Florida Bill Would Require Anger Management Courses For Bullet Buyers

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Photo Credit: Reuters

A Florida legislator wants anyone trying to buy ammunition to complete an anger management program first, in what critics say is the latest example of local lawmakers reaching for constitutionally-dubious solutions to the problem of gun violence.

The bill filed Saturday by state Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, would require a three-day waiting period for the sale of any firearm and the sale of ammunition to anyone who has not completed anger management courses. The proposal would require ammo buyers to take the anger management courses every 10 years.

“This is not about guns,” Gibson said. “This is about ammunition and not only for the safety of the general community, but also for the safety of law enforcement.”

Gibson said she’s concerned with citizens stockpiling ammunition, potentially creating dangerous situations should those individuals ever come in contact with law enforcement agencies or criminals.

“It’s about getting people to think, really, about how much ammunition they need,” Gibson said. “It’s a step, I think, in a safer direction. It’s about getting people to think before they buy.”

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House Conservatives: GOP Leadership Killed Measure To Defund Obamacare

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

As Republican senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, and James Inhofe prepare to introduce a measure to defund Obamacare — and threaten to hold up a continuing resolution to fund the U.S. government if the measure is not given a vote — some conservatives are unhappy that the House, controlled by Republicans, did not do the same thing.

It wasn’t for lack of effort, at least on the part of some conservative Republicans. As the House prepared to consider its own version of the continuing resolution last week — it ultimately passed 267 to 151 — more than two dozen conservative GOP lawmakers signed on to an amendment that would have defunded Obamacare. They submitted the amendment and hoped it would receive a vote but were stymied when the House leadership declared that no amendments would be allowed.

“If that amendment had gone to the floor, far and above a majority of the conference would have voted for it,” said Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon, one of the supporters, in an interview Saturday. “I think everyone in the conference would have voted for it,” added Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis, another supporter.

Nevertheless, the Republican leadership did not allow the amendment to be considered. And that, Salmon, DeSantis, and other conservative Republicans believe, is a measure of the leadership’s uneasiness with continuing the legislative fight against Obamacare. Some Republicans — lawmakers who might have felt pressure to vote to defund Obamacare — believe privately that the fight is essentially over, and that the GOP should come to terms with the reality of national health care.

“I do think there’s a feeling in the conference among some folks who think that the 2012 election settled Obamacare, that we kind of need to move on,” said DeSantis. “I’m on the other side. I don’t think it did, because I don’t think it was a major issue in the campaign.”

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NFIB: Small Businesses Want Simpler Tax Code

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

As lawmakers contemplate tax reform, a new survey of small businesses suggests owners want lower rates and fewer deductions.

“More than half (52 percent) of small businesses believe that simplifying the tax code should be a top priority out of all potential revision options,” a survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business found.

An overwhelming majority of small businesses, 85 percent of those polled, want to see an overhaul of the tax code; 78 percent of those polled prefer a tax code with less preferential treatment.

“By an overwhelming margin, small-business owners indicated that they prefer lower individual tax rates and a simpler tax code,” said study author and NFIB senior research fellow William Dennis.

“They see economic possibility in growing their businesses, not in growing government revenue through tax increases,” Dennis continued. “In fact, their sentiment that spending cuts must take priority is overwhelming, with 81 percent preferring spending cuts to tax increases by at least three dollars in cuts for every dollar in revenues. Virtually no respondent in the survey favored increasing taxes over cutting spending.”

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Study: Even Ancient Mummies Had Clogged Arteries

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Photo Credit: AP

Even without modern-day temptations like fast food or cigarettes, people had clogged arteries some 4,000 years ago, according to the biggest-ever study of mummies searching for the condition.

Researchers say that suggests heart disease may be more a natural part of human aging rather than being directly tied to contemporary risk factors like smoking, eating fatty foods and not exercising.

CT scans of 137 mummies showed evidence of atherosclerosis, or hardened arteries, in one third of those examined, including those from ancient people believed to have healthy lifestyles. Atherosclerosis causes heart attacks and strokes. More than half of the mummies were from Egypt while the rest were from Peru, southwest America and the Aleutian islands in Alaska. The mummies were from about 3800 B.C. to 1900 A.D.

“Heart disease has been stalking mankind for over 4,000 years all over the globe,” said Dr. Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City and the paper’s lead author.

The mummies with clogged arteries were older at the time of their death, around 43 versus 32 for those without the condition. In most cases, scientists couldn’t say whether the heart disease killed them.

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Socialist Party Magazine Profiles Abortion Clinic Promoted By Obama Campaign

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A feminist abortion clinic that hosted a “Women for Obama” event where Obama volunteers helped with groundskeeping in a show of support for reproductive rights is profiled in the current issue of The Socialist, the official publication of the Socialist Party USA, in which a clinic official urges feminist socialists to “influence policy” and quotes a famous socialist writer.

The Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City, Iowa was the site of a Women for Obama event called “Iowa City Women for Obama Service Project at Emma Goldman Clinic,” which was promoted on the events page of Obama’s official 2012 campaign website.

“Please join women Obama supporters as we give back to those who support our reproductive rights by helping with groundskeeping at Emma Goldman Clinic. Old clothes and comfortable shoes are a must!,” the Obama campaign website reads. The event was hosted by Winnie Garet, former Obama for America staffer and current field organizer for the Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America project.

