Archive for January 21st, 2010

FEDS RESPOND TO FIREARMS FREEDOM ACT

January 21, 2010
FEDS RESPOND TO FIREARMS FREEDOM ACT LAWSUIT MOTION TO DISMISS “EXPECTED”
MISSOULA – The United States has made its first response to a lawsuit filed in federal district court in Missoula to test the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA), passed by the 2009 Legislature and signed into law by Governor Schweitzer.

The MFFA declares that any firearms, ammunition or firearms accessories made and retained in Montana are not subject to federal regulation under the power given to Congress in the U.S. Constitution to regulate commerce “among the several states.” The MFFA is a states’ rights challenge on Tenth Amendment grounds, with firearms serving as the vehicle for the challenge.

This lawsuit to validate the MFFA was brought by the Montana Shooting Sports Association (MSSA) and Second Amendment Foundation (SAF). The suit names U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as defendant, and is referred to as MSSA v. Holder.

The first response to the lawsuit by the United States is a Motion to Dismiss, submitted January 19th and considered to be a standard procedural maneuver in lawsuits against the U.S government . This motion seeks to avoid the legal merits by asserting that the Plaintiffs lack standing to sue, that a justiciable controversy does not exist, and that prevailing case law is against Plaintiffs.

MSSA President Gary Marbut, also a Plaintiff in the lawsuit explained, “The first import of this response is that the legal game is now on. There was some concern that the defendants would forfeit the game with no response in an effort to prevent this important issue from being adjudicated properly. We are now beyond that hurdle.” However, the Motion to Dismiss by Washington also seeks to sidestep proper adjudication.

SAF Founder Alan Gottlieb said, “We are disappointed but not surprised that the government would try to kill this suit on standing, rather than arguing about the merits of the case.”

The MFFA concept has gained traction across the Nation since its passage in Montana. Tennessee has enacted a clone of the MFFA, and other clones have been introduced in the state legislatures of 19 other states, including: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. . Ten or more additional states are expected to introduce yet more MFFA clones in the next few weeks. (See: http://www.FirearmsFreedomAct.com)

The U.S.’s Motion to Dismiss and Brief in Support are viewable at: http://FirearmsFreedomAct.com/montana-lawsuit-updates/

MSSA and SAF have assembled a litigation team for this effort consisting of three attorneys from Montana, one from New York, one from Florida and one from Arizona. Lead attorney for the Plaintiffs is Quentin Rhoades, partner the Missoula firm of Sullivan, Tabaracci and Rhoades. Other interested parties from both in and out of Montana are preparing to weigh in on this issue of national interest and national importance as amicus curiae (friends of the court).

Marbut commented, “The FFA concept has created a firestorm of interest nationwide. Lots of people and other states are watching carefully to see how Montana fares in this challenge to overbearing federal authority and to Washington’s attempt to control every detail of commerce in the Nation, especially including activity wholly confined within an individual state. That level of micro management certainly was not the intent of our founders when they gave Congress limited power in the Constitution to regulate commerce ‘among the states’.” (See: http://FirearmsFreedomAct.com/what-is-the-commerce-clause/)

MSSA is the primary political advocate for gun owners and hunters in Montana, having gotten 54 pro-gun and pro-hunting bills through the Montana Legislature in the past 25 years. SAF is a pro-gun foundation in Bellevue, Washington, established to press the rights of gun owners primarily in judicial fora. SAF has been a party to numerous lawsuits to assert the rights of gun owners across the Nation.

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.

State of Disunion : Epic Fail Obama

January 21, 2010

Mark Alexander hits out of the ballpark again, please see the blogroll for the link to The patriot Post.

Alexander’s Essay – January 21, 2010

State of Disunion

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” –Article II, Section I, U.S. Constitution

On Wednesday, 27 January, Barack Hussein Obama will deliver his first “State of the Union” speech as president, a self evaluation of his first year’s achievements.

Sprinkled between his infamous “let me be clear” or “make no mistake” introduction to his lies, he will, characteristically, attempt to spin a plethora of failures into something including these phony fallback phrases: back from the brink; signs of recovery; restored our reputation; achieved some successes; more work yet to do; fiscal restraint; greed on Wall Street; affordable health care; relief for working families; job creation.

He’ll also use the word “inherited,” as in “I inherited this mess.” He’ll speak of “unprecedented” reforms or achievements or challenges. And he’ll mention “those who seek to do us harm,” but he won’t dare utter the term “Islamic terrorists.”

In advance of his teleprompted propaganda, then, let’s take a reality check on Obama and his first year.

Never before in the history of our great nation has any sitting president held so much disregard and outright contempt for our Constitution and Rule of Law.

Perhaps the operative words in his oath were, “to the best of my ability”?

