Obama Gives Cold Shoulder To Egyptian Secular Democrats

Michael Meunier is the President of Al Haya Party in Egypt. He is the founder of the U.S. Copts Association and a democracy, human rights and religious freedom activist.  He wrote the following:

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Egypt last July, she was met with widespread protest from Coptic Christians and secular activists objecting to what they all believed was the Obama administration's role in helping the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) ascend to power in Egypt. The secretary asked to meet with 10 Christian leaders, myself included. All of those invited refused to meet with her and boycotted her visit. Most of us had been both publically and privately warning members of Congress and the administration of the danger the Muslims Brotherhood poses and about their desire to turn Egypt into a theocratic Islamic fascist country. Yet we were ignored. Going back to April 2007, Democrats made special efforts to link up with the MB when visiting then-House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., met with Saad el-Katatni, the MB's parliamentary leader, at former U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone's home, at a time when then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has publically refused to meet with the Brotherhood. Mr. Ricciardone, who I can call a friend, once told me that his friendship with another MB leader, Essam El- Erian, extended for close to 30 years. Perhaps that was the catalyst for this meeting and subsequent meetings that took place at his residence. A stream of meetings, as well as public and private contacts, followed between current U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson and Brotherhood members since her arrival in Egypt shortly after the revolution. The ambassador seemed to favor the Brotherhood and the hard line Salafis over the rest of the secular players in Egypt. In fact, she has turned down requests for meetings from heads of political parties and other secular politicians, myself included, who oppose the Brotherhood. Other U.S. officials such as Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Sen. John Kerry made the pilgrimage to MB headquarters and made sure to meet with their shadowy influential leader, Khairat El-Shater, at times even publicly praising him Kerry did. Those visits were made during a time where no political group had emerged as a leader in post-revolution Egypt. The MB used these high-level meetings to tell the Egyptian people that the U.S. is supporting them and does not object to their rule. Many of us reached out to U.S. officials at the State Department and complained that the U.S. policy regarding the MB was putting the secular forces in Egypt at a disadvantage because it seemed to be propping the MB, but our concerns were dismissed. We warned of the MB's desire to impose Sharia law once in power and the grim effect it would have on the rights of the millions of Christians and moderate Muslims, and on women and children, yet all of our warnings were dismissed. It seems that a policy decision was made to bring the MB to power in Egypt at all costs, and it happened. After less than six months in office, President Mohamed Morsi issued an edict exempting his decrees from judicial review, and he is now forcing Egyptians to vote on a constitution that would impose Sharia law, violate human rights and religious freedom of Christians, degrade women, regulate child labor and kill the tourism industry for violating Islamic Sharia. Youth and large portions of the Egyptian population responded to the president's new powers and draft of the constitution by taking to the streets and surrounding the presidential palace in protest. Morsi then sent his own armed militia to attack the protesters with numerous weapons including shotguns, swords and firebombs. The Brotherhood militia killed 10 people, wounded hundreds and kidnapped top youth activists, and tortured them inside the presidential palace for two days before turning them over to the police. As the Supreme Constitutional Court was poised to dissolve the constitutional assembly, Morsi again sent his Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi militias to besiege the courthouse and prevent the judges from entering the building. Upon arrival, the judges were turned away by the militia after their lives had been threatened, and to this day the militias are still surrounding the courthouse preventing the judges from meeting. The president wanted to prevent the court from dissolving the assembly until after he pushes the referendum through and the constitution becomes effective. Morsi again sent his armed militia to burn down the opposition Al-Wafd Party headquarters in response to the opposition and media stepping up their protests and criticism of the constitution, which large numbers of Egyptians reject and view as a setback for freedom. They demolished cars and fired shots at the Al-Wafd Party, which is the oldest secular party in Egypt. Another set of Morsi's militia besieged "Media City" where most of the independent TV channels are located. The militia attacked TV anchors known to disagree with Morsi and prevented TV guests who are known to oppose Morsi from entering the city, so they could not appear on TV and criticize the referendum. Simultaneously, another group of the Morsi's militia attacked the headquarters of newspapers knowing to oppose Morsi and the referendum. The Al-Watan newspaper was among the newspapers whose editor-in-chief went on TV to appeal to the president to stop his militia from attacking reporters and the newspaper building. Through this all, President Obama's position amounts to, "This is an internal matter and we leave to the Egyptian people to sort out!!" What the Brotherhood is doing in Egypt is holding a gun to the head of its opposition trying to pass a constitution that so far failed to garner a greater support among Egyptians. Once that becomes the law of the land, the race is on to turn Egypt into another theocracy headed by an Islamist fascist regime that soon after will threaten the security of the free world. At the heart of it is the Obama administration and its failed foreign policy, and what I see as the desire to destroy moderate Egypt and turn it over to the fanatic elements of the society, creating a monster that will turn on its creator.

