It’s Monday, June 20th, 2016…and here’s The Gouge!

First up, in a must-see video we strongly urge you to watch in its entirety (or at least to the 25:55 mark), Evan Sayet offers as thorough and cogent an explanation of modern Progressive thinking as we’ve ever heard: Hating What’s Right: How the Modern Liberal Winds Up on the Wrong Side of Every Issue.  Again, though it’s long, we strongly recommend watching the entire clip, even if you have to view it piecemeal.

As the great Thomas Sowell says of the Left, “That which is held in esteem qualifies to be their target; that which is held in disdain qualifies to be their mascot.”  More on this to follow on Wednesday.

Next up, Rachael Larimore, senior editor at Slate, provides some rather surprising thinking (both “surprising” and “thinking”, as it comes from a Progressive!) as she details a few…

Bullet Points

If the media wants a healthy conversation about firearm laws, it needs to stop getting basic gun facts wrong when reporting on mass shootings.

 

Then again, they’re only following…

…their Missiah’s lead.  Which apparently includes Gretchen Carlson, who inexplicably believes her misinformed, burning urge to reach a settlement in the name of compromise (see “Republicans, Senate”)…

…to be worth sacrificing one of the Founding Fathers’ greatest gifts to the beneficiaries of their selfless service.  No, Gretchen, it’s NOT time; even Nancy the Red and Mother Jone‘s Kevin Drum aren’t that benighted!

By the way, guns aren’t the only subject on which the MSM reports without the slightest bit of knowledge or experience: 

In the meantime, the NRA isn’t taking this latest assault on the 2nd Amendment lying down:

Besides, writing at NRO, Kevin Williamson explains how, regardless of what Progressives proclaim (or Gretchen Carlson ignorantly echoes), it’s not about the weapons:

The Left’s Phony War on Guns

Their fight isn’t about stopping shooters, it’s about identity politics.

 

This isn’t a gun-control debate. This is Kulturkampf.

In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, the actor Samuel L. Jackson said that he hoped it would turn out that the killer was a white man. David Sirota wrote the same thing after the Boston marathon bombing, in an article headlined “Let’s hope the Boston marathon bomber is a white American.” Jackson and Sirota were disappointed: Both atrocities were carried out by Muslims as expressions of solidarity with the worldwide Islamist enterprise. The massacre in Orlando was perpetrated by a Muslim, the son of an Afghan immigrant, a man of the sort we have been taught to call a “person of color,” I suppose. (Do Afghans count? This is never made clear.) He may or may not have been suffering from some sort of crisis of sexuality: It isn’t clear whether his earlier presence in the Florida gay club was cruising or casing.

But as a son of immigrants and a member of at least one minority group, Omar Mateen makes a poor poster-boy for the Left, which prefers that its enemies be white, male, Christian, and, if possible, middle-aged, middle-American, and overweight. Remember how, during the Tea Party rallies, so much attention was paid to the fact that some participants were obese and using mobility scooters? That wasn’t an accident. It’s loathing substituting for analysis. For much the same reason, cartoons purporting to depict gun-rights supporters after Orlando almost invariably depicted obese, aging, white, and downscale (rumpled, ill-kempt) subjects. That is whom the Left believes to be the problem when it comes to violence in these United States — and most other problems, too. The relevant psychology here is that of intellectual development arrested in adolescence. If you’ve ever heard a 50-year-old lefty raging about Middle America and thought that it sounded a lot like a 14-year-old raging about his stick-in-the-mud father, you’re not the first to whom that has occurred.

You’ll notice that we generally have these national crises about gun control when there’s a Newtown or an Aurora, not after a typical weekend in Chicago, during the course of which several dozen people will be shot, and many killed. Part of this is because we have a tendency to worry more about shark attacks (which almost never happen) rather than lethal bee stings (which happen all the time), but part of it is that the Left is not culturally inclined to organize one of these pageants of exhibitionistic grief over the low-level criminal escapades of young black men in Chicago or Philadelphia. For the same reason, almost all of the gun-control measures that excite our progressive friends — bans on so-called assault weapons, restrictions on gun shows — are aimed at the hobbies of middle-aged white guys, rural types, Second Amendment devotees who mistrust the federal government, etc.: the enemy, in other words. These proposals have little or nothing to do with the vast majority of crime.

