Sounds like a good candidate, but anti-establishment candidates haven't been doing very well so far this cycle.

Progressives Today

Neil Steinberg, writer for the Chicago Sun Times, saw how easy it was for other journalists to waltz into a gun shop and walk out with a child slaughtering, full auto, death machine, exactly like the one that the Navy Marine Rangers use (leftist talk there), so he decided to try it Des Plaines, Illinois. Only this didn’t quite go according to plan.

In addition to a mandatory 24 hour waiting period in Illinois, it turns out Mr. Steinberg has a troubled past of alcohol abuse and domestic violence, so he was denied the sale.

This isn't just hilarious, it's actually a crime. And unlike the usual journalists who break gun laws in minor (but legally very serious) ways without actually being a prohibited person, and thus are usually allowed to escape punishment, this journalist actually is a prohibited person. Allegedly, he has an admitted history of alcohol abuse and is facing a domestic violence charge. And he did it in the Chicago area.

The police might actually charge him.

If they do, other reporters might start to think twice about their damn stupid propaganda pieces and learn some sympathy for the legal minefield that anyone interested in owning firearms walks through on a regular basis.

LawNewz

As for keeping people whose names are on the FBI’s terror watch list and the no-fly list from buying a firearm, sensible as it may sound it would work a grave disservice to those whose names are there in error. These lists are compiled in secret and include people who have no specific evidence against them and whose names merely sound like, or are spelled like, someone else’s. The late Senator Edward Kennedy was surprised to find his name on the no-fly list. That list is classified so it is uncertain how many names are on it but estimates vary from 21,000 to 47,000. For the past five years the American Civil Liberties Union has challenged the law’s operation. Last year the ACLU complained that in twelve months the government’s secret list of suspected terrorists banned from flying to or within the United States had more than doubted. They estimated that 35% of the nominations to the terrorist lists were outdated while the government no-fly list included tens of thousands of names placed on the lists without any adequate factual basis. Nor has the government any way to correct these errors and permit people to clear their names. The ACLU has been suing to change the list’s redress process to provide meaningful due process. Their challenge is on behalf of fifteen American citizens and lawful residents who found themselves on the list unable to fly. These include two Marine Corps veterans, one of whom is disabled, a US Army veteran, and a US Air Force veteran. Now these individuals and others like them would also be stripped of their basic right to be armed for their self-defense.

Ironically many of the people who demanded American intelligence agencies be stripped of the ability to track bank transactions and monitor patterns of telephone calls to and from suspected terrorist groups, tactics they see as threats to privacy and speech rights, insist on depriving individual Americans of their right to be armed on the mere suspicion they pose a danger. If we are to prevent further attacks it is imperative that the political conversation shift, and shift promptly to better ways to track terrorists and combat the terror threat from ISIS.

Only one point of disagree. We were tracking the Orlando terrorist pretty well. He was on law enforcement radar multiple times. He got investigated multiple times. He got put on the watch list multiple times. The problem is, no one ever actually did anything about it. And as a result, rather than being charged with a crime and put on the NICS forbidden list (which wouldn't have stopped him, but might have made it harder for him), he was simply cleared by the investigations and taken off the list

It's not better tracking we need. It's a willingness to prosecute the smaller stuff, even if the suspected terrorist hasn't received a personal kill mission from ISIS leadership,.

Watch lists and gun bans are worthless at preventing terrorism, but they can help in identifying individuals who deserve focused attention from local law enforcement for any minor acts of violence or threatening behavior they commit. We can't throw them in jail for things they haven't done yet, but often there are things they have done that could put them there.

New York Post

Other videos [by the father of the Orlando terrorist] are full of anti-US rhetoric regarding America’s military role in Afghanistan. That influence may have showed up in his 29-year-old son’s statement to a 911 operator during the mass shooting.

“He said the reason he was doing this was he wanted America to stop bombing his country,” said a survivor who overheard the conversation.

