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Clearing Up the Rumors: The Truth About The “Gun Tax Bill”

August 15, 2009

SB 2009 is like a petulant pouting democrat, it just won’t go away. Even when it is old, decrepit, and long gone…

Over the past few months, NRA-ILA has received hundreds of e-mails warning us about “SB-2099,” a bill that would supposedly require you to report all your guns on your income tax return every April 15.

Like many rumors, there’s just a grain of truth to this one. Someone’s recycling an old alert, which wasn’t even very accurate when it was new.

There actually was a U.S. Senate bill with that number that would have taxed handguns — nine years ago.  It was introduced by anti-gun Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and it would have included handguns under the National Firearms Act’s tax and registration scheme.  This has nothing to do with anyone’s Form 1040, of course.

Fortunately, S. 2099 disappeared without any action by the Senate, back when Bill Clinton was still in the White House. We reported about it back then, just as we report about new anti-gun bills every week. Now, it’s time for gun owners to drop this old distraction and focus on the real threats at hand.

To read a story by NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox on this and other rumors, please click here.

SOURCE

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Playing the Race Card: militia groups on the rise

August 15, 2009

As reported here earlier militia groups never went away. They just started playing the game a little smarter.

“Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends,” the Associated Press reports. The story is headlined, “Officials see rise in militia groups across US,” but the “officials” turn out to be just those researchers for the far-left race-baiting Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). “The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says. Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration.” Oh, and there’s the one guy from the ATF, whose lone quote about the growing movement is, “All it’s lacking is a spark.” Like the one at Waco?

The CBS Early Show joined in the fun, as co-host Russ Mitchell also cited the SPLC. “A report out this morning says anti-government and white racist militias are regrouping around the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center says it is in part a reaction to the election of America’s first black president.” Early Show correspondent Bob Orr expounded: “The report says 50 new militia training groups have popped up in just the last two years. Gun and ammunition sales are skyrocketing, and right-wing extremists, historically motivated by a distrust of government, are now especially angry about the election of America’s first black president.” Granted, conservatives are angry about a lot of things Obama is doing, but his race has nothing to do with it.

And as columnist Ann Coulter notes, “Throughout the presidential campaign last year, liberals were champing at the bit to accuse Americans of racism for not supporting Barack Obama. That was a tough argument on account of the obvious facts that: (1) for every vote he lost because he’s black, Obama picked up another 20 votes for being black; (2) Obama won the election in (3) a country that’s 87 percent non-black. So the accusations of racism had to be put on hold until … the first note of dissent from his agenda was sounded.”

SOURCE

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Profiles of Valor: U.S. Navy HM2 Simson

August 15, 2009

On July 27, 2007, U.S. Navy HM2 Joshua Simson was patrolling Saret Kholet, Afghanistan, with a joint U.S. and Afghan National Army unit. Simson later recounted that as the unit moved to establish an observation post for a river crossing, “A squad of Afghan National Army had pushed across the river to clear two houses and spotted bad guys. The Afghans fired at them, causing the anti-Afghan forces to initiate their ambush prematurely.” While the Americans and Afghans were in the “kill zone,” they hadn’t progressed so far as to be surrounded. But they still took heavy casualties in the ensuing seven-hour battle. Simson was serving as an advisor on being a medical first responder, and he put his training into action. Soon after the battle began, he pulled a wounded Afghan soldier into a bunker to administer first aid. The bunker took a direct hit, but he kept going. Throughout the battle, Simson said he repeated a sequence of tasks: “See or hear somebody need help, put out suppressive fire, move the man to cover if possible, and render lifesaving aid.” Finally, the unit was able to evacuate the wounded. Simson was awarded the Silver Star for his willingness to expose himself repeatedly to potential injury or death to save wounded soldiers on the battlefield.

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‘I’m as Mad as Hell, and I’m Not Gonna Take This Anymore!’

