“While any State of the Union address is certainly a historic event for the
American people, President Obama’s speech tonight failed to address the
growing and persistent ills that plague our nation, largely symptomatic of
an out-of-control government and in need of serious remedy.
 
President Obama said ‘investment.’ Americans heard ‘more government
spending.’ President Obama said ‘job creation.’ We heard ‘…but not in the
private sector.’ President Obama said it is time for civility. We heard ‘…for
thee, not for me.’
 
The true state of our union is fragile, but the true will of the people is
strong. The people will demand effective economic growth policies which
were noticeably absent from the President’s speech. 
 
The American people are taxed too much and too often. The jobs-killing
health care overhaul saddles businesses and taxpayers with even costlier
medical bills. Our national debt caused by unbridled spending will be an
agonizing weight on the backs of our children and grandchildren. And the
federal government is circumventing its Constitutional limits at nearly
every turn.
 
It is my most sincere hope that President Obama takes heed of the
warning signaled by voters across America on November 2, 2010: we are
tired of ‘business as usual’ with new rhetoric and only with bold leadership
based on Constitutional principles can this country get back on the road to
prosperity.”

Early reports indicate the explosions were caused by Islamic terrorists in a homicide bombing attack.  31+ people are believed to be dead, and over 100 were wounded.

by Michael Naragon

UPDATED: 1/9/11, 7:33PM EST

The train station was, as could be expected, packed with people.  A lone bearded figure paced along the periphery of the crowd, anxious.  Already this morning, he’d read through the newspaper and had his shoes shined, wasting time until he could get to his business of the day.  And then, the entourage filed in. 

The man at the center of the entourage was cheerful, heading to the train with members of his staff.  His supporters shook hands, stood on tiptoes for a glance at the man.  He had only recently won a contentious nomination for the Republican party, which was split between two factions–one of these groups wanted to maintain the status quo and maintain the practice known as the spoils system, the other group wanted to reform the “good ol’ boy” network that had pervaded Washington.  The new president, who was one of these reformers, had won a close election against his Democratic rival, with victory ensured by a 10,000 vote margin out of 9 million votes cast.

Now, this new president, having served only a few months in office, was preparing to spend the July 4 holiday with his wife, who was in poor health.  As the president neared the train, the bearded figure began to push through the crowd.  Placing himself behind a support column, the nervous assassin pulled his pistol from his coat. 

He had purchased the gun weeks before, and, being unfamiliar with firearms, had practiced with it until he reached the level of proficiency he believed was necessary.  Had he been a wealthy man, he would have purchased a more attractive pistol, perhaps with an ivory handle, as he assumed his gun would be placed in a museum in the future, and he wanted it to show his taste.  Instead, he held a wooden-handled .442 Webley revolver in his trembling hand.  To reassure himself, his mind scrolled through the reasons for his anger toward this man, ambling through the train station.

“After all I’ve done for him,” he spat.  “My speech writing, my support.  All I asked was an ambassadorship.  Vienna, or perhaps Paris.  And what do I receive for all my work?  Nothing.  Less than nothing.  A reprimand and rude dismissal!”  His hands now shook not with fear but with rage.  As the president passed by his column, Charles Guiteau found it was remarkably easy to come from behind the support, behind the back of James Garfield, President of the United States.

Gunshots reverberated through the station, and the smell of gunpowder stained the air as Garfield staggered forward, wounded.  Several men grabbed Guiteau as staff members, including Secretary of State James Blaine, assisted the president.  As Guiteau was dragged from the scene, the assassin yelled triumphantly, “I am a Stalwart, and Arthur is now president!”

For political revenge, the twisted Guiteau shot the man who held the highest office in the United States.  Incidentally, Chester Arthur, Garfield’s vice president and the man Guiteau wanted in office, governed in the way he felt Garfield would have.  One of his legislative victories was the Pendleton Civil Service Act that curtailed the spoils system of government appointments.

On Saturday in Arizona, in front of a supermarket, America witnessed another senseless act of violence against a politician.  Unlike the Garfield assassination, however, the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords has been turned into an attack on freedom of speech, and an attempt is being made to use this tragedy to attack a political movement. 

