This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Politics

  • DC’s Mayor Fenty speaks out against citizen’s rights

    Everyone knows by now that, in a rare act of confidence in DC residents, the DC Circuit Court struck down the District’s draconian 1976 gun law that forbade citizen-owned handguns and only allowed owners to have rifles in their home (not shotguns, rifles) if the rifle was disassembled and separated from it’s ammunition.

    According to Washington Time’s Tarron Lively and Daniel Taylor, newly-elected Mayor Adrian Fenty (that’s him on the left in the picture above) was “outraged”;

    D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said he was “outraged” by the court’s decision, which overturns a law that “has been unquestioned for more than 30 years.”
        “Today’s decision flies in the face of laws that have helped decrease gun violence in the District of Columbia,” he said. “The ruling also turns aside longstanding precedents and marks the first time in the history of the United States that a federal appeals court has struck down a gun law on Second Amendment grounds.”

    Scott McCabe of the DC Examiner quoted the new mayor;

    “I am strongly opposed to the court’s decision,” Fenty said. “District residents deserve every protection afforded to them under District law.”

    The District has banned handgun ownership since 1976. In 2004, a lower-court judge told six D.C. residents that they did not have a constitutional right to own handguns.

    I’d remind Mayor Fenty that the longevity of a law doesn’t neccessarily protect it from challenge. Otherwise slavery and Jim Crow Laws would be common practice since they were unchallenged for decades. As for helping keep DC gun violence down, according to the Metro DC police’s own count, they’ve confiscated 9046 guns since 2002. I’m guessing that they’re only scratching the surface of illegal guns in the hands of criminals in the District. There have been 30 murders in DC already this year – that’s over 3 per week.

    According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,  209 kids (between the ages of 0-19) were murdered by gun violence 1999-2004 in our nation’s capitol. Doesn’t sound like this law has been doing much good. Nor does it sound like the District can protect it’s half-million citizens with the eight thousand law enforcement officials on patrol from various local and Federal agencies in this city.

    Crime has been on the rise over the past two years in DC and it’s largely because the law-abiding population isn’t armed and the criminals are armed. Car-jackings and home invasions are becoming more prevailant – two crimes that would virtually end if criminals weren’t quite so sure that their intended victims are unarmed.

    We moved from Northeast DC last year because crime was becoming a daily event in our neighborhood – gun crime. Two people were shot on different occasions in our upscale apartment complex. Two carjackings at gunpoint and a home invasion at knifepoint finally drove us to the suburbs. Having my Ruger Mini-14 in the closet was some comfort, But not being able to brandish it in an emergency was becoming a concern. I can only imagine the nightmare of a trial I would be forced to endure if I’d actually shot an intruder.

    And just because another court has never struck down a gun law on Second Amedment grounds, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be struck down. That’s what the Bill of Rights is supposed to do, Junior. It’s supposed to protect the minority from the ill-considered over-reactive policies of the majority.

    The Washington Post does it’s level best to paint the plaintiffs in this case as right-wing gun nuts;

    Gura declined to say how he assembled the plaintiffs, who came to the case with different backgrounds and motivations.

    Some of the plaintiffs grew up with guns in and around their homes and belong to the National Rifle Association. A few are involved with libertarian organizations, including the Cato Institute, which provided legal assistance in the lawsuit.

    To us on the Right it sounds innocuous enough, but to the Leftists in DC (who voted 90% for Kerry in the 2004 election) invoking the boogey-creatures the NRA and Cato Institute (which a DC resident recently explained to me was a front organization for the KKK) is fear-mongering. This case (to which I’ve contributed money since 2003) didn’t garner much attention outside the Cato Institute’s membership and the Washington Times until this court decision. I suppose it’ll take front-and-center in the gun-grabbing Washington Post’s columns from now on, though.

    Yesterday, their editorial board called it a “Dangerous Ruling“;

    IN OVERTURNING the District of Columbia’s long-standing ban on handguns yesterday, a federal appeals court turned its back on nearly 70 years of Supreme Court precedent to give a new and dangerous meaning to the Second Amendment. If allowed to stand, this radical ruling will inevitably mean more people killed and wounded as keeping guns out of the city becomes harder. Moreover, if the legal principles used in the decision are applied nationally, every gun control law on the books would be imperiled.

