<\/p>\n
News of the Week for Jan. 27th<\/sup>, 2013<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why are anti-gun activists so violent?<\/a> Democratic Assemblyman Arrested After Allegedly Threatening to Shoot Fellow State Representative<\/a> Police Investigating Las Vegas Police Lieutenant Who Killed Family, Then Himself<\/a> Details emerge of Brooks arrest, involvement of Atkinson, Barlow<\/a> Guns Stop Three Home Invasions, Store Robbery<\/a> Veteran stands up for 2nd Amendment at Chicago anti-gun forum<\/a> Tiananmen Square Activist Turned American Second Amendment Activist<\/a> Assemblyman accused of threatening other lawmaker in hospital<\/a> Groupon Has Canceled All Of Its Gun-Related Deals<\/a> Feinstein calls for banning more than 150 types of firearms during dramatic press conference<\/a> Feinstein: \u2018Purpose Is to Dry Up the Supply of These Weapons Over Time\u2019 <\/a> D.C. man who shot dogs biting boy could face charges<\/a> Democrats in Senate Confront Doubts at Home on Gun Laws<\/a> Proposed Mo. bill: Make parents tell school if they own guns<\/a> Boston \u2018Anti-Crime Advocate\u2019 Shoots Girlfriend in the Head With Illegal Gun<\/a> Good Sense and Gun Control<\/a> Chicago anti-gun panelist compares crowd reciting Pledge of Allegiance to Nazis\u2019 beer hall conduct<\/a> New York Gun Owners Flip the Bird to “Assault Weapons” Registration Law<\/a> Students ward off home intruders with AR-15<\/a> Hansen\u2019s NASA GISS \u2013 cooling the past, warming the present<\/a> Costly state energy policies to raise California power costs by 33 percent<\/a> Obama EPA kills power plant, 3,900 jobs in Texas<\/a> EPA Cellulosic Biofuel Regulation Rejected by Court<\/a> ‘Grief and anxiety are not mental illnesses’<\/a> More on Obama\u2019s Great Health Leap<\/a> When it comes to end of life decisions, the state does not love you<\/a> Delay, Repeal, Replace<\/a> Mullahs in Space<\/a> China’s directive to the People’s Liberation Army: Get Ready for War<\/a> Rand Paul to John Kerry: Why is it OK to bomb Libya but not Cambodia w\/o Congress’s Approval?<\/a> John Kerry Tries to Distinguish Obama\u2019s Bombing of Libya from Richard Nixon\u2019s Bombing of Cambodia<\/a> Mystery Surrounds Fordow Blast<\/a> Nevada legislator Brooks arrested, had threatened Assembly speaker<\/a> Term II: US must help poor, elderly, Obama says<\/a> Second Inaugural Address: Obama Declares War on Liberty As We Know It<\/a> Scott on MLK: \u2018If You Stay True to Your Beliefs\u2026 You Can Change the World\u2019<\/a> The Zimmerman case disintegrates<\/a> Tom Udall\u2019s name added to the mix for Interior post<\/a> Is Mitt Romney the new Nostradamus?<\/a> Va. GOP’s Stealth Redistricting<\/a> Los Angeles teacher suspected of molesting 20 kids<\/a> Brawl Erupts At East St. Louis Food Stamp Office<\/a> Bill proposed in Oregon would make cigarettes prescription-only drugs<\/a> Democrats launch plan to turn Texas blue<\/a> House Democrats propose opening gun makers to civil liability<\/a> With heavy police presence, Brooks arrives at Legislature<\/a> In graduate thesis, John Brennan argued for government censorship: \u2018Too much freedom is possible’<\/a> Unions suffer sharp decline in membership <\/a> FBI investigating Sen. Bob Menendez for sleeping with underage Dominican prostitutes<\/a> Court says Obama appointments violate constitution<\/a> Miller Mulls a Begich Challenge<\/a> Nevada Democratic Assemblyman Brooks detained by police for psychiatric evaluation after wielding sword<\/a> Harkin won’t seek 6th Senate term<\/a> Modern Language Association Obssessed With LGBT Issues<\/a> John Dewey’s dunces<\/a> Berlusconi defends Mussolini, draws outrage from political left<\/a> Entrepreneurs And Angels Socked With Absurd Retroactive Tax<\/a> Japan\u2019s Debt Time Bomb Is Ticking<\/a> Moody\u2019s New Pension Rules Would Bankrupt Six Cal Counties<\/a> Japan’s Chain Of Events: Stagnation -> Monetization -> Devaluation -> Stabilization -> Retaliation -> Hyperinflation<\/a> California residents, businesses consider bailing on Golden State over taxes<\/a> Visualizing Platinum & Palladium’s Place In The World<\/a> Pennsylvania, the next right-to-work state?