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Left Pressures Congress to Gut 2nd Amendment

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Supporters of comprehensive gun control legislation are ratcheting up pressure on wavering lawmakers, trying to clear the way for Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to proceed with a bill in the face of mounting roadblocks from conservative members.

Biden_BloombergAt least 14 Republican senators have threatened to filibuster the firearms legislation, complaining that it would curb the rights of the law-abiding while doing little to reduce crime. “The more people learn about the consequences of current gun control proposals, the less they will support the new restrictions,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said.

If Lee and his colleagues succeed, their objections would require any bill to garner 60 votes, a heavy lift for Reid and the White House.

But as negotiations continue on a compromise measure that could sway moderate hold-outs, powerful advocacy groups are rolling out new ads and campaigns to win them over.

Family members of the victims of the Sandy Hook mass shooting are in Washington through Thursday to meet with senators on both sides of the aisle and lobby for legislation. After flying back from an event with President Obama on Air Force One Monday night, the family members plan to hold a conference call Tuesday afternoon. They are calling for universal background checks, limits on high-capacity magazines and tougher gun trafficking laws.

Separately, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s group Mayors Against Illegal Guns reportedly is launching a scoring system Tuesday to give lawmakers a letter grade on their gun control stances. According to The Washington Post, this will be similar to what the National Rifle Association does in scoring lawmakers’ gun-rights positions.

“For decades, the NRA has done an admirable job of tracking to minute detail how members of Congress stand on gun bills. We’ve simply decided to do the same,” Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, told the Post.

Obama’s chief campaign arm Organizing for Action on Monday also began running online ads on Facebook and search engines asking Americans to urge senators to support universal background checks.

These groups are targeting moderate lawmakers seen as pliable on the issue of gun control. The new efforts come after the legislation appeared to be losing momentum. First, Reid dropped a renewed ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines from the main bill — though they could still get a vote as an amendment. Then, senators began to clash over the issue of universal background checks.

On the sidelines, West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey are now discussing a possible compromise proposal on the checks, which could serve to assuage gun-rights supporters’ concerns about the new system encumbering casual transactions among family members and fellow hunters.

Reid has not yet moved to call a vote on the package. The earliest a vote could happen is most likely Thursday.

Late Monday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell joined conservatives threatening to filibuster and demand a 60-vote threshold.

“Sen. McConnell opposes the Reid bill (S.649). While nobody knows yet what Sen. Reid’s plan is for the gun bill, if he chooses to file cloture on the motion to proceed to the Reid bill, Sen. McConnell will oppose cloture on proceeding to that bill,” spokesman Mike Brumas said.

Obama criticized the proposed filibuster during a campaign-style event at the University of Hartford in Connecticut about 45 miles from the elementary school where 20 first-graders were shot and killed in December.

“Some back in Washington are already floating the idea that they might use political stunts,” said Obama, who was introduced by Nicole Hockley, whose son, Dylan, was one of the victims. “They’re not just saying they’ll vote ‘no’ on ideas that almost all Americans support. They’re saying they won’t allow any votes on them at all.”

Many in the crowd responded by chanting: “We want a vote.”

Published April 09, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Federal Judge Orders Abortion Pill Must Be Over-Counter For All Girls

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Plan_BA federal judge ruled Friday that the morning-after pill known as Plan B must be made available over the counter for women and girls of all ages.

The decision on the controversial subject comes after lengthy legal battles over who should have access to the pill and at what age. The Justice Department did not say whether it would appeal.

The Food and Drug Administration had initially decided to allow the emergency pill to be available for young teens. But Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the FDA in late 2011, and the agency limited availability without a prescription to women 17 and older.

The decision Friday by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman ordered the FDA to make the pill, commonly referred to as the abortion pill, available for all ages. The decision means that unless the FDA appeals and is granted a stay, by this time next month a teenager 16 or under could walk into a local pharmacy and buy the pill off the shelf.

Korman accused the FDA of “intolerable delays” in reviewing a petition seeking broad access to the drug, likening the process to an “administrative agency filibuster.”

“The plaintiffs should not be forced to endure, nor should the agency’s misconduct be rewarded by, an exercise that permits the FDA to engage in further delays and obstruction,” he wrote.

The FDA declined to comment on the ruling, describing it as an “ongoing legal matter.”

Pill manufacturer Teva said it is “currently reviewing” the decision. “We have no additional comment at this time,” the company said.

The judge ordered the change to be completed in a month. The opinion is sure to rile conservatives and other pro-life groups, who consider the morning-after pill — in some cases — to act as an abortion-inducing drug.

“This ruling places the health of young girls at risk,” said Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council. “There is a real danger that Plan B may be given to young girls, under coercion or without their consent. The involvement of parents and medical professionals act as a safeguard for these young girls. However, today’s ruling removes these commonsense protections.”

The case started in 2005, and Korman initially ruled in 2009 that 17 year-olds should have over-the-counter access. The FDA then moved to allow that access to all ages, until Sebelius stepped in.

Korman wrote in his opinion that “the FDA bowed to political pressure emanating from the White House.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed suit against the age restriction, and other groups have argued that contraceptives are being held to a different and non-scientific standard than other drugs and that politics has played a role in decision-making.

“I think this is a landmark decision in terms of providing women and girls in the United States access to a safe and effective form of birth control,” said attorney Andrea Costello with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund.

The morning-after pill contains a higher dose of the female progestin hormone that is in regular birth control pills. Taking it within 72 hours of rape, condom failure or just forgetting regular contraception can cut the chances of pregnancy by up to 89 percent. But it works best within the first 24 hours.

If a woman already is pregnant, the pill has no effect. It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg. According to the medical definition, pregnancy doesn’t begin until a fertilized egg implants itself into the wall of the uterus. Still, some critics say Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it may also be able to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus, a contention that scientists — and Korman, in his ruling — said has been discredited.

Published April 05, 2013 / FoxNews.com /The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Obama Puts Social Security, Medicare On Block to Gain Tax-Hike Support

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obama_tax_hikePresident Obama will propose modest changes to Social Security and other benefit programs in his 2014 budget — a gesture that is meant to soften Republicans to the idea of tax hikes, but has already drawn the ire of liberal Democrats who want the entitlement shielded.

The president plans to unveil his budget Wednesday, but a senior administration official confirmed the key details in advance. Included in the plan, which would aim to reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion over 10 years, is a provision to lower cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, the benefit program for retirees. This would curb the growth in benefits.

“While this is not the president’s ideal deficit reduction plan, and there are particular proposals in this plan like the (Social Security change) that were key Republican requests,” the official said. “The president felt it was important to make it clear that the offer still stands.”

The administration is clear that it is offering changes to Social Security and Medicare — the two benefit programs most important to seniors — in order to convince Republicans to accept increased revenues. The official said the plan to be unveiled next week “isn’t a menu of options for them to choose from — it’s a cohesive package.”

The proposal, though, is sure to get hit from both sides. Republicans want the Social Security change but for years have resisted new tax revenue — Obama’s plan calls for additional tax revenue, including a proposal to place limits on tax-preferred retirement accounts for top earners. Obama has also called for limits on tax deductions by top earners, a proposal that could generate about $580 billion in revenue over 10 years.

But the president could face an even tougher time selling the Social Security change to liberal members of Congress.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., fired off a statement Thursday responding to what was then the rumor that Obama’s budget could include the change.

“Millions of working people, seniors, disabled veterans, those who have lost a loved one in combat, and women will be extremely disappointed if President Obama caves into the long standing Republican effort to cut Social Security and benefits for disabled veterans and their survivors through a so-called chained CPI,” Sanders said. “In 2008, candidate Barack Obama told the American people that he would not cut Social Security.  Having him go back on his word will only add to the rampant political cynicism that our country is experiencing today.”

