Wednesday, October 5, 2016
VP Debate: Tim Kaine Calls Himself ‘Strong 2nd Amendment Supporter,’ Then Pushes Gun Control
In response to a question on policing–focused on whether “we ask too much of police in our country?”–Kaine responded by talking about officer relations with community members, mental health reforms, and gun control.
He segued to gun control by mentioning gun violence, then saying:
I’m a gun owner, I’m a strong Second Amendment supporter, but I’ve got a lot of scar tissue because when I was governor of Virginia there was a horrible shooting at Virginia Tech. And we learned that, through that painful situation, that gaps in the background record system should have been closed and that could have prevented that crime. So we’re going work to do things like close background record checks and if we do, we won’t have the tragedies that we did.An ambiguous point in Kaine’s statement needs to be clarified and an inaccuracy needs to be addressed.
The ambiguity that needs clarification is the fact that the Virginia Tech gunman passed a background check for his gun–background checks were in place and the gunman submitted to one to get the firearm he used to kill innocents in the Virginia Tech gun-free zone. The inaccuracy that needs to be corrected is Kaine’s intimation that there are loopholes in the background check system that need to be closed in order to prevent “tragedies” from occurring.
In truth, the background check system is one that looks back–thus the name “background” check. If the person buying the gun has no criminal or mental health record in his or her past then there is nothing to trigger a rejection during the background check process. In other words, background checks do not stop latent criminals, only actual ones. To pretend otherwise is to...
VP Debate: Pence Makes Trump Look Good, Kaine Makes Clinton Look Bad
From the opening bell of the debate, Kaine interrupted Pence nearly every time he spoke, refusing to let him finish a sentence, particularly when he was scoring points on Hillary Clinton. It was a deliberate strategy. You can’t delete Pence’s answers as easily as Hillary’s emails, but you can try to stop voters from hearing them.
But Pence patiently carried forward, unrattled, ever gentlemanly and soft spoken, racking up points on substance while Kaine kept obsessing over Donald Trump’s taxes, tossing snarky asides and hurling insults.
At one point, Kaine even charged that Trump didn’t pay income taxes 15 years ago because he didn’t want to fund our military after 9/11.
After one particular interruption and insult, Pence finally said, “That is beneath even you and Hillary Clinton and that’s pretty low.” And later, “This isn’t the the old days were you can just say things and people believe it.”
Tim “Henchman” Kaine
Kaine started by calling Pence Trump’s “apprentice.” (As if it’s a smart thing to remind the public that Donald Trump parlayed his business success into a hugely successful show celebrating entrepreneurialism.) If so, Kaine was Clinton’s henchman. His task was to keep the debate away from Clinton’s failures or scandals or the sufferings of the American people or the chaos abroad and...
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Egypt says it has killed key Muslim Brotherhood leader
Mohamed Kamal, 61, a member of the group's top leadership, and Yasser Shehata, another leader, were killed. The ministry said it raided an apartment in Cairo's Bassateen neighbourhood after learning it was used by the leaders as a headquarters.
Kamal disappeared on Monday afternoon, the Muslim Brotherhood said on its social media accounts but gave no further updates. The Brotherhood says it is a peaceful organization. Reuters could not immediately reach the group for comment.
Shehata was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison for "assaulting a citizen and forcibly detaining the person in the headquarters of the freedom and Justice party," the political wing of the origination, the ministry said in its statement.
Kamal had been sentenced to life in prison on two counts in absentia, added the statement.
Kamal is one of the most prominent leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and a member of the Guidance Bureau. He was in charge of...
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