Loaded Revolutionary War-Era Cannon Found In Central Park

NEW YORK— A dangerous and historic discovery was made in Central Park on Friday afternoon.

Parks workers came upon a live cannon ball, loaded in a cannon that is getting refurbished, CBS 2’s Lou Young reported exclusively.

The loaded artillery piece was one of two Revolutionary War-era cannons being stored at the park’s Ramble shed near the 79th Street transverse. Preservation workers for the Central Park Conservancy called police about mid-day after opening up the capped cannon for cleaning.

The NYPD released a picture of what its officers found: more than 800 grams of black powder still capable of firing, along with cotton wadding and a cannonball CBS 2’s Young spotted being carried in a white cloth by a Conservancy employee.

For John Moore, who is working on a book called “The Secrets of Central Park,” this is a new one.

Read more from this story HERE.

Federal Informant Admits Working for the Left During 2010 US Senate Handcuffing: “I was working for you, you sons of bitches, and nobody knew it”

The liberal Huffington Post reported today that Bill Fulton, the individual responsible for the handcuffing of the Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger at a Joe Miller for US Senate event, “was a federal informant at the same time.”

And, as it turns out, Fulton was also masquerading as a conservative the whole time, not only while volunteering for Joe Miller, but while acting as the campaign manager for rightwing lieutenant governor candidate Eddie Burke as well.

Fulton told the Huffington Post that he was a real honest-to-goodness liberal, bragging that he not only voted for Obama – twice – but that also, “he was working for you [the liberal press], you sons of bitches, and nobody knew it.”

And it appears Fulton is continuing his leftwing jihad. He claims that Miller wore a bullet proof vest the night of his primary victory because he “was a paranoid guy with a bunch of guys with guns that like to hang out with him.” What Fulton leaves out is that he followed Miller around at convention central, warning him of threats against him and insisted that Miller put on Fulton’s personal vest.

Fulton concludes his interview saying that his federal informant business is “booming this year because of Obama and gun control, man. If you look at the right wing, the growth in the militia organizations, the growth in the border organizations, the amount of firearms, the type of rhetoric that is now used, we have a major issue.”

Joe Miller, Schaeffer Cox, and the FBI Informant who handcuffed Tony Hopfinger

With the conviction and sentencing of Fairbanks Militia Leader Schaeffer Cox several days ago, the left leaning media organizations have again resurrected speculation about Joe Miller’s connections to not only Mr. Cox but also to the federal informant who was largely responsible for Cox’s demise, Bill Fulton.

Joe’s spokesman reports that in the last two days he’s fielded contacts about this from reporters associated with the leftwing Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, and Salon.

These extremely biased outlets should have directed their inquiries to me. I’ve known Joe Miller for ten years. I’ve gone on a medical mission trip to a communist-controlled island in the Philippines with Joe. And, in interest of full disclosure, I’m a longtime business partner and friend of Joe’s.

So it should come as no surprise that I’ve been closely involved with Joe’s political activities. From his first legislative run in 2004, to his 2008 attempt to rid the Alaskan Republican Party of Randy Ruedrich, through his 2010 U.S. Senate run, I worked with Joe to effect political change.

Joe’s 2008 effort to unseat the Republican Party Chair and replace him with a conservative took place about a year and a half after Sarah Palin was elected governor of the State of Alaska. As one of Alaska’s six Republican Party regional chairs, Joe was one of the few Republican Party officials to genuinely support Sarah Palin in her run for Governor. Governor Palin and Joe maintained contact after this and jointly shared the goal of reforming the Alaska Republican Party.

In 2008, I suggested to Joe that he make an attempt to remove Randy Ruedrich as chair of the ARP during the state convention that year. We knew that the effort would be challenging as removal would require a vote of two-thirds of the delegates at the state convention.

Joe went for it and, in his typical fashion, devoted 110% of his energies toward the effort. He contacted the Governor and secured her support. We then sent out mailers and contacted delegates throughout the state.

