Wayne LaPierre at NRA Forum: Expect 'Bare-Knuckled Street Fight' for American Freedom

by Ken Klukowski 
26 Apr 2014

Watch the entire video of Wayne LaPierre below.

 INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana—Wayne LaPierre, the long-serving CEO of the National Rifle Association of America, rallied the troops on Friday with a broad-based liberty theme that made gun rights the centerpiece of what makes America the greatest nation on earth, telling NRA members to gird their loins for a “bare-knuckled street fight.” The NRA is known for focusing on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms—and with it, every aspect of America's firearms heritage. The NRA’s strength in political battles comes in large part from its ability to hold together a broad coalition of hunters, competitors, political activists, and others from both political parties and independents.



Yet at Friday’s Leadership Forum for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) in Indianapolis, LaPierre tied the Second Amendment to other American rights and the values that set America apart on the world stage. At one of the first events of the NRA’s 143rd Annual Meeting—which should draw over 70,000 NRA members to the Hoosier state—he touched upon First Amendment rights and constitutional limits on government, speaking of threats to “our right to speak, our right to gather, our right to privacy." He spoke, too, of "the freedom to work, and practice our religion, and raise and protect our families as we see fit.”

Citing a litany of conservative grievances over the past couple years, LaPierre denounced a wide range of policies of the Obama administration.
 “They try to regulate our religion. They collect our cell phone and email data. They give us Solyndra, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Obamacare, massive unemployment, a debt that will choke our grandchildren, and one executive order on top of another,” he said.

“The IRS is now a weapon,” LaPierre added, pivoting to a number of recent government abuses. “It’s why a majority of Americans, in poll after poll, say we don’t trust the White House, we don’t trust Congress, we don’t trust either national party. And we sure as heck don’t trust the national news media!”

But back in his wheelhouse of gun rights, LaPierre showcased his characteristic style of unyielding support for the Second Amendment. Speaking of “the God-given right of good people to protect themselves,” LaPierre promised, “the NRA stands unflinching and unapologetic and in defense of our freedom. NRA’s 5 million members and America’s 100 million gun owners will not back down—not now, not ever!”

He warned that the upcoming elections would be a no-holds-barred melee, a “bare-knuckled street fight” in which NRA members needed to fully engage. As one of the most successful political field generals in America, LaPierre is known for a hard-hitting style more suited to hand-to-hand combat leading up to Election Day.

LaPierre acknowledged that NRA members face a pitched battle against well-funded opponents who enjoyed the full backing of President Barack Obama and his administration. He also said that all this is part of “laying the groundwork to put a Clinton back in the White House.”
In the face of the Left’s resources, LaPierre vowed to the crowd at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, “But mark my words: The NRA will not go quietly into the night. We will fight.”

Ken Klukowski is senior legal analyst for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.

Big Government

Kira Davis: "No, I Don’t Care if Cliven Bundy Is a Racist"

Unmasking the Imperial Presidency

by Phyllis Schlafly  
22 Apr 2014

 "Imperial Presidency" perfectly describes what the Obama administration has become as it increasingly violates the limits on its power defined by the U.S. Constitution. Criticisms of how President Obama is overstepping his authority are now being heard from all sides of the political spectrum. A remarkable 33-page report posted on the Internet by the Majority Leader of the House, Eric Cantor, proves how imperial the Obama administration has become. This easy-to-read report, which can be downloaded by anyone, details dozens of examples of how the current occupant of the White House is exercising powers the Constitution doesn't give him.

This report accurately explains that "there is no excuse for this continuous disregard of legislative authority and the Constitutionally-required separation of powers." Yet President Obama and some Democrats even brag about their Imperial Presidency: "the President has proudly acknowledged that he has acted without Congress, contending that he has no other alternative."

Examples of Obama overstepping congressional authority include his creation of new laws outside of the legislative process. In direct violation of the fact that the Constitution vests "all" federal legislative powers in Congress, Obama has attempted to impose onerous, new global warming regulations on businesses costing billions of dollars and many lost jobs, despite the widespread discrediting of liberal hysteria claiming a global warming crisis.

Rep. Cantor's online report also explains how President Obama has been "ignoring the plain letter of the law and failing to faithfully execute the laws." In direct violation of the successful, bipartisan 1996 Welfare Reform Act, Obama unconstitutionally waived the modest work requirements for people who receive welfare handouts.

The work requirement in the federal law is an essential protection against abuse of the welfare system, but Obama simply ignored the law and removed the work requirement on his own say-so. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the lead perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing, was reportedly supported by state welfare benefits even though he was trained to be a terrorist intent on murdering Americans.

