For or against gun control?

art credit: riversong.wordpress.com

Gun control is not one of the primary planks in the Tea Party platforms (those planks are limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets). However, Tea Party patriots may be interested in the gun control bills defeated yesterday in Congress. CNN reports:

Senators couldn't muster enough bipartisan support to pass a series of gun control measures Monday [yesterday], the latest in a long string of failed attempts at enacting tighter curbs on firearms in the United States.

Spurred by the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, senators from each party introduced the measures they said would have strengthened background checks and prevented suspected terrorists from obtaining weapons.

But tough election year politics, paired with disputes over the effectiveness of each party's ideas, proved too powerful to break the longstanding partisan gridlock that's surrounded gun issues for years.

The result was expected. A fifth option, set to be introduced and voted upon as early as Tuesday by moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins, has generated more optimism, but still faces long odds at passage.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who sponsored one of the failed measures expanding background checks, reacted angrily after his provision was defeated.

"I'm mortified by today's vote but I'm not surprised by it," Murphy said Monday evening. "The NRA has a vice-like grip on this place."

More of the report is here.

According to Sen. Murphy, the National Rifle Assoc. is once again the villain in the piece. Thomas Sowell published an excellent opinion piece at RealClearPolitics:

Surely murder is a serious subject, which ought to be examined seriously. Instead, it is almost always examined politically in the context of gun control controversies, with stock arguments on both sides that have remained the same for decades. And most of those arguments are irrelevant to the central question: Do tighter gun control laws reduce the murder rate?

That is not an esoteric question, nor one for which no empirical evidence is available. Think about it. We have 50 states, each with its own gun control laws, and many of those laws have gotten either tighter or looser over the years. There must be tons of data that could indicate whether murder rates went up or down when either of these things happened.

But have you ever heard any gun control advocate cite any such data? Tragically, gun control has become one of those fact-free issues that spawn outbursts of emotional rhetoric and mutual recriminations about the National Rifle Association or the Second Amendment.

If restrictions on gun ownership do reduce murders, we can repeal the Second Amendment, as other Constitutional Amendments have been repealed. Laws exist to protect people. People do not exist to perpetuate laws.

But if tighter restrictions on gun ownership do not reduce murders, what is the point of tighter gun control laws -- and what is the point of demonizing the National Rifle Association?

There are data not only from our 50 states but also from other countries around the world. Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm's empirical study, "Guns and Violence: The English Experience," should be eye-opening for all those who want their eyes opened, however small that number of people might be.

Professor Malcolm's book also illustrates the difference between isolated, cherry-picked facts and relevant empirical evidence.

The rest of Sowell's article is here.

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Cavs won the championship!!!!!!

CAVS WON!!!!!!!

WOW!

Primary upset in Virginia

art credit: centinel2012

In case you missed it, here’s good news from last week’s primary in Virginia, from the Culpepper Star*Exponent (h/t lucianne.com)

Forbes, like Cantor, caught up in anti-establishment wave

Del. Scott W. Taylor’s upset of Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-4th, in Tuesday’s 2nd District Republican primary is another anti-establishment thunderclap in Virginia politics, two years after Dave Brat ousted U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the 7th District GOP primary.

“Ultimately, what it shows is the voters’ overall disgust with Congress,” said Robert D. Holsworth, a veteran political commentator, formerly at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“It shows that the traditional value of seniority means very little to the Republican base right now.”

Taylor will compete against Democratic activist Shaun D. Brown in the Republican-leaning district in November.

The full report is here.

Wonder if this will have any effect on the upcoming primary in Wisconsin, with Paul Nehlen challenging Speaker Paul “Omnibus” Ryan? Recent polls don’t look good for Nehlen, whose #DumpRyan Facebook page is here.

