The Right Lane 1.16.13

The 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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Obama gun control agenda: Assault weapons ban, mandatory background checks By Matt Spetalnick and Jeff Mason Reuters

President Barack Obama proposed a new assault weapons ban and mandatory background checks for all gun buyers on Wednesday as he tried to channel national outrage over the Newtown school massacre into the biggest U.S. gun-control push in decades. Obama set up a fierce clash with the powerful U.S. gun lobby and its supporters in Congress, who will resist what they see as an encroachment on constitutionally protected gun rights. "We can't put this off any longer," Obama said, vowing to use "whatever weight this office holds" to make his proposals reality. "Congress must act soon."

Obama's plan calls on Congress to renew a prohibition on assault weapons sales that expired in 2004, a requirement for criminal background checks on all gun purchases, including closing a loophole for gun show sales, and a new federal gun trafficking law - long sought by big-city mayors to keep out-of-state guns off their streets.

He also announced 23 steps he intends to take immediately without congressional approval. These include improvements in the existing system for background checks, lifting the ban on federal research into gun violence, putting more counselors and "resource officers" in schools and better access to mental health services.

The most politically contentious piece of the package is Obama's call for a renewed ban on military-style assault weapons, a move that Republicans who control the House of Representatives are expected to oppose.

As he announced the new gun measures, Obama was flanked on the stage by children from around the country chosen from among those who sent letters to him about gun violence and school safety. "We should learn from what happened at Sandy Hook. I feel really bad," a boy wrote in a portion that Obama read from the podium.

With gun ownership rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, gun restrictions have long been a divisive - and risky - issue in American politics. But polls show that public sentiment shifted in favor of increased gun-control measures after the Newtown shooting, and Obama hopes to take advantage while there is a mood for action in Washington. He warned that opponents of his effort would try to "gin up fear" and urged lawmakers to think more about the safety of schoolchildren than trying to "get an 'A' grade from the gun lobby that supports their campaign." [Obama would never "gin up fear"]
Obama's plan appears to tread cautiously on the question of whether violent movies and video games contribute to the gun violence, which would open up issues of freedom of expression. [Again playing to a constituency]. A senior administration official said, however, that Obama would be asking for $10 million [more spending] for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the root causes of gun violence, including any relationship to video games and media images. [not violence, just GUN violence]

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Portman: Obama 'Misleading' Americans by Saying We Ought to Pay Our Bills By Susan Jones

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) says he was "surprised" that President Obama "ignored the big issue" -- deficit reduction -- at his press conference on Monday. "I mean, he is misleading folks about what's going on here. He's saying we ought to pay our bills. Well, of course we ought to pay our bills. That misses the point. The point is, what are the bills going forward going to be?" Portman, interviewed Tuesday on CNBC's "Squawk Box," noted that Obama, when he was a U.S. senator, voted against raising the debt limit, calling it unpatriotic to run up the debt: "That was $6 trillion ago," Portman said. "The president then also went on to say that, gosh, it would be unrealistic to tie deficit reduction to raising the debt limit when, in fact, of course, that's exactly what's been done over the years." Portman recalled that in the 1985, Congress passed the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, increasing the debt limit to $2.078 trillion -- and at the same time requiring automatic across-the-board spending cuts if the federal deficit reached a certain amount. "Remember, that (Gramm-Rudman) had rescissions and actually had reductions in spending at a time when our debt was much smaller than it is today and our annual deficits were much smaller. We've never had a trillion-dollar deficit until the last four years."

