Wapo Gives Obama Official 4 Pinocchios Again For Another Sequester Lie

By Susan Duclos

Barack Obama, Democrats and White House officials are racking up the sequester lies and it is pretty bad when the main stream Obama media starts calling them out of those lies.

Obama's previous claim that the GOP proposed the sequester was given four Pinocchios back in 2012, yet his administration continues to repeat the lie continuously, hoping if they says it enough, people will start to believe it.

Yesterday, Washington Post handed out another four Pinocchios for Obama's  Education Secretary Arne Duncan, CBS’s “Face the Nation,” statement "here are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices that they can’t come back this fall."

This follows on the heels of the exposure of another misrepresentation (read-LIE) coming from the Obama administration.

“In compliance with The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, the OMB sent a detailed report to Congress in September 2012. But there's a small problem with the report: One of the cuts it warns against would affect an agency that no longer exists--and didn't exist when the OMB sent its report to congress.  The first line item on page 121 of the OMB's September 2012 report says that under sequestration the National Drug Intelligence Center would lose $2 million of its $20 million budget. While that's slightly more than 8.2 percent (rounding error or scare tactic?), the bigger problem is that the National Drug Intelligence Center shuttered its doors on June 15, 2012--three months before the OMB issued its report to Congress.” (Mike Riggs, “White House Report Claims Sequestration Will Affect Federal Department That No Longer Exists,” Reason’s Hit And Run, 2/25/13)

Washington Post and Reason aren't the only ones in the media calling out Democrats, White House officials and Obama's lies, as IBD clearly demonstrates with quotes:

Case in point is CNN's Candy Crowley.

Last seen helping Obama during one of the presidential debates, Crowley was incredulous at what Obama's transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, was saying about sequester-caused air travel nightmares.

Even with the budget cuts, she said, the FAA will have "$500 million more than 2008, (when) the planes were running just fine," adding, "surely there must be things inside the FAA budget where you can get rid of 4%."

NBC's David Gregory was surprisingly skeptical, too, asking LaHood if he actually believed "Americans think that government can't tighten up a bit."

Politico, meanwhile, ran a story wondering whether Obama was "telling the truth about sequestration," and pointed out that "dramatic predictions about long lines at airports and the loss of special education funding involve some large assumptions."

The story also noted that agency heads "had trouble specifying how they arrived at specific numbers the White House presented."

And the AP on Tuesday blew huge holes in various administration doom-and-gloom claims, calling them "sky-is-falling hype."

The AP, for example, found no evidence to back up administration claims about teacher layoffs. It also pointed out that the airline industry thinks the sequester will have "no major impact on air travel," and that various numbers bandied about by Obama were "thrown out into thin air with no anchor."

But the sequester skepticism prize goes to Bob Woodward, who blasted Obama Wednesday for claiming the sequester made it impossible to deploy another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. "That's a kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time," he said.

It seems some in the media are not prepared to let Obama drag them off the proverbial cliff with him on the issue of Obama's sequester.

 

White House Backed Senate Proposal To Replace Sequester Would Raise Deficit By $7.2 Billion

By Susan Duclos

The Sequester: On March 1, $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts—known in Washington as the sequester or sequestration, are set to begin, prompted by a 2011 law designed to reduce the government's budget deficit.

The whole purpose of the sequester was to lower the deficit, yet the White House backed Senate proposal to replace the sequester, raises the deficit by $7.2 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of Harry Reid's proposal.

CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Ta xation (JCT) estimate that enacting the bill would increase budget deficits from change s in direct spending and revenues by $7.2 billion over the 2013 -2023 period. Because enacting the legislation would affect direct spending and revenues, pay-as-you-go procedures apply.

 It reads like a joke, but other reports on the White House backed deal, confirms this is no joke.

AP:

White House-backed legislation in the Senate to replace $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts would raise the deficit through the end of the budget year by tens of billions of dollars, officials said late Wednesday as the two parties maneuvered for public support on economic issues.

The Obama/Democrats plan assumes Congress can work together and that eventually the deficit will be lowered with their plan.....direct quote from the CBO report "The legislation also would reduce discretionary spending by $9.0 billion over the same period, assuming appropriations actions consistent with the bill."

Big, big assumption there. Excuse me while I laugh myself off my chair.

In other words... we are going to increase spending in order to decrease it. Huh?


The GOP reminds people what the CBO said about the two previous House generated and passed  sequester replacement bills.

FLASHBACK: The House Proposal To Replace The Sequester Put Forth In December Would Have Decreased The Deficit By $217.7 Billion. “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reviewed H.R. 6684, the Spending Reduction Act of 2012, as posted on the Web site of the House Committee on Rules on December 19, 2012. The enclosed table shows estimates of the legislation’s effects on direct spending and revenues, assuming enactment around January 1, 2013.Assuming enactment around January 1, 2013, CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that enacting H.R. 6684 would yield net deficit reduction of $217.7 billion over the 2013-2022 period.” (Douglas W. Elmendorf, CBO Director, Letter To Rep. David Drier, 12/20/12)

FLASHBACK: The House Proposal To Replace The Sequester Put Forth In May Would Have Decreased The Deficit By $333 Billion. “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reviewed the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act, as ordered reported by the House Committee on the Budget on May 7, 2012. The two enclosed tables present estimates of the legislation’s effects on direct spending and revenues under two alternative enactment date assumptions. Table 1 provides estimates assuming enactment around October 1, 2012, while Table 2 provides estimates assuming enactment by July 1, 2012, as you directed in your letter to CBO dated April 2, 2012. Assuming enactment around October 1, 2012, CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that the reconciliation act would reduce deficits by $15.3 billion over the 2012-2013 period, by $136.9 billion over the 2012-2017 period, and by $328.0 billion over the 2012-2022 period. Under assumed enactment by July 1, 2012, CBO and JCT estimate that the legislation would reduce deficits by $19.7 billion over the 2012-2013 period, by $142.0 billion over the 2012-2017 period, and by $333.0 billion over the 2012-2022 period.” (Douglas W. Elmendorf, CBO Director, Letter To Rep. Paul Ryan, 5/8/12)

Obama Administration Officials Threatening Journalists And Media Outlets

By Susan Duclos

[Update] More on the verbal abusiveness of the Obama administration towards journalists below the videos added as an update.

Bob Woodard exposed the Obama administration on Wednesday February 27, 2013, for threatening that he would "regret" his reporting on the sequester and how the idea originated in the White House and was proposed to Congress by the White House.

BuzzFeed identified the White House administration official that made that threat as  Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council.

Now another person who writes columns for a different media organization is speaking out about threats made to them by the Obama administration.

Bob Woodward isn't the only person who's received threats for airing the Obama administration's dirty laundry.  It seems anyone is a potential target of the White House these days - even former senior members of the Clinton administration.

A day after Woodward's claim that a senior White House official had told him he would "regret" writing a column criticizing President Obama's stance on the sequester, Lanny Davis, a longtime close advisor to President Bill Clinton, told WMAL's Mornings on the Mall Thursday he had received similar threats for newspaper columns he had written about Obama in the Washington Times.

Davis told WMAL that his editor, John Solomon, "received a phone call from a senior Obama White House official who didn't like some of my columns, even though I'm a supporter of Obama. I couldn't imagine why this call was made."  Davis says the Obama aide told Solomon, "that if he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose their White House credentials."

