Despite criticism from left and right, MSNBC's silence is deafening about doctored 'heckling' video

Here is an article from FoxNews.com discussing a doctored video by MSNBC.  The video was made to look like Neil Heslin, the father of a six-year-old boy who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, was being heckled by pro-gun lobbyists:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/31/despite-criticism-from-left-and-right-msnbc-silence-is-deafening-about-doctored/

A video doctored by MSNBC featuring the grieving father of one of the children who died in the Sandy Hook tragedy from has set the Internet aflame this week. The video, which first aired on the Monday, January 28 broadcast of the liberal network's "Martin Bashir"show is only the latest video controversy to include NBC and its crazy liberal stepchild MSNBC.
We're now three days -- and counting -- into the scandal and MSNBC still hasn't come clean and admitted what it did.
The video showed Newtown, Conn. father Neil Heslin's testimony about guns speaking at a legislative hearing. Bashir then claimed Heslin was heckled by a gun supporter at the hearing. "A father's grief, interrupted by the cries of a heckler," Bashir declared.
Bashir's declaration was at best wrong and at worst outright misrepresentation by the network. The video cut out the part of Heslin's testimony where he posed a question to the crowd. Hearing no response, Heslin then appeared to act like no one was able to challenge his argument, which is why some present did so.
This latest controversy has made MSNBC the target of criticism from AP, The Washington Post and even some commentators like David Frum. After Tweeting about the alleged heckling incident, CNN's Anderson Cooper then deleted his Tweet and clarified the situation, much to his credit.
The Washington Post's media blogger Erik Wemple provided a nice transcript of the original exchange as it occurred at the hearing:

"Heslin: I don't know how many people have young children or children. But just try putting yourself in the place that I'm in or these other parents that are here. Having a child that you lost. It's not a good feeling; not a good feeling to look at your child laying in a casket or looking at your child with a bullet wound to the forehead. I ask if there's anybody in this room that can give me one reason or challenge this question: Why anybody in this room needs to have an, one of these assault-style weapons or military weapons or high-capacity clips.....Not one person can answer that question."

Crowd/Alleged Hecklers: "Second Amendment shall not be infringed"

Public official: "Please no comments while Mr. Heslin is speaking. Or we'll clear the room. Mr. Heslin, please continue."

It's only human to feel for Heslin. No one should ever experience the murder of their child. But at the same time, he posed a question and the response clearly was not heckling. To chop up video of Heslin's testimony -- to make it look bad -- was a horrible act by MSNBC. This excellent video (Yes, a co-worker of mine at the Media Research Center put it together. So sue me.) shows exactly how the doctoring took place.
Wemple quoted an "MSNBC source" saying: "We're reviewing the video in question." He added his own critique. "Smart move, considering that Heslin wasn't, in fact, heckled. Audience members merely answered a challenge that Heslin posed from the microphone."
According to the AP's David Bauder, "Bashir was out sick on Wednesday," but fill-in Ari Melber gave a lame defense while playing the full video. "Martin and others have called that interruption heckling," Melber reportedly said. "Some disagree. He wanted you to hear that in full so you can draw your own conclusions." It's unclear if MSNBC is still reviewing the video or is just trying to sweep the controversy under the rug.
MSNBC and parent NBC have had two other high-profile editing scandals in recent memory. In one the networked modified what the crowd was chanting at a Romney/Ryan event and then that was used to mock Romney. The network is also being sued for its editing of the 911 call by George Zimmerman, as part of the Trayvon Martin case. The edits there depicted Zimmerman as racist simply because he responded to a question from the dispatcher.

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NRA chief: Why we fight for gun rights

Here is an article written by David Keene, the president of the NRA, from CNN.com stating that gun owners are motivated to rally for the Second Amendment rights and that the Obama administration "attempted to demonize" the NRA:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/31/opinion/keene-nra-guns/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

(CNN) -- After President Lyndon Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968, many anti-gun politicians looked forward to the day when they could completely ban the sale and ownership of firearms and perhaps even confiscate those already in private hands.

That didn't happen. Those hostile to firearms ownership and the Second Amendment thought they were on the verge of victory, but had in fact managed to wake up millions of Americans who hadn't previously believed that government would ever threaten their guns or their way of life. They were joined by others who were not necessarily gun owners but believed the Second Amendment and the rights it guaranteed a free people worth preserving.

The NRA was founded in 1871, but until the passage of the 1968 legislation had never been much involved in politics and didn't even have a lobbying office. That changed as the men and women the organization represented demanded that the NRA step up to defend their rights in the frenzy of the late 1960s.

Within a few years, many of those who had so fervently believed that the public would welcome their sponsorship of "gun control" were defeated and before long Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined forces to pass the "Firearms Owners Protection Act" of 1986 that rolled back many of the restrictions adopted in 1968.

Since that time, the NRA has continued to devote more than 85% of its resources to its traditional mission of providing civilian firearms training, teaching firearms safety and working to introduce new generations of Americans to the shooting sports, but has taken on the added role of protector of the right of law-abiding Americans to own and enjoy firearms.

That role has become especially important as some, unfortunately, have sought to exploit December's incomprehensible murders in Newtown, Connecticut, to impose further restrictions on honest people.

The organization's political strength rests on the bipartisan and diverse make-up of its membership and of the millions of nonmember firearms owners who look to the NRA for leadership and their willingness to step up to the plate and the ballot box when their rights are threatened.

It is that second attribute of Second Amendment supporters that has surprised the president and his allies. The Obama administration has attempted to demonize the NRA and cow gun owners into accepting restrictions that they know won't make anyone safer but which will interfere with a citizen's ability to acquire, keep and rely on firearms to protect their families or participate in the shooting sports.

Among those proposals are "universal" background checks that will never be "universal" because criminals won't submit to them, and magazine bans that will put the law-abiding at a disadvantage against multiple attackers. The president also backs a new ban on "assault weapons," even though Christopher Koper, the researcher who studied the last ban for the Justice Department concluded that it caused "no discernible reduction in the lethality or injuriousness of gun violence" and did not contribute to the general drop in crime in the 1990s.

But gun owners have been energized rather than cowed. They are presenting a truly united front as they rally to fight for their constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Anyone who doubts this need only look at what happened in the literally bankrupt city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, last week. The organizers of the largest outdoor show in the country, the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show, announced that they would not allow the display or presence of the firearms the president likes to demonize as assault weapons. Within days, more than 300 vendors withdrew in protest as the NRA and others urged Second Amendment supporters to boycott the event.

Soon after, show organizers announced it was being postponed indefinitely. This was the largest outdoor show in the country. It draws a huge crowd every year and according to local estimates, about $80 million won't be arriving in the pockets and coffers of the pro-Bloomberg, anti-gun mayor of Harrisburg now.

As the battle over restricting Second Amendment rights continues, other elected officials under pressure from the Obama administration to ignore the feelings and deep beliefs of some of their constituents will learn a similar lesson.

Hundreds of self-proclaimed gun advocates didn't believe Obama was anti-gun based on his first term and wrote the NRA saying we were using scare tactics to have our way: Now they know.

Second Amendment supporters are in no mood to give those who would deny them their rights a pass and will vote in the next election in the same united way they responded to the insult leveled at them by the organizers of the Harrisburg show.

