It’s Thursday, January 17th, 2013….but before we begin, we’ll remind everyone again, everything other than….

….is just a smoke screen.  To borrow a line from the late, great Johnny Cash:

“How high’s the red ink, ‘Bama?  He said it’s $16 trill….and risin’!”

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, the WSJ offers its thoughts on yet another mindless, knee-jerk reaction from a power-hungry Progressive never willing to let any crisis, serious or not, go to waste:

Obama at the Gun Rack

The good, the bad and the (probably) unconstitutional.

 

President Obama isn’t one to shy away from policy ambition, so it was telling on Thursday that he thought it necessary to caution that “there is no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence completely” when he wheeled out his vast gun-control agenda. Some of the new laws he desires are reasonable and may do modest good. Others are counterproductive or unworkable in practice or legally dubious, sometimes all three.

After Newtown, the most important policy goal ought to be keeping firearms away from the mentally unstable and other people who pose a danger to society. There Mr. Obama moved the needle by appealing for better mental health care, even if it seemed like something of an afterthought. The gun-control lobby believes mass shootings and the broader matter of U.S. gun violence (which are not the same problem) can be solved by regulating firearms alone.

Mr. Obama’s raft of suggestions was wise to focus on mentally troubled young people. Disorders of the mind and perhaps of brain chemistry usually manifest in adolescence or early adulthood, and the focus of a reformed system should be identifying them as sickness emerges. The Administration wants to fund a $75 million project to support innovative state programs to identify high-risk kids and train more mental health professionals specialized in treating youths.

A good place to start is Colorado, which is showing more restraint than Washington on guns and more wisdom on mental health. States that develop so-called assisted outpatient treatment laws and programs are showing progress in mitigating violence among the mentally ill.

It was also useful for Mr. Obama to mention the federal health privacy law known by the acronym Hipaa, even if he claimed that there was “confusion” about what it requires. There is no such confusion. Hipaa’s onerous mandates often prevent health-care providers and college counsellors from communicating with each other and law enforcement about troubled patients, which Congress would be wise to relax and reform.

Sadly none of this will generate the same political frisson as Mr. Obama’s call for Congress to reinstate the federal “assault weapons” ban that expired in 2004 and also prohibit high-capacity gun magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds. These are political gestures—but anyhow, over to you, Mary Landrieu, Max Baucus, Mark Begich, Mark Pryor, Mark Warner, Kay Hagan and Tim Johnson, the red-state Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2014.

The conceptual problem begins with the elastic definition of assault weapons. Mr. Obama certainly didn’t define it. The ban that was imposed in 1994 mostly regulated cosmetic features like folding stocks, pistol grips and flash suppressors and produced no measurable shift in gun crime, according to federal researchers.

Semi-automatic rifles have been on the U.S. commercial market since 1903 (from Winchester and Remington) and are in broad use among law-abiding citizens for self-defense, target shooting and sport. They accounted for about 40% of rifle sales in 2010. The AR-15, one of the guns Adam Lanza used in Newtown, is the most popular model in America—5.5% of all U.S. guns manufactured in 2007—and there are about two million in circulation.

These numbers bear on whether such a ban is constitutional. The Supreme Court has twice recognized an individual right to bear arms in the Second Amendment, notably for guns “in common use at the time.” The landmark 2008 Heller case involved semi-automatic handguns, though a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld a Washington ban on semi-automatic rifles in 2011 by a 2-to-1 vote.

However, a dissent in the 2011 case from Judge Brett Kavanaugh makes a compelling argument that the “text, history and tradition” and logic of Heller apply to assault rifles as well. It makes no sense to find semi-automatic handguns legal but not semi-automatic rifles, especially given that handguns are used to perpetrate far more crimes than rifles—87% of all gun crimes between 1993 and 2001, in fact.

The government is empowered to ban “dangerous and unusual weapons,” like machine guns and surface-to-air missiles, but it also needs to explain how any of this will prevent the next Newtown. Are the feds going to round up weapons and melt them down? The 1994 ban applied only to new rifles, and if this one does as well, how will it make a difference?

Mr. Obama also endorsed universal background checks, including for the 40% of gun sales between private parties. Here too there is a practical problem. Often this exemption is called the “gun show loophole” but most of this activity takes place in homes, over the phone, or via online classified ads. Would the feds impose new data collection and regulations on all gun buyers and sellers? Supposedly Washington can’t be trusted to surveil Americans suspected of terrorism, but now it will do so for all gun buyers?

Mr. Obama told Americans to ask “hard questions” about gun violence in the immediate aftermath of the Newtown shootings, but on the evidence Wednesday he didn’t spend a lot of time asking any of himself. Above all he seems to relish a political showdown with the National Rifle Association no matter the policy consequences, much as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo rushed his own gun ban through Albany this week.

