Surprise! NY Times Pushes Obama On Gun Control

By William Teach November 24, 2012 – 8:46 am

This is what the NY Times editorial board runs with the day after Thanksgiving, cause it’s a super duper most important issue, unlike America being broke, facing the fiscal cliff, a stagnant economy, Iran, post-Sandy cleanup, housing still in the dumps, etc

President Obama’s fleeting mention of the need for stronger gun controls at a presidential debate last month was hardly the kind of forceful political statement needed to address the scourge of gun violence in this country. Even his tepid remark was considered by the nation’s gun owners as a threat to take away their firearms. In what amounts to a buyers’ panic, they are again ramping up gun and ammunition sales as they did four years ago, convinced that Mr. Obama intends a gun-control crackdown.

Mr. Obama talked about starting “a broader conversation” about reducing gun violence. The best place to start is in Congress, which has been grossly negligent toward constituent safety for the past 20 years as it bows to the demands of the gun lobby.

Yeah, because violating that pesky Bill Of Rights is no big deal in NY Times World. And it’s rather strange that the majority of gun violence tends to occur in Democrat held areas, eh?

Mr. Obama is free of the pressures of campaigning — and free to lead the nation toward sensible laws that can help reduce the flood of guns and related homicides.

Funny stuff, they actually linked Obama to leading. That would be a first.

The need for strong leadership on this issue is growing as statehouse politicians cave to ever more lethal demands from the gun lobby. State laws allowing students to go armed to class in Colorado, freeing owners in Oklahoma to wear holstered weapons in public, and letting people “stand your ground” in Florida and a score of other states have already damaged public safety immeasurably.

In Times World, citizens should not be free to shield themselves from criminals who carry guns obtained illegally. All of those measures mentioned allow law abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families from people who would do them harm. I wonder if the NY Times editorial board would be willing to give up the armed guards in the lobby at the NY Times building.

The Times worries about the “30,000 lives lost to gun violence every year.” What they don’t tell you is that around half of those are suicides. Of the remaining, in 2010 (the latest year for data), 8775 were from crime, the rest accidental. That’s with over 270 million privately owned guns. I wonder how many crimes were prevented because someone owns a gun? Hmm, an estimated 2.5 million? And women are the most likely to be saved by owning a gun? And most shootings involved criminals killing other criminals? Oh, and women are the biggest recipients of being able to show a gun to someone who is looking to harm them?

Perhaps the Times should be concerned with the 1 million plus abortions this year.

Read: Surprise! NY Times Pushes Obama On Gun Control »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Wonky Media | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Black Friday Wal Mart Protests Pretty Much A Big Fail Burger

By William Teach November 24, 2012 – 8:05 am

Someone asked me to explain that Tweet yesterday. Well, much like the Mohammed video “protesters” the WalMart protesters were not who you thought they were, it was not spontaneous, and they had all sorts of premade apparel and signs. In the case of the Mohammed vid protesters, they weren’t average people, they were Islamists, many with ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda, this was planned for a while, and they were carry al Qaeda and Taliban style signs and wearing similar headbands. For WalMart, they planned it for months, they had professionally made signs and shirts, and mostly weren’t WalMart employees

(The Blaze) For weeks now, we’ve heard a lot about OUR Walmart’s plans to disrupt the big box retailer’s Black Friday sales. Media outlets breathlessly reported that the union-backed protests and employee walkouts might cause the company severe financial damage. Heck, even Wal-mart was reportedly worried about the union’s Black Friday plans.

So how did it turn out?

Well, to quote Megan McArdle writing in the Daily Beast, “the planned protests were mostly a fizzle.”

WalMart’s sales were incredible, and the mostly non-employee protesters failed to disrupt the business. Many managed to get themselves arrested.

Funny thing though: Of the people who participated in today’s nationwide demonstrations, very few of them were actual Wal-Mart employees, meaning today’s action was a whole lot like the Service Employees International Union’s Wednesday protest of the Los Angeles International Airport.

“No Walmart workers in attendance at Mobile Walmart picketing,” reads one Alabama newspaper headline.

On my way to work Friday around 11am, there were no protesters that I could see at the New Bern Ave. nor the Glenwood Ave. stores.

(WRAL) At a Walmart in Durham, more than 100 protesters gathered in the parking lot outside the store, chanting slogans and passing out fliers to draw attention to their cause. They were not employees but shoppers and neighbors sympathetic to minimum-wage workers. Groups from Durham Mennonite Church, Triangle Jobs with Justice, Corporate Action Network and the Raging Nannies participated.

The nannies communicated their concern in song. “Walmart stores are ruining our town,” they sang.

