The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Only in Pennsylvania do we consider it to be a wise use of 1,000 pounds of butter to be turned into a sculpture of a beauty queen and a cow.
I hope we’ve invested in a bit more security this year. I’d hate to see a headline that Norwegians came in and stole our prized butter statue to take back home.
I am starting to think that the message Ron Paul wants to send is that leadership under a Libertarian is best described as, “I didn’t personally do it, so you can’t blame me!”
First, we have the newsletter debacle. He made money off of them, and he signed his name to the mailers, and he knows who was writing them, but refuses to name them. But since he says that he didn’t actually pen the words, he has no responsibility to be held accountable for things printed under his name and in his business.
Now, we have the Twitter crap. What Twitter crap? Well, Ron Paul now says he can’t be held accountable for things published on his verified campaign Twitter account.
When pressed about the fact that the message was sent under his official Twitter handle, Paul said, “I have some help on tweeting,†and continued to dismiss the whole episode as “irrelevant.”
When a former colleague posted this on Facebook, a jokester decided to give us some insight into Ron Paul’s leadership style in the White House: “‎I have some help with the missiles. Someone else launched that one. I wasn’t involved.”
If people are serious about a libertarian message, these missteps should be alarm bells blaring very loudly. I do realize that you can’t blame a candidate for every bad decision an underling makes, but the candidate still needs to step up and accept responsibility for the problem. A real leader would also explain whether they have actually addressed the problem. Personal responsibility doesn’t mean an end to leadership, especially when you’re running for the White House.
I suspect this Drudge headline is supposed to be controversial: “REPORT: 911 operator tells woman it’s OK to shoot intruder…”
Then, you click on the story. Perhaps it’s because I’m from Oklahoma, but I don’t see anything remotely controversial about the actual report.
McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO that she quickly got her 12 gauge, went into her bedroom and got a pistol, put the bottle in the baby’s mouth and called 911.
“I’ve got two guns in my hand — is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?” the young mother asked the 911 dispatcher. “I’m here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?”
The 911 dispatcher confirmed with McKinley that the doors to her home were locked as she asked again if it was okay to shoot the intruder if he were to come through her door.
“I can’t tell you that you can do that but you do what you have to do to protect your baby,” the dispatcher told her. McKinley was on the phone with 911 for a total of 21 minutes.
When Martin kicked in the door and came after her with the knife, the teen mom shot and killed the 24-year-old. Police are calling the shooting justified.
In other words, the 911 dispatcher didn’t tell her to kill the intruder, the dispatcher ran through things that could delay the intruders until police arrive, and just told the mom that she could do what she needed to do to protect her baby. And this is worthy of a headline why?
…and only one came out. I just stole that from Jim Geraghty this morning, but it seems to be the headline of the day. Rick Perry is effectively out, and Rick Santorum is the so-co anti-Mitt now. I don’t see him doing well in New Hampshire, so the question will be whether he maintains any of the “surge” into other states. He could end up being in the same position as the Huckabeast in 2008, in that he largely ends up being a protest vote by more socially conservative states down the line, but won’t take the nomination. He did so well, in part, because he spent so much time on the ground in Iowa. There simply aren’t enough days between primaries to do that in many other states. Consider that out of all of the candidates in Iowa, only two are even on the ballot in Virginia.
By the way, when Santorum runs on the fact that he’s the only candidate to have won a swing state like Pennsylvania before, feel free to remind people that he also lost Pennsylvania to a guy whose own staff doesn’t know if he’s alive.
I will also steal this bit of commentary from him to put it in context of why Iowa shouldn’t be any more relevant than any other small state:
The Hawkeye State killed off the chances of a perfectly good candidate, Tim Pawlenty, in favor of his Minnesota rival Michele Bachmann, only to drop her like seventh-period Spanish by the time the actual caucuses rolled around. The caucuses weren’t even over when the Fox News Decision Desk could project, with confidence, that she would finish sixth out of six major candidates in the caucus. As of this writing, she is set to finish 5 percentage points ahead of Jon Huntsman, who effectively conceded the state.
For all the surges we’ve seen of potential “anti-Romneys,” Pawlenty likely would be the best one.
Some of you might think that Ron Paul’s third place showing is the story of the night, but it isn’t. Here’s an interesting tidbit as to why that momentum won’t hold as we head into races where people who actually vote for Republicans have a chance to vote:
According to the entrance polls, 38 percent of caucus-goers had never voted in a GOP caucus before; of those, by far the largest share, 37 percent, voted for Ron Paul. Among the registered so-called independents who took part in the caucus, 48 percent voted for Ron Paul, way ahead of anyone else. Next highest was Romney with 16 percent.
Closed primaries in future states will largely keep this number down as we progress through the primary calendar. The exception to that being Virginia where he will be the only protest vote against Mitt available, save for write-ins.
UPDATE: Well, I admit that I’m wrong. It looks like two Ricks stay in the race. That’s wise for Perry. Iowa shouldn’t be in a position to coronate any candidate, and he could do well in South Carolina.
UPDATE II: I stand corrected on write-ins in Virginia primary in the comments. Also, I take back what I said about Perry. He may still have a campaign going, but apparently he plans to take a couple of days off. Ummm…let’s see, NH is next week, and South Carolina shortly after that. I don’t think he can afford days off right now. So while there might be a campaign that exists, I don’t think this bodes well for the future vitality of it.
