Holder Threatens Kansas Over Gun Control Nullification Law
[WesternJournalism.com]
May 3, 2013 by Breaking News
Photo Credit: European Parliament Creative Commons
On Thursday, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback received a letter from Federal Attorney General Eric Holder threatening action against the state should it enforce SB102 which Brownback signed into law last month.
The new law states, Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas
The bill also provides for criminal penalties against federal agents who attempt to enforce specific federal laws on guns manufactured in the state of Kansas and sold within the state – as the state takes the position under the new law that the federal government does not “interstate commerce” authority over such items.
In his letter, Holder didn’t take too kindly to such a proposition.
Here’s a Quick Recap of What You Need to Know About the Boston Bombings
[TheBlaze.com]
Editor’s note — We’ll be discussing this story and all the day’s news during our live BlazeCast from 12pm to 1pm ET…including your questions, comments & live chat:
BOSTON (TheBlaze/AP) — An explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon Monday killed three people and injured dozens more. TheBlaze brought you intense live coverage of the aftermath. Considering all that has unfolded, here’s an an at-a-glance look at the facts in the case:
THE EXPLOSIONS
Two bombs exploded about 10 seconds and 100 yards apart at about 2:50 p.m. Monday in Boston’s Copley Square, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Three people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy named Martin Richard (TheBlaze has profiled Martin here), and more than 140 were injured. The explosions occurred four hours into the race and two hours after the winners had crossed the finish line, but thousands of runners were still on the course.
Senators work on possible breakthrough on gun background checks
[FoxNews.com]
Published April 08, 2013
Two prominent senators are working toward forging a compromise proposal on expanded background checks, aiming for a breakthrough on the biggest impasse in controversial gun control legislation.Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, an influential moderate, are said to be working on a deal that would allow the checks to apply to purchases at gun shows and Internet sales — but, importantly, exempt some sales between hunters or close relatives.
It’s unclear whether such a proposal would be embraced by pro-gun rights conservatives and the National Rifle Association, which so far has opposed the kind of comprehensive firearms legislation pushed by President Obama and his allies in Congress. But the issue of family members and others being subjected to an expanded background check system for sales between them has become an obstacle.
The NRA and other gun-rights advocates, while arguing the checks would eventually lead to a federal gun registry, also said they would be too cumbersome for the two groups – citing faraway trips to government offices and mandatory record keeping. They also say criminals would find ways to avoid the checks.
US plan calls for more scanning of private Web traffic, email
[Reuters.com]
Joseph Menn and Deborah Charles
Posted: March 21, 2013
The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country’s private, civilian-run infrastructure.
As a result, more private sector employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key transportation companies, will have their emails and Web surfing scanned as a precaution against cyber attacks.
Under last month’s White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the top threat to the country.
The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cyber security providers that have employees holding security clearances, government and industry officials said. Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program.
DHS as the middleman
By using DHS as the middleman, the Obama administration hopes to bring the formidable overseas intelligence-gathering of the NSA closer to ordinary U.S. residents without triggering an outcry from privacy advocates who have long been leery of the spy agency’s eavesdropping.
The telecom companies will not report back to the government on what they see, except in aggregate statistics, a senior DHS official said in an interview granted on condition he not be identified.
“That allows us to provide more sensitive information,” the official said. “We will provide the information to the security service providers that they need to perform this function.” Procedures are to be established within six months of the order.
The administration is separately seeking legislation that would give incentives to private companies, including communications carriers, to disclose more to the government. NSA Director General Keith Alexander said last week that NSA did not want personal data but Internet service providers could inform the government about malicious software they find and the Internet Protocol addresses they were sent to and from.
“There is a way to do this that ensures civil liberties and privacy and does ensure the protection of the country,” Alexander told a congressional hearing.
Fears grow of destructive attack
In the past, Internet traffic-scanning efforts were mainly limited to government networks and Defense Department contractors, which have long been targets of foreign espionage.
But as fears grow of a destructive cyber attack on core, non-military assets, and more sweeping security legislation remained stalled, the Obama administration opted to widen the program.
Last month’s presidential order calls for commercial providers of “enhanced cybersecurity services” to extend their offerings to critical infrastructure companies. What constitutes critical infrastructure is still being refined, but it would include utilities, banks and transportation such as trains and highways.
Under the program, critical infrastructure companies will pay the providers, which will use the classified information to block attacks before they reach the customers. The classified information involves suspect Web addresses, strings of characters, email sender names and the like.
