Obama's Accomplishments

 There are many things that President Obama can claim. For example, he was the first President to: 

- apply for College Aid Foreign Student, the ndney he was a foreigner

- have a social security number issued from a state he never lived in

- preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States

- be held in contempt of court for illegally onstructing oil drilling in the Gulf

- defy a Federal Judges court order to cease implementing Obamacare

- arbitrarily declare an existing law uncontitutional and refuse to enforce it

- tell a private organization which state they can operate or build a plant in

- go on 17 lavish vacation, including date nights to New York, all on the tax payers dime

- require all Americans (except his friends who have waivers) to purchase a product from a third party

- spend close to $1 Trillion dollars of phantom "shovel ready" jobs

- recommend changing the national anthem, saying that it promotes violence

- cancel the National Day of Prayer Breakfast

- abrogate bankrupty law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters while screwing bond  holders

- threaten insurance companies if they publicly blame Obamacare for increased rates

- appoint 45 Czars to replace elected officials without Congressional oversight

- win the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing to earn it

Constitution Skirting Obama Executive Orders

Constitution Skirting Obama Executive Orders is the title of an article by Calvin Woodward and Richard Lardner of the Associated Press. This is what "Forward" looks like. Fast forward, even. President Barack Obama's campaign slogan is springing to life in a surge of executive directives and agency rule-making that touch many of the affairs of government. They are shaping the cost and quality of health plans, the contents of the school cafeteria, the front lines of future combat, the price of coal. They are the leading edge of Obama's ambition to take on climate change in ways that may be unachievable in legislation.

Altogether, it's a kinetic switch from what could have been the watchword of the Obama administration in the closing, politically hypersensitive months of his first term: pause.

Whatever the merits of any particular commandment from the president or his agencies, the perception of a government expanding its reach and hitting business with job-killing mandates was sure to set off fireworks before November.

Since Obama's re-election, regulations giving force and detail to his health care law have gushed out by the hundreds of pages. To some extent this was inevitable: The law is far-reaching and its most consequential deadlines are fast approaching.

The rules are much more than fine print, however, and they would have thickened the storm over the health care overhaul if placed on the radar in last year's presidential campaign. That, after all, was the season when some Republicans put the over-the-top label "death panel" on a board that could force cuts to service providers if Medicare spending ballooned.

The new health law rules provide leeway for insurers to charge smokers thousands of dollars more for coverage. They impose a $63 per-head fee on insurance plans — a charge that probably will be passed on to policyholders — to cushion the cost of covering people with medical problems. There's a new fee for insurance companies for participating in markets that start signing customers in the fall.

In short, sticker shock.

It's clear from the varied inventory of previously bottled-up directives that Obama cares about more than "Obamacare."

"I'm hearing we're going to see a lot of things moving now," Hilda Solis told employees in her last day as labor secretary. At the Labor Department, this could include regulations requiring that the nation's 1.8 million in-home care workers receive minimum-wage and overtime pay.

Tougher limits on soot from smokestacks, diesel trucks and other sources were announced just over a month after the Nov. 6 election. These were foreseen: The administration had tried to stall until the campaign ended but released the proposed rules in June when a judge ordered more haste.

Regulations give teeth and specificity to laws are essential to their functioning even as they create bureaucratic bloat. Congress-skirting executive orders and similar presidential directives are less numerous and generally have less reach than laws. But every president uses them and often tests how far they can go, especially in times of war and other crises.

President Harry Truman signed an executive order in 1952 directing the Commerce Department to take over the steel industry to ensure U.S. troops fighting in Korea were kept supplied with weapons and ammunition. The Supreme Court struck it down.

Other significant actions have stood.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an order in February 1942 to relocate more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast to internment camps after Japan's attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base. Decades later, Congress passed legislation apologizing and providing $20,000 to each person who was interned.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush approved a series of executive orders that created an office of homeland security, froze the assets in U.S. banks linked to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, and authorized the military services to call reserve forces to active duty for as long as two years.

Bush's most contentious move came in the form of a military order approving the use of the military tribunals to put accused terrorists on trial faster and in greater secrecy than a regular criminal court.

Obama also has wielded considerable power in secret, upsetting the more liberal wing of his own party. He has carried forward Bush's key anti-terrorism policies and expanded the use of unmanned drone strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan and Yemen.

When a promised immigration overhaul failed in legislation, Obama went part way there simply by ordering that immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children be exempted from deportation and granted work permits if they apply. So, too, the ban on gays serving openly in the military was repealed before the election, followed now by the order lifting the ban on women serving in combat.

Those measures did not prove especially contentious. Indeed, the step on immigration is thought to have helped Obama in the election. It may be a different story as the administration moves more forcefully across a range of policy fronts that sat quiet in much of his first term.

William Howell, a political science professor at the University of Chicago and the author of "Power Without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action," isn't surprised to see commandments coming at a rapid clip.

"In an era of polarized parties and a fragmented Congress, the opportunities to legislate are few and far between," Howell said. "So presidents have powerful incentive to go it alone. And they do."

And the political opposition howls.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said that on the gun-control front in particular, Obama is "abusing his power by imposing his policies via executive fiat instead of allowing them to be debated in Congress."

The Republican reaction is to be expected, said John Woolley, co-director of the American Presidency Project at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

"For years there has been a growing concern about unchecked executive power," Woolley said. "It tends to have a partisan content, with contemporary complaints coming from the incumbent president's opponents."

The power isn't limitless, as was demonstrated when Obama issued one of his first executive orders, calling for closing the military prison at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba and trying suspected terrorists housed there in federal courts instead of by special military tribunals. Congress stepped in to prohibit moving any Guantanamo prisoners to the U.S., effectively blocking Obama's plan to shutter the jail.

Among recent actions:

—Obama issued presidential memoranda on guns in tandem with his legislative effort to expand background checks and ban assault-type weapons and large capacity magazines. The steps include renewing federal gun research despite a law that has been interpreted as barring such research since 1996. Gun control was off the table in the campaign, as it had been for a decade, but the shooting at a Connecticut elementary school in December changed that overnight.

—The Labor Department approved new rules in January that could help save lives at dangerous mines with a pattern of safety violations. The rules were proposed shortly after an explosion killed 29 men at West Virginia's Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, deadliest mining accident in 40 years. The rules had been in limbo ever since because of objections from mine operators.

—The government proposed fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits in almost all food sold in schools, extending federal nutritional controls beyond subsidized lunches to include food sold in school vending machines and a la carte cafeteria lines. The new proposals flow from a 2010 law and are among several sidelined during the campaign.

The law provoked an outcry from conservatives who said the government was empowering itself to squash school bake sales and should not be telling kids what to eat. Updated regulations last year on subsidized school lunches produced a backlash, too, altogether making the government shy of further food regulation until the election passed. The new rules leave school fundraisers clear of federal regulation, alleviating fears of cupcake-crushing edicts at bake sales and the like.

—The Justice Department released an opinion that people with food allergies can be considered to have the rights of disabled people. The finding exposes schools, restaurants and other food-service places to more legal risk if they don't accommodate patrons with food allergies.

—The White House said Obama intends to move forward on rules controlling carbon emissions from power plants as a central part of the effort to restrain climate change, which the president rarely talked about after global-warming legislation failed in his first term. With a major climate bill unlikely to get though a divided Congress, Obama is expected to rely on his executive authority to achieve whatever progress he makes on climate change.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to complete the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from new coal-fired power plants. The agency also probably will press ahead on rules for existing power plants, despite protests from industry and Republicans that such rules would raise electricity prices and kill off coal, the dominant U.S. energy source. Older coal-fired power plants have been shutting across the country because of low natural gas prices and weaker demand for electricity.

