Archive for the ‘States Rights’ Category

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DOJ Inspector General Proposes Multiple Sales Reports On Long Guns

November 17, 2010

More waste for pure political correctness and infringement of the rights of Americans.

As we noted in the Sept. 24, 2010 Grassroots Alert, a draft report prepared by the Justice Department Inspector General had called into question the BATFE’s mega-million-dollar Project Gunrunner program.  Established in 2007, this program sought to expand the agency’s firearm tracing operation, relative to the still uncertain amount of smuggling of firearms from the United States to Mexico. This week, the report appeared in final form.

 

Like the draft, the final report notes that despite Project Gunrunner’s lavish funding, the program suffers because the BATFE fails to coordinate with its own people, with those of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and with Mexican officials.

 

“We also found no routine sharing of firearms trafficking-related information and techniques between ATF intelligence personnel in Southwest border locations and in the ATF Mexico Country Office,” the report says. “ATF and ICE do not work together effectively on investigations of firearms trafficking to Mexico. . . . ATF does not systematically and consistently exchange intelligence with its Mexican and some U.S. partner agencies.”

SOURCE

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Immigration, Law, News, Politics, States Rights, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on DOJ Inspector General Proposes Multiple Sales Reports On Long Guns

70 percent of Oklahoma voters are wrong and one man is right.

November 12, 2010

Well, that didn’t take long. According to Clinton-appointed U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange, 70 percent of Oklahoma voters are wrong and one man is right. That man is Muneer Awad, who is the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for Oklahoma. He filed suit to block the adoption of the state constitutional amendment to prevent judges from considering international or Sharia law in their decisions, claiming the amendment “stigmatizes his religion.” Miles-LaGrange agreed, and the state cannot now certify the results of its election until a Nov. 22 hearing where Miles-LaGrange will rule on whether to grant a preliminary injunction to block the amendment.

Awad filed suit because he claims his will, which is based on Islamic law, would be made invalid by the amendment. “We are humbled by this opportunity to show our fellow Oklahomans that Muslims are their neighbors and that we are committed to upholding the U.S. Constitution and promoting the benefits of a pluralistic society,” he said.

Awad didn’t comment on whether those benefits of a “pluralistic society” would include honor killings or stonings of adulterous women, both of which are permissible in some interpretations of Sharia law.

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Law, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, States Rights, Wordpress Political Blogs | 10 Comments »

The end of Ted Kennedy’s dream of a third-world America

November 12, 2010

The Texas state legislature joined Arizona’s war on illegal immigration in a characteristically big way last Monday. State Rep. Debbie Riddle actually camped out before the chief clerk’s office to get low docket numbers for her illegal immigration bills. One would criminalize trespassing in Texas by illegal aliens, and a second would require state-issued voter IDs. Almost simultaneously, state Sen. Dan Patrick also offered two bills, one outlawing sanctuary cities and a second empowering law enforcement to question suspects’ immigration status.

All told, nine bills attacking problems caused by illegals were offered, including imprisoning unlicensed drivers who cause serious accidents, requiring schools to report illegal students and making burglary of a motor vehicle a felony. Since the new legislature is strongly conservative, chances are good for passage of all nine.

Of course, the usual suspects vow to fight for illegal immigration forever. Democrat state Rep. Mike Villarreal argued that every study has shown that stopping illegal immigration would “strangle the state’s economy.” However, a recent report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform puts the total annual price tag for handling Mexico’s overflow population at $113 billion, of which the states pay three-fourths unaided, or $84 billion. Texas’ share is nearly $9 billion, a tidy sum that, freed up, could spark considerable investment and employment, or even zero-out the state’s total deficit. Far from strangling it, the end of Ted Kennedy’s dream of a third-world America would strengthen the state’s economy.

SOURCE

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Immigration, Law, News, Politics, States Rights, Wordpress Political Blogs | 4 Comments »

Perhaps he needs his own reality show…

November 10, 2010

This is just to good not to republish! The epic fail obama, at his epic failing best!

