The “Trayvon amendment” will cut some federal funding to states which have the Castle Doctrine
We all knew what was going to happen once the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin incident became a political football–the Democrats were going to use this issue in an attempt to pass more restrictive gun control laws. They have been looking for a crisis to exploit since Operation Fast and Furious imploded and they feel as if they have found it in Florida.
Florida’s second amendment friendly stand your ground law is being made the scapegoat in the death of Trayvon Martin and now some Democrats in the House are preparing to attach the Trayvon amendment to the Commerce Department spending bill. What the Trayvon amendment does is cut some funding to states which have any type of stand your ground/Castle Doctrine law on the books in a blatant attempt to persuade states to adopt less gun friendly laws if they want federal money to keep flowing into the coffers.
Federal money shouldn’t be spent supporting states with laws that endanger their own people,” said Reps. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the two Democrats who are offering the legislation. “This is no different than withholding transportation funds from states that don’t enforce seat-belt laws
I just happen to live in the only state (New Hampshire) without any adult seatbelt laws and I can report to you that we are managing to get along without the transportation money, thank you. We don’t need the federal government stepping on our rights here in the Live Free or Die state just so that we can get roughly $5 million in transportation money, but the transportation funding and this potential Trayvon amendment show us exactly how damaging it can be to states rights now that it has become commonplace for the states to rely on federal money in the first place.
By accepting federal money the states give up their individual sovereignty because they must meet federal requirements in order to keep receiving the money, and as can be seen in the Trayvon amendment, that means changing state laws in order to create a defacto federal law. So while the Congress isn’t going after a new federal gun control law per say, they are attempting to persuade the individual states to pass gun laws the federal government feels are more appropriate and because these laws will be changed at a state level it is believed by the Congress that those who believe in state rights won’t notice what is happening.
I don’t think the Trayvon amendment stands a chance at passing the House right now, but we will have to keep a close eye on this in the future and even if it fails we can rest assured it will come back again if Barack Obama wins reelection and the Democrats take back the House.
When Elizabeth Warren was called out for listing herself as a Native-American minority on law school directories she denied that she did it to advance her career, even though law schools look at these directories when hiring people and often check their backgrounds for minority status. She claimed the only reason she did so was so that she could meet people like her and maybe attend a few luncheons with other Native-Americans, but after ten years she realized this wasn’t going to happen so she reverted back to her actual heritage as a white woman.
It turns out that Harvard has a program called Harvard University’s Native American Program which is a program designed to help Native-Americans meet each other and form networks, yet as far as the group’s director can recall Elizabeth Warren did not attend one event hosted by HUNAP.
Elizabeth Warren claims she did not list herself as a minority for personal gain but rather to meet people, so why then did she not attend one event which was designed to provide her with the very service she claims she was interested in? Meanwhile she did just happen to gain from her minority status, could it be that she actually achieved what she hoped for when she listed herself as a Native-American? It certainly seems like that is the case, she has been caught red-handed. (Can I still use that expression?)
Did Elizabeth Warren’s Great-Great-Great Grandfather round up Cherokees for the Trail of Tears?
When Elizabeth Warren first came under fire for claiming to be a Native-American on law school directories she claimed that she did have Native-American blood in her family and pointed to her great-great-great grandmother as proof. Even if it was proven that her great-great-great grandmother was part Cherokee it would only make Elizabeth Warren 1/32 Native-American–hardly the minority she seemed to be when Harvard University was using her heritage to show the school was racially diverse.
But genealogists at the New England Historic Genealogical Society have not been able to find any tangible link between Elizabeth Warren and the Cherokees so it seems quite likely that Elizabeth Warren has lied about her heritage, and she did so for ten years or more. But, if this report is true, there could be an interesting link between one of Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors and Native-Americans after all.
If the story is true than Elizabeth Warren’s great-great-great grandmother did have a tie to Native-Americans because her husband (Warren’s great-great-great grandfather) was a member of the East Tennessee Mounted Infantry Volunteer Militia and was actually involved in rounding up Cherokees to prepare them to march in the Trail of Tears.
This is what happens when you live a life of deceit, eventually it catches up with you. Lizzy, you have some explaining to do.
Gunrunner: First Democrat expresses support for holding Eric Holder in Contempt of Congress
The first Democrat has finally broken ranks with the party and declared his support of Darrell Issa’s plan to hold Eric Holder in Contempt of Congress. Here is what he had to say on this issue:
One of the duties of Congress is to provide oversight of the Executive Branch,” Donnelly told TheDC. “There has been a serious allegation of federal law enforcement misconduct and we need to get to the bottom of this issue without playing partisan politics
I have to wonder how many other Democrats feel the same way but were waiting for another to make the first move. It will be interesting to see if more Democrats follow Joe Donnelly and step forward, although I think it is probably highly unlikely many other Democrats will break ranks in an election year.
I know one Democrat who certainly will not step forward and he is the highest ranking Democrat on Darrell Issa’s committee, Elijah Cummings, because he was already stated that this is nothing but an election year witch-hunt. I would like to take the time here to remind Elijah Cummings that the main reason why this investigation has stretched into an election year is the fact that Eric Holder has been stonewalling this investigation from the start in an attempt to push it out beyond the November election. If Eric Holder had been truthful and willing to cooperate with the investigation it would have been concluded long before we got into this election cycle.
Elizabeth Warren has been on the defensive since it was learned that she claimed she was a native-American in law school directories and today the head of the Massachusetts GOP came out firing, stating she may have committed academic fraud and called on Harvard to investigate this issue.
Here is part of what Bob Maginn had to say:
The problem is that Ms. Warren is not a Native American,” wrote Maginn, a Harvard alum. “She is Caucasian. Despite her insistence that she is an American Indian based upon ‘family lore’ and her observation that some in her family had ‘high cheekbones like all the Indians do,’ she has failed to produce a single shred of evidence to substantiate her claim.”
