Bill Whittle’s Firewall: Guns, Islam, and Orlando

Spot on as always.

Gunwalker Update: Released Docs Tell Us What We Already Knew, NY Post Rediscovers Fast & Furious

From NYPost:

The deadly-but-forgotten government gun-running scandal known as “Fast and Furious” has lain dormant for years, thanks to White House stonewalling and media compliance. But newly uncovered e-mails have reopened the case, exposing the anatomy of a coverup by an administration that promised to be the most transparent in history.

Not forgotten at all.  Just depends where you live and depends if you have to deal with the armed cartels.  Also, those “newly uncovered emails” basically tell us things we already know.

A federal judge has forced the release of more than 20,000 pages of emails and memos previously locked up under President Obama’s phony executive-privilege claim. A preliminary review shows top Obama officials deliberately obstructing congressional probes into the border gun-running operation.

…internal documents later revealed the real goal was to gin up a crisis requiring a crackdown on guns in America. Fast and Furious was merely a pretext for imposing stricter gun laws.

Yup.

Only, the scheme backfired when Justice agents lost track of the nearly 2,000 guns sold through the program and they started turning up at murder scenes on both sides of the border — including one that claimed the life of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

The scheme didn’t backfire.  The operation failed, but the scheme still worked.  Southern border states now have mandatory reporting to the ATF on any purchases of more than one firearm.  Democrats got more gun control, and they got it even though Fast and Furious came to light.  They even got it by citing Fast and Furious as something that meant ATF needed more funding, more resources, and more gun laws – Democrats were saying these things during the hearings with whistleblowers.

Then Team Obama conspired to derail investigations into who was responsible by first withholding documents under subpoena — for which Holder earned a contempt-of-Congress citation — and later claiming executive privilege to keep evidence sealed.

Fascinating how that works.  Start a criminal conspiracy using government force against citizens of the US and citizens of Mexico, get caught, then claim that you’re doing an investigation and the investigation is ongoing so you can’t reveal anything about it, then claim executive privilege and you can magically never be held accountable for a conspiracy that has so far resulted in hundreds of murders.

Somewhere Warren G. Harding is upset he couldn’t think of this scam during Teapot Dome (which killed no one).

The degree of obstruction was “more than previously understood,” House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz said in a recent memo to other members of his panel.

“The documents reveal how senior Justice Department officials — including Attorney General Holder — intensely followed and managed an effort to carefully limit and obstruct the information produced to Congress,” he asserted.

They also indict Holder deputy Lanny Breuer, an old Clinton hand, who had to step down in 2013 after falsely denying authorizing Fast and Furious.

Their efforts to impede investigations included:

-Devising strategies to redact or otherwise withhold relevant information;
-Manipulating media coverage to control fallout;
-Scapegoating the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) for the scandal.

The last one is a bit interesting.  The ATF definitely deserves plenty of blame as they conducted the operation, but ultimately the story from the White House was that it was “a rogue operation conducted by a handful of agents at a field office”.

We know that’s BS based off the level the White House went to protect itself, we also know it’s BS based on the resources used – namely the FBI passing felons on background checks (there are later stories about that as well – I may go back and add more links).

Talking points drafted for Holder and other brass for congressional hearings made clear that Justice intended to make ousted ATF officials the fall guys for the scandal.

“These (personnel) changes will help us move past the controversy that has surrounded Fast and Furious,” Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich wrote in August 2011.

In an October 2011 e-mail to his chief of staff, moreover, Holder stated that he agreed with a strategy to first release documents to friendly media “with an explanation that takes the air out” of them, instead “of just handing them over” to Congress.

Thomas Sowell refers to this as “telling the truth slowly“.

Obama insists Fast and Furious is just another “phony” scandal whipped up by Republicans to dog his presidency.

“Phony”.

Gunwalker Update: Meaningless “Relenting” of Executive Privilege

From Politico:

Four years after asserting executive privilege to block Congress from obtaining documents relating to a controversial federal gun trafficking investigation, President Barack Obama relented Friday, turning over to lawmakers thousands of pages of records that led to unusual House votes holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt in 2012.