“At his post-defeat press conference, Barack Obama worked hard to project an air of somber reflection, even as his remarks revealed that he had learned nothing from the defeat. Amidst the practiced pauses and detached narration of the crash came a litany of excuses, evasions, and arrogant denials. He more or less cast himself as the victim of a ‘bad economy,’ as if two years of sending anti-business signals to employers had nothing to do with the high jobless rate. He made sure to note that other presidents had gotten similarly clocked after two years. And he essentially blamed the American people for a lack of perception and patience. But since he couldn’t say that directly, he had to couch his self-justification in the form of patronizing blather about how he could have ‘accomplished’ more, made better ‘progress,’ and ‘communicated’ more effectively with the American people. … At the end of the day, he is nothing more than a shallow pol with little interest in or knowledge of governing. He backed into the White House through effortless luck (he ran against one of the worst Republican presidential candidates ever), and apparently assumed that running the White House would be just as easy. His shallowness also makes him obtuse, even from a rawly political and self-interested standpoint. He suffered one of the worst defeats in decades because of his environmental, socialist, and Brave New World dilettantism, yet spent much of the press conference talking about ‘electric cars,’ gays in the military, and 26-year-olds who, thanks to his largesse, will get to stay on the health care plans of their ‘parents.’ … Obama admitted that he lives in a ‘bubble,’ but that too was the fault of others. He presented himself as the passive victim of his own presidency. Near the end of the press conference, he allowed himself a particularly absurd and maudlin moment, complaining that because of the presidency’s inherently insular character no one can see the depth of his concern for the people. He said that ‘no one is filming him reading those letters’ from them which leave him so anguished and inspired. Perhaps he needs his own reality show.” –columnist George Neumayr

SOURCE

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Posted in Blogroll, Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Immigration, Law, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, States Rights, Stupid is as Stupid Does, Uncategorized, Wordpress Political Blogs | 3 Comments »

When is the federal government going to assume responsibility for the deficit spending?

November 10, 2010

“Can we solve the problems confronting us? Well, the answer is an unequivocal and emphatic ‘yes.’ To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world’s strongest economy. In the days ahead I will propose removing the roadblocks that have slowed our economy and reduced productivity. Steps will be taken aimed at restoring the balance between the various levels of government. Progress may be slow — measured in inches and feet, not miles — but we will progress. It is time to reawaken this industrial giant, to get government back within its means, and to lighten our punitive tax burden. And these will be our first priorities, and on these principles, there will be no compromise.” —Ronald Reagan

“While ‘hope’ and ‘change’ were the mantras of yesterday’s elitists, ‘freedom’ and ‘truth’ are the rallying cries of today’s ordinary Americans. John Adams wrote, ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’ That statement reminds us who we are called to be. That ‘faith’ is a verb — an ‘action word’. Our Constitution is the finest governing document of any country. And as voters, we need to work to make certain that our government protects our constitutional freedoms, whether they be economic, religious, or speech. We must demand that we remain free to associate with whom we choose, to travel where we wish, to work in the fields in which we feel called, and to teach our children in the manner we think is best. As citizens, we need to renew our commitment to live up to the moral and religious ideals that make it all work. Ordinary Americans need to continue to step forward and take charge.” –columnist Rebecca Hagelin

“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.” –George Washington

“The public is in the mood for repairing America’s crumbling financial house. Democrats will have a more difficult time demagoguing spending cuts when they have been primarily (though not entirely) responsible for the ocean of red ink. The Debt Commission will issue its report on Dec. 1. Many conservatives suspect it will include a call for tax increases. Republicans should say ‘no’ to any tax hikes and focus entirely on government overspending and misspending. Many of us are ready for strong medicine. ‘We can’t afford it’ still rings in the ears of those old enough to remember what parents or grandparents said when we asked for an expensive toy as a child, or a car at 16. That Puritan ethic remains in the DNA of many Americans. It is now up to Republicans to get it out and remind us of what fiscal and personal responsibility can do to restore financial solvency. It may take a while and there will be some discomfort and even pain involved. But in the end, we will all be better off than we are now and much better off than we will be if we fail to reduce our unsustainable debt.” –columnist Cal Thomas

