Charles Krauthammer sees Gun control advocates really mean "gun confiscation" Counterpoint update

"Mere “commonsense” regulation, like the assault-weapons ban of 1994 that was allowed to lapse ten years later, does little more than make us feel good. A Justice Department study found “no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.' ”

What Gun-Control Advocates Mean but Dare Not Say: Guns Should Be Confiscated
"There’s the cycle of poverty. There’s the cycle of violence. And then there’s the cycle of gun talk. It starts with a mass shooting. Gun-control advocates blame the deaths on gun-control opponents, who argue, in turn, that none of the proposed restrictions would have had any effect on the incident in question. The debate goes nowhere. The media move on.

"Until the next incident, when the cycle begins again.

"So with the Roseburg massacre in Oregon. Within hours, President Obama takes to the microphones to furiously denounce the NRA and its ilk for resisting “commonsense gun-safety laws.” His harangue is totally sincere, totally knee-jerk, and totally pointless. At the time he delivers it, he — and we — know practically nothing about the shooter, nothing about the weapons, nothing about how they were obtained.

"Nor does Obama propose any legislation. He knows none would pass. But the deeper truth is that it would have made no difference. Does anyone really believe that the (alleged) gun-show loophole had anything to do with Roseburg? Universal background checks sound wonderful. But Oregon already has one. The Roseburg shooter and his mother obtained every one of their guns legally.

RELATED: Hillary & Co. Fight a Phony War on Gun Violence

"The reason the debate is so muddled, indeed surreal — notice, by the way, how “gun control” has been cleverly rechristened “commonsense gun-safety laws,” as if we’re talking about accident proofing — is that both sides know that the only measure that might actually prevent mass killings has absolutely no chance of ever being enacted." . . .

UPDATE: Dear Dr. Krauthammer: Please stifle your inner Canadian on “gun control”

. . . "Dear Dr. Krauthammer — disarming law-abiding citizens does not work.  Guns are tools.  What matters is the culture, not the tools. Canada has so far been blessed with a fairly homogeneous Anglo-Saxon culture that reflects the 19th century Britisher’s respect for the law. The absence of gun violence in that country isn’t because of the absence of guns, but because of the absence of violence. When violence creeps in, guns both a sword and — very significantly — a shield.  Take away the shield, and all you’re left with is a sword with the point at innocent people’s throats." . . .

Obama considers a retreat in Syria

Like trashing a hotel room and leaving it for the maid to clean up the mess; can't you sense that Obama wants to run out the clock and let the next president to clean up his damage? And, in true Obama style, he will blame the next administration for ruining the peace he created.
I see this man as a spoiled child and the press as his indulging parent. The Tunnel Dweller

Bloomberg

"A week into Russia's military intervention in Syria, some top White House advisers and National Security Council staffers are trying to persuade President Barack Obama to scale back U.S. engagement there, to focus on lessening the violence and, for now, to give up on toppling the Syrian regime.

"In addition, administration officials and Middle East experts on both sides of the debate tell us, Obama's foreign-policy team no longer doubts that Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to prop up President Bashar al-Assad and primarily target opposition groups other than the Islamic State, including those trained by the Central Intelligence Agency.

"The administration came to this conclusion late. Despite warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Putin's military buildup was intended to keep Assad in power, the White House nonetheless decided to explore cooperating with Russia on the ground. " . . .

Weasel of the Week!

Nice Deb  

"Yes, once again, It’s time to present this week’s statuette of shame, The Golden Weasel!!

"Every Tuesday, the Council nominates some of the slimiest, most despicable characters in public life for some deed of evil, cowardice or corruption they’ve performed. Then we vote to single out one particular Weasel for special mention, to whom we award the statuette of shame, our special, 100% plastic Golden Weasel. This week’s nominees were particularly slimy and despicable, but the votes are in and we have our winner…the envelope please…"





"Puma By Design : My nominee for Weasel of the Week goes to Barack Hussein Obama who began politicizing the death of nine people killed at Umpqua Community College in Oregon last week before rigor mortis set in (no disrespected intended, just trying to make a point).

