Two days ago we reported [14]that in the aftermath of the San Bernardino mass shooting, two democrats had emerged with diametrically opposing proposals how to respond to the resurgent threat of domestic terrorism: one, a Sheriff in an uptown New York state county proposed that all handgun owners who are licensed to carry, should "PLEASE DO SO" in order to prevent future terrorist incidents; while another, New York City mayor de Blasio urged the city's pension funds to divest their holdings in stocks of US gunmakers.
As we concluded then, "these two dramatically opposing reactions to the same "terrorist" event, which one can claim the US brought on itself with the CIA's creation of the Islamic State as a clandestine method to overthrow Syria's president al Assad, and by two people who are both democrats, shows just how ridiculous the gun control debate is set to become in the coming days."
But more importantly, we said that at this point, "if we had to forecast the final outcome, we would say that just as we accurately predicted the terrorist events in Paris two months earlier, so this time the "terrorist attacks" together with comprehensive 24/7 TV coverage, in the US will get worse and worse until one of two things happen, if not both: the NSA will see all of its surveillance powers reinstated legally in the coming months, while the US will see increasingly more escalating "attacks" until ultimately Obama's crackdown on gun sales and possession hits its breaking point and the president's gun confiscation mandate is finally executed. We hope we are wrong."
Not even 24 hours later the New York Times confirmed that the push for gun control is about to take a major leg higher with its first front-page Op-Ed since 1920 in which it called to "End the Gun Epidemic in America [15]."
Parallel to that, the NSA went on a "passive-aggressive" marketing campaign yesterday when the AP reported that the U.S. government [16]'s ability to review and analyze five years' worth of telephone records for the married couple blamed in the deadly shootings in California lapsed just four days earlier when the National Security Agency's controversial mass surveillance program was formally shut down.
As the AP added, under a court order, those historical calling records at the NSA are now off-limits to agents running the FBI terrorism investigation even with a warrant. Instead, under the new USA Freedom Act, authorities were able to obtain roughly two years' worth of calling records directly from the phone companies of the married couple blamed in the attack. The period covered the entire time that the wife, Tashfeen Malik, lived in the United States, although her husband, Syed Farook, had been here much longer. She moved from Pakistan to the U.S. in July 2014 and married Farook the following month. He was born in Chicago in 1987 and raised in southern California.
And while FBI Director James Comey declined to say Friday whether the NSA program's shutdown affected the government's terrorism investigation in California, the implications was clear: if the American people want "safety from terrorism", they better say goodbye to privacy, and restore the NSA in the process.
We are confident that this will happen one way or another, and that quite soon even though the most token of inquiry would reveal that the NSA's entire premise is nothing but a lie:
No mention from AP that the carriers also retain call records, often for more than 5 years, https://t.co/9ysYoayi1C [17] pic.twitter.com/vwGETqXDaf [18]
— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) December 5, 2015 [19]
However, the biggest validation of our prediction for a major escalation in Obama's crackdown against gun sales and ownership came from Obama himself which last night announced that Obama would hold an impromptu address to the nation at 8:00 pm on the "threat of terrorism and keeping the American people safe." Translation: another surge in gun sales is imminent as fears of gun confiscation rise to unprecedented heights.
Tomorrow at 8pm ET, @POTUS [20] will address the nation on the threat of terrorism and keeping the American people safe ? https://t.co/b68B45RuKg [21]
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 5, 2015 [22]
What will Obama say? In an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press [23]," Attorney General Loretta Lynch gave advance hints about the remarks President Barack Obama will make when he speaks to the country Sunday evening about the recent terrorist attack in San Bernardino.
"What you're going to hear from him is a discussion about what government is doing to ensure all of our highest priority — the protection of the American people," the attorney general said.
She also said that he'll speak on the actions the United States has taken to keep the homeland safe since the attacks in Paris last month. But there will be an element of politics to the speech. President Obama will do more than just call for calm, he will ask "Congress to review measures and take action."
Lynch's staff later confirmed that the president will specifically call on Congress to review certain gun control measures.
And since Congress has long ago given up on taking action in a world in which the Fed's Chairman/woman is expected to "get to work", it will again be up to an Obama executive order to restore peace to the land by continuing his crusade against the Second amendment.
In short, the latest steps in Obama's crusade to disarm the US and make even legal purchases of guns as difficult as possible, even though limiting the legal means of purchasing guns will have absolutely no impact on gun violence in the US - for the perpetual case study, see Chicago. That, however, does not mean that Obama won't try or succeed.
That said, while the content of Obama's speech may now be well known, what will likely be the entertainment highlight of the night is not Obama as much as the man who remains the biggest "Republican" contender for the role of Obama's successor: Donald Trump, who has promised to heckle Obama's entire speech even before it begins.
I will be live-tweeting President Obama's prime-time speech tonight starting at 7:50 P.M. (Eastern).Will he finally state the real problems?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2015 [24]
