The occasional open thread: birther irrelevancy edition

Monday, December 17, marks the day that the United States Electoral College meets to elect the next President of the United States. Place your comments on that or any other Obama conspiracy comments unrelated to the current articles here.

This thread will close in two weeks.

Electoral map showing Romney win

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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179 Responses to The occasional open thread: birther irrelevancy edition

  1. scott e. says:

    the way tou go after orly, are you anti anti-semitic ??

  2. @Andrew Vrba, PmG – Holy crap! He actually did that?!

    While preparing to speak…at Brigham Young University’s Marriott Center on February 7, 1993, Hunter was confronted by Cody Judy, who rushed onto the rostrum and threatened Hunter and the audience of 15,000–17,000. Judy carried a briefcase that he claimed contained a bomb and held what appeared to be a detonator-like device. Judy demanded that Hunter read a three-page document that supposedly detailed God’s plan for Judy to lead the church, which Hunter refused to do…students from the audience and then security personnel overtook Judy. After Judy was taken away, Hunter delivered his prepared remarks…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_W._Hunter

  3. US Citizen says:

    While not necessarily a birther, Dick Morris’ website shows a similar map like Rove’s.
    The comments are great if you go back into the archives just before the election.

    http://www.dickmorris.com

  4. red-diaper baby 1942 says:

    Some of us thought the birthers would give up with the President’s electoral victory, but obviously that isn’t going to happen. I strongly suspect that in the year 2020 Ms Taitz and her ilk will still be suing Congress, the Supreme Court and anyone else they can think of, demanding the reversal or invalidation of all Executive Acts and other decisions enacted during the “usurper’s” term of office. This is because birtherism, like conspiracy theories in general, isn’t subject to rational constraints.
    I wonder how the history books of the 21st century will describe the politics of our era. (In addition to the fatal right-wing denial of AGW, which may mean there won’t be any of us around any more to study history.)

  5. bovril says:

    In the birther universe which is full of many lies, IIRC, Cody now tries to say that he didn’t ruin up to the stage waving a heavily wired and blinkenlight gadget saying he had a BOMB his hand……..No, it was all a mistake, he said he had a BOM, a copy of the Book Of Mormon……

  6. The Magic M says:

    red-diaper baby 1942: I strongly suspect that in the year 2020 Ms Taitz and her ilk will still be suing Congress, the Supreme Court and anyone else they can think of, demanding the reversal or invalidation of all Executive Acts and other decisions enacted during the “usurper’s” term of office.

    In fact, I fully expect them to sue any Democrat who wins the 2016 elections for some convoluted reason like “no President can legitimately follow an usurper until the latter has been indicted and his presidency voided”.
    I also wouldn’t put it past them to take out their Vattelist anger on President Rubio, should that ever come to pass.
    OTOH, I fully expect them to forget Vattel ever existed should a white male GOP candidate win whose father hadn’t yet naturalized when the child was born.

  7. Keith says:

    bovril: No, it was all a mistake, he said he had a BOM, a copy of the Book Of Mormon……

    I thought he said it was a “Bill Of Materials”

  8. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    red-diaper baby 1942:
    …I strongly suspect that in the year 2020 Ms Taitz and her ilk…

    Oh, I strongly doubt Taitz will live that long. She’ll have stressed herself to death by then.

  9. The Magic M says:

    Keith: I thought he said it was a “Bill Of Materials”

    “Birth Official Memorandum” – the only real real long long long form birth certificate there is. 😉

  10. donna says:

    how about romney gets his “wish” of 47% (& still counting)

    obama 50.97%

    romney 47.29%

    obama 65,594,453

    romney 60,859,462

    obama +4,734,991

    flashback in 2004 when bush was +3 million: “I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it,” Bush told reporters. “It is my style.”

  11. bovril: he said he had a BOM, a copy of the Book Of Mormon……

    – I just cut off your arm.
    – Tis but a flesh wound.

  12. Hermitian says:

    Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

  13. Don’t ask me. I don’t have a clue why birthers have the crazy notions they have.

    We’ve just won 185 lawsuits in a row. Obama was re-elected. That’s not what I would call a “sinking ship.”

    Hermitian: Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

  14. The Magic M says:

    Hermitian: Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

    You need to readjust your senses, if you have any at all. Badly.

    And yes: any day now…

  15. Majority Will says:

    Hermitian:
    Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

    How disappointing.

    Your drivel is usually far more asinine.

    Here’s a photo for you for inspiration.

    You’re welcome.

  16. Lupin says:

    Hermitian:
    Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

    Obama knows where you live. The black helicopters are en route to take you to the FEMA camp.

  17. The comment editor should be mostly working now.

  18. Majority Will says:

    US Citizen:
    While not necessarily a birther, Dick Morris’ website shows a similar map like Rove’s.
    The comments are great if you go back into the archives just before the election.

    http://www.dickmorris.com

    This Dick blamed Romney’s loss on whites not voting because of Hurricane Sandy.

    Wow.

  19. Lupin says:

    In re Mario: Dare I guess that he must have filled his quota of hours this month for his gullible client?

  20. No. I am anti-birther. Can’t you tell?

    By the way, your comment was snagged by the spam filter. Your comments are not normally marked for moderation.

    scott e.: the way tou go after orly, are you anti anti-semitic ??

  21. Lupin says:

    There is no doubt that historically speaking, Obama’s is a huge victory. I’m genuinely surprised that your media don’t make more hay about it & still present it as a hotly contested battle. Is there simply intellectual laziness?

    Here it’s been reported as a “large victory”
    (see sample here:
    http://www.latribune.fr/actualites/economie/international/20121106trib000729197/victoire-d-obama-retour-sur-une-campagne-qui-s-annoncait-serree.html )

  22. Scientist says:

    Arnold Schwarzenegger said this in an interview with Esquire:
    “I always tell my accountant, If you’re in doubt about taxes, pay more. No Cayman Island offshore investments. No gimmicks. I love paying my taxes!”

    Now, I don’t know about you, but that strikes me, if accurate, as a truly patriotic sentiment, that puts the recent nominee of his party’s conduct in that area to shame. So, whether you think Arnold was a good or a bad Governor and whether you think he would be a good or a bad President, why in heaven’s name should he be legally barred from the job? What possible threat does he represent that a guy who keeps his money offshore does not?

    Yes, I know there are laws, but sometimes laws make no sense and enforcing them produces harmful results. I like what the President has said about enforcing the federal laws against marijuana in Washington and Colorado,”It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.” Maybe that ought to be the attitude regarding laws about eligibility that make no sense. Maybe the birthers should go fry some fish.

  23. JPotter says:

    scott e.:
    the way tou go after orly, are you anti anti-semitic ??

    If noting her activities is “going after” her, I suggest those activities need re-examining. That is to say, I repeat what you say and it sounds crazy to you, then what you said is probably crazy.

  24. Rickey says:

    Hermitian:
    Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

    Because you have gone off your meds?

  25. Rickey says:

    bovril:
    In the birther universe which is full of many lies, IIRC, Cody now tries to say that he didn’t ruin up to the stage waving a heavily wired and blinkenlight gadget saying he had a BOMB his hand……..No, it was all a mistake, he said he had a BOM, a copy of the Book Of Mormon……

    He believes that a letter-writing campaign will convince SCOTUS to grant him cert. I told him that SCOTUS has already effectively denied his petition, but he doesn’t believe me. He is in for a rude awakening in a few weeks.

  26. Judge Mental says:

    Scientist: Arnold Schwarzenegger said this in an interview with Esquire:“I always tell my accountant, If you’re in doubt about taxes, pay more. No Cayman Island offshore investments. No gimmicks. I love paying my taxes!”Now, I don’t know about you, but that strikes me, if accurate, as a truly patriotic sentiment, that puts the recent nominee of his party’s conduct in that area to shame. So, whether you think Arnold was a good or a bad Governor and whether you think he would be a good or a bad President, why in heaven’s name should he be legally barred from the job? What possible threat does he represent that a guy who keeps his money offshore does not?Yes, I know there are laws, but sometimes laws make no sense and enforcing them produces harmful results. I like what the President has said about enforcing the federal laws against marijuana in Washington and Colorado,”It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.” Maybe that ought to be the attitude regarding laws about eligibility that make no sense. Maybe the birthers should go fry some fish.

    You Obots are not fooling anyone with this kind of ‘faux’ praise of Arnold. Clearly Hermitian was right and you see the net closing in. You know it’s time to make preparations like this for going down your alternative route of “well it doesn’t really matter that Obama is ineligible as he’s only ineligible due to an unreasonable qualification criteria in the first place”.

  27. Goat Rodeo Rider says:

    That image looks manipulated. I’ll have my expert contact you.

  28. JPotter says:

    Lupin: I’m genuinely surprised that your media don’t make more hay about it & still present it as a hotly contested battle.

    They have to keep the story going. And the rightwing side would accuse them of being in the tank. Which is exactly why they should report it as you suggest.

    Much of the commentary I am hearing is noting that Obama won, and solidly, and the Reds were rejected, but it’s pretty sedate.
    _____________

    Here’s an article that current events continue to endorse:

    The Crazy Base Won’t Let the Republican Party Change
    Bob Cesca December 05,2012 |
    http://thedailybanter.com/2012/12/the-crazy-base-wont-let-the-republican-party-change/

    Can Republicans vote for a UN treaty on anything ? no, the crazy base will challenge them.
    Can the Republicans make a reasonable concession to Obama on tax reform? NO! The crazy base will challenge them.

    The “Tea Party Experience” (numerous old guard Reds challenged and beaten by nuttier Deep Reds) has professional politicians on the right clinging to their jobs with white knuckle death grips, held hostage by overly vocal, deranged minorities. They haven’t the spine to do what’s right, if it’s going to cost them personally. This is the opposite of leadership.

  29. JPotter says:

    Hermitian:
    Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

    Still sweating out the heavy denial? Hang in there, you can fight through it.

    Oh Hermitian. You abandoned all your friends back in early November. What happened? You left poor Trolljack all by himself, and he just keeps repeating the same nonsense. KBOA came to join the party and you’ve missed her antics.

    Or …. have you? You sly dog, you, you’ve been lurking!

    KBOA rolled out a new catch phrase. You’l love it: “MY EVIDENCE IS THE LAW!” Can you pull off a decent Judge Dredd impression?

  30. J.D. Reed says:

    scott e.: the way tou go after orly, are you anti anti-semitic ??

    Wow. To consistently apply your standards, the birther community must be profoundly racist, because they (including Orly) go after Mr. Obama far more viciously than the people here go after Orly.

  31. J.D. Reed says:

    Hermitian: Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

    Hey, your message contradicts itself. If “Obot Rats” are truly clueless, how would we even be aware enough to flee the sinking ship?

  32. Thrifty says:

    Delusion? I often find myself wondering why Birthers believe the bizarre things they believe.

    Hermitian:
    Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

  33. Jim says:

    Hermitian:
    Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

    Why do I get the feeling you said this 4 years ago…how accurate were you then? 😀

  34. Scientist says:

    scott e.: the way tou go after orly, are you anti anti-semitic ??

