Iowa Lawmaker Calls for Retroactive Gun Ban, Confiscation of Semi-Automatic Weapons

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In an interview with the Daily Times Herald in Caroll, Iowa, state Rep. Dan Muhlbauer said governments should start confiscating semi-automatic rifles and other firearms.

Muhlbauer, a Democrat from the western Iowa town of Manilla, is a cattleman and farmer. The newspaper reported that he owns a .410 shotgun, a .22 rifle and a .22 pistol.

“We cannot have big guns out here as far as the big guns that are out here, the semi-automatics and all of them,” Muhlbauer told the newspaper during a December 19 audiotaped interview. “We can’t have those running around out here. Those are not hunting weapons.”

“We should ban those in Iowa,” he said, adding that such a ban should be applied retroactively.

“We need to get them off the streets — illegally — and even if you have them, I think we need to start taking them,” Muhlbauer told the Daily Times Herald. “We can’t have those out there. Because if they’re out there they’re just going to get circulated around to the wrong people. Those guns should not be in the public’s hands. There are just too many guns.”

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Did CIA Pick Sanitize Obama’s Passport Records?

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photo credit: nrcgov

NEW YORK – John Brennan, the Obama counter-terrorism adviser nominated this week to head the CIA, played a controversial role in what many suspect was an effort to sanitize Obama’s passport records.

On March 21, 2008, amid Obama’s first presidential campaign, two unnamed contract employees for the State Department were fired and a third was disciplined for breaching the passport file of Democratic presidential candidate and then-Sen. Barack Obama.

Breaking the story, the Washington Times on March 20, 2008, noted that all three had used their authorized computer network access to look up and read Obama’s records within the State Department consular affairs section that “possesses and stores passport information.”

Contacted by the newspaper, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack attributed the violations to non-political motivations, stressing that the three individuals involved “did not appear to be seeking information on behalf of any political candidate or party.”

“As far as we can tell, in each of the three cases, it was imprudent curiosity,” McCormack told the Washington Times.

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Glenn Beck Relaunching The Blaze As Global Libertarian News Network

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Glenn Beck announced plans Tuesday during his online television program to expand the news operation in his media company, The Blaze, and refocus it as a libertarian network, opening three foreign bureaus, debuting a nightly newsmagazine show, and relocating his New York staff to showy new offices.

Beck introduced his ambitious plans by standing in front of a split screen with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on one side and Fox News’s Sean Hannity on the other, and bemoaning the fact that cable news has devolved into the “far left [and] far right… yelling at each other.”

“We’re not gonna play in that crazy space as a network,” he said, adding, “I consider myself a libertarian… I’m a lot closer to Penn Jillette than I am to Chuck Hagel.”

He said over the next 60 days, The Blaze will open three foreign bureaus in cities that are “important to America.” He will also relocate his New York staff from their current midtown offices into a building that will “send a very clear message to everyone in New York… it will piss everyone off.”

Beck also showed a teaser for a new nightly 30-minute newsmagazine show called For the Record.

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Lance Armstrong To Address Scandal on Oprah

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Former professional cyclist Lance Armstrong is slated to appear on Oprah Winfrey’s “Next Chapter” on Jan. 17, at a time when people familiar with his thinking say he has been considering a confession of his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Mr. Armstrong has denied doping for nearly 15 years, since his first Tour de France victory in 1999, and he has lashed out at people who questioned whether he used drugs to win his seven Tours de France.

In recent weeks, however, Mr. Armstrong has been consulting with associates at his home in Hawaii over his next steps. He believes he can rebuild his reputation and understands that a public statement on his alleged doping is an important part of that. One possibility is that Mr. Armstrong may seek to emphasize that any doping he did was years ago, according to people familiar with his thinking.

Mr. Armstrong also has been weighing the possibility of writing a tell-all book, according to people familiar with the matter. These people say that Mr. Armstrong has been approached by several authors interested in co-writing his tell-all and that Mr. Armstrong, still undecided about the project, hasn’t worked out a deal with a publisher or writer.

Mr. Armstrong’s lawyer hasn’t returned a call seeking comment.

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Biden, NRA to Meet on Guns

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photo credit: donkeyhotey

Vice President Biden will meet with the National Rifle Association (NRA) and a range of other groups this week as President Obama’s gun violence task force shifts into high gear.

A flurry of meetings with Biden and other Cabinet members were announced on Tuesday that will include gun-safety and sportsmen’s groups as well as Hollywood and video-game interests.

The pace and scope of Biden’s work — the task force he is leading is said to be considering significant changes to gun laws and is scheduled to deliver recommendations to Obama by the end of the month — have left groups scrambling over who can attend.

Movie studios, for example, were at press time still mulling whether to send their local representatives in Washington or corporate executives to meet with Biden.

The powerful NRA, which had warned that Obama, if reelected, would push for tighter gun laws, said it had accepted an invitation to attend a meeting.

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China Mysteriously Quadruples Rice Imports, Continues to Stockpile Commodities

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Yesterday, it was reported that China – not currently suffering from any food shortages – is amassing rice stockpiles. This past year, the country mysteriously imported four times the rice over 2011 purchases:

United Nations agricultural experts are reporting confusion, after figures show that China imported 2.6 million tons of rice in 2012, substantially more than a four-fold increase over the 575,000 tons imported in 2011. The confusion stems from the fact that there is no obvious reason for vastly increased imports, since there has been no rice shortage in China. The speculation is that Chinese importers are taking advantage of low international prices, but all that means is that China’s own vast supplies of domestically grown rice are being stockpiled. Why would China suddenly be stockpiling millions of tons of rice for no apparent reason? Perhaps it’s related to China’s aggressive military buildup and war preparations in the Pacific and in central Asia.

