Gun Laws=Good, Gun Law Enforcement=Bad

My head-spinning morning with the NY Times continues. First, I learn (for the umpty-bumpth time) that what New York needs, following mass shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin, is stricter gun control:

After Shootings, Push in Albany for Tougher Gun Laws

By THOMAS KAPLAN

In the wake of mass shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin and an uptick in gun violence in New York City, lawmakers are planning a new push in Albany to win approval of tighter gun laws in New York State.

One measure introduced last week would require background checks of anyone buying ammunition. Another, being drafted this week, would limit the purchase of firearms to one per person per month.

In another story about 'stop and frisk' I learn that actually enforcing the laws on the books is far too onerous for the public to endure:

Last year, New York City police officers stopped 46,784 women, frisking nearly 16,000. Guns were found in 59 cases, according to an analysis of police statistics by The New York Times.

While the number of women stopped by officers in 2011 represented 6.9 percent of all police stops, the rate of guns found on both men and women was equally low, 0.12 percent and 0.13 percent, respectively. Civil rights leaders have argued that the low gun-recovery rates are a strong indication that the bulk of stop-and-frisk encounters are legally unjustified. (The number of police stops has dropped by more than 34 percent in recent months.)

My goodness - 59 illegal guns (hmm, were they all illegal, or am I misreading this?) just among the women? I think Mayor Bloomberg should take credit for averting 59 Auroras, with over eight hundred lives saved. And that is just for the women! Figuring there were more than ten times as many men stopped with guns, that suggests total lives saved of over nine thousand. Why isn't Bloomberg talking this up?

Well - file this as yet more evidence that I will never be smart enough to be a lib.

Comments

[Sue]

Running out of ideas for headlines? Maybe you could employ hit or bgates to help ya'.

[Ignatz]

Stricter gun control!
The war cry of the Democratic kamikaze caucus.
Banzai, baby.

[bgates]

It's simple: Who does law enforcement target with background check/purchase limit laws? Gun store owners. Small businessmen.

Stopping people on the street, on the other hand, means interfering with the lives of people who would no more shoot up a theater than they would hire another person full-time.

Why just be anti-gun when you can also be anti-kulak?

[Chubby]

I have never felt anything except admiration for Sarah Palin, for everything about her from her politics, her intelligence, how well she articulates herself, for her great choice of a husband, and, yes, even for her tasteful and usually elegantly simple wardrobe choices. But after seeing the get-up she is wearing in the picture that is up on Drudge this morning, my admiration for her wardrobe choices is stumbling. That look is a bit too much "fashion slave" for my taste, and isn't good enough for her. Imo.

[narciso]

You mean too informal, even for a barbecue,

[Chubby]

lol, narciso

[sailor]

Chubby, the shoes!!!!

[narciso]

the snarky piece attached was more worrisome,

[sailor]

Narciso, what did you expect? It was a Washington Post reporter.

[narciso]

The Times hates guns, but it hates cops almost as readily, thugs and gangsters like Jacobsen with Frank Lucas, they have less of a problem with.

http://mukluk.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/why-the-left-hates-sarah-palin/

[Melinda Romanoff]

New Gaza border attack.

[narciso]

Jacobsen, who celebrated a corrupting drug dealing nazgul like Frank Lucas, which Tony
Scott in part agreed with, and wrote a sympathetic account of the 9/11 denialists,
could find no redeeming element about her.

[narciso]

Gaza is like Waziristan, to greater Pakistan, they want to ignore it as much as possible,
then show the requisiite outrage when necessary.

[Danube of Thought]

Raz:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for the Republican in their district’s congressional race if the election were held today, while 39% would choose the Democrat instead.

[centralcal]

sailor: I am not a fan of the shoes, but to each her own!

Can someone who follows Twitter explain the hashtag #tcot to me . . . what does it stand for?

[AliceH]

#tcot derives from "Top Conservative On Twitter", but has evolved to mean more about the story than the tweeter.

[Melinda Romanoff]

#The Top Conservatives On Twitter

[AliceH]

cc: there are a number of reference sites that explain the meaning of frequently used hashtags. Here's one: http://tagdef.com/

[centralcal]

This will be meaningless to anyone but Sue. Early last evening while dinner was cooking, I was checking my newsfeed on Facebook when I had a sudden sneeze attack. Had to get up several times and run for tissue to blow nose, wipe eyes. When it finally stopped I read a post by Sue and her friends and realized I should have counted those sneezes!