Essentially, this protest was held by the typical left wing agitators who loath WalMart, and are really upset that WalMart offers good at a low cost or something. And aren’t unionized.

According to that link, ” roughly the same number of associates missed their scheduled shift as last year…” So, SEIU and other left wing agitators, perhaps you could protest things that matter, like growing federal powers, too much spending, TSA groping people, etc.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Posted in Barking Moonbats, Current Affairs | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Warmist Thinks $1600 A Year Per Person To Pay For HotColdWetDry Is No Big Deal

By William Teach November 23, 2012 – 2:38 pm

But, all you climate terrorists Warmists should run right out and purchase carbon credits

(Forbes) As above, this is a very common misunderstanding of the very point of a carbon tax: it is not, not at all, in order to stop climate change. It is to enable us to have the right amount of climate change.

Now that’s funny! Tim Worstall thinks that Mankind can control the weather by (supposedly) planting a few trees through purchasing a few carbon offsets.

It’s also worth pointing something else out. $80 a tonne CO2 is something like 40 cents a gallon on gas. And that’s it, we’re done, problem solved, human utility maximised over time. OK, we’ve now got to add the tax to coal and natural gas and so on but the real point about the carbon tax is how trivially small the solution to climate change is. I myself just don’t understand why everyone makes such a fuss about it. get on with it and we’re done, sorted. In fact, in my native UK, the numbers are such that the correct carbon tax would lower the price of gas.

As Tom Nelson points out through a bit of research, the US per capita CO2 out put is 19.78 tons per inhabitant a year. That’s a price tag of $1,582.40 per American per year.

Ok, Warmists, pony up! Do your part….what? You can’t afford that? That would mean no fossil fueled trip for a vacation? Goodness!

Read: Warmist Thinks $1600 A Year Per Person To Pay For HotColdWetDry Is No Big Deal »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Carbon Credits, Global Warming | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach November 23, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil oven contributing to obesity and huge carbon footprints along with an evil fridge, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on more Obamacare fallout.

And, because there is another oven and fridge photo (involving a thong, and I generally don’t put thongs on the front page in this manner) below the fold, the second blog of the day is The First Street Journal, with a post on Twinkies.

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Posted in If All You See | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

Egyptians Not Happy With Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi

By William Teach November 23, 2012 – 10:50 am

Yes, the same Morsi who is the president of Egypt

(Telegraph) Demonstators burned down a headquarters block of the Brotherhood’s political front, the Freedom and Justice Party, in Alexandria.

And there were also heavy clashes in cities with a record of protest against the former regime of ex-President Hosni Mubarak like Suez and Port Said.

In Cairo, the biggest demonstrations for months filled Tahrir Square, reviving the spirit and chants of last year’s revolution.

An array of liberal and secular groups, including activists at the forefront of the protest movement that forced Hosni Mubarak from power marched on the Square to demonstrate against what they were calling Morsi becoming the “new pharaoh”.

What’s happening is that Morsi ended judicial independence so that his decrees would be unchallengeable by law. So, the upshot is that a “dictator”, Mubarek, who kept the peace, tried to protect Coptic Christians in Egypt and work with Israel, was deposed and replace with….the makings of a dictatorship based along Muslim Brotherhood and theocratic lines. Gee, if only someone had been concerned that something like this could happen /sic

The Islamist president assumed sweeping powers on Thursday in a decree read out by his spokesman Yasser Ali on state television.

“The president can issue any decision or measure to protect the revolution,” it said.

“The constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal.”

And once he starts issuing “declarations, decisions, and laws” based on Sharia Law and the Koran, I wonder how those who were saying Mubarek had to go will feel? Will there be concern over the treatment of women and gays? Or will we get the same idiocy of multiculturalism and tolerance?

Ed Morrissey: So we went from having a US-friendly dictator who managed to keep a lid on the Muslim Brotherhood and enforced the peace treaty with Israel, to having a dictator from the Muslim Brotherhood in charge of the Suez Canal.  And the only people who couldn’t apparently predict this very outcome were the people in the White House proclaiming their foreign policy as “smart power.”

The NY Times and Associate Press seem a bit shell shocked that this could happen.

More at Memeorandum: Rubin Reports, Hugh Hewitt’s TownHall Blog, americanthinker.com, NewsBusters.org, Israpundit, Algemeiner.com, Questions and Observations, Jihad Watch, Outside the Beltway, Ricochet Conversations Feed, Israel Matzav and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

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Posted in Current Affairs, Islamification, RoP | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Brokeifornia’s First Cap And Trade Auction Complete Failure

By William Teach November 23, 2012 – 9:06 am

Surprise! Well, not really, considering who cap and tax, er, trade programs have worked in countries around the world, with the costs of carbon essentially equating to junk bond status

(Sacramento Bee) State environmental leaders this week hailed California’s first auction of carbon emissions credits a huge success.