Chained CPI is the Washington term for the revised inflation adjustment that would effectively curb annual increases in a broad swath of government programs, but would have its biggest impact on Social Security.

The inflation adjustment would reduce federal spending over 10 years by about $130 billion, according to past White House estimates. Because it also affects how tax brackets are adjusted, it would also generate about $100 in higher taxes and affect even middle income taxpayers.

Obama’s budget, to be released next week, comes after the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-run Senate passed separate and markedly different budget proposals. House Republicans achieved long-term deficit reductions by targeting safety net programs; Democrats instead protected those programs and called for $1 trillion in tax increases.

Obama’s budget proposal includes features from an offer he made to House Speaker John Boehner during fiscal negotiations last year. Those talks ultimately failed but Congress did agree to increase tax rates on top earners.

The reductions in growth of benefit programs, which would affect veterans, the poor and the older Americans, is sure to anger many Democrats.

Labor groups and liberals have long been critical of Obama’s offer to Boehner for including such a plan.

Obama’s new plan would also replace the sequester with other spending cuts. But it will steer clear of major cuts to Medicaid, including tens of billions in reductions to the health care plan for the poor that the administration had proposed only last year.

Published April 05, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

‘Duck Dynasty’ Stars Say Show is About Love, God

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Phil Robertson, one of the shaggy-bearded stars of the hit reality TV series “Duck Dynasty,” used to get mistaken for a homeless man. He said he was even singled out once at an airport for a security search and wands went “places my woman hasn’t been in years.”

duck_dynastyThese days, though, the patriarch of a family of duck hunters-turned-millionaires is more likely to get stopped by strangers who want autographs or pictures.

“When you look like this, there’s no hat and glasses that can cover it up,” Phil’s son Willie said, drawing laughs from his family of co-stars. “I’m certainly more recognizable. I can tell you that.”

Last Saturday, more than 500 fans showed up at an autograph session with the family. The Robertsons cracked jokes about their celebrity status and signed books, T-shirts, shoes and even some hunting rifles for fans in their home state of Louisiana.

The show, which airs on A&E, follows the family and its business, Duck Commander, which specializes in handmade duck calls and other bird hunting gear. But the Robertsons are easily distracted from their work and amuse the audience with their humorous adventures.

The show premiered in 2012 and is in its third season, drawing about 8 million viewers a week. The Robertsons would not talk about the status of a fourth season or reports they were holding out for more money. But if their popularity is any indication, they’ll be back.

The Robertsons have fan merchandise such as bobble-head dolls, duck-themed license plates and Chia Pet planters in the shape of their faces with greenery that grows like their beards.

At the autograph session, Phil, with his sons Willie and Jase, and his brother Silas “Uncle Si” Robertson, gathered outside a sporting goods store in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie. Kids in the crowd blew into duck calls while a group of women chanted “Si, Si, Si, Si!”

Duck_Dynasty_2“We’re getting more and more used to it as we go around, seeing people crowded up and wanting a picture or an autograph, and we think it’s neat,” Willie Robertson said. “We were hoping the show would have that kind of impact, and it has.”

Hundreds of fans arrived too late and were kept behind red velvet ropes several yards away from the stars. Some came from as far away as Cow Bay in Nova Scotia, Canada.

“Nova Scotians, they’re rednecks also,” said Dwayne Doucette, a Canadian who was with the group holding signs that read: “We love Duck Dynasty” and “Canada loves Duck Dynasty and Duck Commander.”

Jase Robertson, whose real name is Jason, said the duck calls are still handmade, one-by-one. To meet demand, the business has gone from a dozen employees before the show aired to about 75 in the past year. They make 14,000 duck calls a week, he said.

Fans buy the duck calls even though many have no intention of hunting, he said.

Casey Cambre and his 5-year-old daughter, Ava, waited more than eight hours to be the first in line to meet the family.

“I’ve never done anything like this, ever, not even for a concert,” said Cambre. “A lot of people like the show because it’s funny. I like it because it’s a good, clean, wholesome family show.”

Each of the show’s episodes ends with the family gathered around the dinner table in prayer.

“We’re trying to infuse a little good into the American culture,” Phil Robertson said. “Love God, love your neighbor, hunt ducks. Raise your kids, make them behave, love them. I don’t see the down side to that.”

Si Robertson, who is always with a tall cup of tea in hand, said he drinks about two gallons of unsweetened tea a day. As he sipped some during an interview, he said it was a misconception that he drinks sweet tea. That would rot his teeth, and besides, he said, he’s sweet enough as it is.

“I’m so sweet I can’t get out in the rain. I’ll melt,” he said.

Published April 03, 2013 / Associated Press

AP Imposes PC Gag on Itself

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IllegalImmgrantFenceWASHINGTON –  The Associated Press is being accused of trying to influence the immigration debate following a decision to stop using the term “illegal immigrant” in its coverage — despite the fact it is still being used by U.S. government officials including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.The decision comes as a bipartisan group of senators prepares to introduce sweeping immigration legislation which is expected to propose a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.

Indeed, the move by the influential wire service is being hailed as a victory by immigrant advocacy groups.

The conservative Media Research Center, though, described the change as a “politically-correct mumble.”

The new style guideline was first announced this week on the wire service’s blog by Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, who said the change came out of conversations with people who opposed the term.

“Our goal always is to use the most precise and accurate words so that the meaning is clear to any reader anywhere,” Carroll said.

“The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term ‘illegal immigrant’ or the use of ‘illegal’ to describe a person,” Carroll said. “Instead, it tells users that ‘illegal’ should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally.”

Still, some are wondering why the AP decided to nix the phrase when high-ranking government officials don’t seem to have a problem with it.

Last week, Napolitano told reporters that she didn’t “really get caught up in the vocabulary wars.”

“They are immigrants who are here illegally, that’s an illegal immigrant,” she said.

Previously, the AP rejected the term “undocumented immigrants,” favored by some activists, as inaccurate.

AP_PC_LenoChanges to the AP Stylebook, which is updated annually, have important and widespread repercussions in the media. The changes don’t just influence the AP’s writing, which is found in publications around the world. The book is the primary writing style guide for journalists in both print and broadcast.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, a group of 27 House Democrats, applauded the AP’s decision and called it “a great step forward.”

On a more tongue-in-cheek note, ALIPAC announced Wednesday it would be changing its “style” preference in all future articles to “illegal invaders” — “in response to the totalitarian steps by the Associated Press to make ‘illegal immigrants’ disappear with the stroke of a pen just days before legislation attempting to do the same is expected to be filed in Washington, DC, by the ‘Gang of 8.'”

Comedian Jay Leno joked that the phrase should be replaced with “undocumented Democrat.”

The AP said its decision to stop using the term “illegal immigrants” is part of a broader shift away from labeling people and toward labeling behavior — for example, referring to people “diagnosed with schizophrenia” instead of “schizophrenics.”

In 1986, the AP’s then-stylebook editor Christopher French used the same reasoning to support the wire service’s decision to use “anti-abortion” instead of “pro-life,” and abortion rights instead of “pro-abortion” or “pro-choice.”

“Until a specific rule is agreed upon at AP, the following existing guideline is being applied: Avoid labeling groups or individuals and instead spend an extra sentence on a more specific description,” French said at the time.

In February, it reversed a decision on gay marriage, saying people in same-sex marriages could now be referred to as “husbands” and “wives.”