Tweet

MPAA Chief: Hollywood “Stands Ready” To Talk About Violence

 Announced yesterday:

MPAA topper Chris Dodd has offered his condolences to the families of Friday’s shooting victims, marking the org’s first public statement since the killings that have heated up the national conversation about gun violence and the media. “As a citizen of Connecticut and having represented the people there for 36 years in Washington, I have been shocked and profoundly saddened by this tragedy. My heart goes out to the community as I know they will carry this pain with them long after the spotlight on Newtown has dimmed,” Dodd said in a statement issued Thursday. “As chairman of the MPAA and on behalf of the motion picture and television studios we represent, we join all Americans in expressing our sympathy as well as our horror and outrage at this senseless act of violence. Thus, I have reached out to the Administration to express our support for the President’s efforts in the wake of the Newtown tragedy. Those of us in the motion picture and television industry want to do our part to help America heal. We stand ready to be part of the national conversation.”

Tweet

NRA's Wayne LaPierre Holds Press Conference: "The Only Thing That Stops A Bad Guy With A Gun, Is A Good Guy With A Gun"

Tweet

Jesse Ventura Puts Piers Morgan In His Place On Second Amendment

Jesse Ventura, who often sounds nuts, is able in this segment to get the audience to back him over Piers Morgan and support gun rights: Tweet

Taliban Murders Nine Aid Workers Providing Polio Vaccine In Pakistan

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tweet

Senator Jim Demint's Farewell Address

Tweet

S.E. Cupp Shuts Down Touré Over Whether NRA Wants More Massacres, Mentally Ill To Have Access To Guns

Tweet

Gun Control Debate On Fox News Special Report

Tweet

George Will: Stronger Gun Control Laws Won't Help

Tweet

Mark Levin On Anti-Gun Politicians And Media Leading "Conversation" On Gun Control

Tweet

Law Professor Adam Winkler And Economist John Lott Debate Gun Control After Sandy Hook Massacre

Tweet

Gun Control, Gun Free Zones, Non-Gun Issues, And The Newtown, CT Sandy Hook Massacre

There has been much talk recently about gun control and gun free zones in light of the tragic evil perpetrated in Newtown, Connecticut. Each issue must be discussed seperately.

The Danger of Gun Free Zones

All the multiple victim public shootings (three or more deaths) since 1950 (except for one, i.e., the Gabby Giffords shooting where a concealed carry holder was very close to using his weapon to confront the killer but didn't end up having to) have occurred in an area where guns are banned. That is not a coincidence. A gun is needed to take down a mass-shooter, either by his own hand or in the hands of the innocent (citizen or law enforcement). A gun (or bomb) certainly makes it easier to kill 27 people. Too often, instead of having an armed citizenry with more concealed carry, the victims have to wait like sitting ducks for law enforcement to arrive, which means more death. That's what happened in Newtown, where the shooter was only taken out by his own weapon (the moment he heard first responders closing in). In choosing a soft target like an elementary school, this monster was bound to massacre the amounts he did. It's not the sort of target that is typically going to have anyone else around with any firepower, either citizen or security. In fact, many schools are by law considered "gun free zones," so in choosing this target in Connecticut which was by law a "gun free zone" he was certain there would be no opposition. This sorry excuse for a man that committed the heinous and cowardly Newtown massacre is a monster. And law-abiding citizens should be allowed guns, including the right to carry them, to protect themselves from monsters, in line with the Second Amendment. 

Law-abiding citizens carrying firearms is not the same as devolving into the Wild West, as is heard so often from the anti-gun crowd. That rhetoric is not based in reality. For example, Florida just recently announced that it has over 1,000,000 licensed concealed carry holders in the State, the first State to surpass that mark. Yet the simple reality is that Florida has not devolved into the O.K. Corral with gunfights at every street-corner. Is anyone against concealed carry, and who fears gun ownership, actually afraid of visiting Florida after learning of this fact? Of course not, because even they know that law-abiding citizens are not the actual threat. Even the mere presence of firearms, or the potential presence of firearms, deters the mass murderer. Does anyone seriously believe it is a coincidence that "gun free zones" are selected as targets in practically every instance? 

UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, “We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as 2-and-a-half or 3 million. We don’t know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it’s not a trivial number.” Criminologist Gary Kleck estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns to defend themselves each year. Out of that number, 400,000 believe that but for their firearms, they would have been dead. The point here is not to start arguing the statistics, or engage in a war of experts. It is only to show that, at the very least, it's not as you might hear from the anti-gun crowd, as the assertion that guns "cause more problems than they solve" is not so simple at all.

