Well, now we know (here)…
Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick has introduced legislation that requires states to report people with mental health problems to a national database for background checks.
Hmm, sounds promising…
The bill, H.R. 329, the Strengthening Background Checks Act, gives incentives to states to add the names of their residents involuntarily committed to mental institutions to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
The NICS checks available records on people who might be disqualified from purchasing firearms. However, it is optional for states to make their records available.
States that comply will receive part of $125 million in grants for technology upgrades to coordinate with the NICS. States that don’t will have 10 percent withheld from their Byrne JAG grants, which go to support local law enforcement.
Uh, wait a minute…
Didn’t the lede paragraph tell us that Fitzpatrick’s bill would “require” states to comply? Well, somewhere between the first and second paragraph, “requires” became “gives incentives.”
Oh, right, this is another Gary Weckselblatt special. I get it now.
And Fitzpatrick is proposing about $125 million in grant money to upgrade the NCIS database. That sounds nice until you realize that Mayors Against Illegal Guns, as noted here, claim that about three times that amount of money is really needed.
It should also be noted that our beloved commonwealth has an atrocious record of compliance when it comes to reporting individuals disqualified from owning firearms into the NCIS database (something like, out of about 51,000 names, only one was entered…sorry, lost the link on that one for now, but I know I read it).
Mikey’s proposal here is quite literally better than nothing. However, because it is so utterly toothless and underfunded, it really is hard to treat It as anything more than a publicity stunt.
Sometimes, Barack Obama acts like the Constitution does not apply to him and the Congress is an imaginary being. Friday, the United States Court of Appeals brought the president back to Earth and reminded him that that the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and the U.S. Senate are very much part of reality by voiding three of Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.
The D.C. Circuit ruled that the president could not end-run the confirmation process merely because at the beginning of 2012 the U.S. Senate was meeting every three business days in, what lawyers call, pro forma session.
In response, I give you the reality-based (for real) community from here…
Mr. Obama had declared that Congress was not really open for business during its one-minute, lights-on-lights-off sessions intended only to thwart him, and he made recess appointments. A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said his N.L.R.B. appointments were unconstitutional, buying the argument of Republicans that the Senate was really in session.
The court even broke with the presidential practice of 150 years by ruling that only vacancies arising during a narrow recess period qualify for recess appointments.
White House officials said the administration would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, but if it is upheld, it will invalidate scores of decisions made by the labor board over the last year.
Oh, and this ruling would have also applied to about 141 recess appointments made by Obama’s predecessor also (interesting stuff on pro forma decisions from fdl can be accessed here).
Also, this tells us about Teahadist Judge David Sentelle, the author of this judicial travesty along with Janice Rogers Brown, who once suggested that all labor, business or Wall Street regulation is unconstitutional (yep, we have a couple of “Tenthers” here, meaning folks who wrongly believe the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution means that state law takes precedence over the Feds). Also, this provides more background, and this tells us, among other things, that Sentelle was appointed to the bench by The Sainted Ronnie R (surprised?).
Oh, and concerning Rogers Brown, this tells us that she tried to rewrite legal protection for employees against sexual harassment under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, explicitly contradicting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and several previous court decisions (Lutkewitte v. Gonzales); she also has ruled that the EPA doesn’t have the right to regulate vehicle emissions.
Perfect for a pair of judges trying to blow smoke, I suppose.
See, in Gerson’s world, only Obama is guilty of polarizing words and actions on immigration, as we know (and Gerson actually writes that Obama has “the invincible assumption of his own rightness,” which is a hilarious sentence coming from the former head speechwriter for George W. Bush).
This is all an exercise to try and puff up the supposed bona fides on immigration of Sen. Marco Rubio, who took a different tack on this as opposed to working with the opposition, shall we say, here (“polariz(ing) this most polarizing of issues,” as Gerson might put it). To be fair, though, I should note that Rubio looks like a statesman compared to that moron Raul Labrador, as noted here (“A speech is not a bill?” Really? There’s a reason why the House is part of the legislative branch, numbskull. It’s because you’re supposed to legislate.)
