“When I signed on as an advisor to Everytown, I looked forward to a thoughtful and provocative discussion about the toll gun violence takes on Americans,” Republican ex-PA Governor and Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge told The Daily Caller. “After consultation with Everytown, I have decided that I am uncomfortable with their expected electoral work. Therefore, we have decided that we will pursue this issue in our separate spheres.” The New York Times is buying that explanation hook, line and sinker; it makes Everytown seem hard-core and Republicans (who served under George Bush!) wimps. I call B.S. . . .
Ridge had to have known that Everytown was a one-issue political lobbying org from the get-go. If he didn’t he was stupid – which shows you the level of idiocy to which Everytown had to stoop to get a “bi-partisan” board. Maybe Everytown was targeting a PA pal. Who knows? But any ding against Everytown is a good ding.
Oh and did you notice that word “discussion” again? I wonder if he meant the kind of discussion Bush the Younger’s intelligence operatives had with suspected terrorists. From water board to Bloomberg board. Not much of a leap if you ask me.
I was disappointed that Mr. Ridge signed on in the first place, but this is a “win” for us and a black eye for Everytown for Thought Control.
It didn’t surprise me to see a neo-con turd like Ridge on the Everytown panel, the W Administration from top to bottom was just statism of a different stripe and shoveled the hole for Obama and future Presidents to bury us in.
Exactly. The only surprise here is that Everytown’s goals are apparently too draconian even for a statist twat like Ridge.
Make no mistake, Tom Ridge knew. One of the goals of “Homeland Security” is the domination of a top-down police state. If you jump through the proper hoops, you may register a bolt action rifle or shotgun, unless the state says you have to keep it at the gun club.
I agree. He may have been disappointed that it was more partisan than he expected. He wants the republicans to control the people, not the democrats.
I’m thinking you’re on to something there.
http://confoundedinterest.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/welcometothepartypal.gif
I don’t think that what is going on is anything to do with this.
Ridge, a political appointee, was at one time head of Homeland Security at a time that this was a brand new bureaucracy getting organized. He was fairly good at the bureaucracy stuff, but not effective in this role. He was shifted out after a while. That was it.
Here, I think the conversation was something like this:
Ridge is not evil, just malleable. Good for him for bailing out.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Ridge is a push-toy. Always has been.
Yeah I really don’t care that advanced interrogation techniques were applied to terrorists. A SEAL buddy of mine once said that water boarding builds character, his words, not mine.
Me neither. Having dealt directly with terrorist sympathizers and financiers, I have ZERO ethical qualms about waterboarding those who’ve sought to do harm to the West.
I don’t think the issues people have with torture have anything to do with us being mean to terrorists. Torture doesn’t advance our interest in the war on terror and it isn’t effective in its stated goal of generating intelligence.
Then let’s rephrase the question. I support any effective means to convince terrorists to cooperate when they are captured. I understand that waterboarding WAS effective, but I would also support REAL torture if it was effective. Better?
To find out if it is effective, we may need to do some “studies”…
Well, it effectively makes your society just as ugly as the one you claim to oppose. Is that what you were hoping? You can’t defend barbarism as a means to an end. It is like claiming rape as an effective method of reproduction, but only when it supports your ideals.
According to the Senate’s report on the enhanced interrogation techniques, the program generated almost no usable intelligence and was ineffective in its stated task. Torturing the people we picked up was stupid. The war on terror is going to be won with intelligence and we are alienating the people that have that intelligence by pursuing a program that doesn’t appear to be working. We are providing our enemies with a ready made recruting tool and alienating the turn coats among them that might turn in their buddies for money.
You’ve seen this report? It was a product of a 100% Democrat committee, right? And even they had to admit that there was some evidence, but took pains to downplay it. This seems rather like saying that there is “almost no evidence” that Usama bin Ladin has been successful in attacking the US, since 199 out of 200 attacks failed.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
First off, that Senate “study ” was a political document. Written by a Senate controlled by Harry Reid. They refused to interview anyone who ran the program. Hmmm…unbiased right? LMAO
Second, I personally don’t give a crap about the enemy. The bogus argument of “being like them ” is sophmoric. The other option is to kill them all. That is better? What is even more troubling is that those 85 year old guys who defeated the monster Nazi and Jap machines are thought as “war criminals ” now by the same crowd who want to handle terrorists gentley. Oh poor Hamburg oh poor Tokyo oh poor Dresden burned to the ground in fire raids. OMG those GIs used flame throwers on the enemy.