The St. Louis Police Chief recommends arming civilian school personnel. That's because licensed and approved school personnel with weapons would not automatically mean more death. It would mean more lives saved. A school in Texas has had guns on its campus for three years without incident, from within the school or from outside it. That school in Texas serves as an example that it can indeed work (and is quite smart given how far they are from law enforcement arrival). It could, as it has in the past, save lives, and it could deter the murderer from choosing the target in the first place. Many millions of people possess concealed carry permits in the States that allow it more liberally, and they are not in utter chaos as anti-gun advocates would have you believe. 

Some will tell you that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens at schools would never help save lives in such instances. The problem is that there are examples that prove otherwise. For example, in Pearl, Mississippi in 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned to death his mother at home, then killed two students and injured seven at his high school when he came to school with a gun. As he was leaving the school, he was stopped by Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who had gone out to get a handgun from his own car. In Edinboro, Pennsylvania in 1996, 14-year-old Andrew Wurst shot and killed a teacher at a school dance, and shot and injured several other students. He had just left the dance hall, carrying his gun, when he was confronted and stopped by the dance hall owner James Strand, who lived next door and kept a shotgun at home. Another example is the Appalachian School of Law shooting that occurred in 2002. Three people were killed, and three others injured. When the shooter left the building, he was approached by two students with personal firearms. The students had them in their cars, and had run to retrieve them. The shooter dropped his weapons and was subdued. 

These are just examples of school shootings where those with concealed carry helped. If one included all public shootings, the examples would surely increase (not to mention the general use of guns for self defense of the home or property). And those examples show countless lives saved. Trying to take out an active shooter is certainly a hell of a lot better option than being target practice for the maniac. In fact, the media refused to report it, aside from one local news channel, but a responsible concealed carry permit holder actually confronted the gunman in the recent Oregon mall shooting. The mall was a "gun free zone," but another person besides the killer was not following that rule. He confronted the shooter with his weapon, did not fire because he did not have a clean shot (but how can that be? responding responsibly in a mass shooting is just impossible, the anti-gun person will ignorantly declare), but says that "I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself." Adults, in concealed carry states, even just keeping licensed firearms in their cars, would help. Just one or two folks willing to carry a weapon at any school could help. And school personnel who wanted to could be trained and licensed even in non-carry states. You certainly do not need to compel teachers or others at schools to carry weapons as confronting a gunman is not part of their job. But principles, senior staff, or other school personnel could get special licenses if they so wished. It can be done in a common sense way. 

These cowards are not expecting armed resistance, and examples have shown the positive outcome a gun present provides. Those are the facts. A Texas school is already doing it. Allowing concealed carry, and gun free zones being lessened, makes sense. You tell me, would you rather be armed like the  citizen at the Oregon mall when a gunman is running through the halls, or would you prefer to be defenseless until the police arrive? The question answers itself.

Bringing Back The Assault Weapons Ban

Connecticut already has strict gun control. It already has a ban on "assault weapons." The psychopathic Lanza's weapons were legal both under Connecticut law and the federal assault weapons ban that sunset in 2004. The Columbine shooting occurred when the federal ban was in effect. Letting the ban expire had no discernible impact on crime. 

Most estimates (such as from FBI data) place the contribution of assault weapons to gun crime at around 1 or 2 percent.  According to FBI data from 2010, you are more likely to be killed with "hands/fists/feet" than with a rifle. That's because the vast majority of crime committed with guns have handguns rather than assault weapons as the firearms of choice (because handguns are easier to conceal and crimes are committed at close range). In fact, as just mentioned, Connecticut already has an "assault weapons ban," as well as bans on those under 21 possessing firearms with Lanza being 20, and laws requiring a permit, and laws banning breaking into schools, and laws banning firearms in schools, and laws banning murder. The gun used by Lanza was of course not an automatic weapon, but a semi-automatic rifle, and in its mechanics is very similar to many other semi-automatic rifles. It has exterior features that could be banned, but it would not actually result in these massacres being less possible at all, other rifles (and handguns) could easily be used. And in fact, Lanza had two semi-automatic handguns in addition to the rifle. Connecticut's gun laws are some of the toughest in the country, according to anti-gun groups, but they do not specifically ban the Bushmaster .223, the rifle used by Lanza, which goes to show this was not considered an "assault weapon" even under Connecticut's own strict statute. Also, the .223 ammo used in the massacre is not unusually powerful either (similar to that used to hunt small game such as squirrel). Limiting this or that type of semi-automatic weapon is beside the point, there are plenty of weapon alternatives to a Bushmaster, which looks scary and on its exterior has different features, but that are essentially semi-automatic rifles. 

Within the realm of gun control, perhaps a limit on magazine capacity is the far more plausible response given the 30 rounds in the magazine used in this massacre (but, it should be noted, even those using magazines with a smaller capacity have committed mass killings).  California limits the magazine capacity to 10 rounds.  But even if this was adopted, let no one fool themselves that it would somehow end school shootings.

