and weeks to come as my campaign gears up, but for now I hope everyone will continue to keep the victims, their families, and the first responders in their thoughts and prayers.
Expect the Republicans to flip this district from blue to red.
Posted Tuesday, October 3, 2017 11:50 AM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 03-Oct-17 05:17 PM
I wish liberals would make up their minds. Won't expanding high speed broad band internet into the country allow more of what liberals detest,urban sprawl? I guess when you're buying votes, you'll do and say anything.
The Left's gun control 'instinct'
When a disgusting person kills people, whether it's at a mall in Phoenix, a school in Connecticut or a casino in Vegas, Democrats rush to the microphone to offer their one-size-fits-all cure-all, aka gun control. Clueless celebrities get in front of microphones to be the first to criticize Republicans.
This time, Brian Williams was one of the first idiots to a microphone, saying "Why don't we act? What is the problem? What was it about first graders losing their lives that wasn't sad enough to result in changes?. When do you believe the American people will have had enough; enough to push back against the edges of the Second Amendment argument enough to say we can live under the Second Amendment but there should be limits?"
The American people will push legislation when it makes sense, not a second before that. They don't trust Democrats on this issue. Perhaps that's because of the things people like Trevor Noah say. "Comedy Central's Trevor Noah accused Republicans of valuing guns more than the lives of Americans. 'So the people of Las Vegas, I can't give you thoughts and prayers, I can only say that I'm sorry,' Noah said. 'Sorry that we live in a world where there are people who will put a gun before your lives.' Noah also said Americans prefer blaming Muslims and blacks for mass shootings, rather than the guns themselves ."
What a bigot. First, I've yet to find a gun that fires itself. Guns are inanimate objects. Why blame an inanimate object for a human tragedy? Second, when the terrorist attack in San Bernardino or the Fort Hood shooting happened, those tragedies were committed by Muslim terrorists. When people get shot in Chicago, the violence-filled city liberals won't talk about, it's frequently the case that African-Americans pulled the trigger. Further, when was the last time people said that white teenagers didn't commit the crime in Columbine?
It's BS to insinuate that we don't gather facts before ascribing blame to specific people. It isn't Republicans who affix blame to policies without first conducting an investigation. That's the Democrats' specialty. They're more than willing to blame gun laws rather than questioning whether the murderer had mental health issues or a gambling problem or just lived a very dark life.
Then there's idiots like Rosa DeLauro:
Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro said Congress already knows what it can do to stop these attacks. "What we need to do now is bring to the floor of the House of Representatives votes on banning assault weapons, banning high-capacity magazines, having background checks," she said Monday.
The weapon used to kill or injure most of the people in Vegas was an automatic weapon, which is already banned by law. As for background checks, they're already part of the gun-buying experience. There isn't a gun-show loophole. That's a liberal myth. We've dealt with the things that Rep. DeLauro demands action on years ago .
Posted Tuesday, October 3, 2017 12:53 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 03-Oct-17 05:13 PM
First off, we don't know if it was an automatic weapon or if he was using a stock bump or some other legal device to make the gun fire in rapid succession. Second, why would anyone pay attention to lyin' Brian and lyin' Blumenthal? Couple of idiots who couldn't tell the truth to save their lives.
Everything the shooter did to obtain the guns was legal and from the sounds of it, he didn't have any scary black AR guns but then again it will take a few days for the real truth to come out.
Comment 2 by Chad Q at 03-Oct-17 05:23 PM
Just saw a couple of pictures that are supposed to be from inside the shooters room and I guess he did use some of the scary AR guns. The left will go completely nuts now.
US Construction Manager-in-Chief
One of the ways to tell that we're a divided nation that isn't healing is watching how Democrats react during a crisis. In this instance, I'm talking about FEMA's response to Hurricane Maria. During Outnumbered this morning, former Obama State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf criticized President Trump , saying "The tone to me is just a little bit off. I want to see a little more heart and a little more realistic look at what's happening on the island and their plan for fixing it. Not just praise, but plans."
The first thing President Trump did was hold a meeting with Puerto Rico's governor, mayors, FEMA and the military. That was what Harf was commenting about. Frankly, getting updates on what the levels of government are doing is essential before meeting with the people. If Puerto Ricans have questions for President Trump, it's essential that he's dealing with the most current and accurate information. Further, I don't want that type of meeting to be filled with people emoting from start to finish. I want that meeting to have the feel of a corporate departmental meeting, with everyone giving their specific reports.
