Photo Credit: Reuters Libertarians eager to move beyond mere ideological victories are making progress in a long-term effort to migrate to one state to concentrate efforts and reshape communities based on their ideals of less government and individualism.
The grand social experiment can be traced to a 2001 essay by a Yale doctoral student who lamented about Libertarians’ failure to get candidates elected and argued the best way to make a real impact is for 20,000 activists to move to a relatively small state with low taxes and job opportunities, then making inroads in government, communities and courts.
New Hampshire won in a 2003 online vote. And 10 years later, more than 1,200 activists have already moved there, with roughly 13,000 others pledging to follow after the 20,000 sign up for the so-called Free State Project.
Though their numbers remain relatively small, and achieving full strength appears at least several years away, Libertarians now living in New Hampshire say they have already had several successes, including at least a dozen members winning seats in the 424-member state legislature.
“The first biggest success is we’re still around,” Carla Gericke, the project’s president, told FoxNews.com on Friday. “People are going forward, and we’re past the experiment stage. We’re now in the getting it done stage.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-26 04:14:502016-04-11 11:20:22Libertarian Movement Gaining Steam in New Hampshire
By Jason Howerton. During last week’s hearing, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) asked Holder about the potential to prosecute reporters under the Espionage Act of 1917.
“You’ve got a long way to go to try to prosecute the press for publication of material,” Holder answered.
He later added: “In regard to potential prosecution of the press for disclosure of material, this is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, of would think would be wise policy.” Read more from this story HERE.
As we reported yesterday, however, Holder was personally involved in the approval of the warrant and investigation of Fox News reporter Rossen.
Photo Credit: APGun owners could carry concealed weapons in Illinois, the last state in the nation to prohibit it, under legislation that swept through the House Friday with the backing of the powerful Democratic speaker from Chicago, a city torn by violence despite what critics claim are the nation’s toughest firearms restrictions.
The historic 85-30 vote would allow the carrying of concealed guns, a legislative task compelled by a federal appeals court ruling and precipitated by House Speaker Michael Madigan’s turnabout.
But its obliteration of all local gun laws, including Chicago’s ban on assault-style weapons, drew immediate resistance from Gov. Pat Quinn, a Chicago Democrat like Madigan. Quinn said the proposal endangers the public by pre-empting local gun laws, which have nothing to do with concealed carry, the only subject covered by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decree.
“We need strong gun-safety laws that protect the people of our state. Instead, this measure puts public safety at risk,” Quinn said in a prepared statement.
Senate President John Cullerton, another Democrat from Chicago, called the pre-emption provision “offensive.” Cullerton said he would meet privately with his majority caucus Monday to decide how to proceed. A Senate concealed-carry plan, which overrules local control only by requiring a statewide carry program, is on the Senate floor awaiting a vote.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-25 04:23:552016-04-11 11:20:23Lawmakers Vote to End Last Concealed Weapons Ban in the Nation
Photo Credit: APBy Susan Crabtree. In a bold move that demonstrates his commitment to an inner circle of close advisers — even those caught up in controversies, President Obama plans to nominate Victoria Nuland to assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, the White House said Thursday.
Ms. Nuland is the State Department spokeswoman who, emails revealed last week, expressed deep concerns about the implications of early versions of the “talking points” being prepared for the attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya. at one point asking that references to al Qaeda and previous CIA warnings about threats in Libya be deleted from the document. She said members of Congress might use them to criticize the State Department for not providing beefed-up security at Benghazi, where U.S. Amb. J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
She also memorably argued that her “building leadership” still had issues with the talking points even after some changes, a reference some Republicans believe could implicate then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or other senior leaders. Read more from this story HERE.
McCain, Graham laud nominee behind Benghazi talking-point edits
By Alexis Levinson. Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham were vocal critics of the administration’s messaging after the Benghazi attacks, but on Friday, they issued a laudatory statement about Victoria Nuland — the woman behind a number of the changes to the talking points — and her nomination to be assistant secretary of state for Europe.