    Doesn’t being anti anti-semitic mean that you are against anti-semitism? So I will proudly state that I am anti anti-semitic.

  35. Thrifty says:

    See, that statement by President Obama is why I’d rather keep the natural born citizen requirement. It’s because, like it or not, getting rid of that clause would require a Constitutional amendment. Those are extremely difficult to pass. They require a lot of political energy in both houses of Congress and in the state legislatures. I’d rather we expend that political energy on legislation that addresses real, important issues. We only elect a new President once every 4 years, and the labor pool for applicants is plenty big enough already. There’s no sense in trying to expand it.

    Scientist: Yes, I know there are laws, but sometimes laws make no sense and enforcing them produces harmful results. I like what the President has said about enforcing the federal laws against marijuana in Washington and Colorado,”It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

  36. PaulG says:

    bovril:
    No, it was all a mistake, he said he had a BOM, a copy of the Book Of Mormon……

    Neat cover story. Doesn’t explain the detonator he was waving around, though.

  37. Scientist says:

    Thrifty: See, that statement by President Obama is why I’d rather keep the natural born citizen requirement. It’s because, like it or not, getting rid of that clause would require a Constitutional amendment. Those are extremely difficult to pass. They require a lot of political energy in both houses of Congress and in the state legislatures. I’d rather we expend that political energy on legislation that addresses real, important issues

    It could be left in place with a tacit agreement among the public, the politicians and judges not to enforce it, as is done with the antiquated laws that remain on the books in most jurisdictions that the legislators don’t have time to comb through and repeal.

    Thrifty: We only elect a new President once every 4 years, and the labor pool for applicants is plenty big enough already. There’s no sense in trying to expand it.

    I’m not disagreeing, but consider the effort expended by the biirthers, the waste of court time, the idiocies of state legislautres considering birther laws and so on. Now consider the whole Vattelist crappola coming up again if Rubio or Jindal or Cruz or someone else with non-Mayflower ancestry is on the ticket as one surely will be, if not in 2016 then at some other date. Of course, my solution of consensus non-enforcement might do the trick.

  38. Thrifty says:

    Scientist: I’m not disagreeing, but consider the effort expended by the biirthers, the waste of court time, the idiocies of state legislautres considering birther laws and so on. Now consider the whole Vattelist crappola coming up again if Rubio or Jindal or Cruz or someone else with non-Mayflower ancestry is on the ticket as one surely will be, if not in 2016 then at some other date. Of course, my solution of consensus non-enforcement might do the trick.

    Birthers are wasting all this time and energy going after a President whom we know for a fact to be fully qualified under current law. And they keep losing because it is the law. Orly cries “corruption” every time she loses a case. But if we ignored the law and moved to a system of agreement among judges and politicians to ignore the law, there would still be a faction who did NOT agree. I think you’re suggesting a level of unity on a big issue (electing a president) that’s just impossible. It’s not like some old law against open containers of alcohol or some weird small town dancing ban from the 19th century. Presidential elections are serious business.

    I guess what I’m saying is that a tacit agreement to ignore the natural born citizen clause of the U.S. Constitution is a lot like the tacit agreement to abandon capitalism in Star Trek; it just wouldn’t work.

  39. Putting aside the “March of the Trolls” rhetoric, may I ask you a substantive question?

    What is this “net” that you describe? What is this wound to the Obot ship that Hermitian says is sinking it?

    Is there a lawsuit that you can distinguish from the 185 already lost that you think has a strong probability of generating a ruling that Obama isn’t eligible? Do you think that someone in law enforcement is going to bring charges? Do you see influential persons in the media switching to the birther cause?

    Really, what exactly is this net and where can one go to touch and feel it, or is this just troll rhetoric, wishful thinking or the same vaporous “any day now” that we’ve seen for the past 4 years?

    Judge Mental: Clearly Hermitian was right and you see the net closing in.

  40. Wow, 3 trolls in a day.

  41. Thrifty says:

    Where did that electoral map at the beginning of the article come from?

    Also what is the vote count? I’m getting Romney 347 – Obama 191, unless my arithmetic is wrong. Which looks close to an inverse of what actually happened.

  42. Judge Mental says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Putting aside the “March of the Trolls” rhetoric, may I ask you a substantive question?What is this “net” that you describe? What is this wound to the Obot ship that Hermitian says is sinking it? Is there a lawsuit that you can distinguish from the 185 already lost that you think has a strong probability of generating a ruling that Obama isn’t eligible? Do you think that someone in law enforcement is going to bring charges? Do you see influential persons in the media switching to the birther cause? Really, what exactly is this net and where can one go to touch and feel it, or is this just troll rhetoric, wishful thinking and “any day now?”

    Either the style in which I delivered a caricature of a typical half-wit birther response was a little too dry…..or a periodic recalibration of your sarcasm detection meter may be due….or a bit of both. Sorry for my contribution to any misunderstanding.

    To the best of my knowledge there’s only ever been one regular Judge Mental on here and TFB and all my contributions to date, bar none, very clearly identify me as being about as far removed from being either a troll or a birther sympathiser as any layman is ever likely to be.

    Merry Christmas to all when it comes.

  43. JPotter says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: What is this “net” that you describe? What is this wound to the Obot ship that Hermitian says is sinking it?

    Judge Mental was being sarcastic, he’s a longtime poster here .. or did someone steal his handle?Assuming it was him, he did one heck of a spoof job. Too few typos, grammar and vocabulary a bit too polished, but otherwise very convincing!

    However many trolls, at least they thoughtfully popped up in the open thread (-sometime-sewer) …. or did you have to herd them here?

  44. Daniel says:

    he said he had a BOM, a copy of the Book Of Mormon……
    bovril: BOM

    He did 8 years in prison for it…..

    Seems a little harsh for gesticulating with a Bible.

    Then again… maybe not

  45. Thomas Brown says:

    Poe’s Law strikes again.

    It is darn near impossible to create a satire of Birther writings. Satire is usually telegraphed by being “too crazy” or “comically extreme” in its import.

    With Birthers, there is no such thing. There is no idea too far-fetched, no angry call for revolt too incendiary, no self-contradiction too blatant, no level of gullibility too pathetic, for Birthers.

    They are their own derogators.

  46. LW says:

    Judge Mental’s poest was a perfectly reasonable specimen of perfect unreasonableness; it fooled me.

  47. richcares says:

    if Orly’s nasty accusations against Obama were true, there would be no Orly, gone to FEMA camps or beyond would be her fate.

  48. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    richcares:
    if Orly’s nasty accusations against Obama were true, there would be no Orly, gone to FEMA camps or beyond would be her fate.

    Exactly! If Obama was guilty of “silencing” people who disagree with him, there would be no birthers.

  49. Bob says:

    Judge Mental: Either the style in which I delivered a caricature of a typical half-wit birther response was a little too dry…..

    That happened to me here once and it’s horrifying being labelled a Birther. My sympathy goes out to you.

  50. I did a Google image search for Electoral College, and it came up from a web site called PolitiFake.com, a compilation of right-wing images. I never actually found the image on the site, though.

    I presume that the image came from one of the news sites, like CNN, that let you click a map to color a state.

    http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/ecalculator#?battleground

    Thrifty: Where did that electoral map at the beginning of the article come from?

  51. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. However, the question I raised does apply to Hermition, and to Scott E. who also showed up today.

    JPotter: Judge Mental was being sarcastic, he’s a longtime poster here

  52. Judge Mental says:

    Bob: That happened to me here once and it’s horrifying being labelled a Birther. My sympathy goes out to you.

    Thanks Bob. I was traumatized nearly to the point of looking out some Dido albums and a razor blade. If Europe hadn’t won The Mosconi Cup last night I dread to think what could have happened.

  53. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Orly is actually trying to politicize today’s school shooting.
    Honestly if she were to drop dead right now, I doubt even her own children would mourn her. 26 people dead, and she’s trying to make it about her beef with the government. I’ll just flat out say it, Doc. The bitch isn’t human.

  54. JPotter says:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG: Orly is actually trying to politicize today’s school shooting.

    I don’t know what she’s saying, but there is a standard CT gun loons employ to try to explain away these incidents. I’m sure someone is already employing it somewhere.

    You’re right, she has no humanity. She’s an empty shell utterly consumed with a deranged obsession. Tunnel vision and action, constrained by nothing. Not reality, no empathy, no reflection, certainly no decency.

  55. Keith says:

    LW:
    Judge Mental’s poest was a perfectly reasonable specimen of perfect unreasonableness; it fooled me.

    Me too, though I did think it odd coming from Judge Mental. Then I swallowed the convincer when the Doc played along with a perfectly nuanced fake troll feeding.

    I guess I’m too numb from the CT shootings to think straight.

  56. US Citizen says:

    PaulG: bovril:
    No, it was all a mistake, he said he had a BOM, a copy of the Book Of Mormon……

    Neat cover story. Doesn’t explain the detonator he was waving around, though.

    Not at all.
    Many books have primers.

    As for mistaking Bob as a birther, perhaps it was that very early on there was a birther poster just named Bob on Phil Berg’s site.

  57. Keith says:

    The “uglyverse” is out boiling with invective.

    Some twit has posted:

    OBAMA FAKED TEARS RIGHT NOW TO BACK HIS SEIZING OF YOUR GUNS “WE WILL TAKE MEANINGFUL ACTION REGARDLESS OF POLITICS”

    The follow up twits are falling over themselves to be nastier than the one before.

    I’m thinking that there is something in the gene-pool separating the empathetic from the non-empathetic. Those folks who are immune to empathy automatically assume that those who express the empathy that they can have no experience of must be faking it. Perhaps this is one of the fundamental drivers providing the disconnect in perceptions between ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ mindsets.

    I am certainly not saying that every conservative sees the President wiping away tears and assumes that he is faking it for the camera’s. But I strongly suspect that the sufferers of this anti-empathy ‘gene’ would gravitate naturally to the conservative side of the aisle, and more that they would be the most likely to be such vocal detractors of the President.

    I guess my ‘hypothesis’ could be undone by showing, for example, George Bush’s empathetic reactions to the victims of 9/11 and/or Katrina, and his detractors claiming he was faking it. Unfortunately, I can’t remember any such reaction from George Bush.

    I recall his ‘rabbit in the headlights’ look after 9/11, and of course all the official duties in relation to the aftermath. I recall his 40,000 foot view of the Katrina destruction and his insistent praise of the patently incompetent FEMA response. I don’t recall him reacting with anything that approached empathy for the victims.

  58. Keith says:

    And Mike Huckabee is a disgusting slime-maggot.

  59. JPotter says:

    Keith: OBAMA FAKED TEARS RIGHT NOW TO BACK HIS SEIZING OF YOUR GUNS “WE WILL TAKE MEANINGFUL ACTION REGARDLESS OF POLITICS”

    No chorus of “false-flag operation staged to provide cover for gun confiscations”?

  60. Keith says:

    JPotter: No chorus of “false-flag operation staged to provide cover for gun confiscations”?