August 15, 2009

The issues of the day,as usual, just refuse to go away…

‘I’m as Mad as Hell, and I’m Not Gonna Take This Anymore!’

That famous line from the 1976 movie “Network” sums up the sentiment of many Americans as the health care debate continued to roar across the fruited plain. More town hall meetings featured citizens angry over proposed government expansion, leaving many congressmen not knowing quite how to handle the reaction. It’s clear that many Americans have simply had enough.

That doesn’t mean that Democrats were convinced to abandon their nefarious scheme. Instead, when their own constituents dared to question the infinite wisdom of the carriers of Potomac Fever, Democrat regulars put into practice the words of Obama administration lackey Jim Messina: “If [we] get hit, we will punch back twice as hard.” In other words, don’t worry about winning the debate; just try to discredit the opposition.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her left-hand man, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), started with an op-ed in USA Today declaring, “These [town hall meeting] disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.” This type of “thinking” — the transfer of one’s own emotions or practices onto others — is called projection. The Left has long since perfected the art of “drowning out” both opposing views and the facts, while blaming Republicans for doing the same thing.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) put out a call to action: “Opponents of reform are organizing counter-demonstrators to speak at … several congressional town halls on the issue to defend the status quo. It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices.” The SEIU has since removed the words “drown out,” but the message is clear — silence the opposition.

Last week, the administration encouraged Americans who support “reform” to rat on those who are spreading “fishy misinformation,” while Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) denounced the administration’s opponents as shills of the insurance companies. This week, the Left is painting town hall protestors as racists. “I think 45 to 65 percent of the people who appear at these groups are people who will never be comfortable with the idea of a black president,” said Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. MSNBC’s Carlos Watson worried that “the word socialist … is becoming the new N-word.” And Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein called them “political terrorists” who are “poisoning the political well” and “willing to say or do anything to prevent” ObamaCare.

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) added, “[T]he last time I had to confront something like this was when I voted for the civil rights bill and my opponent voted against it. At that time, we had a lot of Ku Klux Klan folks and white supremacists and folks in white sheets and other things running around causing trouble.” How convenient, then, that one of his supporters showed up at a meeting with an Obama-as-Hitler sign to “illustrate” the opposition’s “hate.”

Similar signs were made by LaRouche PAC, an organization run by long-time Socialist Workers Party member and seven-time Democrat presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. Rep. David Scott (D-GA) had a swastika painted on his office sign after a heated exchange at a meeting. Talk about “fishy.” What are the odds that the swastika wasn’t painted by an opponent? Pretty good, given the Left’s history of perpetrating similar hoaxes. Not that comparisons with the National Socialists of Germany aren’t appropriate — we made one last week — and the Left certainly has done its best to invite the unflattering comparison. After all, it was Pelosi herself who first introduced the word “swastika” to the debate.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is so confident in the health care bill that he will conduct town hall meetings only by phone. And Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) had such esteem for her constituents that she talked to someone else on her cell phone while questions were being asked by meeting participants.

In the end, while Sen. Benedict Arlen Specter dismisses protestors as not “representative of America,” here in our humble shop, we suspect that this horde of hysterical hypocrites is in fact not representative of America.

OBAMA LIED!!!

“I have not said that I was a ‘single-payer’ supporter.” –President Barack Obama at a town hall meeting this week

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program.” –Obama in 2003

OBAMA LIED!!! Part II

“We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors. … AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay?” –Barack Obama

Scratch that. AARP Chief Operating Officer Tom Nelson issued a statement saying, “While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”

This Week’s ‘Braying Jackass’ Award

“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” –Barack Obama, in a rare moment of truth-telling, arguing that a public option won’t force private insurance out of business

So let’s see: Government-run health care = the Post Office. And this is supposed to make us feel good about the idea?