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MILLER: The gun-show loophole myth FBI checks have to be fixed; new laws not needed on private gun sales

Here is an article from Emily Miller of The Washington Times suggesting that the way to keep guns away from the wrong people is to strengthen the current background-checking system:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/30/the-gun-show-loophole-myth/

For the first time in 14 years, the CEO of the National Rifle Association (NRA), will testify on Capitol Hill. Wayne LaPierre’s appearance Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee underscores how seriously the nation’s largest gun-owners organization takes the latest assault on the Second Amendment.
Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, invited former Rep. Gabrielle Gifford’s husband, Mark Kelly, among others, to testify for the other side. In his prepared remarks, Mr. LaPierre will say, “When it comes to the issue of background checks, let’s be honest: Background checks will never be ‘universal’ because criminals will never submit to them.”
Currently, a gun owner who goes to a retail shop to purchase a gun from a licensed dealer is subject to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The system, run by the FBI reviews criminal history, mental health and restraining-order records to weed out those who are legally barred from gun ownership.
The gun grabbers’ real goal has always been universal registration, and tracking every gun owner in the country would be a big step in that direction.
“The law already requires licensed gun dealers to run background checks, and over the last 14 years that’s kept 1.5 million of the wrong people from getting their hands on a gun,” said Mr. Obama, when he announced his gun-violence task force results on Jan. 16. “But it’s hard to enforce that law when as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases are conducted without a background check.”
The 40 percent figure that Mr. Obama and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, cite so frequently comes from a 1997 Justice Department survey. A closer look at that 40 percent number reveals it includes 29 percent of gun owners who said they got their guns from family members or friends and acquaintances.
That leaves 11 percent of firearms obtained through unfamiliar people. Of these, 3 percent reported they got their firearms “through the mail,” a process that requires a background check from a federally licensed firearms dealer. Four percent said “other,” and 4 percent made their purchase at a gun show.
The “gun-show loophole” is an exaggeration designed to foster the false impression that this is how the bad guys acquire firearms. A 2001 Justice Department survey found 0.7 percent of state and federal prison inmates bought their weapons at a gun show.
Gun shows aren’t the equivalent of the Wild West. The vast majority of vendors at the shows are fully licensed dealers who must run the FBI check at the time of sale. What the gun grabbers are really after are transactions between private individuals trading or selling their personal property.
The White House publicity blitz is having an effect on public opinion, as a recent poll put support around 90 percent for criminal-background checks for all gun sales. Washington politicians are determined to do “something” about the Newtown, Conn., shooting, but it makes no sense to put so much effort into an area where criminals aren’t buying their guns.
More good would be done by strengthening the current background-check system by ensuring states submit felony convictions and mental health records. That’s the most effective way to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

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Gun makers, help keep weapons out of criminals' hands

Here is an article from CNN.com suggesting that manufacturers are also responsible for violent crimes committed and need to monitor distribution of guns:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/opinion/bradford-gun-marketing/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

(CNN) -- Each year, about 30,000 people are killed and 300,000 violent crimes are committed with firearms. In economic terms, firearm violence -- for things such as medical care, police, criminal justice, lost productivity, pain and suffering -- costs $100 billion a year, according to studies by Johns Hopkins University and the Public Services Research Institute.

This reality tears at the social fabric of the United States, and Americans pay the social and psychological consequences. But the gun debate will continue to be a one-sided fight until the American public chooses to take action.

Most of the debate revolves around what government should do. But we can also look at the issue as a marketing problem. American consumers are the central part of a vast aggregate marketing system, and the central issue as it pertains to guns is power.

The gun lobby has wielded its power effectively, but the potentially powerful American consumer market has not. The gun lobby influences how guns are marketed and under which laws. The only difference between the gun lobby and concerned Americans is that the gun lobby -- and thus the politicians supporting the gun lobby -- pays attention to details.

It has made its primary goal to vehemently block any change to gun laws for fear that passage of even one law could lead to the eradication of firearms for all.

But that is not the issue here. Many concerned citizens are not advocating the abolition of firearms for responsible gun owners.

The problem is that there are too few and very limited laws to force manufacturers to safeguard their distribution channels, and manufacturers are not putting these safeguards into place.

Our research found that about 45% to 60% of the guns traced to crime came from about 1% of the nation's gun dealers and that implementation of safeguards is associated with a smaller number of guns being diverted to crime or used in crime. Interestingly, many of the common sense distribution laws that would force a safer distribution of firearms are in place for other industries that sell products that can cause harm.

Firearms product diversion involves the seepage of guns from legal channels of distribution into illegal hands.

To prevent this from occurring, firearms manufacturers have the opportunity to implement distribution safeguards, common across many of the industries that manufacture products that can cause harm (such as explosives, fireworks, and pharmaceuticals).

Such safeguards include manufacturers training their dealers and distributors to identify and handle illegal purchasers at the point of sale, developing a code of conduct for distributors, and requiring them to implement record keeping measures in order to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

The notion of safeguarding is important because a recent study found that 1 in 9 (11%) of handguns distributed into legal channels in 1996 were found to have been used in crime by 2000. It was also found that one manufacturer had 55% of its guns end up in crime during this time period (the range was 2% to 55% for all manufacturers studied).

This study also found that the number of safeguards used across the studied firms (which accounted for over 90% of the U.S. gun sales) was very low, averaging less than one safeguard (.77) per firm. Only a slight majority employed any recommended safeguards during that time.

One reason the public has not been paying attention is that they think the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can address enforcement for us. But at this point, the bureau needs our help -- it does not have the resources to combat this problem, because gun lobbies and the politicians who support them have tied its hands. So, Americans must act.

The National Rifle Association grades political candidates on their voting history, giving high marks to those who vote for its policies. These ratings influence how guns are distributed in the United States.

In response, concerned citizens should do the same thing.

We should grade firearms manufacturers on how well they address distribution and the diversion of their guns to criminals. Americans should look at these grades and buy firearms accordingly.

The group Mayors Against Illegal Guns suggests that if manufacturers don't comply with set goals of safety, the nation's mayors and municipalities will not do business with them. Concerned Americans should follow suit.

 

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Jindal, courage is not enough

Here is an article from CNN.com stating that even though Jindal's speech at the Republican National Committee retreat in Charlotte showed courage, the speech only identified the problems with the Republican Party not ways to fix the party:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/25/opinion/avlon-bobby-jindal/index.html

(CNN) -- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal rode into the Republican National Committee retreat in Charlotte, North Carolina, ready to offer a dose of tough medicine for the Republican Party, which he now says "must stop being the stupid party."

"The Republican Party does not need to change our principles," he said in a keynote speech, "but we might need to change just about everything else we do."

Ouch.

There's a problem with Jindal's prescription, however, rooted in an idea that Forrest Gump once articulated -- "stupid is as stupid does."

As the GOP enters a period of reassessment, it knows it desperately needs to reach out beyond its older white male conservative populist base. Jindal is an appealing symbol of that needed change -- a young Southern governor who is also an Indian American and former Rhodes scholar.

The GOP's problem in reaching out beyond its conservative base is not simply a matter of communication and tone. The problem is in the party's policies.

But because Jindal needs to keep the conservative base in his corner to mount a widely expected 2016 presidential campaign, he is restrained from really dealing with the root of the problem.

Instead, his well-written speech -- presented as a refutation of President Barack Obama's second inaugural address -- was incomplete and dominated by many of the straw-man arguments he decried.

Defensively, Jindal assured his audience that his federalist vision of modernizing the Republican Party did not mean "moderating" its policies in any way.

"I am not one of those who believe we should moderate, equivocate or otherwise abandon our principles," Jindal said. "This badly disappoints many of the liberals in the national media, of course. For them, real change means: supporting abortion on demand without apology, abandoning traditional marriage between one man and one woman, embracing government growth as the key to American success, agreeing to higher taxes every year to pay for government expansion, and endorsing the enlightened policies of European socialism."

The tragicomic caricature does not describe what Democrats believe or what a centrist Republican might want. But the markers Jindal puts down means he is backing social conservative positions such as opposition to same-sex marriage and the call for a constitutional ban on abortion that is codified in the party platform.

Many voters -- especially members of the millennial generation -- consider these positions at odds with libertarians' professed belief in maximizing individual freedom, but the contradiction and resulting voter alienation is entirely sidestepped. Confronting it is politically inconvenient, if not impossible.

Not being the stupid party also means supporting science and the separation of church and state, at least to the extent that creationism is not taught in public schools. But Jindal has backed the teaching of creationism in Louisiana public schools in a pander to conservative populists. Physician, heal thyself.