    I haven’t bothered looking on ATS yet, but I’m sure they are there.

  61. CarlOrcas says:

    JPotter: No chorus of “false-flag operation staged to provide cover for gun confiscations”?

    There’s already been at least one that I saw cruising around. On WorldNetDaily as I recall. No surprise there.

  62. Bob says:

    JPotter: I don’t know what she’s saying,

    Orly sez:

    “We cannot rely on police to help us and save us. We need to defend ourselves. We need volunteers to teach adults: teachers, shop keepers, law abiding citizens to use guns to defend themselves and defend others.”

    Please don’t tell me that she’s walking around with- or planning to walk around with- a loaded gun.

  63. Bob: Please don’t tell me that she’s walking around with- or planning to walk around with- a loaded gun.

    Sharron Angle already does.

  64. Majority Will says:

    Bob: Orly sez:

    “We cannot rely on police to help us and save us. We need to defend ourselves. We need volunteers to teach adults: teachers, shop keepers, law abiding citizens to use guns to defend themselves and defend others.”

    Please don’t tell me that she’s walking around with- or planning to walk around with- a loaded gun.

    Volunteers? So only rabid birthers from Tennessee? /snark

  65. Keith: And Mike Huckabee is a disgusting slime-maggot.

    His son David, is worse.

  66. Andrew Vrba, PmG: Orly is actually trying to politicize today’s school shooting.

    Huckabee is trying to theocratize it.

  67. JPotter says:

    Keith:
    And Mike Huckabee is a disgusting slime-maggot.

    I just looked that up. That kind of rhetoric is taken for granted in the evangelical community. Within that context, it isn’t shocking at all to the listeners. It would be greeted by murmured assent—”Heaven help us”, “Yes, Lord”, etc.—as if these children are sacrifices to an angry, cranky Old Testament god-baby, that pitches a fit when it feels rejected.

    On a larger stage, it’s just repulsive. These incidents do revel our shortcomings as a species and a society, but playing the Pharisee does nothing to address them. Huckabee needs to choose “getting real” over “getting right with God” … which is just code for toeing the party line anyway.

  68. Mary Brown says:

    The dentist is delusional. As a teacher of young five year olds I can just shake my head. Let me see. What cupboard in my room would serve to store some weapon? My tears are for the parents who will not see their babies come home and for children who will never see a loved parent walk through the door. The question is will we have the courage to take these crazy people on. It will require perseverance.

  69. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    I hope she dies of slow-acting cancer.
    There I said it, and I mean it! We’ve got enough filth on this planet as it is. I’ve lost people to cancer. It isn’t something I would ever wish on a person. But in my mind, Orly is not a person. I don’t care how that makes me sound.

    I have a vacation tomorrow. Two days away from all things internet. Probably for the best.

  70. US Citizen says:

    I’ve visited several RWNJ forums today.
    In every one, someone says the age-old “guns don’t kill people, people do.”
    Others suggest that all teachers, janitors, etc should be armed at schools.
    That everyone should be armed to the teeth.

    With that said, if people kill and not guns, their logic dictates more people should then have guns. (!?)
    Huh?
    What mentally ill person thinks they’re mentally ill?
    Usually they act like everyone else is crazy, but not themselves.

    There’s also a large amount of “should we outlaw knives, cars and baseball bats?”
    I’m still looking for when any person has actually killed 25+ people with a car, baseball bat or knife.
    Haven’t found anything yet.

    Also, an anecdote: Some friends of mine are huge RW’s.
    They own.. or should I say owned, many, many guns.
    One day their house was burglarized.
    Their gun safe was pried open and all their guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition were taken.

    Now, they’re starting to see the realization of what happened.
    Their previous “if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” argument isn’t the first thing out of their mouths any longer.
    They bought all their guns legally, but now criminals have them.

    So I asked “Where do you think criminals get guns in the first place? They often can’t buy them legally or rob an armory, gun store or police station. Where they get them is from people like you.”

    They’ve actually finally understood this truth.
    That is, criminals have guns because they stole them from good, legal citizens like themselves.
    They feel horrible now.
    They never actually used any gun to protect themselves, but now know that that fear turned into a criminal’s opportunity.

  71. ZixiOfIx says:

    bovril:
    In the birther universe which is full of many lies, IIRC, Cody now tries to say that he didn’t ruin up to the stage waving a heavily wired and blinkenlight gadget saying he had a BOMB his hand……..No, it was all a mistake, he said he had a BOM, a copy of the Book Of Mormon……

    So him pleading guilty in exchange for a plea bargain was what, exactly? A joke? A misunderstanding?

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/293492/JUDY-PLEADS-GUILTY-TO-BOMB-THREAT.html?pg=all

  72. ZixiOfIx says:

    J.D. Reed: Hey, your message contradicts itself. If “Obot Rats” are truly clueless, how would we even be aware enough to flee the sinking ship?

    Hopefully, George Soros will send us messages on our Obamaphones.

  73. Rickey says:

    ZixiOfIx: Hopefully, George Soros will send us messages on our Obamaphones.

    Soros isn’t using the Obot Signal anymore? I have to get with the program!

  74. Rickey says:

    Mary Brown:
    The dentist is delusional. As a teacher of young five year olds I can just shake my head. Let me see. What cupboard in my room would serve to store some weapon? My tears are for the parents who will not see their babies come home and for children who will never see a loved parent walk through the door. The question is will we have the courage to take these crazy people on. It will require perseverance.

    Mother Jones ran an article recently which demonstrated that it almost always turns out badly when untrained civilians try to use guns to stop a shooter.

    If schools had guns, without a doubt even more children would die from accidental shootings.

  75. US Citizen says:

    Rickey: Mother Jones ran an article recently which demonstrated that it almost always turns out badly when untrained civilians try to use guns to stop a shooter.

    If schools had guns, without a doubt even more children would die from accidental shootings.

    Since many conservatives boast of how well-trained they are, certainly many will suggest these teachers also go for training.
    But these same conservatives don’t want teachers to earn a fair salary and indeed many teachers have to pay for their own supplies.
    So it’s logical that they would be expected to furnish their own firearms and spend additional time and money to train.
    Also, many of these same RW’s dislike their children’s teachers, so ultimately there will be future arguments where it’s the parents that may get shot.

  76. donna says:

    where would these teacher store their guns so that they would be readily available when needed? in their unlocked desk drawers?

    or perhaps they should be required to wear a holster

    and if pharmacists can refuse to sell contraception; if doctors/medical personal can refuse to perform abortions; if churches can sue over contraception coverage then can teachers refuse to carry guns?

  77. Hanging Chad says:

    Thrifty:
    Where did that electoral map at the beginning of the article come from?

    Its from a mathematical model by two University of Colorado political scientists that forecast a big Romney win.

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/electoral-college-model-predicts-romney-will-win-big-in-2012-and-its-been-right-since-1980/

    Turns out they were as accurate as Dick Morris. They even got their own state wrong.

  78. Mary Brown says:

    Yes more children would die. Those of us who teach look down our hallways each day and understand how absurd the notion of armed teachers is. Can you imagine how that sight would affect the little ones,I teach? I can and I find the notion of advocating that vile.

  79. Zixi of Ix says:

    Rickey: Soros isn’t using the Obot Signal anymore? I have to get with the program!

    Ha!

    I have a friend who posts birther stuff on Facebook all the time. He’s gone a bit looney in the last year or two, so I have to be careful where I joke about this.

    He actually believes that President Obama pays thousands of people to astroturf websites daily with pro-Obama propaganda/anti-conservative propaganda.

    He also actually believes that the Democrats spent November 6th busing over 4,000,000 people around the nation to commit voter fraud.

    He is otherwise a very kind, sweet person who has gone through a lot in the last few years, and I think the two things are connected.

  80. brygenon says:

    Scientist: Yes, I know there are laws, but sometimes laws make no sense and enforcing them produces harmful results. I like what the President has said about enforcing the federal laws against marijuana in Washington and Colorado,”It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.” Maybe that ought to be the attitude regarding laws about eligibility that make no sense.

    Horrible idea. First, it would be our government actively violating law, not just some western stoners. Who would believe a Constitutionally ineligible president as he swore to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”? Incidentally, the Naturalization Oath includes similar language.

    If we can ignore provisions of the Constitution that are unpopular at the moment, many cherished rights and protections fall.

    It wouldn’t work. Even if most voters individually liked the plan, many would be dissuaded from voting for an immigrant by the risk of wasting their votes.

    In disrespecting the worst provision of Constitution it also disrespects the best: the provision for amendment. Yes amending the Constitution is hard; it’s supposed to be. We’ve done it before and the effort of doing it right was not wasted.

    Finally, it doesn’t fix the real problem. It leaves the outdated xenophobia in our Constitution, still there to tell new Americans that when we say that they’re equal under our law, we mean almost.

  81. Keith says:

    Hanging Chad: Its from a mathematical model by two University of Colorado political scientists that forecast a big Romney win

    Yeah, when that came out, I predicted it would be wrong. Way wrong.

  82. US Citizen says:

    Brygenon,

    It may well be a federal law, but where exactly in the Constitution is anything written about marijuana?

    Did the authors and signers of the Constitution or the Framers themselves expect that the hemp rope they used at the time would be outlawed?

    If you say they couldn’t expect a future where people smoked it, wouldn’t that also suggest they couldn’t see automatic weapons, multi-bullet clips and therefore the 2nd amendment is faulty too?

    For that matter, don’t most right wingers believe more in state’s rights over federal laws?

  83. brygenon says:

    US Citizen: Brygenon,

    It may well be a federal law, but where exactly in the Constitution is anything written about marijuana?

    Did the authors and signers of the Constitution or the Framers themselves expect that the hemp rope they used at the time would be outlawed?

    If you say they couldn’t expect a future where people smoked it, wouldn’t that also suggest they couldn’t see automatic weapons, multi-bullet clips and therefore the 2nd amendment is faulty too?

    For that matter, don’t most right wingers believe more in state’s rights over federal laws?

    Dude, what are you smoking?

  84. US Citizen says:

    brygenon: Dude, what are you smoking?

    Well obviously you ARE a birther.
    Birthers find it incredibly difficult to answer questions.

    I’m also not smoking anything.
    I’m intoxicated with drinking sweet birther tears.

  85. Scientist says:

    Mary Brown: Yes more children would die. Those of us who teach look down our hallways each day and understand how absurd the notion of armed teachers is. Can you imagine how that sight would affect the little ones,I teach? I can and I find the notion of advocating that vile.

    My wife is a teacher-in her 50s, less than perfect eyesight, aching joints. So some 20 year old guy bursts into her classroom with an AK-47. He has a preformulated plan (no matter how insane) and is completely uncaring about life, including his own, while she came in that morning expecting to cover Spanish verbs. Who do you think will win that confrontation? In fact, even if the teacher were an ex-cop or ex-Green Beret, the advantage still lies with the gunman who chooses his time and place to do his atrocities.