<\/a> Death By Regulation, California Style<\/a> NLRB: We will continue to act despite the Appeals Court decision<\/a> Boehner full of regret over ‘fiscal-cliff’ moves<\/a> Living On Welfare in the U.K.<\/a> British PM to offer ‘in-or-out’ referendum on EU after 2015<\/a> EU wants power to sack journalists<\/a> Down in a Hole<\/a> New Zealand environmental advocate launches campaign to ban cats as pets<\/a> Google Earth exposes North Korea’s secret prison camps <\/a> Freedom in the world 2013<\/a> Obama’s Warmed-Over Collectivism<\/a> Futuristic Blues<\/a> The “Majority Opinion” Is An Illusion<\/a> A sterile view of collective action<\/a><\/p>\n Obama Government Equal to Population in 1776<\/a> What occasions revolutions?<\/a><\/p>\n Dependency and the Threat to the GOP: Why We Need a Great Leader<\/a>\n
<\/a>Gun Rights<\/h1>\n
\nDemocrat Virginia Delegate Joe Morrisey who mishandled an AK variant used as a prop for pushing gun control that I mentioned? Yeah, turns out he had been disbarred for assault and issuing death threats. No wonder he doesn\u2019t want you armed.<\/p>\n
\nA Nevada assemblyman has been arrested after allegedly intimidating a fellow state representative with physical violence, KTNV relates.<\/p>\n
\nInvestigators are probing the background of a Las Vegas police lieutenant who apparently killed his wife and son before setting his home on fire and taking his own life.<\/p>\n
\nDetails have begun to emerge about how Assemblyman Steven Brooks came to be arrested on Saturday on charges of threatening Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick, including the involvement of state Sen. Kelvin Atkinson, who has been forthright about his role, and Las Vegas Councilman Ricki Barlow, who has not.<\/p>\n
\nGuns came to the rescue of three homeowners and a business this weekend.<\/p>\n
\nAfter enduring hours of derision and mockery by the panelists at a Chicago-area guns \u201cforum\u201d Sunday, one man in the audience stood up and addressed the crowd, identified himself as a veteran, and proceeded to give a straightforward but passionate defense of his support for the First and Second Amendments.<\/p>\n
\nThe past Monday I decided to visit the Minuteman Park in Lexington and pay tribute to Captain John Parker and his fellow minutemen. A thought came to my mind, that the founding fathers of the United States and Chairman Mao had one thing in common: they all realized that guns are important political instruments. Their similarities, however, ended there<\/p>\n
\nDemocratic Assemblyman Steven Brooks arrested on suspicion of threatening to harm a fellow legislator is in a Vegas hospital “with intestinal bleeding problems” according to his attorney.<\/p>\n
\nGroupon has canceled, at least temporarily, all of its scheduled and ongoing gun-related promotions, Matt Brownell at Aol Daily Finance reported.<\/p>\n
\nCalifornia Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein staged a dramatic press conference Thursday on Capitol Hill with 10 weapons at her side and unveiled legislation instituting a government ban on more than 150 types of firearms, including rifles, pistols and shotguns.<\/p>\n
\nSenator Dianne Feinstein announced an assault weapons ban today on Capitol Hill, saying, “The purpose is to dry up the supply of these weapons over time”:<\/p>\n
\nCity wants to know if gun he used was legal<\/p>\n
\nTalk of stricter gun control has stirred up a lot of unease here, a place where hunters vie for top prize (a 26-inch LED television) in the Big Buck Photo Contest, and ads for a gun-simulator game ask, \u201cFeel like shooting something today?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nEver since the horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, gun control has been a hot topic. Now comes word of a Missouri lawmaker who wants any parent who owns guns to notify their child’s school.<\/p>\n
\nThe city of Boston is actually looking to fire this thug. Apparently they haven\u2019t found cause to dismiss him yet. He sounds like a community organizer gone bad.<\/p>\n
\nIs violating the freedom of many worth it if it saves\u201ceven one life\u201d?<\/p>\n
\nAlso inaccurately accuses veteran of seeking to take over the government by force and crowd of hurling racial insults<\/p>\n
