Character may be manifested in the great moments,
but it is made in the small ones.
Phillips Brooks
Some Comments on the Newtown Massacre-Suicide
Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother, presumably with a firearm registered to her and then drove to the local elementary with additional weapons (probably also registered to others), and murdered 20 children and up to 6 other adults, including the principal. At least one other is injured.
First, my thoughts and prayers for the victims and surviving family members.
I do not write many commentaries about guns. I do think individuals have a right to defend themselves . But it is clear that the President has already signaled a commitment to gun control although paying lip service to not politicizing the tragedy: "must take action regardless of politics." Some of the worst laws take place in the heat of the moment where individual liberty comes under assault Consider for instance, FDR's executive order to put Japanese Americans in camps after Pearl Harbor.
Obama knows that gun control legislation is dead on arrival in the House, and any Congressional Democrat from a red or purple state will be targeted for defeat in their state or district.. This means if he tries to do anything it will likely be by executive order. There are 2 ways to deal with an executive order: the Congress can cancel it (unlikely in a Senate with a 10-seat Dem advantage) or go to court and have it thrown out in federal court as unconstitutional.
A few additional comments:
- We need to point out there was a GOVERNMENT FAILURE: in fact, the school had recently implemented a safety protocol meant to address exactly what happened today. Before we start tampering with unconstitutional infringements on individual rights, progressives need to explain why their safety protocols failed.
- Laws that restrict access clearly would not have stopped this tragedy because the murderer used weapons not belonging to him, and harsh sentences don't work on suicidal murderers.
- We must be wary of politicians like after 9/11 fear-mongering throwing individual liberties under the bus. Not only are alleged solutions typically very expensive (like TSA), they aren't very effective.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." -. former WH chief of staff, now his Dishonor Chicago Mayor "Dead Fish"
Another TSA Hall of Shame Moment
Once again, you have government employees without a shred of common sense or human decency detaining a sweet, precious 12-year-old girl, a gift from God, Shelbi Walser, wheelchair-bound on her way to Florida for medical treatment of brittle bone disease because they claimed they found traces of explosives on her hands (if not a false positive, probably picked up by the wheelchair in transit).
Manufacturing: We're
Obama, who has set a world record debt and has seen the first credit downgrade in US history, has, with the invaluable assistance of counterproductive progressive labor laws and his crony union supporters, lost the title of the world's leading manufacturer for the first time since we edged Britain in the 1890's. What a resume of "accomplishments". HT to Carpe Diem for the following graph based on UN data:
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| Courtesy of Carpe Diem. |
Musical Interlude: Christmas Retrospective
Andy Williams Christmas Show, "Mary's Boy Child". Somehow I did not catch the fact Andy Williams passed a few months back or I would have done one of my memorial pieces on him, one of my favorite vocalists ever. I was trying to figure out the IDs of the Williams' children whom are absolutely adorable in this video. I believe, based on matching outfits with mother Claudine and age proximity, it's firstborn Noelle loving baby brother Christian. (My folks have a similar picture of me kissing my 14 months younger sister as a baby.)
Andy Williams was a great, smooth, flawless tenor with an incredible tone and impeccable harmonizing (revisit his and Claudine's duet of "Silent Night" in yesterday's segment): his vocal dexterity is amazing: (I wish I could do that) and one of my singing idols. One of the first albums I ever ordered was one of his.He has so many great hits:, but my favorite has to "Happy Heart" which seems to perfectly capture the feeling of falling in love, The music producer in me wants to punch up the percussion to simulate a heartbeat, but there's a reason Andy sold millions of records and I couldn't sell even one, not even to Mom.
