Rick Perry at CPAC: ‘How Can The Last Two Elections Be A Rejection Of Conservatism When We Didn’t Nominate Conservatives?’ (+video)

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During CPAC yesterday, Governor Perry hammered Mitt Romney and John McCain as two candidates who did not reflect the conservative base of the GOP: “The popular media narrative is that this country has shifted away from conservative ideals, as evidenced by the last two presidential elections.

That’s what they think. That’s what say.

That might be true if Republicans had actually nominated conservative candidates in 2008 and 2012.”

Watch video here:

https://youtu.be/C8CTZ-YviaY

Governor Perry also hit Obama:

“This president’s posture, it’d be laughable if he hadn’t taken it one step too far, dangerously releasing criminals onto our streets to make a political point. When you have a federally-sponsored jailbreak, and don’t get confused, that’s exactly what that is, when you’ve had a federally-sponsored jailbreak, you’ve crossed the line from politics of spin to politics as a craven form of cynicism.”

Assault Weapons Ban Clears First Senate Hurdle, But Its Future Faces Tough Odds

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A bill banning military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips has cleared the first hurdle toward congressional passage, gaining approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee even while its broader future is unclear.

The bill, a key component of the Obama administration’s comprehensive legislative and executive package aimed at reducing gun violence in America, passed through the committee despite a heated exchange between Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex. It now heads to the full Senate for debate and, potentially, a vote. If successful there, the legislation will make its way to the House of Representatives.

It’s unlikely Democrats will be able to secure a vote in the Senate, however, given the 60-vote threshold needed to prevent a filibuster. The assault weapons ban is controversial even among some Democrats, and no Senate Republicans have expressed any intent to support it.

Read more from this story HERE.

ACLU Files Lawsuit After NC Gov’t Officials Refuse To Stop Praying At Meetings

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Despite a lower court ruling that found prayers at local government meetings in Forsyth County (another community in North Carolina) unconstitutional and the Supreme Court’s subsequent refusal to hear the case, officials in Rowan County aren’t backing down. They, too, have been beginning meetings with invocations — a practice they don’t plan on giving up. As a result, county commissioners become the ACLU’s most recent target of legal action over sectarian prayer at government meetings.

It was last year that the Rowan County Board of Commissioners first defied pressure from the ACLU to cease Christian prayers; the organization called these invocations unconstitutional and has continued to maintain this stance.

At the time, one of the board members (and the county commissioner), Chad Mitchell, defended the prayers said at the opening of each meeting. Apparently, board members are given the chance, via rotation, to give a prayer if they so choose. In the past, some have opted not to be included in the rotation (a choice that the group deems perfectly acceptable).

“The practice of opening with an invocation has been ongoing for many years,” Mitchell explained at the time. ”The earliest book of minutes that we have easy access to is from February of 1971, and the Board of Commissioners at that time was using the same procedure of invocation as we are currently using.”

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Dianne Feinstein, Ted Cruz Trade Barbs Over Gun Ban (+video)

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The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a hugely controversial ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, but the measure faces nearly certain defeat on the Senate floor.

The proposal, authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), bans 157 different models of assault weapons, as well as magazines containing more than 10 bullets. The vote was 10 to 8, with all Democrats supporting it and all Republicans opposed.

The Senate now faces a floor fight in coming weeks over Democrats’ push to dramatically alter U.S. gun laws for the first time in two decades. While the Feinstein assault weapons ban is unlikely to overcome GOP opposition and get a vote — as well as concerns from red state Democrats up for reelection in 2014 — Democrats and the White House will continue their drive to enact universal background checks on all gun sales.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, acknowledged that the assault weapons ban will have a hard time overcoming opposition.

“It’s pretty clear the other side is locked in opposition [to assault weapons ban.] — [I] don’t see us getting 60 votes,” Whitehouse said, referring to the necessary bar to pass the Senate.

Watch video here:

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US Has Effectively Nationalized Home Mortgage Industry

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Photo Credit: 401(K) 2013

The home mortgage sector in the world’s largest economy has been “effectively nationalized,” says George Melloan, former deputy editor of the editorial page for The Wall Street Journal.

