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.

Read more from this story HERE.

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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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.

Read more from this article HERE.

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.

Read more from this story HERE.

Customer Complains that She Can’t Use Her Food Stamps on Amazon.com

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Fox News announced this morning that Bill O’Reilly is going to expose how food stamps are being misused for wild parties and other improper purchases. Later today, as we were visiting Amazon’s website, we noticed a customer had posted a question regarding why she couldn’t use her food stamps on Amazon.com.

She states that, “I don’t understand this. I get food stamps as do tens of other millions of people in the USA. Why I can’t I use them on Amazon? I would like to use them on grocery items. It would be easier and less embarrassing for me than going into the local stores where people know me. Does anyone else have this problem or concern?”

An Amazon user reacts with amazement: “Incredible! You voted for Obama so you would get food stamps. You should have voted for Romney so you could have a job.”

Another customer asks, “Are you kidding?” She then suggests that increased government spending has forced businesses like Amazon to raise prices and burdened our children with debt: “Do you have any idea why Amazon has raised their prices so high and so fast this new year compared to other years? Let me clue you in food stamp user. You are already draining this economy and have spiraled out of control the deficit for future generations.”

She then asks,

Have you thought about looking to your friends and your family for support instead of the government? Have you thought about looking into faith-based or other charities helping you out instead of the taxpayers?

How much have you contributed to the country to warrant all of us supporting you more with increased taxes?

Why are you on food stamps to begin with?

I am so sick and tired of this….

Almost as an afterthought, the critical Amazon customer then says, “However, my aplogies if you have a legitimate reason…”

The food stamp user then explains that she has fallen on hard times, that as a legal immigrant, she had “made mistakes” and was suffering from a “bad marriage”:

I am so sorry to offend. Was not my intention, yes? My reasons for being on food stamps is because of a bad marriage. It was my fault and I take responsibility. I am a legal immigrant, but have made mistakes in this country. It has affected my children as a result. I need those food stamps. But they prevent me at the same time from getting respect and a job in the town I live in. You would call it a catch-22, yes?

I try hard for explaining in English. Please do not shun me. I am a good person. I just want to know why Amazon does not accept the food stamps?

As we have reported previously in past postings, Obama’s federal food stamp program is completely out-of-control. The conversation above, whether a serious exchange or not, is symptomatic of the growing misuse and abuse of a constitutionally questionable problem administered by a bankrupt federal government. Welfare programs such as these should be returned to the states’ jurisdiction and administered as their citizens decide.

Suspect in Benghazi Consulate Attack Freed Due to Lack of Evidence

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TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A man linked by officials to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi has been conditionally released by a Tunisian judge due to lack of evidence, his lawyer said Tuesday.

The release of Ali Harzi, a 26-year-old Tunisian, appears to represent a blow to the investigation of the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The investigation in Libya itself has been stalled due to the weak central government in the face of the powerful militias, some of whom may have been involved in the attack.

Harzi was one of very few people in custody in relation to the attack. U.S. officials said in December that Egypt had also arrested a member of the Islamic Jihad group for possible links to the attack, but in general they lamented a lack of cooperation from local governments in their investigation and said most suspects remained free.

Harzi’s lawyer, Anwar Oued-Ali, said the presiding judge had “conditionally freed” his client Monday night and he has to remain in the greater Tunis area in case the court needs him. The lawyer described the release as “correcting an irregular situation” because authorities never had any real evidence.

Harzi was originally detained in Turkey and in October was extradited to Tunisia, where authorities had said he was “strongly suspected” of being involved in the attack. His lawyer said he was officially charged with “membership of a terrorist organization” – a charge punishable by six to 12 years in prison.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama to Boehner: ‘We Don’t Have a Spending Problem’

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In an interview with Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, newly re-elected House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) opened up about President Obama’s utter unwillingness to cut a single dollar from federal spending. In a stunning admission, Obama reportedly told Boehner, “We don’t have a spending problem.”

