The Right Lane 1.10.13

In pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

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This Is How a Secret Gun Provision Made its Way Into Obamacare Legislation

The Washington Post first reported on Dec. 30 about the presence of this controversial wording. Under a section with the headline “Protection of Second Amendment Gun Rights,” the NRA-advocated wording is nestled deep within the law. The Post called the inclusion, “a largely overlooked but significant challenge to a movement in American medicine to treat firearms as a matter of public health.” As the outlet also noted, it was in the final stretch of the debate over Obama’s health care legislation that the NRA successfully pushed to insert this language. The portions of the Affordable Care Act that include mentions of firearms and the parameters through which doctors must operate in questioning patients (read the entire health care bill here):

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The Left Is Convinced Americans Won’t Fight For 2nd Amendment Rights

Once cowed at the thought of provoking Second Amendment supporters, leftists will soon attempt to ban “assault weapons” (and much more) as legislation offered by Dianne Feinstein makes its way to the Senate floor. It seems that D.C. liberals have finally become convinced that American gun owners are too cowardly, too lazy or too dependent upon the generosity of Big Brother to fight for their Second Amendment rights. During the past four years, the gun banning-Left have watched as American buyers broke sales records in the purchase of semi-automatic rifles. Opting for these and other powerful, efficient weapons, it is estimated that some 100 million private citizens are now in possession of over 300 million firearms. And these numbers continue to grow with each passing month. Yet it’s against this backdrop of America’s unprecedented determination to assert the fundamental permanence of Second Amendment guarantees that Diane Feinstein, Michael Bloomberg, Barack Obama and others will choose to implement gun bans, demand the federal registration of firearms, and even legislate outright confiscation.

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Diagnosis: Obama’s Clinical Denial by Frank Camp

Ayn Rand said it best when she said: “The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.” Now, replace the word “everybody” with “Obama,” and you have a perfect quote, describing our times, specifically the recent fiscal cliff deal, and the upcoming debt ceiling fire-fight. A large part of what makes up the Democrat thought process seems to be an outright denial of basic facts: economic, social, military, etc. They deny that Iran is a real threat, they refuse to see abortion as barbarism, and they have seemingly never taken economics 101. All of this describes Barack Obama. In a recent interview, Speaker John Boehner said this: “At one point several weeks ago…the president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.’” Later on, Boehner mentioned that Obama claims our debt and financial woes stem from our failed healthcare system. Boehner apparently made mention of Washington’s spending problem so often that by the end of the negotiations, Obama said: “I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.” First of all, let’s talk about how backward Obama’s thinking is regarding healthcare spending. He claims that our failed healthcare system is causing our debt. Besides the fact that that makes no sense, he is about to add massively to the supposed “healthcare” debt by implementing Obamacare. He is in no way helping in that regard. Second, his outright denial of Washington’s spending addiction is so preposterous, I almost don’t believe it. Then I remember that he’s Barack Obama, and I reset my mind. What this absurd denial indicates is one of two things: Barack Obama is either mentally deranged, to the point of being dangerous, or he is in willful denial–which is worse. We have a President who is willfully looking the other way, and Senate Democrats who–against the law–refuse to propose a budget. It’s as if Democrats don’t believe in the value of money. Democrats are like a rich kid, who gets all his money from his parents, spends it all on drugs, then gets upset when his parents cut him off.

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Obama May Use Executive Order to Grab Guns, Warns Biden  

President Barack Obama will consider using executive orders among the steps to curb gun violence following last month’s mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, Vice President Joe Biden said.
“The president and I are determined to take action,” Biden said at the start of a meeting with gun-control advocates and groups representing victims. “We haven't decided what that is yet,” Biden told the Weekly Standard. “But we're compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required." Biden called it a moral issue, adding that "it's critically important that we act." [a crisis deserving to subvert the Constitutional Process?]

Some steps could be taken through executive action, without the approval of Congress, though White House officials say Obama will not finalize any actions until receiving Biden's recommendations. The deadline is Jan. 31. As far as Congress is concerned, the Senate’s top Republican has warned that it could be spring before any gun legislation could be considered. "The biggest problem we have at the moment is spending and debt," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said on Sunday, the Associated Press reports. "That's going to dominate the Congress between now and the end of March. None of these issues will have the kind of priority as spending and debt over the next two or three months."

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Chicago Teacher Union President: ‘Off With Their Heads’ by Gary DeMar

Karen Lewis is the president of the Chicago Teachers Union. Chicago is the murder capital of the United States with more than 500 murders in 2012. So what’s the relationship? This “professional” educator said the following:

“Do not think for a minute that the wealthy are ever going to allow you to legislate their riches away from them. Please understand that. However, we are in a moment where the wealth disparity in this country is very reminiscent of the robber baron ages. The labor leaders of that time, though, were ready to kill. They were. They were just – off with their heads. They were seriously talking about that.”

A number of those in the crowd cheered their approval. Why not? Unions gained their position of power through thuggery. Lewis went on to say the following about what the rich will do to them:

“[T]he key is they think nothing of killing us. They think nothing of putting our people in harm’s way.  They think nothing of lethal working conditions.”

Is there any evidence for her claim? Absolutely not. It’s people with money that pay the teachers of Chicago their salaries and fund their bloated pensions. It was union leader Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. who said this about members of the Tea Party: “Let’s take these son-of-a-bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.” Consider this from Breitbart’s Big Government. When Steven Crowder approached union protestors in Michigan with questions about their responses to what elected Michigan representatives had done on Right-to-Work legislation, Crowder was assaulted, and one person threatened to shoot him. Lewis and Hoffa are liberals. They can threaten to do violence against conservatives and intimidate with innuendo. The media will hardly report on these malicious and dangerous attacks on conservatives. I don’t have to say that there’s a double standard. If a conservative had said anything close to what Lewis said, it would be the end of her career. Liberals are a protected political class in America.

