Doug Ross @ Journal

Plain Dealer

It's only been a few days since the Cleveland-Plain Dealer's Doug Clifton published a list of Ohio's Concealed Carry License holders. And already, one of the license holders is dead. Clifton attempted to justify his efforts thusly:

In the past two days, The Plain Dealer ran a list of the Northeast Ohioans who applied for and got a license to carry a concealed weapon. We were able to do so because the state legislature... gave the news media access to the list. The general public is not allowed to see it.

In other words, Clifton plainly admits that he subverted the will of the Ohio Legislature, which did not want unfettered public access to the list. And why did the legislature wish to protect the identities of license holders? Let's consider who actually applies for licenses, given the strict background checks, 12 hour training requirements, and cost and nuisance factor:

- Women trying to protect themselves from abusive ex-husbands and boyfriends
- Business-people who carry large amounts of cash or valuables in the course of their jobs
- Senior citizens who have no other way to protect themselves

Now, only days later, Bill Singleton -- a store-owner who had already been robbed twice -- is dead. And his name had just been printed as a license-holder by the Plain-Dealer. According to Chad Baus of OFCC's Political Action Committee:

Why did editor Doug Clifton act to put people like Bill Singleton at so much risk by revealing to potential attackers that they are armed, and why do they promise to continue to do so? Why did Doug Clifton decide that these innocent, law-abiding citizens, desperate to protect themselves from violent criminals that no gun control law or background check can stop, are the ones needing to be treated like persons of suspicion? Initial accounts say the robbers shot first, ambush-style.

One can only hope that Clifton and the Plain-Dealer end up in court or in front of the Legislature, as the subjects of a suit or as the targets of a full-scale investigation. Subverting the intent of the law may be tantamount, in this case, to breaking the law.

Days after Plain Dealer ''outing''; CHL-holder Bill Singleton is dead

Middle America, my A**

Very entertaining column from Doug Giles. The following are some excerpts, but the whole column is well worth a read.

When I hear John Kerry and John Edwards try to pawn off on the American public that they are defenders of middle class Americans… veritable ubermen for us struggling underdogs … yes, advocates of our values, fears and needs. I wonder, what time does The Three Stooges come on? I’m not buying their rhetoric or the happy, hugging and grinning, let’s eat at Wendy’s shtick they threw our way last week either. What did they expect us to do when we viewed their temporary make over? Elbow our wife and say, “Look Arlene, they’re just like us, they eat at Wendy’s! Garsh … we oughta vote for them … pass the opossum gravy!?!” Did you see how Kerry held his Wendy’s hamburger? He looked and handled that Single with cheese like a beaker of someone else’s urine. Hey, Mr. Kerry, we might earn less in a year than the one of the bathrooms in your four mansions cost, but that doesn’t make us blonde... ...As hard as they try and, dear God, they are trying hard … Kerry and Edwards, just don’t have that mid-American feel. Take John Edwards, for instance: no real person smiles that much. Middle Americans don’t beam that bountifully. Neither Jesus nor kids stoned on expensive weed grin that much. Only avaricious ambulance chasing lawyers, running for vice president and trying to off set their Lurch-like presidential running mate, smile that much. This grinning Edwards reminds me of the overly gleeful guy who sold me a ’75 Firebird back in ’79, which turned out to be a complete piece of crap. And be sure of this: John Edwards is to Dick Cheney what Potsie was to the Fonz. The debates should prove interesting. Then we have Kerry’s esposa, Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira Heinz Kerry. Her name alone screams Middle America doesn’t it? ... ... All the writers for the X-Files, Half-Baked, Evita and The Twilight Zone could never have dreamed up Teresa Heinz Kerry. She’s neither Middle America nor middle earth. Her billion bequeathed dollars that fund some of the most liberal loopy organizations scream to the rest of us, “We really have nothing in common with you”. I hate to admit it, but watching Tessy the other night actually made me long to see and hear Hillary again. At least she’s decipherable in her deportment. Madame Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious represents the peripheral liberals of the ludicrous left … not middle class Americans. Hollywood, also, is working hard trying to get Kerry elected. Here’s another Kerry support group that really mirrors the wants of us common folk, right? Ah, Hollywood with its swinging clubs and Hustler superstores: where statutory rapists can win an Oscar, where the famous can send their kids to elite high schools where they may attend cross dressing classes, where nannies have support groups to deal with the stress these charmed few generate, and where the head of a prostitution ring can crawl out of prison and be an instant celebrity…. Yes, Middle America, I think we should follow these luminaries. Why? Well … because … uh … because … they are on TV! Then we have Michael Moore. He’s a perfect mirror of Middle America, isn’t he? Did you see him propped up in his box seat at the DNC, sitting there like the Goodyear blimp overlooking the festivities? If Michael Moore had been in charge, according to Christopher Hitchens, “Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed … Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule … Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq … and Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD.” That’s kinda middle American-ish… right? ...My ClashPoint is this: John Kerry’s political track record is what you should be eyeballing. You see, it’s not just his grinning would-be Veep; not his Hollywood hepatitis C crowd; not his Jurassic rock stars. It’s not even his ‘Nam war films [which we now know Kerry himself shot during staged re-enactments of the action]. It’s what he has stood for, the last two decades, the ultra-left record of his time in the U.S. Senate. You know, the facts that he has so ardently tried to hide, and not his current “look the other way” fabrications. Facts like: over the last 20 years Senator Kerry has voted again and again to cut spending on the military and on the intelligence services, in stark contrast to his “I will be strong militarily” bluster. No you won’t, Senator. You never have been and never will be. No matter how many hamsters he’s rescued, he will be a weak, wait-until-we’re-hit-here before-we-hit-back leader. How many times has he told us we must always wait for the UN to give us their thumbs up, before we dare do anything? In this day of international terrorism and nuclear suitcases we can’t afford a Commander in Chief who has proved himself feckless philanderer of time and opportunity, time and again... What disturbs me most about Kerry is his masking his record instead of seriously coming clean regarding how he has voted, where he currently stands and what he intends to do. By rights, he should quit trying to be “us” and stop running those Mayberry RFD commercials starring Kerry as Andy Griffith when he’s anything but: he’s the most liberal Senator in the Senate and his values in no way mirror middle class Americans.

Middle America my A**