    Words fail here, as does logic, sense, faith, everything else. I doubt we will ever get an answer as to why. I would like to know, since the guns belonged to the shooter’s mother, why she had semi-automatics at her house, which is in one of the safest (until yesterday) communities in the country.

  86. Thrifty says:

    I probably shouldn’t be responding to posts for other people, but since Brygenon was buttressing my side of the discussion it’s sorta part mine.

    Where did Brygenon say that prohibitions on marijuana were written in the Constitution? I believe you are straw manning. You seem to be attacking some position on the recent state laws legalizing marijuana that he didn’t make. The post he made was all about the Constitution’s natural born citizen requirement. His only mention of marijuana legalization was in reference to how ignoring the federal drug laws on a state level would be perceived with less significance than ignoring the Constitutional law requiring a president to be an NBC. You seem to have ignored the whole point of the discussion and jumped on some irrelevant tangent about gun and drug laws.

    US Citizen:
    Brygenon,

    It may well be a federal law, but where exactly in the Constitution is anything written about marijuana?

    Did the authors and signers of the Constitution or the Framers themselves expect that the hemp rope they used at the time would be outlawed?

    If you say they couldn’t expect a future where people smoked it, wouldn’t that also suggest they couldn’t see automatic weapons, multi-bullet clips and therefore the 2nd amendment is faulty too?

    For that matter, don’t most right wingers believe more in state’s rights over federal laws?

  87. donna says:

    Mary Brown:

    if you look at the diagram of the school, it was square-shaped with an open center – after shooting the principal, he opened fire in the 1st 2 classrooms he encountered – fortunately, morning announcements were ongoing, the microphone was left open so that everyone could hear the gunshots & screams and teachers could do what they were trained to do ……… protect the kids

    this photo is chilling – the kids were told to keep their eyes closed

    https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/c0.0.403.403/p403x403/522482_10151391833514714_454014752_n.jpg

  88. Rickey says:

    Scientist: I would like to know, since the guns belonged to the shooter’s mother, why she had semi-automatics at her house, which is in one of the safest (until yesterday) communities in the country.

    I have been wondering about that, as well. I have been in Newtown many times, and no one would consider it to be a dangerous area.

  89. CarlOrcas says:

    TheEuropean: Can someone explain these numbers to me ?

    Not much to explain…..unfortunately. Without doing a lot of checking I suspect they include homicides and suicides – maybe accidents – and that they are accurate.

  90. donna says:

    Rickey:

    his mother was an avid gun user and collector who frequented local shooting ranges and took her sons with her

    according to the mother’s aunt, his mother came from a childhood where guns were part of life and that the mother living alone wanted to have guns for her own protection

    his mother was a “survivalist” – she feared an economic disaster & was preparing for “something bad” to happen and it was coming

  91. US Citizen says:

    Thrifty: I probably shouldn’t be responding to posts for other people, but since Brygenon was buttressing my side of the discussion it’s sorta part mine.

    Where did Brygenon say that prohibitions on marijuana were written in the Constitution? I believe you are straw manning. You seem to be attacking some position on the recent state laws legalizing marijuana that he didn’t make.

    I’m sorry if I misinterpreted his post, but I certainly wasn’t straw-manning.
    I’m surprised that after being here so many years, you’d immediately assume intentional malice over an unintentional reading error.

  92. Scientist says:

    donna: according to the mother’s aunt, his mother came from a childhood where guns were part of life and that the mother living alone wanted to have guns for her own protection

    That worked out well, both for her and everyone else in the comunity. Of those who keep guns for “protection” and are not involved in drug dealing or other criminal activities, I wonder if anyone has figures on how often they end up being used against family members vs against intruders. I would guess the ratio is probably 100:1. Newtown, CT probably hasn’t had a home invasion in 10 years (likely longer).

    donna: his mother was a “survivalist” – she feared an economic disaster & was preparing for “something bad” to happen and it was coming

    Birther?

  93. Zixi of Ix says:

    brygenon: Horrible idea. First, it would be our government actively violating law, not just some western stoners. Who would believe a Constitutionally ineligible president as he swore to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”? Incidentally, the Naturalization Oath includes similar language.

    If we can ignore provisions of the Constitution that are unpopular at the moment, many cherished rights and protections fall.

    Where in the Constitution can I find the wording that says the federal government has the power to control whether or not people can smoke pot in their own homes if the state says they can?

    Is it hiding somewhere behind the 10th Amendment? That’s the one that says “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

    You don’t care much for that dumb old Bill of Rights, do you?

    Just FYI, I think that the federal government knows that when the drug issue goes to court, they will ultimately lose. In 1984, when the federal government wanted to raise the drinking age to 21, they didn’t pass a federal law accomplishing that, though that would have been the easiest, fastest way to do things.

    Instead, they passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. The NMDAA required the states to pass their own laws individually if they wanted to continue getting 100% of their annual federal highway apportionment.

    They wisely chose to avoid passing a national law regarding a controlled substance which was legal under state law, and left it to the states, using highway funding as a bludgeon.

  94. Rickey says:

    I just learned that one of the teachers killed yesterday was from my home town. I didn’t know her, but her father was my dentist.

    http://newyork.newsday.com/news/nation/connecticut-shooting-sandy-hook-victim-anne-marie-murphy-mourned-by-katonah-parents-1.4336910

  95. Zixi of Ix says:

    Rickey: I have been wondering about that, as well. I have been in Newtown many times, and no one would consider it to be a dangerous area.

    News reports today seem to indicate that she had several other guns/rifles.

    My guess, and it is only a guess, is that she either inherited them, or more likely, she bought them for her son when he couldn’t or wouldn’t himself. I say that for a couple of reasons. One, those are on the more expensive end of what guns in those calibres go for. You could buy similar guns for less. Those are guns a collector, hunter, or target shooter with money would own, but no one says she was a collector, hunter, or target shooter.

    Secondly, I see no reason to have most of those guns. A .223 Bushmaster (the one that is being called an “assault” weapon in Connecticut is too small to hunt large game, and there isn’t much in the way of varmits to shoot in suburban Connecticut. She had other weapons, too, including a .45-caliber Henry repeating rifle, a .22-caliber Marlin rifle, and a .30-caliber Enfield rifle.

    Those just aren’t weapons a person would normally own unless they really liked guns (no indication she did), or hunted (no one says she was a hunter), or spent a lot of time at the range (again, no one says she spent any time at the range).

    To give an idea of price, the Henry rifle is likely a $900.00 rifle. The Bushmaster is likely $900.00 or so, possibly a bit more. The Marlin was at least a couple hundred dollars, maybe more. The Enfield is maybe $500.00, possible more. You’re talking thousands of dollars worth of guns, for someone who no one is saying hunted or collected, and they aren’t what you’d buy for home or personal protection.

    If she bought them for her son who was known to have problems with mental illness, well, we have laws against this. Those are called straw purchases. Three of the guns used in the Columbine shooting were straw purchases. There is a very good reason that straw purchases are illegal.

  96. JPotter says:

    Zixi of Ix: He also actually believes that the Democrats spent November 6th busing over 4,000,000 people around the nation to commit voter fraud.

    Awesome! I arrived at the same number doing some rough calculations on a “voter fraud” thread here!

    Oh, crap. Did I accidentally invent a meme? LOL!

  97. brygenon says:

    Zixi of Ix: You don’t care much for that dumb old Bill of Rights, do you?

    Just FYI, think that the federal government knows that when the drug issue goes […]

    Just for my information? Don’t bother. I don’t care. Your “drug issue” is not my thing.

    On the other hand, you and “U.S. Citizen” have me thinking the stuff must be more dangerous than I had thought.

  98. Scientist says:

    Zixi of Ix: Those just aren’t weapons a person would normally own unless they really liked guns (no indication she did), or hunted (no one says she was a hunter), or spent a lot of time at the range (again, no one says she spent any time at the range).

    Apparently she did like guns and did spend a fair amount of time at shootiing ranges with her sons. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/nyregion/friends-of-gunmans-mother-his-first-victim-recall-her-as-generous.html?hp

    Zixi of Ix: If she bought them for her son who was known to have problems with mental illness, well, we have laws against this. Those are called straw purchases. Three of the guns used in the Columbine shooting were straw purchases. There is a very good reason that straw purchases are illegal.

    There is no indication she bought the guns for him, but, rather, it seems he simply took them and killed her then went on his spree. I don’t know if they were locked up in the house, but since he lived there, he probably figured out how to get them. Personally, if I had a mentally ill child, I would choose stamps or coins, rather than guns to collect,but then I don’t see the attraction in guns anyway.

  99. Scientist says:

    Zixi of Ix: Where in the Constitution can I find the wording that says the federal government has the power to control whether or not people can smoke pot in their own homes if the state says they can?

    The controlled substances laws at both the federal and state levels have been litigated countless times and found constitutional. Please note that constitutional does NOT necessarily mean good public policy. The marijuana laws are very bad public policy, but they are constitutional. Nor, does unconstitutional necessarily mean bad public policy (I think limits on campaign funding are essential to a functioning democracy, but the Supreme Court feels otherwise).

    Zixi of Ix: You don’t care much for that dumb old Bill of Rights, do you?

    I think we need a Bill of Responsibilities for Our Fellow Humans to go along with the Biil of Rights. Like, if I feel I must own an arsenal of guns for some unfathomable reason, I will make sure they don’t fall into the hands of someone who will shoot a bunch of first graders.

  100. Joe Acerbic says:

    scott e.:
    the way tou go after orly, are you anti anti-semitic ??

    I hate Orly because I’m anti-dentite.

  101. Joe Acerbic says:

    Scientist: Of those who keep guns for “protection” and are not involved in drug dealing or other criminal activities, I wonder if anyone has figures on how often they end up being used against family members vs against intruders.

    John Lott can certainly quickly whip up some figures. Mary Rosh swears they’re always scientific, accurate and not at all faked.

  102. Rickey says:

    Scientist: I wonder if anyone has figures on how often they end up being used against family members vs against intruders.

    Sometimes the intruder turns out to be a family member, with results such as this:

    http://www.newstimes.com/policereports/article/Young-intruder-shot-to-death-unknowingly-by-father-3898983.php

  103. Zixi of Ix says:

    Thank you for the update. So very sad. In some ways, I’m happy that she was the owner, but like you, I doubt I would have them. If I did, I wouldn’t have them accessible.

    Large gun safes are a thousand dollars or so.

    Also, and at least as importantly, we have absolutely got to do something to make mental health treatment available, accessible, and desirable to folks, especially men. Whatever it costs can’t be any higher than what we pay and have paid when we lose innocent people to mentally ill people.

    Scientist: Apparently she did like guns and did spend a fair amount of time at shootiing ranges with her sons.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/nyregion/friends-of-gunmans-mother-his-first-victim-recall-her-as-generous.html?hp

    There is no indication she bought the guns for him, but, rather, it seems he simply took them and killed her then went on his spree.I don’t know if they were locked up in the house, but since he lived there, he probably figured out how to get them.Personally, if I had a mentally ill child, I would choose stamps or coins, rather than guns to collect,but thenI don’t see the attraction in guns anyway.

