They are Coming for our Guns

Anytime there is a nationally reported shooting you can always count on the lefty gun-grabbers to start falling out of the rafters and, in unison, begin screaming for even more restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.

Notice I didn't say more restrictions on criminals, because the gun-snatchers don't care about criminals and their guns. After all, no gun law ever passed has ever kept a gun out of the hands of a determined criminal, and they know this, but it doesn't matter to them. Besides, the government pretty much knows who and where the criminals are, and they can round them up anytime they like.

No, the guns they fear and are working toward grabbing are the guns owned by you and me.

In the wake of the tragic shooting that recently took place in Tucson, the anti-gunners have wasted no time in pushing for even more restrictions on firearm ownership. Of course, further restrictions will do nothing to prevent future Tucsons from happening, but it does get the American sheeple more and more used to the idea of firearm regulation by the federal government - never mind that the federal government has no constitutional authority to regulate firearms to begin with.

In the days leading up to President Obama's SOTU address, many lefties in the MSM were expressing hope he was going to propose tougher gun restrictions. I, too, was expecting Obama to do so, but for whatever reason, that didn't happen.

That is not to say that the current administration isn't planning on exploiting the Arizona tragedy to further advance their anti-gun agenda. On the contrary, they are presently gearing up to do exactly that.

Via newsweek.com (emphasis mine):

At the beginning of his State of the Union address, President Obama tipped his hat to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who’s now recuperating in a Houston medical facility. But throughout the hourlong speech, he never addressed the issue at the core of the Giffords tragedy—gun control—and what lawmakers would, or should, do to reform American firearm-access laws.

[...]

But in the next two weeks, the White House will unveil a new gun-control effort in which it will urge Congress to strengthen current laws, which now allow some mentally unstable people, such as alleged Arizona shooter Jared Loughner, to obtain certain assault weapons, in some cases without even a background check.

Tuesday night after the speech, Obama adviser David Plouffe said to NBC News that the president would not let the moment after the Arizona shootings pass without pushing for some change in the law, to prevent another similar incident. “It’s a very important issue, and one I know there’s going to be debate about on the Hill.”

You will find the rest at this link.

I am not aware of any state that allows people who have a history of mental instability to legally purchase a firearm. I am not saying it doesn't happen, but I would be willing to bet it is a fairly rare occurrence. And even if a background check causes a licensed dealer to reject the sale, that isn't going to stop the would-be criminal from obtaining a firearm from other sources. No law that could ever be written would prevent that.

Many of my fellow conservatives appear to be taking comfort in the fact that the republicans now have control of the House of Representatives, and this somehow means there will be no further restrictions imposed on gun ownership for at least the next two years.

I'm not so sure about that, as if there is one stark lesson history has taught us about government, it is that the larger and more powerful government becomes, the more corrupt and tyrannical it becomes, and the party affiliation of those running it doesn't seem to matter all that much.

Our founders new how evil and tyrannical big government could be, which is why they strove to place limits on it in our nation's founding document.

Sadly, we have strayed so far from that original ideal that we now have government taking half of what we earn and giving it to others, bureaucrats telling us what kind of cars we may own, what kind of light bulbs we may use, what we can and cannot eat, how much energy we may use, what doctors we can and cannot see, and molesting our daughters and feeling up our wives at our airports.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

The way things are going in America these days, I can easily envision a day when our God-given 2nd Amendment rights might very well be the only thing standing between us and a tyrannical, oppressive government. However, if we continue to allow said government to chip away at those rights, we are going to wake up one morning and find ourselves to be little more than government slaves.

Don't think it can't happen here. As recently as five years ago, I didn't think something like Barack Hussein Obama could happen here, either.

House Votes 245-189 to Repeal ObamaCare

Well, that's all well and good, as it at least puts House critters on record.

What I want to know is, when are they going to pull out the knives and start gutting this atrocity, and thus de-funding it until there is no trace of it remaining - not a shadow, not even a speck of dust?

We're waiting, Mr Boehner.