—In December, the government proposed long-delayed rules requiring automakers to install event data recorders, or "black boxes," in all new cars and light trucks beginning Sept. 1, 2014. Most new cars are already getting them.

—The EPA proposed rules to update water quality guidelines for beaches and control runoff from logging roads.

As well, a new ozone rule probably will be completed this year, which would mean finally moving forward on a smog-control standard sidelined in 2011.

A regulation directing federal contractors to hire more disabled workers is somewhere in the offing at the Labor Department, as are ones to protect workers from lung-damaging silica and reduce the risk of deadly factory explosions from dust produced in the making of chemicals, plastics and metals.

Rules also are overdue on genetically modified salmon, catfish inspection, the definition of gluten-free in labeling and food import inspection. In one of the most closely watched cases, Obama could decide early this year whether to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas.

More Second Amendment Supporters

Harry Reid finally figured out that the Democrats have no support in the Senate to pass second amendment destroying legislation. Despite efforts by Obama, Uncle Joe Biden, Senator Frankenstien (D-CA) and others to make gun control an emotional issue, Second Amendment supporters found an ally in a previously quiet area, Black-American leaders.

Watch this short, but exceptional video on Black Americans coming together to support the second amendment putting it into perspective as the unalienable right that holds all the other rights together.

Senate Votes To Block U.S. From Joining UN Arms Treaty

Senate Votes To Block U.S. From Joining UN Arms Treaty, however the actual title of this report should be "some ass clown Senator's actual vote YES on the U.N. Arms Treaty"

In the last batch of amendment votes to the budget, the Senate voted on several foreign policy proposals.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) introduced an amendment that would prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty in order to uphold the Second Amendment. His amendment passed on a 53-46 vote.

Republicans have been critical of President Obama’s decision to consider the treaty, although Obama has said he would not vote for anything that would violate the Second Amendment.  It is very troubling that 46 Senators voted for this treaty which would, in effect, supercede the second amendment. 

One Man's Personal View on Private Property

One Man's Personal View on Private Property, and a good one at that.

Private Property and the Second Amendment, by Alfred Adask

Not one of the nations opting for gun control recognized private property rights. Not one of the nations opting for gun control achieved prosperity while gun control was in effect.

According to political scientist political scientist R. J. Rummel, “In the 20th century, democide [murder of civilians by their own government] passed war as the leading cause of non-natural death.”

Get that? According to Mr. Rummel, during the 20th century, more people were murdered by their own government than were killed by a foreign government in the midst of a genuine war.

Virtually all of these two hundred million deaths of civilians by their own governments came after the people had been sufficiently stupid and/or self-destructive to agree to surrender their arms to their government.

Simply put, if Mr. Rummel’s studies are correct, gun control caused more deaths in the 20th century than war.

Think international war is bad?

Domestic gun control is worse.

The 2nd Amendment was intended to protect us against our own government. It doesn’t only protect our freedoms and our lives—it also protects our right to private property, our prosperity and standard of living.

Lose your guns; lose your private property; lose your personal and national prosperity; and, maybe, lose your life. Bet on it.

Remember: No one really wants you disarmed except the gangs (private or governmental) who plan to rob you.

Gun Companies May Leave Their Restrictive States

From an article titled, "Magpul Industries Was Not Bluffing, Remington and Colt May Follow Suit" by Matt Liponoga posted on the Free Patriot,........ No sooner had Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed three gun-control bills into law Wednesday than the economic backlash began.

Officials at gun equipment manufacturer Magpul Industries confirmed that the company would make good on its vow to leave Colorado if the governor signed the bill to limit ammunition-magazine capacity. The Erie-based manufacturer confirmed on its Facebook page that it will start its transition “almost immediately.”

Magpul may be the first firearms-related business to relocate as a result of state gun-control laws, but it probably won’t be the last. Companies in Connecticut, Maryland and New York are considering moves to more gun-friendly pastures as their state legislatures act on restrictive firearms measures similar to those pushed through by state Democrats here.

In New York, where Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed laws banning so-called assault weapons and limiting magazine capacity to seven rounds, venerable gun manufacturer Remington Arms is being wooed by officials in at least a half-dozen other states.

“We are carefully evaluating our options,” Teddy Novin, marketing director for Remington parent company Freedom Group, Inc., told the Utica Observer-Dispatch in January.

Remington, which has operated for nearly 200 years in Ilion, N.Y., employs 1,300 people and brings an estimated $50 million to the state annually.

Another gun company that may be receptive to relocation is Colt’s Manufacturing Co. in Hartford, Conn. The state legislature in Hartford is debating firearms restrictions in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December, which left 26 people dead, including 20 children.

Colt President Dennis Veilleux said in a March 18 editorial in the Hartford Courant that he feared the legislation would erode the 175-year-old company’s customer base and cripple its ability to do business in Connecticut. Last week, Colt drove home the point by sending 10 buses with more than 500 employees to the state legislature. The workers held a rally outside the state capitol, waving signs and chanting “Save our jobs!”

And in Maryland, officials at Beretta USA, the American base for the famed Italian gunmaker, have expressed concerns that bills moving quickly through the state legislature would make some of the company’s products illegal in its home state. Beretta employs as many as 400 workers, making the company an attractive target for nearby states, including Virginia and West Virginia.

Magpul, which manufactures polymer firearms accessories, including ammunition magazines, employs about 200 people and supports 400 supply-chain jobs in Colorado. The company blamed political currents outside Colorado for the Democratic legislature’s gun-control package.

“It is disappointing to us that money and a social agenda from outside the state have apparently penetrated the American West to control our legislature and governor, but we feel confident that Colorado residents can still take the state back through recalls, ballot initiatives and the 2014 election,” said the company.

Mr. Hickenlooper, a Democrat, acknowledged at the signing ceremony that Magpul might leave Colorado, but said he had concluded that the legislation’s benefits “clearly” outweighed the costs.

“Those are 200 people who go to work every day, and if Magpul decides they do indeed have to leave, that’s a hardship, that’s difficult,” said Mr. Hickenlooper. “In any difficult piece of legislation, there’s pluses and minuses.”

The Heaviest Element Known to Science

Breaking News!!  Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Next Republican Presidential Nominee - 2013 CPAC Straw Poll

Every year the Conservative Political Action Committee Convention (CPAC) hosts a straw poll on who conservatives want to see as the Republican Presidential nominee. Mitt Romney won the CPAC straw poll in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Ron Paul won in 2010 and 2011. Romney won again in 2012. John McCain was the republican nominee in 2008 and Romney, of course, was the nominee in 2012.

This year's non-binding straw poll resulted in Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) recieving the largest percentage of votes at 25 percent closely followed by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) at 23 percent.

No other Republicans garnered more than 10 percent of the vote. Former Senator and Presidential candidate Rick Santorum (R-PA) won 8 percent followed by Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) with 7 percent, Congressman and 2012 VP candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI) at 6 percent, Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) 5 percent, Neurosurgeon Ben Carson (a CPAC favorite speaker) with 4 percent. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) received 4 percent with Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin both with 3 percent.

Sarah Palin was also a crowd pleaser drinking a Big Gulp soda in an obvious slap to New York City Dictator Mike Bloomberg and his far reaching grab to control peoples' lives in the Big Apple, all while the welfare and food stamp rolls grow expoentially under his watch. Governor Palin also made the excellent observation that background checks, referring to the Liberal's attempts to cut away at second amendment rights, should have started with Obama. We should all agree. If there was a background check on Obama before 2008, he would have never been elected, however not only was the mainstream media on their collective butts, they were sitting in Obama's camp.

