Back to Basics

Another gun-free zone:

Casper police say three are dead stemming from an attack at Casper College this morning.

Casper Police Chief Chris Walsh said two are dead at the school’s World Physical Science Center and one dead at another location in Casper, although he wouldn’t identify the dead or the other location.

No suspects are at large and nobody else was injured, Walsh said.

Asked about speculation that a bow and arrow were used in the attack, Walsh wouldn’t identify what weapon or weapons were involved, although he said no firearms were used. . . .

This might have been a bow and arrow attack, that would make it quite different and I bet it won’t get as much attention as normal.

Wyoming Statute  6-8-104 (t) “No permit issued pursuant to this section or any permit issued from any other state shall authorize any person to carry a concealed firearm into any college or university facility without the written consent of the security service of the college or university” . . .

As almost always happens around the US, when a college gets this power to decide whether law-abiding citizens can carry concealed handguns on their campuses they do not allow it.  That is no different in the case of Casper College.

There is much focus on the events following the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, as there should be. Four Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador are dead. Real  Americans, real men do not leave other Americans to die mercilessly in the throes of battle, at their time of greatest need. That’s not who we are, individually as people or collectively as a nation. Yet the inquiries of late boil down to one simple but very revealing question that no one in a position of authority has answered: Is this what we’ve become?

This is a question that transcends politics, political parties and agendas. It is much bigger than all of that and all of us, and speaks to the very heart of who we are as a people, a nation, and a brotherhood and sisterhood of soldiers who have entrusted their lives to the men and women leading the greatest nation on earth. It is the very essence of who we are and everything for which we stand. It is about honor, and a man or a nation who has lost honor can lose nothing more.*

At the heart of the issue are four Americans whose names and faces we must never forget: Sean Smith, Glen Dougherty, Tyrone Woods and U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. They were sons and fathers, friends and family, and fellow soldiers doing what other Americans were not, could not or would not. At present, they are the face of America’s integrity and honor, exhibits of courage, and members of a special group who have died in the name of our nation.

Have we abandoned not only our dead, but our nation’s honor? With regard to the events in Benghazi, there is one very simple and expeditious way to put inquiring minds to rest, and to assure every American serving their country that they will not be left behind in their time of greatest need. Through a simple stroke of a pen, one man has the ability to put an end to the growing undercurrent of speculation and fear of abandonment: Barack Hussein Obama.

The accounts of the September 11, 2012 meeting in the Oval Office are well documented and undisputed in open source reports. Barack Hussein Obama, Joe Biden and Leon Panetta were meeting in the Oval Office at the very moment in time when the frantic pleas for help were made by our men who were engaged in a battle for their lives. In Benghazi, it was their final battle, but I beseech every American that it must not be ours.

Barack Obama has publicly assured every American that he ordered assistance to be dispatched to save our people. Let there be no equivocation, no word play, and no doubt, as the stakes are too high, the grief too real, and the consequences too dire to our country for anything but full and honest disclosure. We have told by Barack Obama that he issued an order, in real time, to save the lives of our men as the doors of hell opened before them.

That is his statement recorded in history. Three men know the truth. Four men are dead. A nation’s honor hangs in the balance.

The story of how the Obama Administration failed to secure a US consulate and then failed to send in support while it was under attack may turn out to be the biggest scandal of this administration. But that will only happen if Benghazigate is the subject of a thorough and rigorous investigation. And that means basing stories on facts or on reliable reports, rather than on speculation and internet rumors that no one would take seriously in any other context.

I have received dozens of emails in the last few days claiming that General Ham was fired for trying to go ahead with a rescue operation. The story appeared in the Washington Times. The source for the Times’ story was an anonymous comment on Tiger Droppings, a forum for LSU football fans, from someone in Louisiana working in “Self Employed/Restaurants/Catering” who claimed that the story came “from someone inside the military”.

Now for all I know this story is true, but an anonymous comment on a football fan forum is not enough to run with a major story. It’s certainly not enough to start treating it as an established fact.

That comment has gone beyond the Washington Times and is being sourced in various outlets all of whom are reporting a story based on an anonymous comment on an internet forum.

On October 20th, Clare Lopez wrote a column raising various questions about Benghazi and suggesting that Ambassador Stevens may have been involved in a weapons smuggling operation moving Libyan weapons into Syria. Lopez’s column raised some questions, a lot of them, but provided no proof and no truly credible connection between Stevens and the transfer of Libyan weapons to Syrian Jihadists. Nor did that theory come with a motive for why the consulate was attacked.

Nevertheless large numbers of people have now taken it as a fact that Stevens was involved in running Libyan guns to Syria without any actual evidence to verify that as a fact. Many repeat Lopez’s suggestion that the warehouses behind the consulate stored guns meant for Syria as a statement of fact. To many people, it seems “right” and it may be true, it may not be true. The difference between the two is actual evidence.

I am not attacking Lopez, she was doing what many of us were doing in the days and weeks after the attack. I have run plenty of speculative pieces, some that were right, some that were wrong, it’s in the nature of the business to do that. The problem only begins when a speculative piece is treated as fact and when speculations begin to be used as evidence when they are only questions, not answers.