(h/t: politico.com)

Freedom On Global Decline

Via breitbart.com:

Global freedom declined for a fifth straight year in 2010 as authoritarian regimes dug in worldwide and crime and unrest plagued democracies like Mexico, a US watchdog said Thursday.

In "Freedom in the World 2011" the Washington-based Freedom House said it had documented the longest continuous period of decline since it began compiling the annual index nearly 40 years ago.

"A total of 25 countries showed significant declines in 2010, more than double the 11 countries exhibiting noteworthy gains," the group said.

"Authoritarian regimes like those in China, Egypt, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela continued to step up repressive measures with little significant resistance from the democratic world," it said

You will find the rest at this link.

Sad to say, but the bulk of humanity has lived under some form of tyranny since the beginning of recorded history. Only a fortunate few have enjoyed living under relative freedom.

Our generation was among that fortunate few. I am not all that confident those coming behind us will enjoy the same level of freedom we did.

Former Community Pisser-Offer Pressing for Internet IDs

Via cbsnews.com:

STANFORD, Calif. - President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.

The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke.

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

"We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities."

The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project, Locke said.

Details about the "trusted identity" project are unusually scarce. Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.

Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. "I don't have to get a credential if I don't want to," he said. There's no chance that "a centralized database will emerge," and "we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this," he said.

Inter-agency rivalries to claim authority over cybersecurity have exited ever since many responsibilities were centralized in the Department of Homeland Security as part of its creation nine years ago. Three years ago, proposals were were circulating in Washington to transfer authority to the secretive NSA, which is part of the U.S. Defense Department.

In March 2009, Rod Beckstrom, director of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity Center, resigned through a letter that gave a rare public glimpse into the competition for budgetary dollars and cybersecurity authority. Beckstrom said at the time that the NSA "effectively controls DHS cyber efforts through detailees, technology insertions," and has proposed moving some functions to the agency's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.

Creeping Tyranny Confirmed: N.Y. Town Bans Smoking on Sidewalks

If you smoke and are planning a trip to Great Neck, N.Y. any time soon, you had better refrain from lighting up on a sidewalk in front of a business, because it could end up costing you $1000.

Via myfoxny.com:

GREAT NECK, N.Y. - A village on Long Island's "gold coast" is banning smoking on public sidewalks in front of businesses. Violators could face a $1,000 fine.

The Great Neck village board approved the ban Tuesday night. It claims to be the first municipality in the state to enact such a restriction.

Mayor Ralph J. Kreitzman says the ban was enacted after officials got complaints about smokers standing outside stores in the village. He says the law will also benefit pedestrians who might have been subjected to second-hand smoke.

Kreitzman says, "I have no problem with people smoking. They just shouldn't do it in a place that harms other people."

Kreitzman tells Fox 5 that, despite the hefty fines violators could face, the ban is not an attempt to raise money for the village.

The mayor says code enforcement agents will be out to look for violations and he hopes the police will also help with enforcement.

One smoker told Fox 5 News, "I'm waiting for them to ban smoking in my yard, at my house, is it going to go that far?"

The law apparently has a loophole. It is not illegal to smoke in the street.

Neighboring New York City is currently considering a smoking ban in parks and pedestrian plazas.

There are local governments already passing laws to ban people from smoking inside their own domiciles.

How long will it be before the government starts telling people they can't light up on their own front porch?

This used to be a free country. I don't know what happened to it, but if the American sheeple don't soon wake up and pull their heads out of their asses, our chances of ever getting that country back are going to go up in smoke.

Is America (As Founded) Retrievable?

I have to confess that I really don't know anymore. I once believed there was no way the American people would sit idly buy while their country was stolen right out from under their noses. Now that I am watching it happen, and in broad daylight no less, right in front of God and everybody, I am beginning to think our last chance to save our republic via the voting booth came and went in November of 2008. Perhaps it was even further back than that, now that I really think about it.