War is hell. The goal is to kill the other guy. If hooking up battery cables to testicals is required to get the 1 in a 100 jot of intel, then me be for it.
Waterboarding is a waste of good water. Costly and inefficient. Why bother? Catch a terrorist, kill a terrorist. A bullet is cheaper than a bucket of water, maybe more humane and certainly more final.
If it doesn’t cause permanent physical incapacity (a skilled US Dr can’t repair) it’s not torture..
Don’t confuse “effectiveness” with “ethics”. We’ve been dumbed down for so long with the claims that torture isn’t effective, or that no useful information can be garnished from it. The problem is when it is used alone without conjunction with other methods against everyone regardless of their intelligence value. And yes it can be frequently prone to abuse and manipulation, which is why only nineteen interrogation methods are allowed in the U.S. Army field manual, two of which require 0-6 approval. After reading the case studies the legal experts followed to create the reformed interrogation, I felt it used examples from WWII and the Cold War too frequently to justify the success garnished from “direct approach” and “incentive approach”, which most modern non-state adversaries aren’t going to be susceptible too. Interesting enough, there were examples used in the American Philippine War that yielded intelligence from harsh techniques that these case studies could not ignore. If you read the book “the Interrogators” based on the accounts of an Interrogator in the opening phase of the Afghan war, he admits at the end of the book (I paraphrase) “We don’t torture because it isn’t effective, rather we don’t do it because it is unethical.” Ultimately my point is, constraint of law and morallity ensures that most adversaries and conflicts only require use of the lawful interrogation methods above, but to simply oversimplify the issue and say “torture” isn’t effective is disengenous. Oh and a final note, the abuses in Abu Ghraib was conducted by bored, out of control MPs, not trained interrogators during the course of intelligence gathering.
I don’t care about the ethics of torture on terrorists either – the terrorists aren’t going to refrain from torture whether we do or not.
My concerns are practical: 1 – are we torturing innocents who were mistakingly captured/apprehended (ya know, where one villager gets pissed at another and tells US forces that the dude is a terrorist; and/or 2: do we get false confessions a la the Spanish Inquisition.
Ridge bailing is a huge blow to Bloomberg’s efforts. He was their high-profile token Republican.
In fact, him joining and then quitting is better than him never having joined in the first place.
This new effort of Bloomberg’s is not going well for him.
good point
Ridge is a RINO slimebag. Cut of the same cloth as McCain. Blows with the wind. I would bet that in the back of his mind he wants to keep himself on the market for VP candidates in 2016. Soooo…smelling the tide of Tea Party coming in this was something he had to disown now and not later. But the fact that the guy who organized and ran DHS (and the destruction of a half dozen Fed LE organizations) did join in the first place says it all. He again is a STATIST RINO scumbag. Watch your wallet, your rights and your back when around him.
and that has what to do with gun rights??
Tom Ridge was lured away by the hundreds of millions of dollars of the all-powerful gun lobby, spearheaded by the gun manufacturer’s lobbying #gunbullies, the #OogaBoogaNRA, which is known to be comprised mostly of gun extremists and the #RedneckTaliban.
Fortunately, Everytown for Gun Safety™ has started a $50 million grassroots campaign to have an honest conversation on the evils of anybody who owns a gun. We are sure to be victorious over the small minority of extremists. After all, the majority of NRA members support common-sense gun regulations.
Isn’t that supposed to be “the extremist evils”?
“honest conversation on the evils of anybody who owns a gun”
Wait, really? Anybody who owns a gun is evil? Is that actually really seriously the way you intended to state that, or was it merely a Freudian slip on your part? Because to me, you sound like a weirdo extremist yourself. Thusly, you are full of fail and so is your message. When are you people going to learn to think before you get all fired up and say stuff that betrays you as the hypocrites you really are.
Boy, that link in their name sure is interesting.
@scurvy dog, I don’t think that you are appreciating the sarc from Everytown for Gun Safety™.