The cultural role of the NRA is to be the fat white face that absorbs the Left’s hatred for the hunting, shooting, and gun-collecting demographics. This has nothing to do with the NRA’s opposition to some kinds of gun control, a fact that can be readily appreciated by looking at the sort of thing gun-rights advocates generally do support in the way of gun control, which progressives either ignore or actively oppose. Consider the history of “Project Exile,” an experimental program in which Virginia firearms offenders were shifted to federal court and prosecuted under the Gun Control Act of 1968, meaning a minimum of five years in the federal penitentiary for those convicted. Who was in support of using the Gun Control Act to control gun crime? The NRA, for one. Who opposed it? The Congressional Black Caucus, civil-liberties groups, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, etc. If you can figure out why that is, then you’ll know why our gun-control debate is mainly about punishing the law-abiding and ignoring violent criminals.

Chicago has Wild West levels of homicide. (Worse, in fact; the criminality and violence of the ungoverned West has been greatly exaggerated, and some of those old cow towns had lower per capita crime rates back when they had no formal government than they do today.) Do you know what kind of crime illegal possession of a firearm is in the state of Illinois? It is a misdemeanor. A 2014 study conducted by the Chicago Sun-Times found that in most cases, Cook County judges handed down the minimum sentence for gun possession, and in most cases, the criminals ended up serving far less than that, doing only a few months. Those charged with simple possession had an average of four prior arrests; those charged with the more serious crime of being a felon in possession of a firearm had an average of ten previous arrests.

Ten arrests, and the eleventh is for a gun-related crime. One wonders how many undetected crimes are covered by such criminal careers.

Many in Illinois have argued that, given the state of crime there, stiffer sentences are warranted. A bill was introduced to that end, and it was opposed by Democrats who argued that stiffer sentences for those actually committing crimes with guns would “unfairly target African-Americans,” as the Sun-Times put it. The NRA, to its discredit, opposed that bill, too, arguing that the penalties for simple possession in absence of other criminal activity were too stiff. But that’s an argument for liberalizing Illinois gun laws, not for forgoing the punishment of criminals. The NRA did support harsher punishment for felons in possession of firearms, and for the use of firearms in crimes. Democrats have generally opposed them.

Strangely, the same Democrats who are complaining about violent crime involving guns also are complaining about the purported problem of “overincarceration.” It may very well be that we are overincarcerating when it comes to low-level drug offenses (though Heather Mac Donald and others would argue that that isn’t the case), but how can we seriously argue that we aren’t locking up enough criminals, for long enough, on violent-crime charges in Chicago? We can’t. Not really. Not unless you understand that this is politics as described by the economist Tyler Cowen: It isn’t about policy, but about raising and lowering the status of competing groups in society.

African Americans constitute about 13 percent of the population but were 52.5 percent of the homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics data. And Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his wish in San Bernardino. Meanwhile, the Feds keep preparing us for a wave of “right-wing” terrorism (read: middle-aged, white, middle-American, male) that never quite seems to come to pass. Intellectually challenged progressives such as Sally Kohn go on about abortion-clinic violence when it is actually more rare than death-by-selfie: More people died of selfie-related accidents in 2015 than have been killed in all abortion-clinic violence in the United States combined.

Yes, sometimes we get an Oklahoma City bombing. Sometimes, a shark does attack. But the reality of violence in the United States is practically unspeakable. And because this is fundamentally a question of social-status-jockeying rather than one of effective public policy, gun-control policies that might actually reduce crime are overlooked or opposed because they do not annoy the NRA. Indeed, gun control that doesn’t annoy the NRA isn’t considered proper gun control at all. We could be putting violent criminals away for gun-related crimes for longer terms and monitoring them more aggressively through an improved parole system. We could do that before they graduate to murder — remember how many of those charged with possession offenses have prior arrests and convictions. But this isn’t on any gun-control agenda.

Why? For one thing, it probably would mean locking up a lot of young black men in Chicago rather than hassling a lot of old white guys living out weekend-warrior Rambo fantasies in Tulsa. And for the Democrats, that isn’t an option. The enemy is the enemy, and, guilty or not guilty, he must be punished.

Alan Korwin seconds that motion, reminding us…

They Don’t Want Your AR-15: They Want Everything

 

“…banning the AR-15—the finest rifle made in America, the choice of police who are otherwise outgunned against the exact same criminals people face—would have no effect against jihadis. It would just disarm us. The jihadis can’t bear anything, legally. Hillary, Obama, all their allies, they know this. They’re knowingly lying to your face, to disarm you.