  104. Zixi of Ix says:

    Scientist: The controlled substances laws at both the federal and state levels have been litigated countless times and found constitutional.Please note that constitutional does NOT necessarily mean good public policy.The marijuana laws are very bad public policy, but they are constitutional.Nor, does unconstitutional necessarily mean bad public policy (I think limits on campaign funding are essential to a functioning democracy, but the Supreme Court feels otherwise).

    Has there ever been a time when state laws said that the substance was legal but the federal law says it wasn’t? I’m not sure.

    I think we need a Bill of Responsibilities for Our Fellow Humans to go along with the Biil of Rights. Like, if I feel I must own an arsenal of guns for some unfathomable reason, I will make sure they don’t fall into the hands of someone who will shoot a bunch of first graders.

    I think that training should be inexpensive but mandatory, and that that training should include how to keep guns safely out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Training should be renewed every several years.

    I have read that there are between 270- 300 million guns in the US (total reflecting both handguns and long guns). They aren’t going away. We have to learn to live with them safely.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/28/us-world-firearms-idUSL2834893820070828

    I also think we need to have a serious talk about violent video games and movies, but especially video games. I wonder if playing hours of violent games desensitizes people, especially young men, to the consequences of gun violence.

    FTR, I am a target shooter and hunter.

  105. Keith says:

    Zixi of Ix: I think that training should be inexpensive but mandatory, and that that training should include how to keep guns safely out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Training should be renewed every several years.

    Second Amendment:

    A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

    Article 2 Section 8

    The Congress shall have power…
    To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

    To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

    Make it happen.

  106. Scientist says:

    Zixi of Ix: I think that training should be inexpensive but mandatory, and that that training should include how to keep guns safely out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Training should be renewed every several years

    Training is all well and good. Since the shooter’s mother and the shooter went to target ranges, I’m guessing they had some at various points. However the guns were kept at home it’s very hard to make a foolproof protection against an adult child who lives there and has had access to them previously.

    Zixi of Ix: I have read that there are between 270- 300 million guns in the US (total reflecting both handguns and long guns). They aren’t going away. We have to learn to live with them safely.

    There is ammunition, which, once used, needs to be replaced. Why not a heavy tax on bullets like on alcohol and tobacco? Let’s try the public health model used against cigarettes, drunk driving and obesity. Blanket the airwaves with anti-gun commercials, sue gun manufacturers and do everything possible to give guns a big fat black eye. Nothing in the Constitution, even by the NRA’s interpretation, would bar that. Those campaigns have reduced smoking and drunk driving and we are even seeing the beginnings of an effect on obesity. Not that they are eliminated, but they are reduced.

  107. Pip says:

    Some ways:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-have-the-courage-to-stop-this.html?ref=opinion

    Zixi of Ix:
    I have read that there are between 270- 300 million guns in the US (total reflecting both handguns and long guns). They aren’t going away. We have to learn to live with them safely.

  108. Majority Will says:

    A comment to an article from The Guardian:

    We don’t need no more learning. If the government would get out of the way and let the free market take the lead on this and take a stand for our Second Amendment rights, wheel start our new One Glock per Child campaign to arm the nation’s youth. This tragedy would not have happened if all of the teachers and students had been armed to the teeth. It isn’t enough to arm the teachers because you never know when one of them leftist intelectuals will go berserk or start preaching evolution or communism.

    — Kletus Mudd, NRA propagandist

  109. Judge Mental says:

    Majority Will: A comment to an article from The Guardian:We don’t need no more learning. If the government would get out of the way and let the free market take the lead on this and take a stand for our Second Amendment rights, wheel start our new One Glock per Child campaign to arm the nation’s youth. This tragedy would not have happened if all of the teachers and students had been armed to the teeth. It isn’t enough to arm the teachers because you never know when one of them leftist intelectuals will go berserk or start preaching evolution or communism.– Kletus Mudd, NRA propagandist

    Know No idea where that quote is from, but surely it was a deliberate spoof comment from a pro-gun control supporter? Maybe that’s what you are putting it forward as an example of, in which case perhaps it’s my turn to fail to recognise a tongue in cheek contribution. Wouldn’t be the first time lol.

  110. Horus says:

    Maybe the gunman was one of those wackos who believes that the world is going to end this Friday the 21?

  111. Judge Mental says:

    Did I really type “know” idea instead of “no” idea? Help! Think I need to organise a brain scan.

  112. Majority Will says:

    Judge Mental: Know idea where that quote is from, but surely it was a deliberate spoof comment from a pro-gun control supporter? Maybe that’s what you are putting it forward as an example of, in which case perhaps it’s my turn to fail to recognise a tongue in cheek contribution. Wouldn’t be the first time lol.

    Yes, I’m sure it was meant to be satire and a caricature.

  113. Rickey says:

    donna:

    his mother was a “survivalist” – she feared an economic disaster & was preparing for “something bad” to happen and it was coming

    She was a registered Republican. Not all Republicans are survivalists, but a survivalist is most likely a Republican.

  114. Thomas Brown says:

    scott e.:
    the way tou go after orly, are you anti anti-semitic ??

    To follow Orly’s Legal-Fecal Jihad you need to be at the very least anti-semantic!

  115. Thomas Brown says:

    Majority Will:
    A comment to an article from The Guardian:

    We don’t need no more learning. If the government would get out of the way and let the free market take the lead on this and take a stand for our Second Amendment rights, wheel start our new One Glock per Child campaign to arm the nation’s youth. This tragedy would not have happened if all of the teachers and students had been armed to the teeth. It isn’t enough to arm the teachers because you never know when one of them leftist intelectuals will go berserk or start preaching evolution or communism.

    – Kletus Mudd, NRA propagandist

    Satirical. I’d stake my critical reputation on it.

  116. Horus: believes that the world is going to end this Friday the 21?

    It’s not?! Uh, oh.

    Can I get everything back?

  117. scott e.: are you anti anti-semitic ??

    You betcha!

  118. Thrifty says:

    Electors casting their ballots today. Many salty birther tears to be shed tomorrow.

  119. Jim F says:

    Two points occur to me. Before I went on vacation there was a promise of a BIG AND IMPORTANT announcement on WND and / or Birther Report which would blow the whole Obama administration wide open for once and for all. Did I miss it? Please tell me what it was.
    More importantly, where’s Squeeky? Things are just not the same around here without her.

  120. donna says:

    Jim F:

    FLASHBACK 10/22

    Joseph Farah of wing nuts daily

    Joseph Farah ‏@JosephFarah

    What difference does it make who won debate? Donald Trump is going to decide the election in 2 days…

  121. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    Hermitian: Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

    Says the guy who comments here and runs everytime he’s confronted. Henry why don’t you regale us with your conspiracy theory about the Newtown shooting being a coverup by the Obama administration. That the Bushmaster was a planted Fast and Furious gun.

  122. Thomas Brown says:

    “Hermitian: “Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?”

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater:Says the guy who comments here…

    Fractal wrongness. Thank you, whoever (TFB?) for that concept.

    Nobody’s fleeing Obama. And at lower resolution, there is no sinking ship. Lower still, we are not rats, and Obama supporters are generally better informed than right-wingers; certainly not “clueless.”

    At higher resolution, this question is actually not about Obama or his supporters at all… it is a seeming rhetorical question wherein Hermie impugns his own stupidity. The only answer being “I have no idea why you sense things that are the opposite of true, and wrong on every level. Good luck working that out.”

  123. AKA says:

    We love these anti-koans!

    Hermitian:
    Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

  124. AKA says:

    Colonel Mustard, in the kitchen, with a paperclip.

    Hermitian:
    Why do I sense that the clueless Obot Rats are fleeing the sinking ship?

  125. JPotter says:

    Thomas Brown: Fractal wrongness. Thank you, whoever (TFB?) for that concept.

    Hematode (‘Hermitian’) surfaced on Amazon today, after a long election’s hiatus. He’s floggin away on Fashionably Furious as if it’s still Summer 2012. He may be stuck in a time loop …. denial so thick, he keeps resetting on Nov. 5th!

  126. J.D. Reed says:

    Doubters of the president’s legitimacy continue to blather, including at the Arizona electoral college vote.
    see http://knau.org/post/az-electoral-college-delegates-voted-today
    The bad news for those folks who had hoped for an electoral college boycott in at least 17 states is that Arizona’s electors went ahead and voted anyway

  127. LW says:

    It must be a great feeling when even Jan Brewer’s response to your nuttiness is, “Whoa, dude, tone it down.”

  128. Thrifty says:

    Daniel Inouye, Hawaii’s senior senator, and the 2nd most senior member of the Senate as a whole, died today. He’s actually also the first person to be elected to that post for a full term, WAY back in 1962. His predecessor was elected in 1959 when Hawaii became a state, but chose not to pursue a full term.

    I wonder if any new conspiracy theories will pop up surrounding his death. He was serving Hawaii after all. I imagine someone paranoid enough could attribute his death to foul play, and not the fact that he was 88 years old.

  129. Thomas Brown says:

    “The Senator from Hawaii, poised to bust ObamaForgeryGate wide open, tragically silenced, cut down in his prime, by Obama henchmen.” –Orly Taitz, 12/18/12.

  130. Keith says:

    I seem to remember that the Nixon White House referred to the him as “Senator Ain’t No Way” when they were crunching the numbers during the Watergate Hearings.

  131. Thrifty: Daniel Inouye, Hawaii’s senior senator, and the 2nd most senior member of the Senate as a whole, died today.

    In one of the most memorable exchanges of the Watergate proceedings, an attorney for two of Nixon’s closest advisers, John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman, referred to Inouye as a “little Jap.”

    The attorney, John J. Wilson, later apologized.

    http://www.pressherald.com/news/Sen-Daniel-Inouye-of-Hawaii-dead-at-88.html

  132. Arthur says:

    J.D. Reed:
    Doubters of the president’s legitimacy continue to blather, including at the Arizona electoral college vote.
    seehttp://knau.org/post/az-electoral-college-delegates-voted-today
    The bad news for those folks who had hoped for an electoral college boycott in at least 17 states is that Arizona’s electors went ahead and voted anyway

    Additional information can be found here:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/arizona-electors-barack-obama-birth-certificate_n_2318228.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

  133. Feinne says:

    It should be pointed out that Daniel Inouye was a legitimate hero. He was belatedly awarded with the Congressional Medal of Honor for doing the sort of stuff you see in action movies in real goddamn life. As he was getting ready to throw a grenade into a German bunker, his arm was severed. You or I would probably see that as a problem, but Daniel Inouye just pried that sucker out of his own hand as it lay on the ground and got back to business.

    Even the internet jerk set is generally erring on the side of grudging respect.

  134. Zixi of Ix says:

    Scientist: Training is all well and good. Since the shooter’s mother and the shooter went to target ranges, I’m guessing they had some at various points. However the guns were kept at home it’s very hard to make a foolproof protection against an adult child who lives there and has had access to them previously.

