conservatism

Stephen Dinan and Chuck Neubauer:

The Obama administration sought to intimidate witnesses into not testifying to Congress on Tuesday about whether ATF knowingly allowed weapons, including assault rifles, to be “walked” into Mexico, the chairman of a House committee investigating the program said in an interview Monday.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, said at least two scheduled witnesses expected to be asked about a controversial weapons investigation known as “Fast and Furious”received warning letters from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to limit their testimony.

That’s odd. Obama was elected president, yet he’s acting like a dictator.

Nicholas Ballasy at CNS News:

“The current, so-called ‘debt crisis’ has been completely manufactured by House Republicans attempting to advance an extremist agenda. This should be a simple vote to allow the US Treasury to fund all of the programs and obligations of the entire federal government that are already in the law,” said Rep. Lee in a statement handed out to reporters before a Democratic press conference on jobs at the Capitol.

Patently false. Your own president is the one using fear to advance his agenda. Let me lay the facts down, Lee. We spend more than we collect. The Republicans want to stop that. Is that an extremist agenda?

Michael Schwirtz at The New York Times:

Whether Officer Berntsen tried to stop the gunman is still being debated. But facing a man carrying multiple guns and ample ammunition, there was little he could do. Like most other police officers here, he had no weapon.

The naïvety of this policy is saddening.

“Criminals are now carrying weapons, so some people now think that police officers should have weapons as well,” said Gry Jorunn Holmen, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian police union. Though she said it was too early to make any assessments, Ms. Holmen said the union had formed a commission to explore the issue. For the police, she said, “it’s getting tougher.”

It’s amazing how a political viewpoint can cloud common sense in such a destructive way. Does Norway really not trust their finest to carry a weapon? Are their law enforcement officers so poorly behaved that they can’t be trusted with a firearm?

Pro tip, Norway: criminals have always carried weapons, and they always will. Arm your police officers (and your citizens) and you will all be safer for it.

Yaron Brook and Don Watkins at The Objectivist:

Wealth is created by, and morally belongs to the individual creator. As Rand observes, since “man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.”

One of the best pieces I’ve ever read on how wealth creation really works.