A report from a national coalition of mayors urges President Obama to adopt dozens of gun registration and confiscation measures, including the creation of a federal interstate firearms trafficking unit.
After months of waiting in vain for gun control supporters in Congress to take aggressive action against semi-automatic firearms, gun shows and NRA-supported restrictions on the abuse of instant background check records and firearm trace information, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is urging President Obama to make 40 changes to federal gun law interpretation and enforcement on his own-without congressional approval.
Bloomberg conveyed his recommendations to the president through the euphemistically named anti-gun coalition he heads, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the NRA reports.
Titled “A Blueprint for Federal Action” and released only in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, the 51-page Bloomberg battle plan takes another cue from the military in calling for its mission to be carried out jointly by seven federal departments and agencies: the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security, the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The first six agencies are wholly under President Obama’s command, while the CPSC is an independent agency headed by commissioners nominated by the president.
The “Blueprint for Federal Action,” a copy of which was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, presents 40 recommendations that would dramatically curtail firearms freedoms.
Over the past two days, BigGovernment.com has been exposing the identities of members of IBEW Local 357 who taunted, harassed, intimidated and threw eggs at peaceful Tea Party protestors in Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada last weekend. This could signal in important turning point in citizen journalism and the use of the internet and social media to reveal the truth about an important dynamic in American Politics.
These reports are relevant for two important reasons:
First, they highlight the incredible lack of evidence the mass media had when they loudly and unabashedly repeated the claim that Tea Party activists in Washington, D.C., hurled racial epithets at members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
When the CBC marched down the middle of the protests on the day of the health care vote in the House of Representatives, there were hundreds and hundreds of hand-held cameras and cell phones that recorded the event. Here we are, ten days after the event and not one person has produced a video or audio recording proving anyone used a racial epithet.
But, within days of the egg-throwing incident, we have seen video showing:
Before President Barack Obama took over the White House, no United States citizen had ever been forced by the federal government to buy a product against their will. But now, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, Americans, by dint of their mere existence, are now required to purchase Obama administration approved health insurance or face a penalty assessed through the Internal Revenue Code. This is simply unprecedented. The income tax doesn’t kick in until an American earns income. Auto liability insurance doesn’t become mandated until an American chooses to drive (and even then it’s only by the state). And farmers must first grow food before they are subject to the regulations of the Department of Agriculture. But facing federal government sanction for simply breathing? That is a troubling assault on American liberty.
Unfortunately, Obamacare is just the latest example of the growing reach of the federal government into all aspects of our lives. While the final bill passed by Congress specifically made the noncompliance with an IRS individual mandate penalty not a crime, far too often when the spotlight of American attention is not focused on an issue, Congress has gone ahead and criminalized what was once before perfectly normal behavior. Consider, for example, small-time inventor and entrepreneur Krister Evertson, whose story is recounted by Heritage fellows Brian Walsh and Hans von Spakovsky:
The Boston Port Act is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (citation 14 Geo. III. c. 19) which became law on March 30, 1774, and is one of the measures (variously called the Intolerable Acts, the Punitive Acts or the Coercive Acts) that were designed to secure Great Britain‘s jurisdictions over her American dominions.
A response to the Boston Tea Party, it outlawed the use of the Port of Boston (by setting up a barricade/blockade) for “landing and discharging, loading or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise” until such time as restitution was made to the King’s treasury (for customs duty lost) and to the East India Company for damages suffered. In other words, it closed Boston Port to all ships, no matter what business the ship had. Colonists objected that the Port Act punished all of Boston rather than just the individuals who had destroyed the tea, and that they were being punished without having been given an opportunity to testify in their own defence. All the citizens of Boston were angered including the Loyalists and Patriots (otherwise known as Whigs and Tories)and they all sought for refuge from the other colonies.
As the Port of Boston was a major source of supplies for the citizens of Massachusetts, sympathetic colonies as far away as South Carolina sent relief supplies to the settlers of Massachusetts Bay. This was the first step in the unification of the thirteen colonies. The First Continental Congress was convened in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, to coordinate a colonial response to the Port Act and the other Coercive Acts.
Complete text — Great Britain : Parliament – The Boston Port Act : March 31, 1774
When Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter signed HO391 into law on 17 March 2010, the “national” news media circled the wagons and began another assault on State sovereignty. The bill required the Idaho attorney general to sue the federal government over insurance mandates in the event national healthcare legislation passed. The lead AP reporter on the story, John Miller, quoted constitutional “scholar” David Freeman Engstrom of Stanford Law School as stating that the Idaho law would be irrelevant because of the “supremacy clause” of the United States Constitution.
