Cut The Crap, Apple, And Open Syed Farook’s iPhone

From The Federalist:

Here, the court’s order is specifically tailored to both Apple’s and the government’s concerns. First, it requires Apple to use its access to temporarily remove only the three barriers to using a brute force attack discussed above. It does not require any adjustment to the iPhone’s encryption. Second, the order requires Apple to explicitly restrict its software update so that it can only run on Farook’s iPhone and be both temporary and reversible. It does not require altering any other software or access to any other iPhones. Third, the order allows Apple to comply with the order at its own facility, if it so chooses.

In other words, the FBI wants to bring Farook’s iPhone to Apple, let the manufacturer perform the temporary update, and then allow the FBI to remotely perform a brute force attack to discover Farook’s passcode. Once the FBI has discovered the passcode, Apple simply reverses the update and returns the iPhone with its original software and contents to the FBI.

Assuming this is true, then my objections forcing Apple to unlock the phone is rescinded.

Hurray for Tim Cook

From National Review:

You know what would be better than prosecuting those who helped the San Bernardino jihadists? Stopping them, i.e., for the Men in Black to do their goddamned jobs. An arranged marriage to a Pakistani woman who spent years doing . . . something . . . in Saudi Arabia? Those two murderous misfits had more red flags on them than Bernie Sanders’s front yard on May Day, and the best minds in American law enforcement and intelligence did precisely squat to stop their rampage. Having failed to do its job, the federal government now seeks even more power — the power to compel Apple to write code rendering the security measures in its products useless — as a reward for its failure.

The Federal Government has not shown itself to be responsible with sensitive information. Why give them the keys to the digital kingdom?

Why Apple’s stance against government matters

From Hot Air:

Here’s something those on the Right are forgetting: this is the same government which had no problem with the IRS auditing Tea Party groups and their donors, and tried to prosecute a reporter in a leak investigation. It’s also the same government which had the DHS focus on “right-wing sovereign citizens,” considers terrorism “damage to Government property” (without giving a specific definition of what “damage” means), and doesn’t care about actual facts when it comes to putting people on terrorist watch lists. It seems odd to me that those complaining about the IRS and tyranny of the current administration are perfectly fine with the fact the FBI is trying to get a backdoor created to get into “just one phone.” If the IRS/NSA/DHS aren’t to be trusted, why in the world would you trust the FBI? The government seeks power over its citizens, and this is just another way for them to get it (even if it’s through proper channels).

Think about it this way: if Apple caves on the government’s demand to provide a backdoor for “just one phone,” what’s stopping the government from coming to Apple again and say, “Just give us the backdoor permanently and we won’t bug you again”? What’s to stop them from going to Samsung or HTC or every other phone maker out there and demanding this same thing? That’s freaking scary. This isn’t blurring the line between freedom and tyranny, it’s erasing it completely. This is why no conservative or libertarian leaning person should support what the government is pushing Apple to do.

It's a big deal because what's to prevent any Regime from abusing people's privacy?

2,986 Shooting Victims in Gun-Controlled Chicago During 2015

From Breitbart's Big Government: Too short to except:

On January 1, the Chicago Tribune reported that the number of shooting victims in gun-controlled Chicago for 2015 was 2,986.

Mind you, Chicago has a “violence tax” that raises the price of every gun and bullet sold at retail, an “assault weapons” ban, limits on the number of gun stores and the locations of those stores, and what the New York Times describes as handgun restrictions that let city leaders “get as close as they could get legally to a ban without a ban.”

The result? According to the Chicago Tribune, there has been nearly 3,000 shooting victims in one year’s time.

And the Tribune reports approximate 470 homicides for Chicago in 2015, which means gun-controlled Chicago had “the most violent year of all major U.S. cities.” It is the worst year the city has seen since 2012, “when 500 people were killed.”

On October 27, President Obama tried to blame Indiana and Wisconsin for the gun control failure in Chicago. His line of reasoning was that the pro-Second Amendment stance of Indiana and Wisconsin led to guns flooding into Chicago from out of state. Bretibart News previously reported that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) made a similar move on September 17, when he blamed southern states for New York City’s soaring rate of firearm-related homicides.

The Dear Leader blaming Wisconsin and Indiana for the gun control fail makes about as much sense as Kalifornia Gov. Jerry 'Moonbeam' Brown blaming Nevada and Arizona's gun control laws for the terrorist shooting in San Bernardino. All the gun used in the San Bernardino shooting were legally purchased in Kalifornia, after a universal background check and a 10 day waiting period.

2,887 Shooting Victims In Gun-Controlled Chicago Year-To-Date

From Breitbart's Big Government:

On December 22 the Chicago Tribune reported that the number of shooting victims in gun-controlled Chicago year-to-date is 2,887.

