Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli won a major victory today when a federal judge in Richmond ruled ObamaCare’s individual mandate unconstitutional.
Of course, this battle over the anti-gun national heath care law — which could allow the government to disarm many gun owners based on medical records — is not over. Twenty other states, led by Florida, also have legal challenges to ObamaCare, and this issue is guaranteed to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Certainly, the decision in Richmond is good news for the Constitution and good news for all Americans.
Attorney General Cuccinelli also recently backed GOA’s effort to get the Congress to read the U.S. Constitution at the start of the new session in January. We could hope that had the 111th Congress read the Constitution, there would have been no ObamaCare.
If you have not already signed the petition, please do so at http://readtheusconstitution.org (and encourage others to so as well). Below is the text of a letter that Ken Cuccinelli released last week:
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Dear Friend of Liberty,
My friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) have a great idea to begin the 112th Congress: Read the Constitution!
Not just read it privately, but have it read out loud on the floor of the U.S. House and Senate.
In January, all Members of Congress will swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Yet every day in Washington, that document is ignored by those same people.
Ours was intended to be a government of limited, enumerated powers. But by disregarding the law of this land, Congress is reaching into the every aspect of American life. This must stop, and the first step is to remind the politicians about that document that they swore to defend.
It is time to restore constitutional fidelity, and to put the federal government back under the restraints laid out for it by the Founding Fathers.
I hope you will join with GOA and hundreds of thousands of like-minded Americans and sign the petition urging the Congress to read the Constitution in January, before it takes up even one piece of legislation.
U.S. District Judge Norman Moon, a Clinton appointee, tossed out a challenge to ObamaCare in Virginia this week. This is the second victory for the Obama administration in a wave of lawsuits. Liberty University, the plaintiff in the case, has already decided to appeal in hopes of eclipsing Moon’s decision. “Congress does not have the authority to force every American to purchase a particular kind of health insurance product,” said Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty’s School of Law and an attorney on the case. Liberty argued that the law abuses the Commerce Clause of the Constitution in an attempt to provide the government strict control over the health care market. Their constitutional exegesis is completely sound, but Moon was blinded to that reality.
According to Moon, the law requiring individuals and employers to purchase health insurance falls legally under the Commerce Clause because the lack of the law would drive up costs, “precisely the harms that Congress sought to address with the Act’s regulatory measures.” To this we would ask, if the Commerce Clause can be melded to the whims of the backers of ObamaCare, what powers doesn’t Congress have to continue to shackle the American people?
Along the same lines…
A recent Investor’s Business Daily editorial calls it “the ultimate form of taxation without representation”: the continuing attempts by eco-fascists to force wealth redistribution upon the United States and other “rich” countries. This is all under the guise, of course, of saving the world from the scourge of global warming.
After its abysmal failure in wintry Copenhagen last year, the UN is holding another climate change conference in balmy Cancun, Mexico. There, surrounded by sun and sand, it will once again attempt to convince delegates from 193 countries that, a) the world is in peril and therefore we must drastically reduce emissions; and b) the U.S. and other developed nations must pay poor countries billions of dollars in retribution for the “damage” they caused in becoming, well, developed. The conference will feature the usual fanfare, including 250 presentations about the effects of climate change and proclamations that 2010 is tied for the hottest year since we began keeping records 131 years ago.
This is all smoke and mirrors. German economist Ottmar Edenhofer, who also serves as the pretentiously titled Co-chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate Change, has openly admitted that “climate change policy is redistributing the world’s wealth.” This would be accomplished in the U.S. with cap-n-trade policies being pushed by Obama and his “progressive” pals in Congress.
Despite the sunny weather, the climate at this conference probably won’t be any friendlier than it was in Denmark. Even before the Republican landslide in last month’s elections, many lawmakers were leery of saddling Americans with more taxes during the recession, especially given the fact that China — the world’s biggest polluter — refuses to make any binding promises about emissions. In addition, in the wake of the Climategate scandal, emerging studies have shot more holes in climate change “science” than in Swiss cheese. Only time will tell, but it looks as if leftists will have to find another way to siphon America’s wealth to other nations.