Almost instantly, the first official to speak on the shooting, Sheriff Dupnik, framed the debate to come.

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

With no evidence collected, the initial law enforcement officer on the scene saw fit to condemn what he saw as the real culprit in this case.  He went on.

Let me say one thing, because people tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.

Earlier in the day, Sheriff Dupnik had already made known his feelings about who was truly responsible for the shooting of the Democrat congresswoman.

I want to tell you right now that people like myself are very, very angry at what’s going on in our country, and I think that it’s time that we take a look at what kind of hatred that we inflame by all the crap that goes on. I’m a close friend of Gabrielle Giffords’, and she is one of the most beautiful human beings that you can imagine. I think it’s time that this country take a little introspective look at the [inaudible] crap that comes out on radio and TV.

Make no mistake: this shooting was a terrible act of insanity that, in a perfect world, should never have taken place.  Prayers and thoughts of all Americans go out to the families that have been ravaged by the actions of this troubled man.  However, I do find some things about the sheriff’s statements nearly as disturbing as the shooting itself.

The Left has taken Dupnik’s vitriol against “vitriol” and run with it, condemning Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck, and even–in the case of Keith Olberman, that bastion of sanity–demanding apologies for the “hate speech” that made this man attempt to kill a public official.  No attempt has been made by the media as of yet to discover the killer’s true ideology.  He mentioned the Constitution and the government in statements on his social network accounts.  Contrary to the narrative that those in the liberal media are desperately trying to use, his statements don’t make him a conservative, Tea Partier, Republican, Democrat, environmentalist, or a member of any other ideological group save one.  He is a nut.

When Garfield was shot by another individual who could be characterized as a nut, there were no calls to restrict the First or Second Amendments.  The consequences of freedom of speech were not called into question.  There was no “I told you so” attitude from those in power.  Guiteau was tried and convicted after some argument by his legal representation over whether to try an insanity defense.  He was, eventually, executed for his crime.  And the Republic lived on for 131 years, despite the fact that the powers-that-were in 1880 did nothing to restrict citizens from purchasing guns–ivory-handled or otherwise–or to limit people’s ability to engage in vibrant political debate.

We as a nation, on both sides of the aisle, seem to believe that there has been no such vibrant debate in the past.  In fact, there have been periods more vociferous and more violent than the days in which we live.  In 1856, for example, Sen. Charles Sumner was nearly caned to death by fellow senator Preston Brooks over an anti-slavery speech in which Sumner was perceived to have insulted the state of South Carolina.  Sumner, an abolitionist, was made a hero in the North.  Brooks was reappointed to the Senate by the state legislature and received several new canes to replace the one he had broken over Sumner’s head.  According to the logic of men like Dupnik and Olbermann, the First Amendment should have been suspended throughout the South and canes should have been outlawed.

As an aside, our country has been attacked by Muslim terrorists on more than one occasion in the last two years, the shooters at Fort Hood and at the Arkansas recruiting station being two of the most publicized examples.  In both cases, officials were very hesitant to make an obvious link between the shooter’s religion and ideology with his actions.  In fact, the word “Muslim” was rarely used in coverage unless absolutely necessary.

The same Media, however, seem to have no qualms with making an unsubstantiated link between this particular terrorist and the Tea Party.  In the same way that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg assumed originally that the Times Square would-be bomber would be a domestic terrorist upset with the government (i.e., a conservative or Tea Party person), only to find out it was, in fact, a Muslim with terrorist ties, the talking heads on the Left are doing what they can to paint this as a political attack from a right-wing extremist.  In the court of public opinion, no evidence is catalogued or even necessary.  All that is necessary to create truth is repetition. 

Again, my prayers go to the families of those who lost loved ones or suffered injury at the hands of this disgusting individual.  But the fault for this act cannot be laid at the feet of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Al Sharpton or any other “vitriolic” commentator.  Nor can fault be found with the Constitution, the document that allows pundits and prognosticators on all sides to make their point without government interference and also allows for protection for ridiculous comments like that made by Sheriff Dupnik. 

