Financial Gun Control? GE Capital Quietly Cuts Off Lending to Gun Shops

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General Electric, Co. has been quietly informing gun shop owners that the company will no longer be providing lending services to them, the Wall Street Journal reports. GE Capital is apparently reconsidering its relationship to firearms companies following the Sandy Hook shooting.

Earlier this month, Glenn Duncan, owner of Duncan’s Outdoor Store in Bay City, Mich., claims he received a letter from GE Capital Retail Bank announcing its “difficult decision” to stop providing financial services to his business. Other gun shops have received similar notices, the Journal notes.

More from WSJ.com: “GE is at least the second big financial firm to retreat from the gun business following the school shootings, which claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six adults in December.

Days after the killings, private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP said it would try to sell the gun company it owns—Freedom Group Inc.— which makes brands including Remington, Bushmaster, Marlin and H&R . . .

GE is based in Fairfield, Conn., and many of the GE’s employees live around Newtown, and several have children in the Sandy Hook elementary school, where the shootings took place. Peter Lanza, the father of Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza, is an executive at GE Capital. GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt held a town hall meeting with affected employees after the shooting, and the board has been updated on efforts to help staff, a person familiar with the matter said.”

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Cantor Pushing Obamacare Bill, but not to Repeal it as Promised

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Photo Credit: John ShinkleRepublican-backed legislation meant to alter a piece of Obamacare has picked up some unlikely opponents: conservatives.

The Club for Growth, ForAmerica and the Heritage Foundation have come out against the bill, which the House is expected to take up later this week.

The critics argue that the bill would prop up a program that should be killed. The measure would move $4 billion from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was created under the health care law, to the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Program, which ran out of money earlier this year.

For America President Brent Bozell said that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who supports the bill and pushing it behind the scenes although he is not listed as a sponsor or a cosponsor, is to blame.

“Rather than sticking to his promise to repeal the massive government takeover of healthcare that is Obamacare, which led to Republicans taking the House majority in 2010, [Cantor] is actually advocating shoring up a portion of the law that does nothing to use free market-based reforms to cut healthcare costs,” Bozell said.

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With Ricin Case Crumbling, FBI Finds a New Target, Former GOP Candidate (+video)

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Photo Credit: Smoking Gun Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was arrested last week for allegedly sending the threatening letters to Obama, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, and a Mississippi county judge. But Curtis has been released from custody amid signs that the case against him has collapsed.

During a court hearing yesterday, lawyers for Curtis contended that he had been framed and pointed investigators toward James Everett Dutschke, a 41-year-old Tupelo man with whom Curtis has feuded. Like Curtis, Dutschke is a martial arts expert, a musician, and a Mensa member.

Dutschke was arrested in January on a child molestation charge in connection with the alleged assault of a seven-year-old girl at the tae kwon do studio he operates. In March, he was named in a three-count felony indictment accusing him of fondling a victim under the age of 16 (each count carries a maximum 15-year prison term). Dutschke, now free on bond, has previously been convicted of indecent exposure…

In 2007, Dutschke was the unsuccessful Republican candidate against Stephen Holland, the incumbent Democratic state representative from the Tupelo area. Holland’s mother Sadie is the judge to whom one of the ricin-tainted letters was sent.

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GOP Benghazi Report: Obama Admin. Lied, Set-Up Military for Failure

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Photo Credit: APHouse Republicans have concluded that the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies bear no blame for failing to halt the terrorist assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last year, releasing a report Tuesday that said President Obama and the State Department set up the military for failure.

The report also found that plenty of intelligence presaged the attack, but the White House and State Department — including the secretary at the time, Hillary Rodham Clinton — failed to heed the warnings.

In the most damning conclusion, House Republicans said Mr. Obama’s team lied about the attacks afterward, first by blaming mob violence spawned by an anti-Muslim video, and then wrongly saying it had misled the public because it was trying to protect an FBI investigation.

“This progress report reveals a fundamental lack of understanding at the highest levels of the State Department as to the dangers presented in Benghazi, Libya, as well as a concerted attempt to insulate the Department of State from blame following the terrorist attacks,” the GOP investigation concluded in its 46-page report.

The White House dismissed the report as a rehash of questions the administration has answered, and said it has provided extraordinary cooperation.

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Mitt Romney Invites Axelrod, Former Chair of DNC, Chris Christie, Others to His Summer Retreat

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Photo Credit: Politico The guest list for Mitt Romney’s June retreat has a few surprising names not traditionally seen together with the former GOP presidential nominee.

The list of high-profile speakers include Democratic political consultant David Axelrod, who was President Barack Obama’s campaign adviser in 2008 and an Obama senior strategist in 2012, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday. During the 2012 campaign, Axelrod was openly critical of Romney, often slamming the Republican for his political stances.

Another staunch Obama supporter, and the former chairman of the Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is also on the list.