His father’s anti-American views may have seeped into the terrorist’s psyche at an earlier age. High-school classmates recall a 14-year-old Mateen jumping up and down and cheering the attacks on 9/11. “That’s what America deserves,” he reportedly exclaimed, while praising Osama bin Laden.

[Emphasis added]

Note well, the Orlando terrorist is technically an American citizen, because he was born here, but he does not consider himself an American. America is not "his" country. Afghanistan is his country.

Being born in the United States, and even growing up here, is no longer enough to make someone accept that they are an American. Part of that is our bizarre educational fetish with self-hatred and self-criticism. Part of it is the media's constant pounding of their "citizen of the world" viewpoint.

But the "why" doesn't matter as much as the simple fact. If we do not fix the problems that are causing this sense of alienation from America, we will no longer have a nation at all. That requires a change our immigration policies to keep out those who will not accept America as their home and their nation with a certain amount of patriotism and national pride.

Twitchy

On “Meet the Press” Sunday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Chuck Todd that only partial transcripts of Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen’s calls with law enforcement will be released. All of his “pledges of allegiance to terrorist groups”? Yeah — you don’t get to read or hear those

Obama is desperately trying to shape the narrative around this attack to be anything but terrorism. After all, he's determined to never let a crisis go to waste.

Breitbart

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says he be may be “open” to placing new gun controls on law-abiding citizens following the terror attack on Pulse Orlando.

It's time and past time for Mitch to go.

Daily Caller

One month after the San Bernardino terrorist attack that left 14 innocent people dead [and several months before the Orlando terrorist attack that left 49 innocent people dead and another 50 wounded at the hands of a registered Democrat and government employee], Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told advisors that right wing extremists pose just as much of a threat to the country as Islamic extremists.

[Editorial comment added]

When was the last time a true "right wing extremist" committed mass murder? The left blames the right for every single attack, but a closer examination of the facts usually shows that the murderers are mentally ill lunatics with no coherent ideology, terrorists with a noticeable left-wing ideology (including some who helped our current president launch his political career), or adherents to islamic jihad. To see something different, you have to go back to either 1995 (the Oklahoma City bombing, done arguably in retaliation for the government's actions at Waco) or the Chattanoga murderer, whose pathetic attempts to find someone willing to be a comrade-in-racism with him were notable for their utter failure.

But blaming the right fits into the gun control narrative and avoids the cognitive dissonance of self-examination by the party of racism, terrorism, and tyranny.

National Public Radio

Until now, what's been missing is a list of the nonprofit groups that got special scrutiny — a list that presumably would show whether the agency had a political agenda or not.

Now, thanks to filings in a federal lawsuit in Ohio, there is such a list, with 426 names on it. And yes, it's top-heavy with conservative groups. ...

In all, 282 conservative groups were on the IRS list, about two-thirds of the total number of groups that got additional scrutiny. ... Whatever the IRS meant to do, this hodgepodge of a list illustrates how the agency bollixed the nonprofit application process. Now the partisan controversy seems to have knocked the agency out of its enforcer's role as nonprofit groups move deeper into politics.

Now that there's finally a list -- which the IRS fought to keep hidden for years -- at least some on the left are finally beginning to admit there might have once been a problem. And this is with a list that the IRS may well have padded with "progressive" groups after realizing they were being investigated for their illegal activities.

Investors Business Daily has the details.

... and the people who run the mosque are lying about it.

Michelle Malkin

Gun-grabbers and bleeding hearts, wake up and stop playing Mickey Mouse politics. The problem isn't weapons. It's the weaponized Muslim hate-mongers and jihad enablers operating openly in our midst.

Read the whole thing.

Jihad Watch

Belgian authorities arrested 12 people after conducting anti-terror raids in Brussels and across the country amid press reports of a plot to attack fans gathering to watch a Belgium soccer game.

Security forces raided a string of properties and 152 lock-up garages on Friday night and in the early hours of Saturday, Belgium’s federal prosecutor in Brussels said in an e-mailed statement. Prime Minister Charles Michel called for calm and said public events will go ahead with a heightened level of security. The country’s terror alert will remain at level 3 out of 4.