While Rand Paul is my current front runner, I think he got a boost in conversative popularity when he filibustered in the Senate on the Defense Secretary Hagel confirmation vote showing that he was willing to take the sometimes lonely road to stand up for the Constitution against the Obama Administration freedom destroying, anti-constitutional power grabs - in this case the refusal of the Obama Administration and chief liar Eric Holder to state that the targeting of Americans in the U.S. would be illegal. It was very troubling that it took Senator Paul's efforts to get a definitive answer from the Democrats in power, and when he did the answer was terse: "would it be constitutional for the U.S. government to use armed drone strikes to target Americans in the U.S. ?",....Eric Holder's response: "no".

To be fair Rand Paul had filibuster support in the Senate, most noteably from Senator Rubio, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and others, all who are conservatives stalwarts. It is hopeful for conservatives that most of the vote getters in this year's straw poll are real conservatives, sans Governor Christie. Albeit there are 3 years to go before we pick a candidate and by then Governor Christie will probably have a fat induced heart attack or other major health issues which will not permit him to run. And thankfully we did not see Senator McCain's name nor Jeb Bushes on the straw ballot. Note to these two - please don't throw your name into the hat in 2016.

Social Security Questions

I received this through e-mail- a good synopsis, asking appropriate questions about Social Security, which I agree is a giant Ponzi scheme.

Who died before they could draw their Social Security? Or where did the money go?

THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH THE GOVERNMENT'S CALCULATION OF AVAILABLE SOCIAL SECURITY IS THEY FORGOT TO FIGURE IN THE PEOPLE WHO DIED BEFORE THEY EVER COLLECTED A SOCIAL SECURITY CHECK!!! WHERE DID THATMONEY GO?

Remember, not only did you and I contribute to Social Security but your employer did, too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes.

If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that's close to $220,500.

Did you see where the Government paid in one single penny? We are talking about the money you and your employer put in a Government bank to insure you and I that we would have a retirement check from the money we put in, not the Government.

Now they are calling the money we put in an entitlement when we reach the age to take it back.

If you calculate the future invested value of $4,500 per year (yours and your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% interest (less than what the Government pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you'dhave $892,919.98.

If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you're 95 if you retire at age 65) and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit!

If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

Another thing with me.... I have two deceased husbands who died in their 50's, (one was 51 and the other one was 59 before one percent of their social security could be drawn. I worked all my life and am drawing 100% on my own social security). Their S.S. money will never have one cent drawn from what they paid into S.S. all their lives.

THE FOLKS IN WASHINGTON HAVE PULLED OFF A BIGGER PONZI SCHEME THAN BERNIE MADOFF EVER DID.

Entitlement my foot, I paid cash for my social security insurance! Just because they borrowed the money for other government spending, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!! Remember Congressional benefits? --- free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days.

Now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my social security retirement payments entitlements?

We're "broke" and we can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, or Homeless. Yet in the last few months we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile and Turkey. ...Pakistan......home of bin Laden, and now Egypt. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!

And they can't help our own citizens in New York and New Jersey!

They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives, and now, when it's time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? It was supposed to be in a locked box, not part of the general fund.

Democratic Stronghold of Detroit Under New Management

Half of Michigan Blacks Lose Local Power in Detroit Takeover, as emergency manager Kevyn Orr arrives in near-bankrupt Detroit, almost half of Michigan’s black population will live under the rule of state overseers with little say in the governments nearest them, says an article by Mark Niquette and Chris Christoff on Bloomberg.com which talks more about race and racism than fiscal mismanagement. And little does this article spend on Democratic mis-management from top to bottom being responsible,......oh that's right, it has nothing to do with entitlement focused tax and spend Democrats and everything to do with racism.

In cities run by governors’ appointees after decades of decline, Michiganders whose ancestors fled the segregated South for factory jobs and the right to vote weigh the abstract value of autonomy versus the palpable comfort of a stable community.

Joe Harris, 69, embodies the conflict. His family left Alabama in the 1930s after the Ku Klux Klan threatened an uncle for refusing to let a white man cut in a line. Eight decades later, the longtime government auditor unilaterally ran Benton Harbor, Michigan, where the state installed him after the majority-black city failed to free itself from fiscal distress.

“I understand their frustration with this concept of, ‘Well, you’re taking away our democratic rights,’” Harris said. “But what’s the alternative, especially in Detroit?”

Governor Rick Snyder, a white Republican, yesterday named Orr, an African-American bankruptcy lawyer from Washington, as Detroit’s emergency manager. The city is 82 percent black with a history of racial migration and strife.

The city was an industrial powerhouse with 1.8 million residents in the 1950s. It has withered to about 700,000 people in a sparsely populated 139 square miles (36,000 hectares) as the auto industry contracted and revenue plunged.

Dollars First

While a law taking effect March 28 allows for some input by local elected officials in cities the state has taken over, appointed managers have ultimate authority to operate and restructure them, selling assets and canceling union contracts. Some residents complain that leaves them with no vote in the government closest to them, the one that fills potholes, cleans streets and maintains parks -- or, in some cases, doesn’t.

While Snyder and supporters say fiscal struggles are the reason for Orr’s appointment to run the home of General Motors Co. (GM), some residents fear it is meant to strip the city of its assets and the people of their rights.

Orr will have wide authority, though he must seek alternative money-saving plans from the council and mayor before he sells assets or changes union contracts.

“To some folks in Detroit, it looks like white folks are trying to come in and steal back the city,” said state Representative Fred Durhal, 61, who’s running for mayor this year. “What I tell them is what’s going on has more to do with another color, and that’s green.”

Great Migration

The cities under emergency management, Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, Allen Park, Benton Harbor and Ecorse, account for 49.5 percent of the state’s black population, according to U.S. Census data. They contain only 2.1 percent of the white population.

About 6 million blacks moved from the South to Michigan and other northern states during the Great Migration, which began during World War I and ended in the 1970s, said Isabel Wilkerson, author of “The Warmth of Other Suns,” a book about the era. Detroit’s black population increased from 5,740 in 1910 to 120,000 by 1930, or about 9 percent of the population, and nearly 30 percent was black by the early 1960s, according to “The Detroit Almanac.”

Forbidden Games

They were fleeing a system known as Jim Crow, which controlled every aspect of black southerners’ lives, including matters as picayune as forbidding whites to play checkers with blacks in Birmingham, Alabama, Wilkerson said. Industries seeking cheap workers recruited the first migrants, and succeeding generations followed to work in the auto industry and other factories, she said.

“The parents, grandparents and great-grandparents of many African-Americans now in Detroit and the rest of the state left to find freedom to pursue their dreams,” Wilkerson said by e- mail from Atlanta. “It would not be surprising if the descendants of the Great Migration would be desirous of help but wary of and sensitive to efforts to control their destiny,” she said.

In Benton Harbor, home of Whirlpool Corp. (WHR), factories sent buses south after World War II to bring workers, said Robert Myers, curator of the Berrien County Historical Association.

From 2010 until Tony Saunders II took over Feb. 1, Harris ran the city of 10,000 where almost 90 percent of the residents are black, according to U.S. Census data. The city lost almost half its population since 1960, 48 percent of the citizens live in poverty, and the median household income is $17,815 compared with $48,669 statewide.

After three years of emergency management, Benton Harbor’s debate about race and the law hasn’t been settled.

Racist Miasma

Marcus Muhammad, a city commissioner since 2010, said the law establishing emergency managers has been “a dismal failure.”

“The evidence is overwhelming that this is a racist law, and that it cannot escape the racial overtones that are leaking out of it like alcohol leaks out of pores,” said Muhammad, 38.

Wilce Cooke, Benton Harbor’s former mayor, said his mother came to the city from Arkansas to join relatives who moved for foundry jobs. He calls the emergency-manager law “subtle Jim Crow.”

James Hightower, who succeeded him in 2011, said elected officials failed to make decisions needed for fiscal stability.

“Poor management is not black, it’s not white, it’s not red or yellow,” Hightower said in an interview. “It’s just poor management.”

