The Left and Gun Control

A 23-year-old man, 5′ 11″ tall and weighing 200 lbs, stalked and tried to assault a 65-year-old woman, standing 4′ 11″ and weighing all of 105 lbs. This thug followed her from a convenience store stop she made on the way home from work to her parking spot in her apartment complex.

When he grabbed for the woman, she drew her (legally owned and carried) pistol and shot him, thereby successfully defending herself from what was, at best, a strong-arm robbery attempt, and quite possibly a follow-up murder.

Let me emphasize that: this small, older woman successfully defended herself against a man one-third her age and twice her size with the only equalizer adequate to the task, a firearm.

Let me emphasize one more item: this is the sort of thing that President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats and Progressives actively seek to prevent: a citizen defending himself—herself in this case—without benefit of Big Government’s good offices from an assault that even the police are powerless to prevent, only to react against well after the assault has run its course.

But, of course, Obama and Democrats and Progressives know full well that independent, self-reliant citizens are anathema to their policies.

Health Insurance and Regulation

Faith-based organizations that share the costs of health care among their members are a tiny part of the health care coverage industry. They’re also not regulated by government.

[Faith-based] ministry officials say they aren’t offering insurance, don’t guarantee claims will be paid, and don’t need to be regulated.

Naturally, regulators object.

But now, some insurance commissioners are concerned that the ministries could put consumers at risk if bills aren’t paid.

This is the consumer’s choice to risk, though, not government’s authority to command not to. At least in a free society.

And more tellingly:

State regulators also say health ministries disrupt the insurance market because they tend to attract healthier consumers, siphoning them from commercial plans that can be left with sicker or older customers.

What these government regulators carefully omit to mention, though, is that the only “market” liable to disruption is their precious regulated “market.” In a free market economy, such competition is healthy, if disruptive, leading as it does to improving products and lowering costs.

Unfortunately, the number of faith-based health cost sharing entities that are exempt from Obamacare is carefully and deliberately circumscribed by Obamacare. That needs to change.

Personal Secrecy vs National Security

The latest batch of 3,105 emails includes 275 documents upgraded to “classified” since they landed in the former Secretary’s personal inbox. That brings the total number of classified docs found in the emails to 1,274. A State Department official told Fox News on Thursday that two of those emails were upgraded to “secret,” while most of the others were upgraded to “confidential.”

Because Democratic Party Presidential candidate and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s desire to keep her doings in our name as a Cabinet Secretary were more important than our national security.

We don’t need four more years of this from within the White House.

Government’s Gotta Regulate What A Man’s Gotta Do

It is taking home buyers longer to get a mortgage, which some in the real-estate industry say is the result of new federal rules meant to make mortgage terms easier to understand.

It wasn’t broke, and mortgages were moving as much apace as this Obama Recovery permitted, but it also wasn’t regulated. Government abhors a control vacuum.

Mortgages took an average of 49 days to close in November…the longest closing time since February 2013….

That’s only a three day increase over October, but it’s an entirely unnecessary and a completely government caused delay.

The rules…require lenders to give borrowers final terms of a loan at least three business days before closing to ensure they have time to understand the agreement.

Never mind that consumers already can walk away from any purchase contract, including mortgage contracts, within three days after signing—the “cooling off” period.

Advocates for the changes say they are a common-sense response to the housing crisis, during which it became apparent that many borrowers didn’t understand the ramifications of terms such as teaser rates or growing principal balances.

Of course a Liberal will say it’s common sense to regulate. It couldn’t possibly be common sense to educate instead.

The outcome of this demand to regulate anything and everything is more than just a delay in closing. Sales of existing homes have fallen sharply, 10.5% in November, the first month these wonderful new regulations have been in place, compared to October.