In January, a federal district court judge rejected Obama’s executive privilege claim over records detailing the Justice Department and White House’s response to Operation Fast and Furious, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigation that may have allowed as many as 2,000 firearms to pass into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson did not turn down Obama’s privilege assertion on the merits. Instead, she said authorized public disclosures about the operation in a Justice Department inspector general report essentially mooted the administration’s drive to keep the records secret.

Telling the truth slowly.

All the things he needed to hide stayed hidden, and when they were slowly uncovered elsewhere, he can now say that he’s all about “transparency” after 4 years of hiding things.

“In light of the passage of time and other considerations, such as the Department’s interest in moving past this litigation and building upon our cooperative working relationship with the Committee and other Congressional committees, the Department has decided that it is not in the Executive Branch’s interest to continue litigating this issue at this time,” Justice Deparment legislative liaison Peter Kadzik wrote in a letter Friday to House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).

That’s a lie, but I’m not sure if the translation is “we think we’ve stalled long enough to cool out the mark” or “we’ve managed to cover everything up so you’ll find nothing” or “we’ve broken the opposition and they won’t ask any more questions”.

“As we’ve long asserted, the Committee requires and is entitled to these documents,” Chaffetz said in a statement. “They are critical to the Committee’s efforts to complete meaningful oversight. The Committee has a duty to understand and shine light on what was happening inside DOJ during the time of this irresponsible operation. Yet DOJ has obstructed our investigative work for years.”

After getting word that the Justice Department was turning over records, Chaffetz updated his statement, indicating that the House plans to press its appeal to get records beyond the ones the administration is providing.

“Today, under court order, DOJ turned over some of the subpoenaed documents. The Committee, however, is entitled to the full range of documents for which it brought this lawsuit. Accordingly, we have appealed the District Court’s ruling in order to secure those additional documents,” Chaffetz said.

Well go find the rest then, Chaffetz.

The June 2012 claim in the Fast and Furious case was the only formal assertion of executive privilege by Obama to try to defeat a congressional demand for records or testimony, though the administration has raised executive privilege concerns when declining to comply with other congressional inquiries. Most of those were resolved through negotiations. The administration has also asserted executive privilege in response to a variety of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.

Much of the claim was that “it was part of an ongoing investigation” which is a wonderful way to make things go away forever.  Never close the case, and never answer.  Investigate yourself, never find wrongdoing, silence whistleblowers, and keep the investigation ongoing so you never have to reveal anything.

Just put “top men” to work on it.

GOP Wavering On Scalia SCOTUS Replacement

It figures.

From the Washington Times:

President Obama called on Senate Republicans Tuesday to give his eventual Supreme Court nominee a fair hearing in his bid to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, as cracks emerged in the Republican leadership’s position of automatically blocking any nominee.

“I expect them to hold hearings. I expect them to hold a vote,” Mr. Obama said at a press conference. “There’s no unwritten law that says it can only be done on off years.”  …

“This is the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land,” the president said. “It’s the one court where we would expect elected officials to rise above day-to-day politics. I understand the stakes. I understand the pressure that Republican senators are undoubtedly under. This would be a deciding vote. But that’s not how the system is supposed to work.”

Unless Democrats were running it.  They did everything in their power to stop Bork from getting on the Supreme Court, and they succeeded.

Senate Democrats had asked liberal leaders to form a “solid phalanx” to oppose whomever President Ronald Reagan nominated to replace Powell, assuming that it would tilt the court rightward. Democrats warned Reagan there would be a fight over the nomination if Bork were to be the nominee.  …

Within 45 minutes of Bork’s nomination to the Court, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of Bork in a nationally televised speech, declaring,

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.^[6]

On July 5th, NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks described their position on the Bork nomination: “We will fight it all the way – until hell freezes over, and then we’ll skate across on the ice.”^[7] A brief was prepared for Joe Biden, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the Biden Report. Bork later said in his book The Tempting of America that the report “so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility”.^[8] TV ads produced by People For the American Way and narrated by Gregory Peck attacked Bork as an extremist, and Kennedy’s speech successfully fueled widespread public skepticism of Bork’s nomination. The rapid response of Kennedy’s “Robert Bork’s America” speech stunned the Reagan White House; though conservatives considered Kennedy’s accusations slanderous,^[9] the attacks went unanswered for two and a half months

Democrats scream, lie, throw tantrums, and fabricate everything they can and stop at nothing to block a nomination.

