Utah Sheriffs Association to Obama: From Our Cold Dead Hands

by AWR Hawkins 28 Mar 2013
 

 As sheriffs across the nation signal opposition to enforcing additional federal gun regulations, the Utah Sheriffs' Association sent a letter to President Obama assuring him that its members similarly will not comply.  The letters insists that the rights of Utah citizens trump any new gun control measure that Congress might pass, and sheriffs in Utah are prepared to trade their lives in defense of their constituents' right to keep and bear arms.

The letter, signed by 28 of Utah's 29 sheriffs, sternly rejects the citation of recent tragedies as Congress's rationale for expanded gun regulations:

With the number of mass shootings America has endured, it is easy to demonize firearms; it is also foolish and prejudiced. Firearms are nothing more than instruments, valuable and potentially dangerous, but instruments nonetheless. Malevolent souls, like the criminals who commit mass murders, will always exploit valuable instruments in the pursuit of evil. As professional peace officers, if we understand nothing else we understand this: lawful violence must sometimes be employed to deter and stop criminal violence. Consequently, the citizenry must continue its ability to keep and bear arms, including arms that adequately protect from all kinds of illegality. [original emphasis]

...as the duly elected sheriffs of our respective counties, we will enforce the rights guaranteed to our citizens by the Constitution. No federal official will be permitted to descend on our constituents and take from them what the Bill of Rights--in particularly Amendment II--has given them. We, like you [Mr. President], swore a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and we are prepared to trade our lives for the preservation of its traditional interpretation.

Rich County Sheriff Dale Stacey was among the 28 signatories on the letter, and on March 27 he spoke to Breitbart News:

The Sandy Hook shooting was terrible and we, in law enforcement, work to stop those kinds of things from happening. But taking guns from honest people isn't going to fix anything. The criminals will keep their guns, and regardless of what the law says criminals will always have guns. 

 I've owned a gun for 40 years and I've never committed a crime with it. What good can be done by taking it away from me?

We believe that if we do not uphold the oaths we have taken as Sheriffs we will gradually lose all our rights.

In recent legislative talks, a ban on so-called "assault weapons" from Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) did not make it out of committee. It is expected to receive a separate vote as an amendment to as-yet-unseen gun control legislation from Senate Democrats.

Big Government

Sen. Cornyn: 'Open the People's House'

by Mike Flynn 27 Mar 2013
 

 This Spring Break, thousands of students visiting DC won't be able to enjoy a time-honored tradition - a self-guided tour of the White House. President Obama canceled the tours, asserting that he needed to trim $2 million from the Secret Service budget as a result of the automatic sequester cuts. TX Sen. John Cornyn has blasted this decision and released a video demanding that the "People's House" be reopened to the public.  “Kids from Texas and across the country have been shut out of the White House because the President wanted to make the sequester as painful as possible," Sen. Cornyn told Breitbart News.

"Though billions in actual government waste have been identified for him, the President continues to insist on scare tactics to make a political point," Cornyn added. "When will he finally eliminate actual excess rather than shutting the doors of the People’s House to students on spring break?”

Cornyn's office estimates that, through April, over 1,000 Texas students will be denied the chance to tour the White House. As the Obama White House uses the cancellation of tours to trim Secret Service spending, the Obama family has increased Secret Service costs by taking a vacation a month so far in 2013. On Monday, Breitbart reported that First Daughters, Sasha and Malia, are spending Spring Break in the Bahamas.

The added Secret Service costs for the Bahamas vacation could likely have been used to keep the tours open through Spring Break. Of course, such a shift in priorities wouldn't allow Obama to score cheap political points. At least the First Family will have a nice Spring Break.



Big Government

Palin Reloads for 2014 Elections with SarahPAC Video

by Tony Lee 27 Mar 2013

  In a sign of how active Sarah Palin intends to be in influencing the 2014 elections, SarahPAC, Sarah Palin's Political Action Committee, released a video on Wednesday meant to ignite independents, conservatives, and Tea Partiers for the 2014 midterm elections. These voters propelled Republican candidates in the historic 2010 midterm elections that saw Republicans take back the House of Representatives on the backs of Tea Party voters.  Titled "Loaded for Bear," the video shows footage and headlines from mainstream media outlets like Politico referring to Palin as a "kingmaker" and conservative outlets like Fox News acknowledging how successfully Palin has used her star-power to help elect conservative candidates to office.

The video also features Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) praising Palin for her fearlessness and being instrumental in electing senators such as Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, Jeff Flake, Deb Fischer, Cruz and governors like Nikki Haley of South Carolina.

In 2012, former South Carolina Senator and current president of the Heritage Foundation Jim DeMint said Palin's endorsement "has more influence in primaries than any other endorsement right now."

"Sarah Palin picks winners," Cruz says in the video.



  And by all measures, that dynamic will not change in the next two years for Palin is often a one-woman clearinghouse for conservative and Tea Party candidates.

The video, which the group PassCodeCreative made, features Palin at Tea Party rallies in places like Nevada and at the Iowa State Fair in 2011, where she impressed Iowans, liberals and the mainstream media by answering nearly every question asked of her and engaging comfortably with nearly everyone who approached her for nearly six hours.

In the video, footage of Palin's 2013 CPAC speech is shown where Palin says, "Don't let the the big consultants, the big money men and the big bad media scare you off" from running for office.

She urges Republicans to focus more on "rebuilding the middle class" than rebranding the party and says "it is time to furlough the consultants."

Palin also speaks about her signature issue of dismantling the permanent political class and fighting crony capitalism. She urges Republicans look for candidates from Main Street communities, PTA meetings, small businesses and Tea Party rallies.

"SarahPAC supporters - the 2014 elections are just twenty months away. We appreciate your support, together we have elected many great commonsense conservatives over the past four years," SarahPAC Treasurer Tim Crawford says in a statement posted with the video. "Together, we will keep fighting to support these bold candidates."

Reporters in the video note only "Sarah Palin will hold Congress to account," that Palin "plays by her own rules," and Palin "doesn't care about old dogs" in the GOP. These are the qualities that make Tea Partiers, conservatives, and independents trust Palin.