    I don’t know the laws in her state, but going to the range does not equal gun safety. Some people who go to the range all the time have any number of deeply ingrained bad habits. Training before they ever held a gun would help stop those before they start.

    I have to tell you – I would not have had guns in my home if I had a child like her son. She apparently was aware that he could be dangerous at times. According to his former babysitter, she said to never turn his back on Adam. That’s a mother who knew her son had issues with violence.
    http://www.salon.com/2012/12/17/nancy_lanza_warned_babysitter_not_to_turn_back_on_adam/

    At minimum, if I had to have a gun, I would have a large, heavy gun safe of the type that hold rifles. Those things weigh hundreds of pounds and are not easy to break into, and have combinations which can’t be found the way keys can.
    http://www.safeandvaultstore.com/category/gun-safes/pricemin/1000/page/1/perpage/10000

    I would have nevertaught him to shoot, though she apparently did, even though she knew he had serious issues. One article said that she used them to try to teach him responsibility. That is wrong-headed. If he wasn’t responsible, he should have never had a gun. Gun use demands responsible use from the get-go. Period.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9750525/Connecticut-school-shooting-Adam-Lanzas-mother-taught-him-to-be-responsible-with-guns.html

    There is ammunition, which, once used, needs to be replaced.

    Some ammo (the brass, center-firing kind, specifically), can be reloaded a few times. It wouldn’t be that hard to get brass from overseas if it was super-expensive state side. Reloading equipment isn’t super expensive or super difficult to use, either. Powder is measured by weight or volume, depending. Anyone can melt lead.

    Make it illegal or really expensive, and you ‘ve created a black market with even less control than you had before. Some types of ammunition probably should not be sold, but if you make it illegal to buy at a reasonable price, the difference between the legal kind and every other kind falls away.

    Why not a heavy tax on bullets like on alcohol and tobacco? Let’s try the public health model used against cigarettes, drunk driving and obesity.

    None of those are rights. Owning and using guns, according to the Second Amendment, and bolstered by recent decisions like DC vs Heller & McDonald vs Chicago, are rights. Heller & McDonald both made clear that the government cannot move to make it very difficult to exercise that right. Just like poll taxes, the government can’t move too far to block the ability to exercise those rights. Also, if mass crimes are the issue you wish to address, do you think the dollar amount on the cartridges are going to stop anyone? The shooter plans to commit suicide or knows it’s a possibility. They aren’t going to be swayed by the price of ammo.

    Blanket the airwaves with anti-gun commercials, sue gun manufacturers and do everything possible to give guns a big fat black eye.

    Lawsuits against gun manufacturers have been tried, but have been largely useless. They sell their product legally to legal outlets, but can’t control its use. As long as it performs the way it should (shoots straight, doesn’t jam), they’ve done their jobs. We don’t sue Ford for drunk drivers. We don’t sue Hersey’s for obesity. Tobacco manufacturers could be sued for a while only because they’d lied about the effects of tobacco. Everyone knows what guns do.

    Nothing in the Constitution, even by the NRA’s interpretation, would bar that. Those campaigns have reduced smoking and drunk driving and we are even seeing the beginnings of an effect on obesity. Not that they are eliminated, but they are reduced.

    So, run ads. No one is stopping you from running ads. I’ve seen anti-firearms/anti-gang ads in Los Angeles. They didn’t/don’t see to do anything, but go for it.

    But here’s the thing – you can convince people that smoking is bad, because it is. You can convince people that being fat or drunk driving is bad, but who among us doesn’t know that shooting up a school is bad?

    The people who commit these crimes are not in their right minds to start with. They’re going to go out in a blaze of glory – they’re going to die. “Shooting up schools isn’t cool” won’t reach the people who need to be reached in the way they need to be reached.

    We need to take a serious, long term look at mental health treatment. We need to take a serious look at possibly holding and treating people who show signs of violence before they become unmanageable. We need make treatment available, affordable, and desirable.

    We need to take a serious look at allowing young children with psychiatric disorders who are already having problems with society, unfettered access to first person shooter games.

    We need to encourage parents to seek help, and we need to be there if they need assistance.

  135. Scientist says:

    Zixi of Ix: None of those are rights. Owning and using guns, according to the Second Amendment, and bolstered by recent decisions like DC vs Heller & McDonald vs Chicago, are rights.

    All “rights” have limits. Free speech is limited by laws against inciting violence, making terroristic threats, yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, libel, etc. Freedom of religion does not countenance human sacrifice or cults that involve sex with children. The Supreme Court has even ruled that Native Americans cannot use peyote or other banned drugs in religious practices.

    So reasonable limits apply to rights. Would you accept that the “right to bear arms” includes nuclear arms? Sarin gas? Anthrax? Surely not (I hope). So, there are limits and exactly what those should be is, in a democracy, a matter for national discussion and policy making. Just as we limit the possession of WMDs to the military under tight control, so we can do with certain guns and/or ammunition that have no legitimate civilian uses. No one hunts with a 30 round clip. I don’t shoot targets and don’t know if there is a legitmate target use for such clips. but if there is, then we as a society can require that they be kept under secure lock and key at the firing range. And, perhaps the sport itself needs to modify its practices. the way football and hockey have been doing in response to head injuries.

    Also, I think longer waiting periods would help a lot, since that allows more chance of intervention if someone is having a severe mental crisis. The waiing periods need to apply to private sales as well as licensed dealers. Sure it’s an “inconvenience” to legitimate gun owners, but every hunter knows when the season will be and can plan ahead. 6 year olds don’t have to die in the name of “convenience”.

    Of course, certain criminals will violate the gun laws. People kill and rape, but no one that I know thinks that means we should just give up and legalize those activities. And, no, nothing can 100% guarantee that these horrible tragedies will never occur. All we can do is try to make them rarer, so the next President might only have to go to 1 or 2 memorial services instead of 4 and counting.

    As for lawsuits against gun manufacturers and sellers, I wouldn’t be so sure that those will never succeed, just because they haven’t so far. The analogy is not suing Ford for drunk drivers, but suing bars and hosts of parties, which is now quite common. I would not be at all surprised if one or more of the Newtown families sues whoever sold Ms Lanza her guns. Will they win? IANAL, but even the prospect of such a suit and the cost of defending it might cause gun sellers to change their procedures. Nothing in the law prevents them from asking probing question of purchasers about why they want the gun and who lives with them . They will cry it will hurt business, but, last I checked, there are still bars around, even though they have to occasionally refuse a sale. And frankly, if the price of protecting school kids is a few shuttered gun shops, I am not shedding any tears.

    As for mental health, clearly that is part of the picture. However, the newtown shooter’s mother was getting $250k/year from her ex and the kid was probably still on the Dad’s health insurance (he’s an exec at GE), so access was not an issue. The Va Tech and Aurora shooters were college students, and universities have on-campus counselling and mental health facilities that are free to students. None of these issues are simple either-the Va Tech and Tucson shooters were certainly identified as threats, but the Aurora guy was, as far as I know, not. We`dont know enough about Lanza yet to say what could or should have happened in his case.

    Culture is certainly part of the problem. You mention video games, yet I am not sure that these shooters have been shown to be into them. We also have to look at movies and TV. Maybe we need fewer heroes who shoot bad guys and more who convince bad guys to put down their guns through force of character and persuasion.

    But, overall I still see guns as the crux of the matter. Just before Newtown there was a lunatic in China who attacked a school with a knife and stabbed a bunch of kids. All of them survived. People can kill with knives, baseball bats and fists, but not 26 people in 5 minutes.

  136. Majority Will says:

    Zixi of Ix: I have to tell you – I would not have had guns in my home if I had a child like her son. She apparently was aware that he could be dangerous at times. According to his former babysitter, she said to never turn his back on Adam. That’s a mother who knew her son had issues with violence.

    There’s a lot of assuming going on. We also don’t know if Nancy was mentally stable or if she wanted her son to be violent. There are reports she was a survivalist. Was her son her soldier?

    Without more evidence there are too many guesses.

  137. LW says:

    Gah, Lena has decided that Sandy Hook is rife with Obama-inspired conspiracies. Among many, many other things, she points out that Adam Lanza spent 9 years — “half his young life” — there, because small towns don’t have middle schools.

    Sandy Hook is, in fact, a K-4.

  138. donna says:

    rupert’s rag is now to the LEFT of the NYT: Adam Lanza’s weapons

    Has technology rendered the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution obsolete?

    That is, has the application of modern military design to civilian firearms produced a class of weapons too dangerous to be in general circulation?

    We say: Yes.

    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/adam_lanza_weapons_NU2tb0tIf9hNsOCZkPJ1XP

    joe scarborough to GOP: If We Have To Defend Being ‘Party Of Glocks…We Will Lose’

    Amid a discussion about gun control and culture, Joe Scarborough ventured to address the choice the GOP now faces. Two years from now, he said, does the Republican Party want to be known as the party of Glocks and Bushmasters — or the party of balanced budgets and smaller government?

    If it’s the former, he said, “we will lose.”

    POLITICO’s Jim Vandehei pointed to their story about the GOP’s demographic challenges. “When it comes to the GOP putting people in positions of power to actually change things, it’s still raining men,” the story reads. “the same older, white, straight ones that got the party into this jam in the first place.”

    “There’s a lot of rethinking going on,” Vandehei said. Scarborough said Republicans have to figure out what kind of party they want to be seen as two or four years from now.

    “Do they want to be seen…as the party of Glocks? The party of Bushmasters? The party of combat-styled, military weapons? Rapid-fire magazine clips?” Scarborough asked. “If they want to go around and debate that for the next four years, good luck.”

    He continued to say that he’d prefer his party to stand for less taxes, smaller government, balanced budgets, and a restrained foreign policy. On those issues, “we’ll win.” But “if we’re having to defend” Glocks and Bushmasters, he said, “we will lose. We will lose.”

  139. donna says:

    “sue gun manufacturers and do everything possible to give guns a big fat black eye. ”

    bush TOOK CARE of that –

    At the very least, gun manufacturers should be held civilly liable for the injuries and deaths that foreseeably result from their products. Traditional principles of products liability should be applied to assault weapons. Beginning around 2000, there was a rise in the number of lawsuits against gun manufacturers.

    However, in 2005, Bush signed a law that shields gun makers from being sued.

    EXEMPTION FROM TORT LIABILITY:

    http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/bush-signed-2005-law-protecting-gun-m

  140. Thomas Brown says:

    LW:
    Gah, Lena has decided that Sandy Hook is rife with Obama-inspired conspiracies. Among many, many other things, she points out that Adam Lanza spent 9 years — “half his young life” — there, because small towns don’t have middle schools.

    Sandy Hook is, in fact, a K-4.

    Orly better not go too near a cat’s litter box; the cat would try to cover her up.

  141. JPotter says:

    LW: because small towns don’t have middle schools.

    Quite a generalization. Quite an assumption. I can’t believe she would do such a thing.

    My son attends in a small town. He’s changed campuses 3 times already, and he’s in the 5th grade. I went to school in a small town, K-12 on one campus, school was on the edge of town and had the land to expand.

