Support for Gun Control vs. Support for Capital Punishment

So here's support for gun control over the last 50 years:

What if in fact these are the good old days?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:57 PM | Comments (756)
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In case you were wondering just who has nuclear weapons, pretty much every college student in the country has this memorized:

I'm told this is in some way relevant to presidential politics this year, but that can't possibly be the case, can it?

Via my pal Colleen.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:29 PM | Comments (122)
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Wanted to get this one in between "Peace through Invalid Assumptions" and the ONT, just for the pickerers. -dave

Think you had a bad day? At least you weren't in this Polish airliner landing with the (stuck) gear up.

Here's the weekly results, tabulated by CDR M and Ben.

F-22 Jocks

MuleTrain 2016: 70
scott: 67
Aristomenes from da 54301: 66
AnthonyL: 66
Country Blumkins: 66

Air Polski

DrewM: 61
Gabe: 59
rd brewer: 57
CDR M: 56
Ben: 56
Andy: 55
DiT: 52
Russ from Winterset: 52

Fighter pilots make movies. Bomber pilots make history.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:48 PM | Comments (28)
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I'm sure this is charming, or something.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you view China as a potential military threat to the United States?

HERMAN CAIN: I do view China as a potential military threat to the United States... we already have superiority in terms of our military capability, and I plan to get away from making cutting our defense a priority and make investing in our military capability a priority, going back to my statement: peace through strength and clarity. So yes they're a military threat. They've indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat.

That's actually cut a bit. The full quote from the PBS transcript:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you view China as a potential military threat to the United States?

HERMAN CAIN: I do view China as a potential military threat to the United States.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what could you do as president to head that off?

HERMAN CAIN: My China strategy is quite simply outgrow China. It gets back to economics. China has a $6 trillion economy and they're growing at approximately 10 percent. We have a $14 trillion economy -- much bigger -- but we're growing at an anemic 1.5, 1.6 percent. When we get our economy growing back at the rate of 5 or 6 percent that it has the ability to do, we will outgrow China.

And secondly, we already have superiority in terms of our military capability, and I plan to get away from making cutting our defense a priority and make investing in our military capability a priority, going back to my statement: peace through strength and clarity. So yes they're a military threat. They've indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat.

For what it's worth, super-smart media genius Judy Woodruff seems to have not known China's been a nuclear power since the late 50s, too.

Personable guy. Great smile. Let's nominate him.

I understand that part of this is just a show. Most presidential candidates don't "know" all the stuff they pretend they know. They cram, they get briefed.

But again there's some very basic, very elementary stuff here that Cain seems to have missed.

I don't think you should need to get briefed to know that China is in the Nuclear Club. The list of known members is small enough to... I was going to say memorize, but you don't have to memorize them, do you? You should just know it from day-to-day reading.

I don't know what's going on here.

Don't shoot the messenger. I realize "The Messenger" here, me, has a choice about what stories to post, and obviously I chose to post this.

But I didn't make the story up. I'm highlighting it, sure, but obviously I didn't create the story.

Sure, I'm anti-Cain. I confess that.

Because I find this worrisome. And I do not believe that most Americans, choosing a president, are going to find it "charming" and "folksy" that a candidate doesn't know China is in the Nuclear Club and has been for a long time.

Was Cain Just Talking About Nuclear Capability In Aircraft Carriers? A commenter asks if he might just have meant nuclear capability in their aircraft carrier fleet.

The quote's at about 11:45. A commenter asks is it possible he intended "nuclear capability" to be a part of the aircraft carrier mention? That is, that he only meant China sought nuclear-powered aircraft carriers?

I suppose he'll say that. There's some reason to think that maybe it's possible he meant that, as this article from 2007 says that China actually is building a nuclear aircraft carrier.

Did he mean that?

Well... It should be noted that article is a bit of a stray -- while it is on the internet, it seems that that report is questionable, and China's confirmed current goal is to build conventionally-powered aircraft carrier, nevermind the nuclear type. It is the normal conventionally-powered aircraft carriers people talk about, as China is just starting to build those.

In other words, that "nuclear powered aircraft carrier" talk would make sense if China already had aircraft carriers and was now considering giving them nuclear engines. But in fact that's not the case. The near-term worry is about China building aircraft carriers, period, not about whether they'll be conventionally powered or nuclear powered.