"The next election is twenty months away, the last thing we need is Washington D.C. vetting our candidates," Palin says in the video.

The video notes that there are 35 Senate and 36 Governors races in 2014 and ends with a clip of Ted Cruz saying at CPAC, "I would not be in the U.S. Senate today if it were not for Gov. Sarah Palin."

The words "We Haven't Yet Begun to Fight" splash across the screen as SarahPAC's signature bear roars at the end of the video.

Big Government

Army Captain Demands DHS Give Up Their Weapons Of War

by Tim Brown

 
 A retired Army officer with nearly 30 years of service to the United States took to his Facebook page on Saturday in order to put forth his correspondence to Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) regarding the Department of Homeland Security. Captain Terry M. Hestilow called for DHS to hand over their war weapons to the Department of Defense saying that “the DHS has no war mission or war making authority within the limits of the United States of America.”

In addressing those that follow him on Facebook, Captain Hestilow wrote, “We each have a role to play in standing against this present tyranny. Part of that proper response is sending them a letter like this from YOU, and following it up to make sure it remains a “hot button” issue that must be resolved.”

He also said that with the sharing of his original post, he has “994 new friends (sic) requests, 61 messages, and 70 new comments to process.” Hestilow encouraged readers to “copy and properly amend this letter to send to your own senators and members of the U.S. House.”

The following is his letter in its entirety.

The Honorable Senator John Cornyn, State of Texas
United States Senate
517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Re: Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and that agencies preparation for war against citizens of the United States of America.

Dear Senator Cornyn,

It is with gravest concern that I write to you today concerning the recent appropriation of weapons by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that can only be understood as a bold threat of war by that agency, and the Obama administration, against the citizens of the United States of America. To date, DHS has been unwilling to provide to you, the elected representatives of the People, justification for recent purchases of almost 3,000 mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) armored personnel carriers, 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition (with associated weapons), and other weapons systems, when, in fact, the DHS has no war mission or war making authority within the limits of the United States of America.

Significant is the fact that at the same time the Obama administration is arming his DHS for war within the limits of the United States against the People of the United States in accordance with his 2008 campaign speech claiming,

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve gotta (sic) have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded [as the United States military]“–Candidate Barack Obama, 2008.

The Obama administration is deliberately defunding, overextending, and hollowing the Department of Defense; the only legitimate agency of the U.S. government with a war mission.

This act of the Obama administration stands as a glaring threat of war against our nation’s citizens! This act of the Obama administration can only be understood as a tyrannical threat against the Constitution of the United States of America! If left unresolved, the peace loving citizens who have sworn to defend the United States Constitution “against all enemies, both foreign and domestic” are left no option except to prepare to defend themselves, and the U.S. Constitution, against this Administration’s “coup” against the People and the foundations of liberty fought for and defended for the past 238 years. We have no choice if we honor our oaths.

The only proper response to this threat against the American people is for the representatives of the People, the members of the U.S. House and Senate, to demand in clear terms that the Administration cannot ignore, that the Department of Homeland Security immediately surrender their newly appropriated weapons of war to the Department of Defense (DoD). Further, since the DHS has assumed a position in the Administration to enforce the tyrannical acts of this president against the People of the United States against the limits of the United States Constitution, it remains for the United States Congress to exercise its limiting power in the balancing of powers established by our founding fathers, to disestablish and dissolve the DHS as soon as possible. One needs only to look to the rise of Adolf Hitler, and his associated DHS organizations, the SA and the SS, of 1932-1934, to see the outcome of allowing an agency of government this kind of control over the free citizens of a nation. The people of Germany could not have imagined, until it was too late, the danger of allowing a tyrant this kind of power. We must not be so naïve as to think it will not happen to us as well if we remain passive toward this power grab by the Marxist Obama administration!

Finally, for more than two centuries the nation has lived in peace at home because of the protections of our legitimate military and the many appropriate state and federal law enforcement agencies, supported by Constitutional courts. We stand today at a cross-road. Will we allow this present Administration to overthrow our United States Constitution and its legal processes to amend injustices, or, will we honor our obligations to defend the Constitution against a “domestic” enemy? Our Constitution lays out the proper methods of resolving our differences; and it does not include its overthrow by a rogue agency of a Marxist leadership at home. You, sir, are our constitutionally elected agent to defend our Constitution at home. We are counting upon you. We remain aware, however, of this present threat and will not expose ourselves as an easy prey to the authors of the destruction of our nation.

I know that this letter demands much of you. We elected you because we, the citizens of the State of Texas, believe that you are up to the task at hand and will, against all threats, honor your oath and office. We are also writing to your fellow members of the House and Senate to stand in integrity with the Constitution and against this present threat by the Obama administration and his DHS.

We refuse to surrender our Constitution or our nation!

Resolved,
Captain Terry M. Hestilow
United States Army, Retired
Fort Worth, Texas
March 23, 2013

The Captain also closed with a bit of a benediction to those reading the letter. “God bless you as you honor your oaths and your obligations as citizens of this free nation.  May we once again know honorable leadership and peace at home.”

Freedom Outpost

NRA: Why Won't NBC News Cover Chicago's Refusal To Enforce Gun Laws

by AWR Hawkins 25 Mar 2013
 

 During a March 24 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre explained that Chicago is big on gun control, small on enforcement of existing gun laws--and he asked why NBC News won't cover this. In fact, LaPierre told David Gregory that Syracuse University's track data on enforcement of federal gun laws in 2012 shows that "out of 90 jurisdictions in the country, [Chicago] ranked 90th."

This substantiates claims the NRA has been making for years. Namely, that the problem isn't a lack of gun laws but a lack of enforcement of existing gun laws.

LaPierre then asked Gregory:

Why doesn't NBC News start with, "Shocking news on Chicago. Of all the jurisdictions in the country Chicago is dead last on enforcement of federal gun laws?" Why doesn't the national press corps, with they're sitting there with Jay Carney and the President and the Vice President, why don't they say, "Why is Chicago dead last in enforcement of gun laws against gangs with guns, felons with guns, [and] drug dealers with guns?"