    Shockingly, I conclude that all towns are not ‘created’ (haha) equal, much less identical.

    Nuts have no concept of organic growth and change over time. Every day is a new day, every thing popped into been the second they took notice of it. This is also true of …. infants.

  142. LW says:

    That Time Magazine cover? Totally shopped. I’m hoping Orly and Cashill get right on it.

  143. Citronelle, Alabama, has a middle school.

    http://www.rosaalott.org

    LW: because small towns don’t have middle schools.

  144. Keith says:

    Has The Onion fooled HuffPo or has South Carolina completely flipped its wig?

    This is the kind of thing I’d half expect from Arizona.

    South Carolina Bill Would Criminalize Obamacare

  145. JPotter says:

    Keith: Has The Onion fooled HuffPo or has South Carolina completely flipped its wig?

    There’s nutters in every state. Doesn’t take much to write a bill. And, this is really getting back to SC’s roots:

    Section 38-71-2120. The General Assembly declares that the federal law known as the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, signed by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, is not authorized by the Constitution of the United States and violates its true meaning and intent as given by the Founders and Ratifiers, and is invalid in this State, is not recognized by this State, is specifically rejected by this State, and is null and void and of no effect in this State.

    Nullification all over again! Yeeeeeeee-HAW!!!
    ______________

    This has been duly filed under Yougottabefuggin’kiddin’me.

  146. Pip says:

    Oh, fine! Now everybody can get a President’s Passport. You don’t even need to be President!

    Feel free to get your own. You don’t even have to be a natural born citizen, and they don’t even ask about your parents’ citizenship.

    Forget about birth certificates. You just show this passport, and no one will question your bona fides when you run for President.

    #Iamnotabirtherbut this is criminal!

    😉

    See for yourself:

    http://prespassport.monticello.org/

  147. G says:

    Sure they can. The difference is they might not have a full school system of their own and a school district in those regions might cover a number of small towns and their associated rural area, where the elementary school might be in one town’s location, the middle school in a different one and the high school in another. In my county, there are several such regional school districts, one of which my wife grew up in. Sadly, those rural districts around here seem to get the least support from their constituents on passing taxes to support them, where my small city is usually quite supportive of levies for the schools, fire, police, etc. Our city public school system is fortunately quite good and very competitive in academics, sports and music as a result. I’m not that sympathetic to the arguments from the nearby village and township folks for why they won’t pass their levies, as many of them aren’t paying for a lot of the various property tax-based amenities that we city folks are used to paying all the time.

    LW: there, because small towns don’t have middle schools.

  148. G says:

    I see the mental health issues aspect to be the biggest area of concern in these particular situations, where some sort of reasonable effort can be made to help mitigate the occurance of such trajedies in the future.

    Sure, I do think there are also reasonable needs of improved gun safety (both training AND storage), background checks and issues of what types of weapons people should be allowed to carry, but I think most of the problem areas fall under what I call the 3 C’s: crazies, criminals and carelessness.

    Scientist: As for mental health, clearly that is part of the picture. However, the newtown shooter’s mother was getting $250k/year from her ex and the kid was probably still on the Dad’s health insurance (he’s an exec at GE), so access was not an issue. The Va Tech and Aurora shooters were college students, and universities have on-campus counselling and mental health facilities that are free to students. None of these issues are simple either-the Va Tech and Tucson shooters were certainly identified as threats, but the Aurora guy was, as far as I know, not. We`dont know enough about Lanza yet to say what could or should have happened in his case.

    Zixi of Ix: The people who commit these crimes are not in their right minds to start with. They’re going to go out in a blaze of glory – they’re going to die. “Shooting up schools isn’t cool” won’t reach the people who need to be reached in the way they need to be reached.
    We need to take a serious, long term look at mental health treatment. We need to take a serious look at possibly holding and treating people who show signs of violence before they become unmanageable. We need make treatment available, affordable, and desirable.
    We need to take a serious look at allowing young children with psychiatric disorders who are already having problems with society, unfettered access to first person shooter games.

  149. G says:

    I’m most skeptical and wary of going down this road of blaming movies, TV and video games. I think this is the same gut-reaction mistake by previous generations who wanted to cast blame for society’s ills on books or music or things like Dungeons & Dragons or even pornography. I see it as just a scapegoating path to folly and dangerous censorship that doesn’t solve anything and has little to do with the actual causal relationships for these problems.

    As I mentioned in the prior post, I think most of the areas for addressing how to mitigate gun violence in this country come down to those “3 Cs”. Most folks live normal and productive, law abiding lives and can handle guns and anything they see on TV or play in a video game without ever causing problems. Heck, for many folks, such things are probably healthy hobby outlets for them to blow off steam responsibly. So I don’t see where the real issues with gun injuries and death’s are correlated to things like TV and video games at all here.

    Carelessness goes to issues of gun safety and storage. Irresponsible or untrained/ignorant people are no more or less responsible or educated by taking their TV or games away. Nor do I see any correlation between criminal activity and those pursuits either.

    Only in the issue of the 3rd C – “crazy” (i.e. mental health issues) do I see a concern between them not being able to distinguish between reality and fantasy…so I can see where some sort of framework of better laws and treatments need to keep guns away from the mentally unstable…and where that particular segment of the population might need some reasonable limitations (or monitoring) on even exposure to certain forms of recreational activities or entertainment…

    …but again, I see that the real problem lies with the unstable folks…NOT the shows, films and games themselves.

    Scientist: Culture is certainly part of the problem. You mention video games, yet I am not sure that these shooters have been shown to be into them. We also have to look at movies and TV. Maybe we need fewer heroes who shoot bad guys and more who convince bad guys to put down their guns through force of character and persuasion.

  150. LW says:

    LW: there, because small towns don’t have middle schools.

    G: Sure they can.

    I probably should have been clearer that I was presenting Orlena’s argument rather than my own. An argument refuted from the start by the fact that Sandy Hook is a K-4, not a K-8.

    (From the timeline, it’s also likely that Lanza didn’t attend kindergarten there, but really, it doesn’t matter other than to prove that which is already proven: Orly is clueless.)

    …and I wouldn’t necessarily classify Newtown (population 28,000) as all that small a town, at least not compared to my dad’s home town (population 811 today).

    When I was in college, our wind orchestra would go out on tour each year to the very small towns in our state. Having grown up in Los Angeles, I was not exactly steeped in the rural experience, so it was quite striking to go to a town where we’d play for its one K-12 school’s all-student assembly, and our ensemble still outnumbered the audience. In one case, I think we came very close to outnumbering the town.

  151. Scientist says:

    G: I see the mental health issues aspect to be the biggest area of concern in these particular situations, where some sort of reasonable effort can be made to help mitigate the occurance of such trajedies in the future

    Hi, G good to see you back. I certainly agree that mental health is part of the picture. But even where someone is receiving treatment, it isn’t a panacea and in the case of a true sociopath I’m not convinced treatment is that efficacious. There is simply too much we don’t understand about the brain. Some people are just so dangerous that institutionalization may be the only option. But how do we decide who to institutionalize? In some cases, where there is a history of violence , threats, suicide attempts, etc., it may not be that hard a call. But a number of these mass murderers were far from clear cut prior to going on their sprees as to whether they were dangerous or just “odd”. So, if we make it easier to put people away, it is certain that we will lock up a whole bunch of people who really were not threats. Maybe that is just the price we must pay or maybe it isn’t.

    I still see guns as the #1 issue. The UK and Australia both had mass shootings a decade or 2 ago and toughened their gun law significantly and haven’t had any since, despite the fact that mental illness still exists in both those countries at rates similar to the US, I’m sure. Maybe Keith could comment on Oz.

  152. Arthur says:

    Speaking of mental health issues . . . one of the out-patients at ORYR posted this:

    “Guest 8 hours ago
    You’all need to ask Dr. Conspiracy/Kevin Davidson why Obama can’t release a valid BC, cause Kevin created the forgeries and even displayed his creation on a t-shirt that he wore for Obama to see. Kevin has access to the Hawaiian archives and used several different certificates/certifications to create the Obama forgeries. He’s just to shy to admit he did produced them. But we know he did.”

  153. I give ORYR credit for one thing: they don’t moderate comments. Of course the t-shirt is a commercial product, not something I made.

    Arthur: You’all need to ask Dr. Conspiracy/Kevin Davidson why Obama can’t release a valid BC, cause Kevin created the forgeries and even displayed his creation on a t-shirt that he wore for Obama to see

  154. Arthur says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I give ORYR credit for one thing: they don’t moderate comments. Of course the t-shirt is a commercial product, not something I made.

    Regarding the t-shirt: I think it’s very mean of you to allow plain vanilla facts to get the way of the birthers’ rich chocolatey delusions. Also, I was put into moderation at ORYR after teasing one of the loonier posters. As long as you are condemning Obama or Obots, no comment is too vulgar or violent.

  155. bovril says:

    Doc,

    ORYR goes through periodic purges with fairly arbitrary bans and a fair degree of surreptitious removal of posts that don’t conform to right think.

    Not anything like Mendax Mario’s or Mad old Orlys site it must be said

  156. Rickey says:

    RWNJs are out in full force over the Newtown massacre. Orly is leading the way.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/18/orly-taitz-sandy-hook-obama_n_2325671.html

  157. donna says:

    Preppers Are Getting Ready for the Barackalypse

    Obama’s second term is very bad news for survivalists. It’s also very good news for the industry catering to their worst fears

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/preppers-survivalist-doomsday-obama

  158. G says:

    Hi Scientist. Thanks and thank you for your excellent response about the very real and very difficult concerns that need to be carefully thought through and weighed in terms of trying to improve the mental health dilemma. I very much agree with what you’ve pointed out and think that a serious discussion towards addressing the problem must really delve into the benefits and concerns of each of these areas.

    Scientist: Hi, G good to see you back. I certainly agree that mental health is part of the picture. But even where someone is receiving treatment, it isn’t a panacea and in the case of a true sociopath I’m not convinced treatment is that efficacious. There is simply too much we don’t understand about the brain. Some people are just so dangerous that institutionalization may be the only option. But how do we decide who to institutionalize? In some cases, where there is a history of violence , threats, suicide attempts, etc., it may not be that hard a call. But a number of these mass murderers were far from clear cut prior to going on their sprees as to whether they were dangerous or just “odd”. So, if we make it easier to put people away, it is certain that we will lock up a whole bunch of people who really were not threats. Maybe that is just the price we must pay or maybe it isn’t.

    Maybe saying x or y is the #1 issue is part of the problem of getting anything resolved here. The truth is many of these factors (guns, mental health, etc) are very entwined together in the causality, at least in terms of the mass shooting incidents. I’d throw in a culture of consequences from bullying as a big part of the problem here too…

    …but I digress.

    I certainly agree that America’s gun culture and gun laws are very much out of step with a 21st century 1st world civilization. The 1996 indidents in Oz and the UK, which led to major reforms in those countries, are excellent models of proof that those policies do produce effective results.