Nearly 3,000 shooting victims in a city with an “assault weapons” ban, a “violence tax” on every gun and bullet sold, strict limitations on the number of gun store and on the locations of said stores. and numerous other gun controls ubiquitously instituted to keep law-abiding citizens safer, but which actually make it far more difficult for law-abiding citizens to acquire the guns they need for self-defense.
....................

Breitbart News previously reported that Obama refused to admit the failure of Chicago gun control during a speech in the city on October 27. Instead, he blamed the city’s growing violence on states like Indiana and Wisconsin.

Liberals always have to blame something or someone else for gun violence. Just like Jerry Brown blamed other states gun laws for the San Bernadino shooters actions. Problem Jerry, the shooters in San Bernardino legally bought their guns in California, passed California's "universal background check" and the 10 day waiting period. All the things that gun control proponents argue will reduce gun violence.

But will never admit, it doesn't work.

Quotes of the Day

From Ace of Spades HQ:

Two things happen whenever Democrats talk about gun control: more people buy guns, fewer elected Democrats have jobs

-- Sean Davis

Nothing has changed. After declaring the Islamic State "contained" a day before the Paris attacks and assuring Americans a day before the San Bernadino, Calif., massacre that the United States was safe from a Paris-style attack, Obama is "staying the course."

-- Marc Thiessen

How the Democrats Flubbed San Bernardino

From The Daily Beast via H/T at Hotair:

Has there ever been a better example of liberal overreach than the coverage that followed the shooting in San Bernardino? It started in the immediate aftermath of the attack with Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, who said: “Yo GOP, kinda hard to talk about ‘keeping people safe’ when your peeps are shooting up America,” and the numerous attempts at “prayer shaming” anyone who offered their “thoughts and prayers” in the wake of the horrific event.

Without waiting to learn the actual facts (which turned out to be that the assailants were radicalized Muslims), Moulitsas didn’t just assume the shooters were Republicans; he also sought to score shameless political points.

Usually a rather marginal figure, Moulitsas set the tone for the next few days. Comparisons between the NRA and ISIS abounded, and the ubiquity of the “prayer shaming” that took place makes one wonder whether this wasn’t some sort of coordinated effort. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Richard Blumenthal, for example, both quickly echoed the “God isn’t fixing this” musings of left-leaning media elites.

But at the very least, it was all a prime example of the kind of groupthink that exists among—not just the Left—but also a certain set of young “mainstream” media types. New York’s Daily News took that line of thought to its natural end point Saturday night when they published an op-ed that blamed one of the shooting victims for his own fate. His offense? Being a conservative “Born Again Christian/Messianic Jew” and a supporter of the NRA.

It's all about the narrative and winning the daily news cycle. Actually fixing the problem requires work and consensus.

White House refuses to call California shooting ‘terrorism’

From The New York Post via H/T at Lucienne:

The FBI called it a terror investigation and sources revealed that the female shooter in the California bloodbath pledged her loyalty to ISIS — but the Obama administration was still hesitating Friday to declare that the massacre was terrorism.

“It’s far too early to reach that kind of conclusion. We’re still learning exactly what was motivating these individuals, what steps they took to carry out this terrible crime,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

“Before we make any grand pronouncements along those lines, it’s important for our investigators to find out what happened.”

Obama initially downplayed terrorism as a motive for Wednesday’s attack in San Bernardino, Calif., instead issuing another call for tougher gun-control laws.

But faced with mounting evidence that the killers, Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, had been radicalized, FBI Director James Comey announced Friday that a terrorism investigation was underway.

When it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, this Regime will call it a dolphin.

Media Malpractice On Mass Shootings After Calif. Attack

From Investor's Business Daily via H/T at Lucienne:

Media Bias: The mainstream press likes to say it is the guardian of truth, protecting the masses from bogus information on the Web. But in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, it was the one peddling it.

In the past few days, just about every major media outlet made the same claim: that there have been 355 mass shootings in the U.S. this year.
....................

That the mainstream press could get from four to 355 is a testament its complete surrender to the Democratic Party agenda, and its eagerness to inflame, rather than inform, the public about gun violence.

The Media malpractice essentially went to overdrive after they got scooped by Matt Drudge and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Up until that point, they had a monopoly on news and it's distribution. When the rest of the world realized that there were other news options, the Drive-By Media drop any and all pretense of neutrality and because mouth pieces for the Democratic party.

Rebuking Obama's Folly

From Clarice Feldman at The American Thinker Blog:

Malik was a Pakistani who’d been living in Saudi Arabia when she became the online fiancé of Syed Farook, a U.S.-born citizen of Pakistani immigrants. While in Pakistan she was a member of a mosque headed by such a radical cleric the Pakistanis are considering closing down his mosque.

