OBAMA’S SPEECH: Too Little, Too Late. “Obama’s decision to deliver his third-ever Oval Office address is a tacit admission that even the White House knows the president is losing the trust of voters. His stubborn refusal to call the killings a terrorist act — in the face of clear evidence that convinced even the FBI — is just the latest in a pattern of denial.”
Archive for 2015
December 6, 2015
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: The New York Times Deploys ‘Stray Voltage.’
Because when people are talking about gun control, they’re not talking about Obama’s many failures, ranging from the failures of vetting and counterterrorism that may have led to the San Bernardino attacks themselves, to Obama’s foreign policy debacles in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, to how the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag campaign against Boko Haram accomplished nothing, to how Putin is running wild in Eastern Europe, to Obama’s plans to import more poorly-vetted refugees from Muslim countries that foment terror or the still-anemic economy that has left far too many Americans unemployed or underemployed despite years of “recovery.”
Those are all things that the Obama Administration — and the Hillary Clinton campaign — don’t want to talk about. So the editorial board of the Times has pulled out all the stops to ensure that we talk about gun control instead. Gun control isn’t a great issue for the Democrats, but it’s better than all those other topics of discussion, and the expected angry response from the gun-rights community will ensure that people aren’t talking about topics that make the White House look bad.
Expect more of the same from Obama tonight.
UPDATE: Yeah, that’s what we got.
FRED BARNES: The President’s Scary Speech.
The Slate headline looks like parody, but isn’t: Obama: Increasing Gun Control, Rejecting Islamophobia Are Key to Combating Terrorism.
LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL: The Fairness In Firearms Act.
CLINT EASTWOOD IS A PROPHET:
FLASHBACK: To Hell With You People.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: The Calm, Gentle Rise of Snugglers for Hire. “Samantha Hess and Becky Rodrigues are paid to hug people. Cuddlers for hire, they will hold clients close, in a platonic manner, for $60 to $80 an hour. If being held by a stranger doesn’t sound appealing, there are also platonic friends for rent. They will be happy to meet for dinner, go shopping, or just take a walk, for a fee.”
BECAUSE IT MOSTLY WENT FOR GRAFT AND FEATHERBEDDING? Newark Schools Spent $18,208 Per Pupil Last Year. So Why Are They In ‘Extreme Chronic Fiscal Distress?’
AT AMAZON, 25% off Select Clothing and Fashion.
THE ARSENAL IS AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE. WHAT HE DID WITH IT, NOT SO MUCH. But when even The Nation is publishing articles like this, the market for NYT-style gun hysteria would seem to be small:
Many in the media say it suggests a level of planning typical of terrorists. But, in fact, millions of Americans have that kind of “arsenal” at home. The AR-15 is the most popular gun in America—around 8 million have been sold. Two thousand five hundred rounds of ammo for the AR-15 seems horrifying to an anti-gun, middle-class liberal like me—that’s enough bullets to kill 2,500 people!—but, in fact, ammo is sold in 1,000-round boxes, and it’s not unusual for gun owners to buy several boxes when the price is low.
I asked Marc Cooper about it—he’s an award-winning journalist and a friend who’s also a gun person. Two thousand five hundred rounds? “Believe it or not, these are modest amounts of ammo,” he told me. “A gun hobbyist, a target shooter, can easily go through 500 rounds in one two-hour visit to the range. The amount found in this guy’s apartment in no way by itself indicates anything strange.”
Another friend said, “It’s like buying 48 rolls of toilet paper when you go to Costco.”
If possessing two AR-15s and 2,500 rounds of ammo makes you a terror suspect, then we need to investigate several million Americans, most of whom are older white men—and Republicans.
Well, that’s actually what the media hysteria is aiming toward, of course.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Yale lecturer whose email ignited a debate about racism has decided not to teach there in the future.
AMERICA’S STASI: “In a new low even for the New York Daily News, which recently branded NRA chief Wayne LaPierre a terrorist, columnist Linda Stasi has penned a vile column justifying the San Bernardino jihad murders, saying that one of the victims was ‘the male equivalent of Pamela Geller.'”
Related: Stasi Sees Social Media Backlash After Saying San Bernardino Victim Had It Coming.
Earlier: The toxic implication that Geller had her terror attack in Texas coming, back in May.
HOWIE CARR ON Elizabeth Warren and Native American Heritage Month.