The emergency manager’s appointment is “non-political and purely financial,” Jeff Noel, a spokesman for Whirlpool, said in a statement. “The process is painful, and invites debate, but the process also creates positive change.”

Surrendered Phones

Standing on her porch in Benton Harbor, Evelyn Wilburn, 41, said that while she doesn’t like losing voting power, she wants good services and doesn’t think city workers needed the mobile phones and gas cards they gave up.

“If it’s best for the city, that’s OK,” Wilburn said.

Michigan, like most states, has broad authority over local governments, even the power to abolish them, said John Mogk, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who specializes in urban policy.

While that basic organizational power is different from the intricate legal codes of segregation, the emergency-manager measure links blacks with failure, said David Pilgrim, founding curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia and a sociology professor at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan.

Ruled and Rulers

“If I’m a young, African-American person growing up in Detroit or Benton Harbor or one of these mostly black areas, what is the message that sends?” Pilgrim said. “It certainly looks like the message is that people that look like you can’t govern.”

In downtown Detroit on March 7, Charles Williams II, a reverend, and about 50 supporters protested the emergency- manager law. He used a bullhorn to promise a struggle in the spirit of civil-rights leaders such as Medgar Evers, assassinated in Mississippi in 1963.

“I don’t see how it couldn’t be racially motivated,” Williams, 30, said of the law. “We will stop this because of folks who stood before us, like Medgar Evers, who fought for voting rights.”

News in the Second Amendment Fight

Colorado sheriff refuses to enforce gun-control bills

A Colorado sheriff says he won't enforce two aggressive gun-control measures waiting to be signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Weld County Sheriff John Cooke told The Greeley Tribune that Democratic lawmakers are scrambling after recent mass shootings, and the bills are "feel-good, knee-jerk reactions that are unenforceable."

One bill expands background checks on firearm purchases, and the other limits ammunition magazines to 15 rounds. The 15-round magazine limit would make Colorado the first state outside the East Coast to ratchet back gun rights after last year's shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn.

Colorado's gun-control debates have been closely watched because of the state's gun-loving frontier heritage and painful history of mass shootings, most recently last summer's movie theater shooting that killed 12.

The sheriff said he "won't bother enforcing" the laws because it would be impossible for officers to keep track of how the requirements are being met by gun owners — and he and other sheriffs are considering suing the state to block the measures if they are signed into law.

Cooke said the bill passed Friday requiring a $10 background check to legally transfer a gun wouldn't keep firearms out of the hands of those who use them for violence.

"Criminals are still going to get their guns," he said.

The sheriff's office did not immediately return calls left by The Associated Press.

The magazine-limit bill passed earlier in the week will technically ban all magazines because of a provision that outlaws any magazine that can be altered, he said, adding that all magazines can be altered to a higher capacity.

Expanded checks have been a top priority for Hickenlooper, who called for the proposal during his State of the State address in January.

Cooke oversees law enforcement in Colorado's third-largest county by area. His jurisdiction includes its largest city, Greeley, and large swaths of farmland and areas of oil and gas production.

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Kansas House OKs three gun laws

The Kansas House has approved three proposals to alter the state's gun regulations, including expanding the locations where concealed weapons could be carried.

Kansas State Capitol, State House, Captial Dome Topeka More NewsRead more Breaking NewsThe bills passed with broad support Thursday and head to the Senate for consideration.

One measure would let school districts and state colleges designate employees who could carry concealed firearms inside their buildings, even if such weapons were banned for others.

The bill also would expand the number of public buildings where people with a state permit could bring concealed weapons, including the Statehouse.

Another measure declares that the federal government cannot regulate firearms manufactured, sold and kept in Kansas.

The proposals are a reaction to discussions about new federal gun-control measures after December's school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Benghazi Survivors Told to Keep Quiet

Highlighted on Fox News in an interview with Senator Graham (R-SC) and in the below article from the Blaze, a highly distressing and disgusting practice of the Obama Administration of saying one thing and all together doing another. In most languages this is called lying.  Now we can add conspiracy and cover up. 

The Obama administration has told the injured survivors of the Benghazi terror attack “to be quiet,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) alleges in an exclusive interview with Fox News.

While Congress presses for more information surrounding the infamous Sept. 11, 2012 terror attack, Graham says the survivors feel as if they can’t reach out and tell their stories. Critics of the White House’s handling of Benghazi say survivors have been completely inaccessible to Congress and the media.

When asked about Benghazi survivors, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters, “I’m sure that the White House is not preventing anyone from speaking.”

Graham told Fox News he isn’t buying it. He said, “the bottom line is they feel that they can’t come forth, they’ve been told to be quiet.”

“We cannot let this administration or any other administration get away with hiding from the American people and Congress, people who were there in real time to tell the story,” the senator from South Carolina added.

More from Fox News:

Graham continued to voice concern about the inaccurate or incomplete accounts that came from the Obama administration in the days following the attack. He is among a handful of Republican lawmakers pressing for access to and more information about the survivors.

A congressional source tells Fox News that Hill staffers investigating the attack believe about 37 personnel were in Benghazi on behalf of the State Department and CIA on Sept. 11. With the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, about 33 people were evacuated. Of them, a State Department official confirmed there were three diplomatic security agents and one contractor who were injured in the assault – one seriously.

A diplomatic security source told Fox News the State Department diplomatic security agent who was in the most serious condition suffered a severe head injury during the second wave of the attack at the annex.

This agent was described as the likely State Department employee visited at Walter Reed Medical Center by Secretary of State John Kerry in January.

An official with the State Department did not deny the account of the diplomatic security source and did not comment on the agent’s injuries or whether the agent was visited by Kerry or Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state.

Other GOP congressman, like Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), argue the Obama White House has offered “zero” documents on the survivors, much less provided names of the people attacked in Libya.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) on Friday said the Obama administration is “covering up something” in regards to the Benghazi attack, which left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department employee Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

Rand Paul - No More Giving Money to Our Enemies

An article titled, Rand Paul - "Not One Penny More to Countries That Are Burning Our Flag’ from CNSNews.com covers the exceptional speech this patriot made at CPAC this week. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told conservatives gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday in Washington, D.C., that ending foreign aid to nations like Egypt rather than stopping school children from touring the White House is a better way to cut federal spending.

“I say not one penny more to countries that are burning our flag,” Paul said, as the crowd rose to its feet and cheered. He chided the president for halting the tours as a way to deal with the across-the-board federal budget cuts required by the Budget Control Act of 2011, or sequester, which was proposed and signed into law by the president.

“The president’s trying to step up. He’s trying to do his fair share,” Paul said. “After the sequester was announced, he said he’s going to stop the White House tours for school children. They had to do this because these cuts were imposed by the sequester, but meanwhile, within a few days, the president finds an extra $250 million dollars to send to Egypt.”

Paul was referring to money appropriated by Congress to help the new government in Egypt where protests against the United States have included burning the America flag.

“You know, the country where mobs attacked out embassy, burned our flag and chanted ‘Death to America,’ he found an extra $250 million to reward them,” Paul said. “You know the country whose president recently stood by his spiritual leader who called for death to Israel and all who support her.

Paul, who gained new national attention last week by staging a 13-hour filibuster on the Senate floor in opposition to Obama’s nomination of John Brennan to head the Central Intelligence Agency, brought the stack of notebooks he used on the Senate floor and placed them on a stool next to the podium.

In his remarks, Paul also criticized Obama for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay and his drone policy as it pertains to the domestic use of unmanned aircraft.

Ex Detroit Mayor Convicted of Corruption

In the wake of Detroit's giant fiancial crisis where the State of Michigan had to take over executive control of this failed urban turd farm, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted of corruption charges this week from his astounding bribery schemes. Not yet sentenced, Kilpatrick faces 10 years in prison on more than two dozen convictions ranging from bribery, to tax crimes to racketeering.  I would add a couple years onto any sentence for trying to be a Gangster.