Davis has a little bit of advice for the White House - Threatening Woodward is a bad idea:

"Firstly, you don't threaten anyone. Secondly, you don't threaten Bob Woodward," said Davis. "He's one of the best reporters ever.  He's factual.  You can disagree with facts that he reports, but he's factual.  Don't mess with him about his facts. You can mess with him about the interpretation of his facts, but this is not a reporter you tangle with," he added.

Both video and audio below

Video of Bob Woodward talking about White House threatening him:



Audio of Lanny Davis talking about White House threats:



[Update] More reporters are coming out of the woodwork with their stories.

National Journal's Ron Fournier iced a source after the source became verbally abusive.

I was struck by the fact that Carney’s target has a particular history with White House attacks. I tweeted: “Obama White House: Woodward is ‘willfully wrong.' Huh-what did Nixon White House have to say about Woodward?”

Reporting by Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered Watergate misdeeds and led to the resignation of President Nixon. My tweet was not intended to compare Nixon to Obama (there is no reason to doubt Obama’s integrity -- period) but rather to compare the attack to the press strategies of all the presidents’ men.

I had angered the White House, particularly a senior White House official who I am unable to identify because I promised the person anonymity. Going back to my first political beat, covering Bill Clinton’s administration in Arkansas and later in Washington, I’ve had a practice that is fairly common in journalism: A handful of sources I deal with regularly are granted blanket anonymity. Any time we communicate, they know I am prepared to report the information at will (matters of fact, not spin or opinion) and that I will not attribute it to them.

This is an important way to build a transparent and productive relationship between reporters and the people they cover. Nothing chills a conversation faster than saying, “I’m quoting you on this.”

The official angered by my Woodward tweet sent me an indignant e-mail. “What’s next, a Nazi analogy?” the official wrote, chastising me for spreading “bull**** like that” I was not offended by the note, mild in comparison to past exchanges with this official. But it was the last straw in a relationship that had deteriorated.

As editor-in-chief of National Journal, I received several e-mails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat. “You will regret staking out that claim,” The Washington Post reporter was told.

Once I moved back to daily reporting this year, the badgering intensified. I wrote Saturday night, asking the official to stop e-mailing me. The official wrote, challenging Woodward and my tweet. “Get off your high horse and assess the facts, Ron,” the official wrote.

I wrote back:

“I asked you to stop e-mailing me. All future e-mails from you will be on the record -- publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you. My cell-phone number is … . If you should decide you have anything constructive to share, you can try to reach me by phone. All of our conversations will also be on the record, publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you.”

I haven’t heard back from the official.......

Read the rest........

How Does Obama Justify Naming The Creator Of The Sequester He Hates, As Treasury Secretary?

By Susan Duclos

Barack Obama has spent million, if not billions, traveling around the country castigating the sequester, saying it will destroy the economy, harm American workers, will kill agencies, destroy our military, etc etc etc...... yet he nominates, and the Senate just confirmed it's creator, Jack Lew, as Treasury Secretary for the United States of America.

Reminder of who Lew is:

The White House chief of staff at the time, Jack Lew, who had been budget director during the negotiations that set up the sequester in 2011, backed up the president two days later.

“There was an insistence on the part of Republicans in Congress for there to be some automatic trigger,” Lew said while campaigning in Florida. It “was very much rooted in the Republican congressional insistence that there be an automatic measure.”

My extensive reporting for my book “The Price of Politics” shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors — probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

 How does Obama justify handing America's economy to the creator of the sequester, a sequester Obama has spent the last weeks speaking out against vehemently?

Is there any reporter or journalist with enough integrity and guts to ask Obama that simple question?

Outrage: Students In Texas School Told To Call 9-11 Terrorists 'Freedom Fighters'

By Susan Duclos

Students forced to wear burqas, made to refer to the Holocaust as "ethnic cleansing" instead of genocide, and told to call the the terrorists that hijacked planes and slaughtered nearly 3,000 American citizens on 9-11-01, "freedom fighters."

One would think this was a school in Iran, but no, it was the  Lumberton High School in Texas, right here in the United States of America.

Worse, John Valastro, the superintendent of the Lumberton Independent School District, claims this is considered "educating the kids." (Via Fox News)

Parents of the Advanced Placement World Geography students are understandably upset, as evidenced by April LeBlanc, whose daughter was one of those students.

April LeBlanc’s 15-year-old daughter was one of the students in the photograph. She told Fox News that many parents in the district feel betrayed by school officials.

“My biggest thing is not the burqa,” she said. “That was the key to opening up the rest. It’s scary how far they dove into the Islamic faith. It’s scary what they taught my daughter. Who’s in charge of this? How did our superintendent let this slip through the cracks?”

LeBlanc said the students were told that they could no longer use the terms suicide bomber or terrorist. Instead, they were instructed to use the words “freedom fighters.”

“This teacher taught her that a freedom fighter is when they give their life for the Holy War – and that they’re going to go to heaven,” she told Fox News. “They were saturating these kids in Islam and my daughter is an American Christian child.”

Unlike the recent story that make headlines of a teacher misrepresenting the schools dress policy when she threatened to suspend a kid for wearing a shirt that supported the US Marines, this time, the teacher, according to Madelyn LeBlanc, was uncomfortable and stated she too was forced to teach her students this nonsense.

“I do have a lot of sympathy for her,” the 15-year-old said. “At the very beginning she said she didn’t want to teach it but it was in the curriculum.”

Her mother added that it was her impression that the teacher did not agree with the quote about calling the terrorists freedom fighters and laced her lecture with sarcasm.

During a lesson on Judaism, LeBlanc said the teacher told the class, “Students, I’m supposed to be politically correct and tell you that the Holocaust was not Genocide. It was an ethnic cleansing.”

Read the rest of the story over at Fox.

Recently it was also reported that Texas students were being given assignments to design a socialist flag, as part of the very controversial CSCOPE- Read more on that in an earlier WuA piece from February 4, 2013.

How on earth did all this become part of the curriculum in American schools?

[Update] WuA contributor Auntybrat has a piece up about this at her  own blog, Assoluita Traquillita.

 Contact Information

Lumberton Independent School District
121 South Main
Lumberton, TX 77657
Ph:   409-923- 7580
Fax: 409-755-7848

Another Obama Administration Sequester Lie Exposed, By Washington Post

By Susan Duclos

The Obama administration busted again, in yet another sequester lie, this time they are exposed by Washington Post:

The descriptions of the post-sequester landscape that have been coming out of the Obama Administration have been alarming, specific--and, in at least some cases, hyped.

“There are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices that they can’t come back this fall,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

When he was pressed in a White House briefing Wednesday to come up with an example, Duncan named a single county in West Virginia and acknowledged, “whether it’s all sequester-related, I don’t know.”

And, as it turns out, it isn’t.

Officials in Kanawha County, West Virginia say that the “transfer notices” sent to at least 104 educators had more to do with a separate matter that involves a change in the way West Virginia allocates federal dollars designated for poor children.

The transfer notices are required by state law and give teachers a warning that they may be moved to a different position next school year. They don’t necessarily mean a teacher has been laid off, said Pam Padon, director of federal programs and Title 1 for the Kanawha County public schools. “It’s not like we’re cutting people’s jobs at this point.”

She said those 104 notices will ultimately result in the elimination of about five to six teaching jobs, which were likely to be cut regardless of the sequester.

“The major impact is not so much sequestration,” she said. “Those five or six jobs would already be gone regardless of sequestration.”