And this no-fly lie? The Constitution cannot (legitimately) be suspended by putting anyone’s name on a list. If you’re so bad you can’t fly to Cincinnati, why are you still out walking around? Why can you take a train or bus there? You should be charged with something before your rights can be summarily removed. You should have due process. Those are blazing red lines no serving politician should ever cross. Any politician who votes to remove your rights by simply writing down your name is by definition a tyrant who must be removed from office. Who writes down your name? A federal police force acting in secret. Secret police list. In America?…”

Submitted for your perusal, a quick compilation demonstrating the unreality of The Left’s “gun control” red herring:

In reality, it’s all just part of The Dear Misleader’s favorite game:

Here’s the bottom line:

Remember: despite enjoying the relative safety of an armed security detail, Diane Feinstein further guarantees her personal safety with her own concealed carry permit, a luxury she hypocritically denies the rest of us, those huddled masses yearning to breath free…not to mention exercise their rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

Moving on, in his latest commentary at Townhall.com, Victor Davis Hanson offers a ray of sunshine in an otherwise foreboding forecast by suggesting…

Politics, Not Personalities, Will Likely Determine Presidential Election

 

“…”Never Trump” Republicans swear they will not vote for Trump. Bernie Sanders’ frustrated followers say they could not envision voting for Clinton. But by November, the majority in both parties will probably support their nominees.

Why? For all the flaws of both presidential candidates — Trump is an undisciplined political amateur, Clinton a compromised and scripted establishmentarian — they will still advance political agendas that are markedly at odds and represent radically different views of America’s proper future.

…In general, if voters are content with the current foreign, economic, social and cultural policies of the Obama administration, then the progressive convert Clinton would likely ensure that those policies continue for at least four more years.

If, on the other hand, a voter feels Obama has been, in the words of Trump, a “disaster,” then professed conservative Trump would represent a shift in the opposite direction.

We have become exhausted by the flurry of daily political news — Trump’s latest outrages, the fallout from Clinton’s email scandal, and the unhappiness of both Sanders supporters and members of the Republican establishment with the nominees. But in the end, as with most elections, the 2016 election will still offer a stark political choice between two diverse messages — however suspect and unpopular the respective messengers.“

To borrow a phrase from the only Spock when calculating Kirk’s chances against the Gorn…

…”If he has the time, Doctor; if he has the time!”  AND if he’s willing to change his schtick!

Next up, courtesy of Robert Spencer writing at Jihad Watch, a few factoids with which Americans should be familiar prior to casting their ballots come November:

51% of U.S. Muslims want Sharia; 60% of young Muslims more loyal to Islam than to U.S.

 

Really, what did you expect? A considerable portion of U.S. domestic and foreign policy is based on the assumption that Islam in the U.S. will be different: that Muslims here believe differently from those elsewhere, and do not accept the doctrines of violence against and subjugation of unbelievers that have characterized Islam throughout its history. But on what is that assumption based? Nothing but wishful thinking. And future generations of non-Muslims will pay the price.

As Pam Geller notes:

“Muslims are the only immigrant group that comes to Western countries with a ready-made model of society and government (sharia) which they believe to be superior to what we have here, and they work to institute it.“

Then there’s this from Paul Sperry writing back in October 2015 at Investor’s Business Daily:

In berating GOP presidential hopeful Ben Carson for suggesting a loyalty test for Muslims seeking high office, CNN host Jake Tapper maintained that he doesn’t know a single observant Muslim-American who wants to Islamize America.

“I just don’t know any Muslim-Americans — and I know plenty — who feel that way, even if they are observant Muslims,” he scowled.

Tapper doesn’t get out much. If he did, chances are he’d run into some of the 51% of Muslims living in the U.S. who just this June told Polling Co. they preferred having “the choice of being governed according to Shariah,” or Islamic law. Or the 60% of Muslim-Americans under 30 who told Pew Research they’re more loyal to Islam than America.

Maybe they’re all heretics, so let’s see what the enlightened Muslims think. If Tapper did a little independent research he’d quickly find that America’s most respected Islamic leaders and scholars also want theocracy, not democracy, and even advocate trading the Constitution for the Quran.

These aren’t fringe players. These are the top officials representing the Muslim establishment in America today. Hopefully none of them ever runs for president, because here’s what he’d have to say about the U.S. system of government:

• Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of both the Fiqh Council of North America, which dispenses Islamic rulings, and the North American Islamic Trust, which owns most of the mosques in the U.S.: “As Muslims, we should participate in the system to safeguard our interests and try to bring gradual change, (but) we must not forget that Allah’s rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts should lead to that direction.”