Once thought of as a rising political star and example of what Black Americans could attain on a level playing field, Kwame the skunk is now portrayed as just another unscrupulous politician.

I just think of him as another example of a faithful Democrat.

Best Summation of Barack and Michelle Obama Yet

This is from Mychal Massie is a respected writer and black talk show host in Los Angeles. His website is mychal-massie.com

The other evening on my twitter, a person asked me why I didn't like the Obama's? Specifically I was asked: "I have to ask, why do you hate the Obama's? It seems personal, not policy related. You even dissed (disrespect) their Christmas family picture."

The truth is I do not like the Obamas, what they represent, their ideology, and I certainly do not like his policies and legislation. I've made no secret of my contempt for the Obamas. As I responded to the person who asked me the aforementioned question, I don't like them because they are committed to the fundamental change of my/our country into what can only be regarded as a Communist state.

I don't hate them per definition, but I condemn them because they are the worst kind of racialists, they are elitist Leninists with contempt for traditional America. They display disrespect for the sanctity of the office he holds, and for those who are willing to admit same, Michelle Obama's raw contempt for white America is transpicuous.

I don't like them because they comport themselves as emperor and empress. I expect, no I demand respect, for the Office of President and a love of our country and her citizenry from the leader entrusted with the governance of same. President and Mrs. Reagan displayed an unparalleled love for the country and her people. The Reagan's made Americans feel good about themselves and about what we could accomplish. His arrogance by appointing 32 leftist czars and constantly bypassing congress is impeachable. Eric Holder is probably the MOST incompetent and arrogant DOJ head to ever hold the job. Could you envision President Reagan instructing his Justice Department to act like jack-booted thugs?

Presidents are politicians and all politicians are known and pretty much expected to manipulate the truth, if not outright lie, but even using that low standard, the Obama's have taken lies, dishonesty, deceit, mendacity, subterfuge and obfuscation to new depths. They are verbally abusive to the citizenry, and they display an animus for civility.

I do not like them, because they both display bigotry overtly, as in the case of Harvard Professor Louis Gates, when he accused the Cambridge Police of acting stupidly, and her code speak pursuant to now being able to be proud of America. I view that statement and that mindset as an insult to those who died to provide a country where a Kenyan, his illegal alien relatives, and his alleged progeny, could come and not only live freely, but rise to the highest, most powerful, position in the world. Michelle Obama is free to hate and disparage whites because Americans of every description paid with their blood to ensure her right to do same.

I have a saying, that "the only reason a person hides things, is because they have something to hide." No president in history has spent over a million dollars to keep his records and his past sealed.

And what the two of them have shared has been proved to be lies. He lied about when and how they met, he lied about his mother's death and problems with insurance, Michelle lied to a crowd pursuant to nearly $500,000 bank stocks they inherited from his family. He has lied about his father's military service, about the civil rights movement, ad nausea. He lied to the world about the Supreme Court in a State of the Union address. He berated and publicly insulted a sitting Congressman. He has surrounded himself with the most rabidly, radical, socialist academicians today. He opposed rulings that protected women and children that even Planned Parenthood did not seek to support. He is openly hostile to business and aggressively hostile to Israel. His wife treats being the First Lady as her personal American Express Black Card (arguably the most prestigious credit card in the world). I condemn them because, as people are suffering, losing their homes, their jobs, their retirements, he and his family are arrogantly showing off their life of entitlement - as he goes about creating and fomenting class warfare.

I don't like them, and I neither apologize nor retreat from my public condemnation of them and of his policies. We should condemn them for the disrespect they show our people, for his willful and unconstitutional actions pursuant to obeying the Constitutional parameters he is bound by, and his willful disregard for Congressional authority.

Dislike for them has nothing to do with the color of their skin; it has everything to do with their behavior, attitudes, and policies. And I have open scorn for their constantly playing the race card.

I could go on, but let me conclude with this. I condemn in the strongest possible terms the media for refusing to investigate them, as they did President Bush and President Clinton, and for refusing to label them for what they truly are. There is no scenario known to man, whereby a white president and his wife could ignore laws, flaunt their position, and lord over the people, as these two are permitted out of fear for their color.

As I wrote in a syndicated column titled, "Nero In The White House" - "Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader. He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequaled. Using Obama as the bar, Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood..

Many in America wanted to be proud when the first person of color was elected president, but instead, they have been witness to a congenital liar, a woman who has been ashamed of America her entire life, failed policies, intimidation, and a commonality hitherto not witnessed in political leaders. He and his wife view their life at our expense as an entitlement - while America's people go homeless, hungry and unemployed.”

Congress Poses These Cuts

These are all the programs that the new Republican House has proposed cutting.

* Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy -- $445 million annual savings.

* Save America's Treasures Program -- $25 million annual savings.

* International Fund for Ireland -- $17 million annual savings.

* Legal Services Corporation -- $420 million annual savings.

* National Endowment for the Arts -- $167.5 million annual savings.

* National Endowment for the Humanities -- $167.5 million annual savings.

* Hope VI Program -- $250 million annual savings.

* Amtrak Subsidies -- $1.565 billion annual savings.

* Eliminate duplicating education programs -- H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 programs at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.

* U.S. Trade Development Agency -- $55 million annual savings.

* Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy -- $20 million annual savings.

* Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding -- $47 million annual savings.

* John C. Stennis Center Subsidy -- $430,000 annual savings.

* Community Development Fund -- $4.5 billion annual savings.

* Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid -- $24 million annual savings.

* Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half -- $7.5 billion annual savings.

* Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20% -- $600 million annual savings.

* Essential Air Service -- $150 million annual savings.

* Technology Innovation Program -- $70 million annual savings.

* Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program -- $125 million annual savings.

* Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization -- $530 million annual savings.

* Beach Replenishment -- $95 million annual savings.

* New Starts Transit -- $2 billion annual savings.

* Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts -- $9 million annual savings.

* Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants -- $2.5 billion annual savings.

* Title X Family Planning -- $318 million annual savings.

* Appalachian Regional Commission -- $76 million annual savings.

* Economic Development Administration -- $293 million annual savings.

* Programs under the National and Community Services Act -- $1.15 billion annual savings.

* Applied Research at Department of Energy -- $1.27 billion annual savings.

* Freedom CAR and Fuel Partnership -- $200 million annual

* Energy Star Program -- $52 million annual savings.

* Economic Assistance to Egypt -- $250 million annually.

* U.S. Agency for International Development -- $1.39 billion annual savings.

* General Assistance to District of Columbia -- $210 million annual savings.

* Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority -- $150 million annual savings.

* Presidential Campaign Fund -- $775 million savings over ten years.

* No funding for federal office space acquisition -- $864 million annual savings.

* End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.

* Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act -- More than $1 billion annually.

* IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget -- $1.8 billion savings over ten years.

* Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees -- $1 billion total savings.

* Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees -- $1.2 billion savings over ten years.

* Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of -- $15 billion total savings.

* Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress.

* Eliminate Mohair Subsidies -- $1 million annual savings.

* Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- $12.5 million annual savings.

* Eliminate Market Access Program -- $200 million annual savings.

* USDA Sugar Program -- $14 million annual savings.

* Subsidy to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) -- $93 million annual savings.

* Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program -- $56.2 million annual

* Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs -- $900 million savings.

* Ready to Learn TV Program -- $27 million savings.

TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years

The Question should be,...."What is all this crap doing in the budget in the first place ?"

Citizen Better Off Being an Illegal Immigrant?

This was sent to me and reported as an actual letter from an Oregon resident sent to his Senator, and now takes on new meaning as the Department of Defense announces elimination of tuition assistance for service members going to college, but yet tuition free college education is still being offered to illegal aliens.