The ‘Death Panel’

Section 1233 of H.R. 3200, the health care bill, would give financial incentives to doctors to give Medicare patients end-of-life counseling every five years. Yet federal law prohibits Medicare from reimbursing for services “the purpose of which is to cause, or assist in causing,” suicide, euthanasia or mercy killing. So why the ruckus over the section? Washington Post columnist Charles Lane explains, “Section 1233 … addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones. Supporters protest that they’re just trying to facilitate choice — even if patients opt for expensive life-prolonging care. I think they protest too much: If it’s all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to ‘bend the curve’ on health-care costs?”

The consultations are not mandatory, but the financial incentive for doctors makes them not entirely voluntary, either. To some extent, Section 1233 also prescribes the content of the consultation. The doctor “shall” discuss such things as “advanced care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to,” “living wills and durable powers of attorney,” and “a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families.” Asks Lane, “Who belongs on ‘a list’ of helpful ‘resources’? The Roman Catholic Church? Jack Kevorkian?”

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin warned of a “death panel” and she may be on to something. As Barack Obama himself enlightened, toward the end of life, tough decisions have to be made, and the government can help: “At least we can let doctors know and [the patient] know that, you know what, maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off, uhhh, not having the surgery but taking, uh, the painkiller.” Somehow, that’s not comforting. When Obama says “we,” he almost always means “the government.” The government telling the doctor and patient that the painkiller is better than the surgery sure sounds like a death panel to us.

Rush Limbaugh relayed the story of an Oregon woman who was denied a lifesaving medication for her cancer by OregonCare. The state did, however, in the same communication, assure her that it would pay to facilitate her death.

Furthermore, Obama health care adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, wrote, “When the worse-off can benefit only slightly while better-off people could benefit greatly, allocating to the better-off is often justifiable.” Perhaps decided by a panel?

Due to the negative publicity, the Senate Finance Committee announced Thursday that the end-of-life consultation provision will be removed from its version of the bill, but if there is any doubt as to liberals’ intention to introduce socialized medicine to America with all of its ugly consequences, Ronald Reagan put those doubts to rest in one particular radio broadcast.

“The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for ‘death panels’ that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t — it’s too expensive to let her live anymore. (Laughter.)” —New York Times transcript, including the crowd’s reaction, of Barack Obama yukking it up about the “death panels”

“President Obama is attempting to transmogrify America’s entire medical system. It is literally a matter of life and death. If Obama and his supporters find mirth in the thought of ‘pulling the plug on grandma,’ do you trust them anywhere near your health care?” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

SOURCE

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The Rage continues: obamacare, it’s only the beginning

August 15, 2009

Outrage continues over the various pogroms being instituted by the current administration. The claim that these people that just are not going to put up with the seemingly never ending destruction of life as we know it are mere puppets with strings being pulled by nefarious others just refuses to cease. Nor does the rhetoric centered around so called “dialogue” have any effect. The simple truth being that talking to the various Lairds already failed, and now that those same people are being forced to listen it is somehow un-American not to allow them to continue controlling the “debate.”

I hate to tell these elected representatives, but they work for us. They are there to give voice to our wants not for the purpose of political correctness or to gain the acceptance of those that are entrenched in the halls of power. Are there those that have other ideas about how the nation should proceed? Certainly, and the war of ideas is alive and well. However, when only one side is listened to or acted on? There will be trouble. All the charismatic leaders in the world will not change that simple fact, and it doesn’t matter whether it is in America or wherever.

Figure it out. It’s really not all that difficult. Stay away from our guns; stay away from our sons and daughters birthrights, and for the love of God, figure out that we are Taxed Enough Already. It’s called philosophical libertarianism. Remember that? Personal responsibility, accountability, and dealing with others as you would yourself be dealt with? Where governments only duty is that of protecting the rights of the individuals that it presides over? Oh, and don’t forget about that pesky thing called The Bill of Rights. It was placed there for the sole purpose of protecting minorities from the mob rule known as democracy.

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Town Halls and Obamacare

August 13, 2009

From The Patriot Post, of course!