"I suspect that Obama‘s speech last week was actually written months ago, locked away in a desk in the Oval Office along with a batch of executive orders on gun control that the White House claims is being prepared for Obama’s signature.
From Breitbart:

“It’s a high priority and will continue to be until we start to see more progress on this issue in this town,’ White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters today at the press briefing…
‘I can tell you that they’re not stumped, they’re continuing to review the law that’s on the books and continuing to consult with legal authorities but also others who may have ideas about what steps that can be taken to keep guns out of the hands of criminals,’ Earnest said…”

Obama and the Middle East; how would he not know he is collapsing decades of US foreign policy?

What Really Drives Obama's Destructive Mideast Policy? This author posits that Obama hates the West.

. . . "Obama isn’t religiously Muslim.

"But there’s every indication he’s culturally Muslim."

"It’s not a stretch to say that what ex-president Jimmy Carter did for Iran, Barack Obama is doing for the whole Middle East and beyond. Islamic State is on the move; jihadism in general is raging and all the rage; and with the Iran deal, the man who helped enable the “Arab Spring” may give us a nuclear winter. " . . .Why did he support the Iranian clerics over the people in their revolt?

BDS, Trade, and Congress  . . . "Making it clear to President Obama that Congress will hold up any and all trade agreements if he obstructs the anti-boycott provisions of the law would be a powerful, effective, and ongoing check on any executive branch attempts to legitimize anti-Israel boycotts. "


Putin's Holy War vs. Obama's Jihad in Syria 

. . . "Compare and contrast this with U.S. President Obama, who denies the connection between Islamic teachings and violence; whose policies habitually empower Christian-persecuting Islamists; who prevents Christian representatives from testifying against their tormentors; and who even throws escaped Christian refugees back to the lions
, while accepting tens of thousands of Muslim migrants. " Raymond Ibrahim

Don’t Trust Putin in the Mideast   "Contrary to the principles of American foreign policy of the last 70 years, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry tacitly invited Russia to “help” monitor things in the Middle East. Now they are learning that there are lots of Middle East scenarios far worse than the relatively quiet Iraq that the Obama administration inherited in January 2009 — and soon abandoned." . . .

Should you mistake the "Holy War" article above for Putin-love, consider this:  From The Federalist:  No, Obama Critics Don’t Admire Vladimir Putin . . . "To make things clear, just because we think Obama is an abject failure doesn’t mean we think Putin is a model of success. And saying that he looks strong and decisive by comparison to the man currently in the Oval Office—well, let’s just say that Obama has set a pretty low bar." . . .

AP Reporter Exposes Obama Admin Hypocrisy Regarding Israel in Wake of Afghan Bombing   "With the recent U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in mind, AP reporter Matt Lee confronted and confounded State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner over the Obama administration’s reaction to Israel’s accidental bombing of a school in the city of Rafah in the south of Gaza in August of 2014.
"After the Israeli missile strike hit a school, killing ten people, the State Department put out a scathing statement condemning Israel for its “disgraceful shelling,” and demanded an investigation:
. . .
"As Dunetz notes, the State Department spokesman was at a loss for words.
He obviously couldn’t say that the condemnation of Israel wasn’t official policy — it was simply the Obama administration taking advantage of an opportunity to criticize Israel. (Never let a crisis go to waste.)"

Trey Gowdy rips into Kevin McCarthy over his Benghazi statements

The conservative House Freedom Caucus on Wednesday endorsed little-known Rep. Daniel Webster

Trey Gowdy RIPS INTO Kevin McCarthy for misrepresenting the Benghazi investigation
Benghazi committee chairperson Trey Gowdy tried to hold back his anger about Kevin McCarthy undermining the credibility of their investigation with his admission on the Hannity show that are now being used in Hillary campaign commercials.