When Jindal says, "We must not become the party of austerity. We must become the party of growth," he is arguing for a positive frame for the conservative message. But he is not actually questioning conservatives' call to cut federal spending and social programs dramatically, which could restrict growth and alienate efforts to appeal beyond the base. He's just saying the GOP should present the glass as half full.

I'm all for reinventing government and reducing bureaucracy dramatically -- as Jindal calls for -- but part of "talking to Americans like adults" -- involves talking about the real costs and consequences, not just reframing the debate.

Jindal rightly says, "We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. We've had enough of that." He's presumably referring to the self-destructed tea-evangelist Senate campaigns of Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin -- which alienated women and centrist voters with the candidates' tortured talk about rape, biology and abortion.

But the problem with those bizarre and offensive comments was rooted in the policies the Senate candidates were being asked to defend -- namely, their faith-based opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape. Unless, that policy is addressed, the problem will remain. Silence on the subject doesn't solving anything.

Likewise, correcting the overwhelmingly white complexion of the conservative base will require more than just talking to everyone as individuals and rejecting identity politics. It will require backing policies such as comprehensive immigration reform -- as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have backed. Jindal stayed silent on the subject and substance.

There is a lot to admire in Jindal's speech -- first and foremost the courage it took to challenge his party in unvarnished terms so soon after a stinging election loss. He is right about the need to offer a compelling contrast rooted in radical simplification to decrease costs and increase efficiency. Jindal is correct in saying that Mitt Romney's failure was in large part his inability to move beyond simply criticizing Obama and offer a detailed positive policy alternative. But that failure was rooted in the fact that much of current conservative policy is broadly unpopular, a problem only compounded when the party becomes more polarized and dominated by the far-right debating society.

The demonization of Obama beyond all reason and reality only adds to the credibility gap that conservatives are now confronting. Most leading national Democrats -- whether it is Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton or John Kerry -- may be decidedly center-left, but they are basically pragmatic progressives, not the kind of fuming anti-American statists many conservatives imagine. Most Main Street Americans understand this, and hard-core conservatives look a bit dotty for insisting their overheated vision is rooted in reality.

There's one final contradiction between rhetoric and reality that's worth confronting. Jindal spent a lot of time in his speech slamming the "barren concrete" of Washington and the job of "managing government." But if Jindal runs for president -- as seems increasingly likely -- he'll be running for the privilege of living in that barren concrete jungle and managing the federal government. That's a basic part of the job description. Let's be honest: Jindal doesn't really hate the federal government; he wants to run it.

Jindal is courageous to call on his party to stop being "the stupid party." But that slogan and his speech is a diagnosis of the problem, not a prescription for fixing it. Confronting the impulse to pander to social conservative populists is necessary to fix "the stupid party." The problem is in the policy, not just political perception.

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'60 Minutes' Obama, Clinton interview heavy on laughs, light on substance

Here is an article from FoxNews.com stating that the "60 Minutes" interview with Hillary Clinton and President Obama did not provide much material and that interviewer Steve Kroft failed to ask the difficult questions:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/28/60-minutes-obama-clinton-interview-heavy-on-laughs-light-on-substance/

If CBS ever needs a softball team, they should sign Steve Kroft. The veteran newsman filled nearly three fourths of his big interview with President Obama and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with easy questions (11 out of 15). So much so that laughter was more commonplace that any challenging questions.
For media watchers, the much-ballyhooed half-hour was a waste of good interviewing time. Kroft only threw four mildly tough questions at the power duo and two of those were still fairly easy health questions aimed at Clinton. Only the last two questions tackled Libya, Syria and conservative criticisms that there has been “an abdication of the United States on the world stage.”
Kroft then let Obama dodge questions of his failure in Syria and let stand Obama’s bizarre assertion that the revolution in Egypt has turned out well. “When it comes to Egypt, had it not been for the leadership we showed, you might have seen a different outcome there,” said Obama.

Had Kroft not wasted the entire first two thirds of his interview on slow pitch, he might have thrown a fastball about the ongoing violence there now, the Muslim Brotherhood’s power grab, threats to Israel and bigoted comments from Obama’s buddy Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. (Just hours before the pre-recorded broadcast, Morsi declared a state of emergency in three provinces as 50 people had been killed in rioting.)
It was the questions that weren’t asked that left viewers wondering if Kroft reads international news. What about tensions between China and its neighbors and U.S. allies Japan, Taiwan and South Korea? Or the increased tensions over the Falklands? Or that pesky little would-be nuclear state of Iran? Or how about U.S. involvement in Mali or terrorism in Algieria? Maybe even our relations with our nearest neighbors Canada, which is waiting on word about pipeline approval, and Mexico which is wondering about fast and furious?
CBS had certainly built up to the event with pre-show promotion that included the network’s Bob Schieffer remarking how unusual it was for president’s to share the stage with anyone. In that vein, Kroft began by reminding viewers that of the Obama-Clinton “rivalry that is one of the richest in American history.” Someone needs to get Kroft a better history book. Even Obama admitted that the pair agreed on policy.
Kroft’s questions weren’t just softballs. More than half resulted in laughter from Obama or Clinton and sometimes both. A couple were so bad that even Kroft laughed as well.
The most embarrassing one was a public relations person’s dream as Kroft reflected how he had been with both candidates back in 2008. “That was a very tough, bitter race and I’m going to spare you really some of the things that you said about each other during the campaign,” to which even he laughed.
He laughed again when he asked about Obama’s support for Clinton. “What’s the, I have to ask you, what’s the date of expiration on this endorsement?” Both Clinton and Obama’s responses were equally sickening. Clinton threw out an “Oh, Steve…” and Obama commented, “You guys in the press are incorrigible.”
This wasn’t the first embarrassing Kroft interview of Obama. Back before the election, “60 Minutes” ran another interview but left out key elements where Kroft asked Obama if the Libya attack had been by terrorists. Obama dodged and CBS dodged even more, releasing that full interview with less than 24 hours before Election Day.

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GOP, take cues on U.S. mood from Obama

Here is an article from CNN.com suggesting that Republicans need to listen to Obama's inaugural address and need to realize that Americans views on social issues are slowly progressing:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/29/opinion/cardona-gop-and-progress/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

(CNN) -- Republicans are dealing with their demons. At the Republican National Committee meeting last week, they seemed to be taking a hard look at what they need to do to compete at the presidential level in the years to come. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the GOP needs to stop being "the stupid party." He is right, to be sure, but it is not simply a messaging problem. It is a policy problem. So here is some advice.

Reread President Barack Obama's inaugural speech and avoid the the knee-jerk impulse to call the president a socialist because of his defense of a so-called "liberal agenda." Instead, observe how the issues he raised align with where the American people are. Simply put, majorities of the country, including an overwhelming majority of the demographic coalition that got him reelected, mainly agree with him.

The GOP is so in a tizzy about Obama's vision and how they are certain it is all but DNA proof he is a socialist. But Republicans needs to consider that something much less pernicious is at play here on both scores: The nation is progressing.

Obama talked about immigration reform by stating, "Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity, until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our work force rather than expelled from our country."

Majorities of Americans have supported comprehensive immigration reform for years. Today, more than 75% support it. Importantly, many Republicans recognize the need to do something real on immigration, given the shellacking they received from Latinos in November: 71% supported Obama. To his credit, Sen. Marco Rubio has proposed some common-sense measures that are a great start to ensuring the GOP gets serious about real reform. And on Monday, a bipartisan group of Senators proposed a sensible plan on this important issue, further proof the GOP knows it has to do more than just change their rhetoric.

To the offense of many conservatives, the president said, "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well." On this issue, Americans' evolution is recent, but has been quite dramatic, and given the generational divide, support for it will only get stronger. Currently, 53% of Americans support gay marriage, while 46% oppose. Even the Boy Scouts, a staunchly conservative organization, announced Monday it is considering "potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation."