My friend Tom in NC at Fellowship of the Minds has written a piece that very much mirrors my own thoughts as to where we currently are as a nation.

It is not a comfortable read:

I don’t know what it is going to take before the American people say enough is enough. Do we not see what is happening? Do we not care that our government is ruining our and our children and grandchildren’s future for decades to come? Are we simply not willing to take own destinies in our hands and fight back?

This president and this government care nothing for our opinions, care not when millions of us gather in Washington, D.C. to protest their policies, and care not when we vote overwhelmingly against those policies. We now have control of the House but the liberals still control the Senate and the White House.

I fear that the Republicans are sometimes too willing to compromise instead of fight, and as we all know, we can’t take two more years of liberal policies. Our economy and our infrastructure will essentially collapse under the weight of socialism. It is only a matter of time before our country becomes a police state; it has already started in our airports with invasive searches and in our healthcare with bureaucrats making life and death decisions for us. Soon the FCC will control the Internet in direct violation of the first amendment to the Constitution.

You will find the rest of this excellent post here.

I hope, no, pray that now that the holidays are behind us that the American people will start to pay very close attention to what is happening in our nation's capitol, as any more complacency on our part could very well be fatal to our republic - and that right soon.

Creeping Tyranny?

There were approximately 31,000 laws passed by state legislatures in 2010 - and that doesn't include what was passed by the 111th Congress on the federal side.

There are actually some pretty good laws in the mix. One example is a law passed in Iowa which makes it more difficult for local sheriffs to deny concealed carry permits.

But knowing government as I do, I am guessing the bulk of the laws passed across the fruited plain are just more restrictions on freedom, liberty and commerce. One example here are laws passed in both St. Louis and St. Louis County that prohibit smoking in bars and restaurants.

Yep, the tyranny of the pleasure police marches on.

You can read about it at this link.

NYC Marxists Prefer To Be Called "Progressives"

A commie by any other name is still a commie

What I truly find fascinating about this is that these morons are too f'ing stupid to recognize that Barack Hussein Obama is putting their favorite form of government into place as I write this.

(h/t: weaselzippers.us via Boortz.com)

Feds to Regulate School Bake Sales?

It seems as though every time I detect a faint glimmer of hope for the future of our republic, something hideous comes along and my hopes crash upon the rocks of reality.

Via cnsnews.com:

Washington (AP) - Don't touch my brownies! A child nutrition bill on its way to President Barack Obama - and championed by the first lady - gives the government power to limit school bake sales and other fundraisers that health advocates say sometimes replace wholesome meals in the lunchroom.

[...]

"This could be a real train wreck for school districts," Lucy Gettman of the National School Boards Association said Friday, a day after the House cleared the bill. "The federal government should not be in the business of regulating this kind of activity at the local level."

The legislation, part of first lady Michelle Obama's campaign to stem childhood obesity, provides more meals at school for needy kids, including dinner, and directs the Agriculture Department to write guidelines to make those meals healthier. The legislation would apply to all foods sold in schools during regular class hours, including in the cafeteria line, vending machines and at fundraisers.

You will find the rest of the article at this link.

In the America I grew up in, this sort of tyrannical nonsense on the part of the federal government would not be tolerated - not even for three seconds.

I cannot help but think that that America may just be gone forever.

I know many are ecstatic over the election results last month, but there is a part of me that truly feels that our last real chance to save this republic as it was founded via the ballot box came and went in November of 2008.

I hope I am wrong.

(h/t: boortz.com) 

Philly Mayor Saves Christmas!

Okay, that may be overstating things a bit - well maybe a lot, but even though this is a very small victory for our side in an overall much larger War on Christmas, a victory it still is.

Via philly.com:

Breaking News from City Hall:

Christmas is back.

Mayor Nutter, after sustaining two days of controversy, wants "Christmas" back up on the signs at the entrance to the German Christmas Village at City Hall. Nutter told PhillyClout he spoke with the village organizer and the sign should be back up by tomorrow.

Nutter said the decision came after "personal reflection" on the matter.