Eric Cantor's report describes how Barack Obama has repeatedly violated immigration law. Obama acted "systematically, on an ongoing basis, [to] block illegal aliens from being placed into removal proceedings, stop already-initiated removal proceedings, and end deportations for potentially large numbers of criminal aliens."

For years Obama refused to stand up for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the important bipartisan federal protection for traditional marriage that was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. Then he instructed Attorney General Holder not to defend DOMA in court even though the Constitution makes it the duty of the President to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

The Obama administration has adopted a new kind of imperial presidency known as Government by Waiver. Obama issued numerous waivers of statutory provisions in Obamacare in an attempt to get the Democrats past the next election.

Obama has already issued waivers to at least 35 states from the impossible-to-meet targets of the now-expired No Child Left Behind law on condition that the states adopt the hated Common Core standards.

Without any constitutional authority, the Democrat-controlled Congress created "super agencies" in 2010 whose immense powers are exempt from Congressional or judicial oversight. The 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a "death panel" with the power to decide which health care services will be reimbursed by Medicare, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has power to "withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Reserve to support its operations."

As solutions to the problem of the Imperial Presidency, Cantor's online report offers two new laws: the Faithful Execution of the Law Act (H.R.3973) and the ENFORCE the Law Act (H.R.4138). The first would require federal officials who refuse to enforce a federal law to inform Congress and provide a reason; the second would enable the House or Senate to sue the Obama administration to compel it to faithfully implement the law, with expedited review by the courts.

These measures are a good first step, but the House needs to more effectively use its constitutional control of the purse-strings and its exclusive power to propose revenue-raising laws. The House can hold hearings so Americans will know how the Imperial Presidency is using taxpayers' money to violate the Constitution and advance a leftwing agenda.

The House can also pass more bills to reduce funding for specific federal operations. Such actions by the House can lay the groundwork for the election of a Republican Senate in the fall so a new Congress will be positioned to halt more dangerous erosion of the Constitution by the Imperial Presidency.

Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and author of 20 books. She is the co-author, with George Neumayr, of the New York Times Best-Seller titled No Higher Power: Obama's War on Religious Freedom. She can be contacted by e-mail at phyllis@eagleforum.org. To find out more about Phyllis Schlafly and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Website at www.creators.com.

Big Government

Shiree Bundy Cox on the Bundy Family Allotment That Was “Bought”:

04/14/2014                                                                                                                                                

“I have had people ask me to explain my dad’s stance on this BLM fight. Here it is in as simple of terms as I can explain it. There is so much to it, but here it s in a nut shell.

My great grandpa bought the rights to the Bunkerville allotment back in 1887 around there. Then he sold them to my grandpa who then turned them over to my dad in 1972. These men bought and paid for their rights to the range and also built waters, fences and roads to assure the survival of their cattle, all with their own money, not with tax dollars.

The rights to the land use are called preemptive rights. [which Cliven Bundy has cited.]

Some where down the line, to keep the cows from over grazing, came the Bureau of Land Management. They were supposed to assist the ranchers in the management of their ranges while the ranchers paid a yearly allotment which was to be use to pay the BLM wages and to help with repairs and improvements of the ranches. My dad did pay his grazing fees for years to the BLM until they were no longer using his fees to help him and to improve.

Instead they began using these monies against the ranchers. They bought all the rest of the ranchers in the area out with they’re own grazing fees. When they offered to buy my dad out for a penance he said no thanks and then fired them because they weren’t doing their job. He quit paying the BLM and tried giving his grazing fees to the county, which they turned down.

So my dad just went on running his ranch and making his own improvements with his own equipment and his own money, not taxes.

In essence the BLM was managing my dad out of business. Well when buying him out didn’t work, they used the endangered species card. You’ve already heard about the desert tortoise.

Well that didn’t work either, so then began the threats and the court orders, which my dad has proven to be unlawful for all these years. Now they’re desperate. It’s come down to buying the brand inspector off and threatening the County Sheriff.

Everything their doing at this point is illegal and totally against the Constitution of the United States of America.

Then there’s the issue of the cattle that are at this moment being stolen. See even if dad hasn’t paid them, those cattle belong to him, regardless of where they are they are my father’s property. His herd has been part of that range for over a hundred years, long before the BLM even existed.

Now the Feds think they can just come in and remove them and sell them without a legal brand inspection or without my dad’s signature on it. They think they can take them over two borders, which is illegal, ask any trucker.