But it looks like the GOP is going to give up on their constituents without a fight.  And they wonder why Trump and Cruz are popular?

SenateJudiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, didn’t rule out confirmation hearings and a vote by his panel on an Obama selection.

“I would wait until the nominee is made before I would make any decision,” Mr. Grassley said Tuesday in a conference call with Iowa radio reporters. “In other words, take it a step at a time.”

Dammit, Grassley, just hold the damn line.  Just say no.  Because if you let him appoint a replacement for Scalia, Ginsburg will finally retire and they’ll put in another justice immediately afterwards.  For the next 30 years we’ll have a hard left majority led by Kagan, Sotomayor, Breyer, and they’ll push Roberts over every time and probably Kennedy until he retires.

It’ll be just as bad as when FDR tried packing the court with his justices.

HotAir points out that not only is Grassley wavering under Obama’s pressure, Obama was a hypocrite who filibustered Alito’s nomination.  And he still thinks it’s cool what he did… but they shouldn’t, because now it’s going to be his nominee they stop.

Of course he had to filibuster Alito’s nomination.  Obama’s a Democrat and Alito was a nomination by a Republican president.  And of course the Republicans should respect the polite process of confirming Democrat nominations, because Democrats are shameless hypocrites and Republicans are apparently gullible idiots.

You can contact your senator and tell them to grow a spine here: http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/

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Also, we’re not even entirely sure Scalia’s death was of natural causes.

Veteran homicide investigators in New York and Washington, DC, on Monday questioned the way local and federal authorities in Texas handled the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

“It’s not unreasonable to ask for an autopsy in this case, particularly knowing who he is,” retired Brooklyn homicide Detective Patricia Tufo told The Post.

“He’s not at home. There are no witnesses to his death, and there was no reported explanation for why a pillow is over his head,” Tufo said. “So I think under the circumstances it’s not unreasonable to request an autopsy. Despite the fact that he has pre-existing ailments and the fact that he’s almost 80 years old, you want to be sure that it’s not something other than natural causes.”

Bill Ritchie, a retired deputy chief and former head of criminal investigations for the DC police, said he was dumbstruck when he learned that no autopsy would be performed.

Last night listening to the radio, I heard someone suggest that any really high-profile figure with massive implications for the nation should probably automatically have an autopsy done.

Seems quite reasonable, actually.

The San Bernadino Terrorist Attack and Gun Control Response

They already have a lot of these things waiting in a drawer to be cranked out the next time the have to push their agenda.  The NYT did a page 1 editorial on how we must ban guns for the children to prevent terrorism.  It’s full of the same things we expect to see every time they crank out their gun control screed, full of the same “no rights are without regulation so we can infringe them even if they say ‘shall not be infringed'”, etc. etc.

Obama went out saying that the ability of US citizens who are convicted of no crimes to buy guns is “an insane loophole”. Of course he’s talking about the terrorist watch list/no fly list, which as we’ve noted before has erroneously included people like the late Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy, who spent months trying to get it fixed – and when you’re a former president’s brother and one of the most powerful Democrats in the country and it takes months… what does that leave for the common man?  Even the leftist ACLU opposes the no-fly list.  Meanwhile, there are at least 72 people on the no-fly terror watch list who work for DHS or TSA.  Keep in mind that Obama was calling for the terror watch/no fly list ban before San Bernadino as well – something that since the San Bernadino terrorists weren’t on the watch list, would have made no difference then and would make no difference now.  This is just exploiting a crisis.  (And of course the way to keep potential terrorists from doing any terrorists acts is to have the AG charge them with terrorist activities.)

The calls for gun control rather than terrorist control have been everywhere in the last week.  AG Lynch said the Obama administration would call for more, Obama spent last Friday talking gun control and not terrorism; and then there’s the stupidity of the left as they call for bans, not just the lack of any understanding about a bullet button, but one Dem congresswoman saying that “multi-automatic round weapons are easily available“, and a host of bogus statistics and BS that come from people who don’t even know what they want to ban, but they know they want to take it away from you, the leftist-parody-of-itself saying the NRA funds terrorism, and then as the left peels back the mask to reveal it’s true face – the straight up calls for disarming everyone.