Obama's mention of climate change further rankled Republicans, He said: "Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But Americans cannot resist this transition. We must lead it." Interestingly enough, 63% of Americans believe that global warming is a serious issue, according to a poll by Rasmussen, which skews rightward. And while there is certainly no consensus on what should be done legislatively about it, the president's focus on alternative energy sources and renewable fuels also is in line with where many Americans stand.

But the line in Obama's inaugural address that opponents have pointed to as proof that he is and has always been an extreme leftist president, was this:

"...Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society's ills can be cured through government alone."

Some Republicans, once again, choose to make hyperbolic, hysterical proclamations about looming socialism. The reality, as always, is less dramatic and more straightforward. The fact is Democrats, buoyed by majorities of its winning coalition of Latino, African-American, women and young voters, believe the government has a constructive role to play in society. Not a bigger role, which is what the Republicans' sky-is-falling reaction has been. But one that can protects the individual as a consumer, levels the field so that everyone is playing by the same rules and jobs are based on merit, and ensures smart investments in innovation, work force, military, and infrastructure. These, spurred by our American ingenuity, will continue to make us exceptional.

What the president's opponents need to understand is that this is the face of progress. This is the face of the America that exists today. Obama's vision is mainstream -- a guide to where majorities of Americans already believe we need to go as a country. Once Republicans understand it is not a legislative roadmap designed to annihilate them, maybe they too can realize they would do well to start to embrace these changes and evolve along with the rest of us.

If they don't they may as well change their symbol from the elephant to the woolly mammoth.

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Let’s meet on Medicaid, Mr. President

Here is an article from Bobby Jindal, the Republican Governor of Louisiana, published in The Washington Post stating that President Obama should not ignore the requests of Republican governors to discuss ways to fix Medicaid.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bobby-jindal-to-fix-medicaid-listen-to-governors/2013/01/28/ff5c8e5e-6711-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html?hpid=z3

Bobby Jindal, a Republican, is governor of Louisiana.

As the implementation of Obamacare unfortunately nears, every governor must decide whether to expand Medicaid. This is not a simple question. Expanding Medicaid will significantly burden state budgets across the country.
Our state’s analyses, and reports by organizations that have supported Obamacare, such as the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute, estimate that such an expansion would cost Louisiana more than a billion dollars over the first 10 years.

The Obama administration heralds this as a tremendous bargain for states. That’s simply not the case. The administration overlooks that Medicaid is largely failing current enrollees with its outdated model that costs billions of taxpayer dollars and produces poor outcomes.
Medicaid operates under a 1960s model of medicine, with inflexible, one-size-fits-all benefits and little consumer engagement and responsibility. Expanding the entitlement program as it stands would further cement a separate and unequal tier of health coverage. Without fundamental reform, Medicaid will continue to deliver what it has for decades: limited access, poor quality and budget deficits.
Fortunately, after nearly a half-century of running this program, states know its problems and how to address them.
A number of Republican governors have asked to meet with President Obama to discuss their solutions, but the White House has ignored these requests. The president claims that he wants to work across party lines to get things done for the American people, so perhaps he could start by meeting with Republican governors who want to solve our nation’s health-care problems.
Our ideas to fix Medicaid target several areas for reform: eligibility, benefit design, cost-sharing, use of the private insurance market, financing and accountability.
First, the process to determine eligibility should be simple, accurate and fair. There are far too many complicated categories of Medicaid eligibility. The process should be easier for consumers to navigate and for states to administer. States should have the flexibility to set eligibility standards that make sense for residents, instead of the rigid, one-size-fits-all approach dictated by Washington. For any expansion, there must be straightforward rules to identify who is newly eligible for Medicaid vs. those who would have traditionally been eligible. Our country cannot afford billions of dollars in payments on untested methodologies.
States should be allowed to design their programs to promote value and individual ownership in health-care decisions. This includes using consumer-directed products, flexible benefit design, and reasonable and enforceable cost-sharing requirements. States must be freed from decades-old rules that are no longer relevant to 21st-century health care. For example, just like those of us who have employer-sponsored coverage or Medicare, Medicaid recipients shouldn’t have free access to hospital emergency rooms for routine care. When individuals have no skin in the game, they are less likely to consume care responsibly.

States should be able to make use of their private health insurance market through their Medicaid eligibility levels, program design and ability to offer premium assistance. Currently, states are prevented, until 2019, from moving youths enrolled in their Children’s Health Insurance Programs to their parents’ insurance if the coverage was purchased in an exchange. It doesn’t make sense for family members to be in different coverage programs or for the federal government to crowd out and replace private coverage with a government-run program. Furthermore, states should have the ability to grant “premium assistance” for Medicaid-eligible individuals at any income level to buy into the health insurance market. Finally, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should streamline Medicaid financing and improve the process to give states more flexibility, coupled with greater accountability. The process by which states negotiate for flexibility, called “waivers,” is broken. Federal officials should have greater accountability for timely review of waiver applications. In particular, waiver applications based on those already approved in other states should be fast-tracked. HHS should allow states to opt in to a more flexible long-term-funding arrangement, allowing them to design programs that best meet residents’ needs, rather than requiring the same package of services for every individual. At the same time, federal and state officials could agree to greater accountability for improvements in health outcomes, not just processes.

President Obama said in 2009 that “we can’t simply put more people into a broken system that doesn’t work.” He was right, and today’s Medicaid model doesn’t give states adequate flexibility to improve health outcomes or lower overall costs.
Rules recently proposed by HHS include encouraging provisions that give a nod to governors’ repeated calls for flexibility. But the conversation is still one-sided. Instead of rushing to expand Medicaid as-is, the president and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius should first engage in earnest discussions with state leaders. Many of us are eager to reform existing programs rather than spend more money on a rigid and expensive program that won’t work for states, beneficiaries or taxpayers. So, let’s meet, Mr. President.

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Mickelson has a point on taxes

Here is an article from CNN.com stating that high tax rates create disincentives.  Recently, Word Golf Hall of Famer Phil Mickelson made comments suggesting that he was leaving the state of California due to high taxes.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/25/opinion/mccaffery-mickelson-taxes/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

(CNN) -- Phil Mickelson, aka Lefty, is thinking of leaving California and perhaps America because, according to his own reckoning, he is facing tax rates of 62% or 63%. Mickelson, probably the second-most-famous professional golfer in the world after Tiger Woods, later backed off from his initial comments about making "drastic changes."

Reports suggest that Mickelson earned more than $60 million in 2012. In that sense, he appears to be doing better than the Romneys, and perhaps you are not all that sympathetic to him.

The Romneys (remember them?) paid so little tax. In 2011, Mitt and Ann Romney paid federal taxes of $2 million on reported income of $14 million, for an effective tax rate of 14%, all roughly. The Romneys even had to foreswear taking all of their available charitable deductions to make their tax rate seem so high for appearance's sake.

It does bear noting that Mickelson is doing something to earn his $60 million. Whoever is paying him that much believes that he is worth it. Who are we, really, to argue?

Mickelson's instinctive reactions to high tax rates, even if his math may be a bit muddled, are sound and sensible ones. Tiger Woods certainly agrees with him.

But that is not the problem in the story. Lefty faces such seemingly inescapably high tax rates that he might just pack up his golf bags and leave home. Mitt pays so little tax that he has to ignore the law to pay a higher rate for appearance's sake.

How can this be?

The Mitt-Lefty paradox has a simple explanation: In America, we tax work. And highly. We do not tax capital or wealth much at all. Indeed, if you have wealth already, taxes are essentially optional under what I call tax Planning 101, the simple advice to buy/borrow/die.

In step one, you buy assets that rise in value without producing cash, such as growth stocks or real estate. In step two, you borrow to finance your lifestyle. In step three, you die, and your heirs get your assets, tax free, and with a "stepped up" basis that eliminates all capital gains. That's it.