In related news, House Republicans are set to eliminate the climate change committee created by soon-to-be-ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In Congress at least, the climate has changed.
And yet more commentary on epic fail obama’s choice of czar for BATFE
In another example of the “Chicago Way,” last week Barack Obama tabbed Andrew Traver, currently special agent in charge of the Chicago division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (better known by the ATF acronym), as the bureau’s permanent head. “You might as well put an arsonist in charge of the fire department,” quipped NRA spokesman Chris Cox.
While the gun grabbers at the Brady Center applaud the choice, Second Amendment advocates are predictably aghast. They criticize Traver because of his ties to the gun-control advocating Joyce Foundation and work during a 2007 conference on reducing gun violence sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, another fervently anti-gun organization. The IACP report includes a call for legislation to allow federal health and safety oversight of the firearms industry. What Second Amendment?
Others question Traver’s lack of senior-level executive experience, but when has that ever stopped anyone in Washington? The Senate may get a chance to question and confirm Traver, who would take over an agency laboring under acting leaders since 2006, unless Obama decides to use him as yet another recess appointment. Certainly Traver would fit right in with the rest of Executive Branch Washington in an era where the president relies on regulation, as opposed to legislation, to enact his agenda.
Socialists,from President Obama on down, look at the government as the
creator and administrator of rights. That is why even some on the left
liked the Heller and the McDonald decisions which overturned gun bans
in Washington, DC and Chicago.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic that the Supreme Court ruled
against these the gun bans in these two cities. And I’d rather be in
our shoes today than in the Brady Campaign’s — as they saw their
arguments slapped down harshly by the Court.
So why then would some big-government types like these two decisions
— especially the McDonald case out of Chicago? Because in basing
their decision upon the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, the
Justices perpetuated a false doctrine which has allowed the
Constitution to continue evolving.
The Due Process clause is the place where judges invent rights and
then decide how much the government can control them.
Gun Owners of America argued that the Court should have based its
decision on the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The Court would have then been using a definitive clause dealing with
rights of citizenship rather than the amorphous “substantive” Due
Process Clause where Courts have run wild and seldom come to
constitutionally-based conclusions.
Justices love the Due Process Clause because it has been interpreted
in such a way to allow judges to twist the Constitution to fit their
big-government world view. They love this approach because they love
righting “wrongs” based on what they THINK are “rights.”
President Obama complained on a Public Broadcasting radio interview,
when he was a state senator, that the Constitution only protects
negative rights and that such a limitation (in his view) must be
overcome. Obama made it quite clear that a constitutional republic
that is governed by our Constitution is antithetical to his socialism.
He talks of a right to health care, and a right to a comfortable
living, and, well, a right to anything the left thinks will help buy
votes.
Indeed, the role of government in the Founders’ Constitution is to
protect liberty, and no more. Socialists want government to provide
for everything, making the people dependent, even at the expense of
liberty.
The left is hoping to pit their understanding of the 14th Amendment
where courts create rights against the Tenth Amendment. They argue
that the Fourteenth Amendment, being enacted after the Tenth, trumps
the earlier amendment. That is why they are so eager to inject their
view of government-created rights into the 14th Amendment.
If the government is the creator of rights, then the government must
be protected from the people. That means they cannot allow any notion
that the Second Amendment is intended to be a check on the
unconstitutional exercise of federal power. The constitutional militia
was intended to be an instrument of the states to protect their
citizens from the federal government (by legal definition throughout
the colonies). All freemen were required to own military long arms.
Wyoming is on the right path. Wyoming has a Firearms Freedom Act which
“interposes” Wyoming against all federal laws involving a firearm
made in the state and which remains in the state. Unlike the other
seven states with identical laws, Wyoming makes violation of the act
by a federal official a state offense punishable by up to 365 days in
jail. Had they added one more day to the potential penalty, any
conviction would result in the loss of gun rights under 18 USC 922(g)
for any federal official who violates their law.