The bottom line, however, is that you don't want to have to wait for law enforcement to defend yourself.  Carry a gun, a cop is too heavy.

It's Not All About Guns

One more very important point to add. Not everything is about guns. Having the media not publish the identity of the killers would be something the media needs to seriously consider so as not to fulfill the perverse drive of the suicidal to kill themselves while killing others and then have their face on every TV screen and newspaper (which many of these maniacs have expressly written about in their discovered personal writings before they commit these mass murders). Why won't the same media that gave this Adam Lanza the attention he wanted recognize their role in contributing as a motivating factor of the crazies, and they instead put a single focus on guns? Perhaps there are other cultural phenomenon we allow that breeds more violent psychopaths (e.g., extreme violence in video games/movies/television and its access to minors). Perhaps there needs to be a rethinking of how the law deals with mentally unstable people with violent tendencies. As for mental health, it's not all just spending, as John Fund wrote in the National Review:

"A lengthy study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least 38 of the 61 mass shooters in the past three decades 'displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.' New York Times columnist David Brooks and Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson have both suggested that the ACLU-inspired laws that make it so difficult to intervene and identify potentially dangerous people should be loosened. 'Will we address mental-health and educational-privacy laws, which instill fear of legal liability for reporting potentially violent mentally ill people to law enforcement?' asks Professor Jacobson. 'I doubt it.'"

Not only that, but involuntary committal is far more difficult than it once was. Perhaps societal changes have also resulted in more violence, changes in the culture overall, as a wider culture that instills moral values in young people and places a primer on them might be a good idea as well.

 If a "national conversation" is going to be had, it should include more than just gun control. It should include all that was just mentioned, and the efficacy of "gun free zones."

Tweet

Texas School Official: Stop School Shootings By Letting Teachers Fire Back

Fox News reports:

Lawmakers and educators in Texas say the way to guard against school shootings like last Friday's at a Connecticut elementary school is to make sure teachers can shoot back. While the rampage that left 20 young children and six adults dead in a small Northeastern community has sparked a national debate on gun control, assault weapons and a culture of violence, David Thweatt, superintendent of the 103-student Harrold Independent School District in Wilbarger County, said his teachers are armed and ready to protect their young charges. “We give our ‘Guardians’ training in addition to the regular Texas conceal-and-carry training,” Thweatt, whose school is about three hours northwest of Dallas, told FoxNews.com. “It mainly entails improving accuracy…You know, as educators, we don’t have to be police officers and learn about Miranda Rights and related procedures. We just have to be accurate.” Thweatt is the architect of “The Guardian Plan,” a blueprint for arming school staff, including teachers, that may be catching on, at least in the Lone Star state. Teachers there are allowed to have weapons in the classroom, as Thweatt's faculty members do, but State Attorney General Greg Abbott suggested Monday that lawmakers may consider ways to encourage the practice statewide. "Bearing arms whether by teachers and guards and things like that will be all a part of more comprehensive policy issues for the legislature to take up in the coming weeks," Abbott said. "And you can be assured in the aftermath of what happened in Connecticut that these legislators care dearly about the lives of students at their schools and they will evaluate all possible measures that are necessary to protect those lives," he said. More momentum for the idea is evidenced by Austin gun shop dealer Crocket Keller, who announced his store will now extend the same discount on firearm purchases to teachers as it does to veterans. Thweatt said there have been no incidents since October 2007, when his district adopted the plan giving an unspecified number of teachers and school staff -- dubbed "Guardians" -- authority to carry concealed weapons on school premises. Participating staff are anonymous and known only to Thweatt and the school board, which must approve each application for an employee to become a Guardian. They receive a small stipend annually. “We’re 18 miles and 30 minutes from the nearest police station," Thweatt said. "So we are our first responders. If something happened here, we would have to protect our children. You know, police officers are true, everyday heroes in my book, but one of them once told me something very revealing. He said, ‘Ninety-five percent of the time, we get to the scene late.’ I can’t afford to let that happen.” Each Guardian must obtain a Texas conceal-and-carry permit, and must lock-and-load their weapons with “frangible” bullets that break apart when colliding with a target. “They go through people,” assured Thweatt. “They’re very similar to what the air marshals use. The bullets are glued together with polymers, and we insist upon them because we don’t want the bullet to ricochet off a wall after it’s fired and hit a child.” Thweatt says parents have embraced The Guardian Plan, a fact evidenced by the transfer rate into his school district. “We’re a high-transfer district,” he told FoxNews.com, “which means only 18 percent of students come to the school because they live in the district. The rest transfer in or choose to come here from other districts.” There’s a simple thread, Thweatt says, that binds together many of the mass shootings that have recently rocked the U.S.: They happened in places where the shooter knew there was going to be little resistance. “These shooters, even though they are evil and have mental problems, they inevitably know where they are going,” explained Thweatt. “They are going where they won’t get any resistance. Let’s put it this way, would you put a sign in front of your house that says, ‘I am against guns. You will find no resistance here?’ That would be a stupid thing to do. You’re going to invite people who like to take advantage of helpless individuals. “Would my policy have stopped this?” Thweatt asked. “Nobody knows for sure or for 100 percent, but what we do know is that active shooters go where there is no one there to resist. The Guardian Plan addresses that fact.”