Several news organizations are also dropping the term “illegal immigrant” from their reporting. CNN, ABC News and NBC News have all parted ways with the phrase in the past few years.

The debate on whether to change the term at The New York Times is still being debated, public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote in an article Tuesday.

“The Times, for the past couple of months, has also been considering changes to its stylebook entry on this term and will probably announce them to staff members this week,” she wrote.

“From what I can gather, The Times’s changes will not be nearly as sweeping as The AP’s,” Sullivan said, adding, “I would be surprised to see The Times ban the use of ‘illegal immigrant,’ as the AP has done.”

Published April 03, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Rush on Connecticut Gun Stores Ahead of Vote on Ban

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ct_gunstoresNEWINGTON, Conn. –  Customers packed gun stores around Connecticut on Tuesday ahead of a vote expected to bring sweeping changes to the state’s gun control laws, including a ban on the sale of large-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the Newtown shooting and a new classification for more than 100 types of guns as banned assault weapons.

Lawmakers have touted the legislation expected to pass the General Assembly on Wednesday as the toughest in the country. Some measures would take effect right away, including the expansion of the state’s assault weapons ban, universal background checks for all firearms sales, and a ban on the sale or purchase of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The bill also addresses mental health and school security measures in response to the massacre.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, supports the bill and could sign it into law as soon as Wednesday night.

In a state with a rich history of gun manufacturing, some companies said they feel the legislation made them into scapegoats for the deaths of 20 first-graders and six educators in the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. At least one ammunition magazine maker is more seriously considering offers to leave.

“My home is in Connecticut, but at this point, I don’t know if I can operate here legally come Wednesday afternoon,” said Jonathan Scalise, owner of Ammunition Storage Components in New Britain. He said it’s unclear to him whether employees in possession of banned firearms or ammunition would be breaking the law.

Gun shops across the state reported brisk sales Tuesday and said customers also checked on the status of orders that they worried could be canceled once the new laws take effect.

The parking lot at Hoffman’s Gun Center and Indoor Range in Newington was full Tuesday morning, with some drivers parking on the front lawn. Inside, customers waited in long lines to purchase what was left.

“I walked through. I walked out because they didn’t have anything. The girl told me what’s on the shelf is what they have. And I totally believe that,” said Nick Viccione, a gun owner from Wallingford. He said people are trying to load up on ammunition and buy “anything semi-automatic.”

At other shops, including the Delta Arsenal gun store in Wallingford, employees reported difficulty getting through to the state police to run background checks needed to complete gun sales.

Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance said he hadn’t received any complaints of people not getting through to the office that handles such checks but acknowledged they might get a busy signal once in a while.

“The special licensing and firearms unit is going full bore,” he said.

The gun industry in Connecticut dates back to the Revolutionary War and says it supports more than 7,000 jobs in the state. Some companies say the new restrictions have them considering a move.

O.F. Mossberg & Sons Inc. in North Haven does not support a ban on firearms or equipment, said Joe Bartozzi, senior vice president and general counsel, adding that “they’ve never reduced crime or violence.”

Mossberg has been in business since 1919 and employs 270 workers in Connecticut. It also has a manufacturing plant in Eagle Pass, Texas, and has been courted for years by other states.

“I’ve got a stack of invitations from governors, congressmen and economic development groups right here on my desk,” he said.

Mark Malkowski, owner and president of Stag Arms in New Britain, said he’s not threatening to move but that his biggest concern about staying in Connecticut is “staying in a state that does not support us.”

He said Stag Arms, which employs 200 people, manufactures about 72,000 rifles a year, at a cost of about $1,000 each. About 5 percent of the company’s sales are in Connecticut.

“It’s actually quite hypocritical, quite insulting,” he said. “If our products are so dangerous and so horrible that no Connecticut resident should be in possession of it, why is it OK to send it to the rest of the country?”

Echoing that was the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

“Connecticut’s firearms manufacturers will be forced to pay a price economically for the state’s double standard of you can build it here, but not sell it here, public policy formulation,” the Newtown-based trade association said in a statement.

Malloy said Tuesday he plans to write to the state’s gun manufacturers, informing them that as long as they are manufacturing a product that can be legally sold in the U.S. that they’re still welcome in Connecticut.

“Having said that, there are other things that need to be taken into consideration,” Malloy said. “And the public’s safety is one of those things.”

Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son, Dylan, was killed at Sandy Hook, welcomed the legislation. She credited lawmakers with listening to the parents, who had opposed allowing existing high-capacity magazines to be grandfathered into the law. Legislators did allow that but also required the magazines to be registered by Jan. 1 with the state.

“This is going to be one of the strongest gun laws in the nation, and that will be a model for other states to follow and for federal leaders to follow,” she said.

Published April 03, 2013 / Associated Press

Delays and Denials Threaten Obamacare

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“It’s about jobs. In its life, [President Obama’s health law] will create 4 million jobs — 400,000 jobs almost immediately.”

— Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking at a Feb. 25, 2010 summit on Obama’s pending health-insurance legislation.

Obama_CareOne of the key selling points in President Obama’s 2010 health law was that small business owners would be able to offer more insurance options to their employees.

But according to a New York Times report today, that benefit, set to kick in at the beginning of 2014, will be delayed for at least a year as federal regulators and insurance companies struggle to offer the expanded options.

This is partly a consequence of Obama relying on private insurance companies to implement his legacy law. With premiums already rising as a result of the law and set to increase by nearly a third on average with the full imposition of the new rules, insurance companies are in a strong position to demand a slowdown of the law.

With Midterm Elections just ahead and Obama still unable to rally much public support for the law, the administration is not keen to push costs even higher, especially as middle-class families are feeling the squeeze of higher taxes and higher fuel costs.

The stumbling start for Obama’s law ahead of the beginning of enrollment in its new health-insurance entitlement program is proving to be a major headache for the president. Enrollment in the federally subsidized insurance program – the centerpiece of the law – is set to begin on Oct. 1. But despite delaying the start of the program for nearly four years from the signing of the law, the federally funded insurance system does not look ready for liftoff.

With Democrats voting to cut out a key tax funding the program and the Department of Health and Human Services up to its eyeballs in delays, waivers and the difficulties of stitching together a patchwork system, the fate of what the president called “Obamacare” is looking uncertain.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are preparing to drag the controversial law into the budgeting process this summer. Obama is looking for a full-year fiscal plan that would provide enough borrowing authority to get to the next elections when voters might break the deadlock in Washington. The uncertainty about the law and its growing number of missed expectations enhances the ability of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others to make the still-pending Obama entitlement part of the discussion.

Dissatisfaction with the law and the bureaucratic botch of its implementation makes Obama’s legacy program a much riper target for changes and legislative delays.

Dissatisfied Democrats may be willing to sacrifice parts of the law or slow its imposition before they are willing to meddle with popular programs like Medicare. It was politically helpful for Obama to shove the difficult or unpopular laws beyond his re-election bid. Some Senate Democrats may find it appropriate to return the favor.

The Obama administration’s decision to delay the expanded options for small business employees makes that prospect more appealing.

One of the main claims the president made in selling the law, aside from the promise of helping small businesses, was that individuals happy with their insurance and doctors would not have to make changes. Obama later clarified that he meant the government would not force citizens to change, but allowed that government regulations would cause employers, doctors and insurers to drop individuals, stop offering services or raise prices.

Obama modified his initial promise to a hope tinged with high-minded regret: “If you are happy with your plan, and if you are happy with your doctor, we don’t want you to have to change.”

But the changes are coming fast as employers prepare to jettison workers from health care plans, doctors retire or stop accepting government insurance and insurers jack up rates to cover new costs.