New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie is also expected to speak at the retreat. The Republican caught flak from his own party last year when he worked together with the president on Hurricane Sandy relief.

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eCurrency Experiment Gone Bad: Bitcoin Crashes

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Photo Credit: Agence France PresseMany saw it coming, but that didn’t stop the Bitcoin bubble from bursting: after rising to dizzying heights, the digital currency suffered its first true crash this week.

The price of the virtual “geek” currency had soared through the stratosphere in recent weeks, trading for a high of $266 on Wednesday — only to come hurtling back to Earth in just three days.

By Friday, a single Bitcoin was worth just $54, according to the Mt. Gox platform, which manages 80 percent of the Bitcoin transactions and had to briefly shut down trading Thursday.

“There was a LOT of short-term speculation happening” from people who wanted to earn a buck from the soaring prices and cash out before the fall, Bitcoin Foundation chief scientist Gavin Andresen told AFP.

“Wild price swings are not good for Bitcoin.”

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A Bill of Goods: Obama Administration Stages Multimillion-Dollar PR Campaign to Promote Obamacare

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The federal agency charged with implementing the Affordable Care Act announced a multimillion-dollar public relations contract last week in order to convince people to join the program and keep it from collapsing, critics claimed.

Enrollment in Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges is lagging, raising concerns about the viability of the exchanges, which are the law’s primary means of delivering health insurance. The bill’s congressional architects have warned the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may be unable to establish a functional health insurance marketplace.

HHS announced on Friday it would pay public relations firm Weber Shandwick $8 million to promote enrollment in Obamacare’s exchanges.

Ben Domenech, a health care expert with the Heartland Institute, said problems with implementation of the law could “scare off” some health care consumers who are already confused by the government-led overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

“Obamacare’s functional defects are becoming a liability, and the train wreck is getting closer, so the administration wants to get as many people dependent on it as fast as possible when it launches, whether the exchanges and other systems are ready for them or not,” Domenech told the Washington Free Beacon.

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Voter Fraud Trial Underway: Did Obama Ever Qualify for 2008 State Ballot? (+video)

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The trial is underway for a former Democratic official and a Board of Elections worker who are accused of being part of a plot that has raised questions over whether President Obama’s campaign — when he was a candidate in 2008 — submitted enough legitimate signatures to have legally qualified for the presidential primary ballot.

The two face charges of orchestrating an illegal scheme to fake the petitions that enabled then-candidates Obama, and Hillary Clinton, to qualify for the race in Indiana.

Former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic Party Chairman Butch Morgan Jr. faces multiple felony conspiracy counts to commit petition fraud, and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe is charged with nine felony forgery counts and one felony count of falsely making a petition of nomination. The proceedings began Monday in South Bend.

Morgan is accused of being the mastermind behind the plot, by allegedly ordering Democratic officials and workers to fake the names and signatures that Obama and Clinton needed to qualify for the presidential race. Blythe, then a Board of Elections employee and Democratic Party volunteer, has been accused of carrying out those orders by forging signatures on Obama’s petitions.

Two former Board of Elections officials have already pleaded guilty to charges related to the scheme and could testify against Morgan and Blythe.

See Fox report from last year:

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GOP Leaders Again Claim that Constitution Shouldn't Apply to Alleged Bomber

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Photo Credit: isafmediaEven as the surviving 19-year-old Boston Marathon Bombing suspect was formally charged in a Massachusetts hospital room with federal terrorism offenses, some prominent GOP senators still insist that he should have been charged as an enemy combatant.

“I strongly disagree with the Obama Administration’s decision to rule out enemy combatant status for the suspect at this time,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted on Monday.

Graham and Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Rep. Peter King of New York had issued a joint statement on Saturday calling for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be held as an enemy combatant, which would have potentially given investigators more latitude to question him about other plots.

Dzhokhar suffered multiple gunshot wounds before being taken into custody on Friday, including a gunshot wound to the throat, which made it difficult for him to speak.

“It is clear the events we have seen over the past few days in Boston were an attempt to kill American citizens and terrorize a major American city,” according to the joint statement by GOP lawmakers. “The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans.

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Boehner Refuses Majority of GOP Caucus's Call for Select Committee on Benghazi

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday defended his handling of the investigation into last year’s attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi amid pressure from his rank-and-file members to form a select committee.

“The reason I haven’t called for a select committee yet is that I don’t think it’s risen to that level,” Boehner told Fox News on Monday. “I think the five committees that have jurisdiction over this matter are working closely together. They’re getting the job done.”

More than half of Boehner’s conference — 117 members as of Monday — have signed on to a resolution from Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) calling for the creation of a select committee to probe the events prior to the attack and the Obama administration’s response.

Boehner has asked the five committees of jurisdiction to give the conference a progress report on their investigations, The Hill reported last week.

“If, at some point, it’s necessary to have the select committee, I’ll be happy to do it,” he told Fox.

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