“[W]here [does] all this talk of rich equaling $250,000 a year, a million a year … start? What right does Obama have to sit there and proclaim that people who earn X are gonna be punished with Y, people who earn less than X won’t be punished with Y? … Looked at within the prism of liberty and freedom, as our founding documents spell out, the Declaration, the Constitution, in nowhere in any of our founding documents was it ever said that people earning X would be punished for it. It was never said in our founding documents that people earning X would share a greater burden of funding the government than people who didn’t. … [A]ll this is nothing more than a direct attack on liberty, a direct attack on freedom and it creates class envy and resentment and anger between the classes, between people of different income groups. So all of a sudden we’re faced with a possibility here of the Bush tax cuts ending for people who earn $250,000 a year or more. Well, why are we even discussing it in the first place? What did those people do? What is the magic? Who sets arbitrarily this figure of $250,000 a year? Why are they targeted? And look how easily people fall into the trap of debating the premise, when the real question is when is the federal government going to assume responsibility for the deficit spending, for the irresponsible position they put this country in? When are they going to be forced to reduce the behavior, to limit the behavior they are engaging in that is causing a usurpation of our liberty and freedom?” –radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh

SOURCE

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Posted in Blogroll, Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Law, News, Politics, States Rights, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on When is the federal government going to assume responsibility for the deficit spending?

D.C. Smackdown: Heller II, and more…

November 10, 2010

Coming off some huge Election Day victories in the Congress, Gun Owners of America is now setting its sights on the courts.

A big battle will be taking place next week on Monday, November 15, at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Both Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation are involved in challenging an extremely restrictive gun control law in a case known as Heller II.

After the District of Columbia lost its 2008 case in Heller I, the city council enacted a firearms registration scheme that was nearly as draconian as the original law, which the Supreme Court had struck down.

The Heller I decision in 2008 was monumental, as it paved the way for the Chicago verdict earlier this year — which made clear that our Second Amendment rights apply throughout the entire country (not just in Washington, DC).

Gun Owners was also actively involved in the Chicago case, known as McDonald v. Chicago. This case is paying dividends, as recently as last month when a Wisconsin judge used the McDonald case to rule their ban on concealed carry unconstitutional!

The court said it “agrees with Justice Clarence Thomas’s McDonald concurrence and application of the Fourteenth Amendment to this matter. In essence, no State shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. As Justice Thomas demonstrates, the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right, not created by the Second Amendment, but secured or recognized by it.”

This appeal to the “privileges and immunities” of American citizens is exactly the argument that Gun Owners made in its amicus brief before the McDonald court.

It was worth every penny that was spent on the Heller I and McDonald cases.

In Heller II, we are challenging the new DC gun law. After all, what good does it do if the Court says you have an “individual right” to own a gun, but the city in which you live is still allowed to impose draconian restrictions which will cost you hundreds of dollars just so you can exercise that right.’/

That’s why GOA is helping to challenge the DC law… and why we are so excited about the oral arguments that will be delivered to the court on November 15, almost two weeks after the election.

Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation are submitting an amicus brief in this case. This is an effort that you can help us with — and it’s a lot easier than you might think.

In many federal offices, there are subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) pressures to give to the Combined Federal Campaign. Your boss may think his prestige depends upon getting everyone to kick in. The same thing happens in all too many corporations during the United Way fundraising drive.

You may have wanted to give but couldn”t find a group that wasn’t attacking your rights, let alone defending them, on the list of participating organizations. But that has all changed!

Federal employees now are able to designate Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) as the recipient of their gifts to the Combined Federal Campaign.

Use Agency Number 10042 for Gun Owners Foundation when you make your Combined Federal Campaign pledge or donation. Your gifts will go toward helping us win cases like the Heller II case which is coming just around the corner.

Also, if you work for a company that participates in the United Way, you too may be able to designate that your gift be to Gun Owners Foundation. Many local United Way Campaigns allow Gun Owners Foundation to participate through their Donor Choice Programs. Some, however, do not. Check with your local United Way Agency. You will not only be helping people and protecting your rights, but you will also get a tax deduction.

One additional note. If you are employed by a corporation or organization which has a Matching Gift Program, please keep GOF in mind when making your donation. Contributions to GOF are tax-deductible.

Your support for Gun Owners Foundation helps us to offer quality briefs in defense of gun owners’ rights. (You can read previous amicus briefs on the GOF site at gunowners.com.)

So please help the Second Amendment — while making a tax-deductible contribution either through the CFC or the United Way. Of course, you can always donate online at the Gun Owners Foundation site: http://www.gunowners.com/donate.htm

Thank you very much.