Yesterday’s revelation follows reports over the past several years of the Chinese amassing commodities in warehouses through out the nation.

For example, Reuters reported last year that

At Qingdao Port, home to one of China’s largest iron ore terminals, hundreds of mounds of iron ore, each as tall as a three-storey building, spill over into an area signposted “grains storage” and almost to the street.

Further south, some bonded warehouses in Shanghai are using carparks to store swollen copper stockpiles – another unusual phenomenon that bodes ill for global metal prices and raises questions about China’s ability to sustain its economic growth as the rest of the world falters.

Several months ago, at least one analyst speculated that a commodities buying spree involving 300,000 tons of metals in another Chinese province was motivated by an attempt to keep local smelters running, thereby ensuring continued tax revenues to government. But that doesn’t explain the rice-buying.

What we do know is that the world may be headed – led by the United States – toward a period of significant inflation if sovereign debt crises lead to additional “quantitative easing” and other expansions of the monetary supply.

In other words, China may be hedging its bets. Better to buy commodities than U.S. Treasuries that may ultimately be worth pennies on the dollar.

The Blind Sheik and Our Mute President

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photo credit: puuikibeach

Egypt’s terror-coddling president, Mohamed Morsi, has repeated his arrogant demand that America free convicted 1993 World Trade Center mastermind Omar Abdel Rahman. I’d like to report that President Obama repeated his unequivocal rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood leader’s entreaties. But as of this writing, no such public statement or restatement yet exists.

That’s right. Obama has kept mum about Morsi’s vociferous lobbying on behalf of Abdel Rahman, the “blind sheik,” who is serving a life sentence at a maximum-security prison in North Carolina for seditious jihad conspiracy. The commander-in-chief’s silence speaks volumes.

Morsi started publicly haranguing the U.S. to have mercy on the ol’ blind sheik back in September. Representative Peter King (R., N.Y.) confirmed to the New York Post at the time that the Egyptian government had “asked for his release” and that the Obama administration was considering the request.

Underlings denied any talks were underway, but pressure on the White House had been building since at least last June, when the State Department granted a visa to a member of the radical Egyptian terrorist group Gamaa Islamiyya (the very group the blind sheik is alleged to lead). The Gamaa Islamiyya representative joined an entire delegation of Egyptian lawmakers who met with top State Department and White House officials. They reportedly discussed the possible release of the blind sheik with at least one Obama national-security official.

In late August, Gamaa Islamiyya scheduled and organized a protest at the Cairo embassy to further ratchet up public pressure to free the blind sheik. Not coincidentally, a terror mob attacked the Cairo embassy on 9/11/12. While Obama minions were busy blaming an obscure YouTube video, the Department of Homeland Security had warned two days before the Cairo attack that jihadists were inciting the “sons of Egypt” to attack the embassy over Abdel Rahman. “Let your slogan be: No to the American Embassy in Egypt until our detained sheikh is released,” the incitement thundered.

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Militia Leader, Shaeffer Cox, Sentenced to Nearly 26 Years

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A boyish-looking young man with a soft voice who spewed anti-government rhetoric and amassed weapons in a plot to kill federal law enforcement officials will spend nearly 26 years in a federal prison.

Schaeffer Cox was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court on nine felony counts, including conspiracy and possessing illegal weapons. The 28-year-old is the third and last member of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia to be sentenced after authorities used an informant to infiltrate the group.

Cox came off at times as arrogant during his trial last spring, but he spoke with a very different demeanor during the two-hour sentencing hearing.

“I put myself here, with my own words,” he said, choking back tears. “And I feel horrible about that. And I hurt my family, and that’s who is really paying.”

Federal prosecutors portrayed Cox as a dangerous militia leader who helped stockpile a huge cache of illegal weapons while plotting a strategy to one day kill judges, state troopers and other government officials.

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Brad Pitt Joins China’s Version of Twitter, Creates Confusion

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World-traveling man of intrigue Brad Pitt has joined China’s version of Twitter — Sina Weibo — and in his first message hinted that he could be making a visit to the country, which he had reportedly been banned from visiting. Or maybe not.

In a mysterious message posted to Pitt’s account the actor simply stated: “It is the truth. Yup, I’m coming.” The tweet of sorts got thousands of comments, the AP reports, and has raised speculation that the actor could be headed to the People’s Republic. The Inglourious Basterds star was reportedly banned from entering following his appearance in 1997′s Seven Years in Tibet, which offered a harsh portrayal of Chinese rule. However, a few hours after it was posted, the message reportedly was deleted.

Whether the ersatz tweet was an accident, something that was posted prematurely, or simply removed because it was being misconstrued, the actor’s cryptic appearance on the microblogging service brings up some interesting issues about the intersection of tech and culture in China. Because even if he’s not on his way to the Communist country — which would not be entirely impossible since, as Entertainment Weekly notes, the country lifted the ban on Seven Years director Jean-Jacques Annaud — his presence on the site is still a big get for Weibo and a move that shows the importance of both American celebrities and social networking in China.

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