Romney, with a personal fortune estimated at $250 million (his five kids have another $100 million) has figured this out. When he pays taxes, at all, he does so at the low capital gains rate.

Not so with Lefty.

He is a wage-earner, albeit a very highly paid one, and he's going to pay over one-half of his income in taxes if he stays in California. We may not be shedding any tears for Lefty any more than we feel for Gerard Depardieu, who recently left France for Russia to escape taxes, or for the Rolling Stones, who many moons ago left England and recorded Exile on Main Street from France.

Yet one fact not making news is that it is still the case that the highest marginal tax rates in America do not fall on the highest incomes, like Lefty, but on certain of the working poor, many of them single parents, who are being taxed at rates approaching 90% as they lose benefits attempting to better themselves.

It's a "poverty trap" that works just like the severe marriage penalties for the lower-income classes. But the working poor do not have the options of going to Canada, Russia or France.

Lefty has a point -- high tax rates create disincentives. If the rates are high enough, people react by moving. This should not surprise us: American companies have been fleeing our shores for years, in droves. Ask Mitt.

But this should worry us, for two reasons.

One, the fact that the high incomers do flee jurisdictions, or flee from the productive activity of working, is a bad thing for the U.S.

Two, the very risk that the rich and famous might leave, aided by the appearance that some do, holds tax reform hostage. We have struggled to raise rates at all on the rich, blocked by the mostly mythical Joe the Plumber as much as by the realities of Mickelson or the Rolling Stones. When we do finally raise rates, as we did at the fiscal cliff, we do so on the wrong rich, in the wrong way. Lefty's taxes went up, Mitt's need not.

The problem -- and it is the same problem as with Mitt's taxes -- is that we are taxing the wrong thing, in the wrong way. In sum, we tax work, not wealth. This is backward.

We should be taxing the act of spending, not the socially beneficial ones of work and savings. Then we could raise tax rates without fear of ill effects.

Mitt's taxes would go up, for he is surely spending more than $14 million a year, as by running for president, and we wouldn't need any special capital gains preference under a consistent spending tax. Lefty's taxes would go down to the extent he saves some of his $60 million, helping us all by working and saving. When and if Mickelson or his kids spend, we could tax him or them then.

And if Lefty is really insisting on both earning and spending $60 million a year? Well, I figure he can buy a lot of borscht in Russia with that.

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Benghazi blame game is useless

Here is an article from CNN.com stating that there is no point in blaming anyone for the Benghazi attack due to the fact that it sends a discouraging message to diplomats and military advisers:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/23/opinion/cordesman-benghazi/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

(CNN) -- Politics are politics, and partisan congressional challenges over the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, last September were inevitable.

But while some of the questions Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked in her appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee bordered on politics at their worst, some represented democracy at its best: A legitimate challenge of how the government works. The fact is, we do need to ask serious questions about the way our diplomats function, how they are deployed and protected.

In her responses, Clinton took responsibility, as the top official in every department always must. The question now, however, is what, if anything, will we really learn from the events that led to the deaths of Stevens and his colleagues?

Do we actually learn something from their courage and sacrifice, and the similar experience of other American diplomats and officers that have faced similar attacks in the past? Or do we go on playing a pointless blame game, creating a climate that discourages our diplomats, U.S. military advisory teams and intelligence officers from taking necessary risks -- and relies even more on fortifying our embassies.

Three lessons here. The first: Virtually every post mortem that relies on the blame game has the same result. There is always someone who asked for more resources and warned of the risk before the event. There are always enough intelligence indicators so that once you go back -- knowing the pattern of actual events -- it becomes possible to predict the past with 20-20 hindsight.

The problem is that the post mortems and hearings tend to be useless. Every prudent security officer has always asked for more; the indicators that could provide warning with 20-20 hindsight will still be buried in a flood of other reporting that warns of crises that don't take place; U.S. officials will still have to deal with what intelligence experts call "noise" -- the vast amount of reporting and other data that make it impossible to sort out the right information until the event actually occurs and the patterns are known. All of this makes it hard to know what request or warning ever matters.

Yes, intelligence and warning can always be improved if the post mortem is realistic and objective. But the resulting improvements will never be enough. No one will ever assess all the risks correctly, U.S. diplomats and other Americans will be vulnerable when they operate in a hostile environment, and risk-taking will remain inevitable.

The second lesson is that we cannot deal with crises like the political upheavals in the Arab world, or the more direct threats that countries like Iran and North Korea can pose, unless our diplomats and military advisers take risks -- and more casualties -- in the process.

Stevens and those around him did what had to be done. These are the teams that can help lead unstable countries towards democracy and stability. They are the crucial to our counterterrorism efforts in the field and to building up the military security capabilities of developing states. They are key to uniting given factions, creating effective governance, and persuading states to move toward development and greater concern for human rights.

They can only be effective if they are on the scene, work with the leaders and factions involved, and often go into harms way where there are terrorist and military threats. Like Stevens, they cannot wait for perfect security, stay in a safe area, or minimize risks and deal with the realities of Libya, filled with local power struggles, extremist elements and potential threats.

We need risk-takers. We need them in any country that is going through the kind of upheavals taking place in Libya, as well as in countries where our enemies operate, and semi-war zones like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. We need diplomats, U.S. military advisory teams, and intelligence officers that reach far beyond our embassies and go into high risk zones. We need to reward and honor those risk-takers, not those who shelter in safety and avoid the risks they should take or fear their career will be damaged if anyone is killed or hurt.

The third lesson is that we do need to steadily strengthen our ability to provide secure mobility, better intelligence, better communications, and better protection for those diplomats, U.S. military advisory teams and intelligence officers. We need to be able to better provide emergency help to those American NGO personnel and businessmen who take similar risks.

We need both an administration and a Congress that look beyond the blame game and understand that some things are worth spending money on. We need them to understand that what we once called the Arab Spring is clearly going to be the Arab Decade, and we face different but equally real risks in the field in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

It is far better -- and cheaper even, in the medium term -- to fund strong U.S. country teams, military advisers, counterterrorism teams and development efforts than to let nations collapse, to let extremists take over, to lose allies, and see American NGOs and businesses unable to operate.

We need to see what new methods and investments can protect our people in the field and reduce the risks they should be taking. The answer may be special communications, intelligence system, helicopters and armored vehicles, emergency response teams and new career security personnel to replace contractors and foreign nationals.

What the answer is not is partisan blame, risk avoidance, punishing those who do take risks for the result, and failing to make the improvements in security for risk takers -- while building larger fortress embassies. If you want to honor the Americans lost in the line of duty, focus on the future and not the past.

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The pygmies vs. the Zulu warrior -- how Republicans missed a big opportunity with Clinton

Here is an article from FoxNews.com stating that the Republicans did not adequately question Hillary Clinton in regards to the attack on the Benghazi consulate:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/24/pygmies-vs-zulu-warrior-how-republicans-blew-it-when-questioning-clinton/