A true liberal position, the place to start, is to call for domestic disarmament. That is the banning of the sale of all guns to private parties coupled with a buyback of those on the street (Mexico just moved to so control guns). Collectors can keep their guns as long as they remove the firing pin or fill the barrel with cement. Gun sports can be allowed — in closed shooting ranges. And hunters can be allowed to have long guns (if they pass background checks) with no scopes, which are not sporting. But, these exceptions aside, liberals should call for a gun-free nation and point out the much lower murder rates and fewer deaths due to accidental discharge of fire arms found in those civilized nations where most guns have been removed from private hands — and often even from those of the police.

That’s a true progressive leftist position – there’s nothing “liberal” at all about stripping everyone of their right of self defense.  It is, however, a wonderful plan to create tyranny.

A Few More Notes on Immigration, Refugees, and “Refugees” from Syria

Since yesterday, over half of US governors are refusing resettlement of Syrian “refugees”.

A drumbeat of opposition against allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S. intensified Monday as more than half the country’s governors, citing security concerns, said they would refuse to accept Syrian refugees into their states following the Paris attacks, which President Obama said “would be a betrayal of our values.” …

By late Monday, states refusing Syrian refugees included Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

It’s not a “betrayal of our values” to the US to refuse refugees who we view as security concerns.  It’s not a betrayal of US values to refuse entrance to actual immigrants we view as security concerns.  It is denying Obama his ability to ship future Democrat voters and ideological opponents to the US into the US in order to further “fundamentally change” the US and destabilize and balkanize the US.  But as Jim Quinn is fond of saying “we have elected the enemy”.  If you keep in mind that Obama’s ideology is to weaken the nation, suddenly it all makes sense.

The US has a long history of refusing admission to people that are antithetical to US interests.  The Wikipedia entry is biased, but the historical point is still made:

Several ideological requirements for naturalization remain under U.S. law. First is the requirement that the applicant be “attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.”[34] This is essentially a political test,[35] though it “should be construed … in accord with the theory and practice of our government in relation to freedom of conscience.”[36] The statutory requirement is elaborated in the Code of Federal Regulations, which provides: “Attachment implies a depth of conviction which would lead to active support of the Constitution. Attachment and favorable disposition relate to mental attitude, and contemplate the exclusion from citizenship of applicants who are hostile to the basic form of government of the United States, or who disbelieve in the principles of the Constitution.”[37] Even still, the ideological requirement is “nebulous”;[38] it begs the questions of what the “basic form of government of the United States” is and what the key “principles of the Constitution” are to which the applicant must subscribe.

Like I said, biased – the last sentence gives it away.  The US is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, and key principles include the fundamental framework of the Constitution itself plus the Bill of Rights.

The US has restricted entry to communists, anarchists, polygamists, and other classes that are viewed as antithetical to US interests, security, culture, etc.  In short, you don’t invite people in who you don’t want in.

There’s been a major discussion in recent years of how Islam isn’t just a religion, but is also a political, governmental, and social system that’s outlined by the Koran.  Sharia law, which many muslims favor, comes directly from the Koran.  Sharia law is antithetical to the Constitution.  And when you look at populations who support it:

Why would you want to import people from countries whose populations believe in eradicating your rights, liberties, and system of government and replacing it with a rigid, violent, authoritarian patriarchal theocracy?

Answer for Obama and Valerie Jarrett and his crew is “fundamental change” of the country that they set out to bring low in order to make things “more fair” for the world by making the US a third world country… but for anyone else who lives here who isn’t an ideological leftist?

That objection to bringing in refugees is just considering the cultural shift that will harm the nation slowly, rather than immediate security concerns of bringing in radicals.