The Honorable Wyden
731 Hart Senate Office Building
Phone (202) 224 3254
Washington DC, 20510

Dear Senator Wyden,

As a native Oregonian and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.

My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stems from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, all I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for only three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out.

Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005.

Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the local emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures I could save almost $10,000 a year.

Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications, as well as "in-state" tuition rates for many colleges throughout the United States for my son.

Lastly, I understand that illegal status would relieve me of the burden of renewing my driver's license and making those burdensome car insurance premiums. This is very important to me, given that I still have college age children driving my car.

If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your assistance.

Your Loyal Constituent, (hoping to reach "illegal alien" status rather than just a bonafide citizen of the USA ).

Dale B. Rilyeu
Lebanon, Oregon

Maryland Legislators Schooled Over Gun Rights

Testimony in Opposition of Maryland Senate Bill 281 from Darren Mellors, Executive Vice-President of LWRC International.

My name is Darren Mellors, Executive-Vice President of LWRC International. LWRCI manufacturers rifles in Cambridge MD in Dorchester County. Our customers are the U.S. Government, law enforcement agencies nationwide, and allied governments that are sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State. We also sell a line of commercial products to qualified law abiding U.S. and Maryland citizens, until recently in all 50 states.

I am in the unique position to offer factual testimony to this legislature on behalf of the 300 families that depend on us for skilled employment; the various contractors that provide services and products for LWRCI; and the law abiding citizens of MD who are being vilified by your proposed legislation. Vilified may sound to be a strong word, but infringing on the rights of select group of citizens in response to the illegal, evil acts of a deranged individual or career violent criminals is the very definition of the word.

I also represent my mentor; the owner of LWRCI and consummate entrepreneur Mr. Richard Bernstein. He not only started LWRCI, but many other successful ventures in MD that have created an estimated 3000 jobs over the last 40 years by estimation of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. His record of job creation on the eastern shore of MD is second only to Mr. Frank Purdue. He single handedly made Salisbury MD the center of Microwave Filter Technology manufacture for the world with K&L Microwave, and Lorch Microwave. Other examples of his success were BAI Aerosystems, Salisbury Pewter, Matech (Machining Technologies) along with many commercial real estate developments on the eastern shore.

Mr. Bernstein is also very active in our MD community being a large contributor to Salisbury University, and the namesake of the Bernstein School of Business. He has been given entrepreneurial, and community service awards, locally, nationally, and internationally. His entire ethos is focused creating jobs and building value in a company through local people, most starting from small ventures.

Facing these 20 gun bills, he is now put in a position to abandon his home, many of his MD employees and his proud legacy to move his ventures to a state that does not ask that productive member of society fall on a sword as a scapegoat for inaction by its government against the prosecution of criminals for gun crimes. There is also apparent malaise by the government to addressing serious mental health care deficits in MD and an apparent disregard of its citizen’s Constitutional rights under the second amendment.

To understand the consequences of passing this legislation, you must know what is at stake. LWRCI’s rate of job creation over the past 7 months has been approximately 10 new jobs per month. We have expanded the business through three MD counties with employees numbering 300. Then there are the employees of businesses we subcontract to, like Eastern Plating in Baltimore County. We do so much work with Eastern Plating; LWRCI has a resident employee in house.

LWRCI will bring in excess of $130 million dollars into Maryland this year. This money is put to work in Dorchester County, one the most economically distressed Counties in MD, and the money is spread throughout the state through subcontract work to Maryland businesses, the purchase of capital equipment and technical services, the rental of properties, contracting construction for expansion, employee’s payroll dollars and corporate taxes. The millions of dollars we bring from outside of MD into the state do more to stimulate the economy than any scheme legislators or members of the State and Federal executive branches ever could.

We have invested every dollar back into expansion and growth. We invest in our employees, training them in high tech skills like machining, programming, drafting and other skilled jobs. We use the Maryland institutes of higher education offering tuition reimbursement to our employees. Our goal from the first day of operations was to expand and build something of value, not take annual dividends. We have invested in Maryland, our communities, and its people.

In Feb of 2012 LWRCI signed a $109 million dollar 18 month contract with the Government of Saudi Arabia, sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Congress. This is the largest direct commercial to foreign government sale of firearms in the history of the ATF Exports Branch. $109 million dollars of foreign money coming into Maryland to a company that is five years old. In these economic times, this is a story that the Department of Business and Economic Development can be very proud of. New jobs; developing a workforce; and stimulating the economy.

We are successful because we offer and innovative product that is the best in the world. We have been awarded more than nine U.S. Patents in the past five years, and have as many pending.

Like our colleagues from Beretta, LWRCI is Maryland success story that this legislature and the Governor should be proud of. Success in these uncertain economic times should be celebrated and encouraged. While the U.S. manufactures fewer and fewer products, and U.S. exports to the world dwindle, the world still looks to the U.S. to secure its people and their countries borders with American firearms under the direction and supervision of the U.S. Department of State. We supply rifles to DOD, DOJ, DOC, DHHS, and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency to name a few federal agencies. We have supplied hundreds of local and state law enforcement agencies rifles to protect our law officers and the public they serve. Countless U.S. citizens buy our commercial rifles for the same reasons our government and international customers do. For sport or defense, people want and have the right to own the safest, highest quality product they can get. We have a noble job that we are proud of and take very seriously.

Our company success, and the success of our employees should be celebrated as a model to economic growth and civic responsibility. Instead manufacturers and our industry are vilified with the introduction of this legislation to ban cosmetic features of a certain type of rifle. Modern rifles are functionally no different or more dangerous than any other firearm. If you think they are, you need to educate yourself, and not by watching the latest Die Hard movie or Piers Morgan.

We already work in the most highly regulated industry in America. There are more than 20,000 domestic laws relating to firearms. As a company we are diligent to follow them to the letter of the law. Yet the Maryland Legislature, whom have already passed some of most extensive state firearms regulations in the union are attempting to pass further non-sensical laws that will do nothing to improve public safety.

Instead, these laws punish law-abiding citizens, and strip them of their rights. This law will push firearms into the black market to felons and criminals on to the streets as it did in Canada, the UK and Australia. Law-abiding citizens are faced with deciding whether to comply with an unconstitutional law or be labeled felons. Once passed, citizens with no legal method of disposing of these firearms will invariably create a black market with off the books sales with no checks, balances or regulations. Maryland seems doomed to repeat mistakes of the past while ignoring the core issues.

Our representatives should be alarmed with the fact that current firearms regulations are not enforced or prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Prince Georges and Baltimore City have some of the worst violent crime in the country despite having severely restrictive firearms regulations. Criminals responsible for gun crime should be brought to justice with the full veracity of our courts and laws. Criminal recidivism is common and encouraged by the lack of serious consequences to those who commit crimes with firearms, or obtain them illegally. Despite all of this crime concentrated in densely populated urban centers, gun violence in America in general is at a level lower than it was during the 10 years of the 1994 Federal “Assault Weapons Ban” and close to levels not seen since the 1960’s.

The Connecticut judicial system, legislators, an ineffectual gun ban, a broken mental health system and law enforcement did not prevent a deranged and disturbed individual from taking the lives of innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary. The rifle found at Sandy Hook was already banned in that state. Our MD legislators are looking to do more of the same with political fanfare about improving public safety.

As parents, as citizens, we demand our government address the real issues, and protect our children and us. Not vilify it citizens by stripping them of their rights to put on a political show. We ask you address the real issues of crime control and comprehensive care for the mentally ill.

When the MD Department of Transportation buys our product to protect bridges and infrastructure from terrorism, the State refers to them “patrol rifles.” When a law abiding MD resident buys a rifle after filling out no less than 3 state and federal forms, including an Authorization to release Mental Health medical records, the state calls them “assault rifles.” They are simply rifles. Rifles made to be ergonomic, made of lightweight materials, made to be safe to shoot, made to be accurate. Not expressly made to “assault” anybody.