Tweet

South Carolia Governor Nikki Haley And Congressman Tim Scott On Appointing The Congressman To Replace Jim Demint In The Senate

Tweet

Obama Uses Sandy Hook Massacre To Push For Higher Taxes

Tweet

Robert Borks' Rules Of Order: A Conversation with Robert Bork

In memory of the late great Judge Robert Bork. How an originalist understands the Constitution of the United States: Tweet

The Great Judge Robert Bork Dies At Age 84

The great judge Robert Bork died today at age 84. He was a leading light calling for (and bringing the debate to the forefront) Constitutional adjudication to be guided by the original understanding of the Constitution. One of the few Americans to have his name turned into a verb after he was unfairly maligned and blocked from a seat on the Supreme Court because he would not abandon or compromise his abiding belief in the proper role of a judge in Constitutional interpretation, let us now remember and fight for the increasing vibrancy of his message: 

"If the Constitution is law, then presumably its meaning, like that of all other law, is the meaning the lawmakers were understood to have intended. If the Constitution is law, then presumably, like all other law, the meaning the lawmakers intended is as binding upon judges as it is upon legislatures and executives. There is no other sense in which the Constitution can be what article VI proclaims it to be: 'Law....' This means, of course, that a judge, no matter on what court he sits, may never create new constitutional rights or destroy old ones. Any time he does so, he violates not only the limits to his own authority but, and for that reason, also violates the rights of the legislature and the people....the philosophy of original understanding is thus a necessary inference from the structure of government apparent on the face of the Constitution." Tweet

Harry Reid in 2010: “I Carried A Gun With Me Everywhere I Went”

Tweet

Piers Morgan Insults Gun Rights Advocate: "You Are An Unbelievably Stupid Man, Aren't You?"

Tweet

Wall Street Journal: "ObamaCare's Faux Federalism"

From the WSJ:

Having failed to persuade 26 states that participating in ObamaCare is a good deal, the liberals behind the law are denouncing these dissident Governors as federalist hypocrites. A few critics on the right are chiming in and arguing that the 26 are inviting worse results once the feds swoop in.  So someone ought to say a word on behalf of the people who run state governments in the real world and have examined the health insurance "exchange" question in detail. They've seen enough to know that the choice to set up and run these insurance bureaucracies is not a choice at all. The "federalism" ruse is a special instance of bad faith. If federal-state cooperation means anything, then it requires some element of genuine state control and the freedom to innovate. The Health and Human Services Department is abusing the laboratories-of-democracy line as cover even as it prohibits states from doing experiments. And it's dictating details down to the lab coats and microscopes. The folks at HHS envision the exchanges as centralized, interventionist, hyper-regulatory bodies. HHS's idea of flexibility is telling the states they can make the exchanges even more centralized and interventionist. But if they don't agree to that model, then Washington will impose it anyway. The truth is that liberals never wanted the states involved. In 2010, the Pelosi Democrats were forced to swallow a Senate bill that included state exchanges because it was the only ObamaCare vehicle after Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat.  Now HHS is rewriting the law to create federal exchanges that the states only nominally govern. HHS for instance claims states can define the essential benefits that all plans must cover, within federal minimum standards, but those minimums are already much higher now than they were in the draft a few months ago. The Affordable Care Act forces states to use their own personnel and resources to do federal bidding and blurs if not erases the lines of political accountability between levels of government.  ObamaCare also creates new obligations for the states even if they don't opt in. The press corps is uncritically accepting HHS's fantasy about the exchanges as sleek one-stop consumer websites resembling Travelocity or Expedia EXPE +2.83% . Er, this is not how state and local governments operate day to day.

For more of the article visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323981504578179493975282974.html?mod=iPhone Tweet

Concealed Carry Permit Holder Confronted The Mall Shooter In Oregon

Despite a general media blackout, local KGW reports:

Nick Meli is emotionally drained.  The 22-year-old was at Clackamas Town Center with a friend and her baby when a masked man opened fire. "I heard three shots and turned and looked at Casey and said, 'are you serious?,'" he said. The friend and baby hit the floor.  Meli, who has a concealed carry permit, positioned himself behind a pillar. "He was working on his rifle," said Meli.  "He kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side." The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter. "As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them," he said. Meli took cover inside a nearby store.  He never pulled the trigger.  He stands by that decision. "I'm not beating myself up cause I didn't shoot him," said Meli.  "I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself." The gunman was dead, but not before taking two innocent lives with him and taking the innocence of everyone else. "I don't ever want to see anyone that way ever," said Meli.  "It just bothers me."