"We are an international, multi-ethnic, multi-faith city," Nutter said. "I took some time to step back from all of this to think about it in a larger context.

You can read the whole thing at this link.

It's too bad that in a supposedly free country we who know the true "reason for the season" are constantly subjected to the PC whims of a bunch of Christ, Christian and Christmas-hating bigots, who somehow have developed the belief that they posses the "right" to impose their bigotry on us by restricting our 1st Amendment rights.

What I have found so distressing about all this is the Christian community's tepid response to these assaults on our freedoms. It's time to grow a spine, start throwing this stuff back in their faces and tell them to get lost if they don't like it.

One thing I have been doing for years is that, every time I get the PC "Happy Holidays" greeting, I respond with, "Merry Christmas to you, too." I have often gotten some strange looks in return, and a few people appeared somewhat offended by my reply, but so what?

Just exactly where in the Constitution of the United States does it say people have a right not to be offended?

And if someone is truly offended by anything related to Christmas (and what sort of a miserable, self-hating wretch does one have to be in order to be offended here, anyway), perhaps they would feel more comfortable living in somebody else's country.

Like North Korea.

If you'll pop for the one-way ticket, I'll happily drive them to the airport - for free.

(h/t: Drudge)

Wanna Save America? Then Do Away With The EPA

Via investors.com:

Republicans are assuming that cap-and-trade (aka cap-and-tax) is dead because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lacks the votes to bring up the House-passed bill and because this issue proved a loser in the 2010 House races. Like the famous Mark Twain saying, its death may be exaggerated.

The Senate's environmentalism expert, Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., warns us that the Obama administration is trying to implement cap-and-trade anyway by bureaucratic regulations. Directives issued by the Environmental Protection Agency are coming down the pike to increase energy costs and kill jobs.

Last May, the EPA issued what it called a tailoring rule to govern new power plants, oil refineries and factories that yearly emit 100,000 tons or more of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons or sulfur hexafluoride. Inhofe reports that this tailoring rule will further reduce our manufacturing base and especially hurt the poor and elderly.

Inhofe predicts that the EPA standards planned for commercial and industrial boilers will cost 798,000 jobs. He also warns about the harmful effects on jobs caused by new rules on ozone emissions.

Since Barack Obama moved into the White House, the EPA has proposed or finalized 29 major regulations and 172 major policy rules. The EPA is, for the first time, simultaneously toughening the regulations on all six major traditional pollutants such as ozone and sulfur dioxide.

Before Climate-gate exposed the politics behind the "science" of global warming, a 5-to-4 Supreme Court ordered the EPA to consider regulating emissions based on that unsubstantiated and now largely discredited theory.

Despite a long record of supporting Obama stimulus and spending legislation, the expected chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., says, "We are not going to allow this administration to regulate what they have been unable to legislate."

Opposition to EPA's new rules is remarkably bipartisan. Seventeen Democrats signed a letter to EPA Director Lisa Jackson opposing them.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was elected after running a TV ad showing himself firing a rifle to put a bullet through a copy of the cap-and-trade bill, and he promised to fight EPA attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. He may have a difficult task because Jackson is plotting to force mass retirements of the coal plants that provide half of U.S. electricity.

EPA's aggressive overregulation is forcing the electric industry to choose between continuing to operate while taking on major capital costs of complying with heavy new burdens or closing down and building new plants that use more expensive sources such as natural gas. The public will surely end up paying higher electric rates (aka a big tax increase).

The ObamaCare law was deviously designed to take decision-making away from our elected representatives and give it to 15 "expert" members of the Obama-appointed Independent Payment Advisory Board. Many provisions of this law prohibit Congress from repealing or changing decisions of the "experts."

The Obama administration is using administrative regulations to implement what is known as card check, which even the Democratic Congress refuses to legislate. Obama's recess appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker, has lined up a 3-to-2 board majority to repeal the rule that requires secret ballots in unionization elections.