• Omar Ahmad, co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the top Muslim lobby group in Washington: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”

• CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”

• Imam Siraj Wahhaj, director of the Muslim Alliance in North America: “In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”

• Imam Zaid Shakir, co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif.: “If we put a nationwide infrastructure in place and marshaled our resources, we’d take over this country in a very short time…What a great victory it will be for Islam to have this country in the fold and ranks of the Muslims.”

And for the Islamofascist-in-Progressive clothing who, for the last seven years, has been doing his utmost to bring it about!

Since we’re on the subject of B. Hussein, courtesy again of NRO, David Harsanyi relates how…

By Rejecting the Phrase ‘Radical Islam,’ Obama Rejects Reality

Telling the truth is essential to winning the war against the terrorists.

 

“After a meeting with the National Security Council to discuss the Orlando massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in American history, President Obama was angry. He was more impassioned than we’ve ever seen him. He was lashing out. Because you know what really grinds his gears? Republicans. “‘That’s the key,’ they tell us,” Obama said, eviscerating the GOP. “We can’t beat ISIL unless we call them radical Islamists. What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change?”

A lot, actually.

As a matter of realpolitik, perhaps it makes sense to avoid the phrase “radical Islam.” We don’t want to offend the mullahs, theocratic sheikhs, oligarchic princes, Arab strongmen, and future junta leaders of the Middle East. We need to work with these people, after all. What should bother you, though, is that Obama constantly tries to chill speech by insinuating that anyone who associates violence with radical Islam — which includes millions of adherents — is a bigot. This is a president who also intimates that anyone who is critical of everyday Islam’s widespread illiberalism — for example, all nations where homosexuality may be punishable by death are Muslim — is also a bigot.

It’s not as if Obama shies away from lecturing people about faith. Saying the words “radical Islam” is a step too far, but bringing up events from the year 1095 to create a tortured moral equivalence is just fine. Not only has Obama implored us to avoid critical rhetoric about Islam, but he demands that Americans (secular apostates like me) act as if all faiths are equally tolerant of our lives. This is the president who tells the world that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Can you imagine Obama going to the United Nations General Assembly and declaring the same for Jesus Christ?

Nor has Obama hesitated to lecture Christians — who supposedly use religious freedom as an “excuse” for “discrimination” — to evolve and abandon their antiquated ways. After years of propaganda equating Evangelicals with Islamic fundamentalists (who aren’t the true adherents of Islam, according to pundits who’ve probably never read a single book about the faith), many liberals make no distinction between the two anymore. To them, supporting the idea of sex-specific bathrooms is only a small step from massacring gay Americans. This is what denial of reality can do to a society. You can see it all manifesting in liberal punditry…”

Though we’re flummoxed as to how Conservatives like Harsanyi continue to grant The Dear Misleader the benefit of the doubt.  Particularly as when in his own mind, as demonstrated by the picture below, this arrogant ass ain’t ever been wrong…

…about anything!!!

Let’s face it: this is a President who views genuine political opposition to his Islamofascist agenda and quest for personal power and pleasure (which is what he’s all about) as posing a greater danger than the mortal enemies confronting our nation.  How else does one explain, as Keith Koffler details at PoliZette, the otherwise inexplicable?!?

Who Ya Gonna Call? Or Not.

Obama never phoned Florida’s Republican governor, part of a long list of no-calls

 

Too busy tangoing to acknowledge Brussels burning.

“It should not surprise anyone that President Obama failed to call Florida Gov. Rick Scott in the days after the Orlando massacre, the worst terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11 and the biggest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Of course, such a call would have been both symbolically appropriate and of serious practical value. The governor would be on top of the latest information about the shooting, aware of what local authorities are learning about the shooter and any possible conspiracy, and could describe how federal and local authorities could coordinate assistance. Obama could then directly issue informed orders to his aides about appropriate steps the federal government could take.

And he might, instead of haranguing Republicans and Donald Trump about their response to the disaster, have taken a moment to express his grief to the governor on behalf of the nation.

But such an omission by the president is nothing new. Whether it comes to his polices or his use of the phone, Obama, it seems, always (See Evan Kayet’s video above.) makes the wrong call…”

As Koffler goes on to detail, The Obamao’s never made the effort to console the family of a single victim of Islamic terror, whether in Benghazi or other instances of his Administration’s gross negligence; but he HAS had time to call Sandra Fluke to comfort her over Rush Limbaugh’s crudeness, or to congratulate the homosexual plaintiff in the SCOTUS gay marriage decision.

Here’s the juice: we make time for whatever…

…is most important to us!

Finally, on The Lighter Side…

Magoo