Republican Senators and Congressmen thought they finally had a chance to cross-examine Secretary Clinton Wednesday on the Obama administration’s failure to provide adequate security for our Benghazi consulate. They thought they could grill her about what happened both before the attacks that killed our ambassador and three others and the failure to mount rescue operations once the attacks began.
Instead, the Secretary turned the tables and chastised Congress for failing to provide adequate funding to protect our people.
She stopped just short of saying the Benghazi attacks were House Republicans’ fault. It was one of the most masterful political performances in recent times.
How did the Republicans blow it? Because they ‘went small’ in their questions, and looked small and petty for asking them.
The Senators and Congressman should have ‘gone big’ instead and expanded the scope of the hearings.
They should have grilled her on how “leading from behind” has allowed Islamic extremists and Al Qaeda to hijack the Arab Spring movement.
They should have hammered the point that in two short years the entire region from North Africa, to the Middle East, to the Persian Gulf and potentially all the way to Afghanistan has gone from relative stability with pro-American governments to economic, military and political chaos.
They should have asked why the Obama administration failed to round up and kill those responsible for the Benghazi attacks. The self-proclaimed mastermind of these attacks sitting poolside at a Benghazi luxury hotel sipping strawberry frappes and giving interviews to the New York Times and Reuters and bragging about killing Americans.
They should have asked why the administration failed to secure Qaddafi’s large stockpiles of weapons before they toppled him. Because of their inaction those weapons are now showing up in the hands of Libyan militants, Al Qaeda in Mali and rebels in Syria.
They should have pressed Secretary Clinton on what steps the administration has taken to ensure that Syria’s chemical and other advanced weapons don’t similarly fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.
And finally, they should have asked what plans the Obama administration has to protect the thousands of American aid workers and civilians who will be left behind and vulnerable as we withdraw from Afghanistan and the region. They should have pressed Secretary Clinton on whether we will rescue Americans if they're attacked or taken hostage.
Did the Senators and Congressmen ask any of these questions?
No.
One after another they lined up to ask the same tired old questions about timelines and talking points and cable traffic. They spent more time grandstanding than grilling. They looked like a bunch of Pygmies going up against the great Zulu warrior. And worst of all they missed their only chance to get Secretary Clinton on the record on issues that will dog the United States for months and years ahead, and give answers she will have to stand by should she run for President. What a shame for the Republican Party and for the nation.

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Gun control efforts now central to President Obama’s legacy

Here is an article from FoxNews.com stating that gun control is crucial for Obama's legacy:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/22/gun-control-efforts-now-central-to-president-obamas-legacy/?intcmp=HPBucket

As President Obama is inaugurated for a second time, the biggest political surprise is that gun control is now key to his political legacy.
Despite the shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and the mass murders at a Colorado movie theater, the president stayed away from gun control during his first term.
He treated it as if it was political poison. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence gave him a grade of F for his failure to act.
Now, in the aftermath of the Connecticut school shooting, polls show the general public — and specifically the president’s core, liberal political base — expect him to use the political mandate that comes with reelection to go bold on gun control.
Until recently his political base had no expectations about gun control. It just wanted him to be more aggressive in fighting GOP obstructionism on budget deals. The Obama White House responded by refusing to be scared by the “fiscal cliff” and, so far, refusing to negotiate spending cuts with Republicans to raise the debt ceiling.
Beyond budget fights, the Obama second-term agenda was supposed to be about passing comprehensive immigration reform.
There is also hope for improving the nation’s lagging school performance and dealing with global warming.
At the far end of the president’s famous “Hope and Change” agenda is a new vision for foreign policy with more focus on Asia — and the rise of Chinese military might — as well as replacing U.S. reliance on a budget-heavy military with increased use of alliances and diplomacy.
And the president planned to protect the No. 1 legacy of his first term: universal healthcare.
But a new political reality dawned after the Newtown shooting.
The president was bluntly asked in a White House news conference: “Where’ve you been?” on gun control. He responded curtly that the shooting had been a “wake-up call.”
And before any Inaugural balls, the president appeared at the White House with schoolchildren who implored him to do something about gun violence.
White House aides pledged to use their official power to push for new gun-control legislation, while unofficial groups tied to the president’s reelection promised to get involved as well.
The story of President Obama and guns started just after his first election.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) used the victory of a liberal Democrat to create fears among gun owners that the government would confiscate all guns.
President Obama did nothing close to that. And gun-rights advocates scored a big win when the Supreme Court, in a long-awaited ruling, reaffirmed that Americans have the right to own guns.
But public concern about gun-related deaths also picked up steam during the first term. There were mass shootings in Arizona, Colorado and Wisconsin — as well as record gun deaths in the president’s home city of Chicago.
Still, the president looked the other way.
The NRA kept up the pressure by using Republicans in Congress to go after the Obama Justice Department for a failed effort to halt gun trafficking to Mexico  — “Fast and Furious.”
This past summer, the House of Representatives took the extraordinary step of voting to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over his role in the botched operation.
According to the NRA leadership, Fast and Furious was part of an elaborate conspiracy by the Obama administration to create a pretext for restricting and confiscating the guns of law-abiding Americans.
Never mind that the program began during the Bush administration.
Why was the NRA pushing Congress to take action on such a ludicrous, baseless conspiracy theory?
As I wrote in The Hill at the time, the NRA wanted the president on the defensive. It was also “feeling pressure” because a smaller, more extreme gun-rights group, the Gun Owners of America, argued the NRA was too moderate.
I added: “Fear of losing members has made the NRA push the political limits in the name of self-preservation. The line keeps getting pushed further and further into bizarre, nonsensical conspiracy theories — because that is what excites their base.”
The pressure being exerted by the NRA to scare the president away from any gun-control legislation did not end with Fast and Furious.
Last month NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre said his group’s answer to school shootings was to have armed guards in every school. Incredibly, he said this was not the time to talk about gun control.
In opposing common-sense gun-safety measures under consideration by the president, the NRA now finds itself at odds with the general public and its own membership.
Polls show the NRA membership favors stronger background checks for gun buyers. And a Pew poll taken last week found 85 percent of Americans favor universal background checks on gun buyers, including at gun shows.
So now the pressure on the president to end the gun slaughter is bigger than any nasty tactics coming from the NRA.
That’s why gun control is now the surprising center of the president’s second-term legacy.

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President Obama Will ‘Vigorously’ Pursue Assault Weapons Ban And Accomplish Nothing

Here is an article from the Inquisitr stating that the gun debate in America is a very simple conversation:

http://www.inquisitr.com/480637/president-obama-will-vigorously-pursue-assault-weapons-ban-and-accomplish-nothing/

COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama has promised to “vigorously” pursue a “meaningful” assault weapons ban, and will accomplish absolutely nothing if he manages to get it.
“What you can count on is that the things that I’ve said in the past – the belief that we have to have stronger background checks, that we can do a much better job in terms of keeping these magazine clips with high capacity out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them, an assault weapons ban that’s meaningful – those are things I continue to believe make sense,” Obama said during a press conference attended by NBC News.

“Will all of them get through this Congress? I don’t know,” he added. “But what’s uppermost in my mind is making sure that I’m honest with the American people and with members of Congress about what I think will work.”

“My starting point is to focus on what makes sense, what works,” Obama said. “What should we be doing to make sure that our children are safe and that we’re reducing the incidence of gun violence?  And I think we can do that in a sensible way that comports with the Second Amendment.”

Obama also had some “comforting” words for law-abiding citizens who also happen to own those scary assault weapons:
“Those of us who look at this problem have repeatedly said that responsible gun owners — people who have a gun for protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship – they don’t have anything to worry about,” he said. “The issue here is not whether or not we believe in the Second Amendment. The issue is are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can’t walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a shockingly rapid fashion.”

Okay, let’s take a look at “what makes sense, what works.” An assault weapons ban? Didn’t stop the Columbine shooting, did it? For that matter, neither did armed guards. Both may have arguably (speculatively) prevented a higher body count, but 13 people still lost their lives that day, didn’t they?
“But let’s not jump to conclusions,” cries the reasonable Republican. “Close the gun show loophole!” Sounds good, except there isn’t one, according to the FBI. Furthermore, none of the weapons used in the latest slew of killings were purchased that way.
“What about the media? Violent movies and video games?” cries NRA talking air-head Wayne LaPierre. No correlation.
“A ha, but mental health!” That system already works. Adam Lanza was denied purchase of a rifle days before the Newtown shooting. That’s why he stole his mother’s guns. So far as we know, Nancy Lanza was mentally sound and purchased her weapons legally.