I'm pre-inclined to think he doesn't know what he's talking about based on ignorance about the Right to Return. Your mileage may vary.

What If He Meant Long Range Nuclear Missile Capability? Another suggested possibility, since, while China has nukes, maybe he meant their ability to deliver the nukes?

Well, they do have ICBM's already. So maybe he means more of them? But it wouldn't make sense to discuss "developing the capability."

New Headline... Thanks to Drew.

How About "Build Up" Its Nuclear Capability? Another commenter says this might just be an errant verb -- maybe he meant "build up" or "expand" rather than "develop." And sure, of course they're interested in doing that.

I guess.

Posted by: Ace at 03:54 PM | Comments (667)
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I don't see that happening. The Restaurant Association, presumably, holds that agreement, and they will most likely rebuff the request.

Lawyer Joel P. Bennett called on the National Restaurant Association, where the woman and Cain worked in the late 1990s, to release the woman from her written promise not to talk about the allegations or disparage the trade group.

“It is just frustrating that Herman Cain is going around bad-mouthing the two complainants, and my client is blocked by a confidentiality agreement,” Bennett said. “The National Restaurant Association ought to release them and allow them to respond. ”

The association, which Cain headed from 1996 to 1999, has remained mum since the story broke in Politico on Sunday evening, citing a long-standing policy not to comment on personnel issues. Cain denied the sexual harassment allegations, saying they were “totally baseless and totally false.”

Bennett represents one of the two women, who attended an Ivy League school and now works for the federal government.

...

If she is released from the confidentiality ban, “then it is whole new ballgame,” Bennett said.

“If we didn’t have a written settlement agreement that says confidential and no disparagement, I think she’d be very comfortable coming forward,” the attorney told The Post on Tuesday. “Not because she would be so hellbent on doing something to Herman Cain — I don’t know that.

“For all practical purposes, Herman Cain has already done that” — waived confidentiality, Bennett said. “But legally that might not constitute a waiver.”

I think this is why the women weren't quoted -- they were talking, but with the understanding Politico could never say they were talking. It came from them, most likely, on background.

Now that Cain himself has been prompted to comment, the claim will be that Cain violated the terms of the agreement, so it's no longer in effect for anyone.

Posted by: Ace at 02:02 PM | Comments (501)
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Sheryl Aktinson, one of the only major media reporters even covering Fast and Furious, alleged that "Wide Receiver," a Bush era program, was a "gunwalking" program in the same sense that Fast and Furious was.

But was it?

Confederate Yankee, Bob Owens, notes that Wide Receiver actually involved surveillance -- or at least attempted surveillance. It's just that the surveillance failed.

In Operation Wide Receiver, Tucson agents allowed the sales of more than 500 firearms to known straw purchasers. Like Gunrunner/Fast and Furious, the operation apparently backfired.

Some firearms in Wide Receiver were equipped with RFID tracking devices. In Wide Receiver, it seems the illegal purchasers seemed more than slightly knowledgeable of the ATF and how to take their aerial and electronic tracking procedures down.

Knowing the time aloft numbers for virtually all planes used in government surveillance, the buyers had a simple method of getting their purchases across the border undetected. They simply drove four-hour loops around the area.

As surveillance planes were forced to return to base for refueling, the smugglers simply turned and sprinted their cargo across the border.

The RFID tags also turned out to be problematic.

Rather than making large enough holes for the tags to be laid out inside weapons, agents force-fit them into the rifles.

That cramming caused the antennae to be folded, reducing the effective range of the tags. And an already short battery life (36-48 hours maximum) meant that should purchasers allow the firearms to sit, the tracking devices eliminated themselves.

In addition, Wide Receiver was conducted in cooperation with the Mexican authorities -- not kept secret from them, as a rogue American agency conducted a murderous covert operation in a neighboring sovereign country.

Now, Wide Receiver failed. It all seems like a pretty dumb operation in hindsight. But you can see how it could have been predicted to work -- if the surveillance works, you've nabbed your bad guys.

In Fast and Furious, there was no surveillance.

So what was the goal?

In Wide Receiver, the guns "walked" without surveillance due to technical failure of the RFID devices and the gun-runners outwitting the ATF.

Someone in the administration please tell me a story wherein Fast and Furious was also a botch, a failure -- rather than having proceeded as planned.