I guess it all depends on if the word "literally" was literal, huh?

This follows on the heels of the exposure of another misrepresentation (read-LIE) coming from the Obama administration.

“In compliance with The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, the OMB sent a detailed report to Congress in September 2012. But there's a small problem with the report: One of the cuts it warns against would affect an agency that no longer exists--and didn't exist when the OMB sent its report to congress.  The first line item on page 121 of the OMB's September 2012 report says that under sequestration the National Drug Intelligence Center would lose $2 million of its $20 million budget. While that's slightly more than 8.2 percent (rounding error or scare tactic?), the bigger problem is that the National Drug Intelligence Center shuttered its doors on June 15, 2012--three months before the OMB issued its report to Congress.” (Mike Riggs, “White House Report Claims Sequestration Will Affect Federal Department That No Longer Exists,” Reason’s Hit And Run, 2/25/13)

[Update] Obama also received four Pinocchios from Washington Post's The Fact Checker on his "fanciful" lie about Congress proposing sequestration.

Obama's lies are really piling up.

(Headline was corrected for this post)

Video- Bob Woodward Blasts Obama ‘Madness’- UPDATE- WH Threatens Woodward

By Susan Duclos

[Update] Bob Woodward claims "A 'Very Senior' White House Person Warned Me I'd 'Regret' What I'm Doing"

Washington Post’s Bob Woodward says Obama's choice not to deploy an aircraft carrier because of budget cuts is “a kind of madness.”

[WATCH]



More at Politico.

Recently Woordward publicly castigated Barack Obama for lying about the origins of the sequester law, showing that it was a White House proposal, signed off on by Obama before presented to Congress.

The president and Lew had this wrong. My extensive reporting for my book “The Price of Politics” shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors — probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

Nabors has told others that they checked with the president before going to see Reid. A mandatory sequester was the only action-forcing mechanism they could devise. Nabors has said, “We didn’t actually think it would be that hard to convince them” — Reid and the Republicans — to adopt the sequester. “It really was the only thing we had. There was not a lot of other options left on the table.”

Conservative pundits have been pleasantly surprised that Woodward has been front and center in pointing out Obama's lies.

Junior high teacher tells kid to remove Marines t-shirt or get suspended

By Susan Duclos

A junior High School teacher, Karen Deverell, at Genoa-Kingston Middle School in a small town in northeast Illinois, threatened a 14-year-old student with suspension for wearing a a shirt supportive of the United states Marines.

School officials claim the teacher misinterpreted their school dress code and say they would have overruled her had they known.

Via Daily Caller: (H/T @thomassfl)

“My son is very proud of the Marines, and, in fact, of all the services,” the elder McIntyre told Fox News. “So he wears it with pride. There are two rifles crossed underneath the word ‘Marines’ on the shirt, but to me that should be overlooked. It’s more about the Marines instead of the rifles.”

Daniel McIntyre added that his son was upset about the situation.

“He couldn’t understand why a teacher would make him do that,” he said.

According to a local newspaper, school officials (beyond the teacher) had not been aware of the kerfuffle until Fox News — which had the story nationally — notified administrators late Monday.

Superintendent Joe Burgess told the DeKalb Daily Chronicle that Deverell’s superiors would have immediately overruled the teacher’s interpretation of the school district’s dress code had they known about it.

“Very simply, it’s not a violation,” Burgess told the Daily Chronicle. “It’s a very common symbol for the U.S. Marines. Had we had an opportunity to discuss it, we could have straightened out the situation.”

Burgess added that teachers in his district who aren’t sure about dress code violations should send students to the principal’s office for a second opinion — and a final determination.

The child's father wants the dress code policy at the school changed so that teachers cannot misinterpret the code and threaten children as Karen Deverell did.

Via Breitbart we learn the school has decided not to speak to reporters directly, offering a statement on the school Facebook page instead.

The school administration claims they have not been given the chance to weigh in on the incident as it happened, insisting that they "support of our military" and regularly encourage students and staff to write letters to the troops and attend patriotic ceremonies for veterans.

We very much support the armed forces and were disheartened to learn of this matter through the media. The administration and school handbook agree that this shirt is not a violation of the dress code. We also take school safety very earnestly and it needs to be recognized that is a topic that we also take very seriously and support our students and staff in providing a safe environment to learn, teach and work in on a daily basis. We thank everyone for their continued support of our school and our school district.

Teachers and school officials need to learn to apply rules with a little common sense, anyone who has seen the Marine Rifles understand that they are not promoting violence in the school, but are a symbol used not just on shirts and clothing, but are used on  uniforms in the Marine Corps. (Via The Patriot Perspective)

Video- Teacher educates New Jersey legislative committee on Second Amendment

By Susan Duclos

By Susan Duclos

H/T to @Sassafras_Knob for pointing to the video shown below where Carole Lokan-Moore, an 18-year substitute teacher in Burlington County spoke to the New Jersey Assembly Law and Safety Committee on February 13, 2013 and educated them on the Second Amendment and the history of what happens when a nation starts down the path of gun registration and disarming it's citizens.

[WATCH] 2:14 minutes

Plurality Feel Obamacare Hurts Economy More Than Sequester Spending Cuts

By Susan Duclos

Barack Obama is spending a lot of taxpayer money, flying around the country in a campaign style to scare Americans about the sequester cuts going into effect on March 1, 2013, pitching worst case scenarios, using facts and figures that have been disputed, even by the Obama friendly mainstream media, but his doomsday rallies haven't had the intended fear-inducing effect that he has been aiming for.

Polling News

Americans are far less concerned with the sequester cuts than they are over the negative impact to the nation's economy by Obamacare.

Despite the inside-the-Beltway warnings about the economic impact of the impending sequester spending cuts, voters are more worried about what President Obama’s new health care law will do to the economy. Forty-eight percent (48%) of Likely U.S. Voters think the health care law is more likely to hurt the economy than cutting government spending. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 29% believe spending cuts will hurt the economy more. Fifteen percent (15%) think neither will hurt economically. 

Here is Obama's problem in a nutshell.

Obama may have his media shills pushing his doomsday scenarios for him and his diehard supporters may be loud and vocal, but the majority of Americans believe Washington has a spending problem,  that includes 55 percent of Democrats, according to the latest polling.

Opposition to another round of stimulus runs two-to-one, according to the poll. This could be because 73 percent of voters polled say cutting government spending would be more likely to help strengthen the nation’s economy -- as opposed to just 15 percent who believe increasing spending would do the trick.

While Obama reportedly has said he doesn't believe the government has a spending problem, the poll showed that out of 13 issues tested, more voters are "extremely" concerned about government spending than any other issue.

Even a majority of Democrats -- 55 percent -- agreed that cutting spending is the way to help the economy. Ninety-one percent of Republicans held that view. 

Via Gallup, who tested Obama's approval and disapproval on nine key issues, large majorities disapprove of his handling of the federal budget deficit (65%) and the economy (60%) with only 31 percent and 39 percent approving of his job performance on those two issues, respectively.

In that poll Obama only saw a majority approval on just one issue out of nine, national defense, with a plurality and majorities disapproving of his job performance on the remaining eight issues.

In another poll, 72 percent believe the economy is a very important issue, 71 percent naming government spending and 68 percent naming job creation, making those three issues the top three out of 15 issues asked about.