“Ambassador Victoria Nuland has a long and distinguished record of service to our nation in both Republican and Democrat administrations. She is knowledgeable and well-versed on the major foreign policy issues as well as respected by foreign policy experts in both parties. We look forward to her upcoming confirmation hearings in the United States Senate,” the two senators said in a joint statement. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: The BlazeBy Jason Howerton. London is still reeling from the horrific terror attack that took place earlier this week.
Both of the suspects accused of butchering a British soldier during broad daylight on a London street had long been on the radar of Britain’s domestic spy agency, though investigators say it would have been nearly impossible to predict that the men were on the verge of a brutal killing.
Still, counter-terrorism officials said they are reviewing what – if any – lessons can be gleaned from the information they had leading up to the slaying Wednesday.
Authorities in the U.S. have similarly pledged to review their procedures in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, with the Boston police commissioner saying that cities should consider deploying more undercover officers and installing more surveillance cameras.
The British review comes amid an outpouring of grief over Wednesday’s slaughter of 25-year-old Lee Rigby of the 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Rigby, who had a two-year-old son, had served in Afghanistan. Detectives say they do not believe the attackers knew him or that he was specifically targeted, but they are still investigating. Read more from this story HERE.
To the Slaughter: British Lions Come up Lambs in Woolwich
Photo Credit: National Review By Mark Steyn. On Wednesday, Drummer Lee Rigby of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, a man who had served Queen and country honorably in the hell of Helmand Province in Afghanistan, emerged from his barracks on Wellington Street, named after the Duke thereof, in southeast London. Minutes later, he was hacked to death in broad daylight and in full view of onlookers by two men with machetes who crowed “Allahu akbar!” as they dumped his carcass in the middle of the street like so much road kill.
As grotesque as this act of savagery was, the aftermath was even more unsettling. The perpetrators did not, as the Tsarnaev brothers did in Boston, attempt to escape. Instead, they held court in the street gloating over their trophy, and flagged down a London bus to demand the passengers record their triumph on film. As the crowd of bystanders swelled, the remarkably urbane savages posed for photographs with the remains of their victim while discoursing on the iniquities of Britain toward the Muslim world. Having killed Drummer Rigby, they were killing time: It took 20 minutes for the somnolent British constabulary to show up. And so television viewers were treated to the spectacle of a young man, speaking in the vowels of south London, chatting calmly with his “fellow Britons” about his geopolitical grievances and apologizing to the ladies present for any discomfort his beheading of Drummer Rigby might have caused them, all while drenched in blood and still wielding his cleaver.
If you’re thinking of getting steamed over all that, don’t. Simon Jenkins, the former editor of the Times of London, cautioned against “mass hysteria” over “mundane acts of violence.”
That’s easy for him to say. Woolwich is an unfashionable part of town, and Sir Simon is unlikely to find himself there of an afternoon stroll. Drummer Rigby had less choice in the matter. Being jumped by barbarians with machetes is certainly “mundane” in Somalia and Sudan, but it’s the sort of thing that would once have been considered somewhat unusual on a sunny afternoon in south London — at least as unusual as, say, blowing up eight-year-old boys at the Boston Marathon. It was “mundane” only in the sense that, as at weddings and kindergarten concerts, the reflexive reaction of everybody present was to get out their cell phones and start filming. Read more from this story HERE.
Cameron calls for probe on word terrorists were known to UK authorities prior to attack
By Fox News. The savage attack mounted by Muslim terrorists on a soldier on a busy London street has prompted a parliament inquiry into what the nation’s vaunted MI5 domestic intelligence agency could have done to stop the suspects, both of whom had raised alarms with authorities.
The two suspects accused of hacking 25-year-old British soldier Lee Rigby to death Wednesday remained hospitalized under guard after being shot by police following the shocking incident, the aftermath of which was caught on cellphone video by passersby.