\nNew York Governor Cuomo the Junior may have rushed through his new gun control law with such speed that police will avoid its restrictions only through the blessed miracle of selective enforcement, but he may have a little trouble getting the state’s firearms owners to attend his party.<\/p>\n
\nThis week, two students at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York used an \u201cassault rifle\u201d that may soon be banned by law to frighten away armed burglars who had broken into their home.<\/p>\n<\/a>Hide the Decline<\/h1>\n
Environment &
\n“Green Energy”<\/h2>\n
\nI ran a post yesterday, showing how the latest version of GISSTEMP had changed from using Hadley\/Reynolds to ERSST for ocean temperatures, with the result that about 0.03C had been added to recent warming.<\/p>\n
\nCalifornia has been a leader in renewable energy production, in part due to federal and state level policies that provide incentives for producers of renewable power. However, a new report found that California\u2019s energy policies will raise state power rates and associated costs by nearly 33 percent.<\/p>\n
\nChase Power, the parent company behind the $3 billion Las Brisas coal power plant in Corpus Christi, Texas, announced yesterday that it was cancelling the project.<\/p>\n
\nAn Environmental Protection Agency rule mandating refiners generate or purchase advanced biofuels was overturned by a federal appeals court in Washington, after producers failed to make any commercial supplies last year.<\/p>\n<\/a>Obamacare<\/h1>\n
Government in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
\nThe forthcoming edition of an American psychiatric manual will increase the number of people in the general population diagnosed with a mental illness – but what they need is help and understanding, not labels and medication.<\/p>\n
\nObama\u2019s EMR-Land of Make-Believe: Another Alert Reader email on Obama\u2019s $19B push for electronic-medical-records\u2013opening up a whole new category of unintended consequences<\/p>\n
\nMany years ago, when Holland first enacted its euthanasia law, NPR ran an interview with a Dutchman who explained why euthanasia was a good idea in Holland, while it would be a terrible idea in America. The secret to Holland\u2019s euthanasia, he said, was socialized medicine. The man explained that, in America, where medical costs could bankrupt families, those with terminal illnesses could be actively or passively coerced into turning to euthanasia in order to save their family\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n
\nThe Obamacare fight has just begun<\/p>\n<\/a>War & Terror<\/h1>\n
\nIran may launch \u2018living creatures\u2019 into orbit<\/p>\n
\nChina’s General Staff Headquarters issued a harsh directive on Wednesday to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to prepare for war:
\nIn 2013, the goal set for the entire army and the People’s Armed Police force is to bolster their capabilities to fight and their ability to win a war… to be well-prepared for a war by subjecting the army to hard and rigorous training on an actual combat basis.<\/p>\n
\nBetween the sniper fire drawn a few weeks back by the nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) for Defense Secretary and the kabuki theater surrounding outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testifying about Benghazi, it’s easy to forget that Sen. John “Reporting for Duty” Kerry (D-Mass.) is about to start calling the shots at State.<\/p>\n
\nIn this interesting exchange from John Kerry\u2019s confirmation hearings for the position of Secretary of State, Republican Senator Rand Paul presses Kerry on the contradiction between his longstanding view that President Richard Nixon\u2019s bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War was unconstitutional because it lacked congressional authorization, and his defense of President Obama\u2019s 2011 bombing of Libya, which also lacked congressional approval. Kerry first became nationally famous as an opponent of the Cambodia bombings and the Vietnam War generally in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n
\nMedia reports Sunday suggest a damaging explosion at Iran\u2019s top-secret Fordow nuclear development site took place last week, leaving as many as 190 workers dead.<\/p>\n<\/a>National<\/h1>\n