"Clearly this is going to hurt McCarthy’s run for the Speaker of the House, as critics have pounced on him from all sides, and even his friends admit that what he said was stupid. What a great replacement for Boehner, huh?"

"The problem isn't guns or white men"

Ann Coulter  . . . " The absolute maximum number of mental patients per 100,000 people who could possibly be institutionalized by the state in the U.S. -- voluntarily or involuntarily -- is: 17. Yes, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, there are a grand total of 17 psychiatric beds even available, not necessarily being used. In 1955, there were 340.

"    After every mass shooting, the left has a lot of fun forcing Republicans to defend guns. Here's an idea: Why not force Democrats to defend the right of the dangerous mentally ill not to take their medicine?

  "  Liberals will howl about "stigmatizing" the mentally ill, but they sure don't mind stigmatizing white men or gun owners. About a third of the population consists of white men. Between a third and half of all Americans have guns in the home. If either white men or guns were the main cause of mass murder, no one would be left in the country.

"    But I notice that every mass murder is committed by someone who is mentally ill. When the common denominator is a characteristic found in about 0.1 percent of the population -- I think we've found the crucial ingredient!

"    Democrats won't be able to help themselves, but to instantly close ranks and defend dangerous psychotics, hauling out the usual meaningless statistics:
"-- Most mentally ill are not violent!

"    Undoubtedly true. BUT WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT ANOREXICS, AGORAPHOBICS OR OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVES. We were thinking of paranoid schizophrenics.
"-- The mentally ill are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence!
. . ."   As with the "most Muslims are peaceful" canard, while a tiny percentage of mentally ill are violent, a gigantic percentage of mass shooters are mentally ill.

"    How can these heartless Democrats look the parents of dead children in the eye and defend the right of the mentally deranged to store their feces in a shoebox, menace library patrons -- and, every now and then, commit mass murder? "
Emphasis added, TD

Prosperity is coming. . .

Ted Cruz asks a question that the Sierra Club dared not answer

Red State
"The moral of this particular story is: don’t send somebody up against a Senate Judiciary subcommittee unless he’s prepared to answer the simplest of questions."

Senator Cruz . . . "asked the simplest of questions, and Sierra Club President Aaron Mair couldn’t answer it. In fairness, it’s a very awkward question – What about the satellite data? – and, as I understand it, Mr.* Mair’s testimony boiled down to 97% of scientists say that it’s not an issue. Which would have been a better answer if Sen*. Cruz hadn’t been more familiar with the origin of that particular (false) talking point, or indeed everything else involving the entire topic of global warming / climate change / [insert buzzphrase here].  Seriously, it looks bad when the head of your organization has to keep getting fed lines by his staff.

"I’ll just finish up here by also noting that it looks worse when your inevitable Democratic rescuer swoops in and essentially explains that your witness can’t even be expected to give a proper opinion on even the most basic controversies and arguments over global warming.  Honestly: in that exchange Ted Cruz showed more respect to Aaron Mair than Chris Coons did. Cruz treated Mair like a hostile witness; Coons treated Mair like a witless one. You tell me which was the ruder response."

Obama needs to stop talking trash

As Mark Steyn said, the Muslim and communist nations want to annihilate us while Obama just wants to support transgender rest rooms

American Thinker
. . . "Trash Talking is fine when your name is Muhammad Ali and you have not only the ability, but also the willingness to use your fists to win the day. If your name is Barack Obama and you are President of the United States, you may have the ability in the form of the world's finest military, but the willingness and intellect to back up your trash talk with effective actions just isn't your forte.

