Sunday, December 9, 2012

December 9

Charles Pierce - Gun Owners Need A New Leader

I once again call on all those "millions of responsible gun owners" out there that I keep hearing about every time there's a gun atrocity in the news, and we are told that, in response, we are not supposed to even, maybe, consider, possibly, talking a little about, hypothetically, adjusting both our laws and our attitudes toward firearms in order to make the populace more murderous, lest we find ourselves slandering these "millions of responsible gun owners."

Here's my request. Rid yourself of Wayne LaPierre as a national spokesman.

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre has heard and read what the media is saying about the Jovan Belcher murder-suicide and thinks an element is missing. "The one thing missing in that equation is that woman owning a gun so she could have saved her life from that murderer," LaPierre told USA TODAY Sports on Thursday.

It's just autonomic with this clown now. I'm not entirely sure he's alive. He chatters out these talking-points which, in this case, happen to be ever cheesier than usual because, as we have learned as the investigation of the unspeakable tragedy in Kansas City proceeds, is that, not only did Kasandra Perkins have her own guns, she also knew how to use them.

Belcher and Perkins, York says, enjoyed going to gun ranges together. Once, when York was at the couple's house, she noticed a handgun on the kitchen table. "I guess they forgot it was out," she says. Dunson-Rusher recalls once seeing a rifle leaning against a chair in the room she called Belcher's man cave. Again, underscoring how wide the gulf can be between one perception of a man and another, every one of the West Babylon friends of Belcher's who spoke with SI had no idea he was interested in guns.

And it didn't help. And Wayne LaPierre's time on the national stage should be over. And we should also be talking more about domestic violence but, unfortunately, Eric Cantor is holding up renewal of the Violence Against Women Act because he is a member of the Republican leadership in the House Of Representatives and, therefore, by definition, a dick.

This country seems to have some problems it doesn't like to talk about.

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Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), the lead Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, held a climate-denial press conference at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on Thursday. Accompanying Inhofe were two rather questionable characters: an activist who believes the UN is starting the apocalypse and a British Lord who was banned from all UN climate conferences for impersonating the representative from Myanmar.

Inhofe's first guest, Cathie Adams, is the President of the Texas Eagle Forum and former Texas GOP chair. She must have felt quite uncomfortable speaking at a United Nations function, as she has maintained for over a decade that the UN was the anti-Christ's vehicle for stealthily taking over the world. From a 1999 newsletter:

The Bible tells us that in the end times there will be a world government headed by a world leader, called the anti-Christ, who will profess a world religion, but did you ever think you would live in the day when these things would come into being? That is exactly what the United Nations is doing behind the backs of most Americans.

Adams has singled out environmentalism as part of the UN's sinister agenda, suggesting a fictional UN Pledge of Allegiance would require "worship[ping] the Earth." She also believes, among other things, that the CO2 emissions do not cause climate change and that vaccination is a plot to steal American freedom.

Inhofe's other guest, Lord Christopher Monckton, has a storied history of making things up, especially with respect to climate science. It's a pattern Monckton fell into at the Doha negotiations, where he took the platform reserved for the Myanmarese delegation and claimed to be speaking for "Asian coastal nations." The double pretense got him ejected from the nation of Qatar and banned from every future UN climate summit.

One might think this clown show would embarrass the Senator, but his record suggests otherwise: Inhofe has claimed that climate science is a hoax that contravenes the will of God and is currently working with the Heartland Institute — which suggests that climate change advocates are like the Unabomber — to de-fund the Environmental Protection Agency.

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U.S. Senator Protests Climate Talks With Activist Who Believes The UN Is The Anti-Christ

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has joined the growing number of Republicans calling on House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and GOP leadership to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on the richest Americans as part of a package to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. In an interview with Politico, Paul said he is urging the GOP to vote "present" on such a package:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he was urging House Republicans to accept passage of the Democratic tax bill by voting "present" on the measure. At that point, the bill would come to the Senate, where he expected it also would pass on partisan lines.

"And then the Democrats are the party of higher taxes and we're still the party of lower taxes," Paul said in an interview. "And we have elections over that and people decide which party they like best."

Republican Rep. Tom Cole (OK) was the first to publicly to break ranks and ask leadership to immediately extend the middle-income Bush tax cuts and since then at least four other colleagues have come out in support of the idea. However, none have signed the discharge petition filed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that would force the House to vote on the middle-income tax cut extension.

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Morsi preparing to reimpose martial law as Egypt protests escalate …

Struggling to subdue continuing street protests, the government of President Mohamed Morsi has approved legislation reimposing martial law by calling on the armed forces to keep order and authorizing soldiers to arrest civilians, Egypt's state media reported on Saturday.

 

 

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