Currently, a secret ballot of workers is mandated to unionize a company. Becker's new regulation will eliminate workers' right and make them subject to coercion and bullying to induce them to vote yes on a card visible to union bosses.

The Obama administration is also toying with a plan to substitute administrative regulations for treaties. Several years ago, the Council on Foreign Relations fingered the treaty provision of the U.S. Constitution as its most objectionable section, and now an ex-Clinton administration State Department bureaucrat, James P. Rubin, has floated a New York Times op-ed suggesting that treaties are not "worth the trouble anymore," and we should substitute domestic regulations.

The globalists find it inconvenient that our Constitution requires a two-thirds Senate vote for treaty ratification. Horrors! That, they say, causes "international frustration" with America.

This frustration broke into print because there are not enough Senate votes to ratify the New START Treaty that Obama signed with Russia. Rubin's solution is to ditch the ratification process and substitute executive agreements and pronouncements.

Rubin reminds us that after it became clear the Senate was not going to ratify a climate-change treaty, Obama just used EPA regulations, and so we can do likewise with arms-control treaties. Let's just ignore the Constitution and let Obama bureaucrats make all important decisions.

Above article as originally posted.

I once referred to things such as this as creeping tyranny, but no more, as the tyranny has landed upon us and is now surrounding us on all sides.

I hope the GOP will act to put a swift end to this nonsense when the new congress is seated in January, because this nonsense, when combined with the implementation of CommieCare, as well as the coming tax increases - both the ones we know about as well as those yet unknown, could very well spell the end of our republic.

(h/t: boortz.com)

Fear Green Energy, and the Creeping Tyranny Coming With It

Via cnsnews.com:

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Assistant Energy Secretary Cathy Zoi said Thursday that the U.S. Department of Energy has a “mandate” to issue regulations to determine what household appliances are available to Americans in the future.

Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the recently reestablished Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB), Zoi pointed to four tactics the Obama administration intends to use to advance the “deployment of clean energy.”

The first three include government subsidies for private-sector green energy projects; special tax incentives for green energy projects; and low-interest government-backed loans for green energy projects.

“The fourth one, which the secretary and I love,” said Zoi, “is where we have a mandate. Where we can actually just issue regulations and do market transformation.”

Zoi was referring to authority the department has under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. That law gives the DOE the power to set efficiency standards for energy-consuming products.

You will find the rest at this link.

Cathy Zoi is just the sort of government bureaucrat that scares the Hell out of me.

I can just see it now - refrigerators that don't chill, freezers that don't freeze, stoves that can't bring water to a boil, ovens that can't even bake cookies, microwaves that can't melt ice, washers that don't wash, dryers that don't dry, showers you cannot even get wet in, HVAC systems that freeze you in winter and cause you to sweat through summer, and probably another round of Gore toilets that require multiple flushes - until the feds notice on your remote flush-meter that you are flushing too much and remotely disconnect the flush lever.

And just try selling your humble abode without having ripped out and replaced every single appliance that does not meet with the government's approval. My guess is you would be facing a level of unpleasantness that would turn even the most fervent HoA NAZI green with envy.

This is just more creeping tyranny from an out-of-control federal government run amok.

Perhaps, just maybe, this will be among the Obamanista regime lunacy that will be added to the GOP's supposed "de-funding" list I keep hearing so much about.

We must run these hideous people out of power before they have destroyed every last vestige of freedom and liberty remaining in America. 

John Stossel on the Lunacy of the ADA

Creeping tyranny brought to us by George Bush 41.

As usual, Stossel nails it most securely.

I wonder if the repubs will have the balls to dismantle any of this freedom-destroying insanity should they actually regain the majority?

I shan't hold my breath waiting for it.

Guv'mint Stoopidity Raht Heas in Geowjia

If you are a farmer in Dekalb County, you better not grow more than the government thinks you should be, else the crop NAZIs will be hauling you into court.

Somewhere along the way, this country took the wrong fork in the road and swerved into the land of rapidly mounting tyranny.

I hope we can start finding our way back to the right road starting this November.