The delay of the expanded menu of insurance offerings will almost certainly accelerate the process.

Currently, small businesses are weighing whether to drop health insurance altogether. Obama’s law requires businesses to offer coverage of a certain caliber, above the above the basic catastrophic coverage offered by many companies. For many of them, it will be cheaper to pay the fines imposed for employers who offer no coverage at all or drop full-time workers down to part-time status to avoid the requirements.

The Congressional Budget Office already foresees some 8 million insurance customers getting dropped by employers. That’s more than before and the number will go up with this change and others still to come.

During the debate of the law, a key promise was that new regulation would require insurance companies to offer a broader menu of insurance choices to small businesses across a range of price points.

But if insurers are only offering one, more expensive health plan to small shops there will be even more employers who decide to get out of the game altogether and dump their workers onto taxpayer-subsidized insurance programs. Given the choice between that and being made part-time employees or seeing their paychecks shrink with higher premiums, many workers may prefer being dumped.

(Power Play will leave for another time the consideration of how much payroll tax fraud the new law will engender as small businesses pay “part-time” workers full-time wages. Woof.)

All of this will raise costs and dissatisfy consumers, yes. But the members of Team Obama also know that as long as implementation is lurching forward it becomes harder to uproot the system, no matter how expensive or unwieldy. That’s why Republicans are hoping to use these myriad problems and cost overruns to delay the system. Repeal or alteration remains possible as long as the system isn’t in place.

Obama’s decision to ram through the health law when it was still a jumble, especially using a procedural trick, was predicated on the belief that after he was re-elected he could put the law into place.

But the jumble persists and now threatens his legacy project.

And Now, A Word From Charles

“The Episcopal Church, it used to be said of it a generation ago it was the establishment at prayer. And now, it’s the American left at prayer. And I think that’s one of the reasons why it and the other mainline denominations are in such decline. Because if you want a message like what Reverend Leon delivered you go to a Democratic Party meeting or a pro-choice rally, you don’t go to church.”

— Charles Krauthammer on “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

By Chris Stirewalt / Power Play / Published April 02, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Obama Using Bogus Gun Stats to Sell Background Checks

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barack_obamaAs President Obama prepares to head to Colorado on Wednesday to push gun control legislation, some are calling into question the validity of a key statistic he’s using to tout his message on near-universal background checks.
During several speeches, Obama has said 40 percent of all gun purchases were made without a background check. But that number is nearly two decades old and comes from a poll with a relatively tiny sample size.
Gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association, as well as The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” are calling out the president’s stat, saying his numbers on background checks need a background check of their own.During a speech last week, Obama asked, “Why wouldn’t we want to make it more difficult for a dangerous person to get his or her hand on a gun? Why wouldn’t we want to close the loophole that allows as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases to take place without a background check? Why wouldn’t we do that?”
The oft-cited figure, it turns out, was pulled from a 1997 study done by the National Institute of Justice. In the study, researchers estimated about 40 percent of all firearm sales took place through people other than licensed gun dealers. The conclusion was based on data from a 1994 survey of 2,568 households. Of those, only 251 people answered the question about where they got their guns.PolitiFact tracked down the co-author of the study, Duke University professor Philip Cook, and asked him if he thought the 40 percent estimate is accurate.“The answer is I have no idea,” Cook reportedly told PolitiFact. “This survey was done almost 20 years ago.”The National Rifle Association has questioned the 40 percent claim and says it’s a misrepresentation by gun control advocates to trump up support for universal background checks.

Another problem with the study is the sample size, 251 people, which is relatively small, and the data is open to interpretation.

“With this sample size, the 95 percent confidence interval will be plus or minus six percentage points,” The Washington Post fact-checker wrote on Tuesday. “Moreover, when asked whether the respondent brought from a licensed firearms dealer, the possible answers included ‘probably was/think so’ and ‘probably not,’ leaving open the possibility the purchaser was mistaken.”

When all of the “yes” and “probably was” answers were added together, 35.7 percent of those asked said they did not receive a gun from a licensed firearms dealer. If you round the number up, it becomes 40 percent but because the sample size is so small, rounding the number down to 30 percent could also be accurate, the paper noted.

But not everyone agrees with The Post’s fact checker.

“While slagging the president may be good for business, the effect of (the newspaper’s) false ruling is to undermine legitimate efforts to keep the public safe, and to obscure the real enemy of reliable data on gun violence,” Tommy Christopher of Mediaite wrote in a rebuttal Tuesday.

“It is possible to conclude that as few as 26.4% of gun owners in that study ‘purchased’ their gun without a background check, 20.4% if you factor in the margin of error,” he said.

The administration has not responded to questions surrounding the number and why they continue to use it to promote their gun control measures.

The president isn’t the only one who’s used the 40 percent figure to make a point. Many others stumping for the cause have pulled from the same info pile.

On Jan. 24, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand stated the importance of background checks during a television interview.

“The background checks bill is vitally important. It’s going to basically say you can’t buy guns without getting a background check. Today, about 40 percent of guns are purchased without a background check.”

Seven months earlier, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used the same statistic to skewer the National Rifle Association following the Colorado movie theater massacre.

“There’s a loophole where you can sell guns without a background check,” he said last year, on July 22.  “Forty percent of guns are sold that way.”

For months, both sides of the debate on gun control – from the local level all the way up to the national level — have accused the other of inflating figures and manipulating data.

Obama, in using an array of stats and studies and polls, has tried to make the case that the Senate is considering common-sense proposals that most Americans support. Amid resistance from some lawmakers, the president is ramping up his campaign for the legislation. He plans to visit Denver on Wednesday, followed by a stop next Monday in Hartford, Conn., the state that was the site of the deadly mass shooting in Newtown in December.

Published April 02, 2013 / FoxNews.com

 

Democrats Push Bill Requiring Gun Insurance Or $10,000 Fine

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maloney_gun_banA New York Democratic lawmaker is behind a national push that would force gun owners to buy liability insurance or face a $10,000 fine.

The Firearm Risk Protection Act, pushed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney and seven co-sponsors, follows efforts at the state level to create the controversial new kind of insurance for gun owners.

“For too long, gun victims and society at large have borne the brunt of the costs of gun violence,” Maloney said in a written statement. “My bill would change that by shifting some of that cost back onto those who own the weapons.”

The likelihood, though, of Maloney’s bill gaining any traction is slim. Republicans control the House, and even states where Democrats have sizeable majorities have not approved the insurance idea.

Six states — California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania — have all introduced gun liability insurance legislation over the past few months. None has produced any results.

In Illinois, the House rejected a measure 34-74 that would require people carrying concealed weapons to also carry $1 million in liability insurance. Chicago Democrat Kenneth Dunkin was behind the defeated bill. He said an insurance policy would cost between $500 to $2,000, but Illinois Republicans successfully argued the costs were too high for citizens exercising their constitutional right to carry a gun, and the bill was defeated.

Last week, a similar measure in Connecticut was withdrawn following a two-hour hearing on the issue. Connecticut’s proposal would require firearm owners to maintain excess personal liability insurance and self-defense insurance.

In Maryland, a bill that sought mandatory firearm liability insurance for gun owners was also recently withdrawn.

Because there have been so many setbacks on state levels, many have argued that trying to pass a liability insurance mandate on a national level would be near impossible.

Still, Maloney maintains she won’t back down from the fight.

“We have a long history of requiring insurance for high-risk products — and no one disputes that guns are dangerous,” she said in her written statement. “While many individual states are debating this issue right now, it makes more sense for Congress to establish a national requirement to allow the insurance markets to begin to price the risks involved consistently nationwide.”