By the end of this hearing, you will all understand that by-product category, these firearms rarely used in crime. I can give you my own LWRCI statistic to add to the other statistics you will hear. We have shipped over 60,000 rifles to qualified buyers, and not once in 5 years we have been in business has an ATF trace been associated with an LWRCI product being used in a crime.

I came here to share this information on behalf of many Marylanders. We are asking ourselves a question everyday. Is it intent of this legislation to cause a mass exodus of law abiding citizens and productive companies? These citizens and companies will be forced to leave either on moral grounds, business grounds or both. These are the same people that are the core of civic responsibility and contribution to our community and state and its economy. How can LWRCI stay in MD and produce rifles, pay taxes, create jobs, and stimulate the economy when its government intends to restrict the rights of its own citizens? Aside from the moral issue, the citizens of this country would not forgive the hypocrisy of LWRCI staying despite passage of this legislation.

The legislation as written seems to be window dressing for political gain by a few in the face of ineffective crime control. The real issues of public safety as they relate to gun violence go largely unanswered. The MD government is making it clear through its actions with this legislation that we, nor Beretta nor other firearms manufacturers are welcome in MD. It sends the message that this is not the State to expand in.

This legislation also sends a clear message to MD citizens that wish to exercise their rights under the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution; that they are no longer welcome in MD. For criminals, it will be business as usual. As such, if this unconstitutional ban passes as written, we will comply with your wishes and move our companies out of Maryland along with as many employees and their families that wish to go.

Respectfully,

Darren Mellors

Executive-Vice President

LWRC International, LLC

Postscript: McCain Rant Against Rand Paul

It is pretty well recognized that Senator's John McCain and Lindsey Graham's rants against Senator Rand Paul were way off the mark and exposes the old, tired non-conservative bent of these two dinosaurs,...or Rinos.

A poll from Glenn Beck's The Blaze further articulates what conservatives are feeling.

Rand Paul Vs. the 'Old Guard'. Where do you stand on all this back-and-forth?

67%   I'm with Senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, etc.

23%   The whole thing is silly and we should abolish government altogether (this is the protest vote).

11%   I'm with Senators McCain and Graham. These young guys are nutso!

Liberal's Racist Rant on Senator McConnell's Wife

I am no fan of Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, but in yet another hypocritical example on the double standards between Democrats and Republicans, liberals go after Senator McConnell's wife, who is of Chinese descent, delivering a racial insult while the mainstream media sits quietly by. We all know if this was a Republican or Conservative originated insult then the main stream media will be all over it de-crying "racism" and calling for someone's head.  And we all know who the real racists are,...the Liberals who keep minorities in depressed economic situations by trying (and largely succeding) in buying their votes with welfare and other handouts.  But that is a perpetual story.  The latest in Liberal double standards regarding the insults to McConnell's wife is below,....

A Democratic group is under sharp criticism for controversial online messages about Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife. See "Liberal Super PAC Goes After Mitch McConnell's 'Chinese' Wife."

For months, the liberal super PAC Progress Kentucky has attacked McConnell and held demonstrations at his offices and home.

Recently, the group turned its attention to McConnell’s wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, with a focus on her race.

In a Feb. 14 Twitter message, Progress says: "This woman has the ear of (Sen. McConnell)—she's his wife. May explain why your job moved to China!"

The Tweet links to a website run by conspiracy theorist and radio host Jeff Rense, alleging Chao, who was born in Taiwan, discriminated against American workers during her tenure.

Progress Kentucky spokesman Curtis Morrison says the group's leaders do not review every Tweet and initially denied any had mentioned Chao superficially. But he later told WFPL that a group volunteer had sent out the messages targeting the former secretary.

"It’s not an official statement. It’s a Tweet. And we will remove it if it’s wrong," he says. "I follow Ashley Judd on Twitter and she removed a Tweet the other day, she Tweeted to you Phillip. People make mistakes in Tweets. It happens. Inferring that Elaine Chao is not a U.S. citizen was not our intention."

Other messages from Progress’s social networking account about Chao have run for the past several days, saying her "Chinese (money)" is buying state elections. According to campaign finance records, members of Chao’s family donated $80,000 to the Kentucky GOP last year.

The super PAC has also posted vocal support of their criticism, one of which said "not many know McConnell's wife is Chinese."

Team Mitch campaign manager Jesse Benton called the comments "disgusting" and demanded an apology from the group.

"We just think this kind of race-baiting has absolutely no place in American politics. We think Progress Kentucky should really be ashamed of what’s been going out under their name. People should be fired and a public apology should be issued," he says. "I think everybody of good conscience in Kentucky should agree that these sort of attacks should be pushed to the side."

Chao emigrated to the U.S. as a child where she eventually became the first Asian-American woman to be appointed to a cabinet-level White House position. McConnell and Chao married in 1993, and he has received hefty contributions from family, friends and business leaders in the Chinese-American community ever since.

In years past, opponents have questioned McConnell's relationship with his father-in-law, James Chao, who owns Foremost Maritime Corp., a New York-based shipping company. The business has trade connections to China and Chao's father has ties to its government.

McConnell has said those donations and connections have no effect on his foreign policy views or votes.

Morrison says Progress Kentucky was trying to show how Chinese interests influence McConnell's decision-making, but admits the super PAC may have crossed a line and offended Asian-Americans residents.

"It's a fine line, and that is not our overall message. we’ve got some Tweets there that shouldn’t be there and I’ll make sure they come down. We don’t want to cross that line," says Morrison. "We’re not after anybody because they are an immigrant, but I think it’s fair to question whether or not there’s a conflict of interest."

Chao currently serves as a distinguished fellow at the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation.

Go Home and Retire John McCain

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) held a filibuster in the Senate in order to get a statement from the Obama Adminstration that killing Americans on American soil was unconstitutional. Paul, a Tea Party favorite and Great American Patriot, conducted the filibuster to delay the Senate confirmation vote on nominated CIA Director Brennan.

Unbelievably, and so un-constitutional as to turn the Founders in their graves, Attorney General Eric "Fast and Furious" Holder sent a letter to Paul before the filibuster, saying that while the practice of killing U.S. citizens domestically would theoretically be legal, Obama would use that power only under "extraordinary circumstances" and that he “has no intention” to do so.

Pissed off because he was not in the limelight among other reasons, John McCain (R-AZ) opened his pie hole and actually said "If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in their college dorms. He needs to know what he’s talking about. I don’t think what happened yesterday was helpful to the American people."

Not to be outdone, the other usual ass clown rino, Lindsey Graham (R-SC) not only praised Obama for the drone program, but said, "To my party, I’m a bit disappointed that you no longer apparently think we’re at war. Not Senator Paul, he’s a man to himself. He has a view that I don’t think is a Republican view."

Rand Paul and the 13 other Republican Senators and even one Democrat who supported the filibuster not only upheld American (not rino republican) views on our consitutional rights but forced a statement from the Obama Administration that killing Americans on American soil was unconstitutional.

So who was successful? Well it certainly wasn't McCain nor Graham who are now on record as believing that being liked by Obama is more important than standing up for the U.S. Constitution.

Maryland Senate Passes Governor O'Malley's Gun Control Bill

Maryland Senate Passes Governor O’Malley’s Gun Control Bill, by Bob Adelmann, New American, March 2, 2013

After 10 hours of intense debate, the Maryland Senate passed Governor Martin O’Malley’s gun control measure handily late Thursday afternoon, 28-19, with all 12 Republicans and a handful of Democrats voting against the bill. The measure will be debated in the House next week, with passage nearly certain. After O’Malley signs the bill into law it will make Maryland’s gun laws among the most restrictive in the nation, putting the lie to the state’s moniker, “The Free State.”