The reason Obama's campaign by fear is not resonating the way Obama and his shills wanted it to is because in the end, when all is said and done, Americans know Washington has a spending problem and want spending cuts, even if they are leery of specific programs being part of those cuts.

The RNC Pokes Holes In Obama's Sequester Campaign Of Fear

By Susan Duclos

As Barack Obama travels the country in a style reminiscent of his campaigning for election and reelection, playing on Americans' fears by outlining worst case scenarios over the automatic sequestration cuts,  that his own administration proposed, going into effect on March 1, 2013 unless he gives up his demand for another round of tax increases, Republicans are pushing back hard.

The RNC has put together a number of links showing that Obama's "the sky is falling" mantra is full of holes.

Via email, but also can be found over at GOP.com:

OBAMA’S SEQUESTRATION REPORT ASSUMES THE WORST

A Closer Look At Obama’s State-By-State Sequester Report Reveals That “Some Of The Scariest Stuff Is Going To Happen In Slow Motion — If It Happens At All.” “Read President Barack Obama’s state-by-state breakdown of the sequester and you get a dire message: The sky is going to fall on March 1. But a closer read of the detailed reports shows that some of the scariest stuff is going to happen in slow motion — if it happens at all.” (David Nather, “Is Obama Telling The Truth About Sequestration?” Politico, 2/25/13)

Obama’s Report Described The “Worst-Case Scenario,” But Even Skeptics Believe The Sequester Will “Soften Eventually.” “The state-by-state reports are full of scary numbers about funding cuts for schools, defense, public health, law enforcement and social services — any of which could be true if Congress and Obama fail to act this week, next month — or ever. So the scenarios described by Obama — ‘thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off’ or ‘hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings’ — are the worst-case scenario. Even Washington skeptics expect the sequester to soften eventually, even if the cuts take effect.” (David Nather, “Is Obama Telling The Truth About Sequestration?” Politico, 2/25/13)

Obama’s Sequester Report Includes Warnings Of Cuts To Education Programs That Have Been Fully Funded In Advance For This School Year. “Some of the most dire White House predictions are about education funding — like the deep cuts in aid for disadvantaged kids that could hurt 2,700 schools and 1.2 million students. And states could face the loss of federal special-education funding for 7,200 teachers and staff members who teach children with disabilities, according to the reports. There’s just one thing the White House doesn’t mention: Those cuts wouldn’t actually kick in until the next school year. That’s because those two programs — Title I aid to disadvantaged students and special-education aid under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — are funded in advance, so they’re already covered for this school year.” (David Nather, “Is Obama Telling The Truth About Sequestration?” Politico, 2/25/13)

Education Secretary Arne Duncan Claimed That Teacher Layoffs Have Begun, But “School Administrators Say No Pink Slips Are Expected Before May, For The Next School Year.” “Warnings of thousands of teacher layoffs, for example, are made with the presumption that local communities would not step in with their own dollars — perhaps from higher taxes — to keep teachers in the classrooms if federal money is not soon restored. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says teacher layoffs have already begun, but he has not backed up that claim and school administrators say no pink slips are expected before May, for the next school year.” (Calvin Woodward, “SPIN METER: In Budget Fight, Sky Is Falling Again,” The Associated Press, 2/26/13)

“There May Be No Way To Tell” If Sequestration Has An Impact On Airport Security Lines. “The White House just says the TSA’s hiring freeze and furloughs would ‘substantially increase passenger wait times at airport security checkpoints.’ Compared with what? The short lines airport passengers face now? At least when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano repeated the warnings Monday about the customs agents, there’s a yardstick to judge whether the cuts will really have such a severe impact. With regular airport lines, there may be no way to tell.” (David Nather, “Is Obama Telling The Truth About Sequestration?” Politico, 2/25/13)  

Obama’s Report Warns Of Delays At The Food And Drug Administration, But Drugmakers Have Been Complaining For Years About The Slow Drug Approval Process. “That’s also going to be a problem with the Food and Drug Administration — the White House warns that the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research would face ‘delays in new drug approvals.’ The catch is the agency isn’t actually known for speed now — drugmakers have been complaining about slow approval times for years. If the delays get slightly worse, the industry won’t even have to make big changes to their talking points.” (David Nather, “Is Obama Telling The Truth About Sequestration?” Politico, 2/25/13)

OBAMA’S PRECISE CUTS ARE ACTUALLY BASED ON ESTIMATES

“There Is A Lot Of Improbable Precision In Administration Statements About What Could Happen.” “And there is a lot of improbable precision in administration statements about what could happen: more than 373,000 seriously ill people losing mental health services, 600,000 low-income pregnant women and new mothers losing food aid and nutrition education, 1,200 fewer inspections of dangerous work sites, 125,000 poor households going without vouchers, and much more.” (Calvin Woodward, “SPIN METER: In Budget Fight, Sky Is Falling Again,” The Associated Press, 2/26/13)

The “Simple” Calculations Used By The Obama Administration Incorrectly Assume “A Direct And Measurable Correlation Between A Federal Dollar And Its Effect On The Ground.” “The estimates in many cases come from a simple calculation: Divide the proscribed spending cut by a program's per-person spending to see how many beneficiaries may lose services or benefits under the sequester. But in practice, through all the layers of bureaucracy and the everyday smoke and mirrors of the federal budget, there is rarely a direct and measurable correlation between a federal dollar and its effect on the ground. That has meant a lot of tenuous ‘could happen’ warnings by the administration, not so much ‘will happen’ evidence.” (Calvin Woodward, “SPIN METER: In Budget Fight, Sky Is Falling Again,” The Associated Press, 2/26/13)

NYU Professor Paul Light: “These Numbers Are Just Numbers Thrown Out Into The Thin Air With No Anchor, And I Think They Don't Provoke The Outrage Or Concern That The Obama Administration Seeks.” “‘These numbers are just numbers thrown out into the thin air with no anchor, and I think they don't provoke the outrage or concern that the Obama administration seeks,’ said Paul Light, a New York University professor who specializes in the federal bureaucracy and budget. For all the dire warnings, he said, ‘It's not clear who gets hurt by this.’” (Calvin Woodward, “SPIN METER: In Budget Fight, Sky Is Falling Again,” The Associated Press, 2/26/13)

“The Obama Administration Even Admits That The Numbers Are Just Estimates”

The Department Of Health And Human Services’ Spokesman Clarified That Obama’s Estimates “Should Not Be Taken Literally.” “In some cases, the Obama administration even admits that the numbers are just estimates. For example, Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the administration’s estimate that 70,000 students would see their Head Start program shut down — which first appeared in a Feb. 1 letter to Congress from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius — should not be taken literally and serves as an estimate based on ‘historic funding levels.’” (David Nather, “Is Obama Telling The Truth About Sequestration?” Politico, 2/25/13)  

The Office Of Management And Budget Admitted That The Cabinet Agencies “Had Trouble Specifying” How They Arrived At The Specific Numbers Used In Obama’s Report. “The state-by-state reports aren’t crystal clear on the methodology, making it difficult to know how much leeway was taken with the estimates. A White House spokeswoman referred questions about sequestration data to the Office of Management and Budget. OMB said its data came from each Cabinet agency, and those agencies had trouble specifying how they arrived at the specific numbers the White House presented.” (David Nather, “Is Obama Telling The Truth About Sequestration?” Politico, 2/25/13)