We'd better.

Yet Another Turd Found in the Bowels of CommieCare

Via CNNMoney.com:

NEW YORK -- An all-but-overlooked provision of the health reform law is threatening to swamp U.S. businesses with a flood of new tax paperwork.

Section 9006 of the health care bill -- just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document -- mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year.

The stealth change radically alters the nature of 1099s and means businesses will have to issue millions of new tax documents each year.

Right now, the IRS Form 1099 is used to document income for individual workers other than wages and salaries. Freelancers receive them each year from their clients, and businesses issue them to the independent contractors they hire.

But under the new rules, if a freelance designer buys a new iMac from the Apple Store, they'll have to send Apple a 1099. A laundromat that buys soap each week from a local distributor will have to send the supplier a 1099 at the end of the year tallying up their purchases.

You can read the rest at this link.

So, just how is that hopey-changey thingy working out for you stoopid Obamabots?

I can tell you this, it is sucking big hairy ones among intelligent Americans.

Lindsey Graham: Communist Enabler

Via the Ass. Press:

WASHINGTON – Pushing toward an election-year Supreme Court confirmation vote, a polarized Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday approved Elena Kagan to be the fourth female justice. Just one Republican joined Democrats to approve Kagan's nomination and send it to the full Senate, where she's expected to win confirmation within weeks.

"Elena Kagan will be confirmed," predicted Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary chairman. "She will go on the U.S. Supreme Court."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., broke with his party to cast the sole GOP "yes" vote on President Obama's nominee to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired in June. The vote was 13-6.

"What's in Elena Kagan's heart is that of a good person who adopts a philosophy I disagree with," Graham said. "She will serve this nation honorably, and it would not have been someone I would have chosen, but the person who did choose, President Obama, I think chose wisely."

At the White House, Obama hailed the vote as a "bipartisan affirmation of her strong performance" in confirmation hearings, and said Kagan would be "a fair and impartial" justice who understands the impact of Supreme Court decisions on everyday people's lives.

He called on the Senate to confirm her before Congress takes a monthlong summer break starting August 7 — a deadline Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he looks forward to meeting.

Strategists on both sides expect a few more Republicans to back Kagan in the full Senate, where Democrats have more than enough votes to confirm her.

Several Republicans believed to be potential supporters of Kagan's said in brief interviews Tuesday that they had yet to decide whether to back her. They include Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Olympia Snowe of Maine.

But Kagan is likely to win fewer GOP supporters than Obama's first high court pick, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in part because of the heightened political pressures facing senators little more than 100 days out from midterm election contests.

Most Republicans are against Kagan, arguing that she would put her political views ahead of the law. They point to what they call her liberal agenda and on such issues as abortion and gun rights, and have chastised her for the decision as dean of Harvard Law School to bar military recruiters from the campus career services office because of the policy against openly gay soldiers.

"She has deeply held liberal, progressive views," said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel. As a justice, he said, Kagan "will not be the objective, impartial arbiter and settler of disputes, but someone who would use the opportunity to redefine words to advance an agenda that's not in the court's role to advance."

Democrats praised Kagan, the 50-year-old who has served as the Obama administration's solicitor general, calling her a highly qualified glass ceiling-shattering nominee who could bring consensus to an ideologically divided court.

"It becomes more and more apparent that we need a return to the center and a justice who will urge moderation and who will push for consensus. Elena Kagan's record gives me confidence that she could be just such a voice," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

If confirmed, Kagan would be the fourth woman to serve on the court and her swearing-in would mark the first time that three women have served together on the nine-member Supreme Court.

The debate over her nomination has unfolded against a highly partisan backdrop, at a time when Republicans are focused on making sharp distinctions between themselves and Obama, whose approval ratings are sagging.

"It's a tough political environment out there," noted Graham.

Republicans have been quicker to announce their opposition to Kagan than they were last year to Sotomayor. Graham is the only Republican so far to say he'll vote "yes."

Democrats attributed the difference to political considerations by the GOP.