[centralcal]

Sheesh - when someone spells it out, it all makes sense! AliceH you never cease to amaze - who knew hashtags had a definition website!

[Sue]

C,

I thought I was about to do a repeat this morning. Stopped at 5.

[narciso]

A profile in courage, since apparently that piece of human debris, Page, couldn't be taken off the streets;

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/sikh-temple-president-tried-to-take-down-shooter.html

[Extraneus]

This will be meaningless to anyone but Sue.

Not true. It means a lot.

[centralcal]

Okay, where is Clarice? I'm thinking Romney may occasionally peek at Pieces!

Mark Knoller ‏@markknoller
Mitt Romney addressing workers at Acme Industries in IL. Jokes that they supply a lot of products to the coyote in the road runner cartoons.

[narciso]

My fishwrap is just as bad, Miami had a pro active anti gang unit, like Condor in NY, there were some irregularities, for sure,
and the unit was disbanded, 'unexpectedly'
the wolves began feeding again on the community, demanding the police intervene,

[Clarice]

How funny, CC!! Well, I notice Lucianne was very taken with the Acme/Wile E Coyote/meep meep/exploding cigars shtick and uses it every chance she can .

[Danube of Thought]

Can't get to Lucianne.com. Anyone else having a problem?

[AliceH]

--who knew --

I always start by assuming no question I have has not already been asked by a host of others, and that no question asked by a host of others lacks at least a few people who've attempted to answer. It's how I learn software, too. "It OUGHT to let me do x... now how do I do that". That, and serendipitous typos landing me in new and exciting function screens.

[Extraneus]

Obama campaign looks for dirt on Rubio, Portman

The Obama campaign launched a pre-emptive strike Tuesday on Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, attempting to gather dirt on the potential vice presidential pick by asking Floridians to share with the campaign “the good, bad and ugly” about him.

Ashley Walker, director of Obama for America in Florida, blasted out the email Tuesday soliciting unflattering information on Rubio.

“Share what you think the rest of the country should know about what Rubio’s really done in Florida,” Walker wrote, “the good, bad and ugly. And why he’d be a disaster as our next vice president.”

They don't even try to hide it.

[Sue]

I hate, hate, hate, Palin's shoes. Otherwise, I think she looks great. I wish I could get my abs back to flat as a pancake. ::sigh::

[centralcal]

DoT: No problem accessing Lucianne just now (or earlier this AM - she is my "first read" every day).

[Captain Hate]

Works fine for me, DoT.

[Danube of Thought]

Me too now. Thanks.

[matt]

California tried to do ID/registration for ammo sales as well as limiting it to 50 rounds, which is less than most shooters use at the range at one time.

The law was struck down.

I used to go through 200+ rounds of 12 gauge on a Saturday morning shooting sporting clays. Back when I was competing it was 3X/week and the top shooters were probably shooting 1000 rounds/week. Practice, repetition, and focus.

[Jim,MtnViewCA,USA]

"...never be smart enough to be a lib"
Linked by Instapundit, more evidence. Libs read TheOnion, think it is real not comedy.
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/148161/

[Danube of Thought]

Moe Lane:

Interesting, if true [that Obama hates Romney viscerally]. I think that it is: it would explain why Obama unraveled twenty years of careful political persona development in four months. However, while I think that Glenn Thrush may be correct in the symptoms of Obama’s hatred of Romney I suspect that he – and everybody else, since I feel like being quite appallingly arrogant – has gotten the wrong idea of the diagnosis of Romney’s hatred. I think that it’s very simple: it’s not that Mitt Romney was born rich, gave it away, and got rich again that infuriates Barack Obama so.

It’s that Mitt Romney had a father who loved him.

And that is a thought that fills me with a terrible pity towards Barack H. Obama, Jr.

[Andrew]

Thanks for pointing out the double-standard of a system that allows gun dealers to go unregulated while unarmed minorities on the street-corners get molested by the cops on a regular basis.

[Soylent Red]

And why he’d be a disaster as our next vice president.

This word, "disaster"...

I've noticed Leftists in this country use it a lot to describe politicians. I first noticed it used with Palin ("Oh she'd be a disaster as Vice-President), but it seems to crop up in conversation a lot. Just the other day someone I know was talking about what a "disaster" Rice would be ("even more of a disaster than Palin", he said).

So I have a tactic...

I will now refer to the Obama presidency as a "disaster" when speaking to Leftists. I think that using their own words against them should really get under their skin.

