The LA Times reports gun sales are up in the wake of last week's election. The Denver Post reported last week the election has spurred a rush on gun sales in Colorado due to fears an Obama Adminstration will restrict Second Amendment gun rights. The Kansas City Star recently reported gun sales are up all over the country since October, when Obama seemed poised to win the election. Sales are also up in Iowa.

I have a post at 5280.com today asking whether this is a rational fear or propaganda from the National Rifle Association (NRA)? FactCheck.Org says the NRA's claims are false. [More...]

Believe it or not, beyond the blog pi**ing contests, John Brennan's potential role in an Obama Administration matters a lot. Digby explains why:

On torture, there can be no more blurring of definitions. . . . The CIA needs to know up front that Obama will not have their back if they engage in torture --- and that the torture legal framework under Bush is no longer operative in any way. There really is no other choice on this and I expect that he will do it. He knows very well that his foreign policy will be in complete shambles the minute it is leaked --- and it will be --- that the Obama administration has sanctioned torture, either through commission or omission. His great opportunity across the world to prove that America has changed will be lost.

If this is concern trolling, then we should all be concern trolls.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Many thanks to Newsweek and the Media Bloggers' Association for including me and TalkLeft in its campaign blog, "The Ruckus." For months, every post we wrote on the election also appeared at The Ruckus. Now that the election is behind us, the Ruckus is disbanding. [More...]

They got me. You see I wrote this:

I am sorry to continue to harp on the need for a Unity Ticket, but I feel it is important. . . . [I]s no one but me worried about needing a unified Democratic Party in November? I pray there are grownups in the Obama camp that will give him a reality check on this.

See what a concern troll I was? I wanted a Unity Ticket!! You see, I thought that was the surest (the Cult does not understand the concept of maximizing your chances) bet for winning in November. But the funny thing is they could have gone even further back. I wanted a Unity ticket after Super Tuesday. But I guess they missed my August 6, 2008 post explaining Why Obama Is A Shoo In And How He Can Win In a Landslide:

Boy, was I ever wrong about Baucus on health care. Steve M., you were right. Baucus proposes:

Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a health-care blueprint released today that only a mandate could ensure people didn't wait until they were ill to buy health insurance, forcing up the price for everyone. The 89-page proposal revives a debate from the Democratic presidential primaries about how to overhaul the U.S. health- care system. Obama supported requiring coverage only for children, saying adults would buy coverage voluntarily if it were affordable. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York said insurance must be mandated for everyone.

[More...]

I never cared for Obama's (and Edwards') phony attacks on lobbyists. But the Cult was quite enthused about it. I wonder what they think about this:

President-elect Barack Obama, who vowed during his campaign that lobbyists "won't find a job in my White House," said through a spokesman yesterday that he would allow lobbyists on his transition team as long as they work on issues unrelated to their earlier jobs. Obama's transition chief laid out ethics rules - which also bar transition staff from lobbying the administration for one year if they become lobbyists later - and portrayed them as the strictest ever for a transfer of presidential power.

[More...]

The Cult is riled up. The funny thing is the Cult, as usual, never actually addresses what is written and then makes stuff up. Indeed, this is the Cult's modus operandi:

I am not going to go through the TalkLeft archives and dig up where BTD gravely intones that Obama can not win the white vote, can not win the Jewish vote, can not win the Hispanic vote, and on and on. I will not dig up all the stupid god damned advice he gave to the Obama campaign(which they, thank GOD, ignored). I will not look up the umpteen posts where the left’s own pompous village idiot warned that Obama could not win without Hillary on the ticket. I will not dig up the polling data that he consistently misread and always curiously interpreted as showing a need for Hillary on the ticket.

The Cult will not because it can not. No such posts exist. I remind my dear readers and the Cult of two words that I used - "shoo-in." Before most. Those who actually can read and actually read my posts know precisely what I wrote. Indeed, what I wrote about John Brennan, a name not mentioned in The Cult's manic response. But do remember this from the Cult: [More...]