To this, Gregory's meager response was: "And you support those as felonies, being charged as felonies?"

LaPierre responded that the NRA absolutely does. And not only that, he wants those who are charged with felonies to be taken off the street so they can't keep committing crimes for which law-abiding citizens are being blamed.

Said LaPierre: "If you're the President and the Vice President, and the Attorney General, and your job is to enforce these laws against...drug dealers, gangs, and felons that are walking around with guns in the street, and you don't do it? [Then] you bear some responsibility. It is a tragedy."

Besides putting NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his place during a March 24 appearance on Meet the Press, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre also put his finger on Chicago  Mayor Rahm Emanuel's problem as well--in Chicago.

Big Journalism

Sequester: Obama Designates Five New National Monuments; Signing Ceremony Closed To Press

by Larry O'Connor 25 Mar 2013
 

 Despite continued protestations of doom over the sequestration cuts that have paralyzed all of Washington in the grips of terror over the past 25 days, President Obama somehow found it possible to commit the federal government to acquiring five new national monuments today.  He did so by using the Antiquities Act, thereby circumventing Congress in the process.  Coincidentally, (no, really, we're sure it's just a coincidence), all five national monuments are located in blue states that just a few months ago committed their electoral college votes to the re-election of President Obama.  Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Ohio and Washington well reap the financial benefit of the new federally designated monuments.  Nothing like a nice reward for dedicated support, even while defense department employees are weeks away from receiving furlough notices.

The White House clearly recognizes the troublesome optics of the president's act while encumbered by the new sequestration ethos in Washington, so they chose to bar the press from the signing ceremony.  At today's press riefing, White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest tried to claim that keeping the press away from the ceremony was no big deal:






Q Josh, just a follow-up on that. Doc Hastings, who’s the Chairman of the House of Natural Resources Committee, said that this was an odd time to be bringing this up when the government is struggling with the sequester, White House tours are closed, many agencies including the Park Service is struggling to keep open what they have. I think his quote was, this is the government spending money it doesn’t have on properties it doesn’t own. How do you respond to that?

MR. EARNEST: Well, my sense is, is that these designations today don’t necessarily -- are made for important reasons, as I laid out before; that they have an impact on local economies; that they will -- that you can see local economies growing up around the designation of these properties that as visitors come to enjoy these new national monuments that will have a stimulative impact on the local economies in these communities.

They also reflect a way to commemorate and, in some cases, even celebrate the history of this country. So there are important reasons for why the President took this step. In terms of the impact that this is going to have on the budget of the Department of Interior and the National Park Service, I’d refer you to them for that analysis. It’s my understanding, however, that a lot of the land for these new national monuments was either land that was already owned by the federal government or it was donated. And in terms of the immediate costs in terms of the management of the land, I think they’re pretty minimal in the early stages. But certainly future budgets that the administration will offer will reflect the acquisition of these new properties.

Q Just one more thing. Why was it closed, the signing closed? It fairly -- I’m sorry, I almost made a pun -- it’s a monumental -- (laughter) -- piece of legislation. I didn’t mean to do that.

MR. EARNEST: That’s pretty good.

Q But why close? I mean, there are not even stills in it?

MR. EARNEST: Well, I think that we were able at the last minute to include some stills in there. There were a lot of people moving in and out who are participating in the ceremony. But this is something that was announced a couple of days ago so maybe we underestimated your interest in it.

Big Journalism

Media Put Pro-Obama Propaganda Over Airline Safety

by John Nolte 25 Mar 2013

  Contrary to ongoing media propaganda, the story of the current sequester cuts is not what's being cut -- be it the closing of White House tours or 149 airport control towers. The real story is that our federal government is so mismanaged, greedy, and corrupt that what amounts to a 2% cut in a $3.5 trillion budget results in the closing of airport control towers.

The only thing more absurd than a federal government so out of control it can't cut enough bloat, repetition, and waste to keep those control towers open, is the fact that our media plays along. Rather than hold the White House accountable for refusing the GOP's offer for some discretion over the cuts,  the media keeps right on parroting Obama's talking points that the government is too small.

What we're currently seeing from the media is almost all lies of omission and pro-government propaganda. And as proof, out of the hundreds of stories the media has written while wringing their left-wing hands over nothing-cuts, I submit to you the only three I've been able to find that tell the real sequester story.

The first is Sharyl Attkisson's CBS News report on the IRS wasting $60,000 in taxpayer money on a "Star Trek" spoof.

The second is a Breitbart News exclusive about the First Daughters spring-breaking at a Paradise Island resort.

The third is about $385,000 being spent by the federal government to study duck penises.

It is unconscionable that our government and our media continue to stand helplessly by as airport control towers go unmanned. Rather than scramble to do whatever is necessary to protect pilots and passengers by reallocating resources from the unnecessary to the necessary, they prefer instead to push propaganda.  

Big Journalism

Obama Pursues Royal Prerogative as MSM Remains Silent

by Michael Patrick Leahy 25 Mar 2013
 

 On Monday, Breitbart's Matthew Boyle broke the story that First Daughters Sasha and Malia Obama are spending their spring break at a resort in the Bahamas. Breitbart's Mike Flynn followed up with an analysis showing how this reflected President Obama's budget priorities. There is enough money in President Obama's post sequester FY 2013 federal budget to provide Secret Service protection for his daughters vacationing outside the country, Flynn noted, but not enough to keep the White House open for tours for the children of average American taxpayers. Throughout the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, President Obama promised to transform America into something better, a land filled with hope and change. It appears, however, that the man who vacations in Martha's Vineyard, golfs with Tiger Woods, and sends the Secret Service to accompany his wife and daughters on international vacations to Spain, Mexico, and now the Bahamas has another agenda in mind. He seeks to transform constitutional presidential authority into royal prerogative. Judging by the failure of any media source other than Breitbart, Drudge, and Instapundit to cover this story, it is also quite clear that the mainstream media has decided to play the role of dutiful courtiers to this expansion of presidential powers.

