Gun Guys » Alabama Lawmakers Filibuster “Shoot First”

Gun Guys » Alabama Lawmakers Filibuster “Shoot First”: "We don’t know about you, but we find it very funny that the sponsor of the bill talks like he just found oil with Uncle Jed. “This bill don’t give you none of a right to murder! It just done give you a chance to shoot people you want to shoot!” Besides the crazy grammar, he’s just plain wrong. We already have self-defense laws in this country. If you are put in a situation where deadly force is the only way out, you have the right to use it against your attacker. But what the “Shoot First” bill does is let you use deadly force even when it’s not the only option. This bill allows anyone to open fire “when threatened” without any responsibility. And where we come from, we call that thar the ol’ license to murder, y’hear?

The proposal debated Tuesday would let a person use deadly force if he or she reasonably believed another person was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or already had unlawfully and forcefully entered, a dwelling or occupied vehicle. It says a person would have the right to stand his or her ground, rather than retreating, as long as he or she was doing nothing illegal and had the right to be where he or she was.

Rep. Demetrius Newton, D-Birmingham, warned that, under the bill, a homeowner driving into his or her driveway could shoot to kill a burglar who was running away after breaking into the house. “Where I come from, that’s not self-defense at all,” Newton said. “That’s taking a human life without very much probable cause.”

Under the bill, a dwelling would include a tent or porch. A vehicle would include any conveyance, motorized or not, designed to move a person or property.

This bill is wrong, and we congratulate the lawmakers of Alabama for shutting it down. The NRA has pledged to bring it to every state in the union this year, but if lawmakers around the country have any need to keep murder illegal in the United States, they’ll vote it out anywhere it’s proposed.

More: Legislation, NRA, Alabama, License to Murder

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Subject: Fueling the Rhetoric

The sight of Democrats shooting themselves in the foot is a common sight. The sight and sound of Democrats attacking each other and their party is also a common sight. In all honesty there is a lot to complain about.

The Democratic Party and the DLC often fail their constituency. Democrats and Independents who usually vote with them have the right to complain. What is getting to be more than a little disquieting is the fact the Republican talking points are all too often repeated by Democrats. I guess that’s from the “let’s hit ourselves over the head just like they do to show we are tough on our party plan.”

Progressives need to be tough on our elected representatives. We need to let them know when we are displeased. As in not going to vote for you ever again you schmuck displeased.

What we do not need to do is help the Republicans kick our party around. The Republicans constantly say that the Democrats have no ideas. Of course Democrats have ideas. What they haven’t done is gotten all the ideas together and made a comprehensive platform for the party. Time to do that folks.

It might be helpful to point out that while the Republicans have a lot of ideas, they don’t have a lot of “good” ideas. Common sense should tell us that having ideas is not quite enough. Maybe we should insist on good ideas. Leading us into chaos might not have been one of their better ideas.

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Subject: Debs

It is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world. ...

These are the gentry who are today wrapped up in the American flag, who shout their claim from the housetops that they are the only patriots, and who have their magnifying glasses in hand, scanning the country for evidence of disloyalty, eager to apply the brand of treason to the men who dare to even whisper their opposition to Junker rule in the United Sates. No wonder Sam Johnson declared that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes, for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people. ...

http://www.buzzflash.com/mailbag/06/02/mai06042.html

Oprah "Freys" President Bush: Read It Here First

Oprah "Freys" President Bush: Read It Here First: "Oprah 'Freys' President Bush: Read It Here First
For the past week, liberal commentators have expressed one simple fantasy: that Oprah Winfrey get a chance to grill President Bush the way she went after fabulist author James Frey. Here they get their wish.

By Greg Mitchell

(February 01, 2006) -- In the days since Oprah Winfrey sliced and diced writer James Frey on her TV show for misleading the public with lies in his bestselling memoir, many liberal commentators have expressed a single wish: to watch Oprah have the opportunity to do the same with President George W. Bush concerning the alleged lies that got the U.S. into Iraq (2200 lost American lives ago).

Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post columnist, observed on Tuesday, 'If there were justice in the world, George W. Bush would have to give his State of the Union address from Oprah's couch....Bush should have to face the wrathful, Old Testament Oprah who subjected author James Frey to that awful public smiting the other day.'
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Syndicated columnist Norman Solomon cited the Winfrey/Frey tussle, then charged, "Yet the journalists who interview Bush aren't willing to question him in similar terms." On "The Daily Show" Monday, Jon Stewart contrasted Oprah's tough questioning of Frey with obsequious TV news treatment of President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and others. Maureen Dowd compared "disgraced author" Frey with "a commander in chief who keeps writing chapter after chapter of fictionalized propaganda."

So I have taken the liberty of pushing all this dreaming one step beyond, imagining an Oprah sitdown with the president--based almost word-for-word on the transcript of her latest session with Frey, with just a few phrases obviously changed here and there.

Here it is, without commercial interruption, or claps and boos from the audience. It even has a happy ending.

