What’s interesting in the news today?

Here’s a few to start you off, then have at it. 🙂

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7 Marines were killed yesterday during a training exercise at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada.

From FoxNews

“A deadly explosion at a military ammunition storage facility in Nevada during  a training exercise Monday prompted the U.S. Marine Corps to issue a blanket  suspension of 60-millimeter mortars and associated tubes pending a review of the  accident.

Seven U.S. Marines were killed and several others were wounded Monday when a  mortar exploded prematurely inside is firing tube during mountain training  exercises at Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada. It’s unclear what caused the  malfunction.

The accident prompted the Marine Corps to immediately halt use of some mortar  shells until an investigation can determine its safety.”

That news was bad enough. But Harry Reid decided to politicize it, and add insult to injury. He implied from the floor of the Senate, where cowardly liars like himself are permitted to outright lie, that it was because of the Sequester.

From RealClearPolitics

“On the Senate floor this morning, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) implied the explosion that killed seven Marines at an ammunitions depot in Hawthorne, Nevada was due to the “cutting back in training and maintenance” in the sequester.”

Needless to say, Marine brass wasn’t happy and pointed out their feelings on such classless comments.

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Meanwhile, the number of Sheriff’s nationwide coming out against un-constitutional restrictions on 2nd Amendment rights is now up to 340.

From CNSNews

“Including Sheriff John Cooke of Weld County, Colorado, 340 sheriffs have publicly stated they will not enforce gun laws they believe are unconstitutional.

In response to the passage of two new gun control bills in Colorado last week, Sheriff John Cooke told the Greeley Tribune that he “won’t bother enforcing the laws.”

One bill requires gun buyers to pay for their own background checks, a service that was previously free and now estimated to cost the buyer $10-$12 per purchase.  The second bill puts a 15-round limit on magazines.

Cooke says of the new laws: “They’re feel-good, knee-jerk reactions that are unenforceable.”

And gun magazine maker Magpul has told Colorado officials they will leave the state if the Gov. signs into law new restrictions on magazine capacity.

Via Twitchy

“The full statement as posted to Facebook received more than 10,000 likes within the first two hours.”

“Apparently Gov Hickenlooper has announced that he will sign HB 1224 on Wednesday. We were asked for our reaction, and here is what we said:

We have said all along that based on the legal problems and uncertainties in the bill, as well as general principle, we will have no choice but to leave if the Governor signs this into law. We will start our transition out of the state almost immediately, and we will prioritize moving magazine manufacturing operations first. We expect the first PMAGs to be made outside CO within 30 days of the signing, with the rest to follow in phases. We will likely become a multi-state operation as a result of this move, and not all locations have been selected. We have made some initial contacts and evaluated a list of new potential locations for additional manufacturing and the new company headquarters, and we will begin talks with various state representatives in earnest if the Governor indeed signs this legislation. Although we are agile for a company of our size, it is still a significant footprint, and we will perform this move in a manner that is best for the company and our employees.

It is disappointing to us that money and a social agenda from outside the state have apparently penetrated the American West to control our legislature and Governor, but we feel confident that Colorado residents can still take the state back through recalls, ballot initiatives, and the 2014 election to undo these wrongs against responsible Citizens.”

Knee-jerk stupidity costing jobs.

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Philadelphia Magazine  is taking heat for a provocative piece on race relations in Philly.

“Later, driving up Broad Street as I head home to Mount Airy, I stop at a light just north of Lycoming and look over at some rowhouses. One has a padlocked front door. A torn sheet covering the window in that door looks like it might be stained with sewage. I imagine not a crackhouse, but a child, maybe several children, living on the other side of that stained sheet. Plenty of children in Philadelphia live in places like that. Plenty live on Diamond, where my son rents, where there always seem to be a lot of men milling around doing absolutely nothing, where it’s clearly not a safe place to be.

I’ve shared my view of North Broad Street with people—white friends and colleagues—who see something else there: New buildings. Progress. Gentrification. They’re sunny about the area around Temple. I think they’re blind, that they’ve stopped looking. Indeed, I’ve begun to think that most white people stopped looking around at large segments of our city, at our poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods, a long time ago. One of the reasons, plainly put, is queasiness over race. Many of those neighborhoods are predominantly African-American. And if you’re white, you don’t merely avoid them—you do your best to erase them from your thoughts.

At the same time, white Philadelphians think a great deal about race. Begin to talk to people, and it’s clear it’s a dominant motif in and around our city. Everyone seems to have a story, often an uncomfortable story, about how white and black people relate.”

So of course the Mayor is throwing a fit, and is threatening to turn the faux-govt Philadelphia Human Relations Commission on them. He thinks pointing out the obvious is the equivalent of yelling “fire” and will incite panic.

From FoxNews

“The Philadelphia Human Relations Commission has launched an investigation at the request of the mayor after a well-known magazine published an essay that explored perspectives of white citizens on the issue of race relations.”

“Mayor Michael Nutter called on the commission to consider rebuking both Philadelphia Magazine and writer Bob Huber noting that “the First Amendment, like other constitutional rights, is not an unfettered right.”

“Rue Landau, the Human Relations Committee’s executive director, agreed with the mayor’s concerns regarding what she called, “the racial insensitivity and perpetuation of harmful stereotypes portrayed in the Philadelphia Magazine piece.”

The VolokhConspiracy explains why the Mayor is earning his name. This is why I’m not a big fan of the PC Police, aka Human Relations Commissions either.

“The implication — which I think is very strong — that the “speech” is indeed unprotected by the First Amendment under the “incitement” exception is absolutely wrong: Under Brandenburg v. Ohio and Hess v. Indiana, the speech in the article is clearly protected. (It’s true that a narrow range of speech that is intended and likely to produce imminent illegal conduct, with imminent meaning within hours or at most a few days, rather than at some unspecified future time, is unprotected, but the magazine article definitely does not fit within that.) And it’s quite troubling, I think, when a mayor (who has power over, among others, the Police Department) suggests that the expression of opinions that he disapproves of about race is constitutionally unprotected.

The specific call in the mayor’s letter, which is for the Commission to “conduct an inquiry into the state of racial issues, biases, and attitudes within and among the many communities and neighborhoods in the City of Philadelphia,” and to “consider specifically whether Philadelphia Magazine and the writer, Bob Huber are appropriate for rebuke by the Commission,” is not as troubling — both the mayor and the Commission have the right to express their own views, and indeed it is commonly argued that the proper alternative to suppression of speech is counterspeech. But the Mayor’s rationale wasn’t just, “this speech is constitutionally protected but so is our response.” Rather, the Mayor expressly suggested that the speech in the article was unprotected, and therefore punishable outright and not just worthy of public disapproval.”

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