While I'm ranting about language, see if you can count how many times a thoughtful Left leaning guest on MSM or NPR uses the phrase "sort of" as a qualifier for a description, usually with a slight pause directly after. As in,

"Purple is a, sort of...color." Or, "I don't like baseball. It's this, sort of... antipathy, that keeps me from going to games."

Zero and the First Wookie also do this when speaking extemporaneously. Sets my teeth on edge.

[Danube of Thought]

unarmed minorities on the street-corners get molested by the cops on a regular basis.

Evidence?

[narciso]

The whole thing is even more curious, since these are the same folks who look askance at
the administration arming the Sinaloa cartel,and other outfits,

[Clarice]

Drudge:
resident Obama whispered to a top fundraiser this week that he believes GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney wants to name Gen. David Petraeus to the VP slot!

"The president wasn't joking," the insider explains to the DRUDGE REPORT.

A Petraeus drama has been quietly building behind the scenes.

Romney is believed to have secretly met with the four-star general in New Hampshire.

The pick could be a shrewd Romney choice. A cross-party pull. The Obama administration hailed Petraeus as one of history's greatest military strategists. Petraeus was unanimously confirmed as the Director of the CIA by the US Senate 94-0.

But Petraeus has categorically asserted that he has NO political ambitions. And Team Obama stands prepared to tie one of their own to "Bush wars." A Petraeus pick could been seen as simply shuffling the decks of power in DC.

"He's a serious man, for seriously dangerous times," notes a top Republican.

A DRUDGE POLL on Tuesday morning showed readers split on if Romney should give it a go.

And the calendar is running out of days.

Developing...

[Andrew]

"Well - file this as yet more evidence that I will never be smart enough to be a lib."

It isn't hard to see that cutting off the supply of illegally-purchased guns at its source might be more productive than an invasive, widespread and discriminatory search policy with an incredibly low rate of finding anything.

[narciso]

It's ridiculous Soylent, Biden didn't know FDR wasn't president in 1929, and not on TV,
which would have made it difficult because he would have been running against himself (neither did Couric) ditto for the 200 million to Iran, just to see what they would do,

[centralcal]

Fauxcahontas doing her best Dingy Harry impersonation:

Elizabeth Warren has demanded that Senator Scott Brown release more years of his tax returns. The only problem was that Brown, her Republican rival, has already released six years of tax returns while Warren has refused to release more than four years of her filings.

Asked to reconcile that apparent conflict, Warren backed off her demand hours later, saying six years was enough. She did not, however, offer to release any more of her IRS filings.

[Melinda Romanoff]

I had no idea Dana and Dave had a cousin who knew how to use them thar intertubes.

[Danube of Thought]

"an invasive, widespread and discriminatory search policy with an incredibly low rate of finding anything."

You have not undertaken to show that such a widespread and discriminatory search policy exists. Nor have you presented evidence of "illegal" gun sales, and I am aware of none other than those fostered by Obama's BATF.

(Those who are curious about Andrew's point of view need only go to the link under his name.)

[Sue]

C,

That is hilarious. "Never mind..." She is truly a dingbat.

[roofingmatus]

Sue,

When you exercise, your muscles start to grow. If you exercise by doing sit ups, then guess what?

[Appalled]

Clarice:

I do not see what a Petraeus pick would do for Romney in this election. Also, if the idea is to pick someone who could do the entire job of President, a guy who has not been in politics seems a mistake.

Romney is going to pick someone who does not seem like a riverboat gamble who would seem a lot like Romney, when it came to running the country. I think that rules out the Condi, Petraeus kind of picks in the same way it rules out the Palin kind of picks. It will be a known quantity whose record will put the oppo research boys and the vetters to sleep.

[AliceH]

On the subject of the post... WTH???? I am not familiar with this stop-and-frisk thing, but it sounds horrifying. Like random/surprise TSA checkpoints on every corner. With the exceedingly low percentage of finding weapons, the first question is how can their criteria for choosing whom to frisk be justified?

Thank heavens they aren't doing anything evil like Arizona cops who ask for proof of legal residency!

[Sue]

If you exercise by doing sit ups, then guess what?

You assume much, grasshopper.

[Extraneus]

an incredibly low rate of finding anything

That's a feature, not a bug. It didn't start out that way when Giuliani and Chief Kelly started the program in NYC.

[Danube of Thought]

I yield to nobody in my admiration of Petraeus, but I seriously doubt that he has strongly-held political views, and he might stumble badly in a campaign.