Maryland is also the nation’s wealthiest state, and its citizens currently have registered more than 1,200,000 of their firearms with the state under previous law. The new legislation will require gun owners, as well as new purchasers of firearms, to get fingerprinted, take eight hours of classroom study, and pay for a more extensive background check. In addition, no one will be able to buy a so-called “assault weapon” or purchase a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. The bill will also tighten up limits on gun ownership by residents committed against their will for mental health treatment.

When O’Malley announced his proposal in January, he said that the requirements in it were “common-sense gun safety measures … [that] will give us the tools to combat … violence” but would also protect Marylanders’ Second Amendment rights. They were also touted as somehow being able to rein in criminal ownership of guns and reducing the firepower of those remaining in the hands of the public. At O’Malley’s public announcement, Baltimore County Police Chief Jim Johnson, a member of Vice President Joe Biden’s “National Law Enforcement Partnership,” said that that group “has been calling for background checks for all firearms purchasers, as well as a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and ammunition magazines in excess of ten rounds… We must do all we can to ensure that we keep guns out of the wrong hands and that we keep excessive firepower out of our communities.”

When the senate passed the bill, O’Malley declared: “It is a common-sense licensing requirement. If you have to get a license to drive a car in Maryland … you should have to be licensed in order to operate a firearm.”

Maryland senate’s President Pro Tem Nathaniel McFadden, a member of the state senate for nearly 20 years, was delighted with the bill’s passage:

Residents are sick and tired of this gun violence. No, this is not a perfect bill. Because you’re right — those criminals are not going to go and get fingerprinted. But somehow these guns find their way into our communities.… They come from somewhere, and you can get a gun quicker than you [can] get an apple or an orange in my community. It’s outrageous, and we have to start somewhere.

What’s really happening in Maryland has little to do with controlling crime but possibly everything to do with O’Malley. The Baltimore Sun exulted that the bill passed by the senate contained the licensing provision which is “the centerpiece” of the governor’s bill and the one they believe would be most effective in reducing gun violence. Instead, it looks as if passage will be most effective in promoting O’Malley’s run for the presidency in 2016.

The governor got involved in left-wing causes while still in college, working with Gary Hart’s presidential campaign for president in 1984. From there he worked as state field director of then-congresswoman Barbara Mikulski (now Maryland’s senior senator), and then took a position in her office as a “legislative fellow.” In 2004, O’Malley spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in support of John Kerry’s campaign for president against President George W. Bush. In August 2005, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Business Week magazine touted O’Malley as one of the “new stars” in the Democrat Party galaxy, along with then-Senator Ken Salazar, then-Senator Barack Obama, and then-Representative Rahm Emanuel. The only one not eventually involved intimately in the Obama administration was Martin O’Malley.

O’Malley is term-limited in 2014, which gives him a full two years to explore a presidential run in 2016. Passage of this signature piece of legislation, supported by nothing more than rhetoric, will add to his perceived credibility among those on the Left. O’Malley has often referred to his success in reducing crime while he was mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007, claiming that under his administration crime dropped by nearly 40 percent. The fact that he could never prove where that statistic came from, nor could anyone else, doesn’t matter.

Neither does it matter that limiting magazines to 10 rounds will hardly have an impact on reducing crime. Indiana sheriffs have completely debunked the idea that limiting magazines will give victims time to tackle a shooter and take him down by forcing the shooter to reload more often. According to their real-world test, “There is little to no difference in the time it takes to fire 30 rounds from 2 15-round magazines, 3 10-round magazines or 5 6-round magazines.”

Nor does it matter to O’Malley that passage of his bill will likely drive employers such as Beretta USA out of the state, taking with them some 300-400 jobs. As Jeffrey Reh, general counsel for Beretta who testified against O’Malley’s bill, put it: “Why expand in a place where people who built the gun [banned by the new law] couldn’t buy it?”

Why, indeed? O’Malley’s bill might just have more to do with O’Malley’s political future, and building creds with the Democratic Party insiders, than it has to do with trying to reduce crime in Maryland.

Holder Says Obama could kill Americans on U.S. soil

Olivier Knox, a Yahoo! News White House Correspondent, posted this article on 5 March 2013 and it is UNBELIVIEABLE that Eric "I sell Guns to Mexican Cartels" Holder thinks the President can unilaterally order assassinations of Americans within the U.S. Well, it looks like the U.S. Government is branching out. First arming Mexican criminals so they can kill U.S. citizens,...now claiming the right to do it themselves.

President Barack Obama has the legal authority to unleash deadly force—such as drone strikes—against Americans on U.S. soil without first putting them on trial, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter released Tuesday.

But Holder, writing to Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, underlined that Obama “has no intention” of targeting his fellow citizens with unmanned aerial vehicles and would do so only if facing “an extraordinary circumstance.”

Paul had asked the Obama administration on Feb. 20 whether the president "has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil and without trial." On Tuesday, he denounced Holder's response as “frightening” and “an affront to the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans.”

“The U.S. government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so,” Holder assured Paul in the March 4, 2013 letter. The attorney general also underlined that “we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat.”

Holder added: “The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no President will ever have to confront."

But "it is possible, I suppose to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States," Holder said. "For example, the President could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack” like Pearl Harbor or 9/11.

“Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the President on the scope of this authority,” said Holder.

Paul, whose office released the letter, denounced the attorney general’s comments.

"The U.S. Attorney General's refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening—it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans," the senator said in a statement.

The exchange came as the White House agreed to give Senate Intelligence Committee members access to all of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel opinions justifying Obama's expanded campaign of targeted assassination of suspected terrorists overseas, including American citizens. Some lawmakers had warned they would try to block top Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan's nomination to head the CIA unless they were able to see the memos.

A few hours after the White House agreed to share the information, the committee approved Brennan 12-3, setting the stage for a full Senate vote.

Obama's drone war—relatively popular at home, reviled across the Muslim world—has drawn fresh scrutiny ever since NBC News obtained and published a Justice Department memo that lays out the legal justification behind it. The White House has defended the policy as “necessary,” “ethical” and “wise.” But civil liberties champions have sharply criticized it.

Black Chamber of Commerce CEO Say's Obama is Tyrannical

Black Chamber of Commerce CEO Harry C. Alford slammed “borderline communist” Barack Obama in an interview this week.

“He’s tyrranical, don’t you think?” ‘I had hopes because he was black, shame on me’ National Black Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Harry C. Alford told The Daily Caller that he “ignored” President Obama’s “spread the wealth” comment in 2008 and “had hopes” for him “because he was black.”

Best Citizen Speech in a Long Time

Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, ran for the U.S. Senate in his home state of Maryland last fall. He lost, go figure,...Maryland after all,.....and as he was closing up his campaign office when the news media reached him for comment.  Mr. Bongino had became a local voice in the gun control debate after a previous speech at a Guns Across America event in Annapolis, Maryland.

Mr. Bongino speculated that the potential and threatening new gun laws coming to Maryland had the final intent of confiscation. “The legislation they are close to passing is a path to confiscation.” Dan Bongino said.

Watch Dan speaking below. What is remarkable is that he speaks from the heart and not from notes, talking points or as tele-prompter. Hopefully America will be hearing more from Dan Bongino.

Tipping Point, aka Death Spiral

These 11 States now have More People on Welfare than they do Employed!

Last month, the Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal year 2011, between food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid and other benefits, the average U.S. household below the poverty line received $168.00 a day in government support.

What’s the problem with that much support?

Well, the median household income in America is just over $50,000, which averages out to $137.13 a day.

To put it another way, being on welfare now pays the equivalent of $30.00 an hour for a 40-hour week, while the average job pays $25.00 an hour.