After that briefing, President Trump visited with the people. Whereas he was the Corporate Manager-in-chief when getting briefed, President Trump took that hat off when meeting with the people. This interview illustrates his approach perfectly:
Listen to the empathy and expertise he responded with. "So it was like the cement held but the wood didn't?" When he returns to DC and they start putting the relief package together, I'll bet the proverbial ranch that he'll insist that the rebuilding is done right so it lasts.
After talking about construction, President Trump then spoke with the residents, taking pictures with them and the First Lady. His first question was always "Are you ok?" That was usually followed up with a "We're gonna get you back up and running." The point is that President Trump related to the victims well. It's that the Democrats haven't come close to honestly reporting what he's doing. Democrats haven't stopped whining because they're too into hating President Trump.
Posted Tuesday, October 3, 2017 6:11 PM
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Tim Walz's fundraising appeal
DFL pundits generally think that Tim Walz is the frontrunner to become their party's endorsed candidate for governor. I'm not connected well enough to know whether that's true or not but I know this: it's difficult to picture a candidate with a more cookie-cutter mindset than Rep. Walz.
In his email fundraising appeal, Walz said:
John ,
Let me be blunt with you: This election will determine the direction of Minnesota for a generation.
If Republicans control both houses of the state legislature and the governor's office, they will roll back our state's progressive policies. Everything from women's reproductive rights, to workers' rights, to affordable health care and our environment will be at risk.
That's why we have to do everything we can to make sure we win -- starting with hitting our fundraising goals. We can't afford to fall behind, especially with the Kochs and their allies attacking us through two super PACs already.
If you haven't yet, could you donate before midnight tonight?
Thank you,
Tim
Wow. Where do I start? I guess I'll start with the thought that Rep. Walz sounds like -- well, a Washington insider. Governors and legislators generally don't deal with "women's reproductive rights." Depending on the Supreme Court's ruling on Janus v. AFSCME, states won't have that much say left on unions' rights. The DFL's argument on "affordable health care" just disappeared thanks to this news :
After two years of steep increases, premiums for Minnesotans who buy health coverage outside of their employers will either rise modestly or drop. Average rate changes for the major insurers in the individual market range from a 13 percent cut to a less than 3 percent increase for next year, the Minnesota Commerce Department said Monday as it unveiled rates for health insurance plans Minnesotans buy through insurance agents, directly from insurance companies or through MNsure, the state-sponsored health insurance exchange.
This kills the DFL's attempt to stir up their base who want single-payer. With premiums either shrinking or growing modestly, it's difficult to paint things as being a crisis. Without a crisis, health care reform dies. Whether you like the reinsurance bill or hate it, at least it kills single-payer for the near future. But I digress.
If Tim Walz is the DFL frontrunner to be the DFL's gubernatorial primary winner, which I think he is, then there's no disputing this is a great opportunity to flip Minnesota back into the red column.
Posted Wednesday, October 4, 2017 2:51 AM
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The frantic, solutionless left
I won't question Jimmy Kimmel's sincerity because of his anti-NRA, anti-GOP rant the night after a domestic terrorist with an automatic weapon killed 59 people while wounding over 500 more people. After reading this transcript of Kimmel's monologue, what I will do is demand that he try to propose actual solutions. It isn't good enough to express outrage. If you're going to speak out on the issues of the day, then you'd better have a solution. Ranting to express your outrage is just a waste of time.
What's obvious is that Kimmel hasn't thoroughly thought things through about this. He all but officially admitted it when he said "All these devastated families who now have to live with this pain forever because one person with a violent and insane voice in his head managed to stockpile a collection of high-powered rifles and use them to shoot people. The guy was an accountant; he has no criminal record. His brother who lives in Florida seems totally shocked, genuinely dumbfounded, he said he saw no sign of any of this. The owner of the store that sold the killer some of the rifles said he passed the government-mandated background check when he was in the store."
Everything that Kimmel said is accurate. In other words, all of the well-thought-out policies that have been signed into law throughout the years didn't prevent a depraved individual from killing 59 people. What are the odds that hastily-written new legislation will stop the next depraved individual from killing dozens of people? Passing new laws will help people feel better about themselves because they didn't just do nothing but it won't stop the next killer with a death wish.
