by Steve Timmer

Feb 10, 2013, 6:00 PM

On comments 2/10

Commenter (and fellow Tony Cornish disliker) Mac had a couple of recent comments. One was about Tony Cornish, of course, and the fact that he decided not to offer the bill to arm public school teachers, a comment on No word from Tony Cornish so far.

It is with sadness that I must recognize that the fact that gutless Gun-totting Tony Cornish has withdrawn his bill to empower teachers with guns to carry on school property. It’s sad … what a good learning tool this could have been … imagine the teacher doing his best Dirty Harry Callahan impression: I know what you’re thinking. “Did he fire six shots or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Yep, no doubt the students’ math scores would increase with the use of “practical” examples.

Why is Gutless Cornish allowing our teachers to be at risk ?

Previously, Gun-totting Tony warned us that we don’t live in Mayberry any more and that “psychos” are just steps away from entering the schools … of course, that “psycho” was carrying an AR-15 with clips larger than the six in the teacher’s Magnum … and by empowering the teacher to protect herself/himself was actually identifying who the first target should be … and that instead of trying to emulate the teachers at Newtown that locked their doors and huddled the children into a corner/closet, the teacher would now be blazing that Magnum from the classroom.

OK, seriously … this is unfortunate … I wanted my Representative to have to vote on this legislation … to put everybody on record how they think schools should be protected and at what cost. Instead, <I>Representative</I> Cornish says he will wait until the GOP retakes the majority and/or Governor’s Office. Voters will forget without this vote.

BTW … speaking of cost, did you see that Chairman John Kline (R-MN-02) is questioning the White House on how much will be spent through President Obama’s Executive Orders?

The other comment was about the “Seth Hegsen” PSA on women in combat.

Although the OpEd and video offers some interesting opinions, it is the silence from Members of Congress that is deafening.

Maybe elections do have consequences, as the Republicans, who continue to fight gays serving openly in the military last session, have largely ignored the Secretary of Defense’s action to recognize that woman should have the opportunity to seek any job based on their abilities and the job requirements.

Most interesting is the silence from Minnesotan John Kline who serves on the House Armed Services Committee. Representative Kline may not like to be reminded how he and his Republican colleagues reacted to concerns that woman might be on the frontlines.

On May 11, 2005 the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel voted 9-7 (all Republicans voting YES) in favor of the amendment — “prohibition of assignment of female members of the Army to forward support companies.” The ban “includes any Army unit of company size” that “provides combat support or combat service support to a direct ground combat battalion.”

At the time, another Minnesota Member of the House spoke out — “Women are serving with courage, competence and commitment in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones, just like their male comrades,” said Betty McCollum. “For Congress to tell female soldiers they are now incapable of performing their current mission-the very duties they are performing brilliantly everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan-is outrageous, out of touch with reality and blatantly unpatriotic. Republicans on the Armed Services Committee are attacking the morale and cohesiveness that our troops, women and men, rely on to keep each other alive.”

While Representative Kline has remained silent, others non-elected Republicans have protested … including former Republican candidate Pete Hegseth (whose PeteForSenate.com is still active). Mr. Hegseth suggested in an OpEd that this may have been an “exercise in “legacy burnishing” on the part of current Pentagon leadership” targeting retiring DefSec. Leon Penetta. The OpEd fails to acknowledge that the Army opened six Military Occupation Specialties (MOS) in a pilot project … and that Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of Training and Doctrine Command He said it should be relatively easy to open up two field artillery jobs, 13F (artillery field support specialist) and 13B (cannon crew member) to women.