She entered the U.S. on a K-1 visa and somehow passed the required DHS screening.

It has been reported that the one thing that could easily have been checked on that application -- her address -- must not have been, for the address of her Pakistani home is nonexistent.
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Feeling better about the admission of thousands of “refugees” from Syria about whom we have even less ability to do background checks? I’m not.

And this will be the same background check used for the 10,000 or so Syrian refugees coming into this country,

CNN -- San Bernardino Attackers Were Not On Federal Watch List

From Breitbart's Big Government:

On December 4 CNN reported that San Bernardino attackers Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were not on “any list” tied to potential terrorists in the U.S.

This comes as Democrats–including President Obama–continue attempting use the San Bernardino attacks as justification for expanding background checks to include the no-fly list and the terror watch list.

Another fine example of a common sense gun law that liberals want to pass, that would be ineffectual.

7 reasons you should buy a gun after San Bernardino.

From Breitbart's National Security via H/T at Ace of Spades HQ:

Obama Thinks Taking Your Guns Will Stop Terrorists. Josh Earnest said yesterday that gun control was the best way to stop terrorists. Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked if Obama thought gun control could deter terrorism; Earnest explained, “Yes. The president believes that passing common sense gun laws that makes it harder for people with bad intentions to get guns, makes the country safer.” But we know that the San Bernardino terrorists bought their guns legally, then modified them in illegal fashion. They also had IEDs. California has some of the strictest gun control in the nation. That fact led Senator Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to declare, idiotically, that “Sensible gun laws work. We’ve proven it in California and we are not going to give up.” She said this the day after the shooting in San Bernardino that prompted the conversation in the first place – the day after a bunch of unarmed people were shot while waiting four minutes for the cops to arrive.

Do you feel safe?

Read the whole article.

Just a reminder, basically all the laws that Obama wants regarding gun control have been passed and are in effect in Kalifornia and those laws did not stop the San Bernardino Shooters. Remind every gun control supported of that fact, when they demand more "common sense" gun control legislation.

Howie Carr -- G-men, media don’t dare tell truth about San Bernardino rampage

From Howie Carr at The Boston Herald via H/T at Instapundit:

What could the terrorists’ 
motive possibly be? How many times did you hear that absurd question asked? Were you yelling at the TV set too?

And how come no networks 
replayed Obama saying three weeks ago that ISIS was “contained?” Think they’d have given George Bush that kind of pass?

Neither cops nor the media dared tell the un-PC truth, that this was yet another terror attack by Muslims, one of whom was an alien. Nobody from Boston has any illusions about the FBI — Famous But 
Incompetent. But they’re worse than ever. Did you see that G-man from the LA office, making like 
Inspector Clouseau — “I suspect everyone, I suspect no one.”

It was pathetic enough to make you almost nostalgic for the 
super-sleuths of yesteryear like Zip Connolly, Vino Morris and Agent 
Orange. I mean, on Dec. 8, 1941, did J. Edgar Hoover announce that there was a possibility that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, but that he was keeping an open mind?

But the media were even worse. First they tried to claim it was a Planned Parenthood attack — thanks, Bloomberg! Then somebody said it was probably right-wingers angered by the government helping disabled children.

A New York rag blamed it on the skinhead meth gangs that abound around Berdoo — like your average motorcycle gang cares about a Christmas party. And finally, the 
inevitable moonbat fallback … workplace violence.

That’s Barack Obama’s favorite excuse for terrorism. And you know the best way to fight terror — I mean workplace violence. Common-sense gun-safety laws. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Common sense — take away the guns from law-abiding people so that they can’t defend themselves against the terrorists and the gangbangers who don’t give a flying bleep about the law.

Telling the truth about this stuff would expose how little they’re doing, and how incompetently they’re doing it. Thus, the search for excuses.

This is all driven by those on the top, The Dear Leader, Loretta Lynch, et. al.

Why the Gun Control Push Is Futile

From The American Interest via H/T at Instapundit:

Yes, but the point is to give the Press something to talk about besides Obama's colossal failures in the war on Terror.

Another mass shooting, another round of liberal venom hurled at people who oppose further gun control measures. In the wake of the slaughter in San Bernadino, the charges were particularly shrill. “Dear ‘thoughts and prayers’ people: Please shut up and slink away. You are part of the problem, and everybody knows it,” said one liberal Washington Post columnist, in a representative tweet.