 Congressional Appropriations Committee Aides Say That The Estimates Used In Obama’s Report Are “Too General” To Fact-Check. “And don’t ask congressional appropriations committee aides to fact-check the estimates — they say the Obama administration’s estimates are so general that they don’t have enough to work with.” (David Nather, “Is Obama Telling The Truth About Sequestration?” Politico, 2/25/13)

OBAMA’S SEQUESTRATION WARNINGS HAVE EVEN INCLUDED CUTS TO AN AGENCY THAT NO LONGER EXISTS

In A Report Submitted To Congress In September 2012, The Obama Administration Warned Of Sequestration Cuts To The National Drug Intelligence Center, Which Had Closed Its Doors In June 2012. “In compliance with The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, the OMB sent a detailed report to Congress in September 2012. But there's a small problem with the report: One of the cuts it warns against would affect an agency that no longer exists--and didn't exist when the OMB sent its report to congress.  The first line item on page 121 of the OMB's September 2012 report says that under sequestration the National Drug Intelligence Center would lose $2 million of its $20 million budget. While that's slightly more than 8.2 percent (rounding error or scare tactic?), the bigger problem is that the National Drug Intelligence Center shuttered its doors on June 15, 2012--three months before the OMB issued its report to Congress.” (Mike Riggs, “White House Report Claims Sequestration Will Affect Federal Department That No Longer Exists,” Reason’s Hit And Run, 2/25/13)

  PDF Version

 

Doctors' Group Supports Hobby Lobby with Amicus

By Susan Duclos

TUCSON, Ariz., Feb. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In an amicus brief filed last week, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) argues that requiring Hobby Lobby to pay for drugs and devices with life-ending mechanisms of action is an unconstitutional violation of its freedom of conscience.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA or "ObamaCare") requires that employer-provided health insurance cover, without co-payment, all items that the Food and Drug Administration labels as "contraception." However, many of these drugs or devices do not prevent conception or fertilization but rather interfere with implantation, thus ending a unique human life. The abortion-inducing drug ella can also end a life after implantation.

Hobby Lobby has been threatened with fines of $1.3 million per day for not complying with the mandate. The only way to avoid ruinous fines or participation in what it holds to be murder is to go out of business.

In the view of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Hobby Lobby does not qualify for a conscience exemption because it is a business enterprise, not a religious organization.

"The rights protected by the U.S. Constitution include the rights of individuals as well as organizations," states AAPS executive director Jane Orient, M.D. "The government does not have the lawful power to force people to act in violation of their consciences."

This right of conscience applies to all of life's activities, including the conduct of business, not just to actions related to an organization that the state recognizes as a religion.

The U.S., unlike Communist China, does not have one "Protestant" and one "Catholic" church that meet the approval of the government, with others outlawed or persecuted. The U.S. government does not have the constitutional authority to define what qualifies as a church or a religion or a religious belief.

AAPS asks the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the lower court's decision to deny an exemption.

Mailee R. Smith of Americans United for Life wrote this brief for AAPS and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists, Christian Medical Association, Catholic Medical Association, National Catholic Bioethics Center, Physicians for Life, and National Association of Pro Life Nurses.

AAPS filed its own lawsuit days after the ACA was signed into law, challenging the constitutionality of forcing Americans to buy a product they did not want. AAPS v Sebelius is now on appeal in the D.C. Circuit.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a national organization representing physicians in all specialties, founded in 1943.

SOURCE Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

11 Out Of 15 Best State Business Climates Go To Conservative States

By Susan Duclos

While politicians spin, Obama and Democrats insisting that more taxes, more spending and more regulations will save the day and Republicans saying less taxes, less spending and less regulation will strengthen the economy, the public is left with two sides using cherry picked data to argue for their political ideology.

Take the politicians out of the equation and look at the raw numbers, the data, the facts and the American people can see for themselves what is working and what is not.

Excerpts from WSJ:

Economic Trends

These trends point to a U.S. economic future dominated by four growth corridors that are generally less dense, more affordable, and markedly more conservative and pro-business: the Great Plains, the Intermountain West, the Third Coast (spanning the Gulf states from Texas to Florida), and the Southeastern industrial belt.

Overall, these corridors account for 45% of the nation's land mass and 30% of its population. Between 2001 and 2011, job growth in the Great Plains, the Intermountain West and the Third Coast was between 7% and 8%—nearly 10 times the job growth rate for the rest of the country. Only the Southeastern industrial belt tracked close to the national average.

Historically, these regions were little more than resource colonies or low-wage labor sites for richer, more technically advanced areas. By promoting policies that encourage enterprise and spark economic growth, they're catching up.

Such policies have been pursued not only by Republicans but also by Democrats who don't share their national party's notion that business should serve as a cash cow to fund ever more expensive social-welfare, cultural or environmental programs. While California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts and Minnesota have either enacted or pursued higher income taxes, many corridor states have no income taxes or are planning, like Kansas and Louisiana, to lower or even eliminate them.

The Results

Corridor states took 11 of the top 15 spots in Chief Executive magazine's 2012 review of best state business climates. California, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts were at the bottom. The states of the old Confederacy boast 10 of the top 12 places for locating new plants, according to a recent 2012 study by Site Selection magazine.

There is an old expression..... the proof is in the pudding.

Vid- Boehner:House Doesn't Need To Pass 3rd Sequester Replacement Before "Senate Gets Off Their Ass'

By Susan Duclos

Speaker of the House, John Boehner, at a press conference this morning explains that the House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, has passed two separate bills to replace the sequester cuts due to automatically go into effect on March 1, 2013.

Boehner goes on to say "We have moved a bill in the House twice. We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something."

[WATCH]



Politico provides more of Boehner's comments from his media availability:

It’s time for the Senate to act,” Boehner said during a media availability after the meeting. “It’s not about the House. We’ve acted. Where’s the president’s plan to avoid the sequester? Have you seen one? I haven’t seen one. All I’ve heard is he wants to raise taxes again. Where’s the president’s plan? Where’s the Senate Democrats’ plan? I want to see it.”

The House passed the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act (HR. 5652) in May 2012 and the Spending Reduction Act (H.R. 6684) in December. Learn more about them both here.

In the meantime, Obama has become quite the source of entertainment to Republicans, as explained by NRO:

According to several sources who attended this morning’s GOP conference meeting, House Republicans are amused by President Obama’s theatrics about the sequester, since the White House partly engineered the policy. “There was a lot of laughter about the president traveling roadshow,” says one GOP member, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the closed-door session. “We’re all concerned about the sequester, but we just don’t understand why the president has to travel thousands of miles to campaign about this, when all he really has to do is travel 1.5 miles to visit Harry Reid and figure something out.”

Quick Answer To Clear Up Liberal Ezra Klein's Confusion: 'Tax Issues Are Not Part Of Sequester Law'

By Susan Duclos

Far left Liberal Pundit Ezr Klein attempts to act confused about the Republicans position as he himself tries to confuse his readers by switching the term "budget talks" with the issue on the table at the moment which is the "sequester" law.

Via Wapo, Klein headlines "I don’t understand the Republican position on the sequester."

As I understand it, the GOP has five basic goals in the budget talks:
1) Cut the deficit.
2) Cut entitlement spending.
3) Protect defense spending, and possibly even increase it.
4) Simplify the tax code by cleaning out deductions and loopholes.
5) Lower tax rates.