Michael Adebolajo, 28 and Michael Adebowale, 22, hit Rigby with their car and then attacked him with knives and a meat cleaver, according to witnesses.
Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday a parliamentary committee will carry out an investigation into the role of the security services in tracking the suspects before their bloody rampage. MI5 was apparently aware of the men, and while Adebolajo had handed out radical Islamist pamphlets neither was considered a serious threat, a government source told Reuters. Adebowale is a naturalized British citizen born in Nigeria, while Adebolajo was born in Britain to a Nigerian immigrant family, according to a Reuters report.
“To find the signals, the red flags as it were, I think is enormously hard,” Richard Barrett, former head of counter-terrorism at the Secret Intelligence Service MI6, Britain’s foreign spy agency, told the BBC. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-25 04:21:192016-04-11 11:20:23Widow of Butchered British Soldier Gives Heartbreaking Tearful Interview: ‘I Love Lee and Always Will’
Photo Credit: APOn Thursday, a House Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on a bill that would ban most abortions during the last four months of pregnancy nationwide. Proponents of the legislation frequently cited the murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, as well as the words of President Obama himself, to make their case for a new law.
“The Gosnell trial reminds us that when newborn babies are cut with scissors, they whimper and cry, and flinch from pain,” House Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte said during opening remarks. “But it takes only a moment’s thought to realize that wherever babies are cut, they whimper and cry, and flinch from pain. Delivered or not, babies are babies, and they can feel pain at 20 weeks. It is time to welcome young children who can feel pain into the human family. And this bill, at last, will do just that.”
Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, the sponsor of the bill and the subcommittee chairman, quoted heavily from Obama’s speech in response to the Newtown massacre. “This is our first task: caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how we as a society will be judged,” Franks said, quoting Obama. “Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage. That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”
One of the witnesses, Dr. Anthony Levatino, an obstetrician who performed more than 1,200 abortions before a moral awakening led him to stop performing them, testified about the inherent brutality of the late-term abortion procedure he used to perform.
Whereas Dr. Gosnell killed newborns by cutting into their necks to sever their spinal cords, Dr. Levatino testified that a standard late-term abortion procedure known as “dilation and evacuation” involves the dismemberment of a very developed child in utero.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2013-05-25 04:20:512016-04-11 11:20:24Congressional Testimony: Standard Late-Term Abortion Method More Brutal Than Gosnell’s ‘Snippings’
Photo Credit: New Yorker By Ryan Lizza. The Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen’s private e-mail account secret, arguing to a federal judge that the government might need to monitor the account for a lengthy period of time.
The new details are revealed in a court filing detailing a back and forth between the Justice Department and the federal judges who oversaw the request to search a Gmail account belonging to Rosen, a reporter for Fox News. A 2009 article Rosen had written about North Korea sparked an investigation; Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a former State Department adviser who allegedly leaked classified information to Rosen, insisted that the reporter should not be notified of the search and seizure of his e-mails, even after a lengthy delay.
E-mails, Machen wrote, “are commonly used by subjects or targets of the criminal investigation at issue, and the e-mail evidence derived from those compelled disclosures frequently forms the core of the Government’s evidence supporting criminal charges.”
He argued that disclosure of the search warrant would preclude the government from monitoring the account, should such a step become necessary in the investigation. Machen added that “some investigations are continued for many years because, while the evidence is not yet sufficient to bring charges, it is sufficient to have identified criminal subjects and/or criminal activity serious enough to justify continuation of the investigation.”
Machen insisted the investigation would be compromised if Rosen was informed of the warrant, and also asked the court to order Google not to notify Rosen that the company had handed over Rosen’s e-mails to the government. Rosen, according to recent reports, did not learn that the government seized his e-mail records until it was reported in the Washington Post last week. Read more from this story HERE.
