This study improves on prior attempts to score economic freedom for American states in three primary ways: 1) it includes measures of social and personal freedoms such as peaceable citizens’ rights to educate their own children, own and carry firearms, and be free from unreasonable search and seizure; 2) it includes far more variables, even on economic policies alone, than prior studies, and there are no missing data on any variable; 3) we adopt new, more accurate measurements of key variables, particularly state fiscal policies.
We find that the freest states in the country are New Hampshire, Colorado, and South Dakota, which together achieve a virtual tie for first place.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tossed cold water on the prospect of reinstating the assault weapons ban, highlighting Democrats’ reluctance to take on gun issues.
Attorney General Eric Holder raised the prospect Wednesday that the administration would push to bring back the ban. But Pelosi (D-Calif.) indicated on Thursday that he never talked to her. The Speaker gave a flat “no” when asked if she had talked to administration officials about the ban.
“On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference. “I think it's clear the Bush administration didn’t do that.”
Maybe she thinks that trying to destroy the economy, cripple our healthcare system, send our public schools into the sewer, AND disarm the citizenry might be seen as "over-reaching".
Holder said that putting the ban [on semi-automatic firearms] back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.
[...]
A State Department travel warning issued Feb. 20, 2009, reflected government concerns about the violence.
"Some recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades," the warning said.
"Crystal meth manufacturing and use is in on the rise. Therefore, we must ban ketchup and drywall screws."
Holder declined to offer any time frame for the reimplementation of the assault weapons ban, however.
"It's something, as I said, that the president talked about during the campaign," he said.
As a long-time resident and elected official of Chicago, Barack Obama has seen the impact of fully automatic weapons in the hands of criminals. Thus, Senator Obama supports making permanent the expired federal Assault Weapon Ban.
The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.
It was not about “stopping crime”; it was about stopping automatic weapons getting in the hands of the drug smugglers who are better armed than law enforcement in Mexico.
You really need to start getting the facts right Rob.
Pathetic.
Think of 25 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. When you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you're it!
It isn’t about race. It is about ideology. You don’t need to be brave to make fun of Asians, fat people, smokers, Republicans, rich people, Christians, hillbillys, rednecks, Mormons, home-schoolers, gun owners, the military, Fox News, or NRA members. You only need courage if you openly talk about issues relating to any group that votes in a block for Democrats.
Screw you, Holder. You’re the coward.
The only reason Holder's in the position he's in is because his boss was elected with the help of Democrat operatives in the press and in government who spent the entire campaign hurling accusations of racism at his opponents, based on imaginary "secret Republican code words" for "black".
They said "terrorist". RACIST!
He said "socialism". RACIST!
She said "community organizer". RACIST!
Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for.
...the schools that aren’t preparing our children...
...protect health insurance for 11 million American children whose parents work full time.
...teacher layoffs that would set back our children’s progress.
These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children.
...responsibility for our children's education must begin at home.
There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children. And that is the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay.
In order to save our children from a future of debt...
...then someday years from now our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed...
WASHINGTON – House Democrats unveiled a $410 billion spending bill on Monday to keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year, setting up the second political struggle over federal funds in less than a month with Republicans.
The measure includes thousands of earmarks, the pet projects favored by lawmakers but often criticized by the public in opinion polls. There was no official total of the bill's earmarks, which accounted for at least $3.8 billion.
We’re less than 20 months away from the next election and you only think you understand the magnitude of media corruption.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has issued a 2008 report card on states' efforts to regulate the sale and ownership of guns. The New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont scored low on the ratings scale, in large part to gun show 'loopholes' on waiting periods to own a gun.
[...]
New Hampshire scored lower than Maine with only 11 points out of 100. New Hampshire has no limitations on assault weapons, no restrictions on sale of guns to minors except for licensed gun dealers, no limits on carrying concealed handguns, no licensing or permit requirements, no waiting periods, and universal background checks are not mandatory on all gun sales.