Prerogative is not a word used very often these days. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as "an exclusive or special right, power, or privilege: as one belonging to an office or an official body  . . . [or] to a person, group, or class of individuals." During the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers used this word frequently to refer to those special powers and privileges that could be exercised only by the British monarch, King George III. Their complaint about George III was simple. In his treatment of the American colonies, he had far expanded the royal prerogative beyond those special powers and privileges identified in the unwritten English Constitution.

This, of course, was one reason why our Founding Fathers insisted on a written Constitution, ratified by the citizens, with a Bill of Rights that guaranteed freedom of the press. Presidential authority would be constrained by both the written words of the Constitution and the free press, acting as a watch dog of executive abuse.

But during the Obama administration, presidential authority has been unconstrained to a remarkable degree, ranging from the unconstitutional use of the "recess" appointment to blatant abuses of executive privilege. The courtiers of the mainstream media have been fawning in their treatment of these unfettered and apparently successful attempts to transform traditional constitutionally authorized presidential authority into extraconstitutional royal prerogative.

The mainstream media's protection of President Obama's budget hypocrisy in denying access to the White House to thousands of American school children while authorizing the latest international vacation for the First Daughters is but the latest example of the most troubling transformation of all--that of the watch dog media into fawning royal courtiers.

Big Journalism

Sequester: Pentagon Suspends Thunderbird, Blue Angel Air Shows

by Mike Flynn 25 Mar 2013
 

 In its continuing bid to make the automatic sequester cuts as painful to the public as possible, Obama's Pentagon has announced that it is suspending its aerial acrobatic flying teams, like the Air Force's Thunderbirds and the Navy's Blue Angels. With the decision, the Obama Administration is continuing the fiction that the last dollar government spends is on services most valued by the public.  Each branch of the military operates its own aerobatic team. The Navy and Marines have the Blue Angels. The Air Force has the Thunderbirds. The Army has a parachute team called the Golden Knights. These teams are publicly popular features of air shows across the country. After performances this past weekend, the Pentagon will suspend public appearances until at least after September 30th, the last day of the fiscal year subject to sequester cuts.

The decision raises two, almost conflicting, questions. First, is the Pentagon's budget so efficient that cutting the aerobatic teams is a natural place to trim spending? When the government has to shave pennies off every dollar it spends, does it always need to first go to the areas the public most sees? To save $2 million, over a 7 month period, out of the Secret Service budget, Obama chose to cancel self-guided tours of the White House. I appreciate the Obamas' predilection for luxury vacations, but couldn't they have scaled back these, rather than shutter the White House from the public?

The second question raised is more existential. Why is the military providing aerobatic teams to air shows in the first place? One promoter said that acts like the Blue Angels boost attendance at air shows by 25%.

There is a clear financial value, so why aren't air shows paying for the military entertainment? Beyond that question, are these aerobatic teams really critical to providing for the national defense?

Taming runaway federal spending will require a host of tough decisions. Many programs may make sense when budget deficits are just 2-3% of GDP, but look altogether different when deficits approach 10% of the economy.

Perhaps it is time to retire the Blue Angels permanently.

Big Government

Obama Prioritizes Family Spring Break Over White House Tours

by Mike Flynn 25 Mar 2013
 

 As spring break begins for schoolchildren across the country, thousands of students will travel to Washington, DC. The trips, funded by bake sales and other events throughout the year, will allow the students to take in Washington's historic landmarks.  One premier destination is off-limits this year, however.

A few weeks ago, the Obama Administration announced it was suspending public, self-guided tours of the White House as a result of the automatic sequester cuts that the administration proposed in 2011. While America's students stand outside the White House fence, the First Daughters, Sasha and Malia, are enjoying spring break with friends at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

Breitbart News' Matt Boyle broke the news Monday morning that numerous sources have reported seeing the First Daughters in the Bahamas this weekend. Presumably, the Obamas are paying the costs of the resort out of their own pockets. The robust Secret Service detail that must accompany the First Daughters, however, is funded by taxpayers.

The principal reason the White House canceled public tours was to save money on Secret Service staff. The White House reported that suspending the tours would save $74,000 a week. Other reports have put the savings at just $18,000 a week.

Whichever the true amount, the Secret Service detail necessary to protect the First Daughters on their spring break could likely have been used to keep the White House open to the rest of America's school children. Judicial Watch reported that Malia Obama's Spring Break in Mexico last year cost taxpayers over $115,000. That amount would cover 2-6 weeks of White House tours.

At the very least, it would ensure that, this spring break, thousands of America's students could cap their trip to DC with a uniquely American tradition--a tour of the White House.

Big Government

Top Ten ObamaCare Horror Stories the Media Are Covering Up

by John Nolte 22 Mar 2013
 

 Because the mainstream media lobbied every bit as hard as Obama to win passage of ObamaCare, they are every bit as invested in doing whatever is necessary to see that it is perceived as a success. Unfortunately for Americans who expect truth from their media, this means the media are having to manufacture a false reality that says ObamaCare is, to steal a phrase, "doing fine."

In order to manufacture this phony reality, the media must further sell their blackened soul by violating one of their most cherished principals: reporting on how government policy hits America's weakest the hardest. It's just a fact that the worst fallout of ObamaCare is already landing hard on the working class, who are losing work hours, jobs, and their insurance.  

Usually when a government policy hits the working class, the media will fall all over themselves to "tell their personal stories." But not these people. The media perceives these poor souls as sacrifices to a bigger cause known as The State.

So with that in mind, I present to you (with big hat tips to Drudge and Investors Business Daily) the top ten ObamaCare horror stories the media is willfully covering up.

In no particular order…

1. Millions are and will lose the insurance Obama promised they could keep. Because ObamaCare forces employers to offer expensive Cadillac plans but also offers the option of paying a fine for not providing health insurance that can be cheaper than providing it, between seven and twenty million Americans are likely to lose their health insurance coverage according to the Congressional Budget Office. The original estimate was closer to four million.

