9 Comments - Siyotanka - Thursday, Jun 26, 08 @ 9:42 am: Kevin…Off topic… This just in… Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns Jun 26, 10:20 AM (ET) By MARK SHERMAN WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court says Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history. The court’s 5-4 ruling strikes down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision goes further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact. The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia. - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Jun 26, 08 @ 10:09 am: Being that we are all potential members of the public “militia”, we should expect the personal right to keep and bear arms as defined in the 2nd, and to have reasonable regulations on such to protect society from criminals and others who are not fit to serve in the militia. - Wumpus - Thursday, Jun 26, 08 @ 10:18 am: Obama, you avoided all the corruption? With a buddy like TOny Rezko and a mentor like Emil Jones, how? I am not saying that he is dirty, but that is a bold statement. - wordslinger - Thursday, Jun 26, 08 @ 10:19 am: A funny story is a great start to any day. I recommend the Lanny Davis story in the Sun-Times. In a nutshell: Mr. Davis is on a state pension board. He votes for and urges $100 million be thrown to an REIT. The REIT gets the money. He later takes a job with the REIT. But he stays on the pension board, seemingly in direct violation of state law, but promises not to vote anymore for his REIT. An appellate judge who was the board’s “ethics advisor” says that’s okay. Glad that’s all cleared up. Mr. Davis is to be commended for his elevated selflessness and duty to public service. He knows that he is irreplaceable in that unpaid pension board position. To expose oneself to the “appearance of a conflict of interest” in order to have a hand in the investment of hundreds of millions of pension dollars is a display of undaunted valor. I’m sure it is those qualities that led Mr. Rezko to recommend Mr. Davis for the job to Gov. Blagojevich. And for those who would dare utter those three vulgar Latin words regarding Mr. Davis’ vote and his taking the job, an REIT spokesman reminds us that “months” elapsed between the two events. Case closed. - VanillaMan - Thursday, Jun 26, 08 @ 10:24 am: Obama: “You will recall that for my entire political career here, I was not the the endorsed candidate of any political organization here,” the Democratic presidential hopeful said at the Westin Hotel downtown. “I didn’t go around wielding a bunch of clout. My reputation in Springfield was as an independent. There is no doubt I had friends and continue to have friends who come out of the more traditional school of Chicago politics but that’s not what launched my political career and that’s not what I’ve ever depended on to get elected, and I would challenge any Chicago reporter to dispute that basic fact.” So, Senator Obama continues to cover up how he came to power. Once again, he smacks down any associations with groups that have negative images, without telling us any facts. While he claims he had no political machine endorsements, who endorsed him? He wants us to pretend he was just a decent citizen eager to get a break and did it on his own - with no help? We live in a democracy and democracies depend on groups to gather and select leaders. Who are those groups, Senator? Having us just flail around and guess while you bat us down isn’t telling us anything! Who are you? The idea that he just flit around political circles without commitments, associations or help is ridiculously untrue. We know it isn’t true. Senator Obama has deep roots in Trinity and religious communities in his neighborhood. But he now wants us to believe those roots aren’t him either? He is from Chicago, right? But he now says he isn’t from Chicago politics? How did that happen, and worst, where does that answer leave us in better understanding his political past? Like their selection of Rod Blagojevich in 2002, the Illinois Democrats have offered up Barack Obama as the 2008 Presidential nominee of their party. The Party is asking voters to look around our questions and just accept the hype that Obama and Friends have been crafting since 2004. Harriet Myers was better known that Obama is at this point, and her nomination was deliberately made because she cast no shadow. Obama wants us to believe he has no shadow, no past, except for the ones he wrote about in his books, like some kind of a fictional character. No. Barack Obama was a part time Illinois legislator who has been in the US Senate three years, two of which he has been running a national campaign. Consequentially, he has no legislative record of major accomplishments after half a term in office as our senator. A bum deal for Illinois voters, no? Instead it has been all about him. Yuck. Finally, this isn’t the most important thing about Obama. Who he is and where he is from can only help us understand his political views a bit. But that isn’t as important than the fact of where he is now - a Democratic presidential nominee. He doesn’t understand how high taxes stagnates innovation and economic growth. Own a mutual fund or base your pension on stocks? His misunderstanding of taxation will wreck your finances. He doesn’t understand the world situation we face regarding our security. Instead he thinks we can Keystone Cop our way through Islamic Fundamentalism, or talk them out of their beliefs. He wants $5 a gallon gas because he wants an artificial shortage to steer us towards a greener, yet unknown, future. He doesn’t offer us freedom, he offers us a belief that other people he knows will make better decisions that we can about our own lives in regards to our health, our finances, our education and our families. So, he doesn’t have roots in the Chicago machine? Whatever. I’m sure that Barack Obama will love spending the next five months batting down questions about who he is without revealing one thing that hadn’t been passed through a barrage of focus groups beforehand. He would love for us to talk about him, because he finds himself endlessly fascinating. At this point the question is how he got to be so wrong on so many issues, yet win the Democratic nomination for the most important office we have. How did we get an unknown newbie at this stage of the game on the verge of winning it all? Perhaps Obama has a real reason to be cooly arrogant after all. - Captain America - Thursday, Jun 26, 08 @ 1:28 pm: Looks like Van Man is going to have a nervous breakdown when Obama becomes the next POTUS! - Bill - Thursday, Jun 26, 08 @ 1:42 pm: Senator Obama has run against the organization his entire political career. The reason he wins is because he represents the beginning of a new day in politics. He is the antithesis of the old style machine politics of the past. He has built a grassroots coalition of Democrats, Republicans and independents who are tired of the failed Bush policies of the past. They are tired of the old style Republican who lied to get us into a quagmire of a war in Iraq that cannot be won. A war that now becomes an exercise in attrition with Obama’s old style opponent proposing to keep the US involved for another one hundred years. They are tired of the old style politics of destruction that his Republican opponent and his supporters in the right wing media continue to practice today and throughout the campaign. They are tired of the old style attack politics where nothing is off limits as right wing zealots attack his family, his religion, his race, and even his name. Try as they may they cannot swift boat Barack Obama. It is a new day in America. Change is coming. The change coalition led by Senator Obama cuts across generational, gender, racial, and socio-economic lines. The Obama coalition will change the way our country is governed. No longer will lobbyists run the roost in government. No longer will government policies favor the rich at the expense of the poor. No longer will chicken hawks lead us into unwinnable and unnecessary wars. Under the leadership of President Obama America can return to its former greatness. We have a chance under President Obama to address the Bush economic policies that have made the rich richer and the the middle class and the poor poorer. We have a chance under President Obama to restore America to a position of prestige and respect around the world. We are a great nation that has survived eight years of the failed policies of GW Bush. Can we survive another four years of those same failed policies under John McCain? It is time for a change in America. The American people demand it and will settle for no less. In November Americans will make history. They will repudiate the failed republican policies of the past and begin a new future. Yes we can change America. Yes we will. - Kevin Fanning - Thursday, Jun 26, 08 @ 1:51 pm: This message was paid for by Obama for America. J/k Bill! - Bill - Thursday, Jun 26, 08 @ 2:38 pm: lol Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.