Paul Ends Senate Filibuster Of CIA Nominee Over Drone Concerns After Nearly 13 Hours (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreSen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., ended his old-fashioned filibuster to try and hold up the nomination of John Brennan for CIA director after nearly 13 hours early Thursday.

Business in the Senate ground to a halt Wednesday as Paul — aided by colleagues from both parties — launched into the filibuster as he tried to hold up the nomination over concerns about the president’s authority to kill Americans with drones.

Paul’s filibuster was at least two hours longer than most in U.S. history, as most flame out around 10 hours. Paul finished speaking around 12:40 a.m. local time, and his filibuster lasted 12 hours and 52 minutes. “My legs hurt. My feet hurt. Everything hurts right now,” Paul told Fox News shortly after stepping off the Senate floor, saying he believes “we did the best that we could.”

“I would be surprised if we didn’t hear back from the White House,” Paul said. In a show of support, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came to the Senate floor and congratulated Paul for his “tenacity and for his conviction.” McConnell also called Obama’s choice of Brennan a “controversial nominee.”

The late Rep. Strom Thurmond holds the record for the longest filibuster, at more than 24 hours.

Read more from this story HERE.

Author Quotes Then-Professor Obama Saying, ‘I Don’t Believe People Should Be Able To Own Guns’

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: paljoakimIn his new book, At the Brink, economist and author John R. Lott Jr., assesses the presidency of Barack Obama and recalls conversations regarding gun laws they had while working at the University of Chicago.

In Chapter Three, Mr. Lott discusses gun-control and takes the reader back to his time at the University of Chicago, where he and then-professor Barack Obama spoke on numerous occasions about guns in America.

“I don’t believe people should be able to own guns,” Obama told Lott one day at the University of Chicago Law School. Lott explains that he first met Obama shortly after completing his research on concealed handgun laws and crime.

“He did not come across as a moderate who wanted to bring people together,” Lott writes.

After he introduced himself to Obama, Lott suggested that they have lunch one day to discuss their views on guns. According to Lott, Obama “grimaced and turned away.” That was the way many conversations with Obama ended, Lott says.

Read more from this story HERE.

Do You Count As An Extremist ‘Patriot’? A Closer Look At The SPLC Report (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: mrsdkrebsToday’s report by the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) claiming that anti-government, radical “patriot” groups are on the rise has sparked an avalanche of “I Told You So” comments from the left. There’s also been a great deal of consternation among conservatives, especially as regards to the SPLC’s assertion that concern over gun rights is a mark of “patriot” groups, and the persistent terminological position of the SPLC that the groups in question count as “far right.”

To be sure, the group’s report is worded in a bizarre fashion, and includes several passages that could be easily denounced as partisan. This one in particular sticks out:

Even before the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, gun and ammunition sales shot up in the wake of the re-election of the country’s first black president, the result of shrill conspiracy theories about Obama’s secret plans to confiscate Americans’ guns. When the killings actually did spark gun control efforts that clearly had not been in the Obama administration’s plans, the reaction on the political right was so harsh that it seemed to border on hysteria.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) proposed a law that would nullify any executive gun control actions by Obama, accusing the president of having a “king complex.” U.S. Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) said the president could be impeached for those actions. State lawmakers in Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee proposed laws that sought to prevent federal gun control from applying to their states.

Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who sued the Clinton administration over the Brady Bill’s imposition of background checks on gun buyers, claimed that of 200 sheriffs he’d met with, most “have said they would lay down their lives first rather than allow any more federal control.” Matt Barber of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel said he feared that the nation, which he described as already on the brink of civil unrest, was headed for “a second civil war.” “Freedom ends. Tyranny begins,” tweeted Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes. “Get ready,” TeaParty.org said. “Right now government gun grabbing plans are being covertly organized.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Peter Schiff And The Coming Housing Collapse: The Fed, Instead Of Lehman, Owns The Mortgage Market

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Wikipedia With market participants cheering a new all-time high in the Dow Jones, one man is predicting this “misplaced optimism” will lead to a “worse collapse than in 2008.”

Peter Schiff, the eternal provocateur, suggests the Fed’s extraordinary support of bond and housing markets will lead to a market crash as interest rates rise, leaving banks, mortgage originators, and lenders stuck with homes and low yielding loans as the economy slows, exacerbating the decline and throwing the economy into a deeper crisis.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke endured some hostile questioning in Congress last week. At one point, responding to a question about QE by Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, Bernanke was explaining “[quantitative easing] doesn’t involve any new spending or revenue,” when he was cut off by Westmoreland, who said “oh, I got you, just money printing, right?” The Fed Chairman’s demeanor froze for a second, after which he continued “it’s acquiring securities in order to reduce interest rates and ease financial conditions in the economy,” tacitly accepting the “money printing” comment.

Precisely those purchases of assets to further ease monetary policy are cooking a bigger financial crash than in 2008, Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital argues, and that collapse will start with the housing and bond markets.

Paradoxically, the housing market is firing on all cylinders, with homebuilders like KB Home and Lennar trading close to their 52-week highs. This is irrational exuberance, according to Schiff, as the market is fully subsidized by the Fed. “The U.S. government is guaranteeing all mortgages, and then buying them up,” explained Schiff, “it’s an artificial market, but the Fed, rather than Lehman Brothers, owns it.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Cruz Goes After Holder About Constitutionality Of Using Drones To Target Americans On US Soil

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreAttorney General Eric Holder and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, got into a heated discussion during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about the use of drones against American citizens.