Upon arrival in Anchorage, we suspected we had a majority of the support of the delegates but were unsure if we had the necessary two-thirds to remove Ruedrich. So the effort continued on the ground.

I invited Schaeffer Cox to several meetings that Joe Miller, Bill Fulton, and many others attended during the convention. Unlike Joe, I had met Schaeffer previously and knew he was helping organize the Ron Paul supporters going to the convention. Schaeffer was about my age and, like me, was involved in construction. He had no known connections to any militia groups and, at the time, was new to politics.

Neither Joe nor I, however, knew anything about Bill Fulton prior to the 2008 state convention. He was a delegate there and sought out Joe directly. He expressed grave dissatisfaction with the leadership of the Alaska Republican Party and volunteered to help in the effort to organize other delegates who were opposed to Ruedrich. As I recall, he attended virtually every meeting the anti-Ruedrich faction had during that convention.

While we were working to organize and convince delegates, a number of troubling things happened to our volunteers. One, Joe’s former clerk from his U.S. Magistrate Judgeship days, had the lugnuts on her vehicle loosened while parked outside the convention and, had she not noticed this prior to driving away, could have been severely injured. We also discovered that private investigators had been employed against the delegates that were leading the efforts against Ruedrich.

Fulton sprang to action. He immediately insisted that he provide security to the core volunteers who were working to unseat Ruedrich. And he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He represented that he owned a security firm and knew the ropes of a security operation. So he, and other delegates that were associated with his firm, started to watch volunteer’s vehicles and keep an eye out for other shenanigans.

After the convention ended, Cox decided to run for the legislature. He made an impressive showing in the primary against an incumbent legislator, winning over 36% of the vote in a three-way race.

Joe had a few conversations with Schaeffer at the convention and during Schaeffer’s campaign but after Cox lost his election to the State House, Cox started going radical. Joe had nothing to do with him at this point, presciently warning a number of us, including me, that Cox was headed down a self-destructive path.

Fast forward to 2010. Bill Fulton hit the political scene again, not only as a delegate to the 2010 Republican convention, but also as the campaign manager for Lieutenant Governor-candidate Eddie Burke. After Burke lost the Republican primary, Fulton made a bee-line for Joe Miller again, as early as the evening of primary night, August 24, 2010. He also followed Joe around at the Glenn Beck event the next month.

But it wasn’t until the ill-fated town hall meeting in October that Fulton made his mark on Joe Miller’s senate campaign. One of Joe’s supporters who knew Fulton from the Eddie Burke campaign, called him to provide security as required by the venue’s contract. At the conclusion of the town hall, Tony Hopfinger, who had earlier followed Joe into a restroom, questioning him while Joe was relieving himself, was handcuffed by Fulton after Joe had already left the building.

The handcuffing almost immediately hit the headlines. And, even though Joe had had nothing to do with Fulton’s presence at the town hall and in no way directed or condoned the handcuffing, the damage was done.

Several months later, Schaeffer Cox was indicted by the federal government for his militia activities. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that one of the government’s lead informants in the Cox case was none other than Bill Fulton. It was also discovered that Fulton was working and being paid as the federal government’s confidential informant during the exact same time frame that he was handcuffing blogger Tony Hopfinger at Joe Miller’s event.

I have no idea what makes people like Bill Fulton and Schaeffer Cox tick. But I do know this: Joe Miller has an extreme love for this country and its people and will continue to fight selflessly to restore Liberty.

Too many have become weary in their efforts against increasing regulations and decreasing rights. William Wilberforce did not give up after all his years of failure in Parliament and because of it slavery was abolished in England.

Joe Miller and I believe in a limited government that stays out of the way of its citizens freedoms. I hope you will join the cause of Liberty and support the people who champion her cause.

Jack Lew, 2011: Obama’s Budget Will Pay Down National Debt

On February 13, 2011, President Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew went on CNN and claimed that Mr. Obama’s budget will pay down the national debt.

The plan, Lew said, “will get us, over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we’re not adding to the debt anymore; we’re spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down our national debt.”