Government agencies — primarily Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but also the Federal Housing Administration — insured or purchased more than 90 percent of home mortgages originated in 2012, a $1.3 trillion business, compared with 30 percent in 2006, according to ProPublica data.

Melloan, author of “The Great Money Binge: Spending Our Way to Socialism,” traced the situation back to the end of the last century, citing government and “powerful” lobbies.

“When President [Bill] Clinton forced the banks to begin their subprime mortgage binge in the 1990s, he called it ‘affordable housing’ for people with limited means, a politically appealing idea,” Melloan wrote in an opinion article for The Journal.

“But the real muscle came from well-heeled lobbies — the builders, real estate agents, bankers and construction-worker unions.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Marine With Concealed Carry Permit Stops Man From Beating Woman While Homeowner Shoots, Kills Intruder

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Marine With Concealed Carry Permit Stops Man From Beating Woman

By Henry Rosoff. A Marine Corps veteran was able to stop a man early Tuesday, March 12th from nearly kicking a woman to death. It happened near 102nd and Lincoln, and Wisconsin’s concealed carry law made his efforts possible.

Charlie Blackmore was driving home from work at 4:00 a.m. along Lincoln Avenue when he saw something on the sidewalk. Blackmore didn’t realize it was a woman on the ground being kicked in the head and stomach until he got closer.

That’s when he jumped out of his car and sprung into action. “I said ‘stop’ and he starts coming towards me and that`s when I drew on him. He started getting closer and I said ‘get down on the ground,’” Blackmore said.

Blackmore held his gun on the suspect and called West Allis police. He says several times while waiting for police to arrive, the attacker moved toward him.

“I mean I’ve already made it up in mind that if he came at me I was going to have to take him down and I told him that. I warned him multiple times not to come towards me because he was a big guy and I wasn’t playing around and he didn’t seem like he was playing around,” Blackmore said. Read more from this story HERE.

Albertville Police Identify Man Shot By Homeowner

By Robert Richardson. Investigators do not expect charges to be filed against a homeowner who shot and killed a suspected burglar at his home Tuesday evening.

Officers responded to a call about a gunshot wound on Abbott Road just before 9 p.m., and Assistant Chief Jamie Smith said the homeowner made the call to report the shooting.

“We are in the early stages of the investigation, but right now we’re treating it as a burglary and the homeowner defending his property,” Smith said.

Police have identified the burglary suspect as 41-year-old Jamison Lynn Lacey. His last known address was 202 Asbury Road in Albertville.

Investigators will present their findings to a grand jury but don’t expect an indictment “Your home is your castle, you can only retreat so far as your home,” Smith said. Read more from this story HERE.

All of a Sudden, the President Says We Don’t Have a Debt Crisis

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Presto, change-o! At the beginning of the year, we were sternly lectured that huge tax increases were absolutely necessary to confront our looming debt crisis. America was driven to the edge of the “fiscal cliff,” ostensibly producing business panic that explained a fair measure of Barack Obama’s permanent economic malaise, by the President’s refusal to budge an inch from his demands for those deficit-fighting tax increases.

During the previous years, the President insisted that this “payroll tax cut,” funded by a raid on Social Security, was the vital ingredient to American economic survival. He asked citizens to send him their horror stories about how losing $60 in higher taxes from each paycheck would ruin their lives. But at the end of 2012, Obama let this supposedly crucial tax cut die without saying one single word in its defense. I mean that literally – he made absolutely no effort to protect it during “fiscal cliff” negotiations. The urgency of deficit reduction through tax increases was simply too great!

Throughout the 2012 campaign, every proposal for growth-inspiring tax cuts, and every serious effort at reforming America’s embarrassing tax system – from Mitt Romney’s relatively modest proposals, through the flat tax ideas advanced by Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, to Herman Cain’s “999 Plan” – was savagely denounced by the President and his team because they would supposedly risk increasing the deficit. A fraudulent study supposedly “proving” that Romney’s plan didn’t “add up” was endlessly cited by the Obama campaign, even after its authors admitted it was bunkum. The same argument is invariably advanced by liberals whenever ideas like the Flat Tax, Fair Tax, or even small tax rate reductions are suggested. The possibility (indeed, to any serious student of economics, absolute certainty) of increased government revenue from the combination of lower rates and higher economic output – a smaller slice of a larger pie – is dismissed out of hand. We simply cannot risk adding a single dollar to the deficit by reducing the tax burden on American consumers and businesses!

