Kid Shot for Playing a Prank

There was an ugly incident recently in Kentucky. Apparently a group of kids were going around at night ringing doorbells and then running away, as a prank. But when they approached one man's house, he came out with a shotgun. Despite the fact that they ran away, he proceeded to fire, hitting a 12-year old in the back.

"From the base of skull and jaw beyond his lower back and into his right arm as well," ... "He has 50 pellet wounds. That is only one that was removed during surgery. He is going to be carrying around buckshot for the rest of his life."

Luckily, it looks like he's going to be okay. The reason I'm posting on this story is that it was also picked up by the Huffington Post. Check out the comments. There are a significant amount of people actually defending the shooter, or basically saying that even though he went too far, the kid had it coming.

I'm about as pro-gun and pro-self defense as you can get, but this guy gives gun owners a bad name. I've read multiple accounts of this story and find no information that these kids were doing anything other than ringing doorbells and running away. I don't care how annoying it is, you can't shoot them -- especially when they run from you. There's no defense for this idiot's actions, and it's a travesty that he was released on only 10,000 dollars bail. Someone that would do such a thing is a clear and obvious threat. He's apparently unable to distinguish the difference between an irritating but harmless situation, and one justifying lethal force. What's next, attempting to kill some kid who cuts across his lawn?

Tim Pawlenty and Bryan Fischer

While skimming through the left-wing blogosphere, I came across a post at Right Wing Watch about an interview former Minnesota Governor and presumed GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty did on the radio show of Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. Pawlenty has been talked about as a potential presidential candidate since before the 2008 election. I still don't know that much about him, but the fact that he's doing interviews with Bryan Fischer automatically makes me take a more negative view of him.

Right Wing Watch may be a biased left-wing site, but if you look through its links on Bryan Fischer, you will see plenty of examples of his own words that illustrate just how much of an embarrassment he is to any rational person on the right. I recently wrote a post in response to his ludicrous and offensive assertion that the Medal of Honor has been "feminized." As someone who takes a realistic view of politics, I understand that would-be presidential candidates have to interact with some extreme elements of their party bases. But on a visceral level, the fact that Pawlenty appears on Fischer's show and grants him a measure of legitimacy makes me recoil. In my opinion, GOP candidates would be best served by keeping contacts with the likes of Bryan Fischer to a minimum.

Guess Who Is Getting Stimulus Money?

Today I actually visited a place benefiting from government stimulus money. In the lobby of the building was a large poster mounted on foamboard and set on an easel. It proclaimed that the location was a recipient of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and detailed all sorts of remodelling plans, right down to replacing lightbulbs with new "energy efficient" ones. 

When I saw the poster I was pretty surprised. I go to this building often on business and have been through multiple floors. Overall, at least to outward appearances, the building is in fine shape and well-maintained. I've never had a problem with the elevators, haven't seen any damage, and never noticed so much as a blown out lightbulb. Yet for some reason this place is getting federal stimulus money.

If you haven't guessed yet, the building happens to be a Federal Building. That's right, it's part of the U.S. federal government. Our government is taking taxpayer money, supposedly intended to stimulate the economy, and using it to remodel one of its own buildings -- and one that doesn't even appear to need any work done. Not only are they doing it, they are so proud of the effort that they put up a display poster announcing it. You can't miss the sign after you pass through security. 

Going Too Far

Normally I'm a big proponent of citizens defending themselves against criminals with lethal force. But a home owner in Detroit went way too far. Tigh Croff's house had be broken into "three times in the last week." It's understandable that he'd be pretty angry when he found two men in his backyard yesterday. But they ran away. He chased after them and one got away. The other one? Well, this is what happened.

The other stopped running, turned around, put his hands up and, according to a police source, taunted the 31-year-old homeowner.

“What are you going to do?” Herbert Silas of Detroit reportedly asked, his hands still in the air. “Shoot me?”

“Absolutely,” Croff told investigators he replied before pulling the trigger, the source said. Silas was hit once in the chest, killing him.

If Silas had been in Croff's house, or possibly even still in his yard, depending on his actions, I'd be defending the shooting, and congratulating Croff on ridding the area of a criminal. But when someone runs away, you can't chase them down and then shoot them because they taunt you. I'm not sure how Croff thought that was a justifiable killing. Silas was unarmed, not acting threatening, and it's not even clear he was a burglar, or had done anything beyond trespassing. Croff went from a man defending his property, to a maniac killing someone for something they said. He's been charged with second-degree murder, and rightly so.

I was unhappy to see that Croff is a licensed gun owner. If you are going to purchase a gun, it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the circumstances in which deadly force is justified. I'm not one for blindly following the law. If your life, or the security of your family is threatened, you should err on the side of eliminating the threat, rather than following the letter of the law. But we really don't need gun owners who think it's ok to kill an unarmed, unresisting, unthreatening man outside their property, simply because they've been burglarized in the past, caught someone trespassing, and he dared taunt them.  

