Briefs: Democrat Socialists’ terrorist? Governor’s compromise?

2
428
James Hodgkinson, from his Facebook page. He was the alleged shooter, but was he a domestic terrorist?

RANDOM SHOOTER? James Hodgkinson, the DC shooter who targeted Republican U.S. representatives and their staffers, has been identified as a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer and Democratic Socialist.

But is he also a domestic terrorist? Yes, according to the most widely accepted definition: The use of violence or threat of violence in the pursuit of political aims, religious, or ideological change, where the perpetrator(s) is a non-state actor.

The Left has been calling people on the Right “snowflakes” for rebuking them for their increasingly threatening and violent language and imagery regarding Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular.

But they may have second thoughts about whether they want to continue putting Trump’s head on a platter, or hosting theatrical plays featuring an assassinated president, and Rep. Justin Parish, D-Juneau, may want to reconsider talking on the radio about putting a gun to lawmakers’ heads…metaphorically, of course.

Today’s shooting is an example of what it’s like to live in a society where only criminals have guns. The law-abiding people, who have sworn to uphold the Constitution, were defenseless on the baseball field, not allowed to be armed to defend themselves, and had to depend on two police officers with pistols. People like Sen. Rand Paul, who was in the batting cage, and who is a well-known excellent shot, could only hit the ground and pray.

Rep. Mo Brooks, a Republican from Alabama told CNN, “We have nothing but baseball bats to fight back against a rifle with.”

Hodgkinson volunteered for Sen. Bernie Sanders‘s presidential campaign. On his Facebook page in March, he wrote: “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”

HOUSE DEMOCRATS SPLITTING: Gov. Bill Walker’s compromise is splitting apart the Democrat majority in the House, we’re told, which led to a cancelled floor session yesterday and a cancelled conference committee on the HB 57, the operating budget.

Word is that Rep. Paul Seaton is now on the outside of discussions, and Rep. Chris Tuck and Speaker Bryce Edgmon are trying to hold the caucus together.

Some Democrats are very adamant about an income tax, but they have a big structural problem: The income tax they propose won’t raise any money for the state for two years. That’s because they want the effective date to be after 2018, which not coincidentally, is after the next election.

On the Capital Budget, SB 23, Amendment 1, they split 15-7 on whether they wanted to fully fund the Permanent Fund dividend, which shows dissent growing in the caucus. Their members are offering amendments that are causing division in their ranks.

OIL TAX CREDITS STALLED: The Senate agrees with the House Democrats that the cash credits for oil must be repealed. But now the House cannot pass its own bill, HB 111. This puzzles observers. Why can’t the House Democrats pass their own bill? Because they want to do it through referendum, and drive voters to the polls.

Les Gara famously favored eliminating oil tax credits back in 2011. In other words, he was for it before he was against it. He isn’t consistent with what he said last week, much less six years ago.

REVENUE’S SUMMARY ON OIL TAX CREDIT REFORM: HB 111 explainer from the Department of Revenue was just released.

2 COMMENTS

  1. The sad thing is that the Democrats will never acknowledge that the shooter was a Democrat. They much prefer the narrative to be that all shooters are conservatives or troubled youth and then go after the Second Amendment and every gun.

Comments are closed.