States and county sheriffs are going to need to take the militia
clauses of the Constitution seriously. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa
County (Phoenix), Arizona has a posse of 3,000. If Arizona were to
create a State Guard and encourage sheriffs to beef up their posse
strength to levels analogous to Maricopa County, and if other states
were to follow suit, the federal government would be less inclined to
assume that there are no limits to their powers.
Such an outcome will not come about until we understand that there is
no conflict between the Tenth and the Fourteenth Amendments, and that
rights come from God, not from government. Government-made
“rights” are the “wrong” rights.
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.
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.
It appears that the Federal government is worried about the various states that have decided that enough is enough. Federal oppression has been going on for decades, if not longer, and it is high time that something was done about it.
While MFFA is about firearms it is really about everything that the Federal government has been doing under the authority of a terribly warped interpretation of the Constitution, and simply ignoring the Bill of Rights.
The federal government is arguing in a gun-rights case pending in federal court in Montana that state plans to exempt in-state guns from various federal requirements themselves make the laws void, because the growing movement certainly would impact “interstate commerce.”
The government continues to argue to the court that the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution should be the guiding rule for the coming decision. The argument plays down the significance of both the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the 10th Amendment provision that reserves to states all prerogatives not specifically granted the federal government in the Constitution.
I’ll admit, when I first read that the impostor in chief had made a decision on who he would put before the senate for confirmation as the next Justice on the Supreme Court, and who it was, I was not all that alarmed. With the caveat that the devil is always in the details, and if details are not readily available? Then dig a little deeper… Thankfully, Anthony at The Liberty Sphere had more luck than I did… At least with all the power outages etc. that I have had recently do to the man made global warming. You know, that white fluffy stuff… Please follow the links for the entire story.
Stupidly, we are in a multi- front war, along with a rather serious asymmetrical warfare situation. The answer to the above question should be self evident. Unless of course you are hell bent on the destruction of these not so United States of America.
That’s correct. The lady apparently believes that the government can tell you what you can say, print, think, and yes even blog about. And please, don’t anyone use the “Can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” argument. If the damned place is in fact on fire it’s your civic and moral duty to let people know so that they can escape.
Controversy is putting it mildly. The lady is an obama clone from the way things appear. Oh, alright, unlike obama, she does still have her license to practice law.
Then we have her history on Gun Control, and it isn’t hitting your intended target…
The government of epic fail obama has tried to claim that the wholly un-Constitutional obamacare does not violate the Constitution.
Congress acted well within its power to regulate interstate commerce and to provide for the general welfare, Justice Department lawyers argued in a 46-page brief filed in federal district court in Detroit. For the courts to overturn President Barack Obama’s signature domestic legislation would amount to unwarranted interference with the policymaking authority of Congress, they added.
When will the coronation begin? So the vulcan eared phony can ram anything down the throats of the people of America? If this monstrosity was so Constitutional and good for America then why the bribes? Why did getting it passed require so many back room deals?
The case could go all the way to the Supreme Court, since more than a dozen state attorneys general have also filed suit against the legislation on broadly similar grounds. Cases are pending in federal courts in Virginia and Florida, raising the possibility that different appeals courts could issue conflicting rulings that the Supreme Court would have to resolve.
So, we the people, will once again have to bend our collective knees and adhere to the law like good little Boy Scouts? Anyone with as much as mush between their ears saw what can be expected during the Town Hall Meetings. We, the people, are fed up with overbearing government! before of all you leftist get your panties all wadded up bear in mind that the above statement applies to Republicans as well as democrat / socialist’s. Two, or more wrongs do not make a right people. Further, who does them makes not a single iota of difference.
“Under the government’s theory, they could force anyone to purchase vitamins, join a health club, or buy a General Motors vehicle, for that matter,” said Robert Muise, a lead attorney for the Thomas More Law Center, the conservative group that filed the Michigan lawsuit March 23, the same day Obama signed the law.
