Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson     Red Bluff Daily News   1/19/2016

           America’s Deceiver-In-Chief

I’d like to invite you to a “meet and greet” with Republican Duf Sundheim, candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Barbara Boxer. He will be at the Hampton Inn & Suites, in the Roundup Room, this afternoon from 1:30 to 4:30. The Tehama County Republican Women Federated hosts Mr. Sundheim’s visit and will have some light refreshments.

I found this writer’s take on the debates to be pretty close to the mark: “As bad as our guys are, the Gang of Three is shockingly bad. Bernie is giving HRC a run? Who can imagine listening to him on a regular basis? This is a measure of how weak she is, and if she gets indicted or otherwise falls, the adults (and the Dems in Congress) will surely seek a way to open the convention and nominate Kerry or Biden. It is dangerous for the country to have such fools as the binary choices—yes, some of our guys are trouble, but none of our top three is so stupid. It is good for Republicans if the Dems as a party now require candidates to say stupid things, but it is not good for the country.”

Now, on the disingenuousness recently emanating from Emperor Barack Obama. His fatuous town hall, “Guns in America,” hosted by Anderson Cooper (to his credit, he asked tough questions) saw a litany of lies from Obama. In case you missed it, Cooper made “an admission against interest” when he explained that having Obama face citizen questioners served the viewers better than a press conference. You see, the journalists and reporters basically “agree with Obama” on the issues. Thanks, Anderson, that explains a lot.

The NRA, to their credit, “declined the invitation because it is a White House-orchestrated made-for-TV event and not an opportunity for a genuine dialogue or an effort to find common ground. We remain disappointed that the president has chosen to demagogue the issue for political purposes instead of providing real leadership like working to advance Rep. Tim Murphy’s bipartisan legislation to address the issue of mental health, which is the common denominator in mass shootings.”

To a rape survivor who stated her desire to protect herself and her children, at home or anywhere else, Obama coldly insisted that she was placing her family in danger just by the presence of a gun. This is Obama’s alternate reality where a gun somehow fires itself, especially when in a law-abiding citizen’s home; and the extremely remote possibility that a bad guy could wrestle away or steal the gun means you’re better off disarmed. What a lying fool.

“President Obama repeatedly falsely claimed that people can ‘just go on the Internet and buy whatever weapon they want.’ But he was never forced to agree that any gun bought from a dealer over the Internet has to be sent to a local dealer that by law has to perform a background check before they can transfer the gun.” (Frank Miniter, “Obama gets away with some whoppers on guns at town hall event,” 1/7/2016)

While whining that “it is fair to call it a conspiracy,” that people mistakenly think he wants to take their guns away, actions prove otherwise. He has invoked gun confiscation in Australia as “effective”; he wants “assault weapons” banned and confiscated (cosmetic appearances aside, they function the same as any other semi-automatic long gun); he wants seniors’ gun rights abrogated if they fall below some standard of financial hardship.

I assume he is in favor of the LA ban on the possession of standard-but-relatively-high-capacity hand guns; he’s likely to support the California proposal to allow anyone to report you as being mentally unstable without proof as a pretext to confiscate your guns; he has supported bans on concealed-carry permits; he even opposed gun possession in one’s home as an Illinois senator.

Someone asked what would be bad about California’s strictest-in-nation laws, which pass Obama’s proposed muster, applying to all states. Great! The laws that failed to prevent the San Bernardino massacre (because the terrorists acquired guns—as most criminals do—via a “straw buyer” with no criminal record) would fail to stop any other mass shootings. Meanwhile, law abiding citizens would needlessly have to wait longer than 3 days—for 10 or 14 days—while someone intent on doing them harm with stolen guns or knives, doesn’t wait for anything.

Obama lied about “smart guns,” saying that “[Smart Gun technology] has not been developed primarily because it has been blocked by the NRA” and firearms manufactures. The NRA and the NSSF, among other pro-Second Amendment groups, “have statements on their websites saying they are not opposed to ‘smart-gun’ technology. Laws that seek to mandate smart-gun technology…are what is impeding smart-gun development.” Moreover, the additional expenses added to the cost of a gun has the perverse effect of pricing the poorest folks, in the most crime-ridden areas, out of the ability to defend their families.

Look up “Obama’s Claims About Internet Gun Sales Are Completely False—And PolitiFact’s defense of his claims indicates again how little the media understand guns,” (Mollie Hemmingway, Jan. 6, thefederalist.com). Anderson Cooper: the media “agree with Obama.”

In “Ted Cruz is correct: Eric Holder talked about brainwashing people about guns” by Moe Lane, a 1996 Holder quote resurfaced. “We just have to be repetitive about this…We have to do this every day of the week and just really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.” Would that include “re-education camps” for “gun nuts”?