Of course, what were we to expect from a Marxist, whose views on government and economy were shaped by his surrogate father and communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis; whose first campaign for political office was launched by Maoist anarchists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn; whose political career has been stewarded by the likes of Leftists Richard Daley, Michael Pfleger, Khalid al-Mansour, Rashid Khalidi, et al.

And don’t forget his religious mentor, Jeremiah Wright, who married Barack and Michelle and baptized their children.

Wright preached hate, plain and simple: “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government gives [black people] drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strikes law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, g-d d— America. G-d d— America for treating our citizens as less than human. G-d d— America.”

Wright sermonized that our great nation is in fact the “U.S. of KKK-A” and is “controlled by and run by rich white people. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in god. And god has got to be sick of this sh-t!”

How did Obama respond when asked about his pastor’s perennial anti-American tirades? “It sounds like he was trying to be provocative,” concludes Obama.

At a foundational level, Obama’s ability and his agenda have been shaped first and foremost by his condition as a pathological narcissist, a young man driven by a blinding need for acceptance and its coefficient, power — the result of a childhood characterized by his father’s, and then stepfather’s, rejection.

It should be noted that the young Barry Obama did not ask for or deserve the hardship he suffered as a child any more than millions of other children abandoned by their fathers today. In that respect, he deserves our compassion.

However, Obama’s insatiable pathological need for power renders him a very dangerous person in power.

He was elected on a promise that should have served as a warning sign: “This is our moment, this is our time to turn the page on the policies of the past, to offer a new direction. We are fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

He ran his charismatic campaign on a promise of “hope,” but in the words of Patrick Henry, “It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth — and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts.”

As for “fundamentally transforming” our nation, that is a thinly veiled reference to an outright assault on our Constitution and our Essential Liberty, one that thrusts an ever more powerful central government upon us.

Not since 1860 has the Union been at such odds with the fundamental rights of the States and the People.

Obama’s effort to endow the central government with absolute authority follows his Socialist political playbook, Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.”

Obama was elected just weeks after an economic collapse which can be tied directly to Leftist economic policies.

His effort to “Reclaim America” involves taxing and borrowing more than a trillion dollars from the private sector, sifting it through the bureaucracies of his political appointees, then “investing” it into the public sector to grow government and pay off his special interest constituencies and other benefactors.

He is plundering private sector resources under the pretense of private sector “job creation.”

He has attempted, with some success, to nationalize, by way of regulation, coercion or “investment,” the major industrial and service segments of the economy — including energy, banking, investment, education, insurance, automotive and real estate — and he has supplanted free enterprise with Socialism.

He is endeavoring to nationalize our nation’s largest single economic sector, health care, and he laughs off any suggestion that there is no constitutional authority for such folly. Moreover, the House version creates 111 new oversight bureaucracies. (1)

He has attempted to advance his domestic agenda on a global scale under the guise of “climate change.”

Further, Obama’s national security failures present even greater peril to life and liberty.

Coddling Islamic extremists, bowing to Saudi kings, apologizing to the world, politicizing terrorist interrogation methods at Gitmo, treating terrorism as “criminal activity” and moving the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York, using Operation Enduring Freedom as campaign fodder and setting a timeframe for withdrawal from Afghanistan — these and many more grossly errant policy decisions served only to hinder and demoralize us and our allies while empowering and emboldening our enemies, thus enabling jihadi attacks such as the murder of 12 soldiers, one civilian, and an unborn baby at Ft. Hood, and the narrowly averted bombing of a U.S. airliner this past Christmas Day.

Of course, there were other ridiculous gaffes, like the one at his last public press conference (six months ago), when he offered his impromptu assessment of the arrest of his friend, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, by claiming that the Cambridge Police “acted stupidly.” His subsequent “beer summit” was a forced and feeble attempt at damage control.

And then there was the Nobel Peace Prize, a ridiculous Euro-leftist albatross of an award that was bestowed upon Obama just days after he ascended to the presidency.

Were it not for the threat of unbridled laughter, Obama’s SotU address might also reflect on some of the most egregious prevarications from his brief tenure.

On his plans for massive government expansion: “Not because I believe in bigger government — I don’t.”

On his grand Socialist schemes: “I’ve never bought into these Malthusian, woe, Chicken Little, the earth is falling — I tend to be pretty optimistic.”

On the so-called “stimulus package” (i.e., record debt): “Less than one month after taking office, we enacted the most sweeping recovery package in history, and we did so without any of the earmarks, pork-barrel projects that are usually accompanying these big — these big bills.”

On bailouts for behemoth auto producers: “Let me be clear. The United States government has no interest in running GM. We have no intention of running GM.”

On his friends at ACORN: “You know, it’s — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.”

On blame shifting: “You haven’t seen me out there blaming the Republicans.”

On taxes: “I will tax just the rich. I want to give a tax cut to the middle class.”

