Since when is a million-person march a non-event?

So a government takes a stand vis-a-vis a terrorist group and a significant percentage of that nation’s citizenry disagrees with it. To make their point, they march on the capital. The number of marchers exceeds one million citizens participants. Sound like news to you?

Think that if MoveOn.org and Daily Kos managed to scrape together that many people and march on DC that the news media would be silent about it? You bet they wouldn’t. They’d be all over that event and they’d likely be talking about it for months.

So, why is it that over a million Spaniards marched on Madrid to denounce Zapatero’s policies regarding the government’s appeasement strategy with the ETA and the Spanish government’s attitude on the war on terror in general and you have heard nothing about it in our news? Publius Pundit has the story but it’s a pretty simple one. Spanish citizens are demanding that their government disengage from this appeasement policy they have and they marched in huge numbers. Have a look at those pictures and you’ll see what I mean.

Why can you not find any reference to this march on American media? Not CNN, not CBS, ABC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, not even the usually perceptive Fox News Channel has carried the story. This is a huge event but our media chooses not to cover it. Why?

Simple. Because large groups of citizens protesting the actions and policies of a left-wing government don’t fit in with the MSM’s officially adopted narrative of “how things should be.” Taking a page from Orwell, they simply don’t talk about it. I look very much forward to this kind of news blackout the next time some “million-man march” comes to this town.

National Guard levels will reach 1000 troops at US-Mexican border this week

This quick note from a Fox News report on the National Guard troops sent to the US-Mexican border as a result of the President’s attempt at handling the illegal crossing problem notes that there will be 1000 troops on station this week. The interesting part of the report – and something that’s not getting a whole lot of air time, I note – is this:

The build-up occurs as authorities report significant reductions in illegal border crossings.

Detentions along the border decreased by 21 percent, to 26,994, in the first 10 days of June, compared with 34,077 for the same period a year ago, officials said Monday.

Hmmm. So, we put real, live people on the border with real, live instructions to capture and kick back the illegals crossing into this country and (gasp!) the number of illegals crossing drops hugely. HoodaThunk it? Now, put up the fence to handle the remaining 26,000 of them this month and we’ll have something going.

S.F. Gun ban overruled

San Francisco’s voter-approved gun ban was struck down yesterday as San Fran Superior Court Judge James Warren ruled that local governments have no such authority under California Law. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A judge struck down San Francisco’s voter-approved ban on handgun possession Monday, saying local governments have no such authority under California law.

Proposition H, which passed with a 58 percent majority in November, would have outlawed possession of handguns by all city residents except law enforcement officers and others who need guns for professional purposes. It also would have forbidden the manufacture, sale and distribution of guns and ammunition in San Francisco.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren agreed with the National Rifle Association, which argued that Prop. H exceeded the powers of local government and intruded into an area regulated entirely by the state. The NRA sued on behalf of gun owners, advocates and dealers the day after the measure passed. Enforcement of the measure was suspended while the suit was pending.

Warren said California law, which authorizes police agencies to issue handgun permits, implicitly prohibits a city or county from banning handgun possession by law-abiding adults.

That law “demonstrates the Legislature’s intent to occupy, on a statewide basis, the field of residential and commercial handgun possession to the exclusion of local government entities,” Warren wrote in a 30-page decision.

If the city were allowed to ban handguns within its borders, he said, nearby counties could be flooded by handguns no longer allowed in San Francisco. Such a possibility illustrates the need for gun ownership to be regulated on a state level, Warren said.

“California has an overarching concern in controlling gun use by defining the circumstances under which firearms can be possessed uniformly across the state, without having this statewide scheme contradicted or subverted by local policy,” the judge said.

Good ruling. The “out” he used by saying that such a measure would need to be performed on a statewide level would, of course, run afoul of the Second Amendment. I would imagine he knew that but I understand his keeping his discourse to state-level law.

In any event, this is good news and I applaud it.