Boehner added that President Obama continues to maintain that America’s federal deficit is caused not by governmental overspending but by “a health-care problem.” Said Boehner, “They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system.” Boehner told Obama, “Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with Obamacare. But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem.” Obama eventually replied, “I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.”

Obama may be tired of hearing Boehner talk about a spending problem, particularly when Obama has been re-elected on the basis of ignoring government spending. Nonetheless, America does have a spending problem, which Obama is steadfastly ignoring. “He’s so ideological himself,” Boehner explained, “and he’s unwilling to take on the left of his own party.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The New Liberal Aristocracy

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‘Limousine liberal’ is an old American term used against those who inherited lots of money and then became “traitors to their class” by embracing populist politics.

The Roosevelts and Kennedys enjoyed the high life quite apart from the multitude that they championed. And they were exempt, by virtue of their inherited riches and armies of accountants and attorneys, from the higher taxes they advocated for others. Few worried about how their original fortunes were made long ago, or that as lifelong government officials they had their needs met by the state. Most were relieved instead that as very rich people they wanted less rich people to pay their fair share to help the poor.

But the new liberal aristocracy is far less discreet than the old. Most are self-made multimillionaires who acquired their money through government service, finance, law, investment, or marriage. If the old-money liberals lived it up tastefully within their walled family compounds, the new liberal aristocrats are unashamed about living openly in a manner quite at odds with their professed populist ideology.

Take former vice president Al Gore. He has made a fortune of nearly a billion dollars warning against global warming — supposedly shrinking glaciers, declining polar-bear populations, and the like — while simultaneously offering timely remedies from his own green corporations, all reminiscent of the methodology of Roman millionaire Marcus Licinius Crassus, who profited from fires and putting them out. Now Nobel laureate Gore has sold his interest in a failing cable-television station for about $100 million — and to the anti-American Al-Jazeera, which is owned by the fossil-fuel-rich royal family of Qatar. Gore rushed to close the deal before the first of the year to avoid the very capital-gains tax hikes that he has advocated for others less well off. That’s a liberal trifecta: enhancing a fossil-fuel consortium, attempting to beat tax hikes, and empowering an anti-American and anti-Semitic media conglomerate run by an authoritarian despot — all from a former vice president of the United States who crusades for ending our reliance on fossil fuels and for raising taxes on the wealthy.

Class warrior Barack Obama spent his winter break in a ritzy rental on a Hawaiian beach. It cost the taxpayers $7 (or is it $20?) million to jet him and his entourage 6,000 miles for their tropical vacation. But whether the first family escapes to Hawaii or Martha’s Vineyard or Costa del Sol, the image of a 1 percent lifestyle seems a bit at odds with the president’s professed disdain for “millionaires and billionaires,” “fat cats,” and “corporate-jet owners” who supposedly can afford such tony retreats only because they have done something suspect. The media used to ridicule grandees like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush for wearing cowboy hats and wasting precious presidential time chopping wood or chain-sawing dry underbrush on their respective overgrown ranches. But for liberal class warriors, golfing and body surfing in the tropical Pacific while staying at a zillionaire’s estate become needed downtime to prepare for the looming battle against 1 percenters. One wonders about the conversation between the Obamas and their landlord. “We will stay here, but only on the condition that you remember that you didn’t build it”?

Read more from this story HERE.

Bank of America Freezes Gun Manufacturer’s Account, Company Owner Claims

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photo credit: moneyblognewz

Bank of America has reportedly frozen the account of gun manufacturer American Spirit Arms, according to its owner, Joe Sirochman.

In a Facebook post dated December 29, Sirochman wrote the following:

“My name is Joe Sirochman owner of American Spirit Arms…our Web site orders have jumped 500 percent causing our Web site e-commerce processing larger deposits to Bank of America. So they decided to hold the deposits for further review.

“After countless hours on the phone with Bank of America, I finally got a manager in the right department that told me the reason that the deposits were on hold for further review — her exact words were — ‘We believe you should not be selling guns and parts on the Internet.’”

Read more from this story HERE.