\nAssemblyman Steven Brooks was arrested Saturday night on a charge of threatening Nevada Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick.<\/p>\n
\nDeclaring “our journey is not complete,” President Barack Obama took the oath of office for his second term before a crowd of hundreds of thousands Monday, urging the nation to set an unwavering course toward prosperity and freedom for all its citizens and protect the social safety net that has sheltered the poor, elderly and needy.<\/p>\n
\nSounding the same themes of class warfare that propelled his re-election campaign, President Barack Obama devoted his second inaugural address to laying out his second term agenda: a struggle to undo the seeming injustices of America’s past, and to overcome the army of straw men that stand in opposition to progress.<\/p>\n
\nA holiday message from the only black U.S. senator, Tim Scott (R-S.C.)<\/p>\n
\nThe release of evidence in George Zimmerman\u2019s murder trial quickly made a mockery of his second-degree murder charges, and threw a further layer of shame upon media and political opportunists who misrepresented a tragic, but fairly straightforward, case of lethal force employed in self-defense.<\/p>\n
\nSo much for a short list. Add another name to the possible candidates for Interior secretary, a post that will be vacant when Ken Salazar departs the agency in March: Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.)<\/p>\n
\nThe last two weeks should go down as a period of vindication for former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and earn him the nickname, \u201csoothsayer of the Western World\u201d \u2014 a modern-age Nostradamus.<\/p>\n
\nWhile the nation\u2019s eyes were glued to the presidential inauguration Monday, Virginia Senate Republicans stealthily passed legislation that would redraw Virginia\u2019s Senate districts in favor of their party.<\/p>\n
\nA fourth-grade teacher who worked nearly 40 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing 20 students, a year after another veteran teacher accused of molesting nearly two dozen pupils brought national attention to the district and the problem of classroom sex abuse.<\/p>\n
\nA dispute over a spot in line at a food stamp office downstate escalated into a full-fledged brawl.<\/p>\n
\nRep. Mitch Greenlick, from Portland, is sponsoring a bill that makes cigarettes a Schedule III controlled substance, meaning it would be illegal to possess or distribute cigarettes without a doctor’s prescription.<\/p>\n
\nNational Democrats are taking steps to create a large-scale independent group aimed at turning traditionally conservative Texas into a prime electoral battleground, crafting a new initiative to identify and mobilize progressive voters in the rapidly-changing state, strategists familiar with the plans told POLITICO.<\/p>\n
\nHouse Democrats on Tuesday proposed legislation that would ease current law to allow people to file civil law suits against gun manufacturers and others in the industry when they act irresponsibly.<\/p>\n
\nAssemblyman Steven Brooks, accused of threatening to “do in” the Democratic leader of the Assembly, arrived in Carson City with a heavy police presence today, spending less than an hour holed up with legislative police and staff before leaving the Legislature.<\/p>\n
\nIn his 1980 graduate thesis at the University of Texas at Austin, John Brennan denied the existence of \u201cabsolute human rights\u201d and argued in favor of censorship on the part of the Egyptian dictatorship.<\/p>\n
\nThe nation’s labor unions suffered sharp declines in membership last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday, led by losses in the public sector as cash-strapped state and local governments laid off workers and – in some cases – limited collective bargaining rights.<\/p>\n
\nDocuments published online for the first time Thursday indicate that the FBI opened an inquiry into New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez on August 1, 2012, focusing on repeated trips he took to the Dominican Republic with longtime campaign contributor and Miami eye doctor Salomon Melgen. TheDC reported in November that Menendez purchased the service of prostitutes in that Caribbean nation at a series of alcohol-fueled sex parties.<\/p>\n