But budget writers are hardly thrilled.

A low price for credits and minimal demand for future offsets suggest California will see a mere fraction of the $1 billion that Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers estimated the state would receive this fiscal year.

The nation’s brokeyest broke state was depending on the money from the auctions to fix their fiscal house have more money to waste on foolish projects, reelection promises, free stuff, and supporting illegal immigrants who make up one third of their prison population. They pegged their hopes on something that had yet to occur, and were Facebooked

As California sells credits, it stands to benefit financially. Brown and lawmakers assumed California would take in $1 billion total this year, spending $500 million on state budget relief and $500 million on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The California Air Resources Board sold $289 million in credits this month, but most of the money is dedicated for utilities and their ratepayers. That leaves $55.8 million for the state.

$289 million is not chump change, of course. But, again, they were pining for $1 billion. That’s what was built in to the budget for spending.

State leaders erred on another market prediction when they assumed Facebook shares would trade at $35 this fall. The stock has traded below $25 since August, and the analyst estimates that California will see $626 million less than expected as a result.

The LAO said last week the state faces a lingering $1.9 billion deficit, partly because of less Facebook and cap-and-trade money.

So, they pinned their financial hopes on, well, hope, rather than actual economic conditions. Is it any surprise they have a $1.9 billion deficit?

Even David Roberts, one of Grist’s super climate terrorists Believers, thinks that carbon taxes are silly. One thing to note is that if done properly, the costs for CO2 goes down.

Read: Brokeifornia’s First Cap And Trade Auction Complete Failure »

Posted in Carbon Credits, Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Washington Post Inadvertently Makes A Good Point On Susan Rice Talking Points

By William Teach November 23, 2012 – 8:42 am

Instead of running a “we’re thankful for…” editorial Thursday, something positive, the Washington Post editorial board attempted some tushy covering for Team Obama and Susan Rice

The GOP’s bizarre attack on Susan Rice

SINCE THE Senate is solely responsible for the confirmation of Cabinet officers, it’s not often that members of the House of Representatives jump into a debate about the nomination of a secretary of state — particularly before there has been a nomination. That’s one of the reasons a letter sent to President Obama this week by 97 House Republicans, challenging his potential choice of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice for the State Department job, is remarkable.

The House is solely responsible for initiating all legislation that involves revenue, yet, it was the Democrat controlled Senate that first passed ObamaCare, using complicated machinations to avoid Constitutional issues. The Post didn’t have a problem with that.

Another is blatant disregard of established facts. Drawn up by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), the letter alleges that “Ambassador Rice is widely viewed as having either willfully or incompetently misled the American public” about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. But as congressional testimony has established, Ms. Rice’s comments on several Sunday television talk shows on Sept. 16 were based on talking points drawn up by the intelligence community. She was acting as an administration spokeswoman; there was nothing either incompetent or deliberately misleading about the way she presented the information she was given.

Yet, the taking points initially said it was terrorism, a notion that pretty much every American thought was the root cause, not some stupid video. Until someone, supposedly James Clapper, changed them. And Susan Rice should have been skeptical going on TV a week later about those talking points. If not, she’s too much of a dupe to be Secretary of anything. Here we go, though

Though the Benghazi attack involved clear failures of U.S. security, Republicans have concentrated on a dubious subsidiary issue: the alleged failure of the administration to publicly recognize quickly enough that the incident was “a terrorist attack.” In fact, Mr. Obama has acknowledged that “the information may not have always been right the first time.” But if there was a White House conspiracy to cover up the truth, Republicans have yet to produce any evidence of it — much less a connection to Ms. Rice, who had no involvement with the Benghazi attack other than those television appearances.

They do have a point, one which I have noted in blog posts and many, many times on Twitter. This focus on the talking points, while important, is a focus on the third most important issue, second being what happened in the run up to the attack, and most important being what happened during the attack. Why were our people left to die? Why were the two ex-SEALs told to stand down? Was the Libyan government asked for permission to send in a rescue group? Who refused to send help from our bases in Europe and/or naval vessels in the Mediterranean? What happened?

I think we know that someone was not being done by the very fact that the Obama administration refuses to release any photos taken of US officials during the crisis, as highlighted by one of the last true journalists, Sharyl Attkisson. If the White House was involved and on the ball, they’d be releasing photos left and right to show how super mega awesome Obama is. And the GOP needs to focus its efforts on what really matters. Are you listening, Senators McCain, Ayotte, and Graham, et all?