Tweet

St Louis Police Chief Recommends Arming Civilian School Personnel

KMOX reports:

St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says it is time to talk about arming civilian school personnel following Friday’s massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, comparing it to arming airline pilots after September 11, 2001. “I see it no differently,” he said. “Pilots have been armed now for many many years, we’ve not had another hijacking and the issue is, for the bad guy, he doesn’t know which airplane he’s getting on, if the pilot is armed or not.” Fitch said the killing will not be stopped by legislation or laws. “If there’s somebody that’s really hellbent on doing something like this, they’re not going to care what the law is.”

Tweet

WSJ's Stephens On Prospect Of Chuck Hagel Replacing Leon Panetta As Secretary Of Defense: "Hagel's Jewish Problem"

From the Wall Street Journal:

Prejudice—like cooking, wine-tasting and other consummations—has an olfactory element. When Chuck Hagel, the former GOP senator from Nebraska who is now a front-runner to be the next secretary of Defense, carries on about how "the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here," the odor is especially ripe.  Ripe because a "Jewish lobby," as far as I'm aware, doesn't exist. No lesser authorities on the subject than John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby," have insisted the term Jewish lobby is "inaccurate and misleading, both because the [Israel] lobby includes non-Jews like Christian Zionists and because many Jewish Americans do not support the hard-line policies favored by its most powerful elements."  Ripe because, whatever other political pressures Mr. Hagel might have had to endure during his years representing the Cornhusker state, winning over the state's Jewish voters—there are an estimated 6,100 Jewish Nebraskans in a state of 1.8 million people—was probably not a major political concern for Mr. Hagel compared to, say, the ethanol lobby.  Ripe because the word "intimidates" ascribes to the so-called Jewish lobby powers that are at once vast, invisible and malevolent; and because it suggests that legislators who adopt positions friendly to that lobby are doing so not from political conviction but out of personal fear. Just what does that Jewish Lobby have on them? Ripe, finally, because Mr. Hagel's Jewish lobby remark was well in keeping with the broader pattern of his thinking. "I'm a United States Senator, not an Israeli Senator," Mr. Hagel told retired U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller in 2006. "I'm a United States Senator. I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not a party. Not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that."  Read these staccato utterances again to better appreciate their insipid and insinuating qualities, all combining to cast the usual slur on Jewish-Americans: Dual loyalty. Nobody questions Mr. Hagel's loyalty. He is only making those assertions to question the loyalty of others.  Still, Mr. Hagel managed to say "I support Israel." This is the sort of thing one often hears from people who treat Israel as the Mideast equivalent of a neighborhood drunk who, for his own good, needs to be put in the clink to sober him up. In 2002, a year in which 457 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks (a figure proportionately equivalent to more than 20,000 fatalities in the U.S., or seven 9/11s), Mr. Hagel weighed in with the advice that "Israel must take steps to show its commitment to peace." This was two years after Yasser Arafat had been offered a state by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David.  In 2006, Mr. Hagel described Israel's war against Hezbollah as "the systematic destruction of an American friend, the country and people of Lebanon." He later refused to sign a letter calling on the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. In 2007, he voted against designating Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, and also urged President Bush to open "direct, unconditional" talks with Iran to create "a historic new dynamic in U.S.-Iran relations." In 2009, Mr. Hagel urged the Obama administration to open direct talks with Hamas. In fairness to Mr. Hagel, all these positions emerge from his belief in the power of diplomatic engagement and talking with adversaries. The record of that kind of engagement—in 2008, Mr. Hagel and John Kerry co-authored an op-ed in this newspaper titled "It's Time to Talk to Syria"—hasn't been stellar, but at least it was borne of earnest motives. Yet it's worth noting that while Mr. Hagel is eager to engage the world's rogues without preconditions, his attitude toward Israel tends, at best, to the paternalistic. "The United States and Israel must understand that it is not in their long-term interests to allow themselves to become isolated in the Middle East and the world," he said in a 2006 Senate speech. It's a political Deep Thought worthy of Saturday Night Live's Jack Handey. Does Mr. Hagel reckon any other nation to be quite so blind to its own supposed self-interest as Israel? Now President Obama may nominate Mr. Hagel to take Leon Panetta's place at the Pentagon. As a purely score-settling matter, I almost hope he does. It would confirm a point I made in a column earlier this year, which is that Mr. Obama is not a friend of Israel. Perhaps the 63% of Jewish-Americans who cast their votes for Mr. Obama last month might belatedly take notice. Alternatively, maybe some of these voters could speak up now, before a nomination is announced, about the insult that a Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel would be. Jewish Democrats like to fancy their voice carries weight in their party. The prospect of this nomination is their chance to prove it.

