How’s This For Government?

The FBI raids the Office of US Special Counsel Scott Bloch:

Investigators say Bloch is suspected of hiring an outside company to scrub his computer amid a federal investigation of alleged misconduct in his office.

The inquiry has been under way for more than a year and is looking into charges of intimidation and retaliation against whistle-blowers among staff members working in Bloch’s agency.

The Office of Special Counsel is responsible protecting the rights of federal workers and ensuring that government whistle-blowers are not subjected to reprisals.

And the Democrats want to put these people in charge of my health care?  No thanks.

Clinton’s Gun Gaffe

I was talking to Peter, of Firearms and Freedom last night, about the Hillary gun thing.  I have to admit this registers pretty low on my give-a-shit-o-meter.  The real issue is that Hillary is running on guns at all.  It’s like David Duke running on a platform of racial unity.  But the fact that the person who designed her flyer took a stock photo of a European rifle, reversed it, and sent it out to the wilds of Indiana, doesn’t rank very high on my list of sins against gun owners.  Especially by someone like Hillary Clinton.

Ed Rendell Also Shameless

He’s calling for a renewal of the assault weapons ban:

Rendell says the gun that cut down Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski (see related story) was a Chinese assault weapon, and he says that there used to be a ban on importing assault weapons:

“And yet in 2004, the Congress of the United States — often some of the very same congressmen who would come and attend ceremonies like this — let the assault weapons ban lapse.”

The governor acknowledged that the gun that killed Liczbinski was brought into the country “well before that action,” but says it’s symptomatic of the refusal of lawmakers to provide “maximum protection” to law enforcement:

“If we really want to pay honor and tribute to the memory of those 703 police officers who have given their lives, we will suck it in, do the right thing, and pass laws that would give our police officers out on the street, protecting us every day, the maximum amount of protection we can.”

I don’t expect much out of the city politicians, but I would have expected the governor to show some class and not jump on the bandwagon of exploiting this for political gain.  Also more “Kill a cop, we’ll blame something other than the criminal.”, and this time from our governor.

What They Think of You

From a comment to this Philadelphia Daily News article:

Good Luck Nutter. You can not use reason when you try to reason with those inbred NRA morons. What he should do is arrange for a bus to go to the cow pastures of Central PA and pick up all those NRA nuts and bring them to Philly. Let them try to survive one night on the streets here and see if they still want to block the assault weapon ban.

They would survive.  Not only would they survive if they were relocated, but Philadelphia would very quickly have a lower crime rate, because those people would not tolerate the levels of crime that goes on in these high crime neighborhoods in the city.  If you want to see what happens when you drop a gun nut into the middle of an inner city, take a look at Pro-Gun Progressive.

It’s not the geography that’s the issue.  North Philadelphia is not destined to be a hell hole.  It’s a hell hole because the streets are ruled by thugs.  But getting rid of the thugs is going to entail working with the police, and electing judges willing to put the criminals in jail for a long time.  The rural parts of this state are virtually crime free, but they are like that because the people there would not tolerate the levels of crime in their neighborhoods that people in north Philadelphia tolerate.  I’m reluctant to blame the povery too, because there are parts of this state that are definitely struggling with poverty and lack of opportunity that don’t have a fraction of the crime Philadelphia does.  Philadelphians have spent entirely too long allowing their politicians to feed them excuses for why the crime is so high.  Maybe when they stop buying it, they’ll demand something actually be done about it.

George W. Bush – Destroyer of Coalitions

I couldn’t agree more with this.   I would also add, as someone who still supports what we’re doing in Iraq, Bush has been an unmitigated disaster for that policy.  He did not lead the country to war.  If a Democrat is elected, and we pull out, with all the horrible consequences that will entail for the region, Bush will share much of a blame for that because of his mismanagement.

Officer Down

Another police officer killed in Philadelphia.  Apparently they already have the low lifes in custody.  I missed this one yesterday because I was busy doing things with Bitter.  Our thoughts and prayers go out of officer Liczbinki’s family.

Cop killers are a dangerous breed of criminal.  They will kill anyone as soon as look at them.  They have no regard for life.  What’s also important, most of them are actually competent shooters, which seperates them from your typical criminal.  It’s a very good thing the Philadelphia police were able to catch these guys as quickly as they did.

Speaking Truth to Power

The left overuses this term, but this eight grade girl from Detroit really gets it.  She’s talking to Monica Conyers, wife of Congressman John Conyers:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiogXT9xZBQ[/youtube]

How I wish I were disgustingly rich, because I would offer that girl a free ride to wherever she wanted to go.  Not only did she challenge Mrs. Conyers with poise, she didn’t hold back.  Pretty clearly an incident like this should be the end of Monica Conyer’s career, but this is Detroit.  If there were 1000 more little eighth grade girls like this, it would give me great optimism about the future.

Hat Tip to Hit & Run

What’s Hillary Up to in Indiana

Attacking Obama on the gun issue, pretty directly.  Via Instapundit, who got it from SayUncle.  I find this whole thing rather laughable, since Hillary is really no better on guns than Obama, but it’s interesting that she’s willing to attack him on it.  Hillary is a shameless chameleon.  She is willing to say or do anything in order go get power.  If making you think she’s better on guns than he is is what it takes, so be it.

I do not want Obama to be President, but to some degree, I can respect that he has been unable to escape what he is, which is a solid man of the left.  Hillary is not a woman of the left, she’s a woman of power, in that she wants it, no matter the cost.  I have no doubt that Barack Obama would be a disaster for America, but no person who lusts for power to such a deagree that she’s willing to throw her belief in gun control overboard should be trusted to wield it.

Supreme Dictator

The meme is going around.  I have pretty good faith in our system, so I wouldn’t make very many changes, other than this:

  1. Fire all existing supreme court justices, except for Justice Thomas.  He can stay.
  2. Nominate Eugene Volokh to the Supreme Court
  3. Nominate Randy Barnett to the Supreme Court
  4. Nominate Glenn Reynolds to the Supreme Court
  5. Nominate David Hardy to to the Supreme Court
  6. Nominate Orin Kerr to the Supreme Court
  7. Nominate Judge Alex Kozinski to the Supreme Court
  8. Tell Congress they can stick it on the advice and consent, and order that we only need seven justices.
  9. Consolidate all federal law enforcement under the US Marshals.
  10. Put Radley Balko in charge of the USDOJ with a life time appointment.

I figure the rest will kind of sort itself out.