Another quick note on “radical” vs “moderate” muslims as a crybully activist interrupts a forum that wasn’t actually discussing Islam in order to say how discussing something peripheral to Islam is islamophobic:

Ted Cruz is discussing offering up a bill that will curtail importation of Syrian refugees into the US.  His main reason is security concerns.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has struck back at President Obama’s implication that his rejection of Syrian refugees is “shameful,” telling CNN he will be introducing legislation banning Muslim Syrian refugees from entering the United States.

“What Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are proposing is that we bring to this country tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees,” Cruz told CNN’s Dana Bash in Charleston, S.C., on Monday.

“I have to say particularly in light of what happened in Paris, that’s nothing short of lunacy.”

Asked what would have happened if his own father — a Cuban refugee who fled the island’s repressive Communist regime — had been told all those years ago by political leaders that there was no place for him because of security risks, Cruz said it was a different situation.

“See that’s why it’s important to define what it is we’re fighting,” Cruz responded.

“If my father were part of a theocratic and political movement like radical Islamism, that promotes murdering anyone who doesn’t share your extreme faith, or forcibly converting them, then it would make perfect sense.”

The US blocked active communists from entry.  If you were forced to be a member of the party in order to eat, it wasn’t held against you.  If you were a member of the party because you chose to be, you were blocked.  If you supported communism, you were blocked.  If you lived in an oppressive nation where membership was mandatory in order to get your bread ration, the US understood that you lived in an oppressive nation that forced you to either join or starve.

“When I hear folks say that, ‘Maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims,’ when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefitted from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful,” Obama said.

Maybe we should just admit the refugees who are peaceful and fleeing conflict and who are not avowed members of a political/religious sect that demands an authoritarian theocracy that executes gays for the crime of living.  Maybe we should have some kind of test to see who’s actually willing to commit to wanting to support US principles and is seeking freedom from oppression and not admit the people who are members of that same political/religious sect that demands authoritarian theocracy and is sworn to eradicate the Jews and convert everyone else to their ideology by the sword.

Maybe we could say and do that in response to his “shame on you for not agreeing with my intentionally destructive plan” garbage.

Keep in mind that we don’t keep tabs on who’s in the country once they get here.

A Syrian refugee relocated to Louisiana has already gone missing, but the group accommodating them isn’t taking responsibility.

WBRZ reports:

WBRZ has learned Catholic Charities helped the refugee who settled in Baton Rouge, but said the immigrant left for another state after a couple of days, and they don’t know where the refugee went since they don’t track them.

“We’re at the receiving end,” Chad Aguillard, executive director of Catholic Charities, says. “We receive them, we welcome them into our community and help them resettle. There has been a lot of commotion and fear with Syrians. The fear is justified, but we have to check that against reality.”

This has been the case for a while.  Regionally infamous Lutheran charities that pull federal subsidies have been resettling Somalis in Minnesota for decades, including terrorists with links to al Shabaab and Al Qaeda.

I’ll just let a couple of the reader comments from the American Mirror story finish this out:

Oh, we don’t track them, we just bring them in and hand them over to you! Then we walk around with fkking halos over our heads as if we actually did something and then you all have to figure out how to live with them while they start destroying your once-wonderful country. You’re welcome!

Islamic “Refugee” Immigration, the Myth of the Radical Muslim Minority, and the Forgotten Interpreters

As a heads up for more sensitive readers, there are photos of terrorist attacks in this post further down.

Obama was just on TV and radio this morning saying how “we cannot” stop taking in refugees into neighborhoods in the US that Obama and his political donors and cronies will never live in, and the usual bleeding heart political BS that’s supposed to make people feel guilty for not taking in diseased strays.  Much of it is probably in response to governors across the country saying “no more refugees”. (Edit: In the time it took me to write this, another governor – a Democrat – was added to that list refusing “refugees”.)

If Obama hadn’t abandoned actual success in Iraq, the Middle East wouldn’t be producing the swarms of refugees that have invaded Europe and that he wants to bring here.  We already fought the bad guys over there so we wouldn’t have to fight them here, and so their people could live free there (including the actual refugees in the bunch).  There wouldn’t be an ISIS for them to run from but for him.  He’s the one who lost the war.