Thanks to Bruce for his comments. I did indeed rely heavily on the Brady Camapign for details and am distressed at the apparent distortions pointed out by Bruce. I shall get in touch directly with the Brady Campaign and we will get to the bottom of the discrepancy. Stay tuned.
The Brady Campaign claim about gun sales to minors does not seem to match up with actual statutory language. The question that now faces New Hampshire residents interested in gun safety is can they rely on the Brady Campaign for their facts?
Detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot use US courts to challenge their detention, the US says.
The justice department ruled that some 600 so-called enemy combatants at Bagram have no constitutional rights.
Most have been arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of waging a terrorist war against the US.
The move has disappointed human rights lawyers who had hoped the Obama administration would take a different line to that of George W Bush.
"This is our house now."
~ Louis Beverly, ACORN
Gov. Deval L. Patrick will put history to the test in the coming weeks, pressing for urgent action on a plan to slap a new 5 percent sales tax on beer.
It is one of a number of products judged unhealthful by the administration and targeted for new “wellness” sales taxes.
Mr. Patrick has proposed expanding the tax to all alcoholic beverages and soda as well as sweetened soft drinks and candy beginning April 1, with most of the proceeds dedicated to related health programs.
An Oklahoma City police officer wrongly pulled over a man last week and confiscated an anti-President Barack Obama sign the man had on his vehicle.
"The Secret Service called and said they were at my house," Harrison said.
After talking to his attorney, Harrison went home where he met the Secret Service.
"When I was on my way there, the Secret Service called me and said they weren't going to ransack my house or anything ... they just wanted to (walk through the house) and make sure I wasn't a part of any hate groups."
More than 100 House members secured earmarks in a major spending bill for clients of a single lobbying firm — The PMA Group — known for its close ties to John P. Murtha, the congressman in charge of Pentagon appropriations.
“It shows you how good they were,” said Keith Ashdown, chief investigator at the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “The sheer coordination of that would take an army to finish.”
PMA’s offices have been raided, and the firm closed its political action committee last week amid reports that the FBI is investigating possibly illegal campaign contributions to Murtha and other lawmakers.
Those House members, plus a handful of senators, combined to route nearly $300 million in public money to clients of PMA through that one law (PL 110-116).
[...]
According to CQ MoneyLine, the same House members who took responsibility for PMA’s earmarks in that spending bill have, since 2001, accepted a cumulative $1,815,138 in campaign contributions from PMA’s political action committee and employees of the firm.
Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the "Fairness Doctrine" without actually calling it such.
Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. "It's all about diversity in media," says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings. "Does one radio station or one station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in one community? Do four stations in one region carry Rush Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot? Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them."
Time for a muzzle
The online world of lies and rumor grows ever more vicious. Is it time to rethink free speech?
I know why I'm interested in [the Fairness Doctrine] because I get up every morning at 3:45, I do three hours of talk radio every day from six to nine, that's my life, it's my business, I want to make money at it, and I want to be heard.
You know, I’d like to make a living oiling up bikini models, but I’m not going to ask the government to implement a law requiring modeling agencies to fill a certain number of oil-boy jobs with hefty, bearded part-time bloggers.
PORTSMOUTH — The state's top liquor law enforcer suggests a one-drink-per-hour law is a better way to revise state law than a bill supported by a group of local restaurant and bar owners and workers.
The local group wants to add the phrase "knowingly serve" to the law concerning responsibility in serving alcohol to underage and intoxicated customers.
Eddie Edwards, the state liquor law enforcement chief, said the bar and restaurant owners have a legitimate point. But he offered an alternative he called a "safe harbor" law.
Edwards' proposal says that operators can serve one drink per hour, four at a sitting. One drink is defined as 1 ounce of spirits, 5 ounces of wine or 12 ounces of beer.
Some have wondered, after my hard fought presidential campaign, if I plan to run for re-election to the United States Senate.
P.R.O. Choice: a state of mindless subservience wherein once-free citizens unconditionally surrender their personal sovereignty to the almighty and all-powerful State, and allow Pelosi, Reid, and Obama to make all their choices for them.