Maloney also supports proposed bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

The push in Congress for a renewed assault weapons ban has faltered. Though it is expected to get a vote as an amendment to a broader gun control package, few expect it to pass. The debate in Congress lately has centered on whether lawmakers can agree to a system of near-universal background checks.

Published April 02, 2013 / FoxNews.com

UN Adopts Pact to Regulate Multibillion-dollar Global Arms Trade

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Clouds are reflected off the Secretariat Building of the UN headquarters during the 67th United Nations General Assembly, in New YorkThe U.N. General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved the first U.N. treaty regulating the multibillion-dollar international arms trade.

The resolution adopting the landmark treaty was approved by a vote of 154 to 3 with 23 abstentions.

The 193-member world body voted after Iran, North Korea and Syria blocked its adoption by consensus at a negotiating conference last Thursday. The three countries voted “no” on the resolution.

The vote capped a more than decade-long campaign by activists and some governments to regulate the $60 billion global arms trade and try to keep illicit weapons out of the hands of terrorists, insurgent fighters and organized crime.

It will not control the domestic use of weapons in any country, but it will require countries to establish national regulations to control arms transfers.

Published April 02, 2013 / Associated Press

Congress Spars Over Universal Background Checks

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GunControl_kellySenate Democrats recently removed bans on semi-automatic weapons from pending gun-control legislation in apparent hopes of passing the more politically acceptable universal background checks — even referring to the checks as the “sweet spot” of the proposal.

But the issue has turned into the new sticking point in Congress with a top Republican saying Sunday the plan is “going nowhere” and Democrats and other gun-control advocates pressing the issue.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham repeated the argument among gun-rights advocates that the federal government should not add new checks when existing ones are not enforced.

“The current system is broken,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Why in the world would you expand that system if you’re not enforcing the law that exists today. … So I think that legislation is going nowhere.”

Leading gun-control advocate Mark Kelly warned Republican senators that trying to block a vote on new firearms legislation that includes universal background checks could hurt their re-election efforts.

Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy captain, directed his remarks to Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, among five Republican senators who have suggested they will filibuster a debate and full floor vote.

“They should listen to their constituents” and not get in the way of the debate, Kelly told “Fox News Sunday.”

Kelly, who with wife and retired Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords leads the gun-control advocacy group Americans for Responsible solutions, said at least 80 percent of voters in Paul and Rubio’s districts favor the checks for potential gun buyers.

Giffords was shot in the head by Jared Lee Loughner, a mentally ill young man, in January 2011 during a town hall-style meeting outside Tucson, Ariz.

New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he once called background checks the sweet spot “because it would do a whole lot of good and have a good chance of passing.”

“I’m working very hard with both Democrats and Republicans, pro-(National Rifle Association) and anti-NRA people, to come up with a background check that will be acceptable to 60 senators and be very strong and get the job done,” he said. “It’s very hard and we’re working hard and I’m very hopeful that we can get this passed.”

Congress returns April 8 from spring break. No vote on the legislation has been scheduled. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to bring legislation to the floor next month that is likely to include the background check but no bans on semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity gun magazines.

Sens. Ted Cruz, Texas; Mike Lee, Utah; and James Inhofe, Oklahoma, are the three others who have vowed to join in the filibuster.

“We, the undersigned, intend to oppose any legislation that would infringe on the American people’s constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance,” they said in a March 22 letter to Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

Graham said he will not join the filibuster, unless Reid blocks alternative amendments in the floor vote.

Meanwhile, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley is crafting a Republican alternative to the one recently passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, his office said Thursday.

No details have been released, but the bill is expected to include tougher laws on straw purchases and illegal gun trafficking, efforts to increase school safety and keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

A new CBS News poll shows 47 percent of Americans now support tougher gun laws, compared to 57 percent after the December 2012 shooting massacre at a Connecticut elementary school in which 20 first-graders and six adults were killed.

President Obama, who said the day of the shootings was the worst so far of his two-term presidency, push back last week on criticism that Washington has missed its opportunity to pass reform legislation by allowing momentum to fade.

“Let me tell you, people here don’t forget,” said Obama, who will travel Wednesday to Denver to talk with community leaders and local law enforcement officials about new state gun laws. “I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.”

Kelly also called the potential Grassley bill a “mistake” because it doesn’t include the background check and disagreed with the argument it will lead to a federal registry and possible gun confiscation.

However, he agreed with the argument that states a need to pass along to the federal government information about mentally ill people.

“They absolutely have a point,” Kelly told Fox.

Published March 31, 2013 / FoxNews.com /The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Easter Morning

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stone_resurrectionThe New Testament of the Bible contains the story of the life of Jesus Christ. Within its pages is recounted how He was crucified on Friday, and his body was hastily removed from the cross and placed into a tomb hewn into the rock, with very little time to appropriately prepare the body for final burial before the Jewish Sabbath started at sunset.

It was early Sunday morning when Mary Magdalene and other women disciples arrived at the tomb to see the sepulcher and prepare His body. Suddenly there was a great earthquake and an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow.

The angel said, “Fear not: for I know that you seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is arisen. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” He then instructed the women to go and tell Jesus’ disciples that He was risen from the dead and that He would go before them to Galilee; and there they would see Him.

The others ran to tell the Apostles what they had seen and heard, but Mary stood at the door of the sepulcher weeping. As she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulcher, and saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain.

They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

empty-tombShe said, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.”

And when she had spoken she turned back, and saw Jesus standing, but knew not that it was Him. He spoke to her and said, “Woman, why are you crying? Whom do you seek?”

She, supposing him to be the gardener, said, “Sir, if you have borne him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said, “Mary.”

Suddenly recognizing His voice, she turned herself and said to him, “Rabboni,” which is to say, Master.

Jesus said to her, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say to them, ‘I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.’”

What is the significance of this story nearly 2,000 years later? Each of us must decide its implications and importance for ourselves, and apply its lessons in our own lives as we interpret the message for ourselves. John, the Apostle who recorded this version of the incident gives us his own explanation of why he recorded it: “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name.”

Publius

Left Want Ben Carson Replaced as Commencement Speaker After Gay Marriage Remarks

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Ben_carsonJohns Hopkins students are campaigning to have Dr. Ben Carson pulled from this year’s commencement speaker line-up, in response to comments the well-known neurosurgeon, a critic of the Obama administration, made about gay marriage.

Carson has since said he apologizes for having offended anyone and indicated he might withdraw from the commencement role, though he says his words are being misconstrued.

Carson — who rocketed to political fame after criticizing President Obama’s policies during the National Prayer Breakfast, which Obama attended — made the gay marriage comments on Fox News Tuesday night.

Host Sean Hannity asked Carson his opinion on same-sex marriage, given the Supreme Court’s consideration of two gay marriage cases this week.

“Marriage is between a man and a woman,” Carson said. “It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality — it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition.”

Students accused Carson of effectively comparing “gay relationships with pedophilia and bestiality.”

The Health and Human Rights Student Group began circulating a petition, linked out of its Facebook page, challenging Carson’s selection as the 2013 commencement speaker for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

“At the time of his nomination, Dr. Carson was known to most of us as a world-class neurosurgeon and passionate advocate for education. Many of us had read his books and looked up to him as a role model in our careers,” the group said. “Since then, however, several public events have cast serious doubt on the appropriateness of having Dr. Carson speak at our graduation.”

The group cited his gay marriage comments, but also his comments at the National Prayer Breakfast — Carson was hailed by conservatives, and even landed a speaking role at the Conservative Political Action Conference, for his remarks in February.

The commencement address may be in doubt.