    The 2 to 1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down sections of a 1976 law that bans city residents from having handguns in their homes. The court also overturned the law’s requirement that shotguns and rifles be stored disassembled or with trigger locks. The court grounded its unprecedented ruling in the finding that the Second Amendment right to bear arms extends beyond militias to individuals. The activities the Second Amendment protects, the judges wrote, “are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or continued intermittent enrollment in the militia.”

    Never before has a law been struck down on that basis. The Supreme Court, in its landmark 1939 decision United States v. Miller, stated that the Second Amendment was adopted “with obvious purpose” of protecting the ability of states to organize militias and “must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.” Nearly every other federal court of appeals has concurred in that finding. The dissenting judge in yesterday’s opinion, Karen LeCraft Henderson, a Republican appointee like the other two judges on the panel, rightly lambasted the majority for its willful disregard of Supreme Court precedent.

    Yep, never before has the court ruled that a basic God-given right of an individual is to protect his property and his family. Way to misinterpret the Constitution, goofballs. I wonder if any of the members of WaPo’s editorial board or Mayor Fenty own guns, or if any of the people who protect them have guns. Don’t the rest of us deserve the same level of security?

  • Liberal Idiot Queen Maxine Waters

     

    The biggest of David Obey’s “liberal idiots”, Maxine Waters, the mouthpiece of the “Out of Iraq” Caucus was on Fox News Sunday this morning illustrating perfectly why the Left is so disengenuous about the whole Iraq War. She made a big point of announcing that Waters’ and Murtha’s slow bleed legislation is designed specifically to distance the Democrats from the Presient and shifting the whole load of responsibility onto the Administration. She even used the words “embarrass the President” when referring to the optional waivers he could use to certify combat units.

    But when confronted with Chris Wallace’s scenario that our abrupt exit from Iraq would bathe Iraq in blood with fractious fighting between Sunnis and Shi’ites, Waters said she and her tiny group of liberal idiots wouldn’t be opposed to an “over the horizon” force of American soldiers that could return and separate the warring factions. Do Democrats really mean that? They certainly didn’t mean it when they promised to protect the South Vietnamese from the Communists after US withdrawal. What have they done to keep their word to Somalians and Haitians?

    No, once we’re out, they won’t allow us to go back. It’s just empty blather from Congress’ Queen of Empty Blather. How do I know? Check out this Washington Post recitation from a meeting between Nancy Pelosi and Jerry “The Waddler” Nadler last week;

    A Pelosi aide disappeared from the meeting for a few minutes and returned with a few lines of legislative text offering what Nadler wanted to hear: Once troops are out of Iraq, no money would be available to put them back in, outside the narrow exceptions of targeted counterterrorism operations, embassy protection and efforts to train Iraqis.

    “You know,” Nadler said after a pause, “I think that’s okay.”

    Waters went on to say that the November election was about Americans wanting Democrats to extricate us from Iraq, she lied that every poll since reflects that sentiment. She’s in for a rude awakening next year. Especially if Democrats get their way and abandon the troops and their mission in Iraq.

  • Seinfeld politics

    In one episode of the 90s hit comedy series Seinfeld, George Costanza defends his liking for for one of Jerry’s stand-up comic competitors, Kenny Bania, with the line “I like stuff you don’t have to think about”. Dana Milbank, columnist for the Washington Post endorses Hillary Clinton as George Costanza’s candidate;

    Are you in it to win? Would you regard civil rights as the gift that keeps on giving? Do you believe in the American Dream, stupid?

    If you answered yes to any of the above, you might consider supporting Hillary Clinton, the person to send to the White House when you care enough to send the very best. More than any other candidate, Clinton has brought the sensibility of Hallmark greeting cards to the 2008 presidential race.

    Yesterday, the Democratic front-runner took a number of provocative stands as she spoke about soldiers and veterans at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank:

    “If you serve your country, your country should serve you.”