Obama's Foreign Policy Incompetence -- Latin American Version

Few things illustrate the foreign policy incompetence of the Obama administration better than its handling of the situation in Honduras. I've written about this before, but there's a new article up at the Washington Post called, "Honduran election puts U.S. in a spot," that further lays out just how badly Obama screwed up. Not only did he bully an ally and attempt to intimidate it into restoring a president hostile to American interests, but he's managed to put the U.S. in a situation where pretty much everyone is dissatisfied with our behavior. It's one thing to incur the anger of other countries because you acted in the U.S. interest. But Obama acted against our interests, and still made everyone unhappy. As the article states,

The Obama administration finds itself accused by regional allies and others of abandoning its commitment to democracy for a more pragmatic solution.

Never mind that it had little to do with "democracy," or that most of the countries complaining couldn't care less about it.

"This will leave a bad aftertaste in people's mouths, the way the U.S., rightly or wrongly, rushed to condemn the coup, then for its own reasons, tried to backpedal," said Chris Sabatini, policy director at the business group Council of the Americas. "It will make the U.S. less of a trustworthy partner diplomatically."

Countries are generally expected to act in their own best interests. But countries that are fumbling, indecisive and led by clueless incompetents are clearly not trustworthy diplomatic partners. States that stab allies in the back to curry favor with others generally don't engender a great deal of trust either. In his actions toward Honduras, Obama projected weakness, indecision and stupidity, and acted against the best interests of the U.S. And in return, he got nothing but irritation, dislike or outright contempt. Great job.

Obama & McChrystal

The blogosphere is buzzing over the Telegraph report that General McChrystal "shocked and angered presidential advisers [and the president himself] with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week." For those out of the loop, the general basically gave a strong push for a counterinsurgency strategy requiring more troops, while rejecting any notions of switching to a "strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda." He also took a direct shot at Vice-president Biden's ideas.

My take on this is that if the president didn't want McChrystal to speak his mind, he should have told him so. Given that the Obama administration is reevaluating its strategic options for Afghanistan, it would have been wise to get everyone on the same page. Make it clear down the chain of command that no one was to give independent recommendations or pronouncements. General McChrystal should have been informed that he was to bring his ideas only to the administration, not the public. That this wasn't done is yet another example of Obama's inexperience in action. 

The military leadership has been widely criticized for not speaking out more loudly and forcefully regarding their misgivings about Iraq strategy, and instead waiting until after retirement to conveniently claim that they opposed things that turned out badly. McChrystal clearly has a strong opinion regarding the correct Afghanistan strategy, and isn't going to be a scapegoat for the possible failure of a strategic approach he doesn't believe in. That appears to be why he's speaking out. The administration should have recognized that the general might decide to speak publicly and ordered him not to, preventing the whole situation.

Obama now has only bad options. If he fires McChrystal it will look like he refuses to listen to one of his top commanders. He'll be criticized, especially from the right, for ignoring expert military advice. If he does nothing and ends up adopting McChrystal's strategy, he looks weak, unable to control a subordinate. He'll be attacked from the left for expanding the war based on the advice of generals who always want more troops.

Another Torture Hypothetical

The CIA receives word that a small group of Pakistani tribesman have captured someone they claim is an Al Qaeda leader, and they are willing to sell him to the highest bidder. A CIA team secretly enters Pakistan to see for themselves and to possibly negotiate for custody of the prisoner. They are shocked to find that the Pakistanis are holding Ayman Al-Zawahiri. They arrange payment, take custody, and transfer Zawahiri to a secret detainment facility within Afghanistan.

During his transfer the Al Qaeda leader is uncommunicative. But when CIA interrogators start to question him, he says something like,

"You have captured me, but it does not matter. Our plans are already in motion. Our next strike will bring your evil country to its knees, and you cannot stop it." After that statement he refuses to respond to any questions, except by spouting Islamist slogans or with abuse for the interrogators. No matter what is tried, Zawahiri answers with silence, slogans, or abuse. So what do we do then? Here are the basic options:

1. Accept no information as an answer. Keep trying standard interrogation methods in the hope that they will eventually produce. In the meantime, hope that his comments about a major attack were nothing more than empty bluster.

2. Transfer him to an allied country, such as Egypt, known for its ability to violently extract information from unresponsive prisoners.