I think the Olympics close on Sunday, and I don't see why Romney would announce before then.

[jimmyk]

"...the rate of guns found on both men and women was equally low, 0.12 percent and 0.13 percent, respectively."

Or equally high, depending on your perspective. How about just "about equal" without the editorializing?

[jimmyk]

Evidence?

He's got "a source."

[Chubby]

((DoT: I yield to nobody in my admiration of Petraeus, but I seriously doubt that he has strongly-held political views, and he might stumble badly in a campaign.))

maybe he does have strong views, but has to keep them hidden for obvious reasons. if so, it could give him a chance to unleash

I'm still rooting for West. Unambiguous politics, refreshingly outspoken, and no stumbler in expresssion he. I see his military experience as bonus.

[AliceH]

--59 illegal guns just among the women--

Interestingly, the NYT did not specify whether any or all of those 59 guns were in fact illegal.

[Sue]

Chubby,

Romney is going boring. Portman or Pawlenty.

[Chubby]

seems like Obama is a bit of an indiscreet motormouth, not exactly a great presidential quality. if that blab was intended to accomplish something, it was only to do damage.

[Thomas Collins]

Middle aged "of pallor" guys are NOT boring, Sue. Put us on the disco floor and we'll run any gender, race, ethnicity, sexual preference, atheist, agnostic, devout believer in the Almighty, or any other slice or dice of humanity into the ground! And we'll trump any fashion style with our polyester pants! :-))

[jimmyk]

Interestingly, the NYT did not specify whether any or all of those 59 guns were in fact illegal.

NY ain't Texas, so I'd be pretty sure that almost all of them were illegal.

Bear in mind that the reasons for stopping someone are not only for suspected gun possession. Nearly 10% of those stopped are arrested. And it's probably more meaningful to list guns found as a percent of those frisked, which would be around 0.4%. Whether that's high or not is debatable, but we don't know what else they find (other weapons, drugs, etc.).

[Chubby]

((Sue: Romney is going boring. Portman or Pawlenty))

I don't think boring is the way to go, then again Romney's clearly got lots of experience, in his business career and other departments of his life, of making good choices.

[James D.]

But, but, but...guns are already very strictly controlled in New York City. How will making them more illegal than they already are stop the "uptick" in gun crime there?

Maybe, as a general rule, government at every level - and the people who staff it - ought to demonstrate that they understand and can competently, correctly and even-handedly utilize the wide variety of legal tools already at their disposal, before calling for the citizenry to cede yet more power (and resources) to them.

Just a thought.

[Sue]

The woman in the Obama Super Pac ad died in 2006. While Romney was governor in Massachusetts. A commenter at Politico says (and I kind of shuddered while laughing) The five year gap is easily explained. These weren't just cancer cells -- they were sleeper cells. That is just how evil Mitt is!. We are now joking about his wife's death because he allowed her to be used in an Obama ad. Pretty sad.

[Rick Ballard]

"Romney is going boring."

Going? There's is actually territory in boring which hasn't been completely explored as yet?

[Extraneus]

The High Low Jump

Click for full size.

[peter]

Quite frankly, I don't see why Romney doesn't wait until the convention to announce his choice. The suspense might increase ratings.

[AliceH]

--NY ain't Texas, so I'd be pretty sure that almost all of them were illegal.--

You're right about NY not being Texas. That is why I am LESS certain than you that almost all the guns were illegal - how likely is it that the NYT would fail to emphatically and explicitly note the guns found were illegal, if they almost all were? It's a telling omission.

[Danube of Thought]

A wiki summary of the law governing stop-and-frisk inder the Fourth Amendment;

"Under Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S. 1 (1968), law enforcement officers are permitted to conduct a limited warrantless search on a level of suspicion less than probable cause under certain circumstances. In Terry, the Supreme Court ruled that when a police officer witnesses 'unusual conduct'that leads that officer to reasonably believe 'that criminal activity may be afoot', that the suspicious person has a weapon and that the person is presently dangerous to the officer or others, the officer may conduct a 'pat-down search' (or 'frisk') to determine whether the person is carrying a weapon. To conduct a frisk, officers must be able to point to specific and articulatory facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant their actions. A vague hunch will not do. Such a search must be temporary and questioning must be limited to the purpose of the stop (e.g., officers who stop a person because they have reasonable suspicion to believe that the person was driving a stolen car, cannot, after confirming that it is not stolen, compel the person to answer questions about anything else, such as the possession of contraband)."