2. The cost of healthcare premiums is about to further skyrocket. Premium costs have already exploded, but that is a slow-motion explosion. In the near future, we could see costs double or worse. Naturally, these costs will hit an already burdened middle class hardest.

3. Lost jobs. Lost jobs.  

The Federal Reserve's March beige book on economic activity noted that businesses "cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff."

Meanwhile, human resources consulting firm Adecco found that half of the small businesses it surveyed in January either plan to cut their workforce, not hire new workers, or shift to part-time or temporary help because of ObamaCare.

4. Potential doctor shortages that will mean rationing: The healthcare industry is already a bureaucratic quagmire. ObamaCare is about to add steroids. As the profession becomes tyrannized by government, the talented people currently practicing medicine plan to get out sooner than expected. Who knows how many will choose not to get in.

Doctor shortages are what lead to the nightmare known as rationed care. Here's an unsettling example already being practiced.

5. Somewhere around $800 billion in tax increases will hit America's middle class. This added burden will not only further oppress a middle class already reeling from a drop in wages over the last few years, but could damage the overall economy.

6. Inflation, the cruelest tax on the poor. When businesses get socked with added costs brought about by higher taxes and burdensome government mandates, they pass those cost along to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

7. Added bureaucracy. Even those Obama lapdogs over at the Washington Post's Wonk Blog are admitting that applying for health care is about to get more burdensome than the byzantine paperwork involved in buying a home.

8. To cut costs or to avoid having to provide insurance, workers on the economic margins are already losing hours, which means a lower paycheck. There are a million sad stories in ObamaVille; here are just a few of them.

9. ObamaCare is projected to add $6.2 TRILLION to a deficit the GAO has already declared "unsustainable." That's "trillion" with a "t".

10. More taxes than currently estimated are likely to hit because of situations like this one.

Three years ago, Obama, Democrats, and his media lied to us about cutting the cost of health care, being able to keep our insurance, and not taxing the middle class.

Today, those lies and what ObamaCare is and will do to the working and middle class are the biggest untold story in America.

The media is currently engaged in an ObamaCare cover-up every bit as big, corrupt, and damaging as the ongoing Libya cover up.

Follow  John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC

Big Journalism

NRA Sues NY Gov. Cuomo on Gun-Control Law

by Ken Klukowski 22 Mar 2013

 
 The NRA is taking New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to court as Cuomo prepares to run for president in 2016. The National Rifle Association is supporting a lawsuit filed by its state affiliate, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, whose president, Tom King, serves on the NRA board of directors.

In its complaint filed Mar. 21, the lawsuit challenges two provisions of Cuomo’s new gun-control law: one that bans a made-up type of firearm some politicians call “assault weapons” (there is no such type of firearm--it’s a collection of various types of guns that look scary but function like ordinary guns), and also the provision that bans ammunition magazines that hold more than seven rounds.

That last provision is most vulnerable to a constitutional challenge, as roughly 95% of handguns sold in America hold more than seven rounds, and are now illegal under this far-reaching law. The lawsuit challenges this New York statute for violating the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Both Supreme Court cases upholding gun rights in the past decade were about being able to have a handgun, so a law that makes illegal 95% of handguns should be a bridge too far for the courts.

The plaintiffs are being represented by a major New York law firm and by Dr. Stephen Halbrook, one of the most famous and accomplished Second Amendment scholars and lawyers on the country, who fought for part of the Brady Gun Law (signed by Bill Clinton and supported by future presidential candidate Hillary Clinton) to be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Printz v. U.S. (1997), and whose scholarly works were cited by the Supreme Court again in the historic 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized the Second Amendment as an individual right.

Breitbart News legal columnist Ken Klukowski is on faculty at Liberty University School of Law and had published two academic works on the Second Amendment.  
 
Big Government

Holder Faces New Questions About Racial Bias, Credibility After IG Report & Documents Released

by Joel B. Pollak 13 Mar 2013

  Attorney General Eric Holder faces new questions about racial bias at the Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as about the veracity of his testimony before Congress, as the result of a new Inspector General report and documents obtained by Judicial Watch.  The Inspector General’s report, covered extensively by former DOJ official J. Christian Adams, reveals that many Civil Rights Division attorneys do not believe that the Voting Rights Act ought to be enforced to protect white victims as well as black victims, and that black employees who were willing to help prosecute black defendants--such as the New Black Panther Party--were subject to alleged threats and intimidation by DOJ officials.

The Judicial Watch documents suggest that political appointees at DOJ were involved in the decision to drop the case against the New Black Panther Party, contrary to Holder’s sworn testimony before Congress, in which he said: “The decisions made in the New Black Panther Party case were made by career attorneys in the department. And beyond that, you know, if we’re going to look at the record, let’s look at it in its totality.”

The documents also contradict the testimony of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez, who claimed that there was no political intervention in the case.
Perez is currently considered the frontrunner to be President Barack Obama’s next Secretary of Labor, despite a controversial history that includes heavy involvement with the pro-amnesty group La Raza as well as the New Black Panther Party case.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, who fought the DOJ in court for access to the documents, called for “an independent investigation into whether Messrs. Holder and Perez committed perjury in testifying under oath about the Black Panther controversy.”

Big Government

Ex-Secret Service Agent: Obama 'Absolutely Not Telling the Truth' on White House Tours

by Matthew Boyle 13 Mar 2013

  Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino told Breitbart News that President Barack Obama was lying when he blamed the cancellation of White House tours on his former agency. “The president’s absolutely not telling the truth when he said the Secret Service made that decision to cut [the White House] tours,” Bongino said. “That’s the core of it: he is not telling the truth.”

In an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Obama said the decision, made as a part of sequestration, was not one “that went up to the White House.”