    But I pragmatically also understand that the USA and our history here are very different and unique in regards to this particular issue and know that any plausible solution here will not have any chance to succeed if it runs afoul of the 2nd Amendment. So it will certainly require much greater “diplomacy” and nuance to get reasonable people together to improve gun laws, while still respecting gun rights.

    I wish that discussion would finally take place…but it is the area of progress that I’m most cynical about. There is currently way too much here on all sides of the gun control issue that is driven by gut-reaction from a sense of fear of loss of life vs freedom…yet which is rarely thought through to the long-term benefits, concerns, consequences, costs and probable effectiveness of such ideas.

    Scientist: I still see guns as the #1 issue. The UK and Australia both had mass shootings a decade or 2 ago and toughened their gun law significantly and haven’t had any since, despite the fact that mental illness still exists in both those countries at rates similar to the US, I’m sure. Maybe Keith could comment on Oz.

  159. G says:

    *sigh*…Sadly, she is just reinforcing the existing lunacy of a RWNJ meme of “Obama taking away our guns” that has been an undercurrent driven by cynical NRA profiteers all along.

    I guess this should not at all be an unexpected development from the RWNJ crowd…but the intersection of Birtherism crazy with gun-conspiracy crazy opens some very concerning and dangerous memes to further rile up the already irrational…

    Rickey:
    RWNJs are out in full force over the Newtown massacre. Orly is leading the way.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/18/orly-taitz-sandy-hook-obama_n_2325671.html

  160. Scientist says:

    G: But I pragmatically also understand that the USA and our history here are very different and unique in regards to this particular issue and know that any plausible solution here will not have any chance to succeed if it runs afoul of the 2nd Amendment. So it will certainly require much greater “diplomacy” and nuance to get reasonable people together to improve gun laws, while still respecting gun rights.

    As I noted above, no rights are absolute. Free speech is limited by laws against uttering threats, libel, endangering national security, etc. While religions are free to believe what they like, practices like human sacrifice, sex with minors (Warren Jeffs) or consumption of illegal substances (Native American peyote cults) are prohibited. If the First Amendment is not absolute, neither is the Second. To say it is would permit individuals to own nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. So, somewhere between that and banning everything including bb guns is where society can draw the lines. Fully automatic machine guns have been banned since the 1930s and various other guns and ammunition have been banned at various times and none of those were ever found unconstitutional.

  161. G says:

    Well said. I completely agree!

    The problem is that too many people (often willingly) fall into the simplistic trap of thinking in terms of the absolutes or even just get tunnel-vision and insist that X is always more of an issue over Y or Z…

    So I’m with you completely on where all these issues need to be worked out and I want very much to see that happen…but the pragmatist in me is aware of the power of both the easy emotional distraction hot-buttons and cynical invested interests that will rush to shape and manipulate what should be serious reform attempts, in a full-throated effort to actually defend the status quo…or make the long term situation actually worse…

    Scientist: As I noted above, no rights are absolute. Free speech is limited by laws against uttering threats, libel, endangering national security, etc. While religions are free to believe what they like, practices like human sacrifice, sex with minors (Warren Jeffs) or consumption of illegal substances (Native American peyote cults) are prohibited. If the First Amendment is not absolute, neither is the Second. To say it is would permit individuals to own nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. So, somewhere between that and banning everything including bb guns is where society can draw the lines. Fully automatic machine guns have been banned since the 1930s and various other guns and ammunition have been banned at various times and none of those were ever found unconstitutional.

  162. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    donna: SIBLEY: Emergency Motion Filed: National Archives Caught Altering Hawaii Arrival Records For 1961http://beforeitsnews.com/obama-birthplace-controversy/2012/12/emergency-motion-filed-national-archives-caught-altering-hawaii-arrival-records-for-1961-2451620.html

    This crap again? Someone coming from Kenya wouldn’t be documented as arriving from Kenya in Hawaii. Flights would be coming through New York first.

  163. I’ve started my own White House petition, for a constitutional amendment limiting Senate advice and consent on presidential appointments to 180 days. I ask for your support:

    https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/propose-constitutional-amendment-presidential-appointments-limiting-senate-review-180-days/2xfXlf5k?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

  164. donna says:

    doc: suggestion: put your petition up as an “article” so no one will miss it

    i support it – thanks for all you do to keep us sane

  165. JPotter says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: 180 days.

    Too generous (IMO). 60, but would rather see 30.

  166. Scientist says:

    Doc: While your goal is admirable (all nominees deserve an up-or-down vote), there is no need for a constitutional amendment. The problem lies entirely with the filibuster, which appears nowhere in the Constitution and can be changed by a simple majority vote on the first day of the new Congress. What was supposed to be difficult and thus used only on rare occasions has been made trivially easy and thus automatic. The amendment you propose would fix only appointments and do nothing about general legislative gridlock.

    The appropriate parties to petition are your Senators, not the White House, which has power over neither Senate rules nor constitutional amendments.

  167. BatGuano says:

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater: This crap again?

    if the photos are accurate then “someone” did adjust the date on the microfilm’s box. that “someone” could be either:

    A): an archives employee attempting to better represent the information available on the microfilm.

    B): a civilian viewer (birther?) attempting to better represent the information available on the microfilm.

    C): an archives employee attempting to cover-up something that has already been reported.

    D): a birther attempting to make it look like an archives cover-up.

    call me silly but i’m putting my money on A or B.

  168. G says:

    Agreed on all points. Well said. Although I certainly commend Doc C for his well-meaning intentions. All of this absurd filibustering (especially on appointments) has gotten way out of hand and is bad for the country.

    But the problem most certainly lies within the Senate and their own stupid, stupid, stupid internal rules on how they manage their own poor behavior.

    Scientist:
    Doc:While your goal is admirable (all nominees deserve an up-or-down vote), there is no need for a constitutional amendment.The problem lies entirely with the filibuster, which appears nowhere in the Constitution and can be changed by a simple majority vote on the first day of the new Congress. What was supposed to be difficult and thus used only on rare occasions has been made trivially easy and thus automatic.The amendment you propose would fix only appointments and do nothing about general legislative gridlock.

    The appropriate parties to petition are your Senators, not the White House, which has power over neither Senate rules nor constitutional amendments.

  169. Keith says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    I’ve started my own White House petition, for a constitutional amendment limiting Senate advice and consent on presidential appointments to 180 days. I ask for your support:

    https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/propose-constitutional-amendment-presidential-appointments-limiting-senate-review-180-days/2xfXlf5k?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

    I have to agree with Scientist on this Doc.

    I’ll go over and sign the petition if it allows me to do so from Australia. But the thing is, even if the WH did get such an amendment bill introduced, it would be filibustered out of existence before it could be put to the States.

  170. Keith says:

    I used my childhood zip code which makes it look like I still live in Tucson. You think that will invalidate my ‘signature’? 😎

  171. donna says:

    Fox News Scoops Obama’s Hawaii Roots: Big Afro, African Father, Lazy People, Pot and Prostitution

    Fox News host Bill O’Reilly sent his best ambush journalist to Hawaii this week to get the scoop on President Barack Obama’s roots ahead of his Christmas vacation and found out about a guy named Barry who had a “big afro,” and and “African father” who “talked about Kenya” and lived on an island with lazy people, lots of marijuana and prostitution.

    In a segment that aired on Thursday’s O’Reilly Factor, Fox News producer Jesse Watters put on a polo shirt, turned up the collar and hit the beach to talk to women in bikinis in hopes of finding out the truth about Barack Obama.

    “Growing up in Hawaii, President Obama was known as Barry,” Watters reported. “He was abandoned by his African father and lived with his mother and grandparents in a small apartment complex in Honolulu.”

    “My mother-in-law remembers him scooping Baskin-Robbins ice cream on King Street with a big afro in high school,” one resident explained.

    “There were several memories that I think that we all had and one was very strong, and one was his father came to speak to the 5th-grade class,” a woman who had gone to school with Obama recalled. “It was actually about Kenya.”

    “He’s a little lazy and he’s lazy because he grew up here,” Watters observed to one bikini-clad woman, who said she voted for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2008.

    “He’s Hawaiian!” the woman agreed. “Dude, if you’re Hawaiian, you have no ambition, you’re lazy.”

    Watters found several African-American women who said that they supported the president because if Mitt Romney had won then “we would get no more food stamps. We need Obama.”

    “He said he experimented with pot and sometimes cocaine,” the Fox News producer reported.

    After Watters returned to New York to present his investigation, O’Reilly wanted to know if he had discovered why Hawaii was so liberal.

    “I think it’s very multi-cultural and there’s a lot of an Asian influence too,” Watters opined. “And the economy is such that you don’t have a big middle class. So, you have extreme wealth and extreme poverty and the sun makes you lazy. So, they kind of try to take care of everybody. And then, you know, you have very loose pot laws, prostitution is not technically legal but…”

    “It’s a libertine society,” O’Reilly agreed. “A lot of people want to know why you have the little collar on the polo shirt up?”

    “It’s my trademark, Bill,” Watters insisted. “That’s my pop collar.”

  172. G says:

    Tabloid trash “yellow journalism” at its worst…

    So sad that the FNC crowd is so needful of an Empty Chair strawman to attack in order to justify their own pathetic existences…

    donna: Fox News Scoops Obama’s Hawaii Roots: Big Afro, African Father, Lazy People, Pot and Prostitution

  173. The big quotation marks are back on block quotes. Yea! (I guess). All blog software now at latest version.

  174. The filibuster is the current problem, but what could be fixed with a majority vote today can be unfixed by a majority vote by the next Senate, and even without the filibuster, I could imagine a situation where the Senate didn’t want to take a vote on a controversial nominee.

    Scientist: Doc: While your goal is admirable (all nominees deserve an up-or-down vote), there is no need for a constitutional amendment. The problem lies entirely with the filibuster, which appears nowhere in the Constitution and can be changed by a simple majority vote on the first day of the new Congress.

  175. That makes three of us. 🙁

    donna: i support it – thanks for all you do to keep us sane

  176. donna says:

    from the desk of the ditz

    subpoena served on the Chair of House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa

    she sent him the “sworn affidavits of law enforcement and experts” showing that “Obama using forged………… ” blah blah

    the comments are priceless (does she not have spell check?) :

    issa is an arab

    commenter: Have you bothered to look at the local rules? None of your recycled affidavits is admissible and no witnesses are permitted for a TRO hearing.

    taitz: show me a specific rule that says that witnesses ar not permitted or that affidavits are not admissable, there is no such rule. as a matter of fact affidavits are required

    commenter: Where is the one brave member of Congress who will come forward and do what is right by confronting the Usurper snake? Sadly, I think they are all long gone, hidden in the pages of history books that no one reads anymore.

    http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/?p=369320

  177. JPotter says:

    Fox Correspondent heads to Hawaii to uncover … very little. FAUX still not going birfer. Watters did talk to some residents with childhood memories of Obama.

    http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/index.html#/v/2048538080001/watters-crashes-obamas-hawaii-vacation-spot/?playlist_id=1383651764001

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