Like most politicians, he has the objective of building his party, and as a hard leftist who pledged to “fundamentally transform” the US, he’s doing his best to turn us into a third world hole.  In the last couple years there have been the swarms of teenage “children” from central America who knew how to game the US immigration system and who were allowed to stay as “refugees”, even though they were just opportunists taking advantage of a president who actively wants “social justice” through redistribution of American capital to the rest of the world.  If we’re brought down from inside and made miserable in front of the world, in his mind that would begin to make up for the fictional oppression that he believes the US must be punished for.  It’s first world guilt that manifests as self-flagellation and self-destruction, and doubles as political power-building when he imports people who will vote Democrat forever.

When more moderate people begin to look at the problem of Islamic terrorism and say “why do you want to bring in the kinds of people who bring in terrorists with them?”, the left with Obama as its mouthpiece declares that’s racist and islamophobic and everyone needs to shut up.  Meanwhile France, the nation that Obama said “represents the timeless values of human progress”, has discovered common sense and decided to seal its borders and take in no more so-called “refugees” because at least some of the terrorists that attacked Paris were those “refugees”.

This inevitably leads to the “not all Muslims are terrorists” argument, which is true.  One bad apple does not spoil the bunch.  Except that saying can still be horribly wrong in practice.  One person sick from e coli or listeria will have a responsible business shut themselves down or have the FDA on them a heartbeat later to shut them down.  If only 1% of your food is liable to be dangerous, you don’t get to keep putting it on the market – it’d be wildly irresponsible.  If only 1% of 100,000 people you import support terrorism, then you’ve imported 1,000 potential terrorists.

If you care about your nation, you don’t bring in people who wish to do it harm.

Hollande is a French leftist, but is still French.  He understands that protecting France is a priority.  I haven’t heard him say he wants to “fundamentally change” France (at least not on this topic).  He also seems to understand that if you have an outbreak of terrorism, it might be worthwhile to look at the vector that terrorists are using to attack you, and the populations they come from, especially when so many of them are military-aged males.

Most are coming for free stuff given away by brain-dead-liberal western democracies.   They aren’t coming to assimilate to their new countries, they are far from peaceful, and they bring their animosities and wars with them.

These are not the poor tired huddled masses seeking escape from despotism and yearning to breathe free.  If they really wanted freedom they’d be fighting for it in their homelands.  They’re bypassing nations that don’t give handouts to make it to the ones that do.  They’re not looking for a place to be free of oppression of Islamic states and cast off the miserable lot they had and work to become citizens of their new nation, they’re looking to exploit the naivety of brain-dead-liberal societies – and then there are some who are looking to expand those Islamic states.

So you start with a group that demands that other nations give them things simply because they’re there.  They demand asylum and they demand the necessities of life because someone else has them and they want them.  Those are the regular “refugees”.  The brain-dead-liberal west thinks that we’re somehow obligated to take care of people out of some “common bond of humanity” or some such nonsense.

Thing is, within that population of “refugees” is still the “radical muslim minority” like the would-be dominators pictured above.  And it’s not exactly a small number.

Ben Shapiro did a good breakdown on the myth of the radical muslim minority last year.  It’s good to assess what the numbers say:

At 4:40 he looks very briefly at numbers in France.

“France: 4.7 million muslims live there.  A 2007 poll showed 35% of French muslims said suicide bombings could sometimes be justified.  That’s 1.6 million radical muslims living in France.”

From Pew Research, and a favorable poll (and you can find plenty of such polls):

If you take those numbers and read what they actually say, you have 20% of American-born muslims who believe that suicide bombing is justified – and believe it to the point that they’d admit it.

The question is “suicide bombing/other violence against civilians is justified to defend Islam from its enemies.”  Would you say it’s “often”, “sometimes” or “rarely” or never justified?

If you answer with “rarely”, you’re still saying that once in a while it’s okay to murder a bunch of Parisians at a concert who have nothing to do with world conflicts aside from being Westerners.

So in order to “defend” Islam from it’s “enemies”, 20% of American born Muslims – and much higher numbers in other countries – think this is okay at least every once in a while:

And that this is acceptable:

There is no reason for any nation to invite that inside their borders, because it’s a predictable result of importing populations that harbor terrorist tendencies.