“But what the Secret Service explained to us was that they’re going to have to furlough some folks,” Obama said in the interview. What furloughs mean is--is that people lose a day of work and a day of pay. And, you know, the question for them is, you know, how deeply do they have to furlough their staff and is it worth it to make sure that we’ve got White House tours that means that you got a whole bunch of families who are depending on a paycheck who suddenly are seeing a 5% or 10%--reduction in their pay. Well, what I’m asking them is are there ways, for example, for us to accommodate school groups--you know, who may have traveled here with some bake sales. Can we make sure that– kids, potentially, can--can still come to tour?”

Bongino, who served 12 years in the Secret Service including five years working directly at the White House before leaving to run as a Republican for U.S. Senate in Maryland, said Obama is lying because the Secret Service does not make such decisions.

“The Secret Service does not make political decisions,” Bongino said. “The Secret Service makes security decisions. His statement that it was a Secret Service decision internal budget decision--and keep in mind, I’m not speaking for the Secret Service, I’m speaking from experience of being with them. All he’d have to do is cancel one or two of his political trips and his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, which two years ago I was on and helped coordinate, he would save that money times ten. There was just no way this was a sound decision. To insinuate this is the first administration where the White House social office and the Executive Office of the President had no role in cancelling public tours at the White House, that he was the first president who was left out of the decision, is absolute nonsense.”

Bongino said he thinks the president is using “the Washington Monument strategy”--a ploy by a politician who tries to garner public opposition to spending cuts by eliminating popular public services first--in doing this to White House tours. “He wanted to inflict, there is no question in my mind, maximum pain upon the American people. But here’s the caveat: it had to be public pain. If you don’t see it, it doesn’t hurt.”

But Bongino said all the public pressure Obama has taken for the decision to cancel the tours caused the ploy to “backfire.” Regardless, the ex Secret Service agent who served three years at the George W. Bush White House and two years at Obama’s White House said Obama still will not admit he was wrong and is now trying to blame the Secret Service for his own behavior.

“Instead of coming clean and being honest with the American people that your office and likely you as well had a role in this, he’s again pulling the wool over your eyes just like he’s done on Benghazi, the immigration release [of thousands of illegal immigrants] where he said he didn’t know and Janet Napolitano said she didn’t know, this is nonsense,” Bongino said. “These are not security or budget decisions. These are strictly political decisions. Make no mistake about it.”

Bongino said the Secret Service is not correcting Obama because the agency has “a great, elite group of guys and they’re always going to take it on the chin.”

“I don’t speak for them but they’re obviously a patriotic group of men and women and they’re not lying when they say there will be overtime costs saved so it’s not like they’re being disingenuous,” Bongino said.

“They’re trying to cover for this guy, I think, because they know it looks bad and they don’t want to get involved in the politics and I don’t blame them.”

Big Government

Russell Simmons Slams NRA for Hiring Black Spokesman

by Warner Todd Huston 8 Mar 2013
 

 Colion Noir, a young African American who is conservative and pro-gun, is the National Rifle Association's newest spokesman, but apparently this has proven too much for rap and entertainment mogul Russell Simmons. After seeing the NRA's intro video of Noir's upcoming NRA News show, Simmons took to Twitter to tell the gun group, "Dear @NRA, we don't trust you. Sincerely, Black America."
Simmons then wrote a longer attack at Globalgrind.com, saying that "black people ain't got no time" for the NRA.

Music entrepreneur Simmons criticizes the NRA's hiring of African American Noir and says it is "deeply troubling" that the NRA is encouraging the black community "to pick up guns again and start poppin'."
Simmons went on to say, "With smokescreens and a barrage of bullets, the NRA is intentionally playing into the fears of a very few people. Very, very few."
Simmons concludes his post saying,

Our community is not interested in a corporate sponsored gun group telling us what to do, when their real mission is to make more money for the corporations that line their dirty pockets with rolls of cash and silver bullets. We're much smarter than that and certainly can see through their motives. Until they show a real interest in solving the violence problem in our community, they can keep their Yankee hat-wearing spokesman and their African-American "campaigns" for themselves. In the words of another internet star, "ain't nobody got time for that."

Describing himself as an "urban gun enthusiast," Noir has been making Youtube videos talking about guns and the Second Amendment for some time, now, but at last the NRA has taken notice and is bringing Noir on NRA News.

Noir has attracted more than 7 million views on his Youtube channel, so his association with the NRA seems a natural fit. The young man will be doing videos for the NRA as well as traveling the country to talk about the U.S. Constitution and gun rights issues.



Big Hollywood

USA Today Touts Anti-Gun Research by Soros-Linked Advocacy Group

by Dr. Susan Berry 9 Mar 2013
 

 A study that concluded that gun violence costs Americans at least $12 billion per year was published on the front page of USA Today on March 5th. The research was conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), an anti-gun advocacy group based in Maryland that received funding through the Tides Foundation, an organization that is funded by George Soros. Results of the study reportedly showed that deaths and injuries due to gunfire cost society $32 per gun when considering the costs of court proceedings, insurance, and hospitalizations paid for by government programs, particularly Medicaid.

Ted Miller, author of the research, performed a similar study 20 years ago with funding from the National Institute of Justice. Following the Newtown, Connecticut shooting in December of last year, Miller decided to calculate again the costs of gun violence to society.

“I was surprised,” Miller said. “Back in 1994, the costs of drunk driving were substantially higher, but it has reversed.”

Miller said he found that total costs per injury had at least doubled or come close for medical care, psychiatric care, court proceedings, and insurance. In 1992, for example, he found that medical care for a fatal shooting averaged $14,500, while in 2010 the cost was $28,700.

According to Miller, Medicaid covers about 28% of hospital admissions for firearm injuries, 37% of hospital days, and 42% of medical costs. In a related study, Miller said he found that even if people were not on Medicaid at the time of the gunfire injury, about 8% were enrolled in Medicaid afterward. He concluded that “about half of the medical costs borne by Medicaid may be the best estimate.”

Neither Miller, nor USA Today, mentioned that PIRE has advocated against alcohol and tobacco and for increased regulation and tax hikes on items identified as harmful by public health experts.