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Safety at the RNC in Cleveland

photo credit: cleveland.com

The Republican National Convention convenes next month. Do you think downtown Cleveland will be safe? Last month, Cleveland.com reported on the Cleveland Police Dept.'s and Safety Director's plans for the July event. But it's not just about crowd control and preventing damage and violence by the expected rent-a-mobs. Mark Tapscott at Daily Caller reports on “Five Ways Political Correctness Kills Americans.” It is scary. And Clevelanders should be concerned for their safety during the RNC in July:

Political correctness in the federal government protected radical Islamic terrorist Omar Mateen in at least five ways during the months leading up to his deadly assault on a gay nightclub in Orlando, according to a national security expert.

“The fact is that the FBI did recognize Omar Mateen, twice in fact, but as a matter of official policy under the Obama administration’s politically correct ‘countering violent extremism’ policies, the institutional rules of our national security agencies as a matter of intentional design ensure that investigative clues are obscured,” Patrick Poole told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Poole is co-founder of Unconstrained Analytics, non-profit group dedicated to analyzing “evidence unconstrained by preconceptions and biases” concerning international terrorism. He has been a guest lecturer on counter-terrorism issues at the U.S. Army War College and a speaker at the Army Provost Marshal’s annual Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection conference.

PC blinds homeland defenders: Among the most controversial of the five factors Poole cited was a 2011 decision by FBI officials to remove from its counter-terrorism training materials references to all terms found objectionable by a team of Muslim experts retained by the Department of Justice. Despite congressional protests, the material was never restored.

As a result, “violent extremist” effectively became the official federal designation for individuals like Mateen, San Bernadino attackers Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook, Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and Fort Hood killer Nidal Malik Hasan, despite their shared devotion to radical Islamic movements, including ISIS and al Qaeda.

PC perverts religious tolerance: The FBI’s head-in-the-sand approach is also seen in a recently completed Department of Homeland Security report that directs federal officials there “not to use any language that might be ‘disrespectful’ to Muslims, including (but not limited to) the words ‘jihad,’ ‘sharia’ and ‘takfir.’” Poole said the policies recommended by the report are in effect throughout the federal government.

Among the federal agencies in DHS are the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration.

PC discourages witnesses. . .

PC gives cover to terrorist allies . . .

PC hamstrings Congress. . . .

Much more from Tapscott here.

Michelle Malkin outlines the terrifying context in which the Orlando terror attack took place in her column here.

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The cartoon that speaks for itself

Cartoon by Rick McKee at conservativetribune.com

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Jihad attack in Orlando; media Fail

photo credit: truthrevolt.org

It’s a one-headline day. The Islamic terror attack in Orlando is horrific, and the attack is one of the few stories, IMHO, that justify wall-to-wall coverage on the media. But the TV coverage has been, what’s the word, abysmal. 

The crawl all day long on both CNN and Fox was about, not jihad, but the worst mass shooting in recent US history. The visuals all day long showed police cars and ambulances with flashing lights, and of course, President Obama’s address that failed to include the term “radical Islam” or “Islamist jihad.” Instead, our Commander-in-Chief babbled about guns and hate, all interspersed with platitudes. (Mr. Trump's statement on the Islamist terror attack is here.)

Honest coverage of this attack should focus, not on law enforcement agencies or gun control or LGBT issues, but on the military. This attack is just in another in a long line of attacks by radical Islamists, ISIS, whatever franchise name you choose. This attack, like all the others, is sanctioned by the official Islamic fatwas, declarations of war against Americans.

If jihad continues to be framed as a law enforcement problem, America will always be playing defense, and the result is predictable: there will be more and still more attacks. The attacks will never end until America recognizes that Islam has declared war against all American (and worldwide) infidels.

The TV visuals should not be images that reinforce impressions that jihad is a matter for law enforcement. The images should show ISIS training camps and previous jihad attacks, of which there is no shortage: the Boston Marathon, the Paris theater Bataclan, the San Bernardino bombers, Fort Hood, and all the others.

If America cannot name the enemy, it cannot fight the enemy. Political correctness kills. 

UPDATE Jun-13: By 9pm on Sunday evening, CNN was running a crawl describing the Orlando attack as "the worst terror attack since 9/11", while the crawl on Fox's Megyn Kelly's program was talking about gun control. 