For the US and the coalition countries who fought overseas to shut down Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and dozens of other terrorist groups, many of which converged as the Islamic State, there is no reason ever to import the same mayhem that we fought against overseas with the intention to prevent having to fight it stateside.

It’s especially offensive as the interpreters (mostly muslim themselves) who helped us in mid-east conflicts aren’t being allowed into the US.

Last week, President Obama decided to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States. But there’s another group of foreigners who deserve our help much more – the 50,000 men and women who served as interpreters for American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They’ve already put their lives on the line – and often their families’ lives and friends’ lives as well – to show who they stand with.  They’re struggling to do everything the legal way and they’re being left hung out to dry, or killed trying to dodge vindictive terrorists overseas while US bureaucrats ignore their paperwork.

They really are the people who fought the hard fight to protect their homelands as best they could, they’re the people who saw western virtues as something that could help them, they’re the people who’d integrate into western society, and they really are the ones yearning to breathe free.  They’re the ones who aren’t looking for handouts, just looking for a safe place to live and become productive citizens.  They’re the ones who paid their dues in advance, actively fighting against islamic terrorists – and they’re the ones being ignored.

Field Day 10/13/15: Obama Says Something Stupid About Iran, About That Iran Deal Anyway, Illegal Immigration, Gamergate Bomb Threats, and Playmates

Via Legal Insurrection, Obama says Republicans are the same as Iranians chanting “Death To America” because Obama logic.

“Just because Iranian hard-liners chant ‘death to America’ does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe,” Obama said to strong applause from the audience.

“In fact, it’s those hard-liners who are most comfortable with the status quo,” Obama said Wednesday afternoon. “It’s those hard-liners chanting “death to America” who have been most opposed to the deal.”

“They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus,” Obama said to laughter and wild applause.

Just like how a toothless deal that lets Iran have nuclear weapons means Iran won’t have nuclear weapons.  Because you’re racist or something.

Speaking of the Iran deal, why are we doing that anyway?

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A reminder about presidential candidate Jeb Bush and what he thinks of illegal aliens breaking into the country with their first steps as violation of laws:

Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love.

Some people love money.  We call them bank robbers.

Some people love hurting people.

2015 was predicted to be another high-level year of illegal aliens showing up… which has proven to be true, but it’s more easily hidden due to infrastructure built up last year, and it is slightly less than last year.

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Via HotAir, a footnote to #gamergate from August, that a debate was broken up by bomb threats deemed credible enough to evacuate.

Apparently several calls had been made to the Miami PD and Miami Herald indicating that a bomb would go off at 2:45 PM, and though apprised that this has happened before to #GamerGate, the authorities weren’t taking any chances.  They sent everyone back a couple blocks and cleared the entire neighborhood surrounding the venue.

Stuck standing outside in the 96 degree Miami heat, suddenly the journalists present were extremely interested in what #GamerGate had to say, and many of them were seen giving interviews there on the street.

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Playboy magazine has decided to drop full nudity.

Can’t help but wonder if it’s at least peripherally related to the Army & Air Force dropping “adult sophisticate” magazines including Playboy in 2013.

Adieu, Cheri.

Field Day 4/8/15: Lost Things – Arugula, Air Marshals, and Jobs

Obama can’t find arugula:

“As long as you can go in some neighborhoods and it is easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it is easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable, as long as that’s the case, we’re going to continue to see unnecessary violence.”

Clips.  Heh.

You can buy books all over the place.  You can also buy books online and read them with your Obamaphone.  This isn’t a question of literary accessability, this is a question of people’s choices.  Choices that are “nudged” a certain way by certain politicians.  If those “some neighborhoods” that Obama won’t describe any further started picking up “Capitalism and Freedom” or “Economics In One Lesson” or “The Vision of the Anointed“, he wouldn’t be president.

Also, you can’t buy a gun easier in neighborhoods like that.  It’s much easier to buy a gun at Cabela’s in Sidney, Nebraska than it is to buy from a fence in Detroit, Michigan.  But the neighborhood where it’s truly easier to buy isn’t someplace with rampant violence, because the character of the neighborhood is significantly different.  One is influenced by independent American traditions, the other has been tragically corrupted by leftist socialist dependence and corroded the culture into a self-pitying self-destroying quagmire of misery.