In contrast, the National Rifle Association reported in January that the number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high, upwards of 300 million, while the firearm accident death rate has fallen to an all-time low, 0.2 per 100,000 population, down 94% since the all-time high in 1904. NRA states that, since 1930, the annual number of firearm accident deaths has decreased 81%, while the U.S. population has more than doubled and the number of firearms has quintupled.

Big Journalism

House Gop Leaders: We Can Pass Gun Control, Immigration, Without Republican Support

by Ben Shapiro 10 Mar 2013
 

 With more and more conservatives in the House rebelling against John Boehner’s increasingly questionable Speakership, Republican House leadership is now moving to quash in-house concerns by reaching across the aisle for support. Leadership is moving in the wake of a surprising move by 16 House Republicans to vote against a Republican leadership-crafted closed rule on a government funding bill. The rule was designed to limit amendments to the government funding bill, but some House conservatives, concerned over the Boehner team’s refusal to consider a floor vote on an amendment to defund Obamacare implementation, bucked Boehner on the rule. After undergoing that unpleasant shock, House leadership hasn’t responded by listening to the concerns of the more conservative members of its caucus. Instead, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said on Sunday that he would be open to ramming through bills without the support of a majority of his own Republican caucus. Not just on small bills. On issues like immigration and gun control, McCarthy said, he’d be open to taking rogue Republicans across the aisle to work with Democrats.

“It is better if the House does their work,” said McCarthy. “We should be sending bills to the Senate.” As CNN host Candy Crowley pointed out, McCarthy refused to give a straight answer on whether he would continue to uphold the so-called Hastert Rule, under which Republican leadership moves forward with bills only if they have a majority of Republican support.

This is a declaration of war within the Republican ranks. And it should be deeply troubling to Republicans across the country, watching as the recently and controversially reminted House leadership continues to pursue the same political philosophy that led to a mini-rebellion in the House in January.

Big Government

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).

Sheriffs and the Second Amendment

by Alfred S. Regnery 9 Mar 2013
 

 "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Those twenty-seven words enshrined in the Constitution by our founding fathers clearly give us the right to own firearms in the protection of God-given liberty.

Most Americans agree with the right to bear arms. According to a recent Rasmussen survey, 65% of Americans see gun rights as "a protection against tyranny." Among those 65% are thousands of uniformed local and state police officers who see real criminals on a daily basis who not only have not properly registered their firearms or submitted to a background check; regardless of what liberals and the Obama Administration try to jam through Congress, they’re not going to succeed.

As the Supreme Court affirmed in the 1997 case Printz v. United States, county sheriffs are the chief law-enforcement officers in their jurisdictions, with more authority than even federal agents. As such, sheriffs work for their constituents and must comply with their oath to defend both the United States and state constitutions, not do the bidding of out-of-control politicians in Washington who apparently recognize no limits on their power.

So elected leaders, such as Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, Jackson County, Kentucky Sheriff Denny Peyman, Milwaukee County Sherriff David Clarke Jr., and others are speaking out against Obama’s campaign against gun ownership. Almost 300 sheriffs from across the country and at least 13 state sheriff organizations have announced their opposition to President Obama's proposed gun control measures, pledging to defend the Second Amendment within their jurisdiction. That number is increasing on a daily basis.

While some liberal legal scholars find ambiguity in the unusual wording of the 2nd Amendment, most state constitutions are very explicit in allowing citizens to own guns. For example, the Ohio Constitution states “The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security[...]," while Delaware’s Constitution goes further: “A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use.”

However, with the Executive Branch under control of Barack Obama, and too many liberal Democrats in Congress, our Constitutionally-protected rights are under attack

Using the senseless carnage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut as a vehicle (remember Rahm Emanuel’s comment that you should never let a crisis go to waste?), gun control advocates have shamelessly stood upon the graves of innocent children to promote their misguided political agenda. President Obama has already taken immediate steps to limit legal gun usage through constitutionally questionable executive orders; he promised more limitations during his recent State of the Union Address.

In Congress, the anti-gun efforts are lead by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who recently announced proposed legislation that would ban 157 makes and models of military-style “assault” rifles, pistols, shotguns, and semi-automatic weapons. In addition, she proposes to outlaw fixed ammunition clips that can hold more than 10 rounds and ban civilian variations of military combat model firearms.

Feinstein was the author of the 1994 assault weapons ban (which expired in 2004) and had access to plenty of data which suggests crime rates did not drop during the ban. Murder and violent crime rates never went above what they were in the year prior to the ban sunsetting. Most policemen will gladly tell you that criminals almost always use handguns.

Our rights are in jeopardy. Police officers, while they serve our communities proudly, cannot be everywhere at once, and law-abiding citizens must have the ability to protect their families before help arrives. It is time to support our police officers by standing up to President Obama's anti-gun agenda.

Big Government

The Sad Truth About Immigration and the Sequester

by David Bossie 9 Mar 2013

  Out of President Obama's sequestration doomsday predictions, the one which best encapsulates what famed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward described as "madness" involves illegal immigration. And it is no laughing matter.

As Fox News reported, a few hundred illegal immigrant detainees were released by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which probably led to the early "retirement" of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations Director Gary Mead. ICE plans to let loose between 5,000 and 10,000 additional illegal immigrants to meet the terms of the sequester. Confirming the story this week was The Washington Examiner.

But don't worry: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has informed us that the illegals being released are "very low-level, low-risk detainees.” According to this New York Times profile, that can also be defined as illegals with convictions for “simple assault, simple battery, and child abuse." Are you comforted yet?

I have studied our porous Southern border closely. In 2006, I produced the award-winning documentary Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration. Since that time, the situation and the drain on our social services and entitlement programs have become even more dire.

With President Obama rushing to give every illegal immigrant a pathway to citizenship, what he and our leaders in Congress should do is tell the truth about the state of the fence at our southern border and asking: Why hasn't the border fence been built? 

To get that answer, we must look back to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush. While it authorized the construction of hundreds of miles of "at least two layers of reinforced fencing," the law was subsequently amended heavily by then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and others who gave DHS bureaucrats the ability to use less secure fencing at their discretion.

As Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama pointed out during a February 13 Judiciary Committee hearing, with more than $600 million in appropriations, and out of the 700 miles of fence we were promised, only 36 miles of doubled-layered fence actually exist. The rest of the fencing consists of single-layer fence or just small "vehicle barriers" designed to stop cars, which any pedestrian could easily hop over. This is an outrage and one of the reasons Washington politicians are so unpopular.

Now, while the border fence construction has essentially stopped, Mexican cartels continue to smuggle weapons, drugs, and illegals into our country who are more likely to commit crimes and fill our prisons. The United State Attorney General's office has released statistical reports showing crime rates along the southern border is increasing, with drug smuggling posing a serious organized crime threat for the country. And throughout the border, desperate Southern states have erected signs warning citizens to avoid certain federal lands because of the high levels of human and drug trafficking.

Before Congress discusses comprehensive immigration reform, we must enforce the laws on our books, finish building a legitimate and effective fence for the 21st century, and further secure our border with boots on the ground. With enemies throughout the world who do not wear uniforms, our liberty can only be secure if we know exactly who is coming into the country. If we are a nation of laws, we cannot reward lawbreakers while punishing those who wait in line to find a better life. And if we are to cut the size of government while reducing the burden placed on law enforcement and social services, conservatives must unite and finally get our border secured first.

Big Government

National Shooting Sports Foundation Warns of Media Plan to Divide, Conquer Gun Rights Groups

by AWR Hawkins 8 Mar 2013
 

 National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) president Steve Sanetti is warning gun owners to be beware the mainstream media's efforts to pit one gun rights group against another in an attempt to divide and conquer. For example, Sanetti points out that a March 5 Washington Post article is constructed around the theory that the NSSF does not stand with the NRA in opposition to universal background checks.

The WAPO does this by equating the NSSF's support for improvements to the current background check system with support for universal background checks.

Sanetti rejects this argument out of hand, and makes it clear that when the NSSF says they support an "effective, complete background check," they mean making the one we have now work better, by adding certain mental health components to it.

But regarding universal background checks, the NSSF stands in opposition right alongside the NRA.

As Sanetti put it:

Regarding so-called universal background checks, or background checks that extend beyond retail sales or to private transfers such as a father passing on his favorite hunting rifle to his son, our big concern is one shared by millions of firearm owners--that enforcing checks of used firearm transfers between individuals will lead to the creation of a national gun registry of firearms, something that Congress has expressly prohibited.

Big Journalism

Media's ObamaCurve: Today's Job Creation Pathetic Compared to Reagan-Era

by John Nolte 8 Mar 2013
 

 

***UPDATE: From an email: "Nolte's Reagan-Obama job rate analysis is skewed in O's favor because, since Clinton, workforce dropouts are no longer included."

Below, a commenter accurately notes, as well, that Reagan expanded the workforce and still lowered the unemployment rate. Obama, however, has seen the unemployment rate artificially drop due to a shrinking workforce. For instance, the unemployment rate dropped last month to 7.7%, but that's likely due to 135,000 leaving the workforce. 

It's just fact that if the labor force was as large today as when Obama took office, we would be looking at an unemployment rate closer to 11%.

The great trick Obama's media is playing right now is the manufacturing of a New Economic Normal that makes it possible to pretend Obama's failed economic policies are not. This is done through reporting which purposely excludes any kind of historical context. What the media and White House count on is that we've either forgotten what a real economic recovery looks like, or that we're too young to remember the Reagan Miracle.

In January of 1981, President Ronald Reagan inherited an economy every bit as awful as the one President Obama inherited in January of 2009. Before the Reagan Recovery hit, unemployment would peak at 10.8% in December of 1982 (Obama's high was only 10% in October of 2009). Unlike Obama, though, Reagan also had to deal with crippling inflation and interest rates.

Obama certainly inherited some unique problems of his own. But there is no question that it's fair to compare how both presidents handled their respective economic crises, and the results of the individual policies they instituted to get a desperate country out from under.

Reagan's approach was to get government off the backs of the people. He slashed tax rates, cut regulations, and freed Americans to innovate. His wisest decision, though, was to increase the incentive to invest.

Obama did the exact opposite. He intentionally exploded the size of government, passed legislation with crippling regulations (Dodd-Frank, ObamaCare), and rather than freeing the American people to invest and incentivizing risk,  Obama took money out of the private economy through tax increases and decided the government knew better with a "stimulus" of nearly a trillion dollars.

Today, if you look around the media, they're pretending 236,000 new jobs created last month represents some kind of miracle, when the truth is that the number is at best mediocre. But the media have manufactured the ObamaCurve in order to give a failed president a passing grade. It's only through the cynical removal of historical context that the media are able to celebrate economic failure.

At this same time in Reagan's presidency (March of 1985), Reaganomics had decreased the unemployment rate from a high of 10.8% to 7.2%.

From a high of only 10%, Obamanomics has decreased unemployment to a still-high 7.7%.

The comparisons are just as startling when it comes to job creation.

In the last year, Obamanomics has created 1.97 million jobs, or a measly 164k per month.

During this same time in the Reagan presidency (March of 1984 to February of 1985), Reaganomics created 3.34 million jobs, an average of 278k per month.

The comparison between 1983 and 2011 is truly eye opening. Reaganomics created 3.45 million jobs, compared to Obamanomics' 2.1 million.

We are currently living through a kind of Orwellian moment in which the media are turning failure and mediocrity into success through the deliberate memory-holing of history.

Fact: Had Obama swallowed his left-wing pride, looked to the recent past, and used the Reagan Miracle as a blueprint, our economy would be in much better shape today. But the media are so dishonest and so committed to putting Obama on Mt. Rushmore that millions upon millions of American are needlessly suffering.

The media's ObamaCurve is nothing more than a hoax, a scam, a racket, a con, and The Big Lie. What could have been Morning In America is shaping up to be The Lost Decade.

And media's lie of omission is that … it didn’t have to be this way.

NOTE: The numbers of above on the unemployment rate and job creation come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

UPDATE: Some changes were made after a triple-check of the math.

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