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Obama Bypasses Congress, Attempts to Force Companies to Reveal Political Donations to SEC

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The Obama administration is attempting to bypass Congress and force publicly-traded companies to reveal their political donations through regulation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporate Finance has begun the steps necessary to create a regulation that would in many ways mirror the DISCLOSE Act — a bill Senate Democrats have failed to pass through Congress.

Created in reaction to the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that said corporations and unions could not have limits placed on their political expenditures, the Senate bill would require political organizations to publicly name their donors and the amounts they give.

The SEC regulation would do the reverse — force companies to disclose the political groups they support — and have a similar effect.

“The Division [of Corporate Finance] is considering whether to recommend that the Commission issue a proposed rule to require that public companies provide disclosure to shareholders regarding the use of corporate resources for political activities,” reads the proposal, as reported to the president’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

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Video: NRA Calls Obama An Elitist Hypocrite, Says ‘America Speaks for Itself’

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By The Telegraph. The US gun lobby lashed out at President Barack Obama on Tuesday as an “elitist hypocrite” for providing Secret Service protection to his daughters but balking at having armed guards in all schools.

In a 35-second video released on its website, the National Rifle Association slammed the duplicity of “protection for their kids, and gun-free zones for ours,” amid a heated, nationwide gun control debate in the wake of a deadly school shooting.

The advert was released just a day before President Obama unveiled new measures aimed at increasing gun control across the US.

The president called for a ban on the sale of “military-style assault weapons” such as the rifle used at Sandy Hook elementary on December 14, noting that former President Ronald Reagan, the hero of today’s Republican Party, urged Washington to prohibit their manufacture in 1994.

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Rush Limbaugh: Obama ‘Wants People to Snap’

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PALM BEACH, Fla. – President Obama’s newly announced gun-control initiatives are intended as “revenge” against many Americans, as he’s pushing them “to snap,” claims top-rated radio host Rush Limbaugh.

“I think he wants people to snap. I think Obama is challenging everybody’s sanity,” Limbaugh said on his show Wednesday afternoon. “Obama [is] literally pushing people to snap, attacking the very sanity of the country.”

Obama announced a sweeping set of directives he intends will cut down on Americans’ access to guns, setting the stage for a constitutional battle with states where lawmakers already are openly defying the latest power grab by the White House.

His plan would demand federal access to the details every time an uncle sells a .22 to a nephew, would ban some weapons outright through a limit on ammunition capacity, would waive medical privacy laws in some cases so individuals can be reported, and others.

Coming on the heels of a recent birth-control mandate, Limbaugh noted, “All of this is so in our face. Everything that people hold dear is under assault. Deliberately making people upset. This is not what presidents do.”

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Are We on the Verge of a Currency War?

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Despite global finance ministers promising in 2010 that they wouldn’t engage in “competitive devaluation,” it looks like the world is on the brink of a major currency war, or so says Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, according to Bloomberg.

“Japan is weakening the yen and other countries may follow,” Ulyukayev warned today at a conference in Moscow, adding later that the world is headed for a “currency war.”

Unfortunately, Ulyukayev isn’t the only one with currency concerns. Others have weighed in on the issue :
•Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker recently noted the “dangerously high” value of the euro.
•Norway and Sweden have expressed concern over currencies exchange-rates.
•The Bank of Korea has threatened “an active response” to current rates.
•Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said he’s “a little disturbed” by Japan’s actions and the risk of so-called “beggar-thy-neighbor” policies.
•Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said last week that he is worried “we’ll see the growth of actively managed exchange rates.”

In short, there’s a “degree of disquiet in the global policy-making community,” as Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens puts it, and some think it could evolve into something far more dangerous for the world economy.

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Congressman: Obamacare, WH Gun Control ‘Intertwining’

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Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) expressed concerns about the “intertwining” of President Barack Obama’s gun control push and his 2009 healthcare overhaul legislation Obamacare in a Wednesday evening statement.

Huelskamp worries that the administration will coordinate controversial parts of Obamacare that may invade patient privacy with the president’s new strident gun control efforts.

“The intertwining of ObamaCare and President Obama’s new anti-gun agenda raises serious concerns,” Huelskamp said. “With earlier and on-going efforts by the Obama Administration to invade personal liberties by collecting sensitive patient data, we should now be concerned that the Administration wants to reassure providers that they can ask – and record information – about patients’ gun ownership and storage of firearms.

“It seems that there is no end to the Administration’s efforts to conduct citizen surveillance in the exam room,” the Congressman warned.

One part of the president’s 23-point gun control proposal advocates that the government act to “preserve the rights of health care providers to protect their patients and communities from gun violence.”

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Anonymous Likens Obama Gun Control Policy to Hitler (+video)

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Hacktivist group Anonymous has now spoken out against President Barack Obama’s intentions to enact wider gun control in the U.S.

In a 15-minute YouTube video, which first appeared on the social network two weeks ago, Anonymous criticized the Obama administration’s leveraging of violent gun crime to achieve its goal to control guns.

“Throughout history, authoritarian governments have used gun violence as an excuse to take people’s firearms and control their population,” said Anonymous.

“This is exactly what Adolf Hitler did to disarm the German people and look at the atrocities his administration did. Obama has been working hard to try and ban all semi-automatic weapons and shot guns while at the same time increasing the weapons and firepower that police and government agencies have.”