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Oprah: President Bush is here and I have to say it is difficult for me to talk to you because I feel really duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of citizens in your statements about WMD in Iraq and Saddam’s connection to Al Qaeda. I think it's such a gift to have millions of people to believe in you and your office and that bothers me greatly. So now, as I sit here today I don't know what is true and I don't know what isn't. So first of all, I wanted to start with The Huffington Post report titled, "The Man Who Conned Oprah" and I want to know—were they right?

Bush: I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate. Absolutely.

Oprah: Okay.

Bush: I think they did a good job detailing some of the discrepancies between some of the actual facts of the events.

Oprah: Was your description of how Saddam Hussein was about to get nuclear weapons true?

Bush: He was about to get nuclear weapons, yes.

Oprah: About to?

Bush: I mean, that was one of the details I altered about him.

Oprah: Okay. And why?

Bush: Because all the way through the run up to the war I altered details about every single one of the WMD possibilities to render them unidentifiable.

Oprah: Nuclear weapons are more dramatic than conventional weapons?

Bush: I don't think either is more dramatic than the other.

Oprah: But why did you lie? Why did you do that?

Bush: I think one of the coping mechanisms I developed was sort of this image of myself that was greater, probably, than—not probably—that was greater than what I actually was. In order to get through the experience, I thought of myself as being tougher than I was and badder than I was—and it helped me cope. When I was selling the war … instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image.

Oprah: And did you cling to that image because that's how you wanted to see yourself? Or did you cling to that image because that would make a better sell job?

Bush: Probably both.

Oprah: How much of your statements on WMD and Saddam’s connections to Al Qaeda were fabricated?

Bush: Not very much. I mean, all the people are real.

Oprah: But I acted in defense of you and as I said, my judgment was clouded because so many people seemed to have gotten so much out of it. But now I feel that you conned us all. Do you?

Bush: I don't feel like I conned everyone.

Oprah: You don't.

Bush: No.

Oprah: Why?

Bush: Because I still think the war is about WMD and Al Qaeda and nobody's disputing that I was a addicted...to fighting Saddam. And it's a battle to overcome that.

Oprah: Your charges about WMD, you said that that was true then. Would you say that today?

Bush: I…I...I had documents that supported it. About nine months after the war, I was speaking to somebody from State. They said that they doubted it happened that way, but that there was a chance that it did—that cases like that are reviewed on an individual basis.

Oprah: This is what I don't get. Because when you were here before, you said that there were about 400 pages of documents..That there were documents and reports. Because I said, "How can you remember such detail? And that's how you explained it to me.

Bush: Absolutely.

Oprah: Do you now wish you had added a disclaimer?

Bush: I don't know if I wish I had offered a disclaimer or if I had just talked about certain events in a different way. I think that would have been the more appropriate thing to do than putting in a disclaimer.

Oprah: I appreciate you being here because I believe the truth can set you free. I realize this has been a difficult time for you … maybe this is the beginning of another kind of truth for you.

Bush: I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I think this is obvious-- this hasn't been a great day for me. It certainly hasn't been a great couple weeks for me. But I think I come out of it better. I mean, I feel like I came here and I have been honest with you. I have, you know, essentially admitted to…to...[sigh]...to lying.

Oprah: Which is not an easy thing to do.

Bush: No, it's not an easy thing to do in front of an audience full of people and a lot of others watching on TV. I mean, if I come out of this experience with anything, it's being a better person and learning from my mistakes and making sure that I don't repeat them.

Oprah: Good.

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Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P.

Related Articles When Johnny Comes Marching Home Mar 3, 2005 – Editor and Publisher Bush Discusses Murtha and Says Progress in Iraq is 'Amazing' Nov 20, 2005 – Editor and Publisher Afghanistan Photos Offered for Sale Nov 22, 2005 – Editor and Publisher 'NY Times' Sunday Preview: Hollywood Was Right on the War Nov 11, 2005 – Editor and Publisher 53% Feel War Wasn't Worth What? Apr 21, 2005 – Editor and Publisher

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060203/ap_on_re_us/epa_sept11_lawsuit;

.../... In her ruling, Batts noted that the EPA and Whitman said repeatedly — beginning just two days after the attack — that the air appeared safe to breathe. The EPA's internal watchdog later found that the agency, at the urging of White House officials, gave misleading assurances.

Quoting a ruling in an earlier case, the judge said a public official cannot be held personally liable for putting the public in harm's way unless the conduct was so egregious as "to shock the contemporary conscience." Given her role in protecting the health and environment for Americans, Whitman's reassurances after Sept. 11 were "without question conscience-shocking," Batts said.

Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said in a statement that New Yorkers are still depending on the federal government to describe any ongoing risk from contaminants.

"I continue to believe that the White House owes New Yorkers an explanation," she said.

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (news, bio, voting record), a Democrat whose district includes the trade center site, said the many people who worked at the site and developed respiratory diseases deserve answers.

"It is my assumption that thousands of people — workers and residents — are being slowly poisoned today because these workplaces and residences were never properly cleaned up," Nadler said in a telephone interview.