This country simply cannot wait for this to go to the Supreme Court. This needs to be stopped in it’s tracks. Add in the Court stacking that the current regime is doing, and this is the sort of thing that we can look forward to for quite some time.
Elena Kagan reportedly is the impostor in chiefs choice for the Supreme Court. So far, little really is known about the lady. What is known, is that she spent a lot of time in academia. Ivy league schools, and all that.
Considering the anti liberty leftist big government teachings and social activism that has been rampant at such places for so long? I for one am not all that sure that those things are in fact positives. The crotch card is also being played again, and I see that as a negative. Not the fact that she is female but the fact that it is even being touted.
What is the lady’s position on the Bill of Rights? The Constitution? Individual liberty verses Government power? Is she a constructionist or does she believe that a piece of paper breathes? Is she an obama boot licker or can she think for herself, and act on that rather than take marching orders?
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who didn’t see fit to pay his own income taxes, may soon have the authority to watch over your financial transactions, thanks to a new federal agency that would be created in the Democrats’ financial overhaul bill. The Office of Financial Research, straight out of a George Orwell novel, would serve as a central repository of transaction records generated at private financial companies. Geithner, along with an unspecified number of bureaucrats that he hires, will have unlimited access for “statistical analysis and research” of the nation’s financial institutions — supposedly for the purpose of spotting systemic problems that will allow them to act before another meltdown.
This agency is the latest in the series of unconstitutional power grabs that Democrats have grown accustomed to since Barack Obama became president. It violates American citizens’ Fourth Amendment guarantee of security in their “persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and its imprecise language leaves plenty of room for expanding the agency’s activities without congressional approval. The type of information access that Democrats seek would not have enabled them to prevent the financial meltdown of 2008, but it would allow bureaucrats who work for this agency the opportunity to share their privileged information with the private sector one year after leaving the agency. So, ironically, the Office of Financial Research simply presents our bloated government even more opportunity for further corruption and mismanagement of the economy.
In other financial “reform” news, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the architect of the legislation, has agreed to drop the $50 billion bailout fund in an effort to get Republicans onboard. While Dodd is making concessions, though, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is making accusations, claiming that Republicans are stalling because “they are having difficulty determining how they’re going to continue making love to Wall Street” if the bill passes. You’re a class act, Harry.
Huge Power Grab Underway in Washington
— Democrats looking to get almost ten, brand new anti-gunners in Congress
Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408 http://gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm
Friday, April 30, 2010
The Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House are pulling out all the stops to offset the oncoming tidal wave that is threatening to throw them out of power this November.
With their polls sagging badly, the liberal Democrats rammed through a Puerto Rican statehood resolution yesterday which many consider the first step towards making Puerto Rico the 51st state — a move that would give liberal progressives in the Congress six more Representatives and two new Senators.
Making Puerto Rico a state would bring another gun control bastion into our nation and bring almost ten anti-gun congressmen and senators into the Congress.
This is disgraceful! With her party’s polls plummeting, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to get as many additional progressives into Congress as possible so that she can continue advancing her liberal, anti-American agenda.
Regarding the statehood resolution, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) says it “is the Puerto Rico statehood bill which is being pushed by the new progressive party in Puerto Rico trying to create a federally [sanctioned] vote that they say is nonbinding but would give them the legitimacy to then come back and try to seat people in the United States Congress.”
To see how your congressman voted on the Puerto Rican statehood resolution, go to:
GOA will keep you updated as to when a vote is scheduled in the U.S. Senate.
GOA helps kill Pelosi’s attempt to give DC a vote in Congress
Not to be satisfied with merely eight new liberal votes from Puerto Rico, liberal Democrats want to give statehood to Washington, DC. S. 160 would take a major step in that direction by giving this federal enclave a vote in the House of Representatives.