LOL, busted.
look – it is just like all of the mayors who joined MAIG. it sounds good – end gun violence, save lives, it is for the children(tm), apple pie, etc. they tell you everything that resonates with voters and mom/pop and american flag. what politician wants to be against this stuff? Hell, so far, I would agree to join a group for that. then the midget starts to put out his agenda. and shannon puts out a message. and then bloomy starts to target politicians who will not vote to end gun rights. and then all hell breaks loose. no, this is about tom ridge sitting down to read his briefing book before a board meeting and saying WTF???
more will follow and all that will be left are maig cast offs
“I looked forward to a thoughtful and provocative discussion about the toll gun violence takes on Americans…”
So will this “thoughtful and provocative discussion” get into the societal roots of the violence? You know, the broken families, the normalization of violence in the entertainment industry, the lack of any moral teaching in the schools (“hey, we can’t judge”), the incredibly high rate of children out of wedlock, and the general cultural collapse of America?
[crickets chirping]
No, didn’t think so.
@RF, you don’t know why? I’ll tell you…Ridge is going to run in ’16. Ridge is a well known RINO, make that Demoviet loving RINO. He is pro-gay, pro-abortion, pro-amnesty, pro-gun control. He sucks.
says the right wing statist El MAC who apparently wants to dictate how other people live.
What does all of your hyperbole about loving Dems and being “pro-gay” have to do with gun rights??
@Aaron, I could care less how others want to live. I do care when the G tries to force aberrant lifestyles down my family’s throat. I do care when the G allows infanticide of the most innocent of her citizens. I do care when the G fails to secure the country’s borders. And I do care when the G wants to take away citizen’s tools of freedom.
Hardly right wing.
Tom Ridge is nothing more than a CFR/NWO drone, a former governor yes? If so he absolutely knew what he was signing up for. Ridge is not in the same strata as corporate ghoul and WMD sick ticket warmonger Donald R, but close. The mere fact he joined up reveals his true intent, character, mindset, and vision.
It is time to wake up and call total bullshit on the undeniable and outright despicable hoax that is Sandy Hook. Yes, I said it. I am not a truther or tin foil type. Yet when I viewed Mark Howitt and Sofia Smallstorm’s thoroughly researched documentaries, the gaping holes compounded facts, complete abnormalities, and blatant cover up is glaringly obvious. Bloomberg and everyone else hide behind the false flag kiddie human shields.
If you truly care about your 2nd amendment rights, have an open mind coupled with intellectual curiosity, check out both documentaries. I have passed it on to folks of all backgrounds, gun owners and non gun owners, they all reached the same conclusion
You’re right! I just saw all the children from Newtown! They were playing tag and chasing unicorns at the end of a rainbow! It was all a hoax! They’re not dead!
But you I’m not so sure about.
Poppies Poppies Poppies. You are getting sleepy!
-Sincerely, the Wicked Witch of the East.
Stay unconscious or become aware, run with the herd or dare to break, sarcasm and conditioned response show originality….go dog go.
No crime scene photos. No video (like Columbine). No blood. Uncanny accuracy for a 120lb kid hauling 40 pounds of gear rattling 150-200 rounds in 6 minutes no less-that not one person saw in 3-4 years..with zero electronic footprint…for an Aspergers kid no less… Forget the news chopper HD footage of cops hauling guys in camo out of the woods. Forget that ambulances were blocked from accessing the school to save kids per START protocol (can you say lawsuit), forget only a Dr cannot pronounce someone dead (not an ME or cop) at a hospital…forget. Forget people just milling around, not wearing work clothes, many wearing ID tags, the closed casket funerals, horrible photoshopped pictures (especially the Parkers), bizarre interviews, bizarre ME interview, forget 90 day gag order and each family assigned their very own state trooper, forget families were never allowed to ID their dead kids, shown pictures instead (?) forget zero motive, forget it all. Move along now, nothing to see. Except a well coordinated anti gun campaign that succeeded within some states in their assault on the 2nd Amendment…move along….
That’s it! You! Out of the gene pool!
absolutely. and all my friends who watched: my next door neighbor cardiovascular surgeon who dabbles in heart transplants, airline pilot one house down, director of energy for a 200B little firm and his surgeon wife who lives across the street. All out of the gene pool as well!
conditioned response is of great use. To ostriches of course. Intellectually lazy is the norm. Keep at it. Anderson Cooper would be proud
conspiracy theorist reveal more about how ineffectual they feel than about the truth of a given situation.
puh-lease put down your crack pipe.
please continue to bury your head up your arse and watch from that bubble. Ineffectual? Your inability to pursue anything I outlined, let alone absorb it, shows ineffectiveness…
This will cause disarray and embarrassment within the nascent nanny group, and that’s great, but I won’t be applauding Tom Ridge for anything. He probably wants to spend more time dotting small town America with MRAPS or something equally awesome, for the good of the people.
