Quickies

A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog post that caught our eye this past week.





With respect to civil liberties and privacy rights, a favorite meme of ours has become: Perhaps the only good thing about a Republican presidency is that we pay attention to this stuff.

Stuff like this:

Congress approved a measure Friday that would renew expansive U.S. surveillance authority for five more years, rejecting objections from senators who are concerned the legislation does not adequately protect Americans’ privacy.

The bill passed the Senate, 73 to 23. The House approved it in September, and President Obama is expected to sign it before the current authority expires Monday.
The lopsided Senate vote authorized a continuation of the government’s ability to eavesdrop on communications inside the United States involving foreign citizens without obtaining a specific warrant for each case. The surveillance has been credited with exposing several plots against U.S. targets but also has drawn fire from civil liberties advocates.

This was a fiercely debated and contested topic back when ol’ you know you was in office but proving, yet again, the complicity of the 4th estate and the hypocrisy of the statist-left; this time… crickets chirping.






Last week, we reported out on a NY state newspaper, the News-Journal, that was publishing the names and addresses of pistol permit holders in some downstate New York counties that surround New York City.

We found this to be an incredible abuse of the Freedom of Information Act as this was more an act of intimidation than the paper’s lamely stated goal of public safety for your neighborhood.

If the News Journal was truly concerned with public safety and knowing which one of your neighbors had guns in their home, they'd be much better served publishing the names and addresses of those folks who had a swimming pool in their backyard as those silent liquid killers are far more likely to take the life of a child than a gun.

Enter an enterprising blogger who published the names and addresses of publisher and employees of the News Journal. We're not going to link to the dude's site as we do not concur with this form of tit for tat protest but, at the same time, we can't deny a gut-level heh factor as well.

What’s that you say? The News Journal is going to double down on stupid and counter-productive by publishing the names and addresses of pistol permit holders in more counties in downstate NY?

You know what? Screw it…. Here’s enterprising blogger's link.






Silvio Canto writing for The American Thinker had a quick take on the similarities between Obama and Evita Peron which we re-printed in full below:

A few weeks ago, I watched the movie "Evita", a musical story about the late First Lady of Argentina. It was fun, enjoyable and very eerie. It reminded me of President Obama.

First, Evita told everyone what they wanted to hear. She sold the Argentine people an unsustainable list of promises. It got her husband reelected but it also wrecked the country.

Second, she "walked on water" for her supporters. She was "Saint Evita" for millions of people who wanted something to believe in. At the end of the day, she got people to vote for her husband (President Peron) by demonizing the opposition and scaring voters. (Does that sound familiar?)

Third, she campaigned for her husband (the aforementioned President Peron) by making promises no one could keep, telling the unfortunate that a fortune was around the corner, and getting a free ride from a media madly in love with her too. (Again does that sound familiar?)

There is a lot of "Evita" in Obama, especially the personality cult of so many of their supporters and the willingness of so many to overlook "results or performance".

I am just hoping that the people of the US are smarter than those of Argentina. Unfortunately, Argentina is still paying the price of Peron's populism sold to the masses by Evita's charm.

Silvio’s exactly right but he left out a very important feature of the similarities between Obama and the Peron regime: economics. Peron established economic justicialism that forged close public-private interests among the politically-favored and which also attempted to achieve the regime’s notion of social justice. Sound familiar?






Last Sunday on Meet the Press, David Gregory confronted Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA with a high-capacity magazine. We didn’t see it so we don’t know to what purpose Gregory’s prop was to serve. What we do know is that Meet the Press sought and was denied permission by DC Metro PD from bringing the magazine onto the set as that type of magazine is outlawed in DC.

Gregory broke the law.

Metro PD says they are investigating.

Gregory broke a law that he supports to prove, what, we are not exactly sure but for a brazen act like that, after being denied permission, does Gregory think he is above the law?

Predictably, the political chat-class came rushing to Gregory’s defense. Most notably was Howard Kurtz writing for The Daily Beast complaining that Metro PD had nothing better to do than to investigate Gregory. Kurtz lamely asserts that the whole affair should be dropped because:

“I don’t think Gregory was planning to commit any crimes,"

We want to thank Howard Kurtz for defending David Gregory’s 2nd amendment rights as the overwhelming majority of gun owners and those purchasing guns, also, are not planning to commit any crimes.

And as much as we will defend Gregory’s right to bear arms as well, the fact remains that he broke the law and he should be held accountable for it.

We guess laws are just for the little people.



Related: We hear Diane Feinstein’s (D-CA) proposed assault weapons ban bill does not yet even exist. Which, of course, means the Senate will vote on it. Leave it to the Senate to not pass a budget in 3-1/2 years yet vote on bills they haven’t even read or bills that exist only as a Code Pink wish list.




Here’s B-Daddy of The Liberator Today on the schizophrenic nature of the electorate and Americans not coming to grip with the inevitable.





And fellow SLOB WC Varones expresses his own frustration with the media:

The print and broadcast media still dominate the national dialogue, and have succeeded in downplaying to outright non-coverage of everything damning to the Obama regime. It's as if Woodward and Bernstein helped Nixon cover up Watergate, and outed and smeared Deep Throat as a subversive crank.

Deep Throat as a Tea Partier?





Alright, gang, that's it for this week. We will see you all tomorrow on New Years Eve.


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