Asked about the students’ objections, Carson on Friday told MSNBC it’s “their day and the last thing I would want to do is rain on their parade.”

Asked whether he’s told the university he would not deliver the address, Carson said he was “waiting for appropriate channels.”

Carson also told the Baltimore Sun that people “have completely taken the wrong meaning out of what I was saying.”

He added:  “Now perhaps the examples were not the best choice of words, and I certainly apologize if I offended anyone. But the point that I was making was that no group of individuals, whoever they are, whatever their belief systems, gets to change traditional definitions.”

Published March 29, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Obama Tries to ‘Shame’ Congress into Approving Gun Control Package

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obama_gun_controlPresident Obama moved Thursday to put the muscle of the White House and his network of supporters behind a gun control package tracking toward the Senate floor, calling on voters to pressure Congress into backing it as the proposal runs into resistance on Capitol Hill.

The president, in a set of brief remarks from the White House Thursday surrounded by the mothers of shooting victims, raised concern that the shock from the Newtown elementary school shooting could soon fade.

“Less than 100 days ago that happened. … Shame on us if we’ve forgotten,” Obama said. “I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.”

Amid signals from Washington that the Senate bill could be losing momentum and high-dollar ad campaigns on both sides, the president was there to deliver a message to wavering lawmakers. “Don’t get squishy,” he said.

Obama, accusing opponents of drumming up “fear,” urged supporters to call members of Congress and pressure them into backing the package.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee, of Utah, ripped the president for the remarks, suggesting he was exploiting the Newtown tragedy.

“The proposals the president is calling for Congress to pass would primarily serve to reduce the constitutionally protected rights of law-abiding citizens while having little or no effect on violent crime,” Lee said in a statement. “It is deeply unfortunate that he continues to use the tragedy at Newtown as a backdrop for pushing legislation that would have done nothing to prevent that horrible crime.”

Lee said he and his conservative colleagues plan to ensure that any of the firearms proposals require a 60-vote threshold in order to proceed. This could be a high hurdle for the Senate to clear.

Already, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dropped from the main package a proposal to renew and expand the expired assault weapons ban.

The base bill will instead cover universal background checks, strengthened punishments for illegal trafficking and more money for school security.

Items like school security enjoy broad support. But the move to include private sales — including gun show purchases — in the background check system remains controversial in some circles. Plus the assault weapons ban, which Republicans most adamantly oppose, is still expected to get a vote as an amendment to the main bill.

The National Rifle Association, during and after Obama’s remarks, tweeted a flurry of comments criticizing the latest Obama push. The group accused him of campaigning “against guns to please the fringe.”

Both sides of the gun debate are stepping up their effort to sway Congress. While the NRA has been vocal since the start of the process, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg just launched a $12 million ad buy in support of the legislation.

“It’s not done until it’s done,” Obama said Thursday. “There are some powerful voices on the other side that are interested in running out the clock, or changing the subject. … They’re doing everything they can to make all our progress collapse under the weight of fear and frustration.”

Published March 28, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Teachers’ Union: F

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nea_report_cardWe hear constantly about how American students are losing ground in worldwide performance standards. We score around 500 out of 1,000 in a number of important categories like reading and science.

Every three years the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report is compiled and released, comparing the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world. The United States ranks 14th of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science, and a dismal 25th for mathematics.

The man-on-the-street interview has become common fodder for comedy shows, because the ignorance of the average American is overwhelmingly predictable. If you don’t believe it, casually ask someone in Starbucks the most fundamental of social studies questions: how many senators are in the US congress, or even the name of the vice president. You will be surprised at the number of blank stares you receive.

The Dumbing Down of America

So what do children learn in schools under the stern directives of the National Education Association? They learn about global warming, necessary tolerance for abhorrent human behaviors, and about how bad President Bush was. They are taught to speak out vehemently against anything and everything that is traditional or moral, and to blindly embrace every edict and dogma of the left.

Our classrooms are often filled with NEA union “change agents,” set in place to transition impressionable minds from logical and moral thought to leftist nonsense of redistribution and “fairness.” Our children don’t dare question the dogmatic edicts of these “community organizers” whose job it is to preach the gospel of the left, numbing the minds of the children and getting them to thoughtlessly repeat the chants and talking points of liberals.

Even in conservative Provo, Utah, we’ve received reports of a female seventh-grade teacher who recently bullied a female student in front of the class for having a note in her papers on the desk that she was supporting Mitt Romney for president. When the girl’s father asked the principal why his daughter was berated in front of the entire class and called “stupid” for her written thought, he was threatened with a lawsuit and a restraining order if he mentioned the incident outside of the principal’s office.

With all of that “education” going on, it’s no wonder that there is no time or energy left over for things like reading, writing and arithmetic.

“This is an absolute wake-up call for America,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The results are extraordinarily challenging to us and we have to deal with the brutal truth. We have to get much more serious about investing in education.”

Does Education Need More Money?

Duncan’s use of the word “investing” is liberal-speak for raising taxes and feeding the NEA with more money to donate to Democratic candidate political campaigns. In fact, where students are more likely to drop out of school, and to be unemployed when they leave school, we find the highest levels of NEA influence, and the highest support for Democrats. Think east coast and west coast cities, Chicago, Detroit, etc.

Indeed, we constantly hear how underpaid teachers are, and how our schools need more money for the classrooms. Let’s look at some real numbers. First, we spend more than $9,000 per student per year on K-12 education (far more than all the countries who beat us in PISA reports), totaling over $120,000 per student by high school graduation. That is over $800 billion annually, which is a full 4.5% of our gross domestic product.

So where does all of this money go? Around 60% goes to classroom instruction, including teachers’ salaries. The rest (40%) goes to non-teaching employees and extras, in place mainly to ensure federal compliance, to qualify for the small percentage of the local budget that comes from Washington, D.C.

According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, mechanical engineers earn $31.93 per hour, but public school teachers earn on average more than $34.00 per hour, with an average annual salary of over $47,000. That salary is for a job that consumes just 36.5 hours per week compared with many hours more for nearly everyone else. Compared with public school teachers, editors and reporters earn 24% less; architects, 11% less; psychologists, 9% less; chemists, 5% less; mechanical engineers, 6% less; and economists, 1% less. It is true that there are those who earn more than public school teachers. Nuclear engineers earn 17% more; actuaries, 9% more; and physicists, 3% more. There are public school teachers working for a number of failing school systems who are earning a lot more than most people. The Detroit metropolitan area has the highest average public school teacher pay among metropolitan areas for which data are available, at $47.28 per hour, followed by the San Francisco metropolitan area at $46.70 per hour, and the New York metropolitan area at $45.79 per hour.

We need to invest more? No, we need to take back control of our schools and ensure that motivated teachers are teaching basic educational courses—the kind of subjects that are tested and measured internationally. We need to make sure there is competition in the teaching profession, something the NEA has fought with tremendous ferocity. We need to reward teachers who excel, and fire teachers who aren’t teaching useful subject matter to our children.

PUBLIUS

UN Arms Treaty Will Regulate Your Gun Ownership

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gun_controlThe U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty, which seemed dead last July, is beginning to wrap up negotiations.  The Obama administration is committed to getting it passed . Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed: “The United States is steadfast in its commitment to achieve a strong and effective Arms Trade Treaty.”

The treaty was resurrected on Nov. 8 – the very day after President Obama’s re-election. Very conveniently, that the Obama administration delayed the U.N. vote in favor of renewing negotiations delayed until the president was no longer constrained by public opinion.