Not all the cybersecurity providers will be telecom companies, though AT&T is one. Raytheon said this month it had agreed with DHS to become a provider, and a spokesman said that customers could route their traffic to Raytheon after receiving it from their communications company.
As the new set-up takes shape, DHS officials and industry executives said some security equipment makers were working on hardware that could take classified rules about blocking traffic and act on them without the operator being able to reverse-engineer the codes. That way, people wouldn’t need a security clearance to use the equipment.
Civil liberties implications
The issue of scanning everything headed to a utility or a bank still has civil liberties implications, even if each company is a voluntary participant.
Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that the executive order did not weaken existing privacy laws, but any time a machine acting on classified information is processing private communications, it raises questions about the possibility of secret extra functions that are unlikely to be answered definitively.
“You have to wonder what else that box does,” Tien said.
One technique for examining email and other electronic packets en route, called deep packet inspection, has stirred controversy for years, and some cybersecurity providers said they would not be using that. In deep packet inspection, communication companies or others with network access can examine all the elements of a transmission, including the content of emails.
“The signatures provided by DHS do not require deep packet inspection,” said Steve Hawkins, vice president at Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems division, referring further questions to DHS.
The DHS official said the government is still in conversations with the telecom operators on the issue.
The official said the government had no plans to roll out any such form of government-guided close examination of Internet traffic into the communications companies serving the general public.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.
Hacker Distibutes Confidential Hillary Clinton Benghazi Emails, Journalists Won’t Release Contents
[IsThatBaloney.com]
An anonymous hacker only going by the name “Guccifer” has supposedly gotten into an associate of Hillary Clinton’s email account and has distributed confidential emails dealing with a range of issues in Libya including the Benghazi terrorist attack that killed 4 Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Although the hacker has distributed stolen memos to politicians and journalists, so far no one has published any of their contents.
The hacker apparently broke into former White House aide, Sidney Blumenthal’s email account and sent four recent memos to congressional aides, politicians and journalists across all over the world. One memo which was sent to Clinton was sent the day after the attack on on consulate in Benghazi on September 12, 2012 and was labeled “Confidential.”
Unfortunately we don’t have access to those emails and no one who has received them yet has been brave enough to come forward and discuss or print them so the world can see their contents.
Conservatives confident federal gun measures will be scaled back
[FoxNews.com]
Associated Press
Published March 16, 2013
March 15, 2013: National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre gestures as he speaks at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md. (AP)
OXON HILL, Md. – Conservatives are all but declaring victory on their defense of gun rights, exuding confidence as calls for aggressive controls in the wake of the Newtown elementary school massacre have given way to scaled-back expectations to firearm restrictions in Congress.
“They can call me crazy and whatever else they want, but NRA’s nearly 5 million members and America’s 100 million gun owners will not back down — not now, not ever,” an emboldened Wayne LaPierre, the CEO and executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, told conservatives gathered at an annual conference. He pointedly ignored President Barack Obama’s most restrictive proposals in his speech, using it instead to assail the one that has the potential of getting approved — a near-universal background check for gun owners.
Six months later, where are Benghazi’s survivors?
[HotAir.com]
posted at 1:21 pm on March 12, 2013 by Ed Morrissey
Yesterday marked six months from the date that four Americans were killed in a terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, the first American ambassador murdered in the line of duty in 33 years. While the Obama administration begrudgingly cooperated with Congressional panels looking into the attack and the White House response by sending officials to testify, one group still has not yet been made available. CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson wonders — where are the survivors?
Today marks six months since the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya in which four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Some watchdog groups, members of the media and Republican members of Congress are asking: Where are the more than two dozen U.S. personnel who survived the attack but haven’t been seen nor heard from in public since? There were also an undisclosed number of witnesses at the U.S. compounds in Tripoli but they also have not spoken publicly.
In a recent press report, Secretary of State John Kerry said he visited one survivor at “Bethesda hospital,” and referred to him a “remarkably courageous person who is doing very, very well.” Kerry added, “I’ve called his wife and talked to her.” But the identities, condition and testimony of the survivors and witnesses have been closely held from the public.