Wednesday Chronicle
August 12, 2009
Vol. 09 No. 32

THE FOUNDATION

“Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them.” –Thomas Jefferson

The pinkos are coming — with health “care”

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

“Democrats, bloodied over their attempt to force health care ‘reform’ on Americans, are looking more unreasonable and hysterical by the day. This isn’t healthy for the republic. Their increasing anxiety and fear of failure are typified in the words of the leader of their party, who wants Republicans to keep their mouths shut while he ‘fixes’ health care. ‘I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking,’ the president said Thursday at a political rally in Virginia. ‘I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.’ So much for the promises of bipartisan lawmaking. So much for open discussion. So much for understanding who really caused the ‘mess’ in the first place. Like Al Gore claiming the debate about global warming is over, the White House simply wants to shut down dialogue over who controls more than one-seventh of the economy. … Truth is, there’s nothing more American than revolting against heavy-handed authority, be it a long train of abuses from a king or the lawmaking of elected officials with strong authoritarian urges. This is a nation founded on independence, and there is a large portion of it that wants to retain that priceless heritage. This seems to confuse some lawmakers. … Voters’ deep anger is justifiable. They have every right to disrupt and shout down public figures who, as the protesters can be heard chanting, work for them. At dispute is not a mere difference of opinion that can and should be discussed in a civil manner, but a fundamental question of who is in charge of peoples’ lives. We are not advocating violence, though coercive government is at its core violent as the state is required to resort to force to ensure that its directives aren’t violated. But we do support our fellow citizens’ right to express their rage at an injustice, particularly if it makes lawmakers uncomfortable. Shouldn’t Americans bristle when their independence is threatened, when a federal official, in this case White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, says party leaders ‘will punch back twice as hard’ when voters merely show their displeasure? The freedom the protesters are defending can sometimes be messy and imperfect. A lack of freedom, however, is eternally oppressive. It is an unrelenting prison that poisons the human spirit, even when cloaked in allegedly humane programs such as government-run health care.” —Investors’ Business Daily

UPRIGHT

“The health debate, which now has moved beyond the Beltway and into raucous town halls across the land, is so intense in part because it’s not really about health care at all. On a deeper level, it’s about the role of government in America’s economy. And that is a raw and unresolved topic, only made more so by months of exceptional government intervention amid a deep recession.” –columnist Gerald Seib

“Today’s ruling Democrats propose to fix our extremely high quality (but inefficient and therefore expensive) health care system with 1,000 pages of additional curlicued complexity — employer mandates, individual mandates, insurance company mandates, allocation formulas, political payoffs and myriad other conjured regulations and interventions — with the promise that this massive concoction will lower costs. This is all quite mad. It creates a Rube Goldberg system that simply multiplies the current inefficiencies and arbitrariness, thus producing staggering deficits with less choice and lower-quality care. That’s why the administration can’t sell Obamacare.” –columnist Charles Krauthammer

“Ever since Congress created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, health politics has followed a simple logic: Expand benefits and talk about controlling costs. That’s the status quo, and Obama faithfully adheres to it. While denouncing skyrocketing health spending, he would increase it by extending government health insurance to millions more Americans.” –columnist Robert Samuelson

“[Barack] Obama seems to think the country owes it to him to accept ObamaCare because he was kind enough to agree to be our president.” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

INSIGHT

“The history of the race, and each individual’s experience, are thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.” –American author and humorist Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field.” –French writer Michel Eyquem De Montaigne (1533-1592)

“Men hate those to whom they have to lie.” –French author Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

DEZINFORMATSIA

When right-wing extremists attack: “If you thought the health care debate was heated in Washington, outside the Beltway it’s gotten downright hostile. From Tampa, Florida, to Austin, Texas, to Romulus, Michigan, town hall meetings over health care have turned chaotic; death threats against members of Congress, taunting and shouting, even fistfights. Democrats claim it’s all political theater organized by reform opponents.” –NBC’s David Gregory