The White House is willing to cut a deal with Republicans that will accomplish 1, 2, 3 and 4. But Republicans don’t want that deal. They’d prefer the sequester to that deal. That means they will get less on 1, basically nothing 2, 4, and 5, and they will actively hurt themselves on 3. So, rather than accomplishing four of their five goals, they’re accomplishing part of one. Some trade.

Notice he starts with a false premise, changes the headlined word "sequester" with the body content words "budget talks."

Klein is not confused but he is trying to confuse his readers.

The Sequester: On March 1, $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts—known in Washington as the sequester or sequestration, are set to begin, prompted by a 2011 law designed to reduce the government's budget deficit.

The basic goals for the GOP in the sequester deal, which is what is on the table right now, are one number 1- cutting the deficit, and possibly number 2- cut entitlement spending.

Numbers four and five-  Simplify the tax code by cleaning out deductions and loopholes and lowering tax rates, have absolutely nothing to do with the sequester law as proposed by the Obama administration, as passed by Congress or as signed into law by Barack Obama. Obama and Democrats want tax revenue to be part of any replacement for the sequester, and they willing to let the automatic cuts from the sequester go into effect if they cannot get more tax revenue inserted into a law that is all about spending cuts.

Republicans offered simplifying the tax code by cleaning out deductions and loopholes, in the fiscal cliff deal.... Obama refused the offer, rejected it because he demanded, and received, higher tax rates for upper income families.

In "budget talks"other than the sequester, tax reform negotiations would be appropriate, but the Republicans "goals' for the sequester are quite simple... Cut the deficit using the method already signed into law... meaning spending cuts and possibly entitlement reform.

Period. Stop. Do not pass go.

The remaining goals for "budget talks" will be addressed at the appropriate time, which is not the sequestration battle.

How difficult is that for Klein to understand?

Conn Carroll over at the Washington Examiner is spot on when he writes "Republicans are fighting to protect what little deficit reduction they’ve already accomplished through the sequester."

Liberals And Illegals Upset That Licenses For Illegals State Clearly ' No Lawful Status'

By Susan Duclos

Poor liberals are upset, again, this time over the appearance of driver’s license to be given to illegal aliens being given deferred status:

Via MyFox8:

In line with the North Carolina state attorney general’s opinion, the N.C. Department of Motor Vehicles will begin issuing driver’s licenses to some illegal immigrants.

Residents who are participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, will qualify to get licenses because they are now considered to have a “legal presence” in the United States.

DACA participants are those whose parents brought them into the U.S. illegally and meet certain federal criteria, including age, to stay in the U.S. legally for up to two years on a work permit. Their deportation is deferred.

In response to their new legal presence, North Carolina leaders say the teenagers and young adults in DACA will be able to obtain a driver’s license.

Leaders also say the cards will help prevent ID and voter fraud.

The license will be printed with a pink stripe at the top and the words “No Lawful Status” on the card.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Raul Pinto told the Associated Press "North Carolina should not be making it harder for aspiring citizens to integrate and contribute to our communities by branding them with a second-class driver’s license. There is simply no reason for officials to stigmatize people who are in the U.S. legally with an unnecessary marker that could lead to harassment, confusion, and racial profiling."

The illegals are also using that same language and complaining about being granted the privilege of obtaining a license, because it is "stigmatizing" to accurately portray their legal status on said licenses and the fact that they are not citizens.

If they don't like it.... someone should show them the door out of the country.

The bottom line is, due to their parents illegal actions, a crime of coming or being in the country illegally, they are also illegals and if they want to blame someone for that, they should have a talk with their parents instead of whining about the fact that their status is being shown on special licenses that wouldn't be necessary in the first place had their parents not broken our nation's laws and brought them here illegally.

Obama Campaign Using Fake Twitter Accounts

By Susan Duclos

BUSTED.

Stockman said that in response to Obama's call for people to tweet their congressman in support of gun control legislation, he received just 16 tweets. But he said all of these messages were identical, and that a closer look at them revealed that only six were from real people.

"The other 10 are fake, computer-generated spambots," his office said in a press release. As evidence, he said these 10 tweets use default graphics and names, and have not engaged in any interaction with other people. Two of the tweets were sent at nearly the same time, and both follow just one person: Brad Schenck, Obama's former digital strategist.

Stockman also added that only one of the six tweets from real people is a constituent of his in Texas.

It appears there is no depths too low for the Obama administration  to sink.

H/T @ToddKincannon

DOJ Memo Embedded: NRA Uses Leaked DOJ Memo Against Obama's Gun Control Proposals

By Susan Duclos

The nine page memo titled, " Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies," will be embedded below the post.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has obtained a nine-page memo from the Department of Justice, detailing the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of gun control proposals.

The summary shows that the proposals Obama claims to want will be ineffective without proposals that Obama denies supporting.

Via Associated Press:

The memo, under the name of one of the Justice Department's leading crime researchers, critiques the effectiveness of gun control proposals, including some of President Barack Obama's. A Justice Department official called the memo an unfinished review of gun violence research and said it does not represent administration policy.

The memo says requiring background checks for more gun purchases could help, but also could lead to more illicit weapons sales. It says banning assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines produced in the future but exempting those already owned by the public, as Obama has proposed, would have limited impact because people now own so many of those items.

It also says that even total elimination of assault weapons would have little overall effect on gun killings because assault weapons account for a limited proportion of those crimes.

The nine-page document says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on "requiring gun registration," and says gun buybacks would not be effective "unless massive and coupled with a ban."

More on the memo at Washington Times.

NRA's Stand and Fight website shows, via video, how quickly Democratic politicians have moved the goal posts, swearing "registration" would never become law to just weeks later, saying registration is needed:

30 second video below:



DOJ Memo embedded below:

Summary of Select Firearm Violence uploaded by Susan Duclos

Obama Throws A Hail Mary, Media Tries To Provide Cover

By Susan Duclos

The Sequester: On March 1, $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts—known in Washington as the sequester or sequestration, are set to begin, prompted by a 2011 law designed to reduce the government's budget deficit.

In four days the automatic spending cuts go into effect and Barack Obama, unable to force Republicans to accept new taxes in any replacement deal for a law that is all about spending cuts, throws a Hail Mary, a state by state breakdown on possible cuts on a local level.

One last attempt to scare Americans, using a method Peggy Noonan accurately describes as, "Government by Freakout."

Obama media puppets dutifully attempt to provide cover for Obama, first in an implied threat to Republicans and secondly, as a preemptive preview into how they plan to spin their coverage once the spending cuts go into effect.

Evidenced by CNN's blaring headline: "If spending is cut, GOP will get the blame."

Until now "sequestration" has been a word that only means something to people living inside the Beltway or to political junkies who depend on their daily dose of Politico and The Hill. But if Congress and the president do not reach a deal by March 1, which appears likely, Americans will quickly learn what it means -- namely deep spending cuts.

The spending cuts pose a significant political threat to Republicans, more so than to Democrats. Although many Republicans are standing firm, insisting that their party will be fine if the cuts go through, there are many reasons for the GOP, through a sober eye, to see the dangers that lay ahead.

The cuts could push congressional politics in a liberal direction and establish the foundation for solid Democratic gains in 2014.

Au contraire.... not the blame, what Republicans are counting on is that they will get "the credit."

Credit for standing firm and forcing a small step in the direction of less government spending. Americans overwhelmingly, in poll after poll, say they want a smaller government, say Washington needs to learn to live within it's means and stop spending money it doesn't have.

 Republicans are banking on Americans meaning what they say, when they claim they want Washington to cut spending.