Maginn said Warren’s actions “potentially violate” Harvard’s academic standards and the university is obligated to probe the Democrat’s actions.
“By Harvard’s own Code and precedent, Ms. Warren’s actions require an investigation,” wrote Maginn.
It seems quite likely that no matter what the reason was that Elizabeth Warren decided to pretend she was a Native-American that she committed some type of fraud here and I agree that Harvard should investigate this, but the real question is does this even matter to the voters of Massachusetts?
After all, this is the state that continued to elect Ted Kennedy after he left a woman to drown in his car while he went home to sober up, has seen three straight State House speakers indicted for corruption, reelected Barney Frank after his boyfriend was convicted of running a gay prostitution ring in Frank’s apartment, continually reelected Gerry Studds to the Congress after he admitted to raping an underage boy, elected Deval Patrick after is was learned that he supported convicted rapist Benjamin Laguer and found him to be a charming man in spite of his brutal rape of an elderly woman, and most recently reelected John Tierney after his wife was indicted for an illegal gambling operation which netted her $7 million.
It seems to me that Elizabeth Warren’s alleged fraud pales in comparison with what others in that state have done, and rather than being a hinderance to her election prospects this could be seen as a badge of honor in Massachusetts.
We have heard rumors that the Obama regime is in negotiations with the Taliban for awhile now, and if this report if true it would look as if the United States is doing more than simply negotiating with these killers. Because the Taliban fighters are so trustworthy, the Obama regime might be releasing them as a good faith gesture in the negotiations on the promise that they will behave themselves once they are free.
The “strategic release” program of high-level detainees is designed to give the US a bargaining chip in some areas of Afghanistan where international forces struggle to exercise control, the report said.
Under the risky program, the hardened fighters must promise to give up violence and are threatened with further punishment, but there is nothing to stop them resuming attacks against Afghan and American troops.
What is the worst that could happen? We know the answer to that question, and so does the Obama regime:
Everyone agrees they are guilty of what they have done and should remain in detention. Everyone agrees that these are bad guys. But the benefits outweigh the risks,” a US official told the Post
There isn’t even a question of guilt here, the government admits these people are guilty of attacks on American soldiers and the risks that this government official is talking about is the lives of American soldiers, how callous is that statement? This would be akin to the government letting guns walk into Mexico knowing lives would be lost in an attempt to…..whoops, nevermind.
This news comes just days after Dianne Feinstein admitted that the Taliban has grown stronger since Barack Obama took office, but what she failed to state is the fact that this could be due in large part to the fact that Barack Obama is releasing them on personal recognizance .
Leon Panetta crafted a memo to deflect the blame in the event the Osama bin Laden raid failed
Using the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden as a means to show his leadership skills Barack Obama has literally traveled across the globe to let everyone who would listen know how courageous he was for making the call to kill the terrorist leader. He has not been bashful when it comes to taking credit–I ordered the attack, I acted on the intelligence, I made the tough call, I did this, I did that–but a true leader is defined by how he handles failure.
Barack Obama doesn’t handle failure very well, hell he has blamed everything from George W Bush to earthquakes to ATM machines for his failed economic policies, but he hasn’t accepted blame for his failure on this issue–in fact he joked about shovel ready jobs nor be as shovel ready as he had expected.
So it should come as no surprise that while Barack Obama was more than willing to take credit for Osama bin Laden’s killing he was less than enthusiastic about accepting the blame if the mission had failed, and now we have learned that Barack Obama had a memo crafted which could be used to clear him of any wrongdoing in the event that the mission went badly.
Video: Obama’s way forward
Below is a video I found at Bunkerville which I thought everyone should see so I have decided to share it here. Bunkerville points out something that I didn’t know: Barack Obama just happened to kick off his campaign on Karl Marx’s birthday and coupled with the fact that Obama’s campaign slogan–Forward–is also a famous communist slogan one has to believe that this isn’t simply an incredible coincidence.
Below is a speech which I found at The Right Scoop that Allen West made at the Lincoln Day Dinner and I had to share it because it is just that good. I can not do this speech justice with my words so I will leave it to Allen West to speak for me. The video is about twenty minutes long but I implore everyone to please watch it because this is one politician who gets it.
The Right Scoop calls this the most incredible speech ever, and taking into account that Allen West quotes one of my heroes, General Stonewall Jackson, I would be hard-pressed to disagree.
The biggest problem that many conservatives have with Mitt Romney is the fact that he is a fake and a phony with no core or true political beliefs other than the fact he believes he deserves to be president. This has many conservatives worried that Mitt Romney will say or do whatever it takes to win the presidency and nobody can really be sure how he will govern if elected–after all, this is the man who once ran to the left of Ted Kennedy and if the political winds change at any time during his presidency it is likely he will be swept right up into them instead of standing firm against them.
We got a little confirmation of our worries by a highly unlikely source in one of Mitt Romney’s top level campaign aides, Eric Fehrnstrom, who compared the Republican nominee to an Etch-A-Sketch which could be shaken up during the general campaign in order to give Romney a blank slate from which to work. Mitt Romney’s clarification did not help to clear things up, in my opinion, when he stated he was “running as a conservative.” He didn’t say he was a conservative, simply that he was running as one. A very interesting choice of words, don’t you think?
So conservatives have been hoping that the Republican primary version of Mitt Romney was the real Mitt Romney–and have been hoping that Ann Coulter’s laughable assertion that Romney tricked Massachusetts liberals into voting for him was actually true–and have been holding their breath each time he speaks hoping that he will remain true to conservative values.
Sadly we may have just gotten our first hint that Mitt Romney might be stringing the conservatives along after all.
America's Watchtower 