One man with a gun can control 100 without one. – Vladimir Lenin

It’s amazing. I knew that this was coming…just like everyone else did, who has been paying attention.

However, the self-serving, callous nature of a President of the United States of America to be able to politicize a massacre such as this, within hours of the tragic event, is beyond the pale.

Good afternoon, everybody.  This morning, I spoke with, and Vice President Biden spoke with, Mayor Joe Riley and other leaders of Charleston to express our deep sorrow over the senseless murders that took place last night.

Michelle and I know several members of Emanuel AME Church.  We knew their pastor, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who, along with eight others, gathered in prayer and fellowship and was murdered last night.  And to say our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, and their community doesn’t say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel.

Any death of this sort is a tragedy.  Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy.  There is something particularly heartbreaking about the death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship.

Mother Emanuel is, in fact, more than a church.  This is a place of worship that was founded by African Americans seeking liberty.  This is a church that was burned to the ground because its worshipers worked to end slavery.  When there were laws banning all-black church gatherings, they conducted services in secret.  When there was a nonviolent movement to bring our country closer in line with our highest ideals, some of our brightest leaders spoke and led marches from this church’s steps.  This is a sacred place in the history of Charleston and in the history of America.

The FBI is now on the scene with local police, and more of the Bureau’s best are on the way to join them.  The Attorney General has announced plans for the FBI to open a hate crime investigation.  We understand that the suspect is in custody.  And I’ll let the best of law enforcement do its work to make sure that justice is served.

Until the investigation is complete, I’m necessarily constrained in terms of talking about the details of the case.  But I don’t need to be constrained about the emotions that tragedies like this raise.  I’ve had to make statements like this too many times.  Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times.  We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.  Now is the time for mourning and for healing.

But let’s be clear:  At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.  It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency.  And it is in our power to do something about it.  I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now.  But it would be wrong for us not to acknowledge it.  And at some point it’s going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it, and for us to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively.

The fact that this took place in a black church obviously also raises questions about a dark part of our history.  This is not the first time that black churches have been attacked.  And we know that hatred across races and faiths pose a particular threat to our democracy and our ideals.

The good news is I am confident that the outpouring of unity and strength and fellowship and love across Charleston today, from all races, from all faiths, from all places of worship indicates the degree to which those old vestiges of hatred can be overcome.  That, certainly, was Dr. King’s hope just over 50 years ago, after four little girls were killed in a bombing in a black church in Birmingham, Alabama.

He said they lived meaningful lives, and they died nobly.  “They say to each of us,” Dr. King said, “black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution.  They say to us that we must be concerned not merely with [about] who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.  Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American Dream.

“And if one will hold on, he will discover that God walks with him, and that God is able to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.”

Reverend Pinckney and his congregation understood that spirit.  Their Christian faith compelled them to reach out not just to members of their congregation, or to members of their own communities, but to all in need.  They opened their doors to strangers who might enter a church in search of healing or redemption.

Mother Emanuel church and its congregation have risen before –- from flames, from an earthquake, from other dark times -– to give hope to generations of Charlestonians.  And with our prayers and our love, and the buoyancy of hope, it will rise again now as a place of peace.

Thank you.

“Advanced countries”, Mr. President? Like…France?

On January 6, 2015, Businessweek.com reported that

France’s Front National leader Marine Le Pen pinned the blame for the killing of 12 people in Paris today on Islamic radicals, as mainstream leaders tried to downplay the religious dimension of the attack.

While President Francois Hollande called for national unity in an attempt to deter the public from demonizing the country’s 5-million strong Muslim community, Le Pen said France has to confront the beliefs of the gunmen who stormed the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this morning.

“Time’s up for denial and hypocrisy,” Le Pen, who has railed against immigration, said in a video posted on her party’s website today. “The absolute rejection of Islamic fundamentalism must be proclaimed loudly and clearly.”

The lessons voters’ draw from the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II will shape the political debate as the country looks toward the 2017 election.

It is very obvious to every American Citizen that President Barack Hussein Obama, after being thwarted by the American Public, time and again, is still seeking to take away our Constitutional Right to bare arms.

As I wrote earlier, the fact that he is willing to politicize the cold-blood murder of nine innocent Americans, within hours of their demise, should surprise no one.

Unfortunately for Petulant President Pantywaist, the laws in this country are written in Congress. That would be the Senate and the House. The president does not write laws. The president does not make law.

Well, he’s not supposed to.

Judges are not supposed to make laws. Judges are not supposed to create laws. That’s only supposed to happen in Congress. When Congress refuses to vote for a law, then it’s dead.

What is exasperating to the president is the fact that he can’t legally enact the gun laws that he and his minions would prefer.

So, he has spent the last couple of years trying to do it unilaterally with Executive Orders.

Now, I’m not lying to you when I tell you that is not what Executive Orders permit. It’s not why they were created. It’s not what they’re for. Executive Orders do not grant dictatorial power to presidents. They do not grant the power to the president to violate existing law. Executive Orders do not grant the power to the president to write new law. The president and his team will be in violation of the Constitution if they do this. Now, there are certain things that can be done with Executive Orders, but they can’t write new law. But if nobody stops them, what’s the point?

They can get away with it.

There’s always a way to get away with it.

Obama is undaunted in his quest to achieve his Marxist dream of taking away guns from law-abiding citizens through the issuing of Executive Orders.

However, this is not Russia, during the Bolshevik Revolution. This is America, where we have a System of Checks and Balances.

Please continue to remind your Senators and Representatives that they work for you, not vice-versa, and to put all the pressure they can on their Democratic colleagues to  continue to stand up to the president, in his never ending quest to take away our Constitutional Right and turn us into an unarmed citizenry, vulnerable to enemies, foreign and domestic….and political, too.

Since they already seem to be forgetting what happened in November of 2014, it is time to remind them.

If only one member of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina had been armed…

Obama’s actions, as I have written before, remind me of a spoiled child who, when told “NO!” by his parents, launches into a screeching, whining temper tantrum.

Just like an unruly child, it’s time for Obama to be disciplined…by turning him into a lame duck for the remainder of his presidency.

Obama is not a leader. He is a petulant, pedantic Graduate Assistant, playing at being a tenured professor.

Americans…it’s time to ring the dismissal bell on this class.

Until He comes,

KJ