Here are my observations on items in the news.
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wants Second Amendment repealed. (Richard Drew/AP)
BRET STEPHENS FOR DUMMIES, PART 3 – Long time readers may recall my two-part blog piece, “Bret Stephens for Dummies,” on September 14, 2016 and October 26, 2016. They dealt with his insistence that Donald Trump was not suited for the job as president. Thanks goodness Stephens left The Wall Street Journal in April 2017 to become a columnist for The New York Times.
There’s no need for Stephens to masquerade as a conservative, most of us could read between the lines of his columns. “I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment,” he writes in his latest column that followed the Las Vegas shooting. Fetish!
Stephens obviously comes from the confiscate all weapons camp, which is, of course, laughable. Yet there are those who support whatever feasible incremental steps that inch further towards that goal, writes David Harsanyi, a senior editor at The Federalist, who examines Stephens’ views in his piece, “Come and Take Them, Bret Stephens.”
“I wonder what Madison would have to say about that today, when more than twice as many Americans perished last year at the hands of their fellows as died in battle during the entire Revolutionary War,” Stephens pondered.
“Setting aside the population scale,” responded Harsanyi, “Stephens might not know that one of the reasons the Federalists, including Madison, opposed the Second Amendment was that they believed concerns over protections from federal government were overblown because there were so many guns in the hands that it was unimaginable any tyrannical army could ever be more powerful than the general public.
If you’re not convinced that Stephens belongs in the looney bin of left-leaning journalists, note that he wrote, “Repealing the Amendment may seem like political Mission Impossible today, but in the era of same-sex marriage it’s worth recalling that most great causes begin as improbable ones.” Convinced?
NBC’s Chuck Todd claims he’s neutral. (likesuccess.com photo)
NBC’S CHUCK TODD MUST THINK WE’RE REALLY STUPID – During an interview by Ana Marie Cox for this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, “Chuck Todd Thinks It’s Important to Stay Neutral,” Todd would have readers believe he’s nonpartisan. After moderating Meet the Press for three years, Cox asked him if he sees his job ‘the same today as it was, say 10, months ago?” (When Trump became president)
“I feel the need to reinforce the wall between the news media and the politicians,” he said, “The wall has always been there, but sometimes there have been too many holes in it.”
If that neutrality is so important, one might ask (Cox didn’t) about his wife’s direct mail business that took in millions of dollars from the Bernie Sanders campaign, and their hosting a dinner to honor Hillary Clinton’s campaign communications manager Jennifer Palmieri and her husband. But there are those who believe it unfair to tie-in his wife’s business.
“Does Todd honestly think his wife’s lucrative business with Democrat campaigns are irrelevant to his “wall” of separation?” asks Tim Graham of the Media Research Center’s Newsbusters. Graham referred to the Times headline as “jaw dropping.” Indeed.
Rep. Linda Sanchez wants to be part of the new leadership in the Democrat Party. (C-SPAN screen grab)
UH OH, THERE’S TROUBLE AHEAD for Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA), who said it’s time for top Democrats – namely Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer – to step down from their leadership roles in Congress. “It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders and I want to be part of that transition,” Sanchez Tweeted, according to Bre Payton of The Federalist.
SHERIFF JOE Arpaio was back in the news with a brief announcement that Judge Susan Bolton, as a follow-on to his being pardoned by President Trump, has dismissed the guilty verdict against him with prejudice, meaning he can never be tried again. Case closed? No more piling on? Wrong. The left-leaning Arizona Republic’s liberal columnist, E.J. Montini, felt compelled to write still another attack on the sheriff, “Turns out Joe Arpaio IS above the law.”
Yes, that’s Nancy Sinatra, who wants “murderous members of the NRA to face a firing squad.” (Susan Walsh/AP)
NANCY SINATRA “BOOTS” FIRST TWEET in which she stated that she wanted to see “the murderous members of the NRA face a firing squad.” To clarify, she now says, “I didn’t say every one, I said the ‘murderous members of the NRA.’” Oh, well, that’s different. Right? She also went so far as to say the president is complicit in the murder of 59 innocent people. (Actually, it was 58 innocent people.) When is the left-leaning entertainment crowd going to realize that Hillary lost, and we don’t care what they think.