To point out who the actual grownup is here, though, this tells us that Obama ordered a halt to the deportation of many young undocumented immigrants in June, but only 1 House rep (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a nut on just about every other issue but sensible here) supported it and 147 of her Repug brethren opposed it. More to the point, though, this tells us that, as of last June, Rubio’s party had done virtually nothing on the issue of immigration, including fighting Obama and the Democrats tooth and nail on the DREAM Act.
Of course, as noted here, Gerson is no stranger to propagandizing about Number 44 on “values” issues; not being an evangelical, I can’t imagine how Gerson rationalizes his deceit on faith issues concerning those he opposes in the political arena (and it’s probably just as well that I don’t know).
To understand leftism, the most dynamic religion of the last 100 years, you have to understand how the Left thinks. The 2013 inaugural address of President Barack Obama provides one such opportunity. To begin:
“What makes us exceptional — what makes us American — is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
What American does not resonate to a president’s reaffirming this magnificent statement from our Declaration of Independence?
But here’s the intellectual sleight of hand: “What makes us exceptional — what makes us American” is indeed the belief that rights come from God.
And this seminal idea is not mentioned again in the entire inaugural address.
This was most unfortunate. An inaugural address that would concentrate on the decreasing significance of God in American life — one of the Left’s proudest accomplishments — would address what may well be the single most important development in the last half-century of American life.
Oh, and by the way, on the subject of God’s decreasing significance – supposedly encouraged by Obama – I should note the following references to God in Obama’s speech after the passage Prager cited (from here)…
Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.
..
For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.
…
We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.
My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction – and we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service.
As noted here, though, Prager is a serial offender on faith matters, particularly when they involve Democrats (and comparing the Qu’ran to Mein Kampf isn’t going to help the wingnuts win the day on this subject by any means).
Individuals enlisting in the U.S. Armed Forces must swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” But what happens when the only crime perpetrated by the “enemy” is supporting and defending the Constitution?
Such is the dilemma facing future military officers at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point — who are being taught to view freedom-loving Americans as violent, racist terrorists-in-waiting. As part of the federal government’s ongoing jihad against common-sense fiscal conservatism and constitutionally limited government, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) has issued a new report making some dangerously irrational generalizations about the “far-right.”
Boy, is this rich! To get an understanding of why Bill Wilson of Americans for Limited Government wants the report’s author, Dr. Arie Perliger, to be fired…well, read on (here)…
Until the attack in Oklahoma, very few people noticed that the previous years (1994–5)had been characterized by a striking rise in the number of violent attacks by American far-right groups. After a relatively quiet 1993 in which the American far-right was almost non-active (only nine attacks), no less than 75 attacks were perpetrated in the following year, with another 30 attacks in the first three months of 1995. What occurred in Oklahoma was not a random, isolated attack but part of a wave of far-right violence which was fueled by specific political and social conditions.
…
The consolidated dataset includes information on 4420 violent incidents that occurred between 1990 and 2012 within US borders, and which caused 670 fatalities and injured 3053 people.
Fourteen of the 21 years covered in this analysis witnessed more attacks than the previous year. Although in the 1990s the average number of attacks per year was 70.1, the average number of attacks per year in the first 11 years of the twenty-first century was 307.5, a rise of more than 400%.
There’s lots of stuff on ALG here, including the fact that, though it perhaps stops short of physical violence and a “terrorist” label, comes just about to the water’s edge, as you might say (and Mother Jones tells us here that it’s really a pretty straight line stretching from Bill Wilson and ALG right back to Charles and David Koch, which shouldn’t be surprising in the least).
So, nah, many right-wingers aren’t racists or terrorists. And they don’t traffic in violent words and/or images and racist, misogynist or anti-immigrant threats. Never forget that, all you latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, NPR-listening liberals out there.
Not much they don’t.
Posted by doomsy 
The Liberal Doomsayer 