In an ideal world, karma would decree that these irritating and dangerous activists be taken behind the woodshed by a dozen minutemen reenactors for a momentous ass-kicking - with a post-beating lecture on the Founding Fathers, of course. But the world is far from perfect. Instead, these wardens of well-being are endlessly trotted out on morning and cable news programs, issuing distraught statements about the societal catastrophes that are ice cream and Girl Scout Cookies.
KALAMAZOO -- Kalamazoo police say about 40 to 50 young males attacked a 50-year-old man riding a bicycle and beat him unconscious.
Police say the attack happened about 6:45 p.m. Tuesday. Witnesses say the attackers appeared to be teenagers.
The witnesses tell investigators some of the group knocked the man off his bike and began beating him. Police say he was hit in the head with a bottle and then kicked and punched as he lay in the street.
His bike was stolen but later recovered.
Police said Tuesday night they didn't yet have any suspects. They said the victim remained unconscious at Bronson Hospital.
"...and that government of the lobbyists, by the politically-connected, for the career politicians, shall not perish from the earth."
From the Obamasburg Address
The Obamasburg Address
Washington DC
February 12, 2009
Three weeks and two days ago our community organizers and voter fraud operatives brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Socialism, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created to be subservient to their government.
Now we are engaged in a great class war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave up their individual liberty that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The gullible voters, living and dead, who were bamboozled here, have consecrated it, far above the diminished power of the people to detract.
The media will little note, nor long remember what we are actually doing here, nor will it ever admit what they did here. It is for us the powerful centralized government, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so fraudulently advanced.
It is rather for us, the ones we have been waiting for, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these uneducated, unskilled masses we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these useful idiots shall not have voted, however many times, in vain -- that this nation, under Me, shall have a new birth of HopenchangeTM -- and that government of the lobbyists, by the politically-connected, for the career politicians, shall not perish from the earth."
US Senator Dianne Feinstein hopes to update President Barack Obama's $838bn economic stimulus package so that American ISPs can deter child pornography, copyright infringement, and other unlawful activity by way of "reasonable network management."
According to Public Knowledge, the Motion Picture Association of America is behind Feinstein's language. The MPAA doesn't like copyright infringement. And you can bet the child pornography bit was tossed in for added effect.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals knows how to grab attention. And show off its laundry.
The animal rights group, which every year stages a protest at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, had two of its members dress in Ku Klux Klan garb outside Madison Square Garden on Monday.
Their goal, according to a post on the PETA website, was to draw a parallel between the KKK and the American Kennel Club. "Obviously it's an uncomfortable comparison," PETA spokesman Michael McGraw told the Associated Press.
But the AKC is trying to create a "master race" when it comes to pure-bred dogs, he added. "It's a very apt comparison."
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Public Safety Infraction Report
Make/Model: Toyota Prius
Registered owner of vehicle: Joe Sucker
Residence: Cambridge
Plate number: ILUVHOPE
Start time: 07:17:39.5
Location: NEWTON
Coordinates: 42 DEG 20' 19.93" N, 71 DEG 16' 42.70" W
End time: 07:25:42.7
Location: FRAMINGHAM
Coordinates: 42 DEG 17' 56.57" N, 71 DEG 28' 29.23" W
Road/Highway: MA TURNPIKE
Jurisdiction: STATE
Distance traveled: 11.14 miles
Elapsed time: 8:03.2
Average Speed: 83.0 MPH
MPH over Speed Limit: 18
Amount of Fine: $460
Please make check or money order payable to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Thank you very much for your compliance.
Governor Deval Patrick is considering raising the state's gasoline tax by as much as 29 cents per gallon, which would at once give Massachusetts the highest state gas tax in the country while generating enough revenue to potentially rid the Massachusetts Turnpike of tolls.
But administration officials, responding yesterday to a leak reported in the media, said the governor also was considering a gas tax increase as low as 5 cents and that no decisions have been made.
Patrick is also considering a new system that would charge drivers based on the miles they travel. Those trips would be measured by a chip installed in a vehicle inspection sticker.
But [Barack Obama's stimulus] bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time”.