You’ve heard of Sitting Bull? Sen. Warren is Spreading Bull.
Back to Native American Heritage Month, highlighted by Heritage Day, which was last Thursday. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who I’m fairly certain is not Seminole despite her Florida residence, put out a press release:
“As Americans, we recognize the rich and vibrant cultures of America’s first peoples. …”
Well, some of us do. But not, apparently, Sen. Lieawatha. I checked out her Senatorial website and guess what — no press releases about Native American Heritage Month. . . .
Surely America’s first female Native American senator is familiar with her people’s history. Oddly, my call was not returned. Meanwhile, Granny’s old employer, Harvard Law School, which once touted her as its first “woman of color,” is now embroiled in a controversy over whether the seal of the school is racist. Don’t ask why, it’s not worth getting into.
Guess who has been appointed to chair the committee to decide if — when? — the school should get rid of its “racist” crest. The chairman is none other than Bruce Mann, aka Mr. Granny Warren.
I placed another call to the senator’s teepee in D.C. This time I asked whether, if after getting rid of those racist sheaves of wheat on the seal, Professor Mann will take up the continuing scandal of greedy white people claiming Indian heritage to get tenured positions paying them $350,000 a year to teach one course, after which they no longer claim to be Indian and instead say they’re “Okie to their toes.” (OK, that last part I was just thinking.)
Once again, nobody called me back. Some Native American Heritage Month this turned out to be for me!
Heh.
HOT AIR’S ED MORRISSEY AT THE MOVING TARGET RANGE AT ROUGH CREEK DURING BULLETS & BOURBON YESTERDAY:
Hard to tell, but I think he was having fun…
COMPETENCE: U.S. Intel to Obama: ISIS Is Not Contained.
I’M GUESSING IT’LL BE US. YOU KNOW, SAME AS USUAL. The President may be declaring war on someone tonight… but who?
Related: President Obama Dogged By Credibility Gap. Well, when you say you’re at war with ISIS, but you only sound angry at Republicans, people notice.
SIX PREDICTIONS FOR OBAMA’S SPEECH TONIGHT, from Neo-Neocon.
BOY, STARTING WITH ROGER SIMON AND LOOKING ACROSS TWITTER AND FACEBOOK, AN AWFUL LOT OF PEOPLE ARE JOINING THE NRA in anticipation of Obama’s speech and “executive orders.” Won’t you feel silly when he announces a new program of tax credits to ensure that every citizen can be armed!
Seriously, other groups like the Gun Owners of America and the Second Amendment Foundation are worth your time, but the NRA is the big kahuna in this battle. Me, I’m a Life Member.
WELL, IT’LL BE QUICK OFF THE LINE IF THEY DO: Is Porsche About to Introduce an Electric 911?
OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: A ‘machete-wielding’ man slashed a Tube passenger’s throat at a London station as he screamed “This is what happens when you f*** with mother Syria, all of your blood will be spilled:”
Commander Richard Walton, who leads the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said:
“We are treating this as a terrorist incident. I would urge the public to remain calm, but alert and vigilant. The threat from terrorism remains at severe, which means that a terrorist attack is highly likely.”
At this point, I would be tempted to snark that having already disarmed and cowed its citizens to the point where they’re quoted in the media as saying, “I was frightened to defend myself; I thought if I did anything I would be arrested,” at this point, England really needs strict knife control.
But they’ve already got that: “Save a Life, Surrender Your Knife.”
Evidently, the excitable chap on the tube never received that memo.
ERICK ERICKSON: Well, Now We Know the President Has Turned a Blind Eye to Domestic Terrorism to Advance His Gun Control Agenda:
We now know from media reports that the President intends to call for gun control. He may even try by executive order.
This was the plan all along. Just like Europe.
Get Americans worried and fearful about terrorism, show that the government is incapable of dealing effectively with it, then declare that the only solution is to round up guns so terrorists cannot get them.
It is all by design. The President never had any intention of working aggressively to stop domestic terrorism. He needed it to fester and call it something else, just as he needs problems with Obamacare to fester to get to single payer, in order to curtail our freedoms.
Read the whole thing. And then check out Erickson’s reminder to the New York Times of the real definition of “gun control.”
Related: Roger Simon on How the ‘New York Times’ and Loretta Lynch Made Me Join the NRA.
(Via Ace of Spades.)