The bill is the DC Voting Rights Act, otherwise known as the DC Vote Grab Act. It would make Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton a legitimate voting member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
If you know anything about Del. Norton, you know that she is one of the most liberal, anti-gun legislators in the country — one who completely supports Nancy Pelosi’s agenda. Of course, Democrats are not just going to settle for a mere Representative in Congress… they want statehood for the District of Columbia in order to get two anti-gun Senators, as well.
It seems that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi strategy is to continue screwing the country — even if it hurts them in the polls — because then they will work to get as many “new” votes as possible through Puerto Rican statehood… DC statehood… and even things like amnesty for illegal aliens.
But if Pelosi were to succeed in making DC a state, there will be two more liberal votes in the Senate — a situation that would allow them to break any Republican filibuster that would stymie their anti-gun agenda.
The Senate passed S. 160 last year, and if it were not for Gun Owners of America and Senator John Ensign, it would have been signed into law last spring.
Pro-gun Senator John Ensign and Gun Owners of America worked together to attach an amendment to the DC Vote Grab Act. The amendment would repeal all the restrictive gun control laws still on the books in DC after the landmark D.C. v. Heller Supreme Court decision. The vote margin was an amazing 62-36 in the Senate!
Wiping out DC’s still very restrictive anti-gun laws was not what Speaker Pelosi and other rabid anti-Second Amendment members of the House wanted to see.
Because of this GOA-supported amendment, the House has been unable to take any action on the Senate measure. While Speaker Pelosi has no desire to see a pro-gun provision within the DC bill, many House members are afraid to vote for any such bill that doesn’t contain the pro-gun Ensign amendment. In short, this has been a real Mexican standoff that has lasted for nearly a year.
In fact, when Pelosi tried to bring up the bill last week, she could not muster enough votes to secure passage. S. 160 might now be dead for the year, but GOA will continue watching this and alert you to any attempts to bring up the bill again.
Senate “disses” America’s veterans
For several years, GOA has been alerting gun owners to the travesty of justice that has been perpetrated on our veterans.
After the Brady law went into effect, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) began sending the names of many of its beneficiaries to the FBI so they could be added to the NICS list, denying these individuals their right to purchase a firearm. To date, more than 150,000 military veterans have been denied.
However, none of these veterans were ever convicted of a crime; none were found to be a danger to anyone; and none were afforded any meaningful due process of law. Under the semblance of being “mental defectives,” these veterans were added to the list strictly because a doctor or a bureaucrat in the VA appointed someone to manage their finances.
The al-Qaeda terrorists in Guantanamo have been given more due process than the American soldiers who fought them!
To combat this outrage, pro-gun Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) authored S. 669, the Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act, that will safeguard for veterans two of the most fundamental Constitutional rights enjoyed by Americans: due process of law and the right to keep and bear arms.
The Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act merely stipulates that a veteran cannot lose his or her gun rights “without the order or finding of a judge, magistrate, or other judicial authority of competent jurisdiction that such person is a danger to himself or herself or others.”
This very reasonable bill passed out of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee last June, having been approved unanimously.
Burr’s language was offered on the floor of the Senate during the health care debate, but unfortunately, it was defeated 53-45. To see how your Senator voted, go to:
GOA will continue fighting for the passage of this very important legislation.
Where we are at
As you know, elections have consequences. GOA is fighting in the trenches to protect/regain our rights. And, thankfully, we have won a couple of major battles at the federal level — like securing the ability to transport firearms on Amtrak trains and carry loaded guns in National Parks.
In the states, GOA has been successfully pushing Firearms Freedom Acts around the country — laws which allow guns that are made in their home states, and stay in those states, to be free of federal regulation. (Currently, there are seven states that have enacted such laws; several others are still in the process.)
GOA also worked in Arizona to pass a new Alaska-style carry law which allows citizens to carry concealed firearms without first getting permission from the government.
We have also lost some battles, as would be expected in a climate that is overwhelmingly controlled by liberals in Washington.
So we need your help. We can win the battles that are facing us, but only if we each give our maximum effort. Thank you for your continued support for our work. Even if you can only a give a couple of dollars, every little bit counts.
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 