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Obama Mulls Replacing Gas Tax With Hefty Mileage Tax by Philip Hodges

One reason gas prices are so high is that the Feds impose a tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gas. It’s 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel. We’ve had federal gas taxes since the 50’s to pay for highways and bridges, but since 1983, they started diverting about 20% of gas taxes to go to a Mass Transit Account that is supposed to pay for public transportation like buses and railways. So, those of us who don’t use mass transit are paying for those that do in the form of gas taxes. That’s socialism for you. We’ve had the 18.4-cent per gallon tax since 1993 under the Clinton administration. Nowadays, with the further destruction of the dollar, that 18.4 cents just doesn’t buy what it used to. Now, the Highway Trust Fund (which includes the Mass Transit Account) is facing insolvency. Some credit the loss of revenue to the fact that many are using more fuel-efficient cars and therefore not spending as much on gas. Isn’t that what Obama wanted? For people to use more “green” energy? And now, the Highway Trust Fund is running out of money. That could be part of it, but billions of the gas tax revenues are used to fund pet mass transit projects, which those who drive cars generally don’t even use.

Whatever the cause, the Obama administration is thinking of scrapping the gas tax altogether. Sounds good so far, but they’re wanting to replace the gas tax with a pay-per-mile scheme. The Washington Examiner reported:

 “The average driver pays about $96 a year in federal gas taxes, said GAO. Should the administration seek to raise the highway trust fund from $34 billion to the $78 billion needed to fix and maintain roads, that could rise to $248. Translated into a pay-per-mile plan, drivers would face a tax of 2.2 cents per mile compared to the 0.9 cents they pay now (244% increase). Trucks would pay far more.”

If states want to have public transportation, they should raise their own revenue and pay for it themselves instead of taking federal highway funds to build it. As for paying for highways and roads, we could cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Obama’s foreign policy expenditures and put those funds toward domestic infrastructure and not have to impose one penny of gas taxes to fund it.

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Drudge Links Obama and Hitler on Gun Control. Left Cries, “Foul!”  by Gary North

Hitler imposed gun control on Jews. This is a matter of record. The thought of a bunch of Jews owning guns really upset him. The man was intolerant of Jews with guns. Drudge ran a photo of Hitler and Stalin right above this headline: White House Threatens ‘Executive Orders’ on Gun Control.  Leftists in the print media went ballistic. Why, the very outrage of implying such a connection between tyranny and gun control! That guy Drudge: he is a disgrace! Read this article.  Then the Left-wing Salon published an article insisting that Hitler was not really against the private ownership of guns. Not really. It just sort of seems that way when you look at the historical record. Did Hitler prohibit Jews from owning them? Well, yes, he did. Was this significant? In no way. In fact, it’s irrelevant. Why? Because the Jews were already a target. So, gun control had nothing to do with it. Gun control was peripheral. Ignore gun control. Besides, the writer continued, the Left-wing Weimar Republic – whose leaders held views close to Salon’s on gun control – was the real culprit. It disarmed people. Don’t blame Hitler. The idea that Hitler disarmed Germans is a myth. Pay no attention to it. University of Chicago law professor Bernard Harcourt explored this myth in depth in a 2004 article published in the Fordham Law Review. As it turns out, the Weimar Republic, the German government that immediately preceded Hitler’s, actually had tougher gun laws than the Nazi regime. After its defeat in World War I, and agreeing to the harsh surrender terms laid out in the Treaty of Versailles, the German legislature in 1919 passed a law that effectively banned all private firearm possession, leading the government to confiscate guns already in circulation. So, we learn that because the Weimar Republic was hated by voters for having signed the Treaty of surrender (which the military that had started the war and lost it had refused to sign), the Weimar government was hated. So, it banned guns. But this in no way should be regarded as an act of an unpopular government that was trying to keep power. No, no, no. The author did let this cat out of the bag: gun registration was part of a program of gun control. “In 1928, the Reichstag relaxed the regulation a bit, but put in place a strict registration regime that required citizens to acquire separate permits to own guns, sell them or carry them."  As everyone with any knowledge of German history in the 1920s knows, the Nazis ignored this law. In 1933, they took over. They suppressed all dissent. How? Because they were armed, while the rest of the population wasn’t. Is there cause and effect here? Salon does not mention this causal sequence. It’s clearly irrelevant, assuming you are a gun control promoter along Weimar lines.