Obama and Democrats are banking on Americans that say they want spending cuts, but when asked about specific program cuts, they shy away and assert "not that program, not this program."

What favors Republicans in this first baby step toward fiscal responsibility, is that the majority of Americans live on a budget themselves. They understand that they cannot spend money they do not have, which is why large majorities favor spending cuts to begin with.

Obama and his lapdog media are forgetting one major point. Americans are not stupid.

When an average American couple sits at the kitchen table discussing their own budget, they do not favor sacrificing anything, yet they will choose to pay their rent or mortgage, buy their food, pay their utilities and deal with their necessities, even if it means sacrificing that brand new TV they wanted.

In the end, when the fallout over spending cuts dies out, the Obama media may have done the Republicans a big favor in trying to cast "blame" on them, because Americans will know exactly which party to "credit" with veering off the path of fiscal irresponsibility and starting down the path of fiscal responsibility.

Republicans are counting on Americans being smart. Democrats are counting on them being stupid.

In the 2014 midterms, we will all see which party is correct.

Over 50 Gun Companies Now Boycotting Enforcement Sales in Anti-Gun States

By Susan Duclos

On February 15, 2013, we listed statements from six (then another in an update) gun manufacturers/retailer  that decided to boycott the sale of weapons to states that have passed gun ban legislation they believed violated the constitutional Second Amendment rights of citizen's to bear arms without infringement.

It is now nine days later and that list of six has grown to over 50. (List via Freedom Outpost)

Previously I listed the following companies:

• Olympic Arms, Inc
• La Rue Tactical
• EFI, LLC – Extreme Firepower
• York Arms
• Templar Custom
• Cheaper Than Dirt
• Barrett Firearms Manufacturing

Now the list has expanded to include:

• Bullwater Enterprises 2-16-13
• West Fork Armory 2-16-13
• Smith Enterprise 2-17-13
• Alex Arms 2-17-13
• Spike’s Tactical 2-18-13
• Quality Arms Idaho 2-19-13
• Liberty Suppressors 2-19-13
• Doublestar Corp 2-19-13 (Includes J&T Distributing & Ace LTD)
• American Spirit Arms 2-19-13 (complete with a video!)
• Trident Armory 2-17-13 (reported to me 2-20-13)
• Head Down Products 2-20-13
• J&G Sales 2-20-13
• Exile Machine 2-20-13
• Tier One Arms 2-15-13 (reported to me 2-20-13)
• Bravo Company USA 2-20-13
• Primary Weapons Systems 2-21-13 (read my blog post on PWS)
• Crusader Weaponry 2-20-13
• Top Gun Supply 2-21-13
• Kiss Tactical 2-21-13
• Clark Fork Tactical 2-21-13
• OFA Tactical 2-17-13 (reported to me 2-21-13)
• One Source Tactical 2-21-13 (Scroll down to shipping restrictions)
• Templar Tactical Arms 2-12-13 (reported 2-21-13)
• NEMO Arms 2-21-13 (check out their photo!)
• Old Grouch’s Military Surplus 1-15-13 (NOT a typo!)
• Big Horn Armory 2-22-13
• Midway USA 2-22-13
• CMMG Inc 2-22-13
• Rocky Top Tactical 2-22-13
• Badger Peak 2-22-13
• Controlled Chaos Arms 2-22-13
• SRT Arms 2-22-13
• Norton Firearms 2-22-13
• Umlaut Industries 2-22-13
• Predator Intelligence 2-2-13 (Read comments)
• Citizen Arms 2-23-13 (At the bottom of the page)
• Evolution Weaponry 2-17-13
• Chaos Arms 2-23-13
• Warbirds Custom Guns 2-23-13 (Scroll to the bottom)
• JBTAC 2-23-13
• Stoner Arms 2-22-13
• Ammoclip (Date of policy unknown)
• 3 Rivers Precision 2-22-13
• 2A Firearms 2-22-13
• Lanco Tactical 2-22-13
• Predator Tactical 2-23-13
• Umlaut Industries LLC 2-23-13
• Rhino Arms LLC 2-23-13

More statements posted at Freedom Outpost.

Repeat it often and loudly: Sequestration is the law and it is all about spending cuts

By Susan Duclos

From a previous piece, but something that should be hammered home, loudly and often by conservative supporters.

Sequestration is the law and it is all about spending cuts.

On March 1, $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts—known in Washington as the sequester or sequestration, are set to begin, prompted by a 2011 law designed to reduce the government's budget deficit.

Excellent description of what the sequester is at WSJ.

There are no taxes, tax revenue, loophole eliminations or deduction eliminations, written into the sequestration law. 

As Barack Obama takes to his bully pulpit and Democrats take to their interviews and the media covers for Obama screaming taxes revenue at the top of their lungs, it is time for all GOP supporters to remind everyone they know, through social media, emails, blog posts,  every forum they can comment on, "Sequestration is the law and it is all about spending cuts."

Liberals like Ezra Klein, are trying to claim, "but everyone knew that tax revenue would be added in to any replacement of the sequester"....  it doesn't change the fact that the sequester is all spending cuts, no taxes, and it was proposed by the Obama administration,  passed by both the Senate and the House and signed by Barack Obama.

With this coordinated message, conservatives can easily bypass the media who focuses on Obama's messaging. 

Are you willing to die to take my guns?

By Susan Duclos

Comment from The Average Joe at Twitter about the piece shown below "Might be the best Blog post on the 2nd Amendment I have ever read. Excellent work."

Original title "If They Come for Your Guns, Do You Have a Responsibility to Fight?" (Headline changed here at WuA, so search engines looking for the original piece from The D.C. Clothesline, will rightly pull his up first)

Original post below: By Dean Garrison at The D.C Clothesline, with full permission to re-post in full.

I feel a tremendous responsibility to write this article though I am a little apprehensive. Thinking about the possibility of rising up against our own government is a frightening thing for many of us. I am not Johnny Rambo and I will be the first to admit that I do not want to die. The reason I feel compelled to write this, however, is simply because I don’t think the average American is equipped with the facts. I feel that a lot of American citizens feel like they have no choice but to surrender their guns if the government comes for them. I blame traditional media sources for this mass brainwash and I carry the responsibility of all small independent bloggers to tell the truth. So my focus today is to lay out your constitutional rights as an American, and let you decide what to do with those rights.

About a month ago I let the “democracy” word slip in a discussion with a fellow blogger. I know better. Americans have been conditioned to use this term. It’s not an accurate term and it never has been a correct term to describe our form of government. The truth is that the United States of America is a constitutional republic. This is similar to a democracy because our representatives are selected by democratic elections, but ultimately our representatives are required to work within the framework of our constitution. In other words, even if 90% of Americans want something that goes against our founding principles, they have no right to call for a violation of constitutional rights.

If you are religious you might choose to think of it this way… Say that members of your congregation decide that mass fornication is a good thing. Do they have the right to change the teachings of your God? The truth is the truth. It doesn’t matter how many people try to stray from it. Did I just compare our founders to God? In a way I did, but please note that I am not trying to insult anyone. For the purpose of the American Government our constitution and founders who wrote it are much like God is to believers. It is the law. It is indisputable.

Our founders did not want a “democracy” for they feared a true democracy was just as dangerous as a monarchy. The founders were highly educated people who were experienced in defending themselves against tyranny. They understood that the constitution could protect the people by limiting the power of anyone to work outside of it much better than a pure system of popularity. A system of checks and balances was set up to help limit corruption of government and also the potential for an “immoral majority” developing within the American People. We have forgotten in this country that we are ultimately ruled by a constitution.