Most gun control advocates know that the push for federal gun laws is futile. Public support for gun rights is near historical highs, the structure of the U.S. Senate favors pro-gun forces, and—as many observers pointed out at the time—if the tragedy at Sandy Hook couldn’t get gun legislation through the Congress, nothing can, at least for the foreseeable future. But liberal decision to make the San Bernadino massacre a story about gun control is more than futile—it is fundamentally disconnected from the role the Second Amendment has played in American political thought, and therefore might be even less effective than past efforts.

Remember, when we’re talking about gun control, we’re not talking about how Obama told us us that ISIS was the JV team, or how he’s importing lots of poorly “vetted” middle eastern Muslims, or how he has botched Syria and Libya, or how his hashtag campaign against Boko Haram failed, or how the domestic protections against terror are looking porous and ineffectual, or how . . . well, you get the idea. Plus, gun control is a tribal rallying cry for uninformed Obama supporters. Or, to be less redundant, Obama supporters.

It's all a distraction.

The Week in Pictures -- Workplace Confusion Edition

From the guys at Powerline Blog:

Connecting the dots in the San Bernardino bloodshed

From The New York Post via H/T at Lucienne:

It may be some time before the full story is known. But the dots are already beginning to form a picture, one some folks — including at the White House — might prefer not to admit.

Indeed, the San Bernardino carnage already serves as a chilling reminder of the homegrown terror threat this country continues to face.

And until we come to grips with that fact, we’ll never be able to defeat it.

These dots represent a serious problem for the Regime. They can't maintain their narrative that ISIS is under control.

The reality is that San Bernardino was the first ISIS sponsored terrorist attack on US soil.

So much for that "JV team".

The Dog That Won't Quit Barking

From The National Review:

The evidence continues to accumulate that the Bonnie and Clyde massacre in San Bernardino yesterday was a case of jihad. We’ve got the home armory. We’ve got the pilgrimage to Mecca. We’ve got the contact with foreign terrorist subjects. Sherlock Holmes solved the case in the story “Silver Blaze” with the clue of the dog that didn’t bark. The San Bernardino dog won’t shut up.

President Obama was talking about gun control before the bodies had turned cold. He now prefers to avoid the obvious for as long as possible, holding out hope that he can resort to the laughable “workplace violence” dodge that he has found useful in the past

This particular case of jihad comes at an inconvenient time for Obama politically, with his lectures regarding the claims of Syrian refugees sitting in the background and the new wave yet to land on our shores. It makes the critics he has obnoxiously disparaged as heartless ingrates seem like prudent guardians of our fellow citizens. Obama has an entirely different agenda and it doesn’t take an observer with the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes to figure it out either.

Yep!

San Bernardino Jihadi a ‘Constant Presence’ at Mosque, Recently Memorized Koran

From Breitbart California:

Two brothers who attended the same Southern California mosque as a gunman who killed 14 people say he was a devout Muslim who showed up to pray every day before he abruptly stopped three weeks ago.

Nizaam Ali and Rahemaan Ali said Thursday that Syed Rizwan Farook had been a constant presence at the mosque for two years and had recently memorized the Quran.

As if this is really a surprise.

White House Calls For Assault Weapon Ban After California Attack

From Breitbart's Big Government:

The Obama administration is pressing for more gun control, calling for an assault weapons ban after the attack in California. Earlier, the president spoke at length in the Oval Office about the need for more anti-gun laws.

“One thing we could do is we could ban the sale of assault weapons,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said during the press briefing today. “That certainly would make it harder for those individuals who shouldn’t have them from getting them.”

Someone from the White House Press Corp needs to ask Josh Earnest why didn't the assault weapons ban in France stop the attack in Paris.

San Bernardino Destroys the Gun-Control Movement

From Breitbart's Big Government:

If there was any logic behind gun-control zealotry, the San Bernardino atrocity would be a haymaker punch the movement would never recover from.

First, gun-control advocates made fools of themselves in a disgusting rush to politicize the incident while bullets were still flying – and not just the usual activist knuckleheads, but the Democrat Party’s FBI-investigated front runner for President, Hillary Clinton, along with that other guy supposedly running for their nomination.

I refuse to accept this as normal. We must take action to stop gun violence now. -H https://t.co/SkKglwQycb

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 2, 2015

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They carried out their bloody crime in the state that has some of America’s toughest gun laws, using weapons that were purchased legally by every current indication. Farouk was a county employee whose family professes themselves to be utterly shocked by his crime. His surviving co-workers describe him as quiet and devoutly religious.

Based on what we know as of Thursday morning, there seems to be nothing about the couple that would have blocked them from purchasing firearms under any conceivable screening in this politically-correct age. Our friends in the gun-control movement aren’t going to rouse themselves from their current nervous breakdown to suggest Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to buy guns, are they?

Ask any gun control proponent, what law could be passed that would have stopped this massacre?

All you will hear from them is crickets.