BTW, the post ends with the raaaaacism meme

Could it be, as members of the Congressional Black Caucus are charging, that the signatories of the letter are targeting Ms. Rice because she is an African American woman? The signatories deny that, and we can’t know their hearts. What we do know is that more than 80 of the signatories are white males, and nearly half are from states of the former Confederacy. You’d think that before launching their broadside, members of Congress would have taken care not to propagate any falsehoods of their own.

Hey, remember when the Washington Post took liberals to task for the disgusting and real racist and sexist attacks on a different Rice, aka Condi Rice? Yeah, me neither. But, in todays world, to even investigate someone of color who happens to be a Democrat is raaaaacism.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Posted in Current Affairs, Democrats, GOP, Wonky Media | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach November 22, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is a time when CO2 was well below 350ppm, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of Thanksgiving is Primordial Slack, with the Ballad Of Barry And Reggie.

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Posted in If All You See | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Turkeys Revolt In Massachusetts, Form Gangs

By William Teach November 22, 2012 – 9:53 am

Hey, isn’t the way it started in the 1770’s, with small revolts? Or, is it more like the streets of Los Angeles? The turkey’s may have had enough (via rdbrewer at Ace)

(CBS Boston) Neighbors are on the offensive in Brookline after what some residents are describing as aggressive turkeys.

“They were attacking the vehicle,” Karen Halvorson said outside her home in the Aspinwall Hill neighborhood.

After getting in her truck, a neighbor came and ran the birds off but it didn’t stop there.

“Then, the turkeys came and started attacking my front door,” she said.

A second run-in came a few weeks ago as she walked nearby.

“I looked back and three of them charged me,” she explained.

She moved to the center of the street to avoid the animals, but it wasn’t enough.

“The turkey flew in my face and scratched my neck,” she said.

Halvorson refuses to give up her walks so she has taken precautions.

“I went down to the hiking store and I got a hiking stick with a big ball on top of it. I walk with it all the time and now I never go without my phone,” she said.

The Halvorson’s are stockpiling sticks around the house to beat off the turkey attacks. People on the way to work have been chased by turkeys. They’re using tennis rackets to fight them away from the high school. Complaints to the police about these hoodlum turkeys have doubled over the past 2 months. It’s recommended that if you see one of these turkey gangbangers, move to the other side of the street.

You see how bad it is in the graphic, with that sweet lady trying to fend of the crazed turkey. When they start tattooing themselves, especially with tear drops, 3 dots in a triangle, or spider webs, well, people best start arming themselves.

Read: Turkeys Revolt In Massachusetts, Form Gangs »

Posted in Holidays, Like, Gnarly, Dude | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Typical: Obama Uses Turkey Pardon To Take Shots At Romney

By William Teach November 22, 2012 – 9:14 am

This is one of the reasons I say Obama is Not My President (NMP): his ability to be uncharitable and snarky to his political opponents. A president is supposed to at least pay lip service to being the POTUS, rather than always acting as leader of one Party

(The Blaze) During the annual presidential tradition of pardoning a Turkey just before Thanksgiving, President Obama couldn’t seem to resist referencing the recent election against Gov. Mitt Romney.

“They say life is all about second chances, and this November, I couldn’t agree more,” he said with a smile in the Rose Garden Wednesday.

Perhaps referring to Mitt Romney’s allegation that he won through “gifts,” Obama continued: “So in the spirit of the season, I have one more gift to give, and it goes to a pair of turkeys named Cobbler and Gobbler.”

Obama then proceeded to reference his campaign slogan, as the crowd gave a laugh: “The American people have spoken, and these birds are moving forward!”

While the previous references could be seen as coincidences, Obama’s next line was impossible to misinterpret.

“Now, I joke but, for the first time in our history, the winners of the White House turkey pardon were chosen through a highly competitive online vote.  And once again, Nate Silver completely nailed it!  The guy’s amazing…”

So, the president is wishing Democrats a Happy Thanksgiving, and to hell with the rest of you folks. Not My President.

The question now is, what does he do? The only thing he does well is campaign. He’s been a complete SCOAMF on everything else. Even though he cannot run again, does the Neverending Campaign continue?

Oh, and as Buzzfeed points out, Obama once again voted “present”, this time on the violence in Gaza (started by Hamas).

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Typical: Obama Uses Turkey Pardon To Take Shots At Romney »

Posted in Barry Obama | 7 Comments | Trackback URL
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