If anti-Semitic activist Andrew has any evidence that any of the NY searches were unlawful, now is the time for him to produce it. And we're still waiting for evidence of those illegal gun sales.

[Sue]

Rick,

::grin:: I love you, man.

Chubby,

I think Romney is going to keep the focus on him, not his VP. No controversies. It will work if people like Romney enough to go to the polls.

[Extraneus]

You know what's telling? The number of google links to recent "stop and frisk" stories. Who knew this was such a lib bugaboo? Don't they care about black on black crime? Don't they want illegal guns off the street, too - not just legal ones?

[Danube of Thought]

TK is gonna love this:

"Like many other areas of American law, the Fourth Amendment finds its roots in English legal doctrine. Sir Edward Coke, in Semayne's case (1604), famously stated: 'The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.'"

That was just four years before Lord Coke ruled that one is a natural-born citizen of the country in which he was born.

[Sue]

It will work if people like Romney enough to go to the polls.

Or hate Obama more than they dislike Romney.

Go ABO!

[hit and run]

DoT's quote from Moe Lane on the reason Obama disdains Romney:
It’s that Mitt Romney had a father who loved him.

If one assumes that Reid is getting marching orders out of Team Obama for his attacks on Romney -- and really is there any doubt about it -- then Lane's observation makes this line from Reid regarding Romney . . . intriguing:

"His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son"

OK, perhaps a little too far to think that Obama personally wrote lines for Harry Reid to say, wanting to tweak Romney for having a dad who loved him.

A little, perhaps.

[AliceH]

Here's something on excessive use of stop-and-frisk (or the search part anyway):

Last month [May 2012], a federal judge said that the city’s own records showed that many of the stops did not meet the constitutional standards for searches. The law does not permit a search of pockets based simply on a police officer’s hunch or performance quota; an officer may pat someone down if there is reason to believe that a person is carrying an illegal weapon. To conduct a search of the pockets, or to order someone to empty their pockets, requires yet a higher standard involving probable cause that a weapon is present. The judge found that officers often relied on impermissibly vague grounds such as “furtive” movement

LUN

[narciso]

Here was the activist behind that protest;

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=629

Didn't give the name of the judge who ruled that way.

[jimmyk]

It's a telling omission.

I think it's more likely that they didn't even bother saying they were illegal because that would be implicit.

I don't doubt there are some abuses or cases of illegal stop and frisk, so I don't dismess your concerns. That doesn't mean the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater. Also, a lot of the liberal objections have to do with baseless charges of discrimination ("driving while black" and all that). In the statistics I've seen, the arrest/stop ratio is pretty similar across demographic groups.

[AliceH]

Now that I think about it, I don't know why I let this S&F thing bother me. It's not like I'll ever go to NYC again.

[centralcal]

IOTW has an hysterical photoshop of Moochelle as Friar "Truck".

[narciso]

Up to no good from the beginningl

In the spring of 1968 Cagan traveled to Bulgaria to attend the Ninth World Festival of Youth and Students, an event organized by (mostly Soviet-oriented) Communist Parties around the world, and attended by all manner of leftists and revolutionaries. That same year, Cagan graduated from NYU with a degree in art history.

Next, Cagan started to explore a number of additional activist causes—specifically, the anti-nuclear, LGBT rights, and feminist movements. As a result of the latter, she began “to understand sexism” as well as the “power dynamic” that defined male-female relationships.

In the summer of 1969 Cagan attended several national conferences held by SDS and the United Front Against Fascism, the latter of which was a project of the Black Panthers. Indeed, Cagan proudly described herself as a “Panther support person.”

In the winter of 1969-70, Cagan spent more than two months with the First Venceremos Brigade, which covertly transported young Americans to Cuba to help harvest sugar cane and interact with Havana’s Communist leadership. Organized by Fidel Castro's Cuban intelligence agency, these Brigades trained their participants in guerrilla warfare techniques. In Cuba, Cagan saw what she described as “not an abstract idea of socialism or revolution,” but a society whose hallmark was a type of “humane interaction among people” that she “had never witnessed” in the United States. During her seven years as director of the Cuba Information Project, Cagan led numerous demonstrations demanding that America end its economic embargo of, and travel ban to, the island nation.

[Chubby]

Sue, that's an excellent point, one I hadn't considered before your post. I can certainly see how diluting his campaign and drawing attention away from himself with a controversial VP pick might not be a great idea.

[Extraneus]

.