\nPresident Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate last year to appoint three members of the National Labor Relations Board, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in a far-reaching decision that could severely limit a chief executive’s powers to make recess appointments.<\/p>\n
\nJoe Miller, a former Republican Senate nominee in Alaska, is seriously considering a return to politics.<\/p>\n
\nAssemblyman Steven Brooks has been detained by police for a psychiatric evaluation after a disturbance at his grandmother’s house, Las Vegas Metro Police reported today.<\/p>\n
\nU.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said Saturday he will not seek a sixth term in 2014, a decision that eases some of the burden the national Republican Party faces in retaking the Senate.<\/p>\n
\nFor an academic organization based on language and the study of English, the Modern Language Association seems to have only one thing on its mind and it isn\u2019t language.<\/p>\n
\nConservative intellectual Dr. Thomas Sowell, in a recent column, \u201cTeaching Americans to hate their country,\u2019\u201c made the historical observation about how 100 years ago progressives like John Dewey of Columbia University changed the American education paradigm whereby teachers were no longer considered \u201cthe transmitter of society\u2019s culture\u201d (as they have been for roughly the past 6,000 years) but activist \u201cagents of [progressive, socialist] change,\u201d as evidenced by the way most Americans have been happily educated inside its Marxist propaganda factories called \u201cpublic schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nFormer prime minister Silvio Berlusconi triggered outrage from Italy’s political left on Sunday with comments defending fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini at a ceremony commemorating victims of the Nazi Holocaust.<\/p>\n<\/a>Economy
\n& Taxes<\/h1>\n
\nAs a way of encouraging entrepreneurs and investors to start companies in California, the state has long offered a tax deduction for those who start, invest in, and eventually sell companies.<\/p>\n
\nJapan is sitting on a debt time bomb and recent moves to push the central bank to target inflation have made it more likely the bomb will explode in the next 24 months, hedge fund manager Kyle Bass told CNBC’s “Street Signs” on Friday.<\/p>\n
\nTo meet new public pension financing rules, six counties in California would have to dedicate all of their existing property taxes to pay for pensions or pursue municipal bankruptcy through the courts.<\/p>\n
\nAs the world’s equity markets prepare to rally on the back of yet more central bank printing as Japan’s Shinzo Abe takes the helm with a 2% inflation target, to be announced momentarily, and a central bank entirely in his pocket, The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard suggests a rather concerning analog for the last time a Japanese minister attempted to salvage his deflation\/depression strewn nation: the 1930s ‘brilliant rescue’ by Korekiyo Takahashi, who removed Japan from the Gold Standard, ran huge ‘Keynesian’ budget deficits intentionally, and compelled the Bank of Japan to monetize his debt until the economy was back on its feet managed to devalue the JPY by 60% (40% on a trade-weighted basis).<\/p>\n
\nFrom small businessmen in San Diego to vintners in Napa Valley, top-earning Californians reeling from a new state income tax are preparing to pack up and bail out.<\/p>\n
\nThe platinum group of metals (PGMs) have received some perhaps unwarranted attention in recent weeks as the ‘coin’ idiocy came and went; but, it is noteworthy, as Eric Sprott points out that with demand rising and supply under pressure, the outlook for investment in physical platinum and palladium is increasingly compelling.<\/p>\n
\nVia the WFB, don\u2019t get too excited yet \u2014 right-to-work bills have tried and failed repeatedly over the past decade in Pennsylvania, one of the most heavily unionized states in the country \u2014 but the Wisconsin-led momentum is definitely on a roll here.<\/p>\n
\nPresident Barack Obama\u2019s inaugural address was an ode to big government.