WSJ’s Henninger: Obama Living in ‘Alternative Universe’
[Newsmax.com]
Thursday, 28 Feb 2013 09:50 AM
By Lisa Barron
President Barack Obama is living in an “alternative universe” where crisis looms but all he does is give speeches rather than tackle the problem, The Wall Street Journal said Thursday.With $85 billion in automatic spending cuts due to hit on Friday, Obama has made no effort to speak to Congressional leaders to avert the so-called sequester, writes the paper’s Daniel Henninger.“Barack Obama gives his State of the Union speech, the sequester looms, and the president flies around the country giving speeches. He’s had virtually no contact on the sequester with the legislative branch. Now he’s going to meet with them after the sequester happens. This is unusual. We need to look outside normal politics for explanations,” Henninger, the Journal’s deputy editorial page editor, writes in his weekly “Wonderland” column.“We are in the fifth year of the Obama presidency, and Washington is still dead in the water. Four straight years in which the government of the United States of America fails to enact a budget is, well, amazing,” he says.Henninger posts that Obama is “creating an alternative universe, the Obamaian Universe.”
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!
Discord and Disarray Won’t Help Obama Legacy
[Townhall.com]
February 28, 2013
Barack Obama is said to believe that he can win the political fight over the sequester. That’s certainly the conventional wisdom.
And there is some evidence to support it. When you ask voters who will be to blame if the sequester occurs, Obama or “congressional Republicans,” they’re much more likely to say they’ll blame the latter.
Obama also comes out on top when you ask whether they will blame “Obama and congressional Democrats” or “congressional Republicans.” Voters are not always good predictors of their future attitudes.
Feds admit: Gun laws won’t slow crime
[WND.com] EXCLUSIVE
February 19, 2013
By Garth Kant
Department of Justice report undermines bans
A study by the Department of Justice’s research wing, the National Institute of Justice, has the feds admitting that so-called “assault weapons” are not a major contributor to gun crime.
“The existing stock of assault weapons is large, undercutting the effectiveness of bans with exemptions,” it said. “Therefore a complete elimination of assault weapons would not have a large impact on gun homicides.” The report finds no significant link between “assault weapons” and murders.
Gun dealers report striking ammunition shortages
[DailyCaller.com]
February 18, 2013
Gun owners are stockpiling ammunition in the midst of the ongoing national dialogue about gun-control legislation.
The USA Today reports that ammunition prices have skyrocketed in the last year, with some gun dealers limiting the quantity of ammunition that customers can purchase.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation — which represents ammunition makers, retailers, hunters and sport shooters – attributes the shortages in part to the increased popularity of sport-shooting and hunting. In fact, hunting license sales increased 9 percent from 2006 to 2011, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Participation in skeet shooting is also growing 3-5 percent annually.
However, retailers largely attribute the increased demand for ammunition to expected or threatened policy changes. Owners and sellers of guns say that the run on ammunition began around the time of President Barack Obama’s re-election.
Jon Stewart Grills Susan Rice on Obama Admin’s Alleged Mismanagement of Benghazi Terror Attack
[TheBlaze.com]
Questions continue to swirl surrounding the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead. Among the most confounding factors were inaccurate comments made by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in the wake of the assault. The embattled administration official appeared last night on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” to discuss the government’s handling of the crisis.
During the exchange, the host challenged Rice on some of the confusing and contradictory information that emerged in the wake of the terror attack. The ambassador also issued some tough words for those who still believe the Obama administration is hiding key information.
Stewart wasted no time launching into his questioning. Almost as soon as Rice sat down, he asked the ambassador why she was selected to speak out on Sunday morning shows and pondered why someone else more appropriate (i.e. Hillary Clinton or another official) wasn’t chosen. The ambassador gave this long-winded answer:
“I’ve spent many-a-Sunday doing the Sunday shows. In this case, Secretary Clinton, who had been asked originally to do it, felt that she didn’t want to, couldn’t do it that week, having been through quite an intense week with the loss of our colleagues in Benghazi, the violence against our embassies all over the Arab and Muslim world and then — also that Friday having to join President Obama in greeting the families of our fallen colleagues and bringing their bodies back.”
Gun-Grabbing Madness: Chicago Murder Rate Tops Afganistan War Death Toll
Chicago, one of the best test cases for gun control in the nation, has a murder rate exceeding the war in Afghanistan and coming close to the death rate in Iraq:
The death toll by murder in Chicago over the past decade is greater than the number of American forces who have died in Afghanistan since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom, according to a police analysis.
In addition, police reports in Chicago – where President Obama once worked as a community organizer and where his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, now serves as mayor – show most of the city’s massive murder mayhem is black-on-black crime.
A WND review of the Chicago Police Department Murder Analysis reports from 2003 to 2011 provides a statistical breakdown of the demographics of both the victims and offenders in the 4,265 murders in Chicago over that time period.
Of the victims of murder in Chicago from 2003 to 2011, an average of 77 percent had a prior arrest history, with a high of 79 percent of the 436 murdered in Chicago in 2010 having arrest histories.