But all of a sudden, Barack Obama sat for an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and breezily asserted that “we don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt.”

Well– I understand. Which is why, at some point, I think I take myself out of this. Right now, what I’m trying to do is create an atmosphere where Democrats and Republicans can go ahead, get together, and try to get something done. And, y– you know– I think what’s important to recognize is that– we’ve already cut– $2.5– $2.7 trillion out of the deficit. If the sequester stays in, you’ve got over $3.5 trillion of deficit reduction already.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Republicans Meet The New, Same Old President Obama

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After years of pining for more face time with the president, House Republicans found out Wednesday that Barack Obama looks and sounds the same behind closed doors as he does on TV.

That’s not to say they didn’t appreciate the personal touches — gentle banter, praise for some of their ideas and handshakes all around afterward — but the president’s rare meeting with House Republicans in the basement of the Capitol yielded little in the way of movement on either side of the partisan divide. It’s the first time the president has met with the House GOP since 2011.

Obama still won’t take any big risks on entitlement reform unless Republicans agree to raise taxes again, he declined to say whether he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and he still won’t slash discretionary spending. Within a couple of hours of leaving the Capitol, Obama issued a threat to veto a job-training bill championed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

So much for the bipartisan note Obama struck in his closing remarks. Or, as some House Republicans concluded as they shuffled out of the meeting room: Meet the new president, same as the old president.

“I heard what the president had to say. I’ve heard it before,” said Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who has had his share of failed negotiations with the White House. “I thought it was good for all of our members to hear it, so they have an understanding of where he’s coming from. We’ve got big problems in our country — they need to be addressed, we’re willing to get them addressed. I hope the president continues his outreach.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Senate Dem Jokes About Making History By Proposing A Budget For First Time In Four Years

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Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., held a hearing on the first budget proposed by Senate Democrats in four years, and the significance of the moment was not lost on her.

“I understand we have a new pope and a committee hearing to mark up a budget; that’s history twice, so that’s good,” Murray quipped at the outset.

Murray, who irritated Republicans by not releasing her budget until after the hearing, proceeded to review the Clinton presidency to make the case for raising $975 billion in tax revenue by “closing loopholes” and increasing by $2.1 trillion over the next ten years.

“If this budget passes, the total deficit reduction since the Simpson-Bowles report will consist of 64 percent spending cuts, 14 percent tax rate increases on the rich, and 22 percent new revenue by closing loopholes and cutting wasteful spending in the tax code for the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations,” she said in her opening statement, adding later that her budget would “tackle our deficit responsibly, reinvest in the middle class, build a strong foundation for growth, and restore the promise of American opportunity.”

Murray’s budget, like her joke, went over with Republicans like a lead balloon. “The blatant unwillingness of Senate Democrats to write and pass a budget for the federal government is not a joke,” a Senate Republican aide responded. “It has led to the highest annual deficits on record, which will have to be paid for by future generations of Americans. I wonder how funny Sen. Murray’s grand-kids will find it when they’re paying a trillion dollars in annual interest payments?”

Read more from this story HERE.

Cuccinelli Swears Off No-Tax Pledge

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Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, who has signed Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge in the past, has made a new vow: No new pledges.

The Republican gubernatorial candidate told a group of Northern Virginia business leaders this week that he will not sign the pledge pushed by anti-tax activist Norquist, or any other pledges pushed by other groups.

Cuccinelli consultant Chris LaCivita on Wednesday confirmed the comment, which was first reported by Politico.

After giving a speech to the business group, Cuccinelli was asked in a question-and-answer period if he would sign Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes. Americans for Tax Reform, the group Norquist leads, lists Cuccinelli among its “2013 state legislative signers of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.” There is only one other elected official from Virginia on the list, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R), who supported the transportation package and announced this week that he would not run for governor as an independent.

LaCivita said that Cuccinelli had signed in the past, “but not in 2013.”

“Ken said, no, he wasn’t going to,” LaCivita said. “We have just adopted a policy of not signing pledges of any nature.”

Read more from this story HERE.