[AliceH]

--In the statistics I've seen, the arrest/stop ratio is pretty similar across demographic groups.--

Any stats on stop/no arrest ratios?

[Extraneus]

You'd be a lot happier in NYC now than you would have been before stop and frisk, Alice. I can assure you of that.

[AliceH]

That @1:19 didn't come out right. let me get back to ya!

[Extraneus]

Emails: Geithner, Treasury drove cutoff of non-union Delphi workers’ pensions

The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.

The internal government emails contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures. They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding the termination of those non-union pensions, and that administration figures violated federal law.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Ex-

Another front opens on iBama. There was lots of chatter about this on the floor.

[hit and run]

A Romney staffer* just called me at work. The “Romney Plan for a Stronger Middle Class” Bus Tour that is kicking off this week is stopping for an event in High Point this Sunday, and I was cordially invited. High Point is just south of Greensboro.

Event starts at 12:30 and doors open at 11:30.

Heck, if I were to make my way down to High Point, I might as well keep going a little further and have some Lexington barbecue.

------------------- *A recording of a Romney staffer.

[Dave (in MA)]

centralcal | August 07, 2012 at 12:13 PM

D'ohcahontas.

[Captain Hate]

Tammy Bruce: How did Powell not get invited to give a speech at the Repub convention? They've asked every other uninspiring RINO.

[narciso]

This was earlier posted at Coddington's loafer

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-governments-awlaki-story-does-not-pass-the-laugh-test

[centralcal]

Ha Ha, Dave - yup, Lizzie Warren isn't the sharpest tool arrow in the shed quiver.

[centralcal]

Yay, more laughs! Love that Tammy quote, Captain.

[Danube of Thought]

Time for Powell to close his mouth for good.

[Carol Herman]

"Not smart enough to be a lib?"

How about "just smart enough" not to watch clowns becoming candidates for the presidency?

McCain taught you guys nothing!

So, here we are, back with Romney in tow. And, no one wants to admit giving him the "ticket holder place" doesn't do all that much for the GOP.

What's one of the major ticket toppers this GOP season? Does it have anything to do with religion?

[daddy]

Good Morning.

Catch up from yesterdays thread:

"What is the reason Kristol and others think Romney will announce a VP pick weeks vs. days before the convention?"

Kristol said yesterday that he thinks that if Romney does not immediately name his VP candidate, then his upcoming 4 day bus-stop speeches in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio will not be effective because he thinks that whatever Romney talks about on those speeches will be ignored because everybody will be interested only in who Romney's VP choice will be.

My opinion is that as usual Kristol is dead wrong, as he seems to believe that the general public is incapable of carrying more than 1 thought in their heads at a time, and is only interested in whatever the heck Kristol happens to be interested in at any given moment.

[Chubby]

...in McCain's case, drawing attention away from himself in his campaign was an excellent idea because McCain's been a fixture in Washington politics for so long that the cleaning staff have to feather dust him. Romney, not so much, his task is to develop a higher profile.

[Captain Hate]

Tammy is also using the Cheney comments re Palin in their proper context; namely a slam on the Romper Room campaign that McRINO and his staff of idiots ran.

[NK]

Guns-- the LAST place you'd ever want to look for reason about guns is in the NYS Legislature or the NYTimes. Stupidity in the first, madness in the second. NYC would go back to being unlivable w/o Stop and Frisk. Stop and Frisk IS constitutional, emptying of pockets may or may not be, but my understanding is that Ray Kelly is not challenging that part of the judge's decision. The 59 seized guns-- I'm quite sure they are ALL illegal under NYC law. Carry permits are rare as hen's teeth, and a permit holder would immediately ID themselves to cops as such, they'd produce the firearm and no Frisk would be reported by NYPD. What people have to understand is that in NYC a tiny percentage of the population cause a grotesquely disproprtionate amount of crime, and a small number of handguns are used in a large number of crimes. Starting in 1994 Giuliani/Bratton and their Comp/Stat team were able to devise street and subway Stops that picked up the recidivist criminals and the guns they were carrying. It changed NYC overnight, and continued to do so up until recently. In the last 2 years street crimed has ticked up-- a combination of the Legislature eliminating strict Drug law sentencing and fewer cops on the street (to pay for Bureaucrat/Teacher pensions). Eliminating Stop & Frisk would make NYC unlivable in a short period of time.

[hit and run]

I have the great good fortune to have Powell keynoting a conference I'm going to in September.