"Sadly, it appears election-year politics may deprive her of the vote total that her nomination deserves," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Politically active conservative groups are pressuring GOP senators to oppose Kagan's nomination. The National Rifle Association is urging a "no" vote or a filibuster to block Kagan outright, saying she's hostile to the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, and has warned that it will downgrade supporters in candidate ratings that are circulated to millions of gun-owning voters.

The Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion rights group, wrote to senators Monday urging opposition based on Kagan's actions as a Clinton administration official to resist a broad ban on a procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion.

The group pointed to Kagan's intervention with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in the mid-1990s to prevent the professional group from issuing a flat statement saying the controversial procedure was never medically necessary. Notes and documents released by Clinton's presidential library last month show that Kagan suggested the group qualify that position — which she wrote would be a "disaster " — by saying that the method is sometimes best or most appropriate to preserve the mother's health.

"(A) willingness to bend medical facts to support an ideological point of view is inconsistent with the temperament required of a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court," wrote Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group's president.

Aren't you people in South Carolina just peachy proud that one of your two U.S. senators voted to put a justice on the SCOTUS that thinks it is perfectly okay for the federal government to ban books?

I bet George Soros had an orgasm when he got the news.

Sucks to be you, I guess.

SCOTUS Upholds 2nd Amendment - Barely

The ruling was 5-4 in favor. What concerns me is that four of the nine justices sitting on the highest court in the land are all reading, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"  and seeing something else.

This one was a little too close for comfort.

Make that way too close.

A Must-Read from Thomas Sowell

Note: Due to computer performance issues, I am unable to insert the link into text, so you may have to copy and paste.

Via Investors.com:

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/537967/201006211813/Is-US-Now-On-Slippery-Slope-To-Tyranny-.as

Suns Fans Booted From Arena for Wearing Shirts in Supprt of Arizona Illegal Alien Law

Via dailycaller.com:

Two fans at a Phoenix Suns basketball game were ejected from their first row seats and removed from the arena last week after refusing orders from security guards to take off their shirts in support of Arizona’s recently passed law against illegal immigration.

One of the fans, businessman Jim Clark, said he and a friend, who were wearing orange shirts that read “Viva Los 1070,” eventually were allowed to return to their seats during last Wednesday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs after speaking with a security director.

This is not the first occurrence of politics creeping into the Suns basketball games: On Cinco de Mayo, team owner Robert Sarver came up with the idea for the team to wear “Los Suns” on their jerseys in protest of the immigration law. That’s what drove Clark to don his own shirt.

“If they’re going to shove their politics down my throat, I’m going make a message of my own,” Clark told The Daily Caller.

The phrase “Viva Los 1070” is in reference to the recently passed Arizona immigration law, Senate Bill 1070.

You can read the rest at this link.

I wonder if those government "educated" security guards, as well as their employer, have ever heard of the 1st Amendment?

Last time I checked, political correctness doesn't trump the God-given right to freedom of expression.

I have asked several people who oppose Arizona's new law to please point out to me just exactly what that law authorizes law enforcement to do in Arizona that federal law doesn't?

I'll get back to you if I ever get an answer.

(h/t: Boortz.com)

Kagan the Kommie Gun Grabber

Via Bloomberg.com:

Elena Kagan said as a U.S. Supreme Court law clerk in 1987 that she was “not sympathetic” toward a man who contended that his constitutional rights were violated when he was convicted for carrying an unlicensed pistol.

Kagan, whom President Barack Obama nominated to the high court this week, made the comment to Justice Thurgood Marshall, urging him in a one-paragraph memo to vote against hearing the District of Columbia man’s appeal.

The man’s “sole contention is that the District of Columbia’s firearms statutes violate his constitutional right to ‘keep and bear arms,’” Kagan wrote. “I’m not sympathetic.”

You can read the entire article here at this link.

Hmm. She is a devout socialist, and isn't too fond of freedom of speech, either.

This woman has absolutely no business sitting on the highest court in the land.