The Arms Trade Treaty will regulate individual gun ownership all across the world. Each country will be obligated to “maintain a national control list that shall include [rifles and handguns]” and “to regulate brokering taking place under its jurisdiction for conventional arms.”  In fact, the new background check rules approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee include just those rules — a registration system and a record of all transfers of guns.

The treaty pretends that individual weapons smugglers are the main problem.

But nations themselves will be responsible for enforcing the rules. That means Iran, China, Russia – the leading countries for the truly troubling parts of the international arms trade – are supposed to curb it.  Does anyone actually believe these nations will actually enforce these regulations against themselves?

Democracies are a different story.  Many of their civilians have freedoms to lose. And they are much more transparent on whether they are actually honoring the rules that apply to their governments.

Just like with gun control, in general, it is only the “good guys” who will obey the new rules. The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, if passed, would only be effective against those countries that choose to obey them.

The treaty pretends that individual weapons smugglers are the main problem. But governments, not private individuals, are the primary source of weapons. For example, the FARC guerrillas fighting in Colombia get their guns from the Venezuelan government.

Unsurprisingly, the U.N. treaty provisions are the long-time favorites of American gun control advocates: registration and licensing of guns and ammunition, along with restrictions on the private gun transfers. Unfortunately, these expensive measures have a long history of failing to curb crime wherever they have been tried and primarily end up disarming law-abiding gun owners.

The treaty pushes gun registration and licensing as a way to trace those who supply these illicit weapons. Yet, to see the problem with these regulations, one only needs to look at how ineffective they have been in solving crime. Canada just ended its long gun registry last year, as it was a colossal waste of money.

Indeed, it is a costly scheme. Beginning in 1998, Canadians spent a whopping $2.7 billion on creating and running a registry just for long guns. With more people and more guns in the United States, the estimated costs for a similar registration scheme for 13 years would be about $67 billion.

Gun control advocates have long claimed registration is a safety issue. Their reasoning is straightforward: If a gun is left at a crime scene, and it was registered to the person who committed the crime, the registry will link it back to the criminal.

Unfortunately, it rarely works out this way. Criminals are seldom stupid enough to leave behind crime guns that are registered to themselves.

As to restrictions on the private transfers of guns, the most common type of regulation discussed in the U.S. today involves background checks. Yet, whether one is talking about the Brady Act or the so-called gun show loophole, economists and criminologists who have looked at this simply don’t find evidence those regulations reduce crime.  It may even increase crime, as fewer would-be victims acquire guns. Unfortunately, just like criminal gangs in the U.S. obtaining guns, it is simply wishful thinking that a United Nations treaty – no matter how well intended – can do much to stop rebel groups from getting weapons.

Obama likes to believe that his re-election gives him a mandate for sweeping changes. Well, he certainly lacks a mandate for these new gun restrictions, as he tried so hard to avoid the U.N. treaty until after the election.

The good news is that even if President Obama signs the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, it is unlikely to be ratified by the US Senate. Nonetheless, by promoting gun control elsewhere in the world, it might eventually lead to more pressure for gun control here at home.

By John R. Lott, Jr., an economist and former chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission; also a leading expert on guns. He is the author of several books, including “More Guns, Less Crime.” His latest book is “At the Brink: Will Obama Push Us Over the Edge? (Regnery Publishing 2013).” Follow him on Twitter@johnrlottjr.

UN Arms Treaty

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Clouds are reflected off the Secretariat Building of the UN headquarters during the 67th United Nations General Assembly, in New YorkUNITED NATIONS –  Supporters of a U.N. treaty designed to regulate the multibillion-dollar global arms trade were optimistic that a final draft circulated a day before Thursday’s deadline will reach consensus.Negotiators reconvened last week in a final attempt to reach a deal on the Arms Trade Treaty, which would require all countries to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms and to regulate arms brokers.

U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations have been private, said Wednesday the United States was virtually certain to go along with the latest text.

Hopes of reaching agreement on what would be a landmark treaty were dashed last July when the U.S. said it needed more time to consider the proposed accord — a move quickly backed by Russia and China. In December, the U.N. General Assembly decided to hold a final conference and set Thursday as the deadline for reaching agreement.

“We need a treaty,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Li Baodong told The Associated Press. “We hope for consensus.”

Questions remain on whether Iran, Egypt, India and several other countries that had serious concerns about the text would go along with the draft, which requires agreement of all 193 U.N. member states for adoption.

There has never been an international treaty regulating the estimated $60 billion global arms trade. For more than a decade, activists and some governments have been pushing for international rules to try to keep illicit weapons out of the hands of terrorists, insurgent fighters and organized crime.

“It’s important for each and every country in the world that we have a regulation of the international arms trade,” Germany’s U.N. Ambassador Peter Wittig told the AP. “There are still some divergencies of views, but I trust we can overcome them.”

The draft treaty does not control the domestic use of weapons in any country, but it would require all countries to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms, parts and components and to regulate arms brokers. It would prohibit states that ratify the treaty from transferring conventional weapons if they would violate arms embargoes or if they would promote acts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.

The final draft makes this human rights provision even stronger, adding that the export of conventional arms should be prohibited if they could be used in the commission of attacks on civilians or civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals.

The National Rifle Association has portrayed the draft treaty as a threat to gun ownership rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and has lobbied to defeat the proposal at the U.N.

The NRA last week praised the Senate’s passage of an amendment to the Democratic budget proposal that would prevent the U.S. from entering into the treaty.

The measure, introduced by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., passed on a 53-46 vote.

“Thanks to the efforts of Senator Inhofe, we are one step closer to ensuring the U.N. will not trample on the freedoms our founding fathers guaranteed to us,” Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement released following the vote.

Ammunition has been a key issue, with some countries pressing for the same controls on ammunition sales as arms, but the U.S. and others opposed such tough restrictions. The draft calls for each country that ratifies the treaty to establish regulations for the export of ammunition “fired, launched or delivered” by the weapons covered by the convention.

The Control Arms coalition, which represents about 100 organizations worldwide campaigning for a strong treaty, and diplomats from countries that support them, said this wouldn’t cover hand grenades and mines.

India and other countries had insisted that the treaty have an opt-out for government arms transfers under defense cooperation agreements. The new text appears to keep that loophole, stating that implementation of the treaty “shall not prejudice obligations” under defense cooperation agreements by countries that ratify the treaty.

“Making this treaty was like making a sausage: Everyone has added an ingredient,” said Ted Bromund, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

“Unfortunately, that has produced a document that leans much too far towards satisfying the concerns of the Arab Group and Mexico. The former view it as a rebellion prevention plan, while the latter wants a text that edges towards its view that the domestic firearms market in the U.S. should be subject to treaty regulation,” he said.

But Daryl Kimball, executive director of the independent Washington-based Arms Control Association, said, “The emerging treaty represents an important first step in dealing with the unregulated and illicit global trade in conventional weapons and ammunition, which fuels wars and human rights abuses worldwide.”

He said the text could have been stronger and more comprehensive, but it can still make an important difference.

“The new treaty says to every United Nations member that you cannot simply ‘export and forget,'” Kimball said.

In considering whether to authorize the export of arms, the draft says a country must evaluate whether the weapon would be used to violate international human rights or humanitarian laws or be used by terrorists or organized crime. The final draft would allow countries to determine whether the weapons transfer would contribute to or undermine peace and security.

Anna Macdonald, Oxfam’s head of arms control, said the scope of the weapons covered in the latest draft is still too narrow.

“We need a treaty that covers all conventional weapons, not just some of them,” she said. “We need a treaty that will make a difference to the lives of the people living in Congo, Mali, Syria and elsewhere who suffer each day from the impacts of armed violence.”