US attorney, Obama ally takes heat for handling of leak probes
By Fox News. While Attorney General Eric Holder is taking heat for his department’s seizure of reporter records, the U.S. attorney who is personally overseeing those investigations is himself starting to face complaints that he’s gone too far in pursuing leaks.
Ronald Machen Jr., the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, was nominated by President Obama in 2009 and now runs the biggest federal prosecutor office in the country. His hundreds of attorneys handle everything from gang violence to corruption.
But in recent years, leak investigations have become a hallmark of his portfolio. And his dogged pursuit of the squeaky wheels in government has led him into the tenuous — and some say unprecedented — territory of lumping in leakers with journalists.
“What’s astonishing here is that never before has the government argued that newsgathering — in this case, asking a source to provide sensitive information — is itself illegal,” Gabe Rottman, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told FoxNews.com.
Machen was an early and frequent campaign donor to Obama during the 2008 election, giving close to the maximum amount allowed by law. He gave $2,300 in the general election and nearly as much during the primary. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-25 04:20:472016-04-11 11:20:24US Prosecutors Fought to Keep Fox Reporter’s Warrant Secret So They Could Monitor His Email for Years
Photo Credit: YouTubeA woman shot a man who tried to get into her home on 106th and Greenwood Thursday afternoon in Kansas City, Mo.
Shirley Roberts, 52, told police three young men tried to break into her home around noon Thursday.
According to Roberts, the men pulled in front of her home and went to her front door and tried to get in. When the men couldn’t, Roberts said the men then put on blue rubber gloves and tried to get into her back door.
It was then that Roberts, home alone, grabbed a gun and fired a single shot through her glass back door, hitting one of the men in the chest.
Her husband came home a short time later. He said he’s just glad his wife survived the ordeal.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2013-05-25 04:17:512016-04-11 11:20:24Gunfight With Lady Homeowner Ends Badly for Three Intruders (+video)
Photo Credit: The U.S. ArmyMemorial Day commemorates the U.S. soliders who lost their lives in service. It’s also a time to recognize a growing but less visible group of fallen soliders who chose to end their own lives while serving or after returning from war.
There are about 22 veteran suicides each day, a rate higher than previous estimates, based on a report released by the Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this year. Many veterans who take their own lives are over 50, but the hundreds of thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan also struggle to adjust to civilian life while dealing with the mental and physical effects of war on top of a weak job market.
Photo Credit: cometstarmoonBy Matt Barber. “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36)
It’s a sad day for both Scouting and for freedom. Indeed, it’s a sad day for America. The century-old Boy Scouts of America (BSA) – created in 1910 to “prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes” – has betrayed its own constituency, mission, oath and law.
On Thursday, approximately 1,400 adult BSA delegates from around the country gathered in Texas and decided, in a disgracefully lopsided vote, to welcome into its ranks, “open and avowed” homosexuality (boy-on-boy sexual attraction and behavior), thereby disavowing the “morally straight” Scout Oath its members are sworn to uphold.
They voted unwisely.
History will reflect that on this day the BSA turned from morally straight to immorally bent – that this once great organization – founded on “honor,” “reverence” and biblical morality – was crushed beneath the worldly weight of pagan idolatry.
Whereas, for over a century, millions of boys have raised their right hands, swearing “on my honor” to “do my duty to God and my country” – on this day, hundreds of adult delegates likewise raised their right hands, shook their fists at God and flipped their middle fingers at both the boys they serve and the parents who trusted them. Read more from this story HERE.
By Jeff Poor. On Mike Gallagher’s Friday radio show, “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace had a heated debate with Gallagher over the Boy Scouts lifting its ban on openly gay boys.
Wallace called himself “conflicted” on the issue and laid out his argument for gays in the Boy Scouts, likening it to changing attitudes about interracial marriage.
“I think the world is changing,” Wallace said. “I think — you know, and our attitudes toward gays are changing. Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-25 04:17:132016-04-11 11:20:25R.I.P. Boy Scouts of America