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Polls Showing Public Support for Gun Control Skewed, Inaccurate

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Photo Credit: Washington TimesGun owners often scratch their heads over national polls on gun control issues because the responses are so radically different from their own views and those of their friends and family.

On Wednesday, Pew Research and the Washington Post released a poll showing that more Americans have more negative than positive feelings about the Senate’s inability to pass gun-control measures. The survey showed that 47 percent were either “angry” or “disappointed” while 39 percent were “ very happy” or “relieved.”

However, the methodology skews to show more support that actually exists. Pew/Washington Post polled 1,002 adults, but the best public opinion polls ask registered voters because they are the one who will affect the outcome of election. According to a recent Fox News poll, only 26 percent of registered voters support stricter gun control laws. Registered voters are also more likely to closely follow politics. The poll showed that just 39 percent of respondents followed the Senate debate “very closely.”

The question posed by phone gave no context for those unfamiliar with the details of gun policy: “As you may know, the U.S. Senate voted DOWN new gun control legislation, including background checks on gun purchases. Which word best describes how you feel about the fact that this gun legislation did not pass?”

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Senate Republicans Willfully And Knowingly Lie To Their Constituents

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Photo Credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Last night, having noted the list of Republicans in the Senate who voted to fund Obamacare in yesterday’s Morning Briefing, I went through a series of emails from readers.

Readers from Texas, Kentucky, Utah, South Dakota, and Georgia all had the same story. They’d called the offices of Senators Chambliss, Cornyn, Hatch, Thune, McConnell, and Isakson to object to those senators funding Obamacare. They were all told by these Senate offices that these Senators had voted to defund Obamacare or, in the case of Senator Cornyn’s office, that there had been no vote on defunding Obamacare.

These Senators and their staffs are lying. They voted to fund Obamacare. More troubling, they know they did it.

Yesterday, on the floor of the Senate, Mitch McConnell again said, “Obamacare is a colossal mistake for our country. . . . We need to start all over. This bill needs to be repealed and it needs to be replaced. . . . And anyone who thinks we’ve given up this fight is dead wrong.”

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Senate Gun Bill Would Expand Background Checks

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Gun control legislation the Senate debates next month will include an expansion of federal background checks for firearms buyers, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday in a victory for advocates of gun restrictions.

The announcement underscores that Democrats intend to take an aggressive approach in the effort to broaden the checks, currently required for transactions involving federally licensed firearms dealers but not private sales at gun shows or online.

President Barack Obama and many supporters of curbing guns consider an expansion of the system to private gun sales to be the most effective response lawmakers could take in the wake of December’s elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn. The system is designed to keep guns from criminals, people with serious mental problems and others considered potentially dangerous.

The overall gun measure will also include legislation boosting penalties for illegal gun trafficking and modestly expanding a grant program for school security, said Reid, D-Nev. Its fate remains uncertain, and it will all but certainly need Republican support to survive.

Reid said that during Congress’ upcoming two-week break, he hopes senators will strike a bipartisan compromise on broadening background checks. Without a deal, he indicated the gun bill would include a stricter version approved this month by the Senate Judiciary Committee and authored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., expanding the system to virtually all private gun transactions with few exceptions.

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Democrats Step Back From Ashley Judd For Senate Drive

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Photo Credit: AP

Hollywood actress-turned-Senate-hopeful Ashley Judd may have a harder time winning the hearts and minds of Democrats to support her campaign against Sen. Mitch McConnell after all.

Democratic Party leaders are stepping back and taking a clear look at the candidate, and some say she may not be best to run against the five-term Kentucky senator in 2014, Newsmax reports.

“She’s going to have a tough road to hoe,” said Jim Cauley, campaign manager for Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear in 2007, in a ThisWeek.com report. “She doesn’t fit the damn state,” which is a conservative stronghold. Fully 60 percent of Kentuckians voted for Mitt Romney in 2012.

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Bid To Defund Obamacare Gains Momentum In Senate GOP

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

This week it appeared Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee would wage a lonely war over their threat to hold up a continuing resolution to fund the U.S. government if they are not given a vote on a budget amendment to defund Obamacare. Now, it’s not quite so lonely. Sens. Marco Rubio and James Inhofe have joined Cruz and Lee, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday that he “looks forward to supporting” the amendment.

It’s a significant step forward for Cruz and Lee. But the Senate Republican caucus remains deeply divided about defunding Obamacare. Sources say that at a Republican caucus lunch a few days ago, several GOP senators expressed opposition to Cruz and Lee’s proposal. And of course, the 55-member Democratic majority will not give it the time of day. But Cruz and Lee are determined to keep up opposition to Obamacare, even though it has flagged in some other quarters of the Republican Party.

And in Rubio, the two have an ally sure to bring a higher profile to the cause. The continuing resolution fight is “a perfect opportunity for us to have a debate once again on Obamacare,” Rubio told radio host Hugh Hewitt Friday. “I don’t think there’s been enough attention paid to it. It’s been awhile, we’ve moved onto these other issues, but there is, right now out there, probably nothing more damaging to our economy in the short term than this implementation of Obamacare.”