GOA Offering Arguments in Heller II Case
— You can help by giving to the CFC (Agency Number10042 ) or a similar private campaign

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.com/donate.htm

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, mysandry, News, Politics, States Rights, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on D.C. Smackdown: Heller II, and more…

Personal independence and the citizen authority to act

November 9, 2010

By way of Gun Owners of America I was introduced to yet another Gun Rights Examiner. Be sure too read his newsletter often, as well as his Examiner page!

by John Lngenecker

My core message to non-gun owners is that the health of the second amendment is the primary indicator of the overall health of the nation.

Understanding of how the two are related is going to be the key to smaller government, where everyone benefits.
With a changing of the guard in Washington and across many state governorships, some on the road back home to smaller government are bracing us once more
for sacrifice and some pain. There is no question that the people will have to participate in how we get smaller government, but not in the way we were told.
The time for compromise and sacrifice are actually over because most of the boondoggles are about to be over. With them gone, there is lesser need for compromise on a lot of things. From now on, our only sacrifice will be the time and trouble of supervising our public servants. For some, it is this supervision instead of being supervised that unsettles, but we are the sovereign, and we put the self in self-rule, making suprervision of officials a duty of all.
Whether some are comfortable or uncomfortable with self-rule is immaterial: it is our way of life for the good of the country. The repeal of gun laws is integral to smooth running governments who operate within budget, respond to constituents and who are free from scandal.
When the republicans take office in 2011, a lot of us expect the incoming Congress to repeal a chunk of gun laws as unjust and unconstitutional.
But there is more. Republicans and the officials and constituents who share republicanism values – those who understand that we are a republic and not a democracy, for instance – will know that an armed citizenry deters and fights crime best. Get a much better handle on violent crime and you have found the unlock block to uncontrolled spending. They key to smaller government is to withdraw the keystone of nearly all boondoggles, gun control.
With conservatives in office, Americans can likely see one vital thing: that personal independence works best when the target of violence has a free hand in being their own first line of defense.
If republicans stand for this kind of independence, they will be able to reduce the size of government by unfunding tons of anti-violence programs which attempt to take the place of the armed citizen and the citizen’s authority to act. Note that where the crime is the highest – and funding is the most wasteful – is in major cities with major gun control. With no force to resist violence, crime thrives. Don’t forget that gun control and gun laws are an absentee concept in how crime is cultivated. Anti-violence programs do little when every single crime is yet another failure of the program.
The sunlight on this reveals what gun control has been hiding: personal independence and the citizen authority to act. The best evidence, of course, is in how successful that independent authority to act is elsewhere in states which do not have severe gun laws.
The correctness and the dignity of the repeal of all gun laws is in the republicanism value that not only do the officials obey the constituents and respect their rights in this republic, but that they trust them because they believe in the system of republicanism.
Hurry, 2011, hurry.
— LA Gun Rights Examiner John Longenecker publishes the Safer Streets Newsletter.

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, News, Politics, States Rights, Uncategorized, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on Personal independence and the citizen authority to act

Right To Hunt And Fish Amendments Adopted In Three States

November 7, 2010

 

Voters in Tennessee, Arkansas, and South Carolina made a powerful statement on Tuesday by overwhelmingly voting to include National Rifle Association-backed constitutional amendments to protect America’s great, ages-old heritage of hunting and fishing as state constitutional rights.

“The voters have spoken and they have sent a very clear message to anti-hunting groups like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and PETA: You and your extremist agendas are not welcome in my state,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox. “NRA will continue to lead efforts to pass these amendments across the nation. We must be vigilant because even as we get more sportsmen’s groups to join us in the fight, extremists are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into anti-hunting campaigns.”

Tennessee’s Amendment received 90 percent of the vote, followed by South Carolina with 89 percent and Arkansas with 82 percent. The voters in these states appreciate that sportsmen are today’s true conservationists, as their license fees and excise taxes paid on equipment fund the vast majority of wildlife and conservation efforts in the country. Both sportsmen and wildlife were undisputed winners on election night.

Right to Hunt and Fish constitutional amendments are a state-by-state priority for the NRA and will continue at a rapid pace, especially with more pro-Second Amendment and pro-hunting legislators being elected around the country. NRA’s model Right to Hunt and Fish constitutional language, developed over the past five years, has become the standard from which to negotiate with legislators and game and fish professionals. Thirteen states now have these important constitutional protections: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

“Hunting is in America’s DNA. Indeed, it is as old as civilization itself,” concluded Cox. “NRA has long assumed a leadership role but we must all work together to ensure that every resident in every state is able to rest, knowing that their hunting heritage will be there for future generations.”