On the cost of ObamaCare: “It won’t add to the deficit. And I mean it! … It’s designed to lower it!” And how about this one: “I have not said I am in favor of a single-payer system.”

On the transparency of his health care “reform” deliberations: “It’s going to be on C-SPAN.”

On jobs (record unemployment): “My administration has created or saved… [ad nauseam].” (2)

On the political influence of grassroots Tea Party participants: “Those people waving their little tea bags around…”

Clearly, Obama has underestimated the influence of those who support America’s First Principles. In addition, he has also grossly misread his mandate as the heir of the once-noble Democratic Party.

These miscalculations were manifest in the recent Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections, and again this week in Massachusetts.

Who woulda thunk it — that in the most liberal state of the union, whose legislature hastily amended laws so the governor could immediately appoint a Demo replacement for the seat vacated by the U.S. Senate’s most liberal member, Ted Kennedy, who had occupied the seat for 47 years since the departure of his brother, JFK, and whose life ambition was to nationalize health care, whose designated replacement, Martha Coakley ran on his platform — who woulda thunk that a Democrat who just weeks ago held a 30-point lead in the polls would be defeated by Scott Brown, a moderate Republican state legislator of the Mitt Romney variety, who ran on a platform against nationalized health care?

Clearly, the loss of a Senate seat in Massachusetts is a major reality check for Obama. When asked about the rising rejection of his “vision” for America, Obama responded, “I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we’re making a good rational decision here, then people will get it.”

In other words, “The people are just too dumb.”

And speaking of “the people,” when Scott Brown was asked in his last debate with Coakley if he would be willing to “sit in Teddy Kennedy’s seat” and vote against the health care bill, he responded, “Well, with all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy seat, and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.”

Every Republican and Independent running for election or re-election in 2010 should, first, take that cue from Brown — the seats they seek belong to the people. Second, they should take a cue from Ronald Reagan, who left a timeless template for success: Run on a platform that, first and foremost, insists on the re-establishment of constitutional Rule of Law, and then governs accordingly.

For too long, too many Americans have been complacent about liberty, believing it to be their birthright and the birthright of generations to come. They have enjoyed the fruit of liberty defended by others, taking rights for granted and knowing nothing of the obligations for maintaining that blessing.

Most Americans have never had to fight for liberty and, thus, have little concept of its value or any sense of gratitude for its accumulated cost — a cost paid by generations of Patriots who have pledged their Lives, their Fortunes and their Sacred Honor.

The election of Barack Hussein Obama was an egregious affront to our legacy of Essential Liberty, and a clarion call to action for the many good citizens who honor the rights and obligations of citizenship.

As was the case with the first American Revolution, we now face a crucial battle for liberty. The upcoming elections, more than any other in recent history, are about the restoration of constitutional integrity.

Indeed, fellow Patriots, this is our time. The road to recovery is long, but the momentum is with us.

Footnotes: 1. With the election of Brown, ObamaCare in its present form is dead, but expect Obama to call for passage of revised legislation, which has support of both Republicans and Democrats. Once passed, it can then be readily amended.

2. Credit where credit due — Obama’s recovery plan has not created any real jobs, but it did secure new employment for at least three Republicans: One in Virginia, one in New Jersey and now one in Massachusetts.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US

Supreme Court Hands Down Key Campaign Finance Decision

January 21, 2010

While this is good news there is still McCain Feingold out there that needs to be destroyed. Along with the political careers of the sponsors… Partial overturns are meaningless.

Fairfax, Va. – The National Rifle Association praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, removing unconstitutional restrictions on the NRA’s ability to speak freely at election time.

The late Sen. Paul Wellstone had said during the original debate over this legislation that it was his intention to silence groups like the NRA. While the author of this measure had singled out the NRA, this law delivered a clear message to all American citizens: “Keep your mouths shut and stay out of our political debates.”

Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, said, “This ruling is a victory for anyone who believes that the First Amendment applies to each and every one of us. The majesty of free speech is that any American can roll out of bed and speak as freely as The New York Times, NBC or politicians. This is a defeat for arrogant elitists who wanted to carve out free speech as a privilege for themselves and deny it to the rest of us; and for those who believed that speech had a dollar value and should be treated and regulated like currency, and not a freedom. Today’s decision reaffirms that the Bill of Rights was written for every American and it will amplify the voice of average citizens who want their voices heard.”

The case originally centered on the FEC’s denial of Citizens United’s attempt to broadcast a film about Hillary Clinton through on-demand cable services in January 2008, but had broader implications in protecting the First Amendment rights of organizations like the NRA during election time.

Chris W. Cox, NRA-ILA chief lobbyist, said, “This decision today returns sanity to our political system. The First Amendment does not allow Congress to make laws denying Americans the right to speak out on issues, the right to assemble or organize on public policy issues, or the right to petition our government for redress of grievances.”

SOURCE