“So naturally, an assault weapons ban is the only solution.” At CES last week, Bill Clinton said that half of all mass killings in the US have occurred since the expiration of his assault weapons ban in 2005. Pretty slick sound-byte, but there are a few bulwarks preventing this statement from being “true.” First, he doesn’t actually say whether an assault weapon was even used in any of these “mass killings.” Over 140 people have been killed or injured by mass shootings in 2012 alone, and only about 30 of them died facing down an assault weapon.
Stretch further back, and Clinton’s claim becomes so statistically irrelevant that it’s barely worth mentioning. And that claim is based on a fact-check by the liberal Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler.
“Well still, the founding fathers never intended for assault weapons when they crafted the Second Amendment. Let the people have muskets, and muskets alone,” says the smug liberal. Fine, take them away from the military, too. “Fine,” the smug liberal replies. “We need to cut military spending anyway.”
Alright, then let’s look at other Amendments with that logic, as well. The founding fathers didn’t intend for the internet, so maybe that ought to be regulated strictly as well. You can still write letters and talk to people in person and say what you want, but you would agree that the internet is a hot-bed for hate, bullying, and perversion, right? “Well … be reasonable.”
I am being reasonable. There have been 41 suicides related to cyber bullying in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom since 2003. That’s twice the number of dead kids in Newtown. Studies show that the trend is rising, too. More of the suicides have happened in recent years. Look, you can keep letters and personal speech, because those are the only things the founding fathers intended us to have. But the internet needs to be regulated, limited, and free speech there curtailed.
“Weren’t a lot of those kids mentally ill? Didn’t those suicides have a variety of complex external motivators in addition to cyber bullying?”
Yup. Now you see my point.

President Obama can “vigorously” pursue a “meaningful” assault weapons ban all he likes. A “meaningful” assault weapons ban is nothing more than an insulting but strangely natural conclusion to the flawed and asinine conversation that has risen in the complete disservice to 20 dead children in Newtown, Connecticut. It’s not a right or left issue, you all ought to be ashamed of yourselves for your part in this conversation and your willful ignorance of truths on every side.
Because the conversation is honestly a hell of a lot easier than you’re all making it. The problem is that the only question worth asking is so frightening, no one has the balls to ask it. Do we do things the European way, surrender the Second Amendment, and ban all guns so that gun-related violence falls to near-zero … or do we accept that 20 dead children is just a price we have to pay every once in a while for unilateral freedom?

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Obama finally meets Machiavelli

Here is an article from CNN.com stating that Obama's second inauguration speech was better than his first and that people who favor or are against Obama have a more clear understanding of what he hopes to accomplish in his second term:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/21/opinion/stewart-obama-inaugural-speech/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

(CNN) -- It's a good bet that millions of Americans on Monday greeted President Barack Obama's magnificent second inaugural address not just with applause and cheers of approval but with loud sighs of relief.

Gone were his first inaugural speech's bizarre equal division of blame for the wreckage of real lives between the "greed of some" and the so-called "collective failure" of the rest of us. Instead, Obama rang out his commitment to equality for all, not the "shrinking few and lucky" who call the rest of us simply "takers."

Nor did our president chide us to put away ''childish things" by seeming to describe deep differences over "perpetual war," climate change, immigration, equal rights, voting rights, rights to decent wages for honest labor and rights to "basic measures of security and dignity" as "petty grievances."

This time around, Obama offered us not song and dance morals from an old Depression musical comedy to "pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again," but solid, specific support for the serious New Deal pillars of Social Security and Medicare.

Almost for the first time as president, he dared to utter the word "poverty" in a major address, and declared ''we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice."

These moments and more earned his speech the warm response and respect it deserves. Now it will receive the careful analysis it cannot escape. This will reveal even more profound differences between Obama's second inaugural speech and his historic appearance on the steps of the U.S. Capitol as the president of color few believed they would see elected in their lifetimes.

1. His first inaugural address was a puzzling disappointment after the passionate convictions he expressed so powerfully in both his primary and general election campaigns. Some suggested that his finest moment was Election Night in Chicago's Grant Park. No one who followed his campaign, including his opponents, could have been surprised by his second inaugural speech.

2. Monday's words were those of a leader who has chosen to fight for the change he believes in over flailing attempts to placate that only produced astounding charges that he was unwilling to compromise when in fact he had given so much in doomed efforts to do just that.

3. His repeated calls for "We the People" to work together were not-so-subtle warnings of who would be responsible if the U.S. government is unable to do so. No blame-splitting this time.

4. Even Obama's delivery and demeanor conveyed conviction, not the sense that a press aide might soon emerge from Caesar's tent beside the Rubicon to explain that his thinking is still "evolving."

In this second inaugural address, Obama the Candidate became Obama the President without a trace of the bait and switch to which too many citizens have become so accustomed that in their cynicism they cease to vote at all. He spoke as a leader who has stopped splitting differences and is prepared to make choices and fight for them -- together as We the People if possible, alone as Obama the President if not.

In fact, Monday's speech felt as if after four frustrating years of trying to appease his opponents, Barack Obama had finally met Machiavelli one night in the Lincoln Bedroom and learned that when faced with two equally powerful opposing forces, a president must choose, or both will attack him. He sounded like a leader who knows now that the difference between making a choice and making love is that decisions don't feel better the longer you can draw them out.

As Obama goes from celebration to celebration, his supporters and his opponents have a much clearer idea of what he will do tomorrow, and for the next 1,000-plus days he is president.

This time when he tells banks and insurance companies that "a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play," they will do well to believe him. Because even with all the cash he collected to fill the coffers of his campaign, Monday's speech makes it clear he will not let it line the coffin of his presidency.

It betrays no security measures to mention that the Secret Service chooses oddly accurate code words for the presidents it protects.

After Obama's first inauguration, that could have been "dancer." After Monday's address, it could legitimately consider ''leader." If the president is able to act in accordance with his second inaugural address, it's not impossible now to imagine "Lincoln." He wasn't afraid to fight when the nation would not stay together.

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Obama's pretty words on immigration ring hollow

Here is an article from CNN.com contributor Ruben Navarrette stating that Obama's comments on immigration in his inauguration speech were not in accordance with reality, citing that he has deported one and a half million immigrants and divided thousands of families in his presidency:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/21/opinion/navarrette-obama-immigration-inauguration/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

(CNN) -- Second inaugurals are rarely as fresh and exciting and full of promise as the first.

When a person is sworn in as president and addresses the world for the first time, there is always the chance that he will keep his promises, uphold the principles he espouses, and fulfill his policy objectives. But in a sequel, we have the advantage -- or is it the disadvantage? -- of having already seen this individual in action.

So we don't just hear the words, however pretty they may be. We balance them against what we know about the person's flaws and limitations.

President Obama said this during his speech: "That is our generation's task -- to make these words, these rights, these values -- of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- real for every American."

And this: "And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice -- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice."

And this: "Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country."

Right about there, I realized that Obama is perhaps one of the least self-aware presidents we've ever had. He lives in his own world, of lofty ideals and soaring rhetoric. But, as he prepares for his second term, he can't escape his reality of his first term.

Here is a president who claims to be seeking a new kind of justice for illegal immigrants and their families, and yet he's deported more than 1.5 million of them and divided thousands of families.

Here is a president who won 71% of the Latino vote, and yet now -- with the departures of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis -- presides over a Cabinet with no Latinos serving on it.

The nominations for the top four Cabinet jobs have already gone out, and three of them went to white males. It's nice to see that group get ahead. They never get anything.

Mr. President, in your speech, you talked about the rights and privileges of Americans. You do know that many illegal immigrants refer to themselves as undocumented Americans. As they see it, they are Americans in every way but legal status -- Americans whose lives you're ruining and who you're depriving of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They are, indeed, to use your words, "marginalized" and your heavy-handed enforcement policies and record number of deportations helped put them on the margins.

You have not done right by this group of people, or the U.S.-born Latino community that claims to support them -- at least in nonelection years. Nor have you advanced -- through your immigration policies -- the principles of "tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice."

After all, just who do you think has "expelled" so many of these "striving, hopeful" immigrants from our country? That's right, Mr. President, you're the one.