Mr. Lew, of all people, should have known. After all, he was, at the time, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

But as this copy of the OMB’s own table makes clear, Mr. Lew’s televised promise to the American people was a sign of either deception or incompetence.

Read more from this story HERE.

Glamour Magazine Editor Says Woman’s Desire for Self Defense “Strange”

photo credit: andrewrennie

Late last night, Independent Women’s Forum [IWF] Senior Fellow Anna Rittgets released the following statement about how banning high capacity ammunition magazines leaves women and their families more vulnerable:

“I am passionate about the 2nd Amendment, particularly because I’m a mother. I’m a thirty-something year old woman with a 3 year old and a nursing newborn. Without my concealed weapon, I wouldn’t be able to protect myself against an assailant that seeks to do me or my family harm.

Five bullets fired from a .38 revolver weren’t enough for a Georgia mother of two to stop one intruder last week in an unexpected home invasion–what if there had been more intruders?

It often takes several shots to stop one attacker. If the maximum magazine capacity is 10 (or if all semiautomatic handguns are banned, but 6 shot revolvers remain), and a woman in danger has to stop and reload her weapon while trying to protect her children (who are likely hysterical at this point), it gives the bad guy an opportunity to react–potentially fatally.

Laws limiting magazine capacity and availability of semiautomatic handguns will directly impact women, who use these weapons for self-defense inside and outside the home. Any executive action by President Obama to restrict guns will limit a women’s capability to fight back against attackers and protect herself and her family.”

Read more from this story HERE.

NRA Says Meeting with Biden Disappointing; Accuses White House of Attack on Second Amendment

NRA Says Meeting with Biden Disappointing

by Alexis Levinson

The National Rifle Association said it emerged “disappointed” from a Thursday meeting with Vice President Joe Biden and other gun owners’ groups.

The meeting was a part of Biden’s work on a task force on gun policy, established in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. that left 20 children dead.

The NRA statement on the meeting said that the group was “prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals.”

“We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment,” the statement said.

Read more from this story HERE.

NRA Accuses White House of ‘Attack’ on 2nd Amendment Rights

by Justin Sink

The National Rifle Association said Thursday it was “disappointed” by its meeting Thursday with Vice President Biden, accusing the Obama administration of using the time to “attack the Second Amendment.”

The statement, issued shortly after the conclusion of the conference, deflated any prospect of an unlikely alliance between the White House and the gun lobby group as President Obama looks to push a set of new gun regulations in the coming month.

It also likely signals that the NRA will oppose any legislative attempt to change federal gun laws in the coming Congress.

“We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment,” the group said in its statement.

“While claiming that no policy proposals would be ‘prejudged,’ this Task Force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners — honest, taxpaying, hardworking Americans.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Charlie Rangel Hits Obama on Diversity

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Thursday called it “embarrassing as hell” that President Barack Obama is facing charges that his White House lacks diversity.

“It’s embarrassing as hell. We’ve been through all of this with [2012 GOP presidential nominee] Mitt Romney. And we were very hard with Mitt Romney with the women binder and a variety of things,” Rangel said on MSNBC. “And I kind of think there’s no excuse with the second term.”

The Obama administration has been criticized recently for not having enough diversity with its Cabinet appointees after The New York Times ran a photo of Obama meeting with senior advisers in the Oval Office, the vast majority of them white men. The White House responded by releasing its own photo, which showed a much more diverse crowd of Obama’s top advisers.

Read more from this story HERE.

DEA Agents Arranged Prostitute for Secret Service Agent

Two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents “facilitated a sexual encounter” between a prostitute and a U.S. Secret Service agent days before President Barack Obama visited Colombia for a summit meeting in April 2012, according to a Justice Department investigation obtained exclusively by NBC News.

A summary of the findings of the investigation, included in a Dec. 20 letter from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General to Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins, indicated that a third DEA agent present on the night of the incident was not involved in procuring the prostitute for the Secret Service agent.

“While DEA agent #3 was present for a dinner that took place earlier that evening with the USSS agent and the other two DEA agents, he was not present in the residence when the sexual encounter took place and played no role in facilitating it,” the summary said.

