Tag Archives: responsibilities

The Philadelphia Shooting

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The shooting in Philadelphia Wednesday in which six cops were shot while trying to serve a drug crime-related warrant illustrates a couple of things.

One is the naked gun-control politicization of any event involving firearms inflicted on us by Progressive-Democrat politicians. This is illustrated by Party Presidential candidate and Senator Kamala Harris (D, CA) going on television just an hour into this day-into-nighttime event—an hour!—to push for gun controls because this guy was using a gun.  Never mind that she knew nothing about the event as it unfolded, here was a chance to make personally beneficial political hay, and Harris jumped on it with both feet.

The Philadelphia Mayor, Jim Kenney (D), also is all over television demanding more gun control laws.

The other thing demonstrates just how deep and slimy is the cesspool into which Harris jumped with both her feet, and how foolish the Philadelphia mayor looks with his virtue signalling.

The perp here had his guns illegally. Nor was he barred from legally possessing guns because of any old felony.  His were all gun-related.

His first arrest when he was 18 years old was in 2001 for having a gun with an altered serial number, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
[He] has been arrested around a dozen times since he was 18, including being convicted six times on charges that involved illegal possession of guns, drug dealing, and aggravated assault.

Gun control laws don’t work.

Progressive-Democrats just want use them to pander and virtue signal while along the way disarming the rest of us.

And a bonus third thing: police actually are at great pains to take folks alive,

A US Attorney’s Statement

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In the aftermath of the Philadelphia shooting, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania William M McSwain issued this statement:

Statement by United States Attorney William M. McSwain on the Shooting of Six Philadelphia Police Officers
What I witnessed last night was true heroism by the Philadelphia police.  But the crisis was precipitated by a stunning disrespect for law enforcement—a disrespect so flagrant and so reckless that the suspect immediately opened fire on every single officer within shooting distance.  Only by the grace of God did they survive.
Where does such disrespect come from?
There is a new culture of disrespect for law enforcement in this City that is promoted and championed by District Attorney Larry Krasner—and I am fed up with it.
It started with chants at the DA’s victory party—chants of “F*** the police” and “No good cops in a racist system.”
We’ve now endured over a year and a half of the worst kinds of slander against law enforcement—the DA routinely calls police and prosecutors corrupt and racist, even “war criminals” that he compares to Nazis.
This vile rhetoric puts our police in danger.  It disgraces the Office of the District Attorney.  And it harms the good people in the City of Philadelphia and rewards the wicked.
The alleged shooter last night, Maurice Hill, is a previously convicted felon with a long rap sheet.  We have plenty of criminal laws in this City—but what we don’t have is robust enforcement by the District Attorney.  Instead, among other things, we have diversionary programs for gun offenses, the routine downgrading of charges for violent crime, and entire sections of the criminal code that are ignored.
The criminal laws in this City—and especially the existing gun laws and drug laws—should be aggressively enforced in order to protect the public and the police.  My Office is doing all that we can.  We have prosecuted 70% more violent crime cases this year than we did last year, in response to the District Attorney’s lawlessness.  But it is now time for the District Attorney and his enablers to stop making excuses for criminals.  It is time for accountability.  It is time to support law enforcement and to put the good people of this City first.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office, in conjunction with the Philadelphia police and our federal partners, is investigating the horrible events of last night and we are considering all options at our disposal.  We will do everything that we can to support our brothers and sisters in the Philadelphia Police Department and ensure justice is done.
To the officers involved last night—those who were wounded and those who rushed to defend them—and to their families, I say thank you.  The whole City thanks you.  We owe you more than we can ever repay.

What he said.

A Misunderstanding

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In a house editorial concerning the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding President Donald Trump’s authority to reallocate some DoD funds toward building a border wall, The Wall Street Journal expressed the hope that the ruling—which lifted a nation-wide injunction issued by a Federal district [sic] judge—would send an appropriate signal to district judges regarding nation-wide injunctions.  The editors also had this remark regarding such injunctions.

The proliferation of national injunctions has inserted judges into policy debates in ways they should avoid….

This is a misapprehension of the situation and a mischaracterization of what the judges are doing.

The proliferation has inserted no one; it is a result of judges choosing to insert themselves into policy debates.

Judges must avoid this, but they consciously have chosen to go outside their Constitutional authority and make policy—make law.  These judges have ignored the simple Constitutional fact that policy discussions and debates are solely within the purview of the political branches of our government and that legislation is solely within the purview of Congress. Article I, Section 1, of our Constitution makes this abundantly clear even to an eighth-grade Civics student.

With their carefully considered decision to act extra-Constitutionally, these judges have equally carefully decided to violate their oath of office, which enjoins them to defend and to uphold our Constitution, not to depart from it.

Trump’s Dispute with Cummings

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Rebecca Ballhaus and Catherine Lucey asked whether President Donald Trump’s tweets about Congressman and House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D, MD) were personal.

After Cummings’ scurrilous attack on the integrity—and the humanity—of DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan followed by Cummings’ cowardly denial of any opportunity to respond by McAleenan, you bet Trump’s response was personal.

But its more: Trump’s tweet barrage against Cummings is deeply personal because Cummings’ despicable behavior and his terrible failure to perform for his constituents is deeply personal. It’s real people in those terrible Baltimore slums—real constituents of Cummings—who Cummings personally is abusing with his failure to perform. I grew up in Kankakee, and Chicago’s South Side slums were never this bad in terms of living conditions.

As to Trump speaking particularly against minority lawmakers, as Ballhaus’ and Lucey’s subheadline had it, this is plainly erroneous. Trump is criticizing lawmakers. The only ones bringing up their “minority” status are these two authors. Why is that, I wonder?

Or, do Ballhaus and Lucey really think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) are minority lawmakers? Or Congressman Eric Swalwell (D, CA)?

Responsibilities

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Iran, as I write this (Monday), has rejected efforts to defuse the situation in the Arabian Gulf, a situation it has created with its piracy of and extended threats toward oil shipping in the Gulf and transiting the Strait of Hormuz.  Indeed, in response to a planned British redeployment of a couple of small combat ships to the Gulf to add to the protection of British tankers, Iran had this:

But Mr [Ali, Iranian government spokesman] Rabie warned Sunday that a European military deployment in the Gulf would be viewed as an escalation of the crisis. “Such moves under the current conditions are provocative,” he said, according to IRNA.

Thus, Iran does not want the nations trading in oil to be able to more effectively protect their shipping.  Iran demands to preserve its ability to seize those ships for itself.

This is not the action of a peace-loving nation. Piracy in the Gulf is the responsibility of Iran.