For more on Chuck Hagel's disturbing record visit http://freebeacon.com/the-critique-of-hagel/ Tweet

African-American Tea Party Congressman Appointed By South Carolina Governor Haley To Replace Jim Demint In The Senate

The Washington Post reports:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) announced Monday that she will appoint Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) to the Senate. Scott will replace Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who is leaving the chamber in January to head up the conservative Heritage Foundation. “It is with great pleasure that I am announcing our next U.S. senator to be Congressman Tim Scott,” Haley said. “I am strongly convinced that the entire state understands that this is the right U.S. senator for our state and our country.” Sen.-designate Scott, 47, will become the only African-American currently serving in the Senate and the first black Republican to serve in the upper chamber since the 1970s. He will also be the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction.

Tweet

Gun Rights Scholar John Lott With Washington Post Arguing Against “Gun-Free Zones”

Tweet

Heated CNN Gun Debate Between Roland Martin And John Lott

Tweet

CNN's Soledad O'Brien vs. Professor John Lott On Whether More Gun Control, Or Less Gun Free Zones, Is The Answer To The Newtown Massacre

Tweet

Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert: I Wish To God That The Principal In Newtown Massacre Would Have Had An M4

Tweet

Republican Governor Bobby Jindal: Make Contraceptive Pill An Over-The-Counter Product

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal proposes make birth-control medication an over-the-counter purchase:

As an unapologetic pro-life Republican, I also believe that every adult (18 years old and over) who wants contraception should be able to purchase it. But anyone who has a religious objection to contraception should not be forced by government health-care edicts to purchase it for others. And parents who believe, as I do, that their teenage children shouldn’t be involved with sex at all do not deserve ridicule. 

Let’s ask the question: Why do women have to go see a doctor before they buy birth control? There are two answers. First, because big government says they should, even though requiring a doctor visit to get a drug that research shows is safe helps drive up health-care costs. Second, because big pharmaceutical companies benefit from it. They know that prices would be driven down if the companies had to compete in the marketplace once their contraceptives were sold over the counter. 

So at present we have an odd situation. Thanks to President Obama and the pro-choice lobby, women can buy the morning-after pill over the counter without a prescription, but women cannot buy oral contraceptives over the counter unless they have a prescription. Contraception is a personal matter—the government shouldn’t be in the business of banning it or requiring a woman’s employer to keep tabs on her use of it. If an insurance company or those purchasing insurance want to cover birth control, they should be free to do so. If a consumer wants to buy birth control on her own, she should be free to do so. 

Over-the-counter contraception would be easier to obtain if not for some unfortunate aspects of President Obama’s health-care law. One of the most egregious elements of that law is the hampering of Health Savings Accounts, which have become increasingly popular in recent years because they give Americans choices in how to spend their money on health care. By removing the ability of citizens to use their HSAs to purchase over-the-counter medicine tax-free if they don’t have a doctor’s prescription, President Obama hurt many middle-class families who counted on using their HSA dollars every flu season to take care of their children. Health Savings Accounts should cover over-the-counter purchases, and those should include contraception. 

It’s time to put purchasing power back in the hands of consumers—not employers, not pharmaceutical companies, and not bureaucrats in Washington. The great thing about America is that power doesn’t come from government, but from people. It’s time to reclaim that power. It’s time to stop government from dividing people or insulting deeply held religious beliefs, and return the country to the path that has always made it great—one where Americans respect and value their fellow citizens, no matter their creed.

Tweet

UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh Provides Examples Of Armed Citizens Stopping Mass Murder

Professor Volokh writes:

[H]ere are instances that I have seen, not counting killings stopped by people who were off-duty police officers (or police officers from other jurisdictions) at the time of the shooting.