...I’d rather be in “racist” Alabama in a Muslim head scarf than in “tolerant” San Francisco in a Bush-Cheney shirt.
HOUSE BILL 583-FN-A-LOCAL
AN ACT establishing an income tax to adequately fund public education and relative to employment of teachers.
SPONSORS: Rep. Burridge, Ches 3
COMMITTEE: Ways and MeansANALYSIS
This bill establishes an income tax at the rate of 5 percent to adequately fund public education. The bill requires public school teachers in this state to become state employees, beginning in fiscal year 2012. The bill also requires applicants for state licenses and registrations to be current with their state income taxes.
The bill also repeals the interests and dividends tax.
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) today denounced an Executive Order signed by President Obama that repeals Executive Order 13202, that prohibited federal agencies and recipients of federal funding from requiring contractors to sign union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) as a condition of performing work on federal and federally funded construction projects.
Shepard Fairey, the controversial street artist riding a roller coaster of publicity with his red, white, and blue posters of President Barack Obama, was arrested last night on his way to DJ an event kicking off his exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
Fairey, a 38-year-old known for his countercultural style, was arrested on two outstanding warrants and was being held at a police station, according to a police official with knowledge of the arrest who requested anonymity.
Ginny Delany, a 27-year-old graduate student from Cambridge, said, "It makes him even more of a hero to me.
"The fact that he is arrested for his art shows that it is meaningful to him and he cares about what he is doing."
Try holding a hearing like this in the MA State House and see how many city and state employees, along with members of every labor union in town, are given the day off to storm the place in their attempt to marginalize the "whack-job secessionists".
CONCORD, N.H. -- New Hampshire's governor and attorney general said they're getting involved in a sales tax case between Massachusetts and a tire vendor to protect New Hampshire businesses from having to collect sales taxes on behalf of Massachusetts.
Massachusetts officials said the case before its Supreme Judicial Court applies only to one company, Connecticut-based Town Fair Tire Centers Inc., and one set of circumstances. The company sold tires in New Hampshire to customers who appeared to be from Massachusetts, yet didn't collect the 5 percent sales tax that would have been levied on similar sales at one of Town Fair's Massachusetts stores.
Gov. John Lynch said he thinks it's outrageous that Massachusetts thinks it can impose its sales tax in New Hampshire, which doesn't even have a sales tax.
Lynch said he will propose legislation to prohibit New Hampshire businesses from collecting sales taxes for Massachusetts or other states.
"We need to send a clear message that Massachusetts and other states shall not impose their sales taxes on New Hampshire businesses," Lynch said.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-Exeter, is the bill's prime sponsor.
Attorney General Kelly Ayotte plans to file a brief with the Massachusetts court.
Dear Representative Frank,
Please add my e-mail address to your distribution list, so that I can be notified in advance of the beginning of the People's Armed Revolution you're calling for here.
I'd hate to show up late.
Thanks much.
See you then.
~ Bruce
Congress will consider legislation to extend some of the curbs on executive pay that now apply only to those banks receiving federal assistance, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said.
“There’s deeply rooted anger on the part of the average American,” the Massachusetts Democrat said at a Washington news conference today.
He said the compensation restrictions would apply to all financial institutions and might be extended to include all U.S. companies.
The bill, which the committee is working on in consultation with the Obama administration, also will require financial institutions that bundle mortgages into securities to share in potential losses. This would give banks and mortgage-specialists an incentive not to make bad loans, he said. Institutions that securitize loans improperly will incur tougher penalties.
“There have been too few constraints on major financial institutions incurring far more liability than they could handle,” Mr. Frank said.
Here's one Groundhog Day that Mayor Bloomberg hopes never repeats itself again.
The city's famous groundhog Charles G. Hogg took a bite out of Bloomberg's hand during this morning's annual ceremony at the Staten Island Zoo in West Brighton.
The state is forcing the Boston Police Department to admit the wife of City Councilor and mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty to its cop academy - even after she twice failed physical agility tests required of aspiring officers.
