This was a stupid bill to begin with, so I’m glad they’ve come to an agreement. This wasn’t a fight that needed to be picked.
Month: March 2011
Todd Tiahrt Responds to Joyce Funded Propaganda
To Minnesota Public Radio’s credit, they printed it. He basically argues that Joe Vince wants to make money off mining the trace data in his consulting work, and that ATF, along with other police organizations, have supported restricting trace data to protect active investigations.
Indoctrination
Glad to see local Tea Party activists making a big issue of something like this:
Rickabaugh, who has a child in the high school, also said the teacher espoused beliefs that the Second Amendment has no place in contemporary society and that socialized medicine is better for Americans.
The left has controlled our educational institutions for entirely too long. If we’re going to beat them back in the long run, it’s going to take people like Rickabaugh. Use the left’s own standards against them. That’s what Saul Alinsky would have done.
A Little About NRA’s New President
Not what many people think. Personally, I was impressed by David Keene’s inclusion of GOProud at CPAC, much to the chagrin of many other social conservative groups, and even some other members of NRA’s board acting in other capacities. I’m happy to have Keene as NRA President for two years.
NRA Lawyer Dies in Skydiving Accident
A conservative Delaware County mayor who worked on behalf of the National Rifle Association to challenge Philadelphia’s well-publicized attempts at local gun laws died in a skydiving accident Friday.
C. Scott Shields, 45, was killed around 4:30 p.m. when his main parachute did not deploy and his emergency chute failed. He landed in the trees surrounding the Cross Keys airport in Gloucester County and was pronounced dead on arrival at Underwood Memorial Hospital in Woodbury, N.J.
Bring it On
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette thinks Obama needs to grow a spine when dealing with the “gun lobby.”
If Mr. Obama called for limiting the size of ammunition clips in certain weapons, something that we and even former Vice President Dick Cheney think is a good idea, it would confirm the NRA’s darkest conspiracy theories. But all Mr. Obama wants is a reasoned discussion, and the mighty NRA can’t bear even that.
To them a reasonable discussion means “You guys talk about how much of the Second Amendment you are willing to surrender.” Â Personally, I’d prefer it if Obama came after us. We have the votes to defeat this in Congress, and that would be the excuse we need to fire our people up headed into 2012. That’s going to be a lot harder if politicians like Casey and Tester can still claim Obama won’t touch the gun issue.
Philly Mayor and Police Chief Back Magazine Ban
Not really shocking. Neither of these two have ever met a gun control bill they didn’t like:
Ramsey, also president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said there’s “simply no legitimate reason not to have this ban in place.”
So are you going to take them away from your officers then Commissioner? I say lead by example. If there’s no legitimate reason to have one, your cops don’t need them either.
Times Dispatch Gets It
They take Obama to task for trying to seek a phony “middle ground” on gun control:
So it is with guns. The president is fond of speaking about “common sense” gun restrictions. To supporters of the Second Amendment, that is like speaking about “common sense” press restrictions in the context of the First — which forbids any restrictions at all. There is nothing particularly noble about compromise when it calls for someone to compromise his principles.
As the article mentions, this isn’t some obscure budgetary matter, or building a bridge, where there could be some give an take. This cuts to the very core of the citizens’ relationship with government.
Disclosure
The media loves disclosure of potentially conflicting interests, except when it comes to their own business. Something about the reporter’s notebook story Sebastian linked to kept rubbing me the wrong way. Then I realized that while the reporter disclosed the source of his funding & research in the notebook, the stories that came out of the Joyce Foundation fellowship made zero mention of the fact that they were bought & paid for by an organization that views gun ownership as a public health problem.
Looking at the work by Brandt Williams, there’s no mention on the website or in the audio files of what aired that he was paid $5,000, plus additional support to cover meetings with anti-gun groups. In fact, the audio files start with an introduction that asks listeners to support their work. The bio for Williams makes no mention of the fact that he’s a Joyce Journalism Fellow, another clue that would tip listeners off to any potential bias in his articles funded by the Foundation.
There’s no way that Williams and any other reporters involved can claim that their work is free of bias since a stipulation of taking the $5,000 was that their work be written in order to “have a major public policy impact.” In addition to Williams, Joyce was willing to fund up to six other writers or broadcasters who were based “in midwest and northeast region with priority given to journalists in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” Since Joyce doesn’t appear to list them, the coordinating organization doesn’t list them, and no results turn up on media sites for titles and terms such as “Joyce Journalism Fellow,” it could be hard to figure out exactly who was paid for these planted stories.
In addition to outright paying for coverage at the rate of $5,000 per story or series, Joyce also funded travel & networking opportunities for their grantees to hang out with the leaders of anti-gun groups. The Foundation describes it rather innocuously:
To kick off the project, the Center will hold regional hands-on workshops for the selected reporters.
In reality, fellows were flown to Chicago for a workshop that primarily featured these speakers:
- Tom Diaz, Violence Policy Center
- Ben Van Houten, Legal Community Against Violence
- Rose Cheney, Firearm Injury Center
- Ben Hayes, ATF
- Nicholas Roti, Chicago PD CAGE (Chicago Anti-Gun Enforcement) program
Yet, not a single mention of the obvious slant in speakers by Williams in his notebook entry for the trip. It begs to question whether any of the fellows raised any serious concerns about this project whatsoever.
Beyond the initially purchased stories, this fellowship program from Joyce is seeking to create a long term network of journalists working to advance their public policy initiatives. Take a look at some of the other resources that Joyce helped fund to keep them on a short leash:
To help facilitate the reporting program, the Center will also provide research assistance to help the Fellows gather data, develop contacts, and manage resources on gun violence stories. The Center will also create online tools for project participants to exchange information with colleagues and post questions for Center trainers and administrators. An electronic library containing articles, research, and media sources will be developed for peer journalists unaffiliated with the project.
Gee, the funders looking to advance policy in a specific direction set up a database of source material for the fellows to use – there’s no chance of bias there, is there? But they are members of the esteemed fourth estate, so we’re supposed to trust them instead of asking them for a bit of honesty or disclosure in this case.
If we want a general guide to where the articles bought by Joyce ended up, we can probably get a pretty good idea from the mention in the Williams notebook that one anti-gun group focused on gun laws in Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan. If you see any obviously biased feature stories dated from late last fall to the end of this month turn up in those states, then you likely have a Joyce-funded reporter on your hands. Just don’t expect them to reveal that fact.
Brady Lobby Day
The Brady Campaign are planning a lobby day on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. If any of my readers who work on the Hill can get pictures of this charade, I’d be happy to post them.