In his words, “That language is clear that federal law is supreme over state law, so it really doesn’t matter what a state legislature says on this.” Now that Barack Obama has signed healthcare legislation into law, almost a dozen States have filed suit against the federal government, with Idaho in the lead. Battle lines have been drawn. Unfortunately, the question of State sovereignty and the true meaning of the “supremacy clause” may be swallowed up in the ensuing debate.
Engstrom’s opinion is held by a majority of constitutional law “scholars,” but he is far from correct, and Idaho and the thirty seven other States considering similar legislation have a strong case based on the original intent of the powers of the federal government vis-à-vis the States.
The so-called “supremacy clause” of the Constitution, found in Article 6, states, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding [emphasis added].”
The key, of course, is the italicized phrase. All laws made in pursuance of the Constitution, or those clearly enumerated in the document, were supreme, State laws notwithstanding. In other words, the federal government was supreme in all items clearly listed in the document.
A quick reading of the Constitution illustrates that national healthcare is not one of the enumerated powers of the federal government, so obviously Engstrom’s blanket and simplistic statement is blatantly incorrect, but his distortion of the supremacy clause goes further.
Parents are expressing concern and disappointment towards Peoria Unified School District board member Diane Douglas over her opposition to a one-cent sales tax increase as part of axthetax.com.
The district has said it would face a $15 million shortfall should the tax be rejected at the ballot box May 18.
During public comments at last week’s board meeting, some parents called for Douglas’ resignation, questioning how she could serve both on the school board and as the anti-tax group’s treasurer.
Angela Mussi, president of the Peoria United Parent Council, said she was shocked to learn that Douglas was opposing Proposition 100.
“More than 200 companies have joined a boycott of (Glenn) Beck’s program,” reports the Washington Post. “A handful of advertisers, such as (IPhone owner) Apple, have abandoned Fox altogether.”
We can only assume this Apple “boycott” was prompted by what CBS’s Katie Couric (quoting the Fox commentator’s critics) describes as Beck’s “inflammatory, unfair, despicable, hateful rhetoric.”
This same hyper-sensitive-to-hate-speech Apple, by the way, has just launched an IPhone application featuring Che Guevara’s quotes. Yes! “Now you can carry around Che Guevara’s quotes on your IPhone!”
Alas, many of us, though not customers of this unquestionably hip product, suspect that most of Che Guevara’s hippest quotes are missing from this hippest of IPhone apps. Among those we fear were overlooked by the hyper-sensitive-to-hate-speech, Apple are:
If you are tired of our nation’s year-long health care debate and you were hoping that the passage of President Barack Obama’s health care bill would settle anything, then Politico has some bad news for you: the real fight is just getting started. Starting today, a coalition of leftist groups will sink millions of dollars into television advertising and astroturf events selling the plan to the American people. But as a Washington Post poll conducted after passage last week shows, the Obama administration and their leftist allies face a steep climb.
The top line numbers are bad but not daunting for the pro-Obamacare forces: 50% of Americans oppose the changes in the new law while 46% support them. But the numbers also show that most Americans believe the new law will cause “the overall health care system in this country” to get worse, “the quality of the health care you receive” to get worse, and “your health insurance coverage” to get worse. The poll also shows that most Americans believe the law will weaken Medicare and that there is “too much government involvement in the nation’s health care system.” And strong majorities of Americans believe Obamacare will increase the federal budget deficit (65%), increase “your health care costs” (55%), and increase “overall costs of health care in this country” (60%). The American people are right on all counts. And if the events of last week are any indication, these beliefs will only harden over time.
Nullification is the talk of the day, especially as it regards the federal health care law. Many states’ legislatures are offering and passing legislation and resolutions to nullify the health care law on the basis it exceeds the authority of Congress. This is a step in the right direction. However, unless specific provisions are in place to guide and protect the citizen, nullification might prove pointless.
Unless a citizen produces proof of coverage under the federal mandate, he or she will be taxed as a penalty for failure to buy a federally-approved insurance policy. In states where nullification efforts have passed, most instances will leave the citizen in a state of conflict.
A high-ranking Homeland Security director responsible for preventing illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. has been convicted of inducing her Brazilian housekeeper to flout federal immigration laws by remaining in the country illegally.
The former port director for the New England area, Lorraine Henderson, had been federally indicted last spring for hiring illegal immigrants and encouraging them to stay in the U.S. Before getting indicted Henderson was the Massachusetts regional director of Customs and Border Protection, responsible for the inspection and admission of foreign nationals who sought entry into the U.S. and for preventing the entry of illegal aliens through the Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island ports of entry as well as Boston’s Logan Airport.