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Obama, strengthen rules on child farm labor

Here is an article from CNN.com stating that the Obama administration needs to strengthen child farm labor standards:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/17/opinion/traina-child-farm-labor/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama should use the breathing space provided by the fiscal-cliff compromise to address some of the issues that he shelved during his last term. One of the most urgent is child farm labor. Perhaps the least protected, underpaid work force in American labor, children are often the go-to workers for farms looking to cut costs.

It's easy to see why. The Department of Labor permits farms to pay employees under 20 as little as $4.25 per hour. (By comparison, the federal minimum wage is $7.25.) And unlike their counterparts in retail and service, child farm laborers can legally work unlimited hours at any hour of day or night.

The numbers are hard to estimate, but between direct hiring, hiring through labor contractors, and off-the-books work beside parents or for cash, perhaps 400,000 children, some as young as 6, weed and harvest for commercial farms. A Human Rights Watch 2010 study shows that children laboring for hire on farms routinely work more than 10 hours per day.

As if this were not bad enough, few labor safety regulations apply. Children 14 and older can work long hours at all but the most dangerous farm jobs without their parents' consent, if they do not miss school. Children 12 and older can too, as long as their parents agree. Unlike teen retail and service workers, agricultural laborers 16 and older are permitted to operate hazardous machinery and to work even during school hours.

In addition, Human Rights Watch reports that child farm laborers are exposed to dangerous pesticides; have inadequate access to water and bathrooms; fall ill from heat stroke; suffer sexual harassment; experience repetitive-motion injuries; rarely receive protective equipment like gloves and boots; and usually earn less than the minimum wage. Sometimes they earn nothing.

Little is being done to guarantee their safety. In 2011 Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis proposed more stringent agricultural labor rules for children under 16, but Obama scrapped them just eight months later.

Adoption of the new rules would be no guarantee of enforcement, however. According to the 2010 Human Rights Watch report, the Department of Labor employees were spread so thin that, despite widespread reports of infractions they found only 36 child labor violations and two child hazardous order violations in agriculture nationwide.

This lack of oversight has dire, sometimes fatal, consequences. Last July, for instance, 15-year-old Curvin Kropf, an employee at a small family farm near Deer Grove, Illinois, died when he fell off the piece of heavy farm equipment he was operating, and it crushed him. According to the Bureau County Republican, he was the fifth child in fewer than two years to die at work on Sauk Valley farms.

If this year follows trends, Curvin will be only one of at least 100 children below the age of 18 killed on American farms, not to mention the 23,000 who will be injured badly enough to require hospital admission. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries. It is the most dangerous for children, accounting for about half of child worker deaths annually.

The United States has a long tradition of training children in the craft of farming on family farms. At least 500,000 children help to work their families' farms today.

Farm parents, their children, and the American Farm Bureau objected strenuously to the proposed new rules. Although children working on their parents' farms would specifically have been exempted from them, it was partly in response to worries about government interference in families and loss of opportunities for children to learn agricultural skills that the Obama administration shelved them.

Whatever you think of family farms, however, many child agricultural workers don't work for their parents or acquaintances. Despite exposure to all the hazards, these children never learn the craft of farming, nor do most of them have the legal right to the minimum wage. And until the economy stabilizes, the savings farms realize by hiring children makes it likely that even more of them will be subject to the dangers of farm work.

We have a responsibility for their safety. As one of the first acts of his new term, Obama should reopen the child agricultural labor proposal he shelved in spring of 2012. Surely, farm labor standards for children can be strengthened without killing off 4-H or Future Farmers of America.

Second, the Department of Labor must institute age, wage, hour and safety regulations that meet the standards set by retail and service industry rules. Children in agriculture should not be exposed to more risks, longer hours, and lower wages at younger ages than children in other jobs.

Finally, the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration must allocate the funds necessary for meaningful enforcement of child labor violations. Unenforced rules won't protect the nearly million other children who work on farms.

Agriculture is a great American tradition. Let's make sure it's not one our children have to die for.

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NAPOLITANO: Shooting up the Constitution Feds have no legitimate role in regulating firearms

Here is an article from Andrew P. Napolitano from The Washington Times stating that the federal government's role in regulating firearms is unconstitutional:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/17/shooting-up-the-constitution/

If you have listened to President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden talk about guns in the past month, you have heard them express a decided commitment to use the powers of the federal government to maintain safety in the United States. You also have heard congressional voices from politicians in both parties condemning violence and promising to do something about it. This sounds very caring and inside the wheelhouse of what we hire and pay the federal government to do.
Yet it is clearly unconstitutional.
When the Founders created the American republic, they did so by inducing constitutional conventions in each of the original 13 states to ratify the new Constitution. The idea they presented, and the thesis accepted by those ratifying conventions, was that the states are sovereign; they derive their powers from the people who live there. The purpose of the Constitution was to create a federal government of limited powers — powers that had been delegated to it by the states. The opening line of the Constitution contains a serious typographical error: “We the People” should read “We the States.” As President Ronald Reagan reminded us in his first inaugural address, the states created the federal government, and not the other way around.
Notwithstanding the Constitution’s typo, the states delegated only 16 unique, discrete powers to the new federal government, and all of those powers concern nationhood. The Constitution authorizes the feds to regulate in areas of national defense, foreign affairs, keeping interstate commerce regular, establishing a post office, protecting patents and artistic creations, and keeping the nation free. The areas of health, safety, welfare and morality were not delegated to the feds and were retained by the states.
How do we know that? We know it from the language in the Constitution itself and from the records of the debates in the state ratifying conventions. The small-government types, who warned at these conventions that the Constitution was creating a behemoth central government not unlike the one in Great Britain from which they had all just seceded, were assured that the unique separation of powers between the states and the new, limited federal government would guarantee that power could not become concentrated in the central government.
It was articulated even by the big-government types in the late 18th century — such as George Washington and Alexander Hamilton — as well as by the small-government types — such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison — that the new government was limited to the powers delegated to it by the states, and the states retained the governmental powers that they did not delegate away. At Jefferson’s insistence, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to keep the new government from interfering with natural rights such as speech, worship, self-defense, privacy and property rights, and the 10th Amendment was included to assure that the Constitution itself would proclaim affirmatively that the powers not delegated to the feds were retained by the states or the people.
The Supreme Court has ruled consistently and countless times that the “police power,” that is, the power to regulate for health, safety, welfare and morality, continues to be reposed in the states, and that there is no federal police power. All of this is consistent with the philosophical principle of “subsidiarity,” famously articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas argued that the problems that are closest to the people needing government intervention should be addressed by the government closest to those people. Its corollary is that all governmental intervention should be the minimum needed.
Now, back to Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and their colleagues in the government. If the feds have no legitimate role in maintaining safety, why are they getting involved in the current debate over guns? We know that they don’t trust individuals to address their own needs, from food to health to safety, and they think — the Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding — that they know better than we do how to take care of us. Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden and many of their colleagues in government are the same folks who gave us Obamacare, with its mandates, invasions of privacy, increased costs and federal regulation of health care. They call themselves progressives, as they believe that the federal government possesses unlimited powers and can do whatever those who run it want it to do, except that which is expressly prohibited.
This brings us back to guns. The Constitution expressly prohibits all governments from infringing upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms. This permits us to defend ourselves when the police can’t or won’t, and it permits a residue of firepower in the hands of the people with which to stop any tyrant who might try to infringe upon our natural rights — and it will give second thoughts to anyone thinking about tyranny.
The country is ablaze with passionate debate about guns, and the government is determined to do something about it. Debate over public policy is good for freedom, but the progressives want to use the debate to justify the coercive power of the government to infringe upon the rights of law-abiding folks because of what some crazies among us have done. We must not permit this to happen.
The whole purpose of the Constitution is to insulate personal freedom from the lust for power of those in government and from the passions of the people who sent them there.

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