Bloomberg Full Of It On Guns

Even as his own NYPD army continues to gun down people with near impunity in NYC, Michael Bloomberg is going on an anti-gun offensive all across the nation:

The mayor’s advertising blitz, which will saturate television screens in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona, represents by far the biggest escalation of Mr. Bloomberg’s attempts to become a one-man counterweight to the National Rifle Association in the political clash over guns.
      

“The N.R.A. has just had this field to itself,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “It’s the only one that’s been speaking out. It’s time for another voice.”

Bloomberg's PAC will target politicians all across the country:

Given the mayor’s role in contributing to the ouster of an N.R.A.-backed candidate in an Illinois Congressional race a few weeks ago, his push carries an unmistakable threat to those who vote against the bills.
       

The ads are directed at Democratic and Republican senators in both swing states and partisan precincts. Among Mr. Bloomberg’s targets are some of the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats, including Kay R. Hagan of North Carolina, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark L. Pryor of Arkansas, for whom the gun issue is particularly problematic because they will need Republican votes to win re-election.

      

Some of the senators, such as Dean Heller of Nevada, Rob Portman of Ohio and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, all Republicans, represent swing states where voters are divided over guns. Other Republicans would seem to be out of reach for Mr. Bloomberg: Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Daniel Coats of Indiana and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

      

In each case, the commercials urge support for the measure requiring background checks for nearly all firearms purchases, not just those in gun stores, the most debated element of the legislation and a coveted goal of gun control advocates.

      

Mr. Bloomberg has singled out Mr. Flake, who already voted against the expansion of background checks in the Senate Judiciary Committee, by producing a special, scolding commercial aimed at Arizona. “Flake’s vote,” the ad declares, equals “no background checks for dangerous criminals.”

      

The mayor, who has spent tens of millions of dollars to support his favored candidates, intends to wield his “super PAC” to influence the midterm Congressional elections next year and beyond. He said he would prefer “candidates who will stop people from getting killed.”

 

The mayor's desire to stop people from getting killed does not extend to putting an independent monitor in place to be a watchdog over the NYPD, of course, even though the NYPD have been  trigger happy over the course of Bloomberg's three terms in office, shooting both unarmed suspects and innocent bystanders.

The mayor was on Meet The Toadies this morning to be fellated by David Gregory over the gun control issue, but not once did Gregory ask him if he's troubled by the shootings in NYC by the NYPD.

Like this one.

Or this one.

Or this one.

Or this.

Or these shootings.

It's hard to take Bloomberg's anti-gun offensive seriously when he clearly has no problem with his police department shooting people all the time - either suspects or innocent bystanders.

If Bloomberg wanting to put in place laws that will "stop people from getting killed," he would agree to putting an independent monitor in place.

But he refuses to do this and has spoken out quite forcefully against any NYC politician who is promoting such a monitor.

It would be nice if he the press would put these two issues together when they put him on their shows to sell his anti-gun offensive.

Because they are linked.

Obama Kills 12 People This Weekend

Our Nobel Peace Prize Winning President continues to slaughter "terrorists":

Ten more people have been killed by a US drone strike against suspected militants in Pakistan, with the aircraft firing its missiles into a gathering mourning one of two fighters killed in a similar atttack the previous day.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials say four missiles were fired at the village of Mana Raghzai in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan on Sunday morning.

At the time of the attack, suspected militants had gathered to offer condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another US unmanned drone attack on Saturday. The brother was one of those who died in the Sunday morning attack. The Pakistani officials said two of the dead were foreigners and the rest were Pakistani.

It brought to 12 the total number of people killed in two days and was the sixth American drone strike over the last two weeks. The US government considers the drone campaign a vital tool in the war against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Paul Harris of The Guardian puts the president's slaughter of civilians in some context:

Yet it is the drone programme and "kill list" that have emerged as most central to Obama's hardline national security policy. In January 2009, when Obama came to power, the drone programme existed only for Pakistan and had seen 44 strikes in five years. With Obama in office it expanded to Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia with more than 250 strikes. Since April there have been 14 strikes in Yemen alone.

Civilian casualties are common. Obama's first strike in Yemen killed two families who were neighbours of the target. One in Pakistan missed and blew up a respected tribal leader and a peace delegation. He has deliberately killed American citizens, including the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September last year, and accidentally killed others, such as Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdul-Rahman.

The drone operation now operates out of two main bases in the US, dozens of smaller installations and at least six foreign countries. There are "terror Tuesday" meetings to discuss targets which Obama's campaign manager, David Axelrod, sometimes attends, lending credence to those who see naked political calculation involved.

Yet for some, politics seems moot. Obama has shown himself to be a ruthless projector of national security powers at home and abroad, but the alternative in the coming election is Republican Mitt Romney.

"Whoever gets elected, whether it's Obama or Romney, they are going to continue this very dangerous path," said Radack. "It creates a constitutional crisis for our country. A crisis of who we are as Americans. You can't be a free society when all this happens in secret."

Those of you prepared to re-elect Barack Obama because he is the lesser of two evils in an election match-up with Mitt Romney should note that even the lesser of two evils is still "evil."

And given the slaughter Barack Obama orders on a weekly basis, given the Bush administration surveillance state apparatus Obama has expanded, given the fascistic and secretive tendencies this man has, he is most definitely evil and belongs in a Gitmo jail cell next to George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld.

Axelrod, the political operative, attending the "Terror Tuesday" meetings.

That tells you everything you need to know about the policy and the people involved.

Guns Of Brixton