    “I’m here to say that the buck does stop with this president.”

    “Let us work . . . to take care of those who are taking care of us.”

    The controversy didn’t end there. She also offered her view that American soldiers are simultaneously “giving their all,” “holding their breath” and “stretched to the breaking point.” Candidate Cliche continued: “Who’s on their side? Who’s standing up for them? . . . We owe these young men and women the very best.”

    We do not owe them the very best rhetoric, however. Abraham Lincoln gave the last full measure of devotion to support-the-troops language 142 years ago, when he called on the nation “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.” Yesterday, Clinton had this to say of the troops: “They don’t have the luxury of passing the buck to somebody else. They step forward and they step up.”

    While I let Milbanks deal with Clinton’s sloganeering for the mindless, slobbering morons who salivate at the thought of another shallow, empty pantsuit-wearing Clinton occupying the White House, I’d prefer to deal with her “support” for the troops.

    I guess that we should nevermind the walk of the Clintons, as opposed to the talk of the Clintons. Like when the Joint Operations Training Center in Fort Polk, Louisiana was converted from the premier warfighting simulation training to the “Meals-on-Wheels” training area for the various and sundry “nation-building” exercises that the Clinton Administration inflicted on our soldiers.

    From Haiti to Kosova to East Timor, the rapid deployment forces that had been honed to a fine edge pre-Clinton, were relegated to handing out bags of rice and beans. The specially trained and motivated 10th Mountain Division could count on the deployment of half of their 10,000 troops at any given time either in “nationbuilding” exercises or in preparation for the deployment at the JOTC.

    Troops and their families were stretched to their limits in the 90s, and for what? For a Clinton legacy. This was despite the fact that they all knew that their commander “disdained” them and their profession. They all knew that military liasons to their commander weren’t allowed to wear their uniforms, the distinctive symbol of their dedication and commitment to this nation, in his sight.

    They all knew that Hillary Clinton had made up some story about attempting to join the Marines in the 60s and being turned down because she was (is?) a girl – an obvious attempt at demeaning recruiters, in particular, and military men, in general.

    But, hey, as long as she can speak in empty platitudes about stuff we don’t have to think about too hard, she’s our candidate.

  • Democrats confused by their own “plan”

    According to Washington Time’s Christina Bellantoni, the Democrats have so many “plans” they can’t even keep them straight any more;

    Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, of the Out of Iraq Caucus could hardly keep the details straight as she attempted to excoriate the plan proposed by her Democratic leaders.
        “What they say is, if in fact there is no progress that we will pull out, if they can’t certify by October, by December, but if there is progress, if they are doing well, we will stay,” she said. “This would eventually get us out perhaps by March. The latest we would get out I guess with another progress report, or certification, by August of 1980.”

    Yup, 1980. I guess Marxist Maxine isn’t getting senile much.

    So let’s listen (or read, rather) to Nancy Pelosi’s explanation;

    After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi carefully detailed the Democrats’ suggested benchmarks and requirements for President Bush to ensure that U.S. troops are fully ready before being sent to Iraq, reporters peppered her with questions to try and get the point.
        “I’m confused,” one reporter told the speaker.
        “OK, well, let’s try again,” the California Democrat responded. “If the president cannot demonstrate that progress has been made in reaching the benchmarks which he, President Bush, has established by July 1 of 2007, we begin — the 180-day period of redeployment begins, to be finished in 180 days.”
        But, what happens between July 1 and Oct. 1? the scribe asked. 
       “If the president shows that progress is being made on July 1, say he can certify that, then we …”
        “All he has to do is say progress is being made?” the perplexed reporter interrupted.
        “Well, he has to certify and demonstrate that it has been. If he cannot — if he does that, that takes us to October 1, where we want to see the completion of those benchmarks. If that is not achieved, the 180 days begins.”
        Some in the room giggled.
        Exasperated, she concluded: “No matter what, by March 2008, the redeployment begins.”

    Got that? Me neither.

    Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal describes Peolsi’s dilemma;

    Ms. Pelosi has been backed into a tight corner over President Bush’s $100 billion request for war funding. Hoping to quell a revolt from a liberal bloc that wants out of Iraq, pronto, the speaker unveiled a new, new plan yesterday that includes a timetable for withdrawal — to begin as early as July. Ms. Pelosi needs to win this vote, the first real showdown over Iraq. But it’s becoming increasingly clear she can only do that by sacrificing her moderate wing, which opposes her plan and could pay heavily for it in next year’s election.

    Maybe it’s because the Democrats don’t know why they won the Novemeber election. They’d like to think it’s because of the war – that would be the easiest answer. But, I’ve always held that they won because republican Congress was acting too much like a Democrat Congress and it angered Republican voters. But Democrats would have to give up their “mandate from the voters” in order to admit that scenario.

    So we bloggers will get two more years of foundering Democrats to point at and laugh.

  • Democrats push timetable

    According to an AP story in the DC Examiner the Democrats will push for a Fall ’08 withdrawal from Iraq;

    In a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats announced Thursday that they will push legislation setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

    The Democratic plan, said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, will bring an “orderly and responsible close” to American participation in Iraq’s “civil war.”

    Any other information they want to give al Qaida? And why did Democrats wait to announce this just as the President leaves the country for delicate talks with our allies to the South? Is this their way of undermining those efforts, too?

    Now the Islamic world can just sit back and relax, rebuild and train; they have the schedule. And I wonder why Democrats chose Fall of 2008 as their exit date. What’s happening then?  Why didn’t they really display their cojones and push for Fall 2007? Maybe because Iraq would be bathed in fire by the time elections rolled around if they had and they’d have to admit that they don’t know squat about dealing with terrorists during an election.

    The Washington Post writes about the anguished Democrats;

    Even in her conservative Kansas district, calls and letters to freshman House Democrat Nancy Boyda show a constituency overwhelmingly ready for U.S. troops to come home from Iraq.

    Yet as the House nears a legislative showdown on the war, Boyda finds herself wracked with doubts. She is convinced that Congress must intervene to stop the war, but is fearful of the chaos that a quick U.S. pullout could prompt. “Congress has an obligation to do something,” Boyda said. But she is unsure what to do, worried about anything that “affects commanders on the ground.”

    Yeah, I can see how much they care about the commanders on the ground.

    Meanwhile, attacks in Iraq are down 80% according to the World Tribune. i wonder if attacks down because they know they can just wait us out – or wait Congress out.

  • Advice from the Oracle of the Ozarks

    Last week, that economic guru Hillary Clinton warned that the sudden drop in market value, had exposed the fact that we’re too heavily invested in Asian growth – specifically that of China. Now, granted, she had turned a $10 thousand investment into a hundred grand in the span of a few days in the 80s, but her understanding of capital and investment markets, if at all like her husband’s seems woefully immature.

    I remember that Bill Clinton declared the business cycle officially dead in 1997 proclaiming that his administration had successfully ended the ups and downs of market investing. Luckily, the brokerage houses didn’t close their doors on the announcement. Within a few years, the markets were headed south during his administration when investors discovered that the Clinton Administration intended to indict Microsoft in March 2000 and despite all of the yammering to the contrary, that administration wasn’t pro-business afterall. 

    Of course they covered up the impending recession with totally unfounded claims that the Republican presidential candidates were “talking down” the markets. The economy was failing because of heavy taxation and a restrictive governmental environment and no amount of “talking up” was going to fix it. Business cycles were saved. 

    I also remember in the eighties when all of the media outlets and Democrats were wringing their hands over the Japanese buying up our real estate. Everyone was so worried that the Japanese would buy up the whole country. Then the Japanese investors took a bath when the bottom fell out of the bond and real estate markets. They lost billions of dollars which impacted their economy heavily causing banking and investment reforms in Japan. And Americans still own the United States. 

    Anyone who had the least bit of interest in the markets over the past few years knows that Asia has been making a load of money for those intrepid enough to invest there. Anyone with any common sense would realize that markets that go up, eventually come down. Pretty simple rule, huh? That’s why I pulled most of my international investments last summer. When markets as volatile as the Asian markets have been cooking for too long, it’s time to get out. Anyone paying attention to the tech market in the 90s knows that. 

