Barack Obama's gun control is 'under the radar'

Action film star Chuck Norris wrote an interesting piece for Politico, excerpted here:

Not long ago, the gun control advocates Jim and Sarah Brady visited the White House. President Barack Obama reportedly told them that he was working on new gun control schemes “under the radar.”
It’s been said that guns have two enemies — rust and politicians. Rust never sleeps, and neither do those who would seek to restrict our constitutional rights. So let me tell you about a meeting you weren’t invited to, where those people were planning an attack on our rights that’s very much “under the radar.”

It happened in July at the United Nations headquarters in New York, at a meeting to draft of what they call the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty.

An Arms Trade Treaty doesn’t sound bad in concept — isn’t that what the U.N. is for? The problem, however, is what U.N. diplomats consider to be “arms.” To you and me, the word means tanks, fighter jets, missiles, that kind of thing. But look no further than the U.N. plaza to see what the silk-stocking set considers “arms.” There you will find a bronze statue of a simple .38 revolver — with its barrel tied into a knot.
Remember no other country in the world enjoys America’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms. This is why the vast majority of U.N. diplomats believe that an arms trade treaty must reach into your gun safe and mine. There is little question that this treaty would require additional restrictions on our Second Amendment rights.
Read the full article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61942.html

War and the Word Cloud

The latest from Justin Raimondo: Why the usual war propaganda won’t save the American empire

An alleged “nuclear weapons” site in Syria has been revealed to be a textile factory – and another of the War Party’s tall tales is debunked. To those of a skeptical mindset – i.e., nearly anyone outside of Washington – this throws fresh doubt on the claim that the Israeli raid on a supposed Syrian nuclear weapons facility at Deir ez Zour, in 2007, destroyed anything more dangerous than an empty warehouse.
The War Party doesn’t give up quite so easily, however: now we are being told that the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, has a new report coming out with satellite photos of a supposed nuclear facility in Iran – just as in the case of the two Syrian sites.
Get out your bullshit detector, press the “on” button, and watch it light up like a fourth of July fireworks display.
This latest “evidence” of a nuclear threat emanating from the general direction of Iran and its allies is based on “leaks” supposedly coming out of the IAEA: we don’t even have the actual report, and yet there is a concerted campaign to create the impression that the “evidence” is conclusive. By the time we get to see what is really in the IAEA’s dossier, the Iranians are judged to be guilty no matter what it says.

Thomas Woods in Taki: Critics of Vatican Encyclical

“Pope calls for global government,” read the headlines in early July. Then, as night follows day, the Pope’s conservative supporters lined up to eviscerate the media for distorting the Pope’s meaning. Those darn liberals – how dare they twist the Pontiff’s words like that.
This is not exactly the first time such a thing has taken place. The pattern, over the past couple of decades, runs as follows: the media more or less accurately portrays something the Pope said or did, and then his conservative supporters, anxious to explain away these unusual statements and activities, devise convoluted explanations as to what the Pope really meant.
It is worth reproducing the relevant passage of the Pope’s new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate:

In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations. [emphases in original; internal endnotes removed]

Whatever we may say about this passage, was it really so unreasonable for reporters to have interpreted it as they did?

Futility of a Republican President

Scott Lazarowitz has an interesting take on what a Republican would do instead of Obama. In part, "
If these talk radio shows I listen to are indicative of the American population in general, and Republicans and conservatives in particular, then, stop the world, I’m getting off. The statists among the Republican field of presidential candidates propose to change things a little bit here and there, but in them and their supporters there is a severe psychological denial and stubborn refusal to recognize that the entire system of central planning in Washington needs to go. It is inherently flawed.
The deniers and fantasizers are saying that, as long as anyone but Barack Obama is elected in 2012, then things will get better. No, they won’t. Many people are fixated on making sure that the Republicans choose someone who is "electable," and they actually think that the Teflon Guy, Mitt Romney, is that candidate. However, one talk show caller to the Howie Carr show in Boston this week had it right: Romney will be just like McCain was in 2008, handing the election over to Obama on a silver platter.
But, even if Romney does get elected, and given that many of these pundits and political junkies are statists and think only in the short term, they never seem to be considering what happens after Romney’s inauguration. Will he do anything about the Federal Reserve, or Wall Street? Or stop the murderous warmongering? Nope. These statist candidates who love their central planning bureaucracies will not change a thing in Washington, even though it is those very central planning bureaucracies, especially the Fed and the national security-military complex, that have been destroying America."

Gary North on God, Gold, Groceries, and Guns

"The four G's seemed prudent in 1980. In early 1980, the American economy was suffering from the worst peacetime price inflation in its history. That was about to reverse due to the Federal Reserve's decision under Paul Volcker the previous August to reduce the rate of growth in money and let interest rates soar. This would lead to a recession.
By the end of summer in 1980, the United States was in a recession. The Carter Administration was running a deficit in fiscal 1980 of a then-shocking $74 billion. Prices were then 40% of what they are today. A deficit that large would be the equivalent of $203 billion today. A $203 billion deficit would be hailed today as a political triumph by the Tea Party and cursed as a job-destroying catastrophe by Paul Krugman."

L.A. Times on "Backdoor Affirmative Action"

"As much as this page exhorted Californians to vote against Proposition 209 in 1996, the constitutional amendment that bars affirmative action in state hiring and admissions at public colleges is now the law, having survived numerous legal challenges. A bill passed by the Legislature this year that would allow the University of California and California State University to "consider" race, gender and so forth in the admissions process is a clear attempt to flout that law. Gov. Jerry Brown should veto SB 185, which would thwart the will of the voters even if it survived a certain legal challenge."

More Celebrity Abuse on Tea Party

No matter how poorly the economy performs, no matter how many scandals surround the administration, no matter how weakly the president’s jobs plan is received by legislators and the public, Samuel L. Jackson can see no reason why the Tea Party might oppose Barack Obama’s reelection other than race. From an interview with New York Magazine:  “While we were on the subject, we asked Jackson if he agreed with fellow thespian Morgan Freeman, who caused something of a ruckus recently after he claimed that the tea party is racist. “It’s pretty obvious what they are,” Jackson told us. “The division of the country is not about the government having too much power. I think everything right now is geared toward getting that guy out of office, whatever that means,” he said, echoing Freeman. “It’s not politics. It is not economics. It all boils down to pretty much to race. It is a shame.” Also in the Jackson interview, the actor said he wasn’t surprised to learn of the Perry hunting camp scandal. “I grew up in the segregated South; nothing surprised me. That’s not surprising at all.” Jackson even suggested the scandal might help Perry score points in some quarters.