Nothing like hyperbole: “The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they’ve given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They’ve become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.” –Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein

Race bait: “I think 45 to 65 percent of the people who appear at these groups are people who will never be comfortable with the idea of a black president.” –Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker

“[W]hat concerns me is when in some of those town hall meetings including the one that we saw in Missouri recently where there were jokes made about lynching, etc., you start to wonder whether in fact the word socialist is becoming a code word, whether or not ‘socialist’ is becoming the new N-word.” –MSNBC’s Carlos Watson

Stupid white people: “Angry old white folks are storming into town halls all across the country spewing lies about health care reform. Let me set the record straight early on: These folks [are] dumber than Joe the Plumber.” –MSNBC’s Ed Schultz

Democrats are usually so innocent: “The nation’s drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall…. The White House and allies in Congress are well aware of the effort by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a somewhat surprising political alliance, given the industry’s recent history of siding with Republicans and the Democrats’ disdain for special interests.” –Associated Press writer David Espo (Democrats are the Party of special interests — unions, trial lawyers, homosexual activists, environmentalists, etc., ad nauseum.)

ObamaCare in Action?: “Thousands of Clunkers Line Up to Be Poisoned and Killed” –Detroit News

Aren’t There Cheaper Ways to Hurt a Region?: “Obama Ventures Back to Hurting Region — With Money” –Associated Press

Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghostbusters!: “Specter Holds Lebanon Town Meeting” –WGAL-TV Web site (Lancaster, PA)

Talk About Packing the Court!: “Sotomayor Sworn In as 111th Justice” –National Law Journal

What Kind of Sicko Hates Ice Cream?: “3 Charged With Hate Crime in Ice Cream Truck Attack” –Houston Chronicle

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Senator Franken, at Center Stage, Presides Over Sotomayor Vote” –FoxNews.com

News You Can Use: “Whisky: A Cure for Swine Flu, and So Much More” –Daily Telegraph (London)

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Obama May Abandon Bipartisanship on Health-Care Plan” –Bloomberg

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

SOURCE

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One Question Poll

August 13, 2009

From Doctor Dan:

This is NOT a joke

A one question poll.

DO NOT MISS YOUR CHANCE TO CAST YOUR VOTE:

This is your chance to vote on Obama’s performance on this Economy-AT&T/Yahoo Poll… NOTE: this is a totally unbiased poll.  The question is stated very simply… and, to the point.  No tricks.  No hidden messages. No nothing. JUST A SINGLE, SIMPLE QUESTION.  There is no way that anyone can say that it was not a fair poll… or, that it was “phrased” in a way that it can be interpreted later… to fit someone else’s desired answer.  In other words… it is a spin-doctor’s “nightmare.”

NOTE:   After you vote, you will see a second page that shows the running total and what the opinions are.

Then pass it on… so others can cast their vote.


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Rosen: No “right” to health care

August 13, 2009

More discussion on the health care debate. Well reasoned, and logical. Unlike most of what I have read across wordpress, and other blog websites.

SOURCE

No, 47 million Americans are not permanently unable to obtain health insurance. This oft-cited, sensationalized statistic is a snapshot at any point in time, something akin to saying 50 million Americans may have a head cold at any point in time but soon get over it.

The Census Bureau reports that in 2007, more than 250 million Americans (85 percent of the population) had either private insurance or were enrolled in a government health program such as Medicare, Medicaid or SCHIP. The uninsured include those between jobs, students just out of school and millions of foreign-born, many of whom are here illegally. The average family that loses its health insurance is reinsured within six months; 75 percent are reinsured within a year. The largest group of longer-term uninsured is younger people who are healthy and can afford insurance but choose to gamble.

The serious problems are confined to about 15 million people, less than 5 percent of the population, who can’t afford insurance or are uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions. These problems are manageable within our existing health care system rather than spending trillions on Obamacare to create a bureaucratic nightmare.