\nAnd, of big government entities, perhaps the most toxic to the American economy is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, this federal agency cannot hold a candle to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in terms its ability to create a poisonous effect on the economy.<\/p>\n
\nMark Gaston Pearce, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, issued the following statement in reaction to today\u2019s DC Appeals Court decision that President Obama use of recess appointments to install three people on the NLRB last year was unconstitutional. The action renders the board without a quorum to act and potentially invalidates a year\u2019s worth of actions and rulings by it.<\/p>\n
\nSpeaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is sharing his regrets about his “fiscal-cliff” strategy, less than a month after the House bitterly swallowed a last-minute deal hatched in the Senate.<\/p>\n<\/a>International<\/h1>\n
\nWelfare has become a major political issue in the United Kingdom. During the 13 years when Labour was in power, it seems not to have occurred to most Britons that Labour\u2019s open-door immigration policy, combined with the U.K.\u2019s liberal welfare benefits, were likely to lead to abuse. Now, people are starting to notice.<\/p>\n
\nPrime Minister David Cameron will on Wednesday propose holding a referendum after 2015 giving British people the choice of staying in or leaving the European Union.<\/p>\n
\nA European Union report has urged tight press regulation and demanded that Brussels officials are given control of national media supervisors with new powers to enforce fines or the sacking of journalists.<\/p>\n
\nEmbattled Argentine president poses in Viet Cong tunnels used to kill Americans<\/p>\n
\nGareth Morgan has a simple dream: a New Zealand free of pet cats that threaten native birds. But the environmental advocate has triggered a claws-out backlash with his new anti-feline campaign.<\/p>\n
\nHuman rights activists are turning to Google Earth to identify the vast network of prison camps that dot the North Korean countryside and hold as many as 200,000 people deemed hostile to the regime.<\/p>\n<\/a>Opinion<\/h1>\n
\nIn what Middle East country do Arabs enjoy the greatest civil liberties? That is a question worthy of the investigation of the Middle East correspondents of the New York Times, the Washington Post and others who bring us the news from the region<\/p>\n
\nMuch of President Barack Obama’s mercifully brief second inaugural address yesterday was familiar to anyone who has been listening to his rhetoric and policy ideas since 2007.<\/p>\n
\nWhile many ask whether the blue social model has a future, it may be more interesting to ask what kind of future the blue social model offers. Blue opinion leaders and thinkers are serious people who run many of the leading institutions and companies in American life; they are steering these institutions in ways that fit their ideas about where the country is going and what it needs. Those ideas are pretty conventional and mainstream, but the direction toward which they point is disquieting.<\/p>\n
\nIf there is one concept on Earth that has been the absolute bane of human existence (besides global elitism), it would have to be the concept of the \u201cmajority opinion\u201d. The moment men began refusing to develop their own world views without first asking \u201cWhat does everyone else think?\u201d, they set themselves up for an endless future of failures. We are, of course, very social beings, and our natures drive us to seek those of like mind and spirit in what some might call a \u201ctribal imperative\u201d. However, this imperative to organize is often manipulated by those who understand the psychological mechanisms behind it.<\/p>\n
\nPresident Obama Monday invoked Thomas Jefferson\u2019s Declaration of Independence to justify his expansive view of government, but Jefferson might be surprised to learn that the number of federal employees today is nearly equal to the entire population of the nation in 1776.<\/p>\n
\nOne of the issues that the NRI summit has tackled is whether the Republican party is actuarially doomed by the disproportionate growth of ethnic groups that tend to vote Democrat. For many, that question boils down to what conservatives can do to appeal more to Hispanics. I agree that the GOP needs to lose its reputation for intolerance \u2014 and fast. But the real demographic challenge to conservatism is deeper and more difficult, and it has nothing to do with ethnicity.<\/p>\n