For the same 2003-2011 period, blacks were the victims of 75 percent of 4,265 murders. Blacks also were the offenders in 75 percent of the murders.
…Operation Enduring Freedom, the name for the war in Afghanistan, which started Oct. 7, 2001, has seen a total of 2,166 killed. The war has been ongoing for 11 years, 3 months and one week.
Netanyahu, allies narrowly cling to victory in Israeli election
[FoxNews.com]
Associated Press
Published January 22, 2013
JERUSALEM – In a stunning setback, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line bloc fared worse than expected in a parliamentary election Tuesday, exit polls showed, possibly forcing the incumbent Israeli leader to invite surprisingly strong moderate rivals into his government and soften his line toward the Palestinians.
TV exit polls showed the hard-liners with about 61 seats in the 120-seat parliament, a bare majority, and the counts could change as actual votes are tallied.
Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns?
[Townhall.com]
The gun control controversy is only the latest of many issues to be debated almost solely in terms of fixed preconceptions, with little or no examination of hard facts.Media discussions of gun control are dominated by two factors: the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment. But the over-riding factual question is whether gun control laws actually reduce gun crimes in general or murder rates in particular.
If, as gun control advocates claim, gun control laws really do control guns and save lives, there is nothing to prevent repealing the Second Amendment, any more than there was anything to prevent repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that created Prohibition.
Gun shows face restrictions after Newtown shooting, as planners seek ‘fair’ treatment
[FoxNews.com]
Associated Press
Published January 05, 2013
Jan. 4, 2012: A sign is posted for an upcoming gun show in Leesport, Pa. (AP)
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Four gun shows, all about an hour’s drive from Newtown, Conn., all canceled.
A show in White Plains, N.Y., — brought back a few years ago after being called off for a decade because of the Columbine shooting — is off because officials decided it didn’t seem appropriate now, either. In Danbury, Conn. — about 10 miles west of Newtown — the venue backed out. Same with three other shows in New York’s Hudson Valley, according to the organizer.
CNN Throws Liberal Smears and Talking Points at NRA
[Newsbusters.org]
By Matt Hadro | December 27, 2012
CNN’s Carol Costello threw ugly smears and liberal talking points at the NRA’s president David Keene on Thursday. Keene repeatedly had to deflect criticisms that the NRA is out of touch with most Americans during a lengthy 15-minute grilling.
Costello resorted to sharing smears of the NRA from her Facebook page. “And many, many comments said, ‘Why is the NRA crazy? Why are they, like, out of touch with reality?’ A lot of people said – why do you think that people say those things about the NRA?” she asked Keene. [Video below the break. Audio here.]
Costello also quoted GOP pollster Frank Luntz smacking the NRA as out of touch. She described Luntz “as conservative as you can get,” even though he also polled for the anti-gun Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
First responders cite difficulty in getting past scenes witnessed at Sandy Hook Elementary
[FoxNews]
Associated Press
Published December 20, 2012
Dec. 14, 2012: In this file photo provided by the Newtown Bee, paramedics and others rush toward Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., shortly after Adam Lanza opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children. (AP/Newtown Bee)
NEWTOWN, Conn. – While the people of Newtown do their best to cope with loss and preserve the memories of their loved ones, another class of residents is also finding it difficult to move on: the emergency responders who saw firsthand the terrible aftermath of last week’s school shooting.
Firefighter Peter Barresi was driving through Newtown on Friday when police cars with lights flashing and sirens blaring raced toward his oldest son’s elementary school. After he was sent to Sandy Hook school himself, he saw things that will stay with him forever.
With anguished parents searching for their children, he prepared to receive the wounded, but a paramedic came back empty-handed, underscoring the totality of the massacre. Barresi, whose own son escaped unharmed, later discovered that among the 26 dead were children who played baseball with his son and had come to his house for birthday parties.
Extortion call, somber visit bring nightmare home for parents of Marine jailed in Mexico [UPDATE: Hammer was released before Christmas]
[FNC]
By Joseph J. Kolb
Published December 13, 2012
Jon Hammar Jr. has been held in Mexico’s notorious CEDES prison since August.
The father of a U.S. Marine jailed in Mexico after being caught with his grandfather’s antique shotgun heard the fear in his son’s voice and felt helpless.
The phone call came at midnight from Mexico’s notorious CEDES prison, where Jon Hammar, Jr. has been held since August. The caller demanded $1,800, then put Hammar on to drive the point home.
