June 2012 – Page 4 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Fast and Furious Explained

Dave Kopel does an excellent job of describing the scandal from the very beginning, starting off with Operation Wide Receiver under the Bush Administration, and continuing through to the current scandal, just based on the facts we know so far. This is vastly different from the spin you’re seeing in the media. The Philadelphia Stinkquirer is not exception here, carrying the water for the AdministrationÂ by making this out to be a GOP witch hunt rather than legitimate oversight. You’re also seeing a lot in the papers about this originating under the Bush Administration, as if somehow that makes it better. Fine. Let’s get Bush Administration officials up before Congress. Get Gonzalez up there and hold him to account. I thought Bush’s DOJ was a cluster under Gonzalez too. What kind of morons do the media take us for that if they say “Bush did it too!!” we’re just going to slink back into our dumb, stupid redneck gun nuts bunkers and shrug it off.

Obama probably would never have claimed Executive Privilege if he didn’t have his lapdogs at the Washington Hoax, the Philadelphia Stinkquirer and the Paper of Making up the Record ready to try to make the scandal disappear for him.

Why We Win

If the Brady Campaign wants to know why we’re winning, I have a great example. An acquaintance from high school posted the other day an example of the trouble she faces as a young, cute realtor. Her face and phone number are plastered all over her city, so sometimes she gets highly personal obscene calls at any time of day or night. These callers aren’t what most people might experience with a heavy breather who might describe a few abstract things. They can call her by her name and describe what they would like to do to her face in detail.

On top of this issue, she has to worry if these people will try to take the harassment to the next level. If one of them calls to set an appointment to see an empty house, she could end up completely alone with a criminal and never know it.

Being from Oklahoma, she knows how to use a gun. She has a firearm she keeps at home because her husband is out of town for work. She was looking to sign up for a concealed carry class, and I heard she managed to get into one. But, it appears that the Oklahoma training requirement mandates range time. As this acquaintance is quite pregnant right now, she was understandably concerned about the impact the noise will have on her baby.

The anti-gun groups see nothing wrong in forcing her to potentially wait months until she can get a concealed carry license even though she received multiple phone calls in one night. They see no reason she shouldn’t have to take a class at her expense and delaying the process of getting a license even though she already knows how to shoot a gun. According to them, there’s no threat to her safety that’s bigger than the lawful ownership of a safely stored and handled firearm.

The reason we’re winning is because not only did she get into a class, but her post on that news had multiple people “like” it on Facebook – all women.

UPDATED: So another person has chimed in to discuss the process his wife had to go through since she also decided to get a carry license once she was pregnant. I do love Oklahoma sometimes.

Fact Checking

Caleb offers some good advice to check your facts, using a recent Guns.com mistake as an example. I haven’t found commercial blogs to be any more thorough in terms of getting facts right than amateur bloggers. If anything, because amateur bloggers link more readily within the community, error is more likely to get pointed out by someone who has the correct facts, noticed and corrected. If your goal is to make money, Google won’t ding you for bad facts or rumor mongering. It may even be beneficial.

Dip in the Polls for Obama?

Looks like the electorate didn’t like the assertion of Executive Privilege. Given Obama’s struggles recently, this leads me to believe whatever is being shielded by the White House is worse than what he’s going to suffer for shielding it. Either that or he’s good enough friends with Eric Holder he’s willing to take the White House down to help him. Or Eric Holder has enough dirt on people. Who knows.

Mayor Rahm Vows to Protect Chicago’s Gun Laws

By maybe, or maybe not, appealing the decision by a Federal District Court tossing out gun prohibition in Chicago for non-violent misdemeanants. The fact that he’s making such noise about protecting Chicago’s gun laws tells me his office is seriously considering not appealing. This particular issue might not be a hill the Mayor’s Office wants to die on.

Who’s Voting

Ace of Spades has an interesting post on Independent Voters, who are turning away from Obama. If you want to understand why our political system is in such dire straits, you should go read it. Studies of independent voters show that the majority of them are closet partisans. In other words, they can be considered reliable votes for one of the two major parties, but for various reasons, don’t want to identity with them. There is, however, a large number of voters who fit the profile that Ace describes, and they constitute enough people to swing elections:

In other words, they have decided — they just think it makes them seem like smarter, more informed voters to claim they’re still deciding, so they won’t admit that. As they’re actuallyÂ notÂ very well informed voters — and I think they know this — this pretense becomes very important to them. They need some pretense to excuse away their complete disinterest in reading the news.

So they basically start insisting they want the candidates themselves to catch them up to speed, ignoring the fact that policies are spelled out on their campaign websites, and ignoring the fact that these positions are easily and readily discoverable, just by googling and reading.

In 2008, this cohort broke heavily for Obama, and in 2012 they will be an important component in the race. This is why political rhetoric today is so heavily geared toward the ignorant. Speaking of which, Ilya Somin has a video highlighting the problem of political ignorance.

More Coverage of Fast and Furious

Dave Kopel asks whether Obama’s assertion of executive privilege is valid. Instapundit has a few links on the scandal, including one from the Washington Post. Investors Business Daily has run an article stating that the Executive Privilege has the stench of cover-up. Wall Street Journal is running an op-ed. More from the Washington Post. Of course, the WaPo is also offering up some apologia on behalf of Eric Holder.

The only thing I can figure in all this is that Obama thinks taking this up a notch will result in him ending up the victor in the court of public opinion. This scandal was quite easily explained away as incompetence, but the invoking of executive privilege could lead many to question what the White House and Holder have to hide. If this was hatched by the Phoenix office, and everyone involved fired or relocated, then there shouldn’t be an issue with a document release to Congress.

Progress in Jury Nullification

A panel of perspective jurors seems none too thrilled about a felony trial over a small amount of coke. Of course, I can promise you none of those who answered that they would nullify ended up on the jury.

Obama’s Messaging is Off

The Obama campaign has been paying protestors in Michigan to follow Mitt Romney around the state. They tried denying it, but the protestors admitted it to reporters, claiming they were pulling down anywhere from $7.25/hour to $17/hour. Pejman has the best explanation for why the denial from the Obama campaign is terrible messaging for the president:

Personally, I donâ€™t understand why Team Obama doesnâ€™t admit to paying the protesters. If they do, perhaps then the president can actually claim to have created a few jobs.

Resolution to Find Holder in Contempt Passes House Committee

From NRA. I don’t really understand why Obama invoking Executive Privilege was a smart move. It’s basically an admission of White House involvement in the scandal, and now, unlike before, the entire media is paying attention to Fast and Furious. How ironic that it might be Obama himself be the one to blow this scandal wide open.