3. Utilize certain coercive measures, including torture, ourselves.

Terrorist rights supporters have only one option, #1: hope. The rest of us have options 2 & 3. Option two, the equivalent of what has been termed "extraordinary rendition," has advantages and disadvantages.  The advantages are that it allows the U.S. to keep some distance from unsavory & illegal interrogation methods, and it makes use of the talents of a country that has a great deal of experience torturing prisoners. But on the downside, involving another state causes all sorts of problems. It doesn't allow the U.S. to retain total control, increases the chance of a security breach, exposes possible intelligence to another state, and if the rendition is discovered, carries almost as much of stigma as if we simply tortured the prisoner ourselves. In my opinion, option three makes the most sense in this case. It may produce useful intelligence, or it may not. But it is better than relying on hope.

Gay Marriage Ruling in Iowa

Many gay rights supporters are celebrating the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage in the state. I'm not, even though I am a strong supporter of legalizing gay marriage. Having courts create imaginary rights out of thin air, and alter existing legislation based on nothing more than their own opinion, is exactly the wrong way to go about legalizing gay marriage. It was the route taken by California, and it produced a major backlash.

The court's arbitrary change in Iowa law rests on nothing but its opinion, an opinion that could change should the court's composition change. It could be affected by rewritten legislation, and of course be overruled by a constitutional amendment -- as in California. Judges are not on courts to make up new laws, or suddenly change existing laws based on their personal political viewpoints. Their action makes gay marriage in Iowa illegitimate to everyone who disagrees with their decision, undercuts the political process, and probably will produce hostility toward gays. As in California it could cause a backlash which makes it more difficult to eventually legalize gay marriage through the normal political process, and it may also damage gay marriage efforts in other states.

Vermont, which already passed a gay marriage bill in its state senate, has sent it to the house, where they are attempting to muster enough votes to override an expected veto. Whether it passes or fails, this is the right way to attempt to legalize gay marriage. 

UPDATE/RETRACTION

I just read a post at The Victorious Opposition that pretty much destroys my argument about the court's action in this case. The author states,

This isn’t about judicial activism. It’s about interpreting the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution under Iowa precedents. It does not find a new right; it finds an exclusion from an already-guaranteed right, on the basis of a suspect classification.

The post quotes extensively from the actual decision in support of these points, and it is convincing. I made incorrect assumptions and should have read the full decision before reacting to the court's action on the basis of initial news reports. I now believe that the court acted appropriately and did not just create an imaginary right out of thin air as I argued above.

The Freeman Affair

The controversial pick of Charles Freeman to head to the National Intelligence Council has generated numerous posts throughout the blogosphere, with left-wingers generally in support, and the right mostly opposed.  I have two main thoughts on the pick. First, as an appointed position not subject to Congressional approval, I think the president should get to have whoever he wants. On the other hand, I think Freeman is a terrible choice. From reading the various excerpts of his statements that have appeared in the news, it appears that he's quite chummy with the Saudis, takes what I view as an appeasement position with regard to terrorism, and of course is not exactly pro-Israel. Also, he's gained a lot of support on the left, and that's a giant red flag right there. He strikes me as a typical state department type in many respects, and not someone I'd like to see heading the NIC. So although I think the president has the right to choose anyone he wants, I hope the protests from members of Congress persuade him to change his mind and appoint someone else.

UPDATE

The Washington Times reports that Director of National Intelligence nominated Freeman without getting the president's approval, and didn't bother to check out his financial connections to foreign countries.

"The director did not seek the White House's approval," Ms. Morigi said. "In addition to his formal background security investigation, we expect that the White House will undertake the typical vetting associated with senior administration assignments."

Why has the Obama administration done such a terrible job coming up with solid, trouble-free nominations? How many nominees have there been that didn't have some sort of problem? I'm waiting to hear that Freeman also has upaid taxes.

UPDATE2 Freeman withdraws. Good riddance.

Gallup Poll on 2012 GOP Candidates

A new Gallup poll shows that Palin, Romney & Huckabee -- in that order -- are the leading choice of Republicans and "Republican-leaning independents" in 2012.  Hopefully Republicans can come up with some better options before then.  Let's consider these three in reverse order.

Huckabee.  An populist who likes to mix his religious beliefs with policy, and who isn't particularly conservative except on social issues.  No thanks.  He's my least favorite of the three.

Romney.  Mitt seems like a decent guy, is an ok speaker, and is the best on economic policy.  He's my top choice of the three.  But his campaign this year didn't exactly catch fire.  He couldn't even get the nomination in a fairly weak field of candidates.  Why would he do better in 2012?

Palin.  Much of the base loves her, but I think that's as much a reaction to the insane hatred & smears of her by the left as anything else. Other than energy and her social conservative positions, what do we actually know about her policy views? Does anyone really think she has a good grasp of national issues? What about her performance during the campaign actually makes people think she'd be a good candidate in 2012? She gave a good acceptance speech and was great at the convention.  From then on it was all downhill. Why does she deserve a shot at the top of the ticket?