Mr. Obama’s package is a place for Congress to start, but only if it plans on taking a rather lengthy trip.

But if you thought the only Senate Dims distancing themselves from their President were the ones up for reelection in 2014, here’s one already angling for her second term….in 2018!

As for Charles Krauthammer’s thoughts on The Dear Misleader’s latest attempt to change the subject, we agree with everything he says….

….except the part where he credits The Obamao with even a hint of sincerity.  As we mentioned in the Video of the Day at our home page, B. Hussein is driven solely by the most crass and base political motivations.  Like the Terminator, it’s what he does….it’s ALL that he does.

Which brings us to this snippet from James Taranto’s latest Best of the Web, and The Obamao’s twisted version of Isiah’s prophecy, “a child shall lead them”:

….What about the complaint that it is tasteless or exploitative for the NRA to allude to Obama’s daughters in the ad? It seems to us that the White House has little moral standing to complain about that. Consider this report from the Associated Press:

Three days after six teachers and 20 students were killed by a rampaging gunman at a Connecticut elementary school, an 8-year-old Maryland boy pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote President Barack Obama, asking for “some changes in the laws with guns.”

“It’s a free country but I recommend there needs (to) be a limit with guns,” Grant Fritz said in the Dec. 17 letter. “Please don’t let people own machine guns or other powerful guns like that.” . . . (Grant’s parents are obviously unaware automatic weapons have been strictly regulated since 1934.)

“I am writing to ask you to STOP gun violence,” wrote Taejah Goode, a 10-year-old from Georgia. “I am very sad about the children who lost their lives. So, I thought I would write to you to STOP gun violence.” (We might ask Taejah’s parents, “What’s next; he walks on water?!?”)

On Wednesday, when Obama announced a package of proposals to reduce gun violence, he was joined on stage by Grant, Taejah and two other children.

We guess he’s increasingly desperate to be seen as the “adult in the room.” As the AP dryly notes (though not until the eighth paragraph): “None of the writers . . . said they opposed efforts to tighten access to guns. The White House did not immediately respond when asked whether it had received letters from children who disagreed with Obama on the need for stricter gun control.”

If the president wants his critics to refrain from even indirectly referring to his daughters, he ought to stop exploiting ordinary people’s children in this manner. Even if the NRA missed the mark in accusing him of elitist hypocrisy over school guards, (Which we don’t believe they did.) his display today makes him a fair target for such a charge.

Unfortunately, right now America, like the Redskins against the Seahawks, need an adult, i.e., a leader, running things.

By the way, as this forward from Bill Meisen and Infowars.com details, The Obamao’s latest photo-op makes him only the latest in a long line of gun-grabbing Socialists who favored children as props:

Meanwhile, a governor with absolutely no political future beyond the borders of The Land of Gentle Living continues to coddle criminals in a vain attempt to out-Left Andrew Cuomo:

Death-Penalty Ban Pushed in Maryland

 

Calling the death penalty expensive and ineffective in reducing violent crime, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said Tuesday that he would push to make his state the latest to do away with capital punishment.

“The death penalty does not work in terms of preventing violent crime and the taking of human life,” Mr. O’Malley said at a news conference in Annapolis. He added that “year after year,” murder rates in states with death penalties are higher than in those without them.

Funny….forgetting for the moment the utter inaccuracy of Marty’s “facts”, could one not say the same of the Old Line State’s incredibly restrictive gun laws?!?  If we didn’t know better, O’Money seems to be making a case for rescinding Maryland’s anti-2nd Amendment strictures rather than continuing to tighten them.

And further west….

Oregon, Texas officials warn White House against enforcing new gun regulations

 

State officials in Oregon and Texas are vowing to fight back against any attempt by the federal government to impose new gun control laws. The warnings come as President Obama prepares to unveil a “comprehensive” plan to address gun violence, based on the recommendations from the Vice President Biden-led task force. The plan is expected to include a call for legislation to ban assault weapons as well as a variety of executive actions.

But in Oregon, Linn County Sheriff Tim Mueller wrote a letter to Biden Monday saying his department will not enforce any new gun laws it considers unconstitutional. Mueller said politicians are “attempting to exploit the deaths of innocent victims” by supporting laws that would harm law-abiding Americans. The sheriff said he took an oath to support the Constitution, and laws preventing citizens from owning certain semi-automatic firearms and ammunition magazines would violate their rights. 

“We are Americans,” Mueller wrote. “We must not allow, nor shall we tolerate, the actions of criminals, no matter how heinous the crimes, to prompt politicians to enact laws that will infringe upon the liberties of responsible citizens who have broken no laws.” “We’re restricted and prohibited from enforcing all types of federal laws, including immigration laws,” he said Tuesday. “It would be unreasonable for anyone to think that I would enforce a federal firearms law.”