I don't want to think that -- that seems a little farfetched -- but unless the administration can explain how their plan to let 2000+ guns "walk" into Mexico (without a head's up for Mexican law enforcement) accidentally became a failure, rather than proceeded according to plan, there are going to be serious suspicions about our government's actual motive.

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (180)
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Pretty uncomfortable.

I think Ann Coulter sounds just a clumsy and desperate in playing the race card as the average lefty does. I don't think it's accurate to say Politico wouldn't have written this story about a white Republican.

That's a daft as claiming that conservatives wouldn't oppose a nationalization of health care if it came from a white liberal politician. They always seem to forget we did just that. (Oh, right, Clinton was the first black president.)

Meanwhile, Cain had his best fundraising day ever.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (178)
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She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

I just wanted this. Was that too much to ask?

First of all:

Holdsworth, whose rap sheet includes two prior DUI collars, was actually wearing an ankle bracelet that monitors alcohol intake when she was nabbed by Bainbridge cops.

Unexpectedly, as the Associated Press might say.

Video -- and, more importantly, audio -- of her arrest. Moderate content warning for three-quarters grainy police-cam nudity on the first one, much more serious nonstop profanity/racial slur/explicit sexual language content warning for the second one.

Key excerpts: "Do you know what it's like to be f*** up the a** when you don't want it?"

Cf. with: "My daughters... They gotta go to school in the morning. You hear me? THEY GOTTA GO TO SCHOOL IN THE MORNING!!!"

If I have her story right, they took away her kids because they were "fat and shit." Now they "regulate dey diet."

Anyone think that her kids were taken away due to weight issues?

Thanks to Slublog. Monty added the poem.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (113)
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This is a little more complicated than I'd like, but:

1. Lanny Breuer learned of the idea of the "Gunwalking" tactic itself, as performed in a Bush Administration program called "Wide Receiver." He wrote, in response to this memo informing him of the tactic, that it could prove "embarrassing" for the ATF.

2. Republicans say that this revelation contradicts a letter from Holder's DoJ, which had claimed gunwalking allegations were "false." (Yeah, if you don't understand that, neither do I; the reporter is very unclear here. My guess is that Holder claimed no guns had walked, and then later said "Well maybe they walked but I'm not lying because I didn't know they'd walked," so this admission from Breuer tends to show that's not just in error, but a deliberate misstatement.)

3. Breuer claims he never alerted his direct boss (that is, the guy directly above him in the heirarchy), Eric Holder, and then, even when the new gunwalking program Fast & Furious began, he also failed to give Holder a head's up on this potentially "embarrassing" program. I assume this is a lie, told to keep his story consistent with Eric Holder's claims that he knew nothing.

Story here.

It's a bit less tidy than I'd like, particularly since the ATF employed the tactic under Bush in Wide Receiver.

Which brings up a good question. Unknown, as of yet, is how the hell letting guns completely walk without any surveillance or tracking could possibly advance a law enforcement goal, and Eric Holder won't say. (Remember, he doesn't know anything. Right? Right.)

But if this went on under Bush -- can someone from the Bush Administration please answer the question: How was this supposed to work, exactly?

Thanks to Dr. Spank, Medicine Woman.

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (105)
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Wow, this damn Marxist has an interesting point!

And so does the man quoted by Rod Dreher.

(Ba-dum-dum.)

In social theory, OWS is best understood not as a populist movement against the bankers, but instead as the breakdown of the New Class into its two increasingly disconnected parts. The upper tier, the bankers-government bankers-super credentialed elites. But also the lower tier, those who saw themselves entitled to a white collar job in the Virtue Industries of government and non-profits — the helping professions, the culture industry, the virtueocracies, the industries of therapeutic social control, as Christopher Lasch pointed out in his final book, The Revolt of the Elites.

That's very canny, and it explains why the OWS is so anti-homeless, and calls the homeless "posers:" Because this isn't about the downtrodden, or the true underclass at all. It's about people who thought that a college degree in nonsense was a guaranteed ticket to the upper class (or just below it -- the upper middle class, "merely" $200,000 per year in salary but a great job with plenty of nonpecuniary benefits to make up for that paltry salary), and now find out, no, not so much.

Your colleges, your professors... they lied to you.

There's also another schism: Those who don't want to be raped versus those who wish to rape.

Posted by: Ace at 09:55 AM | Comments (254)
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