All three DEA special agents admitted that they had paid for sexual services of a prostitute, the investigation also found, and “used their DEA Blackberry devices to arrange such activities.” In addition, the report says the agents tried to destroy incriminating information or initially lied to investigators about the incidents. All three agents have high-security clearances.

The summary concluded that the agents’ actions did not warrant criminal prosecution. It said the U.S. Attorney’s Office also “declined to initiate legal proceedings.” It said the case had been referred to the DEA for “action it determines to be appropriate.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: NRA Has Added 100,000 New Members Since Sandy Hook Shooting

The National Rifle Association has gained more than 100,000 new members in the past 18 days, the organization told POLITICO’s Playbook on Thursday.

The number of paid new members jumped from 4.1 million to 4.2 million during that time.

“Our goal is to get to 5 million before this debate is over,” the NRA told POLITICO’s Mike Allen.

Read more from this story HERE.

“The Old Guard Power Mongers of the Alaska GOP Will Stop At Nothing to Maintain Power”

It appears that the old guard power mongers of the Alaska GOP will stop at nothing to maintain control of the organization. In a move to disregard the results of the 2012 convention, Chairman Ruedrich ally, Frank McQueary, has filed internal charges against Russ Millette, the legitimately elected party chair, and other Republican Party officials.

The charges, (you can see them in their entirety HERE) consist mainly of inflammatory rhetoric, distortions, and baseless allegations. In fact, no actual party rules are cited in the allegations.

The one allegation against Mr. Millette that may have a shred of validity is his failure to raise money for the party. However, this is easily mitigated by the fact that with men like Ruedrich, Clary, and McQueary controlling the money, there is serious concern for how any money deposited in party coffers will be used. In fact, since Ruedrich became chairman, the ARP has ceased conducting annual audits required by party rules.

Another accusation is that Mr. Millette only recently registered as a Republican. This is a distortion of the truth. In fact, Mr. Millette campaigned for Barry Goldwater in 1964. If that isn’t indicative of a life-long Republican, I don’t know what is. Many life-long Republicans have unregistered at points in their life due to the dissatisfaction that they have felt with party leadership. With behavior like the current efforts against Millette, who can blame them.

Moreover, the point of registration is moot as the ARP rules only require that a person be a registered Republican to hold office, they do not specify a requirement of ANY prior registration.

Allegations against others in McQueary’s complaint include being tied to Occupy Wall Street (OWS). This is a fabricated and irrelevant accusation designed to use emotion and detract from legitimate points.

Further, it is interesting that Mr. McQueary is the one bringing up these allegations. Mr. McQueary himself has a long history of violating and disregarding party rules. In 2010, he while chair of the rules committee, he opposed the Republican nominee, Joe Miller, and actively supported independent candidate Lisa Murkowski. A search of FEC records reveals that he donated funds to Murkowski, post-primary.

Mr. McQueary has also consistently abused his position to defend Ruedrich in prior attempts to remove Ruedrich from his post. Mr. McQueary failed to properly address a legitimate complaint filed with him in regards to the College Republicans being wrongly disenfranchised from representation on the SCC, in direct violation of the rules. Mr. McQueary further failed in to perform his duties by refusing to address charges filed against Mr. Ruedrich, charges that actually had merit under the rules.

Mr. McQueary’s obvious lack of integrity calls into question all charges brought by him. He is obviously acting as a crony to Mr. Ruedrich, and not in the best interests of Alaska Republicans.

This witch-hunt is clearly just an attempt by the Machiavellian Alaska GOP establishment to subvert the will of the 2012 convention delegates. In fact, nearly 70% of the convention delegates voted against Ruedrich’s pick, Bruce Shulte, voting for either Russ Millette, or fellow reform candidate, Judy Eledge. And I thought that Republic-an Party arose from the words Constitutional Republic, not Banana Republic.

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Sean Godfrey is the Assistant Director of Communications for the National Right to Work Committee and was a delegate to Alaska’s 2012 Republican State Convention.