    So what if the Chinese are buying our debt in the form of bonds? Bonds haven’t been priced all that well lately and prices have room to fall. Its the Chinese that have to worry, not us. But you can’t explain that to communists – the ones in China or the ones here running for President. 

    And when the Asian market was foundering last week, where did Asian investors put their money? In the US stock and capital markets. 

  • Getting stuff off my chest today

    Nothing going on today – except that Congress is having global warming hearings while the global warming is clogging our streets here in DC. Maybe they should schedule hearings in July when they might be more convincing.

    I guess everyone is mad that Ann Coulter insinuated that John Edwards might be a “faggot” (her word, not mine). I’ve been reading about it everywhere. Everyone seems mighty upset about it. But I haven’t seen anyone say that he’s not. Wonder why.

    And some goofus was smuggling a big magnet in his rectum on a cross-country flight. A magnet and some wires. And his bags went on the flight without him. I don’t care if he was doing something illegal or not, he’s up to something that no one else I know would be up to – he bears watching. He’s coming your way, Philly.

    Thank goodness the Libby trial is over. It gives the Washington Post something to put on the front page besides trashing Walter Reed. Paul Kane couldn’t help but mention it in his blog, though. Today he’s cheering on the “victorious” Democrats and their 81 (so far) oversight hearings on the Iraq War. I guess that the Democrats have been doing so much backpedaling on thier campaign promises, they need a cheerleader sometimes.

    “America voted for change in November. This is just the beginning,” Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a member of the Democratic leadership, declared in a Tuesday morning House floor speech. “What a difference a year makes.”

    How’s that Rahm? What difference is there in Congress? Just different incoherent yammering is all.

    Meanwhile, the President is delivering the good news from Iraq to the people since the Mainstream Media won’t.

    Spoke too soon; the Washington Post couldn’t help themselves. They had to put a Walter Reed story on the front page at 1:32 pm. Sure, it’s the same Dole/Shalala story recyled from yesterday…I guess they felt naked without it. What a bunch of…oh, look at the time – I’m late for rehab.

  • Will all of you retired people please stay at home

    I work in an office that has been around for more than 70 years and many of the people that worked here when I started here had been around about half that time. Luckily, they’ve retired. Unluckily, they still come back and kibutz and advise us when their days aren’t as full as they’d like.

    You know what I mean right? After all, we have national examples. Jimmy Carter, for one. I just “googled” “Jimmy Carter criticizes” and got 325,000 results. I guess being the worst president in history isn’t enough for one lifetime.

    Another example is Alan Greenspan who sent world financial markets into a spin last week with his “recession is possible…” comment, can’t seem to shut up. 28 minutes ago, Bloomberg put up a story that reports Greenspan just said that there’s a 1/3 chance of recession this year (whatever the Hell that means) – and they called it “update 1”. Alan, go home and hug your wife and watch some Judge Judy. You have enough money, you don’t need the attention anymore so why do you want to pester us – and poor Ben Bernanke?

    And if that’s not enough, four has-been Senate majority leaders are forming a “bi-partisan” advisory group”.

    The Bipartisan Policy Center, to be announced at a news conference Tuesday, will be directed by former Sens. Howard Baker, R-Tenn.; George Mitchell, D-Maine; Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

    “We’ve all been leaders and you know how difficult it is,” said Dole, who served as both majority and minority leader between 1985 and 1996. “We’re all partisan in a way,” Dole said in an interview Monday, adding they also hope to show that “compromise is not a bad word.”

    Mitchell, who led the Senate from 1989 to 1995, added, “If the four of us can reach consensus in some areas it might have a beneficial effect.”

    What, for Pete’s sake could this cabal of politicians who are no longer in office possibly offer the world besides worthless opions. If I’m subjected to Tom Dascle’s “I’m concerned…” one more time, I’ll have to track him down and put a boot in his behind. 

    You can bet that when I finally retire again, I’ll not pester any-damn-body with my opinions – well, except here, of course.