Health care is not a fundamental “right” in our society. The unalienable rights cited in the Declaration of Independence are life, liberty and the “pursuit” (not the delivery) of happiness. The Preamble to the Constitution speaks of “promoting” the general welfare, not providing it. The Bill of Rights delineates a series of fundamental rights that individuals possess, by nature, and that government shall not infringe. Free health care is not one of them. If it were, it could only be delivered to one person by forcing another to provide it. And that would be a violation of the provider’s individual rights. When you exercise your right of free speech, religious worship or assembly, it imposes no obligation on anyone else.

If someone is indigent, we don’t let him die on the sidewalk outside a hospital. We treat that person, as we should. We’ll even send an ambulance to get him. But whether the money to pay for this comes from taxpayers, private benefactors or by shifting the cost to other patients, it’s still charity. Health care isn’t a right. Neither are food stamps, housing subsidies or welfare. They’re all charity. When the government refers to these benefits as “entitlements,” it’s because the recipients are granted them by statute, not as rights.

Food, clothing, shelter and health care are essential to maintain life, but individual Americans enjoy different levels in the quality of all those things in our market economy based on their ability to purchase them. This strikes some people as unfair, by the socialist definition of that term. Is it fair that people with more money can afford better homes, better cars, buy more expensive clothes and eat at more expensive restaurants? Is it fair that a rich man can afford the best lawyers in the country while an indigent defendant gets only a court-appointed public defender?

Of course it is, because individuals have earned those benefits, and because there’s no practical alternative. Distributing homes, cars, lawyers or health care via a random lottery isn’t practical; it’s socialism. And socialism is doomed to failure because it lacks incentives and rewards for individual productivity and excellence. In the absence of that, it ultimately collapses when it runs out of the means to spend other people’s money.

The same reasoning applies to health care. “Universal care,” as President Barack Obama envisions it, would throw everyone in the same pit. We’d all become charity cases. Demand for medical care would soar, and supply would unavoidably be rationed. We’d sacrifice the world’s highest quality health care system for the great majority of Americans to a socialist model that will improve the lot of a few at the expense of the many. Very bad idea.

Mike Rosen’s radio show airs week- days from 9 a.m. to noon on 850-KOA.

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Militia Groups and others on the rise, oh my!

August 13, 2009

Supposedly various militia groups are on the rise according to the hate mongers at the Southern Poverty Law center. Be that as it may, why, I ask, would the American people feel the need to form such groups? Which, by the way, are allowed by the Constitution. Could it be a result of the oppression that many view as the de facto mission of the current administration? Or could there be more? This excerpt is from The Liberty Alerts Newsletter; H/T to Texas Fred

U.S. Preparing a Military Response
to Coming Social Chaos

As the shocking confidential information contained in this briefing shows, the threat of social meltdown and chaos is so large a domestic law-enforcement arm of the U.S. military (referred to by The Army Times as the “Consequence Management Response Force”) has been created to deal with what U.S. officials believe to be a coming, unprecedented wave of massive social chaos.

Later I’ll show you why many Washington insiders (including officials directly involved in homeland security) are personally making emergency preparations for social chaos. In addition, outgoing Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told Sen. James Inhofe and Rep. Brad Sherman that so much financial mayhem lies ahead U.S. troops may have to impose martial law to deal with social unrest.
Yes, U.S. Officials Are Quietly Preparing
for BIG Trouble Ahead

A new report by the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute states flatly the U.S. military must prepare for “a violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States” that could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.”

Late last year, The Washington Post noted the incoming Obama Administration is going to “earmark” at least 20,000 troops returning from Iraq to deal with “domestic emergencies.” Since then, the Army Times has broken the story that the domestic emergency army unit has been increased to 80,000 troops, who are being trained right now in Georgia.

In short, U.S. officials expect big trouble ahead — but they are not warning the general public about the danger (much less urge the unsuspecting masses to make basic preparations).