Kimmel continued:
He wasn't on any watch list. He didn't seem to have been a religious or political extremist. Came out of nowhere. Because of that, because there weren't any of the usual signs, I've been reading comments from people who say, "This is terrible, but there's nothing we can do about it." But I disagree with that intensely. Because of course there's something we can do about it, there's a lot of things we can do about it.
I'd love hearing Kimmel explain what we could do that would've stopped this mad man. Disagreeing intensely might feel therapeutic for a minute but it isn't a solution.
The point I'm attempting to make is that we've been down this path more times than I'd care to admit. Within minutes of a horrific massacre, Democrats insist that we need new laws. Their policy prescription is virtually always the same thing: universal background checks, banning assault weapons, large capacity clips and bump stocks, banning people with mental disorders from purchasing weapons.
Why do we always go after a maniac's tools rather than going after the maniac? Why don't we attempt to identify the maniacs more proficiently? Why don't we attempt to be a more virtuous society that strives to live up to higher ideals?
I'm tired of getting lectured by the Jimmy Kimmels of the world. I'm tired of people who try treating the symptoms rather than fixing the disease. Attempting to take a maniac's tools away is a fool's errand. If history has taught us anything, it's that depraved individuals will invent new tools to kill with.
On 9/11, terrorists used box cutters and airplanes to kill 3,000 people. In the 1990s, Timothy McVeigh used a truck and some fertilizer to bring down the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The point is that terrorists will always invent new ways to kill people. Anyone thinking that it's possible to eliminate evil from the world isn't dealing from a full deck of cards.
Posted Wednesday, October 4, 2017 4:12 AM
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Trey Gowdy on Vegas shooting
Appearing on Dana Perino's new show (The Daily Briefing), Rep. Trey Gowdy was asked about his position on potential new gun legislation. His reply was thoughtful and the last thing Democrats wanted to hear. It started with Perino quoting from Leah Libresco's op-ed in the Washington Post. Ms. Libresco's op-ed said "My colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States and I became frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people and the case for the policies that I'd lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence."
Next, Ms. Perino asked "I think there might be some people who might be persuadable on gun control legislation if there was any way to point to what could've been done to prevent this if there was a way to not infringe upon people's Second Amendment rights. Maybe we would do that. Where do you see the debate on Capitol Hill after this?"
Chairman Gowdy replied "Well, Dana, I think it's important for your viewers to know that we already have controls on what types of guns you can have and where you can have them, when you can use them and which individuals can even possess a single bullet so the question for me is whether the current controls are adequate and there's 2 fundamental questions you just put your finger on. What law, had it existed at the time, would've prevented this mass killing or another mass killing? What law, but for its lack of implementation, could have prevented this? So that's one question. The other question I want answered is, among the other panoply of gun laws, how are we doing in enforcing them? It is currently illegal for someone who's already been adjudicated as being mentally ill to possess a single bullet. But if you look at DOJ's statistics, you will see very few prosecutions under those laws. So I would ask this Department of Justice the very same questions that I asked of the Department of Justice the last 8 years under President Obama. Before you ask for new tools, convince me that the tools you have now are being fully used and are inadequate. I'll be open to a piece of legislation that tells me 'this won't happen again' but you've got to tell me how you're using the current gun statutes and I was really underwhelmed at the level of prosecutions the last 8 years."
Ms. Libresco's op-ed offers these important insights into the gun control issue:
As for silencers - they deserve that name only in movies, where they reduce gunfire to a soft puick puick. In real life, silencers limit hearing damage for shooters but don't make gunfire dangerously quiet. An AR-15 with a silencer is about as loud as a jackhammer. Magazine limits were a little more promising, but a practiced shooter could still change magazines so fast as to make the limit meaningless .
The depraved domestic terrorist that killed 59 and wounded over 500 others was a skilled rifleman. It's apparent that he'd meticulously pre-planned this attack. I'd be surprised if he hadn't trained extensively for his killing spree. Nothing about this horrific event sounds like the work of an amateur.
Republicans should tell Democrats the things that Chairman Gowdy told Dana Perino. If they did that, they'd silence the gun control debate in minutes.
Posted Wednesday, October 4, 2017 3:44 PM
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