Meanwhile, 1200 WOAI reports that in Texas, Republican state Rep. Steve Toth plans to introduce a bill that would make it illegal to enforce in the state any federal laws restricting semi-automatic firearms or the size of gun magazines. Toth told 1200 WOAI that the bill would also call for felony charges to be brought against federal officials who attempt to enforce any such rules.

God bless those who take their oaths of office seriously.

Next up, the WSJ explores the mindset of a man who, never having really experienced America in his formative years, doesn’t understand the way it works now that he’s grown:

‘They Have Suspicions’

Obama demonizes anyone who disagrees with him.

 

President Obama likes to talk about civility in politics, but then he has a particular personal talent for attributing to his political opponents only base motives and beliefs they don’t come close to holding. Consult his Monday press conference for a classic of the genre.

Mr. Obama was asked an anodyne question at one point about reducing the deficit and the long-term accumulation of debt, and perhaps you’ve noticed that the deficit is $1 trillion a year and the debt is building rapidly toward 90% of GDP. Mr. Obama acted as if solving this problem would be a pleasant stroll through a dewy meadow, claiming that “if we’re trying to reduce the deficit, then we can shape a bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit. . . . There’s a recipe for getting that done.”

Good to know. And there are a few reasonable Republicans, Mr. Obama allowed. “But it seems as if what’s motivating and propelling at this point some of the House Republicans is more than simply deficit reduction.”

Here’s the rest in full: “They have a particular vision about what government should and should not do. So they are suspicious about government’s commitments, for example, to make sure that seniors have decent health care as they get older. They have suspicions about Social Security. They have suspicions about whether government should make sure that kids in poverty are getting enough to eat, or whether we should be spending money on medical research. So they’ve got a particular view of what government should do and should be.”

The next time Mr. Obama holds a press conference, somebody should ask him to identify by name those who want to repeal Social Security, steal food from orphans and cancel science funding. We’d like to meet these Visigoths. Otherwise, if the fiscal negotiations are going nowhere, perhaps it is because the President simply won’t make an honest argument.

Or, as one of favorite bloggers, Hope n’ Change puts it, The Dear Misleader’s literally….

Scaring People To Debt

 

Forgetting his promise to use “words that heal rather than words that wound,” Barack Obama held a news conference Monday to call Republicans “baby-raping terrorists” and “syphillitic whores gulping the pus of the evil rich.” Okay, those weren’t his exact words – but his meaning was clear enough. The president declared that he wouldn’t even consider spending cuts in debt ceiling negotiations with the vile Republicans who are “holding a gun at the head of Americans” and “demanding ransom.”

He then went on to say that the only reason that the GOP is seeking deficit reduction is that they’re ideologically opposed to “senior citizens (having) decent health care,” “kids in poverty (getting) enough to eat,” and “medical research.” The bastards probably make smoothies out of kittens, too.

But when it comes to hostage-taking (and possible executions), B. Hussein doesn’t take a back seat to anyone. If his debt ceiling demands aren’t met, he threatens to start racking up a big body count by stopping funding for our troops, our food inspectors, our air traffic controllers, and “the specialists who track down loose nuclear materials.”

That’s right, the president of the United States is threatening us with nuclear holocaust if he’s not given an annual, multi-trillion dollar ransom.

Frankly, Hope n’ Change thinks it’s time to serve this angry anti-American with impeachment papers. But when and where? We’d like to suggest this coming Monday. On the inauguration stand.

Which brings us to today’s Money Quote, courtesy of Newsbusters.org, and Brent Bozell comments on the MSM’s Colon Powell fixation:

“Our transparently partisan media elite believes only one party should be embarrassed for its alleged extremism. Only one party must moderate or die. The Republicans must always move left. The liberal media is always holding up a plastic cup of “compromise” Kool-Aid and demanding the GOP drink up. Republicans should listen to this advice, knowing the correct response is always to do the opposite.“

And in the Education Section, the Washington Examiner reports a story you’ll never hear from the MSM:

Head Start finally gets tested — and flunks

 

It’s the Liberals’ system, stupid!

Yeah, when….

On the Lighter Side….

 

Then there’s these 2nd Amendment classics courtesy of our good buddy Steve Boss:

And in the Sports Section….

Kevin Durant’s Grandmother Tells Him Stop Cursing During the Game via Text

 

You GO, Grandma!

Finally, in News of the Bizarre:

Man Hit by Subway After Defecating Between Cars

 

Police say a 31-year-old man defecating between cars on the uptown 6 train was killed when he fell onto the tracks and was struck by the train he was riding. Witnesses tell police the victim had been defecating between the cars when he fell just after 4 p.m. as the train was leaving the 125th Street station….

The circumstances surrounding that incident are unclear.

No sh*t!

Magoo