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Trump and Clinton on the economy and jobs

art credit: politichicks.com 

Betsy McCaughey is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. Tea party and liberty groups will recognize her name from her ongoing analyses, from the beginning, of Obamacare. Many in those groups are not happy that Trump is the presumptive candidate. Some of the dissatisfaction stems from the perception that Trump is not a true conservative at heart, that’s he’s an egomaniac and braggart, and so on. In yesterday’s column in The New York Post, McCaughey looks at the economic prospects under either a Clinton or a Trump presidency.

President Obama’s top banker Janet Yellen gave a somber assessment of the current job market this week, throwing cold water on the president’s election-year message that voters should elect a Democrat to the White House again.

Obama’s been bragging that America has “the strongest” economy in the world. And pigs can fly.

Growth under Obama has averaged a stagnant 1.7 percent a year. Meanwhile, Ireland is growing at nearly 8 percent, India at 7 percent, Sweden at 4 percent.

The Obama economy is embarrassing compared to those countries — and compared to what Americans enjoyed for decades. It’s “the worst economic-growth record of any president” since the Great Depression, says Stanford economist Michael Boskin.

Last week’s economic reports were bad news for job seekers. Growth dipped below 1 percent in the first quarter, and full-time employment actually shrank in May.

We can’t let Obama-stagnation become the new normal. It’s driving Americans to self-destruction. Deaths from alcoholism, drug addiction, cirrhosis of the liver and suicides — what Princeton University researcher Anne Case calls “deaths of despair” — have soared.

These tragedies raise the stakes in this presidential election. Who’s equipped to jump-start America’s economy, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?

Spoiler alert: It’s not Hillary. She makes her money giving speeches and promoting books about herself.

Of course, Trump is no slouch when it comes to self-promotion. But he’s made a fortune actually building businesses. Trump runs an impressive 185 income-producing ventures, all listed on his 104-page Financial Disclosure Statement. (Hillary’s is only 11 pages.)

The mogul has built office buildings, apartment buildings, golf resorts and other ventures worldwide. He builds things and creates jobs. He also rakes in hefty fees managing properties worldwide, because their owners are confident he’s effective.

People like Trump, who run businesses themselves, understand why our economy is stuck in low gear. High taxes and suffocating, costly regulations are turning off investors. As economist Larry Kudlow explains, investment — in computers, factory buildings, equipment, trucks — is declining, indicating slow job growth ahead. A business that can’t buy more trucks can’t hire more drivers.

To boost investment, Trump calls for lowering taxes on businesses to 15 percent — less than half the nominal rate now — and reducing regulation. Obama calls Trump’s tax policies “crazy.” But if you want to see crazy, take a look at Hillary’s proposals.

She calls her plan “fair growth.” The phrase should strike terror into the heart of any business owner. It means more gender and racial preferences in hiring, more government rules on how employees are paid, and tax hikes to push companies into what she calls “far-sighted investments.” Yikes, Uncle Sam will be taking a seat in boardrooms and looking over managers’ shoulders.

That will discourage investment. Weak investment is already to blame for the hiring slowdown, points out economist David Malpass. Overall, the economy lost 59,000 full-time jobs, gaining only in part-time spots.

America is becoming a nation of part-timers. The average work week has shrunk to 34 hours — not enough to support a family.

Hillary wouldn’t know. She pulls in $250,000 for an hour at the podium, and sometimes racks up two speaking fees a day. Nice work if you can get it. Who needs full-time?

Hillary earns her money blabbing, while Trump earns his building.

Clinton is assailing Trump for not releasing his tax returns. Face it, most politicians willingly release their returns because there isn’t much to see. (Like speaking fees.) Whereas a builder’s return reveals how he makes money — suppliers, labor, depreciation and everything else.

Now Washington pols are pushing a bill authorizing the IRS to release the returns of any presidential candidate who doesn’t disclose voluntarily. Who would want the IRS to have that power?

The real issue isn’t Trump’s taxable income, but what the rest of us are able to earn. Americans need more take-home pay. The prospects look better with a builder in the White House than with a blabber.

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