A rare critic of the government’s keep-the-public-in-the-dark mentality is former head of the U.S. Commission on National Security, Stephen Flynn.  He noted in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial: “Too many officials believe telling the truth to Americans about the risk would set off a nationwide panic. Thus, they keep us sheep in the dark for our own good.”

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New anti-gun strategy: Demonize CCW holders

August 12, 2009

The Examiners are turning out to be a very decent group. Even the ones that I don’t agree with. Now, if they would just let me have a general outdoors column… In any case, this reminds me a lot of a blogger that used to hang out at The Liberty News Forum. He is well stated, and backs up what he says.

SOURCE

Bigotry assumes many forms, hides behind many facades, but always it is the same; the social demonization of entire groups, classes or races of people in an effort to make them appear inferior and detrimental by their very existence.

In the wake of a nasty multiple shooting at a Pittsburgh, PA-area fitness club by a not-so-clearly psychotic man identified as George Sodini, America’s gun prohibitionists – led by the Violence Policy Center and Freedom States Alliance – are clamoring for restrictions or repeal of concealed carry statutes.
In the case against legally-armed citizens, the VPC has even manufactured an innuendo-riddled “study” to support their prejudices. My colleague, Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner Daniel White, writes about the shooting here.
Their hardly subliminal argument appears to be that citizens licensed to carry concealed handguns for personal protection are a threat to the community. This contention is based on six shooting incidents over the past couple of years in which the gunman had, or apparently had, a carry permit.

A 39-year-old Ypsilanti man used his concealed weapon and his experience in the Lebanese army to stop an alleged bank robber.

Meanwhile, proponents of public disarmament haven’t said a thing about the estimated five million other citizens who are licensed to carry, and haven’t harmed anybody. There hasn’t been a peep from the gun prohibition lobby about the armed citizen who shot a convenience store robber in Virginia recently, heading off a bloodbath.
Nor have the gun grabbers mentioned the incident a week ago in Topeka, KS in which a legally-armed store clerk fended off two robbers at closing time. Self-defense Examiner Eric Puryear wrote about that incident here.
And you never heard applause from the hoplophobes – about whom I wrote the other day – after an Ypsilanti, MI man named Nabil Fawzi last year intervened in a bank robbery, did you?
An employee with a concealed carry license used his handgun to defend himself and stop a pair of criminals who tried to rob his shop.
Instead, what we get from the gun prohibitionists is a steady diet of fear mongering with but one purpose: The stripping of a fundamental civil right to keep and bear arms so that we lose our ability to exercise that most basic of human rights, that of self-preservation.
Nowadays, about the only form of acceptable overt social bigotry is against gun owners. The gun bigots argue that when one person with a gun does something heinous, all gun owners are expected to bear responsibility, and surrender their rights as though it would undo the crime.
Before the armed citizen, it was the owners of .50-caliber rifles who were likened to terrorists and cop-killers. Next week or next month, who will the prohibitionists smear in their effort to promote public hatred of fellow citizens whose only “crime” is that they exercise a constitutionally-protected civil right?
The VPC and Freedom States crowd would have us all believe that every armed citizen is just like George Sodini, and that he is like all of us; a killer waiting to strike.
While they are loathe to admit it, there is really no difference between gun bigots and racial or religious bigots. One form of class hatred is no less divisive than another.
Visit with other Gun Rights Examiners:
David Codrea
Ed Stone
Paul Valone
Howard Nemerov
Dan Bidstrup
Daniel White
Don Gwinn
Kurt Hofmann
John Longenecker
Ron Bokleman
John Pierce
Candace Dainty
Gene German
Mike Stollenwerk
And don’t forget to visit these forums:
GunVoter.org
TheHighRoad.us
OpenCarry.org
More About: gunrights · Crime · Gun Control · Second Amendment · Self-Defense · Supreme Court · Personal Protection · D.C. · Constitution · Liberty · Gun safety · Open Carry · National concealed carry · Gun bans · Homicide data · Hoplophobia
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