As the Philadelphia Daily News was headed to print with the headline “Kill-adelphia: Yet again, city tops list of homicide rates,” they missed another homicide for their report. As I told Wyatt in response to that tweet, the city’s leaders think he’s using fuzzy math for considering year-over-year numbers. They only count from the very highest number and consider all numbers below it to be an improvement. Even as murder is on the rise, they use a “method” of counting that considers it down by double digits. The problem is that no one believes them, but the city voters aren’t willing to hold anyone accountable.
But John Coleman, shopping at the Uceta market yesterday, wasn’t buying the spin.
“They lyin’,” said Coleman, 25.
They use every excuse under the sun. You can’t track trends with year-over-year data. (Really? Yet, using the absolute worst year is a method for tracking long-term trends?) The city’s leadership says that the numbers aren’t accurate because they actually include every homicide, and they don’t think all of them count. Which ones don’t count?
“We’ve been pretty much flat for about two years, if you take the Gosnell numbers out,” said Everett Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety, who spoke for the Nutter administration.
What are “the Gosnell numbers” that shouldn’t count? That would be the doctor who murdered seven babies & one woman.
Of course, even though shootings are down, the lack of extreme gun control in the rest of the state is to blame, according to the head of the Philadelphia Police Department. The mayor’s spokesman says that the economy is to blame, as does a social worker interviewed in the article. It’s easier to blame everyone else for a city that chooses to do nothing to stop the culture of violence.
Promises are made by the city’s current leaders, but no one cares enough to hold them accountable.
Mayor Nutter, at a debate during his 2007 campaign, pledged that he wouldn’t seek re-election if the 2010 homicide tally was more than the 288 killed in 2002. Then at his inauguration in January 2008, he set what turned out to be an overly ambitious goal of slashing the city’s murder rate by 30 to 50 percent in three to five years. He won re-election this year.
He didn’t meet a single one of those promises, but there was never any doubt as to his chances to hold office this year. I think it speaks volumes that in the picture for the article that only two people in the crowd look upset at the body covered just a few feet from them. I think far too many residents in that city have simply decided to accept this level of crime as a way of life.
Today, Alan Gura gets a decision on how much he should be paid by DC for having to fight on behalf of Dick Heller & others against the city’s unconstitutional gun laws.
A federal judge on Thursday issued an opinion awarding Heller’s attorneys $1,137,072.27 in fees and expenses. The attorneys had argued they should be awarded $3.1 million. Attorneys for the city said the figure should be closer to $840,000. …
The judge’s opinion awards Gura approximately $662,000 for more than 1,500 hours of work on the case, paying him at a rate of $420 per hour. Five other members of Heller’s team are also compensated.
There’s no comment from Gura in the article, but the city is very happy with the award.
Did anyone tell organizers of the 100-year anniversary Titanic re-creation cruise that they already made this movie? It didn’t end well.*
I’m not quite sure I follow why interest in non-discretionary issue of concealed carry firearms is considered hard to believe in Iowa.
The number of Iowans seeking permits to carry handguns and other weapons has increased 170 percent during the first 11 months of 2011 — a trend one Iowa sheriff calls “unbelievable.â€
During the first year in which a new law gave sheriffs less discretion over which residents can be denied permits, 94,516 Iowans sought and received non-professional weapons permits from January through November, the Iowa Department of Public Safety reports.
Data from the state’s three most populous counties show an even greater surge in weapons permits in key urban areas. In Polk, Linn and Scott counties, the number of permits issued thus far in 2011 is 271 percent higher than in 2010.
It seems pretty damn easy to understand for me. I know people who have lived under may issue jurisdictions who wouldn’t even apply for a license to carry because of the risk of being turned down for absolutely no reason. If they are turned down, they usually have to report it to the states that issue licenses based on actual evidence that you’re law-abiding.
Based on the context of the “unbelievable” quote, I don’t think the sheriff who said it was speaking from an anti-gun perspective. I just think he’s truly baffled that interest surged in self-defense once it became known that discriminating practices in issuance were no longer allowed.
The Washington Times has a piece about GOP efforts to stop spending on anti-gun research by the federal government. Most of it isn’t huge news to those of us who have followed the issue closely for years, but I do love their flourish in language describing some of the studies:
It took $2.6 million of taxpayers’ money to find out what could have been assumed for free: that teenagers who possess illegal guns, engage in underage drinking and hang out with other ne’er-do-wells are more likely to get shot.
I love it.
I once destroyed a Christmas decoration when I was a kid by running outside to show my dad something, then turning to run back into the house – without realizing that someone had closed the glass door behind me since they didn’t realize I would be back inside quickly. Yeah, that was pretty funny looking back on it. Fortunately, my dad pulled out the super glue and fixed up the horse for me. I still have it today.
Alan Sailer, on the other hand, destroys his Christmas decorations with an air rifle. There’s no gluing these things back together.
What I find most interesting about his hobby is how creative he gets with the shots. Consider the set up for this photo:
Pay attention now.
Rifle fires pellet at razor blade. Blade splits pellet in two. Two halves of pellet wing their way towards a pair of gelatin filled Christmas bulbs.
And timing is set just a little two early.
Although if you look very closely, you can see tiny cracks staring in the light brown bulb as the half pellet just touches the glass surface.
He frequently fills the ornaments with materials that include chapstick, sour cream, colored sand, red jello, honey, plain water, sugar balls, aloe gel, sand mixed with alcohol, and even Play Doh.
I don’t think he likes Frosty. He also doesn’t limit his artistic destruction to air rifle, but incorporates a ping pong ball cannon for a little diversity.