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Congress Rated Lower Than Cockroaches, Root Canal or Colonoscopy by Giacomo

Most people I know are completely repulsed by the very mention of a cockroach.  If a live roach runs across the floor, I’ve seen grown men jump away and scream like little girls.  To call someone a cockroach is comparing them to something that crawls out of the sewer and spreads disease. Knowing that, I was a little surprised when I saw the results of a poll that indicated that the American people have a higher regard for cockroaches than they have for Congress. Public Policy Polling ran a poll from January 3 – 6 asking people which they liked better and then gave them a choice of Congress or 26 different things.  Here are some of their results:

• Lice – 67%, Congress – 19%
• Brussel Sprouts – 69%, Congress – 23%
• NFL Replacement Refs – 56%, Congress – 29%
• Colonoscopies – 58%, Congress- 31%;  Proving Congress is a real pain in the …
• Root Canal – 56%, Congress – 32%
• Used Car Salesmen – 57%, Congress – 32%
• Traffic Jams – 56%, Congress – 34%
• France – 46%, Congress – 37%
• Carnies – 39%, Congress – 32%
• Genghis Kahn – 41%, Congress – 37%
• Nickelback – 39%, Congress – 32%
• DC Political Pundits – 37%, Congress – 34%
• Donald Trump – 44%, Congress – 42%
• Cockroaches – 45%, Congress – 43%

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God is alive and well in America, says Gallup chief

In God Is Alive and Well, which hits bookshelves today, Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport reveals that religion is as powerful and influential as it’s ever been in America. Newport argues that religion may be more significant in years ahead, and we may be on the cusp of a religious renaissance. Popular books by the “New Atheists” dismiss religion as a delusional artifact of ancient superstitions. “However, millions of Americans’ religious beliefs and behaviors should not be tossed aside that quickly,” says Newport. “Whether or not God is a ‘delusion,’ religion has enormous personal and social consequences, particularly for those who are extremely religious,” Newport explains. The book is based on the more than 1 million interviews Gallup has conducted with Americans since 2008. Dr. Newport analyzes this unparalleled and unprecedented database of information about Americans and their religions -- revealing just how powerfully intertwined religion is with every aspect of society.

Key findings from the book include:

• Religion is good for your health -- religious Americans have higher wellbeing. 
• Religious institutions will probably have to give women more power in the future because of this contradiction: Even though women are more religious than men, some religious institutions deny women access to higher positions in their organizations.
• Religious intensity is correlated with Republican political identity in the United States today. Democrats will most likely realize that they will have to relate their political philosophy to religion if they are to compete for the valuable bloc of religious voters.
• Based on their religious characteristics and their stance on many moral and values issues, blacks in America should identify as predominantly Republican, but they do not. 
• Increasingly, Americans don’t have a religious identity, or they identify with broad religious labels rather than with specific denominations. 
• Unbranded, nondenominational religions and megachurches are growing.
• Baby boomers will most likely become more religious as they age. Given the sheer size of the baby boomer generation, the entire nation will thus tilt more religious in the years ahead.
• No matter what your religious identity, if you live in Vermont (least religious state in the country), you are less religious than if you have the same religious identity and live in Mississippi (most religious state in country).
• Upper-class, more educated people use religion less for its personal value and more for its communal, social value compared with Americans in lower classes.
• Religiousness is strongly correlated with being married, but it’s unclear if marriage causes religiousness or if religiousness causes marriage -- or if there is no causal relationship at all.

America will likely become a more religious nation in the years ahead, albeit different than it is today. “The evidence in this book suggests that America could continue to blaze its own religious trail with religion changing, morphing, and transmuting itself into new but still vibrant forms,” says Newport.

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Reich: Castro Brothers Will Control Venezuela After Chavez  By: Jim Meyers and John Bachman

Former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich tells Newsmax that whoever replaces ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is “not going to be good for the United States” — which has seen its influence in Latin America drop to an all-time low under President Obama. Reich also asserts that Cuba’s Castro brothers have been running Venezuela through “puppet” Chavez in recent years, and Cuban control of the country is likely to continue following Chavez’s death.  Reich was appointed ambassador to the South American nation during the Ronald Reagan administration and served from 1986 to 1989. He has also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and was a foreign policy adviser to John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign. Chavez is hospitalized in Cuba after he had surgery for cancer. His government announced earlier today that he will not be present at his swearing in for his next presidential term on Thursday, Jan. 10. In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV on Tuesday, Reich was asked what is likely to happen if Chavez is not in Venezuela by Thursday. “According to Venezuelan constitutional lawyers, if Chavez is not in Venezuela by Thursday to be sworn in, he cannot be sworn in,” Reich says. “However, what the ruling party is trying to do is simply violate the constitution by sending a delegation from the Supreme Court to Havana to swear in Chavez in his hospital room where he is either dead or dying or perhaps in very good health, nobody knows. “Or alternatively, another faction of the government is saying that Chavez does not have to be sworn in because he’s already the president, so he’ll just continue being the president. Either way it’s a violation of the constitution and it’s indicative of the lack of respect that the Chavez government has had for the people and the laws of Venezuela ever since he came into power 14 years ago.”

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"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?"

--Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788