The video, which continued on to list various violent crimes and criticize the lack of media attention drawn to those instances, has since been replicated and posted on a number of other user accounts in recent days in anticipation over Obama’s executive actions for greater gun control.

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Governor Rick Perry: ‘Disgusted’ By President’s Use of Child Massacre ‘To Advance a Pre-Existing Political Agenda’

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Gov. Rick Perry released the following statement regarding President Obama’s executive actions:

“The Vice President’s committee was appointed in response to the tragedy at Newtown, but very few of his recommendations have anything to do with what happened there.

“Guns require a finger to pull the trigger. The sad young man who did that in Newtown was clearly haunted by demons and no gun law could have saved the children in Sandy Hook Elementary from his terror.

“There is evil prowling in the world – it shows up in our movies, video games and online fascinations, and finds its way into vulnerable hearts and minds. As a free people, let us choose what kind of people we will be. Laws, the only redoubt of secularism, will not suffice. Let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help. Above all, let us pray for our children.

“In fact, the piling on by the political left, and their cohorts in the media, to use the massacre of little children to advance a pre-existing political agenda that would not have saved those children, disgusts me, personally. The second amendment to the Constitution is a basic right of free people and cannot be nor will it be abridged by the executive power of this or any other president.”

Visit the Governor’s website HERE.

Islamic Terrorists With Believed Al Qaeda Links Take U.S. Hostages in Algeria (+video)

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Militants with possible links to al Qaeda seized about 40 foreign hostages, including several Americans, at a natural-gas field in Algeria, posing a new level of threat to nations trying to blunt the growing influence of Islamist extremists in Africa.

As security officials in the U.S. and Europe assessed options to reach the captives from distant bases, Algerian security forces failed in an attempt late Wednesday to storm the facility.

A French effort to drive Islamist militants from neighboring Mali that began with airstrikes last week expanded on Wednesday with the first sustained fighting on the ground. France’s top target, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, claimed responsibility for the Algeria kidnappings, calling it retaliation. The claim couldn’t be verified, although AQIM has its origins in Algeria and operates across a swath of Africa.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. would take “necessary and proper steps” in the hostage situation, and didn’t rule out military action. He said the Algeria attack could represent a spillover from Mali.

U.S. and European officials said Wednesday that they received reports that three Americans had been kidnapped, out of a total of nine U.S. staff working at the site, a gas field in east-central Algeria, along the Libyan border operated by BP BP.LN -0.41%PLC, Norway’s Statoil ASA STL.OS -0.56%and Algerian energy company Sonatrach.

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Obama Unveils $500 Million Gun Control Package

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Braced for a fight, President Barack Obama on Wednesday unveiled the most sweeping proposals for curbing gun violence in two decades, pressing a reluctant Congress to pass universal background checks and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

A month after that horrific massacre, Obama also used his presidential powers to enact 23 measures that don’t require the backing of lawmakers. The president’s executive actions include ordering federal agencies to make more data available for background checks, appointing a director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and directing the Centers for Disease Control to research gun violence.

But the president, speaking at White House ceremony, focused his attention on the divided Congress, saying only lawmakers could enact the most effective measures for preventing more mass shootings.

“To make a real and lasting difference, Congress must act,” Obama said. “And Congress must act soon.”

The president vowed to use “whatever weight this office holds” to press lawmakers into action on his $500 million plan. He is also calling for improvements in school safety, including putting 1,000 police officers in schools and bolstering mental health care by training more health professionals to deal with young people who may be at risk.

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Prop-a-palooza: The Use and Abuse of Kiddie Human Shields

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photo credit: usembassynewdelhi

The president of the United States will release a binder full of new gun-control executive orders on Wednesday. Instead of standing alone, bearing full responsibility for the imperial actions he is about to take, President Obama will surround himself with an audience of kids who wrote to him after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre. This is the most cynical in Beltway theatrical staging — a feckless attempt to invoke “For the Children” immunity by hiding behind them.

What has happened to the deliberative process in this country? Public debate in Washington has deteriorated into Sesame Street sing-a-longs. We are already inundated with logical fallacies: argumentum ad populum (it’s popular, therefore it’s true); argumentum ad nauseam (if you repeat it often enough, it’ll become truth); argumentum ad hominem (sabotage the person, sabotage the truth); and argumentum ad verecundiam (if my favorite authority says it’s true, it’s true).

To that list we can now add “argumentum ad filium”: If politicians appeal to the children, it’s unassailably good and true. The Obama White House has shamelessly employed this kiddie human shield strategy at every turn to blunt substantive criticism and dissent.

During the legislative battle that rammed the federal health care takeover through Capitol Hill and down our throats, President Obama and the Democrats piled up youth props around them like bunker sandbags. Nancy Pelosi wore babies like Wonder Woman bracelets, one on each arm, to deflect troublesome questions about costs and constitutional concerns.

Obamacare stage managers paraded 11-year-old Marcelas Owens of Washington state in front of the cameras to make the case for the half-trillion-dollar tax hike plan. The boy’s “qualifications”? Owens’ mother, Tiffany, had died of pulmonary hypertension at the age of 27. A single mother of three, she lost her job as a fast-food manager and lost her insurance. She received emergency care and treatment throughout her illness, but died in 2007.

Read more from this story HERE.