“The security services have obviously been extremely vigilant,” Michel told reporters after an emergency meeting with cabinet members and counter-terror chiefs. “We will continue our fight against extremism, against radicalism, against terrorism.”

12 people arrested, and 152 lock up garages (?) raided. I assume the lock-up garages are something like storage rentals in the US.

The Liberty Zone

Last night, Rob and I decided to go see the new Independence Day movie – the sequel to the 1996 blockbuster that featured Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum, among others. But whereas the original Independence Day was fun and exciting, and didn’t take itself too seriously, and featured plenty of action and pyrotechnics, ID: Resurgence was a slow, stupid, hole-filled disaster filled with bad acting, bad storytelling, bad dialogue, bad social justice messaging, and decent CGI, which was about the only good thing I can say about this movie.

How bad was it?

It was two hours of my life I’ll never get back bad.

It was should have been named “ID: Regurgitation” bad.

Yeah, it was bad. Don't bother.

Jihad Watch

Authorities have never shown any interest whatsoever in the phenomenon of conversion to Islam and the question of why so many converts turn to jihad and treason, but the Crawfords are a living illustration of why this lack of interest is dangerously myopic. Look at how often this hate-filled couple has demonstrated why they’re a danger to society

It's one thing when you have a an isolated report. When the same people start showing up in reports again and again, it becomes clear there really is a problem.

Legal Insurrection

It was, of all people, Sam Stein of the Huffington Post who asked the killer question. Stein pointed out that Mateen was not on the no-fly or terrorist watch list, and had passed a background check. “So what is the actual legislative response” that would have stopped the Orlando attack? Johnson resorted to claiming that Congress had “a lot of ideas,” but could not name one that would have made a difference. He also repeatedly recited the new mantra: gun control is a matter of homeland security. Bottom line: the Dem clamor for gun control is a political stunt. It’s about increasing vote totals, not public safety.

That's what gun control has always been about. It has never been able to deliver real public safety benefits.

Shall Not Be Questioned

And remember, the Dems don’t want there to be any way for you to get off the list. They rejected the Coburn/NRA bill because it would provide for that. That’s because the goal is not to protect us from terrorists. The goal is to make as many people prohibited as possible so gun ownership becomes more burdensome and legally risky than it already is.

Read the whole thing for a first-hand account of how someone gets on the terror watch list, and why that's not a good reason to block a gun purchase.

It seems that the Orlando jihadi terrorist has lived his whole life flying red flags. From openly celebrating 9-11, to threatening mass murder over a pork burger incident, to talking about becoming a martyr, to sharing a mosque with a suicide bomber, to watching terrorist imam videos, to getting reported by security at Disney for casing the place, to threatening and stalking his coworkers, to beating his wife... everyone knew this guy was going to snap and commit mass murder. Except the FBI. Even though almost everyone told the FBI about him.

It's not immediately clear what went wrong with the multiple FBI investigations. Did the FBI back off voluntarily? Were they pressured by the Obama administration? How many other ticking time bombs are being ignored because they haven't committed mass murder yet?

NBC DFW

Wednesday morning, police said Waise went into the Texas Health Presbyterian Denton Center for Women at 207 North Bonnie Brae and insisted those inside take the Quran from him and to give it to the Chaplin "or die." According to his arrest affidavit, Waise also told an employee that the hospital would "go down."...At this point, it is unclear why Waise was in North Texas as he does not appear to have ties to the area. According to his passport, he was born in Iraq.

Aside from the presence of the islamic book and his birthplace, this guy seems like a garden variety lunatic spiraling slowly towards violence.

Washington Examiner

The Obama administration is moving ahead with a key part of its climate regulations despite the rules being placed on hold by the Supreme Court.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposal Thursday detailing a Clean Energy Incentive Program meant to drive states' adoption of renewable energy to meet the demands of the agency's far-reaching Clean Power Plan, which is being challenged in federal appeals court by more than two dozen states and dozens of other groups.