The shooting likewise cannot be attributed to modern technology.  On Sunday, FOXNews.com reported that FBI Director Robert Mueller told the press that the Internet makes hateful ideology “much more readily available to individuals than it was eight or 10 or 15 years ago and that absolutely presents a challenge to us particularly as it relates to lone wolfs.”  If the Internet were to blame for this sort of violence, then doubtless more politicians would have been subject to potential violence.  The fact that, in our era of “vitriol,” this was the only incident to take place, and was perpetrated by a disturbed anti-establishment leftist, speaks volumes. 

Also, if the Internet were to blame, how does Director Mueller explain Guiteau, John Wilkes Booth, Leon Czolgosz, Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, John Brown, Aaron Burr, John Hinckley, Jr., and the others throughout American history that have acted as, to use Mueller’s words, a “lone wolf” and initiated violence?  How does it explain the actions of domestic terrorists, such as the Weather Underground, that managed to organize and kill without Facebook or YouTube?  Our benevolent federal government will surely attempt to use this incident as a justification to  bring more thought regulation to the Web, but such control will be enacted on an erroneous assumption. 

The fault lies squarely and completely at the feet of Jared Loughner, and my hopes are that justice will be done.

 ”I’m not doing long-term nation-building,” Obama told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.  “I am not spending a trillion dollars.”

Apparently, the president has decided his nation-rebuilding efforts–as well as trillions of dollars–would be best used in the United States.  Why spend money on a nation such as Afghanistan when there’s so much to remake and reform in the Obama/Marxist image right here at home?  And programs that derail an economy and make the populace dependent upon a central Government cost money.

by Michael Naragon

by Michael Naragon

UPDATE (12:44pm): You can find the full text of the Supreme Court’s decision here.

The decision is obviously a victory for gun rights advocates, but it is not necessarily the end of the discussion.  If the composition of the Court changes, the decision could easily be overturned.  For the moment, however, those, like me, who are in favor of the Constitutional right to own firearms can breathe a sigh of relief.

Statement by Wayne LaPierre Executive Vice President, National Rifle Association Regarding U.S. Supreme Court Decision McDonald v. City of Chicago

Today marks a great moment in American history. This is a landmark decision. It is a vindication for the great majority of American citizens who have always believed the Second Amendment was an individual right and freedom worth defending.

The Supreme Court said what a majority of the American public believes. The people who wrote the Second Amendment said it was an individual right, and the Court has now confirmed what our founding fathers wrote and intended. The Second Amendment — as every citizen’s constitutional right — is now a real part of American Constitutional law.

But, Supreme Court decisions have to lead to actual consequences or the whole premise of American constitutional authority collapses. Individual freedom must mean you can actually experience it. An incorporated freedom has to be a real freedom.

The intent of the founding fathers — and the Supreme Court — was to provide access. Words must have meaning.

The Supreme Court has now said the Second Amendment is an individual freedom for all. And that must have meaning. This decision must provide relief to law-abiding citizens who are deprived of their Second Amendment rights.

I’m a practical guy. I don’t want to win on philosophy and lose on freedom. The end question is, can law-abiding men and women go out and buy and own a firearm? Today the Supreme Court said yes – anywhere they live!

This decision cannot lead to different measures of freedom, depending on what part of the country you live in. City by city, person by person, this decision must be more than a philosophical victory. An individual right is no right at all if individuals can’t access it. Proof of Heller and McDonald will be law abiding citizens, one by one, purchasing and owning firearms.

The NRA will work to ensure this constitutional victory is not transformed into a practical defeat by activist judges, defiant city councils, or cynical politicians who seek to pervert, reverse, or nullify the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision through Byzantine labyrinths of restrictions and regulations that render the Second Amendment inaccessible, unaffordable, or otherwise impossible to experience in a practical, reasonable way.

What good is a right without the gun? What good is the right if you can’t buy one? Or keep one in your home? Or protect your family with one?

Here’s a piece of paper – protect yourself. That’s no right at all!

Victory is when law abiding men and women can get up, go out, and buy and own a firearm. This is a monumental day. But NRA will not rest until every law-abiding American citizen is able to exercise the individual right to buy and own a firearm for self defense or any other lawful purpose.