I call it “Bloomboarding” which means to overwhelm ones common sense with money and BS.
The mayors on Bloombergs short-bus tour and the mothers who should spend more time with their families have Bloomboarding almost down pat.
Heh. That’s an excellent term. If I were you, I’d trademark it at once.
Why not listen to the man himself. It appears that Everytown plans to hit the Republicans very hard in the coming elections, harder than he had anticipated when joining, and he realized he could be seen by his own party as helping its electoral demise. The Democrats, on the other hand, are evolving toward complete intolerance towards pro-gun Democracts in their own ranks, so a Democrat in his place wouldn’t mind their aggressive strategy.
The Democrats seem to be evolving into the American Nazi Party (or the more formal NSP or SDP). Free beer at the Bund Hall! And they hate pretty much anybody with a lick of non-trademarked actual common sense.
Tom has always been wishy washy even when he was governor,
I hope for once he has seen the light for what it is and gets back to his original beliefs.
The gun confiscation issue has become nothing but a distraction meant to keep the average person from devoting enough time to other issues to be well-informed (taxation, budget, national debt, education). It’s a divide-and-conquer attack on Everyman’s intellectual bandwidth and time. I think most people realize this. I think they also realize that when a politician is elected, and then claims he has a mandate to push legislation on every issue he ever mentioned, that he is full of sh_t. And so, barring national plebiscites, we are left with courts legislating new rights and the limits of old rights with no constraint but their own consciences.
My take on the astroturf gun-confiscation BS is that most people really don’t care. The Demanding Moms have no credibility. No one believes in well-monied issue campaigns with few grassroots donors.
Most mothers who have security or neighborhood issues have a gun available. Many moms who don’t still want the option.
Well put regarding “Moms Demand Action”. A former Monsanto PR “executive” posing as a concerned mommy? Concerned with her wallet at best.
I cannot get past their moniker, Moms Demand Action. Sounds like it would slide perfectly into a Cinemax After Dark special…
And I would watch it. You know. For intel.
With GMO’s in the news, I think this would be a great line of questionings
“Mrs. Watts, would you say your experience working for pharmaceutical companies pushing drugs for kids and Monsanto for the benefits of GMO has translated well into your work at MDA?”
BAM!
double bam! Thank you!
of all the “PR Execs” to front this farce, Bloomberg picks a smug arrogant serial liar that is impossible to like, from a company hell bent on wrecking the environment of any willing nation, such a well like outfit that if one simply types Monsanto for a Google search, “Monsanto evil” is the top hit….Perhaps Nanny Mike saw a little of himself in Shannon, and like what he saw….oops…well, you know what i meant…..:)
and WHAM DE BAM BAM! That would be soooooo great…
My daughter’s Mom demanded action…………I went out to buy ammo……
My daughter’s Mom is………….Happy.
I think Everytown for Gun Safety™ may have needed the sarcasm flag. Click the name to link to the FacePalm page. Yes, that’s sarcasm too.
I think in the highest office should be an Independent President, we need a new thought process. I am tired of all the government, ie; BLM, NLB, HE, and etc. I’m to pissed to think of the rest of them.
I really think 2016 may be the year of the third party. What that party will look like is anyone’s guess right now. But many, many people are fed up with everything. There are many parallels to Weimar Germany right now, except for the “Endless War.”
What a shame. Bloomie needs someone who has the same tailor as J. Edgar Hoover on his side.
So is it a bad thing, or a good thing, (for Everytown) that an “Ex GOP Governor” quit Everytown?
Well, it doesn’t serve their claim to be a “non-partisan” advocate for “common sense, broadly popular” measures. But it does serve their interest in promoting anti-gun (read: Democrat) politicos by giving them a claim that no Republican is reasonable enough to join in their “broadly popular, common sense” efforts. Which interest do you think is more important to them?
Tom Ridge is a Republican??? Jeez, with friends like that, who needs enemies?
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