Why is a democracy potentially just as dangerous as a monarchy? Let’s look at something that Benjamin Franklin said because it answers that question more fully and succinctly than I can.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. -Benjamin Franklin

Even 230+ years ago our founders were perceptive enough to realize that democracy was a dangerous form of government. How so? Because the citizens of a country can become just as corrupt as any government. We have seen evidence of this throughout history. Ask Native Americans and African-Americans if this population can become corrupt.

I think in 2012 we are seeing evidence of what Franklin was trying to tell us. Just because a majority of people may support certain ideas it does not mean that those ideas are just. In simple terms, just because most Americans love our president and voted for him, it does not mean that he has the power to go against our constitutional rights.

Next I’d like to review the text of the second amendment. It is very clear. This is the law of this land. So when Senator Feinstein or President Obama talk about taking your guns, you need to think about something. Are they honoring their sworn oath to uphold the constitution?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This is a pretty clear statement. The fact is that it took 232 years for the Supreme Court to even rule on this amendment because it has never been successfully challenged. In 2008 a case of Columbia v. Heller the Supreme Court ruled that a handgun ban in Washington D.C. was unconstitutional. One also has to take this into consideration. The Supreme Court supports your right to own guns. If you want to research this decision further you can start here.

For those who try to debate the spirit of the 2nd amendment, they are truly no different from people who will try to take Biblical quotes out of context to try to support their immoral decisions. The founders were very clear on the intent of the 2nd amendment. Let me share a few quick quotes here:

The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. -Thomas Jefferson

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence … From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable . . . the very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that is good. -George Washington

The Constitution shall never be construed….to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. -Samuel Adams

I could find hundreds of quotes like these. This country was built on the right to bear arms. It was built on the rights of an individual to bear arms, regardless of what his government or neighbor happened to think. This is crystal clear. Ironically the people who voice their opinions against this right have their free speech protected by your guns. Without guns in this country, all other amendments become null and void, simply because “We the People” will lose our power of enforcement.
We need to keep this in mind as our “representatives” try to push gun bans. I don’t care if 99% of people are in support of gun bans (which is far from the case), it is a violation of our constitutional rights, plain and simple.

A constitutional republic protects the rights of the individual even when their ideas are very much  in the minority. If I were the only person in America who believed in the 2nd amendment, I would still be within my rights to call upon it. You would all think I was insane and possibly celebrate if I was gunned down, but in the end I would be the only true American among us.

Our framers were very clear on this. If my government comes to take my guns, they are violating one of my constitutional rights that is covered by the 2nd amendment.

It is not my right, at that point, but my responsibility to respond in the name of liberty. What I am telling you is something that many are trying to soft sell, and many others have tried to avoid putting into print, but I am going to say it. The time for speaking in code is over.

If they come for our guns then it is our constitutional right to put them six feet under. You have the right to kill any representative of this government who tries to tread on your liberty. I am thinking about self-defense and not talking about inciting a revolution. Re-read Jefferson’s quote. He talks about a “last resort.” I am not trying to start a Revolt, I am talking about self-defense. If the day for Revolution comes, when no peaceful options exist, we may have to talk about that as well. None of us wants to think about that, but please understand that a majority can not take away your rights as an American citizen. Only you can choose to give up your rights.

Congress could pass gun ban legislation by a 90%+ margin and it just would not matter. I think some people are very unclear on this. This is the reason we have a Supreme Court, and though I do not doubt that the Supreme Court can also become corrupt, in 2008 they got it right. They supported the constitution. It does not matter what the majority supports because America is not a democracy. A constitutional republic protects the rights of every single citizen, no matter what their “elected servants” say. A majority in America only matters when the constitution is not in play.

I just wrote what every believer in the constitution wants to say, and what every constitutional blogger needs to write. The truth of the matter is that this type of speech is viewed as dangerous and radical or subversive, and it could gain me a world of trouble that I do not want. It is also the truth. To make myself clear I will tell you again. If they come for your guns it is your right to use those guns against them and to kill them. You are protected by our constitution.

Most of the articles I am reading on the subject are trying to give you clues without just coming out and saying it. I understand that because certain things in this country will get you on a list that you don’t want to be on. I may well be on that list. This blog is small and growing so I may not be there yet, but I have dreams. I also have my own list of subversives and anyone who attempts to deny my constitutional rights is on that list.

I am not the “subversive” here, it is the political representatives who are threatening to take away my inalienable rights. If they come to take my guns and I leave a few of them wounded or dead, and I somehow survive, I have zero doubt that I will spend a long time in prison and may face an execution. But I would much rather be a political prisoner than a slave.

If I go down fighting then I was not fighting to harm these human beings. I was simply defending my liberty and yours. It is self-defense and it is what our country was built on. We won our freedom in self-defense. We would not be ruled by a tyrannical government in the 1770′s and we will not be ruled in 2012 by a tyrannical government. There is no difference.

This is a case of right and wrong. As of now the 2nd amendment stands. It has never been repealed. If Feinstein or Barack have a problem with the constitution then they should be removed from office. They are not defending the constitution which they have sworn an oath to protect. It is treasonous to say the least. They would likely say the same about me, but I have the constitution, the founders, and the supreme court on my side. They only have their inflated egos.

I am not writing this to incite people. I am writing this in hopes that somehow I can make a tiny difference. I have no idea how many of my neighbors have the will to defend their constitutional rights. 2%? 20%? I am afraid that 20% is a high number, unfortunately. When push comes to shove many people may give up and submit to being ruled. I believe that our government is banking on this.

What I do know is that this country was founded by people who had balls the size of Texas and Patriotic Americans take shit off of no one, especially our own government. For evidence of that, you might research the Revolutionary War. My question is how many Patriots are left?

I would hope that our officials come to realize that, regardless of our numbers, we still exist because they are calling Patriotic Americans to action. They are making us decide if we want to die free or submit to their rule. I can not tell you where you should stand on that. I do know that it may make the difference between living a life of freedom or slavery.


You must start thinking about this because I believe that the day is coming soon and I personally believe it has already been planned. Not all conspiracy theories are hogwash. They may throw down the gauntlet soon and my suggestion is that you prepare yourself to react.
I mean no disrespect to our elected officials but they need to understand that “We the People” will not be disarmed. If they proceed then it is they that are provoking us and we will act accordingly. We are within our rights to do so.

For those who are in support of taking the guns, you need to ask yourself a very important question, and I am not just talking about the politicians, because if you support them, you have chosen your side.

Are you willing to die to take my guns?

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IMPORTANT UPDATE From Dean Garrison!!! When this post originally went viral I was trying to answer every single comment and that lasted for almost 48 hours. Then I came to grips with the fact that I am human and I can’t do it. If for no other reason I value my family and I can’t steal time from them to constantly be on the site. I want you all to know that I appreciate your support and good debate whether you agree or disagree. I also want to thank each and every American Patriot who has made the honorable choice to serve their country. Anyone who wants to repost this on their blog or website is also given permission to do so, so long as nothing is changed in the text of the article, and a link is provided back to this site. Again, thank you so much. I am humbled. It’s now 16 days later and this is still the most popular post on our blog. Keep fighting for what is right. We must stand united. -Dean Garrison 1-20-13