Was Stevens being set up to be used in a prisoner exchange for the Blind Sheik? It’s an interesting theory, but if Obama had really wanted to release the Blind Sheik, he would extradited him to Egypt and after waiting two months, the Egyptian government would have released him. Furthermore if the goal was to take an American hostage, then there were easier and safer ways to take Stevens than an armed attack on a consulate.

Man of the people Barack Obama schmoozed 150 high-dollar Hollywood donors at the Ritz-Carlton in Los Angeles last night. Cost of admission? $25,000/plate. A transcript of his remarks is posted on the White House website. He told a new, self-aggrandizing health care tale about his life-saving powers that caught my eye.

READ this and pay attention to the part I’ve bolded:

8:26 P.M. PDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you so much. Everybody, please have a seat. First of all, you just heard from the future of the Democratic Party — the great Mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro. (Applause.) We’re so proud of him.

There are so many people I could thank tonight, so I’m just going to focus on three individuals. First of all, my unbelievable Southern California co-chairs — John Emerson and Ken Solomon. Please give them a big round of applause. (Applause.) They have been tireless in their efforts. They have been unbelievable.

The other person that I want to acknowledge in particular — because I said this to them privately, I’ve got to say it publicly — Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg have been — (applause) — they have been tireless and stalwart and have never wavered through good times and bad since my first presidential race, back when a lot of people still couldn’t pronounce my name. (Laughter.) And I will always be grateful to them for just the incredible support that they’ve given. So thank you very much. (Applause.) Thanks, both of you.

Some of you are aware that — well, all of you are aware that Michelle and I just celebrated our 20th anniversary. (Applause.) And the actual anniversary date was not that romantic. (Laughter.) There was some speculation as to whether this had an impact on my performance. (Laughter.) But I did make it up to her on Saturday. We went out to dinner, a date night. And it was a wonderful evening. It was a private room, because people kind of lean over and start listening if we’re in the booth next to them. (Laughter.) And Secret Service gets nervous. (Laughter.)

And we had this wonderful young waiter, and he brought us all our stuff, and he was patient with us as we were dawdling over the menu. And we were milking it for all it was worth because we don’t get out that often. But at the end of the dinner — it was very professional, very unobtrusive — but at the end of the dinner he just said, I wanted to just say how much I appreciate you because you saved my mother’s life — because my mother had a stroke, she wasn’t yet qualifying for Medicare, and because of the Affordable Care Act, we were able to get her coverage that allows her to take her medicines and is keeping her alive.

The restaurant that POTUS and FLOTUS dined at for their anniversary dinner was DC’s Bourbon Steak house in Georgetown.

Will any reporter follow up on this new Obamacare anecdote? Obama disseminated this hearsay story to Hollywood writers, celebs, and producers to bolster his case that the behemoth federal health care law provided coverage that a woman would not have otherwise had.

As a bizarre and perpetually confused friend once reminded me, “even a blind squirrel’s broken clock finds a nut twice a day.” And so it was with Joy Behar, who attempted to offer a defense of President Obama’s meeting schedule while at the same time unwittingly pointing out a perceived problem with the priorities:

Joy Behar doesn’t like all the criticism President Obama has received for going on The View while refusing to meet with any world leaders at the United Nations meeting in New York City this week.

“Obama is being bashed for doing the View instead of meeting world leaders,” Behar, a co-host of The View and outspoken liberal comedian, tweeted. “Maybe he’d rather talk to me than Netanyahu. Ever think of that?” She also tweeted a photo from Obama’s appearance on the show, which she described as a “lovefest.”

No argument here. It was a simple decision on the part of the president, really. Where’s he more likely to be considered eye candy while reaching “low information voters”: at boring meetings with world leaders during times of trouble around the world (speculation about how a Netanyahu meeting would look can be seen here) or amid an adoring throng (save perhaps for one) at The View?

What’s driving the demand that has gun makers cranking up production?Speculation has focused on fears of a coming regulatory crackdown on gun ownership. Liberal administrations tend to be anti-gun and so, the thinking goes, an Obama re-election would set the stage for stricter gun purchasing requirements. Hence, people are buying now in anticipation of difficulty later. . . .

It is good to know that Venezuela will be in such good hands. From the Financial Times:

. . . Mr Chávez has prevented a successor from emerging and senior government figures insist there is “no Plan B”. Still, speculation about who might replace the leader has centred on bus driver turned foreign minister Nicolás Maduro; the vice-president and former student radical Elias Jaua; and one of Mr Chávez’s former military colleagues, Diosdado Cabello, who was beaten by Mr Capriles in the elections to Miranda state in 2008. . . .

Do any of these Democrats understand that speculation smooths prices over time? That speculators make money by causing price differences to get smaller over time? This article also shows how dangerous the stupid Dodd-Frank bill is. From The Hill newspaper:

Democratic Sen. Bob Casey (Pa.) is pressing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to help ease rising gasoline prices.
In a letter sent to CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler on Sunday, Casey called on the agency to implement a rule that would limit speculation in the oil market and is two years in the making.
“Consumers shouldn’t be forced to pay higher prices at the pump because of speculative bets on Wall Street,” Casey said.
“Nearly two years ago Congress gave the CFTC the tools to crackdown on speculation in the oil market, and with sky high prices at the pump it’s time they used it.”
The Dodd-Frank law gives the CFTC the authority to limit the ability of speculators on Wall Street to inflate the price of oil by putting in place position limits. . . .