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NRO asks “Where have all the air marshals gone?“:

The Transportation Security Administration is experiencing a mass exodus of Federal Air Marshals so severe that it may soon render the marshal service an “agency-in-name-only,” according to current and former marshals.

Agents across the country are looking for any excuse to exit the marshal service, repelled by the agency’s pattern of mistreating and endangering its employees, and its own concerted efforts to thin ranks through a hiring freeze and the closing of field offices. Richard Vasquez, a former marshal who resigned in January 2015, says his Washington, D.C., field office alone lost up to ten marshals per month in the year preceding his departure.

“The numbers are dwindling; now they’re not telling the public this, but that’s the fact,” Vasquez says. “The only people who aren’t trying to leave are people who are past that age-37 range and are meaning to retire.”

No one wants to work for the TSA.  Is anyone really surprised?

Travel every day, never spend time at home, get bureaucratic social justice BS from DC that tells you who you’re supposed to look for and who you’re not?  Not really a surprise that good people leave an agency that’s supposed to be good due to leadership.

A 2014 report from the Partnership for Public Service ranked the TSA 305th out of 314 federal agencies in terms of morale.

Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement ranks 313 of 314, Customs and Border Protection 293 of 314.  It’s almost like there are winners and losers in this administration.

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A CEO who isn’t lost (yet) talks about lost jobs:

Clifton stated the following on CNBC:

“I think that the number that comes out of BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] and the Department of Labor is very, very accurate. I need to make that very, very clear so that I don’t suddenly disappear. I need to make it home tonight.”

After getting that out of the way, Clifton went on to eviscerate the legitimacy of the cheerful spin given to the unemployment data, telling CNBC viewers that the percent of full time jobs in this country as a percent of the adult population “is the worst it’s been in 30 years.”

He’s right, too.

Charts 5 and 6:

The “employment rate” goes up by percentage because the actual number counted as potentially working goes down.

The Republican Fold on Obama’s Unconstitutional Amnesty for Illegal Aliens

Not really a surprise from the spineless jellyfish RINOs.  The Republicans, rather than explain how they would fund all of DHS except for Obama’s amnesty, instead chose to surrender completely.

Via HotAir:

The “Hastert Rule” says that a Speaker shouldn’t let any bill reach the floor unless a majority of his own caucus supports it. In the end, when the Great Executive Amnesty Sellout reached its final act, a supermajority of Boehner’s caucus opposed it. He passed the bill anyway — with all members of the minority party voting yes.

All the Democrats voted for it, and a handful of Quisling RINOs did, too.

All they had to do was explain that they would fund everything but the illegal amnesty.

Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution lists the powers of Congress – among them:

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization

That’s all they have to say.  Explain that it’s for Congress to do, not the Executive branch.  Explain that the executive doing it is unlawful and illegal, and it will be stopped.  Explain that impeachment is an option, but one that Congress would rather forgo by shutting down the illegal amnesty and correcting the petulant and wrong “constitutional scholar” Obama.

Or they can crap all over the working people, poor, and middle class in the US who will now have to deal with illegal aliens who compete for their jobs, take their benefits, and take their taxes.  No one benefits from illegal aliens being allowed in except for illegal aliens and the people who exploit their labor or their persons.

There will be more illegal aliens when amnesty is granted.  This is not really a surprise.  If you tell some illegals they can stay, others will try to do the same.  Following the law is shown to be for suckers.

Or maybe it’s time to get used to Republicans intentionally losing, like the impotent jackasses they keep showing themselves to be.  The handful that are worth a damn can’t get rid of the useless establishment toadies who knuckle under to every leftist demand, and every time the sniveling pusillanimous cowards surrender, they drive away more and more of the people who would be their base.

Why vote for them or support them when they’re going to surrender at every turn and abandon every principle they were elected to hold?  And why can’t the establishment Republicans see that they’re committing suicide with those who would support them?

The new blood Tea Party Republicans need to put the screws to the establishment until they either grow a spine or go join the Democrats (like the stuff we’ve already seen them do in the last few elections).