The Massachusetts Civil Service Commission’s Jan. 29 ruling in favor of Laurene Flaherty, 39, comes nearly two years after her councilor husband succeeded in raising the maximum age for new academy recruits from 32 to 40.
Michael Flaherty, reached last night, denied that he pushed the measure to hike the age cap on behalf of his wife. “That’s absolutely not true,” he said. “This legislation was supported by the police commissioner, and the mayor signed off on it.”
No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.
In an interview with Sen. John McCain on Monday, anchor Diane Sawyer described Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” comment as “another big issue in the news.”
She then tossed to a sound bite comprised of two separate comments made five days apart, which ABC joined together. The edited comment made it sound like Limbaugh wants Obama to fail because he’s black.
Here’s the ABC version of Limbaugh’s comment:
Limbaugh: “I don’t need 400 words. I need four. I hope he fails.”
[Edit]
“We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, because his father was black, because this is the first black president, we’ve got to accept this.”
“Good Morning America” took the first sentence from Limbaugh’s Jan. 16 radio program. The second sentence comes from Limbaugh’s January 21 appearance on Sean Hannity’s TV show. In the interview with Hannity, Limbaugh stressed that Obama’s race doesn’t matter to him, but his policies do.
“If a Bush appointee got rich off of Wall Street in this climate, had a chauffeur from one of his fat cat cronies, had unpaid taxes that amounted to more than what most people make in a year, and then the administration tried to fix it behind closed doors. Democrats would call for his head and would demand ‘accountability,’” said a top Senate GOP aide.
A resolution affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.
[...]
That any Act by the Congress of the United States, Executive Order of the President of the United States of America or Judicial Order by the Judicatories of the United States of America which assumes a power not delegated to the government of United States of America by the Constitution for the United States of America and which serves to diminish the liberty of the any of the several States or their citizens shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America. Acts which would cause such a nullification include, but are not limited to:
I. Establishing martial law or a state of emergency within one of the States comprising the United States of America without the consent of the legislature of that State.
II. Requiring involuntary servitude, or governmental service other than a draft during a declared war, or pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.
III. Requiring involuntary servitude or governmental service of persons under the age of 18 other than pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.
IV. Surrendering any power delegated or not delegated to any corporation or foreign government.
V. Any act regarding religion; further limitations on freedom of political speech; or further limitations on freedom of the press.
VI. Further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms including prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition; and
That should any such act of Congress become law or Executive Order or Judicial Order be put into force, all powers previously delegated to the United States of America by the Constitution for the United States shall revert to the several States individually. Any future government of the United States of America shall require ratification of three quarters of the States seeking to form a government of the United States of America and shall not be binding upon any State not seeking to form such a government; and
That copies of this resolution be transmitted by the house clerk to the President of the United States, each member of the United States Congress, and the presiding officers of each State’s legislature.
“How does one explain how California is broke, tens of billions of dollars in aggregate debt, despite having among the highest sales and income taxes in the nation?”
Mr. Obama's intent: To provide an olive branch to Muslims in the Middle East. Mr. Obama's goal is to send a clear message that his administration represents a dramatic break from President Bush's policies. "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy," he said.
Moreover, Mr. Obama admitted the United States committed "mistakes" in the past, but he now wants to restore "the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."
Astonishing. In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The two Balkan interventions -- as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) -- were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing?
As the $820 billion stimulus package heads to the upper chamber, Senate Democratic leaders are launching a pre-emptive strike.
In a Thursday afternoon news conference, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urged Senate Republicans not to line up against the bill, and says Republicans will be blamed for any delay in the landmark economic legislation.
“If we don’t [pass the bill], it’s not our fault, we’re trying,” Reid said. “The president has done a remarkable job covering all the bases on Capitol Hill.”
Opinion and commentary, garnished with a sprig of cynicism, served with a heaping side order of sarcasm, and washed down with a tall glass of common sense, by a gun-toting political refugee from the People's Progressive Republic of Massachusetts, currently residing in New Hampshire and doing what he can to keep the Granite State beautiful and free.
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