"Trash talking without substance to back it up appears to be a common theme with President Obama. We all can recall his comment to Governor Mitt Romney during the presidential debates, when Romney opined that Russia might be the biggest threat to the United States and world stability. Obama snarked back, "The 1980s called and they want their foreign policy back." Recent events have proven Governor Romney right and President Obama's trash talk to be ill informed and out of place. Russia, led by President Vladimir Putin, is indeed a threat and growing more so each day."
. . .
"The short, by no means inclusive list of the results he has obtained thus far are: prevented the U.S. from installing defensive missiles in Poland, humiliated Georgia, annexed the Crimea; invaded Eastern Ukraine, and finally, replaced the United States as the global power to turn to in Southwest Asia. Those plusses on Putin's ledger of geopolitical achievement come at the expense of minuses on Obama's books. When blood enemies such as Bashar Assad and Benjamin Netanyahu both turn to Putin for help, that puts him solidly in the driver's seat. President Obama needs to stop talking trash and start driving."
Emphasis added, TD

Russia Humiliates America, And Risks Taking Our Place Globally
. . . "It's happening because Putin saw his opportunity in Obama's weakness, and acted. It's clear from his speech to the United Nations that Putin seeks to replace the U.S. as the dominant player in the Middle East — morally as well as militarily." . . .

A leftist wants to call articles like the above treason

Mourning in America With Obama and Westboro Church

HopeNChangeCartoons

*For the record, a check of the Westboro church picket schedule shows no picket in Roseburg, Oregon. Nothing in their press releases about Roseburg
Nothing concrete in this post either.

"As if the people in Roseburg, Oregon haven't suffered enough, Barack Obama and the Westboro Baptist Church both plan to descend on the community to push their personal political agendas.*

"The people of Roseburg aren't happy about the president coming because of his seeming inability to tell the difference between a coffin and a soapbox. And no one is ever happy to see the morally repugnant Westboro Baptists, especially in light of their gloating tweets that "God sent the shooter." A sentiment, by the way, which the president had previously suggested about the Almighty in the case of the Charleston, SC church shootings.

"Hope n' Change has already said a lot about Barack Obama's reprehensible politicking, and has no need to comment on the Westboro Baptists other than to say that, despite our personal lack of religious affiliation, we hope there is a Hell so that they can burn in it.

"Unlike the spotlight grabbers named above, there's actually a respectful way for real Americans to show their concern for the families who lost loved ones at Umpqua Community College. Visit this GoFundMe site to donate a few dollars and leave a few thoughts (non-political, please) to let the good people of Roseburg know that we care and share their terrible loss."

Jay Leno tags in for Jimmy Fallon

Fox News Insider    "After Jimmy pulls a hamstring during the monologue, Jay Leno tags in and tells a few jokes."

"Last night on "The Tonight Show," the audience got a blast from the not-so-distant past, as Jay Leno took the stage for a surprise monologue. 

"Host Jimmy Fallon welcomed Leno, who is promoting a new CNBC show "Jay Leno's Garage," by telling the audience that that he'd pulled a muscle mid-joke and needed a sub to come in. 

" 'Could somebody tag in for me, please?" Fallon asked, as Leno ran onto the stage to big applause and delivered some of his signature one-liners. 

"Watch Leno, who hosted his final "Tonight Show" on Feb. 6, 2014, get in a few jokes about the 2016 race, ObamaCare, Usama bin Laden and more in the clip above. 

"The monologue culminated with Fallon and Leno teaming up for a hilarious "The economy is so bad" bit."

Hillary today...so far

Hillary needs MSM to jump for her, and they’ve changed into their Air Jordans

"In spite of an ongoing FBI investigation and other troubles, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is still moving forward, and the mainstream media are happy to pounce on anything that might help:   NBC video

Hillary chief of staff e-mailed classified info to the Clinton Foundation — twice
"The Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal may have its first target for criminal charges — assuming the Department of Justice takes its job seriously. E-mails produced via a FOIA lawsuit from Citizens United include two instances in which Hillary’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills transmitted classified information to people outside of the government. In fact, as Politico reports, the two e-mails from Mills went to the Clinton Foundation to assist in coordinating with Bill Clinton’s efforts on behalf of the Clinton Global Initiative:" . . .