You want to see the logic of these people. Follow this line of reasoning. This is the best that the author can come up with. The law did prohibit Jews and other persecuted classes from owning guns, but this should not be an indictment of gun control in general. Does the fact that Nazis forced Jews into horrendous ghettos indict urban planning? Should we eliminate all police officers because the Nazis used police officers to oppress and kill the Jews? What about public works — Hitler loved public works projects? Of course not.

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Keene to Newsmax: Obama Presidency 'At Risk' If He Acts Alone on Gun Ban By Jim Meyers and Kathleen Walter

National Rifle Association President David Keene tells Newsmax that President Obama could be violating the Constitution if he circumvents Congress and imposes gun control by executive order — and his presidency will be “at risk” if he proceeds. Keene also says gun control advocates will ultimately fail in their efforts to ban assault weapons, despite Obama’s “rabid advisers” who will push the ban. And he asserts that the administration is asking the “wrong questions” in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings and is instead seeking to politicize the tragedy.

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NBC News: We Are ‘Endangering Ourselves’ By Owning Guns… We Need Obama to ‘Save Us’

MSNBC host Touré delivered a monologue on Monday in which he listed the number of reasons why he thinks it is time for the Democratic Party, and President Barack Obama in particular, to come out in favor of sweeping gun control measures. He said that the Democratic Party has an irrational fear of gun control legislation, and it is time for Obama to deliver for the “suburban and urban voters who show up for Dems in droves.” Only Obama can “save us from the gun epidemic,” Touré concluded. “We want to envision ourselves as a nation of vigilantes protecting ourselves with our guns,” Touré began. “But that’s not what’s happening. We’re an over-armed nation helping gun makers get richer by believing blatant lies that the government is plotting to take away our guns, and believing the myth that we’re protecting and not endangering ourselves.” Touré went on to list a number of statistics that he believes proves the notion that more guns are endangering the welfare of average Americans rather than making us safer.

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Report: Obama officials issued $216 billion in regulations last year By Megan R. Wilson

The Obama administration issued $236 billion worth of new regulations last year, according to a report from a conservative think tank. The analysis from the American Action Forum, led by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, found that the administration added $216 billion in rules and more than $20 billion in regulatory proposals in 2012. Complying with those rules will require an additional 87 million hours of paperwork, the report said. The group put the total price tag from regulations during Obama’s first term at more than $518 billion. American Action Forum credited the administration for erasing $2.5 billion in regulatory costs last year, but said that paled in comparison to $34 billion in regulatory compliance costs reported by top companies since 2009. The Environmental Protection Agency racked up the most in regulatory costs last year, according to the report, issuing $172 billion worth of rules. Regulations from the healthcare reform law tacked an additional $20.1 billion in costs onto the economy. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, several EPA clean air rules and the Affordable Care Act were the most notable regulatory expenses last year. But prison reform standards and conflict minerals regulation also cost a total of $10 billion in 2012, the report found. Though the study lists the costs of regulations, it does not calculate any benefits that might have resulted from them. The American Action Forum is the policy-focused sister organization of the American Action Network. The not so hidden costs of Big Government!!!

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Riot Erupts As Thousands Fight For Housing Vouchers in Michigan

Applicants for Section 8 housing vouchers in Taylor, Michigan went wild Saturday after authorities asked thousands to return another time, CBS Detroit relates. Apparently, somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 turned out– some waiting in line all night– but only 1,000 vouchers were available. CBS Detroit explains:

When it came time for the vouchers to be distributed, police said there was a mad rush for the door, with people jockeying for position to be the first inside the building. Officers tried to control the crowd, but couldn’t. Fearing the situation was more than they could handle, event organizers shut the entire thing down and turned off the lights inside the building. Witnesses say that’s when things really got ugly.

Star Lee, of Romulus, described the scene as complete chaos. “People just don’t have order to themselves, you know what I mean? People were fighting and throwing chairs, and that’s just not necessary…”

Is this the future you want to live into for your children?  Fighting for scraps from the table of Father Government?

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Words from our Founders

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." 

-James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, 1792

"A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves ... and include... all men capable of bearing arms. ... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle." --Richard Lee, Federal Farmer LIII