Michael Daniels, the Mayor of Pleasant Grove City, Utah, is dancing on a tightrope as he explains why the City accepted "an imposing red granite monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments" for display in a city park, but won't accept for display a monument that depicts the Seven Aphorisms of the Summum religion. A similar dance will be performed in the Supreme Court tomorrow as the Court hears argument about the constitutionality of that choice.

The First Amendment prohibits government from establishing a religion. A corollary to that prohibition is that government may not favor one religion over another. So why is Pleasant Grove City not improperly favoring Christianity's Ten Commandments over the Summum's Seven Aphorisms? Mayor Daniels' explanations are unconvincing.

[more ...]

This 2006 post asked Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to pardon the Norfolk Four. Four sailors confessed to raping and murdering Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk after they were threatened with the death penalty if they maintained their innocence. The evidence is strong that a different man is telling the truth when he says that he committed the crime alone.

Perhaps Gov. Kaine will do the right thing this year, now that 30 retired FBI agents who reviewed the case have concluded that the servicemen are innocent.

The former agents join a long list of unusual supporters, including four former Virginia attorneys general; 12 former state and federal judges and prosecutors; and a past president of the Virginia Bar Association, who have called for the men to be pardoned.

One sailor has been released from prison but three others are serving life sentences. What are you waiting for, Gov. Kaine? Give them an early Christmas present. Send them home to their families where they belong.

The Justice Department diverted funds that Congress designated for terrorism prosecutions to the prosecution of other crimes, according to an audit (pdf) by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine. From 2003 to 2007, Congress funded positions for 250 to 293 prosecutors to focus on terrorism. During that time, the Justice Department never assigned more than 204 prosecutors to terrorism cases. U.S. Attorneys used some of the funding to prosecute other crimes, including health care fraud and drug distribution. The audit also concluded that the U.S. Attorneys underutilized available resources.

While this AP story contends that the audit "raises questions about how prosecutors around the country allocate their time among top crime-fighting priorities," U.S. Attorneys aren't to blame for using their prosecutors where they're needed. No matter how much money Congress wants to allocate to terrorism prosecution, there just aren't many credible terrorist threats to prosecute. Prosecutors can convene grand jury investigations and prepare search warrant applications and otherwise assist federal agents with their investigations, but if those investigations go nowhere (as they so often have), the prosecutors are wasting their time and our money. U.S. Attorneys can assign prosecutors to chat with each other about the unproductive terrorism investigations they're leading, or they can assign those prosecutors to useful work.

[more ...]

As expected, the Obama Cult does not like to read any questioning of their Dear Leader. They demand we all STFU. For the non-Cultists among you, let me introduce you to one John Brennan:

Q: Assess the debate in Congress and with the administration over reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. [Democratic lawmakers allowed the temporary extension of that law, the Protect America Act, to expire, over the vehement objections of the White House.] Why has it come to this point where politics has arguably pulled things off the rails?

Brennan: There is this great debate over whether or not the telecom companies should in fact be given immunity for their agreement to provide support and cooperate with the government after 9/11. I do believe strongly that they should be granted that immunity, because they were told to do so by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context, and so I think that's important. . . . [Director of National Intelligence] Mike McConnell, I think, did a very good job trying to articulate the distinctions between the old FISA law, the FISA understanding under the Protect America Act, and then the House and Senate.

John Brennan is heading the Obama transition on intelligence issues. In the Wall Street Journal article cited today (and the WSJ news pages are not the WSJ opinion page, Obama Bots), the following is written:

Change we can believe in?

As a candidate, Mr. Obama said the CIA's interrogation program should adhere to the same rules that apply to the military, which would prohibit the use of techniques such as waterboarding. He has also said the program should be investigated.

[But], [u]pon review, Mr. Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.

You see the proposal is to have greater oversight over the torture. Change we can believe in!

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only