Then they plan to take them to the Richfield Auction and sell them. All this with our tax money. They have paid off the contract cowboys and the auction owner as well as the Nevada brand inspector with our tax dollars. See how slick they are? Well, this is it in a nut shell. Thanks”

Why The Feds Chickened Out On A Nevada Ranch

Kevin McCullough | Apr 13, 2014

Let me obliterate a bit of confusion here: the Obama administration attempted to go to war with a rancher in Nevada. Let me amplify a little bit of truth: They tucked tail and have returned home. And let me add a bit of clarity: they had no choice!

As the nation began to become familiar with the plight of the family of Cliven Bundy, many of us harkened back to another standoff in which the Federal government attempted to bully it's outcome: Waco, Texas and the Branch Davidian massacre.

It is telling that in the Nevada case the feds pulled out so quickly, given all they had indicated they were willing to do to resolve the matter to their satisfaction. They had set up a perimeter around the Bundy's family land, ranch, and home. They had brought in extra artillery, dogs, and snipers. They were beginning the process of stealing more than 300 head of cattle that did not belong to them.

They did so--or so we were told--for the reason of protecting the desert tortoise. But then it was revealed that the Bureau of Land Management had shot far more desert tortoises than the Bundy cattle had even possibly destroyed. We were told they did it because the Bundys had broken federal laws by not paying what amounted to retroactive grazing fees to the federal government. But the Governor of the state of Nevada told us that Bundy had paid every ounce of state tax, met the state requirements, and their family had been improving the property more than 100 years previous.

Finally we were allowed to know the connection between a communist Chinese wind/solar power plant and its connection to that senator named Harry Reid. Evidently a plan had been hatched to use the Bundy property for a solar farm and instead of paying the Bundys, someone, somewhere in the administration believed it was easier to just take what they wanted.

That approach is at least consistent with the readily documented abuse of eminent domain where the government for any number of reasons--few of them valid--have taken to taking what doesn't belong to them. Americans then watch as it gets handed over to some multi-national corporation for the "cause" of the "greater good."

There were a few specific reasons why the feds chickened out in the Nevada desert though.

1. Technology - As the Bundy family members were abused, cameras captured it. Not television network cameras, but dozens of cell phone video devices that gave witness to a Bundy aunt being shoved to the ground, and a Bundy son being tazed. All of this while threatening protestors with dogs, brandished weapons and vehicles was captured, uploaded and made viral to the watching world.

2. States' Rights - As the drama unfolded it became clear that the Governor of Nevada, and the Sheriff of Clark County knew that Cliven Bundy's family had not only not broken any state law regarding the land, but that they had gone to the enth degree to insure compliance with Nevada laws on the property. The Governor and the Sheriff, to their credit, did not favor the feds as a more powerful party in the conflict. Though there must have been pressure from Senator Reid's office, the administration via the Bureau of Land Management, and local officials who were bought and sold like the Clark County Commissioner who told those coming to support the Bundys to have "funeral plans in place."

3. Grassroots Response - As other incidents have transpired in the past, the amount of time it took honest information to reach the grassroots and thus the response to the action came to slow. In the massacre in Waco, most of the nation had been sold a single narrative from the limited media outlets covering the events. Similarly the events surrounding the abduction of Elian Gonzales from his family in Florida and deportation to Cuba took place in such a response vacuum that by the time Americans knew the real story, the damage was done. With the Bundy ranch, internet outlets by the dozen had competing information with the limited "official news" being released by the networks, and in most cases the alternative sources had it correct and usually a full day or so ahead of the news cycle. By the time afternoon drive hit, when the network news rooms in New York were preparing their first stories, talk radio audiences had already been dialing their elected officials in Washington demanding action.

The majority of Americans saw through the efforts to spin the story in Nevada. Couple that with the leadership failures that the American people view the administration responsible for, from Benghazi to the Affordable Care Act, all it took was the unedited video of federal agents tazing Bundy's son, followed by his pulling the wires from his chest and continuing to stand his ground for there to be comparisons made to the American revolution.

It's also important to note that merely pulling back from the Bundy property hasn't settled the matter for the American people either.

The feds have stolen 352 head of cattle, and will not confirm or deny if they euthanized some or all of them. Recompense must be made. And to be candid, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see if a few ambitious law firms don't try to convince the Bundy family of the validity of litigation.

Fortunately for the American people, the feds were not able to ultimately bully a simple rancher, not for a tortoise, a solar power plant, or a dirty Senator and his administration.

We owe the Bundy family a great deal of thanks for standing tall.

For if the federal government is allowed to do it with one, then there will be nothing stopping them from doing it again.

Townhall

Historic! Feds Forced to Surrender to American Citizens

Obama's SEAL Team 6 Coverup