Critics of gun ownership claim that concealed carry laws increase the risk of violence and shootings, despite studies showing the opposite. But that’s getting a real world test in Milwaukie, Oregon, a town near Portland. Because of budget cutbacks, they can’t rely on the police arriving when they’re called. And criminals have figured that out, so crime is on the rise. Some residents are fed up, so they started a drive to get everyone in their neighborhood to take firearms training and get a concealed carry permit. They’ve now put up fliers all over their neighborhood reading, “This is a Glock Block. We don’t call 911.”
In other news, some 7th century Mohammedan savages have beheaded two Coptic Christians -- not in the Arab Middle East, but right here in civilization.
Meanwhile, a Democrat Congressman is complaining that the FBI's list of "Most Wanted Terrorists" is racist, because they're all followers of Mohammed. He wants the agency to cease and desist their "If you see someone, say something" ad campaign.
And speaking of race, Sean Trend examines the Case of the Missing White Voters. It seems that while the population of White voters increased by an estimated 6 million 2008-2012, the number of those who actually voted in 2012 was DOWN 3 million from four years earlier. And yet the Republican party - in all its wisdom - is pandering to Latinos. Go figure.
Chelsea Clinton feels badly that her maternal grandmother didn't have access to the abortion industry - er, Planned Parenthood. No comment.
Government Lawyers in every single federal agency contributed overwhelmingly to the Obama campaign. Kudos to Paul Caron for the research:
Shades of Huma Abedin! My old friend is reporting at The Lid that "... there are NO strict guidelines on what makes someone eligible for [government security] clearance.
And across agencies there is no consistent definition of what each level of clearance means. A top- secret clearance at one agency means something completely different at another.
But that shouldn't be a major problem because 87% of background checks are never fully completed. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) simply uses the information it has to make a judgment on whether to approve these checks (Gee, I will approve that person because I like his/her face).
A private contractor, USIS conducts 65 percent of all U.S. government background checks. And even though they don't finish those check they still get paid. OPM has already paid USIS $200 million this year. The $1-billion-dollar fund that OPM uses to pay for background checks has never been audited.
Remember how the Left sneered at Sarah Palin when she warned of the threat of "death panels" in a government takeover of our healthcare system? Well, the Wall Street Journal is now reporting that a Death Panel - known in alphabet soup as the IPAB - "threatens not only Medicare but also our Constitutional separation of powers."
Signs of ObamaCare's failings mount daily, including soaring insurance costs, looming provider shortages and inadequate insurance exchanges. Yet the law's most disturbing feature may be the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB, sometimes called a "death panel," threatens both the Medicare program and the Constitution's separation of powers....
.... The ObamaCare law ... stipulates that there "shall be no administrative or judicial review" of the board's decisions. Its members will be nearly untouchable, too. They will be presidentially nominated and Senate-confirmed, but after that they can only be fired for "neglect of duty or malfeasance in office" ....
.... The IPAB's godlike powers are not accidental. Its goal, conspicuously proclaimed by the Obama administration, is to control Medicare spending in ways that are insulated from the political process....
And last but not least, Glenn Greenwald continues to lead on the major story of our day, now revealing top secret documents signed by Attorney General Eric Holder that disclose the NSA procedures approved by the FISA court:
• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;
• Retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;
• Preserve "foreign intelligence information" contained within attorney-client communications;
• Access the content of communications gathered from "U.S. based machine[s]" or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.
... The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans' call or email information without warrants.
Posted by: Mannie Sherberg | Friday, 21 June 2013 at 12:01 PM