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Republicans: Postal Service Has Green Light To End Saturday Mail Delivery

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Photo Credit: MoneyBlogNewz

The GOP’s interpretation of language in a bill funding the government could set up a showdown with Senate Democrats. House Republican leaders believe the Postal Service has a green light to implement its reduction in Saturday service, even though a House-passed spending bill contains a provision requiring six-day delivery.

The interpretation by the House GOP could set up a showdown with Senate Democratic leaders, who have argued that the legislative language prohibits the cash-strapped agency from limiting letter delivery to five days a week.

The Postal Service (USPS), which lost nearly $16 billion in 2012, announced in February that it would end Saturday delivery of first-class mail starting in August, a move that it says would save $2 billion annually. Package delivery on Saturdays would continue.

Postal officials have for years pushed to limit Saturday delivery, but had previously insisted they would need congressional approval to do so.

But last month, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the agency would move forward with its modified six-day plan and urged Congress not to try to tie the agency’s hands via legislative directive. In crafting the latest stopgap spending measure, House appropriators kept in place a 30-year-old provision that states, “6-day delivery and rural delivery of mail shall continue, at not less than the 1983 level.”

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US Senate Confirms John Brennan As New CIA Director

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThe U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed John Brennan as the Obama administration’s next Central Intelligence Agency director, overcoming concerns expressed by Republicans and some Democrats about the administration’s use of lethal drone strikes.

After the administration clarified its drone policy, Republican Senators allowed the Senate to vote on Brennan’s confirmation, which he won by a vote of 63-34.

Republican Senator Rand Paul spoke for nearly 13 hours on the Senate floor on Wednesday in an attempt to get the administration to declare that “targeted killings” of American citizens on U.S. soil were unconstitutional.

Hours before the final vote, Attorney General Eric Holder sent a brief letter to Paul, saying President Barack Obama does not have the authority to order a drone to kill an American on U.S. soil who was “not engaged in combat.”

Paul, who said his delaying tactic was not a protest against Brennan’s qualifications to lead the CIA, called it a major victory for American civil liberties. He nonetheless voted against Brennan.

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Ex-DEA Chiefs, Czars Urge Action Against States Legalizing Pot

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Photo Credit: Ed AndrieskiThe Obama administration is facing rising national and international pressure to nullify efforts in Colorado and Washington state to implement new laws legalizing recreational marijuana use.

Nine former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs and four former drug czars are asking the Senate Judiciary Committee this week to “encourage Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to adhere to long-standing federal law and policy in this regard” at its Wednesday oversight hearing.

“Our nation urgently needs action from Attorney General Holder to ensure that federal marijuana laws are enforced, federal preemption is asserted, and our obligations under international drug treaties are honored,” said the officials in a letter dated Monday on stationery from S.O.S.: Save Our Society from Drugs.

The letter comes as a United Nations agency, the International Narcotics Control Board, called on U.S. officials in its annual report released Monday to “ensure full compliance with the international drug control treaties on its entire territory.”

Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, issued a statement Tuesday blasting the former anti-drug chiefs for “taking action to maintain the policies that kept them and their colleagues in business for so long.”

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Abdication: Senate GOP Ponders Shifting Power To Obama

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Photo Credit: John Shinkle Days before the March 1 deadline, Senate Republicans are circulating a draft bill that would cancel $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts and instead turn over authority to President Barack Obama to achieve the same level of savings under a plan to be filed by March 8.

Congress would retain the power to overturn the president’s spending plan by March 22, but only under a resolution of disapproval that would demand two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate to prevail over an Obama veto.

The proposal would require — like the sequester — that no more than $42.6 billion of the cuts come at the expense of defense programs. But the elaborate, almost Rube Goldberg construct is already provoking sharp criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike and reflects a political scramble to escape the fallout from the sequester.

Indeed, a rival Republican proposal to instead come up with alternative cuts and not cede power to the president was already circulating Tuesday night, a 31 page draft bill crafted by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.)

The sweep of the first GOP option, which has leadership support, is striking. If Congress were to follow this course, significant power would be shifted to the president, an unusual maneuver that even Obama himself and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have scoffed at. But the plan is being advanced by some conservative Republicans who don’t want the White House to continue using the sequester as a public relations hammer.

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Obama Overstepped Constitutional Authority, Federal Court Rules

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Photo Credit: BreitbartPresident Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by making appointments when the Senate was on a break last year, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court’s broad ruling would sharply limit the power that presidents throughout history have used to make recess appointments in the face of Senate opposition and inaction.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit flatly rejected the Obama administration’s rationale for appointing three members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) while the Senate was on a holiday break.

Chief Judge David B. Sentelle sharply criticized the administration’s interpretation of when recess appointments may be made, saying it would give the president “free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction.” He added, “This cannot be the law.”

The Post notes that, due to a number of other similar lawsuits winding their way through the courts, this case is likely to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. But for now, the court has ruled that the appointments are illicit. You can review the full decision here.

The ruling is an extraordinary slap down of President Obama’s power grab. Next time you hear a liberal tell you that President Obama is a moderate or “pragmatic,” recall the appellate panel’s analysis of Obama’s legal justification for appointing these czars without the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate – Obama’s legal arguments “would demolish the checks and balances inherent in the advice-and-consent requirement.”

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