The Emma Goldman Clinic, a member of the Feminist Abortion Network, was founded in 1973 by “a group of feminist idealists who strove for political, economic, and social equality for their clients.” The clinic also funds the Emma Goldman Clinic’s deProsse Access Fund, which helps low-income women obtain abortions.

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Climate Change Science Poised To Enter Nation’s Classrooms

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New national science standards that make the teaching of global warming part of the public school curriculum are slated to be released this month, potentially ending an era in which climate skepticism has been allowed to seep into the nation’s classrooms.

The Next Generation Science Standards were developed by the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nonprofit Achieve and more than two dozen states. The latest draft recommends that educators teach the evidence for man-made climate change starting as early as elementary school and incorporate it into all science classes, ranging from earth science to chemistry. By eighth grade, students should understand that “human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming),” the standards say.

They’re “revolutionary,” said Mark McCaffrey, programs and policy director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a nonprofit that defends evolution and climate education and opposes the teaching of religious views as science.

The 26 states that helped write the standards are expected to adopt them. Another 15 or so have indicated they may accept them—meaning climate change instruction could make its way into classrooms in 40-plus states.

James Taylor, a senior fellow at the conservative Heartland Institute, which is developing a school curriculum that promotes climate skepticism, said the standards’ stance on climate change is based on “unscientific speculation and hype.” But he also said the group has no plans to fight their adoption by the states.

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Obamas Still Living The High Life Under the Sequester Cloud (+video)

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Photo Credit: Glyn Lowe Photoworks

It’s being reported that Adele and Beyonce have been booked to rock The White House on Michelle Obama’s 50th birthday. That should be some party . . .

It’s hard to believe that the politics of the sequester have worked out the way the Obama administration intended. Even their usually-reliable friends in the media have been skeptical, as this report from ABC News demonstrates:

https://youtu.be/RSfIi1SCz8I

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Rep. Paul Ryan: House Budget Will Assume the Repeal Of ObamaCare

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Sunday said he will not back down from the battle to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act even though some Republicans think the party should move on.

Ryan dismissed criticism that House Republicans have virtually no chance of dismantling the signature legislative accomplishment of Obama’s first term and their efforts might be better expended elsewhere.

He said his budget assumes the repeal of the healthcare law, in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

When host Chris Wallace challenged him on that assumption, Ryan said he would not give up the fight.
“That’s not going to happen,” said Wallace.

“We believe it should,” Ryan shot back. “That’s the point. This is what budgeting is all about. It’s about making tough choices to fix our country’s problems. We believe ‘ObamaCare’ is a program that will not work.

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On The Anniversary Of The Nazi Invasion, This Is What Austrians Are Saying About Hitler

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Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Seventy-five years after the Nazi invasion and occupation of Austria, a newspaper in country has asked citizens about their opinion of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi annexation during World War II. Jewish leaders who have been raising the alarm about anti-Semitism in Austria say the results were not surprising.

Forty-two percent said life was not all bad under Hitler, while 61 percent said they would be interested in a strong-armed leader who did not have to deal with democratic challenges like political opponents and elections. The survey, published this weekend, is getting prominent play in the media in Israel, which is home to some 250,000 Holocaust survivors. That’s half the number of survivors who arrived in the country since Israel was founded in 1948.

Reuters reports:

Timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary next week of Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany, the Market Institut poll for newspaper Der Standard found 61 per cent of respondents, mostly the elderly, liked the idea of a strong man as leader.

Many Austrians wanted a union, or Anschluss , with Germany in 1938. A few Austrians put up resistance that grew over time. In the latest poll, 53 per cent thought the Anschluss was voluntary and 46 per cent saw Austria as a victim. Forty-two per cent said “not everything was bad under Hitler” while 57 per cent saw no good aspects to the Hitler era.

Additionally, 54 percent said they believed neo-Nazi groups would succeed in Austrian elections this September if they were not banned there.

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Afghan President Alleges US Conspiracy with Taliban to Keep International Forces in Afghanistan

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A series of security problems and fractured relations with Afghan leaders plagued Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s first trip here as Pentagon chief, including the Afghan president’s accusations that the U.S. and the Taliban are working in concert to show that violence in the country will worsen if most coalition troops leave.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Joseph Dunford, quickly rejected the charges President Hamid Karzai made Sunday as “categorically false.” But the accusations were just the latest in a series of disputes that have frayed relations between the two nations as the U.S. works to wind down the war and turn the country’s security over to the Afghans.

Speaking to reporters shortly after Karzai made the comments, Dunford said the Afghan leader has never expressed such views to him but said it was understandable that tensions would arise as the coalition balances the need to complete its mission with the Afghans’ move to exercise more sovereignty.

“We have fought too hard over the past 12 years, we have shed too much blood over the past 12 years, we have done too much to help the Afghan security forces grow over the last 12 years to ever think that violence or instability would be to our advantage,” said Dunford.

Dunford’s comments came, however, soon after U.S. officials cancelled a news conference with Hagel and Karzai because of a security threat – just a day after a suicide bomber on a bicycle struck outside the Afghan Defense Ministry, killing nine Afghan civilians and wounding 14 others. Hagel heard the explosion from the safe location where he was meeting with Afghan officials but was never in danger.

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