Questioning Holder about a letter he sent to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in which the attorney general said it would take an “extraordinary circumstance” to use a drone to kill an American on U.S. soil, Cruz asked if such lethal force would be constitutional.

“If an individual is sitting quietly at a café in the United States, in your legal judgment, does the Constitution allow a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil to be killed by a drone?” Cruz asked Holder.

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.

Hill Hearing On Global Warming Cancelled By D.C. Snowstorm

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APAn unusually chilly March day and the snowstorm it spawned have shut down much of official Washington on Wednesday — including a hearing House Republicans had called to examine global warming.

“Postponed due to weather,” read the notice from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee sent in the morning.

The hearing was scheduled to give House lawmakers a comprehensive briefing on how well scientists understand the climate and humans’ effects on it as a means “to inform decision-making on potential mitigation options.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Arkansas Adopts US’s Most Restrictive Abortion Law

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Photo Credit: Helga WeberArkansas soon will have the nation’s most restrictive abortion law – a near-ban on the procedure from the 12th week of pregnancy onward – unless a lawsuit or court action intervenes.

Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated Legislature defied Gov. Mike Beebe, overriding the Democrat’s veto. The House voted 56-33 on Wednesday to override Beebe’s veto, a day after the Senate voted to do the same.

The votes come less than a week after the Legislature overrode a veto of a separate bill banning most abortions starting in the 20th week of pregnancy. That bill took effect immediately after the final override vote, whereas the 12-week ban won’t take effect until this summer.

Abortion rights proponents already have said they’ll sue to block the 12-week ban from taking effect. Beebe warned lawmakers that both measures would end up wasting taxpayers’ money with the state defending them in court, where, he said, they are likely to fail.

The measures’ supporters, who expected court challenges, were undaunted. “Not the governor, nor anyone else other than the courts, can determine if something is constitutional or unconstitutional,” Rep. Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Hot Springs, said in urging his colleagues to override Beebe.

Read more from this story HERE.

Money On The Table: Government Wastes Billions By Not Listening To IGs, Report Says

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APFederal agencies are forfeiting billions of dollars by failing to implement the recommendations of their inspectors general, according to a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report.

The report, released Tuesday, estimates that executive agencies could have saved more than $67 billion in 2012 by implementing thousands of recommendations from their inspectors general.

The report notes that the number of unimplemented recommendations rose by about 50 percent over the past four years, while the potential savings lost more than doubled. Almost 11,000 recommendations, at a potential savings of almost $30 billion, were left on the table in 2009; in 2012, close to 17,000 recommendations were neglected at a potential loss of more than $67 billion.

The report comes as mandatory, across-the-board budget cuts totaling $85 billion for the fiscal year are beginning to take effect. The Oversight Committee keyed the release of the report to a Tuesday morning hearing on the implementation of recommendations by the Transportation and Education Departments’ inspectors general.

“With my partners on both sides of the dais, today we’re starting a much greater dialogue with our IGs, a much greater dialogue with the changes that need to be made if in fact government, outside of this body in the executive branch, can do better, do quicker, to save the taxpayers money,” Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said in his opening statement.

Read more from this story HERE.

Court Stuns Educators With Approval Of Vouchers

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WNDIn a landmark victory for school choice, the Colorado Court of Appeals surprised educators in the state by affirming the constitutionality of a Douglas County voucher program that allocates money for students who attend “private school partners” rather than government-run schools.

The voucher program came under attack when the organization Taxpayers for Public Education sued the Douglas County School District. The suit challenged the constitutionality of state funding for a program that gave money to parents for their children’s attendance at private religious schools.

In defense of school choice, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys and Colorado Springs attorney Stuart Lark filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Association of Christian Schools International, the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs, Shepherd of the Hills Christian School, Southeast Christian School and Valor Christian High School.

“School districts should favor educational choices for parents and their children,” Lark said.

The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that the Choice Scholarship Program was “neutral toward religion.” The court decision also noted that the funds “make their way to private schools with religious affiliation by means of personal choices of students’ parents.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: The Tea Party Lives

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: FacebookA plurality of Americans support “Tea Party principles,” according to a poll released today.

The poll, commissioned by TheTeaParty.net and conducted by NSON, Inc., found that 48 percent of Americans support the principles of “limited government,” “free markets,” and “personal responsibility.”

The poll also found that 21 percent of Americans support “progressive, liberal principles” of “big government,” “higher taxes,” and “more spending.” The poll explicitly tied the conservative principles to the Tea Party, said Niger Innis, chief strategist for TheTeaParty.net.

According to the poll, nearly half of people in the Midwest, South, and West expressed support for Tea Party principles, while just over 40 percent of people in the northeast—the country’s “liberal stronghold,” said Innis—expressed support.

“The mainstream media wrote our obituary after the November elections. Unfortunately for them, the tea party isn’t going anywhere,” Todd Cefaratti, founder of TheTeaParty.net, said in a statement.

Read more from this story HERE.