SOURCE

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Hunting Fishing and the Great Outdoors, Law, News, Politics, States Rights, Uncategorized, Wordpress Political Blogs | 2 Comments »

Epic fail obamanomics: A Rebuttal

November 6, 2010

Rebutting Obama’s Rebuttal

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Obama after Midterm Election

Mark Alexander responds to Barack Hussein Obama’s spin on the midterm election derailment of his endeavor to “fundamentally transform America”:

Obama: I think that over the last two years, we have made a series of very tough decisions, but decisions that were right in terms of moving the country forward in an emergency situation, where we had the risk of slipping into a second Great Depression.

FACT: Obama “inherited” the Bush administration’s decision to prop up the banks in order to avoid a cascading economic collapse. Obama’s “stimulus plan” did little more than stimulated the growth of the central government in order to prop up the transition to a Democratic Socialist state. See the stats.

Obama: But what is absolutely true is that with all that stuff coming at folks fast and furious — a recovery package, what we had to do with respect to the banks, what we had to do with respect to the auto companies — I think people started looking at all this and it felt as if government was getting much more intrusive in people’s lives than they were accustomed to.

FACT: I think he actually gets it right here. There is a Great Awakening to the threat of Obama’s Socialist agenda.

Obama: Now, the reason was there was an emergency situation, but I think it’s understandable that folks said to themselves, you know, maybe this is the agenda as opposed to a response to an emergency. And that’s something that I think, you know, everybody in the White House understood was a danger.

FACT: Right again, but Obama’s endeavor to nationalize health care (18 percent of the U.S. economy) had nothing to do with any financial emergency other than, in the words of O’s former Chief of Staff, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Obama: I think that what I think is absolutely true is, voters are not satisfied with the outcomes. I mean, if — if right now we had 5 percent unemployment instead of 9.6 percent unemployment, then people would have more confidence in those policy choices. The fact is — is that, you know, for most folks, you know, proof of whether they work or not is, has the economy gotten back to where it needs to be? And it hasn’t.

FACT: “I think that what I think is absolutely true…” Obama just admitted that because his policies have done nothing to boost the economy and private sector employment, a majority of the American people have awakened to his ruse.

May Obama and his ilk continue to cling to their delusions … but the fact is, his endeavor to “fundamentally transform America” has been derailed.

SOURCE

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Posted in Blogroll, Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Law, News, Politics, States Rights, Wordpress Political Blogs | 6 Comments »

A great night for the Second Amendment: Or was it really?

November 5, 2010

The Second Amendment had a great night on Tuesday. Across the nation, the right to arms is stronger than ever, and the stage has been set for constructive reforms in 2011.

U.S. Senate: The net result of Tuesday was a gain of +6 votes on Second Amendment issues.

In not a single U.S. Senate seat did the gun control lobby gain ground. Three open seats switched from anti-gun to pro-gun: Ohio (Rob Portman replacing George Voinovich), West Virginia (Joe Manchin taking the seat of the late Robert Byrd), North Dakota (John Hoeven replacing Byron Dorgan). In Arkansas, John Boozman’s victory over Blanche Lincoln is a significant gain.

Full Story

It just so happens that I agree with Dave Kopel about 99% of the time. Now, having said that..? Just how many of these new kids on the block will take on Lautenberg and Schumer. Two men devoted to the destruction of the Constitution and Bill of Rights? How many will put forth legislation doing away with GCA 1968? Or the ex post facto law portion, if not the entire Lautenberg Domestic Violence Act? The abortion known as obamacare? With it’s hidden as well as blatant un Constitutional mandates..? I myself, am sick of hearing how this or that “D” is pro Second Amendment then all they do is pay lip service… Unless it’s election time, and that goes for RINO’s like McCain as well!

HERE is another good read that, especially if you read the comments. Shows to what extremes some people will go to for the sole purpose of “Lording it over” you and I.

Will the hoplophobia continue on. It is, after all, politically correct mental illness.

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Posted in Blogroll, Czar Wars, Domestic Violence, Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Hunting Fishing and the Great Outdoors, Immigration, Law, mysandry, News, Politics, States Rights, Stupid is as Stupid Does, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on A great night for the Second Amendment: Or was it really?

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