1. In Pearl, Mississippi in 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned to death his mother at home, then killed two students and injured seven at his high school. As he was leaving the school, he was stopped by Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who had gone out to get a handgun from his car. I have seen sources that state that Woodham was on the way to Pearl Junior High School to continue shooting, though I couldn’t find any contemporaneous news articles that so state.
2. In Edinboro, Pennsylvania in 1996, 14-year-old Andrew Wurst shot and killed a teacher at a school dance, and shot and injured several other students. He had just left the dance hall, carrying his gun — possibly to attack more people, though the stories that I’ve seen are unclear — when he was confronted by the dance hall owner James Strand, who lived next door and kept a shotgun at home. It’s not clear whether Wurst was planning to kill others, would have gotten into a gun battle with the police, or would have otherwise killed more people had Strand not stopped him.
3. In Winnemucca, Nevada in 2008, Ernesto Villagomez killed two people and wounded two others in a bar filled with three hundred people. He was then shot and killed by a patron who was carrying a gun (and had a concealed carry license). It’s not clear whether Villagomez would have killed more people; the killings were apparently the result of a family feud, and I could see no information on whether Villagomez had more names on his list, nor could one tell whether he would have killed more people in trying to evade capture.
4. In Colorado Springs in 2007, Matthew Murray killed four people at a church. He was then shot several times by Jeanne Assam, a church member, volunteer security guard, and former police officer (she had been dismissed by a police department 10 years before, and to my knowledge hadn’t worked as a police officer since). Murray, knocked down and badly wounded, killed himself; it is again not clear whether he would have killed more people had he not been wounded, but my guess is that he would have.

So it appears that civilians armed with guns are sometimes willing to intervene to stop someone who had just committed a mass shooting in public.  To read the professor's full post visit http://www.volokh.com/2012/12/14/do-civilians-armed-with-guns-ever-capture-kill-or-otherwise-stop-mass-shooters/  Tweet

IBD - Obama To Troops: Don't Insult The Taliban, Pedophilia, Or Anything Related To Islam

Investors Business Daily writes:

Political Correctness: The administration blames U.S. troop rudeness for insider attacks by Afghan training partners. So it's issuing an etiquette book ordering them not to criticize "pedophilia" and other things Islamic.  

Echoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who recently compared our troops to terrorists, the administration says troop insensitivity to Afghan culture, not Taliban infiltration, is behind the recent spike in deadly green-on-blue attacks. 

In fact, a draft Army handbook advises troops against insulting not just sacred Islamic figures but the Taliban themselves. The 75-page manual lists among "taboo topics" of conversation between U.S. troops and their Afghan counterparts "making derogatory comments about the Taliban." 

Also off-limits: "advocating women's rights," "any criticism of pedophilia," "mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct" or "anything related to Islam." 

So let's get this straight. We spent our blood and treasure in Afghanistan over the past decade not to destroy the enemy and its brutal culture of terrorism, beheadings, stoning of women and child marriage and rape, but to protect and preserve them? 

The extreme political correctness doesn't stop there. 

The New York Post reported in September that to avoid offending Afghans, U.S. commanders are putting troops through intense Muslim sensitivity training. Among other things, they've been ordered to: 

• Wear surgical gloves when handling the Quran.
• Never walk in front of a praying Muslim.
• Never show the bottom of boots while sitting or lying across from a Muslim, which in Islam is considered an insult.
• Never share photos of wives or daughters.
• Never smoke or eat in front of Muslims during the monthlong Ramadan fasting.
• Avoid winking, cursing or nose-blowing in the presence of Muslims — all viewed as insults in Islam.
• Avoid exiting the shower without a towel.
• Avoid offering and accepting things with the left hand, which in Islam is reserved for bodily hygiene. 

It's outrageous that the administration would even suggest U.S. troops are to blame for their own murder at the hands of allegedly insulted Muslims. 

More than 2,000 of our men and women in uniform have given their lives protecting Afghan families and their country from al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists. 

This sensitivity program mirrors this administration's response to Muslims killing our diplomats and torching our embassies: Blame Americans, not the attackers. And apologize, while promising to be more sensitive to Islam. 

Why not just convert security forces in these Muslim war zones to Islam and be done with it?

For further information on the ridiculous manual see http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/12/proposed-army-manual-tells-gis-not-to-insult-taliban-speak-up-for-women/ and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578171561230647852.html

Tweet

Domino's Pizza Founder, A Religious Catholic, Suing Federal Government Over Obamacare Contraception Mandate

Tom Monaghan is going to court over the mandate:

Tom Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, says contraception is not health care and instead is a “gravely immoral” practice. He’s a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, along with his Domino’s Farms, which runs an office park near Ann Arbor. Monaghan offers health insurance that excludes contraception and abortion for employees. The new law requires employers to offer insurance that includes contraception coverage or risk fines. Monaghan says the law violates his constitutional rights, and he’s asking a judge to strike down the mandate.

Tweet

Mark Levin Interviews Gun Rights Scholar Professor John Lott In Aftermath Of Newtown Elementary School Massacre

Tweet

White House Won't Accept John Boehner's Offer To Raise Taxes On "Higher Earners" In Exchange For Entitlement Reforms

Reuters reports:

President Barack Obama is not ready to accept a new offer from the Republican leader of the U.S. the House of Representatives to raise taxes on top earners in exchange for major cuts in entitlement programs, a source said late Saturday.

Tweet