“They’re serious, Dad,” Jon Hammar, Sr. heard his son say. “I’ll pay you back; they are going to kill me.”
“They’re serious, Dad. I’ll pay you back; they are going to kill me.”
- Jon Hammar, Jr., speaking by phone from a Mexican jail
Democrats (Heart) Socialism
[American Spectator]
Posted CWN: December 10, 2012
Gallup bone-chillingly confirms what the party of government truly fancies.
On the strength of a capitalist economic system, America created a material standard of living for the world to envy while providing its citizens with high levels of personal freedom. But today capitalism, and attendant freedom, are being systematically dismantled in America (and being depth-charged in Europe), while understanding and appreciation of these things are receding. Gallup provides proof of this, and confirms conservatives’ fears and suspicions.
Loyal elves in the media wing of the Democratic Party establishment — aka the mainstream media — hyperventilate when Barack Obama is identified as a socialist, or the Democratic Party is accused of promoting socialist policies. “Vile and unfair accusations,” they wail, before retiring to their fainting couches.
But if a survey released last week by Gallup is any indication, it’s hard to see what all the indignation is about. A majority of people — 53 percent — who describe
themselves as Democrats or leaning Democrat, admit to Gallup’s pulse takers that they have a positive image of socialism. Only two percent more — 55 — say they are positive about capitalism. A robust 75 percent of Democrats say they have a positive image of the federal government.
Report: ATF review board recommends firings over Fast and Furious
[INFOWARS.com]
Wall Street Journal
December 5, 2012
Four senior managers who oversaw the ill-fated federal gun-tracking probe called “Fast and Furious” will be fired if recommendations from a disciplinary panel are accepted.
People familiar with the matter said the Professional Review Board of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent notices of its decision in recent days to bureau managers, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
In addition, two lower-level employees face disciplinary actions, short of firing. The move from the ATF’s review board is the first step in what could be a months-long process, including appeals.
Could Obamacare Go the Way of McCain-Feingold?
[American Spectator]
By David Catron on 11.30.12 @ 6:10AM
The “Affordable Care Act” might die a death of a thousand legal cuts.
Last June, upon learning that the Supreme Court had ruled Obamacare’s individual mandate constitutional, many observers were forced to concur with the Dickens character who opined, “If the law supposes that… the law is an ass.” Yet, the increasing number of anti-PPACA lawsuits that have been receiving serious attention from the courts suggests that the legal system may not be as irrational as it seemed when Chief Justice John Roberts began braying from the bench on June 28. If this seems Pollyannaish, consider the fate of McCain-Feingold.
Thank you to our defenders of freedom
[HumanEvents.com]
November 12, 2012
By: Debbie Lee
It is with great respect, admiration and deep understanding that I write this letter to honor each and every Veteran that has served or is serving our blessed Country! I understand and appreciate all who have given so much for me, so that I could enjoy my daily freedoms.
I was able to sleep well in the safety of my bed last night, because you served.
I was able to pray before my meal this morning in a public place without fearing arrest, because you gave.
I am able to freely speak my mind and voice my opinion without fear of retaliation against me or my family, because you cared.
I am able to stand up for what I believe in and not have a Dictators thoughts and opinions forced down my throat, because you stood up to the call to defend.
I am free to worship the one true God who created me in His image, because you were selfless in your actions.
To each one of you I speak from the bottom of my heart when I say Thank you, thank you, thank you! You are my heroes and I want to remember and honor you this Veterans Day. Not a single day goes by that I don’t think of the sacrifices you and your families have given!
Atlas Exclusive: Robert Spencer: Can We Survive Four More Years of Obama?
[AtlasShrugs.com]
Monday, November 5, 2012 – Pamela Geller
By Robert Spencer
Can America afford four more years of Barack Obama as President of the United States? In the most literal terms, probably not: his reckless deficit spending can’t be sustained indefinitely, and as he has campaigned on a platform of more free goodies for everyone, it won’t be much longer before the gravy train runs out. Meanwhile, his relentless class warfare rhetoric has sown the seeds of civil discord for years to come. But even worse could be in store for us if Obama is reelected.
Now that pro-Sharia Islamic supremacist regimes are installed, thanks to Barack Obama, in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, the oppression of women and non-Muslims is certain to escalate in those countries. They are also certain only to grow in their anti-Americanism, and may try to unite in an attempt to restore the caliphate, which will only bring more bloodshed and strife to the region. And since the caliph is the only one authorized (and required) in Islamic law to wage offensive jihad against Infidels, if they succeed in choosing one, the result will not be happy for America and the West.
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