Published March 28, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

The Spirit of Antichrist Permeates Our Nation

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Satan_ObamaBecause of all the buzz in the press lately about religious freedoms coming under attack, there has been a great deal of discussion about the role of religion in our nation.

Barack Hussein Obama has declared that “America is no longer a Christian nation,” and in our article of May 28, 2012 Obama vs. Catholic Church, we outlined how one of his first acts as POTUS was to insist that the gold “IHS” monograms for the name of Christ be covered up with black painted plywood in Gaston Hall at the Catholic church’s Georgetown University, where he delivered a speech on economics.

We see on national television, in the movies, magazines and other media, on left-leaning news programs, newspapers and the blogs and social networks a hardening stance against Christianity in America. Even our political leaders who claim a Christian background not only embrace practices and policies that are clearly against the teachings of the Bible, but publically belittle and berate anyone who endorses them—or endorses Jesus Christ or His Father, the God of Israel.

The Democratic Party, and indeed, many if not most liberals and progressives in this country have adopted an anti-God, anti-Christian approach to public life, and in a growing number of cases, their personal lives.  See, e.g., our article of September 9, 2012 DNC Boos God . The support for the State of Israel has waned with the decline of Christianity in this country—leaving American Jewish families to wonder if they’ve been abandoned by the Democratic Party that they so willingly embraced.

Antichrist is a personage mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible on a few occasions; but also described is a “Spirit of Antichrist,” illustrated by John the Apostle in 1 John 4 thus:

 3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

The Apostle further elaborates the principle of the Spirit of Antichrist in 2 John 1, explaining:

7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

Indeed, we are deluged in a sea of deceivers. We live in that Orwellian world where good is bad and bad is good, where our universities churn out “spin doctors” by the millions, whose only purpose is to make wickedness appear to be goodness through tolerance and inclusion, and to make enslavement appear as liberty through taxation, regulation and the public dole. They belly up to news desks and slither on couches looking into television cameras and lie about everything with a sophistry that oozes effortlessly from their filthy lips, and assail anyone who dares speak a word of decency or honesty.

Yes, the Spirit of Antichrist has doubtless overtaken our nation’s media, government, education and many other institutions. Deceivers rule the country. It was foretold, and we must accept its eventuality and reality.

The only questions that remain are a) which team’s jersey do you wear? and b) is the person of Antichrist already among us, arising on the scene?

Publius

Mormon Refuses to ‘Stomp Jesus’ – Governor Calls for Investigation of University

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stomp_jesusFlorida Gov. Rick Scott is calling on the state university system chancellor to investigate a classroom lesson at Florida Atlantic University in which students were instructed to stomp on sheets of paper that had “Jesus” written on them.

“As we enter the week memorializing the events of Christ’s passion, this incident gave me great concern over the lessons we are teaching our students,” Scott wrote in the letter to Chancellor Frank Brogan. “The professor’s lesson was offensive, and even intolerant, to Christians and those of all faiths who deserve to be respected as Americans entitled to religious freedom.”

Scott said in his letter that he was “deeply disappointed” by the recent incident in an intercultural communications class taught by Deandre Poole, who also happens to be the vice chair of the Palm Beach Democratic party.

Ryan Rotela, a devout Mormon was in the classroom and refused to obey the instructor’s directions. When he complained, Rotela was banned from the classroom and charged with violating the student code of conduct.

After Rotela retained the legal services of the Liberty Institute, the university had a change of heart – profusely apologizing and promising to clear his record.

Scott said the incident raised questions about “the lessons being taught in our classrooms.” He said he wanted a report on the incident and how it was handled, as well as a statement of the university’s policies to ensure such “lessons” don’t occur again.

State University System spokeswoman Kim Wilmath said officials would work closely with FAU in preparing a response to the governor’s concerns.

“The State University System prides itself not only on its commitment to academic freedom, but at the same time, its awesome responsibility to the people it serves,” she said in a written statement. “We are gratified to know that FAU has apologized for any offense the exercise has caused and has pledged never to use this exercise again. Clearly, there were things the university could have done differently by its own acknowledgement.”

On Tuesday afternoon FAU released a video statement from Charles Brown, the school’s senior vice president of student affairs.

“On behalf of all us here at FAU, we are deeply sorry for any hurt this incident might have caused our students, people in the community and beyond,” Brown said. “As an institution of higher education, we embrace academic freedom. but with that comes a level of responsibility which we did not uphold.”

Brown said the lesson would no longer be used at FAU.

“It was insensitive and deeply hurtful and we are deeply sorry,” he said.

The governor didn’t seem satisfied with the apology, saying it was “in many ways inconsequential to the larger issue of a professor’s poor judgment.”

“Our public higher educational institutions are designed to shape the minds of Florida’s future leaders,” Scott wrote. “We should provide educational leadership that is respectful of religious freedom of all people.”

By Todd Starnes / With reporting from Associated Press

The Ghost of Jimmy Carter

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obama-carterPresident Jimmy Carter promised Hope and Change to an America dragged through the mud by a media feeding frenzy during the Nixon Watergate era.

The left got the white house handed to them, along with the congress, and nothing could stop the wholesale implementation of liberal-progressive policies. Anyone who lived during the Carter administration knows that it was a horrific time in American history.

Carter began his presidency by apologizing for American success, and it wasn’t long before Arabs began slapping him around like the whimp he told them he was.

OPEC decided the US was powerless to oppose them, and they immediately began cutting oil supplies and raising prices. Carter’s response was classic Democrat, demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of global free markets–impose price freezes on gasoline in the US. World oil markets naturally sought out the more lucrative markets and we well recall the gas lines stretching for blocks as Americans waited for hours to get their tanks filled, reminiscent of the Depression Era shortages and rationing schemes.
In grand Neville Chamberlain style Carter immediately tried diplomatic talks with the Soviet Union feeling that thrill going up his leg as the Soviets put their signatures on pieces of paper with him. Of course, while agreeing to limit expansion, the USSR invaded Afghanistan behind his back, bitch-slapping the president of the United States in front of the entire world.

Carter also withdrew US support of the Shah of Iran, historically a strong U.S. ally in the Middle East, one of few who recognized Israel as a sovereign state. Without our support the Shah was forced into exile, replaced by a fundamentalist government, hostile to the U.S. Iranian students stormed the US embassy and took 53 Americans hostages, and held them as political prisoners for 444 days. Carter had been paring back the US military and saw his duty as Commander in Chief as unbecoming a Progressive President, and when it was time to send in a military extraction team to get our hostages out, the equipment failed in one of the greatest military blunders in history. The hostages were kept in Iran and paraded before the world media up until President Elect Ronald Reagan sent Iran the message, “Let my people go,” and they were brushed up and sent back immediately.

Carter, the Apologizer in Chief, also gave up US control of the American-built Panama Canal, affording China and other nations greater access to our easier trade routes, further harming US trade superiority. Seeing no deterrence, the Soviets further expanded their influence in the Western Hemisphere by helping leftists overthrow governments in Central and South America.

Democratic economic strategies had our US economy spiraling in a tailspin, with the prime rate at 21 percent, killing business expansion and the housing market. Of course, unemployment skyrocketed under these circumstances.

DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

This writer has always said that American politics has been reduced to this: The Democrats take control of government based on promises of throwing a big party, and the next election the Republicans are called in to clean up the mess.

At what point will America wake up to the reality that the policies of the left don’t work? It’s time to install a conservative government, and to keep a conservative government in place . . . and replace the long-term growth, development and expansion of personal liberty that we enjoyed for the first 100 years. Call me old fashioned.

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