The Obama Administration is determined to ram as much as it can through the door before the elections and the new president takes office.

TaxProf

Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles? Health and Human Services “Special Office of Inspector General Agents” being trained by the Army’s Special Forces contractors? The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700 employees?

The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history. Over the last 20 years, the number of these federal officers with arrest-and-firearm authority has nearly tripled to over 200,000 today, from 74,500 in 1996.

What exactly is the Obama administration up to?

Obviously they need these guns to keep the peasants in line.

Prince Law

While vociferously stating that we must enact more laws to prevent individuals from violating the existing laws (such as those prohibiting murder), it appears that Columnist Ubinas’ has violated the law herself, in her haste to complete her assignment. As I am sure that she does not believe that she should be treated specially and that violators of the law must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, I am sure she will turn herself in and plead guilty to these offenses. Otherwise, her position would be quite hypocritical.

Read the whole thing at the link above for the details. I know I would like to see an indictment.

America's gun laws are far stricter than most non-gun-owners realize. When ordinary people make innocent mistakes, I support leniency. When reporters abuse their position of trust to spread propaganda about their pet political causes, and accidentally violate the law while doing so, I think the full force of the laws they are claiming don't exist should be thrown at them.

It won't ever happen, of course. They seem to have a political exception.

The Hill

Congress is “forfeiting” its power to the White House, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday during a speech from the Capitol.

"Our problem is not so much that the presidency, under both parties, keeps breaking the rules, though it does,” Ryan said. "Our problem is that Congress, under both parties, keeps forfeiting the game, yielding to the executive branch, giving the president a blank check.”

"This means more than just out-of-control spending,” Ryan added. "It means more chaos at the border. It means not being able to live out your faith. It means not being free.”

And who has been in charge while this has been happening, Ryan? First it was Boehner, but we kicked him out. Now it's you, and it's been you for close to a year now. It's an election year and you're firing up the rhetoric to claim you're going to reign in Washington, but you've had the power to do that for the past year and you've done jack shit.

Paul Ryan's primary opponent is Paul Nehlen. I don't know him and I'm not from Wisconsin, but sometimes these primaries send a national message. Don't be fooled by Ryan's last minute rhetoric. If you nominate Ryan, you'll get more of the same out of the GOPe.

The primary election is August 9th.

The Hill

President Obama on Thursday nominated a former CIA officer and longtime lawyer who examined missteps in U.S. intelligence to be the spy agency’s next inspector general, hoping to fill a position at the watchdog office that’s been vacant for more than a year.

If confirmed by the Senate, Shirley Woodward would fill the role left empty since David Buckley stepped down from in January 2015, on the heels of a landmark determination that CIA officials had gained unauthorized access to Senate computer files. Lawmakers called the episode a potential violation of constitutional separation of powers, and the spat led to one of the bitterest moments in relations between the spy agency and its congressional overseers in recent history.

Funny how he appoints a CIA watchdog on his way out the door. I wonder how long into his successor's term this AG will be investigating things?

PJMedia

In 2011, while working as a college English instructor and writing articles for this and other sites about corruption in education, I set up a website called Dissident Prof with my own funds and by working in my basement. After one of my long-time readers sent an unsolicited $500 donation, I decided to apply for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.

Thus began the ordeal with the IRS. I suffered through fifteen months of stonewalling followed by demands to quickly meet a financial and ideological inquisition.

I am now a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against the IRS...

The wheels of justice turn slowly, but we can hope they still grind exceedingly fine.

Daily Caller

One of the sitting members on the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s (HSAC) Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism is a 25-year-old immigrant of Syrian heritage who said that the 9/11 attacks “changed the world for good” and has consistently disparaged America, free speech and white people on social media.

With these people advising the government on how to avoid terrorist attacks, is it any wonder that we get more terrorist attacks?