Another 1,000,000+ Guns Added to American Homes in August

Background Checks On Firearm Sales Up 12% In August.Americans buy 1,074,757+ guns in August 2009

from Ammoland.com
September 9, 2009

Washington, DC --(AmmoLand.com)- Data released by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reported 1,074,757 checks in August 2009, a 12.3 percent increase from the 956,872 reported in August 2008.

So far that is roughly 9,076,205 gun bought this year! The total is probably more as NICS background checks may cover the purchase of more than one gun at a time.

This latest jump in background checks show that Americans are solidly in-favor of keeping firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens and clearly shows that proponents claiming the USA wants more gun control are blatantly wrong.

Gun Owners Say No to Gun Conrtol with their Wallets
The increased trend of Americans buying firearms at a record pace was once thought to be a one time fluke caused by fears of the new Obama administration expressed lust for more gun control. But now 10 months in and the wrongly named “fear buying” has now become the norm as law abiding US citizen exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear firearms by the millions every month with no sign of slowing down.

The bulk of the buying has been concentrated on the following types of guns or calibers:

•Semi Auto Handguns
•Revolvers
•Ar15s and all variants of the Black Rifle
•.50 Caliber

1.17 Guns for Each Person
Conservative estimates of legally owned guns in the USA put the number at 355,029,250 million guns in the USA. That is 1.17 guns for everyone in the USA and if you listen to the liberal press they are all assault weapons. God bless anyone who tries to invade the USA…

Crime Rates Falling
The most stunning in all of this is that we have not seen an increase in crime, murder rates have fallen across most of the USA and Americans have shown that they can be trusted with firearms ownership. This is directly in contrast to what the national media and gun control supporters would have us believe.

Gun owners you are clearly the majority!

Click to read the article and the comments

Designer Guns for Women!

Women are buying guns and the market is responding by offering designer guns and accessories.

Click this link or the image to watch

NRA Conventioneers Worry Over Obama Gun Plans

from Newsmax.com
May 17, 2009

PHOENIX – Thousands of U.S. gun owners gathering in Phoenix for the National Rifle Association's convention have one target firmly in their sights: any attempt to curb gun rights by the new guys in Washington.

"We as an association, but more importantly America's 80 million gun owners, are very concerned about what may be coming down the pike through the Obama administration," Glen Caroline, grassroots director for the NRA's lobbying arm.

The NRA is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the country, with a long record of campaigning hard for gun rights sheltered by the U.S. Constitution. It has nearly 4 million members, 60,000 of whom were expected to attend the three-day event that began on Friday.

NRA activists and rank-and-file members say they are worried that President Barack Obama will fulfill promises to seek a permanent ban on assault weapons -- military style semi-automatic rifles -- and take other steps to tighten ownership of certain weapons.

"The question right now is not if there's a gathering storm, but when in fact that legislation is pushed more aggressively," Caroline said as activists, some in NRA caps and stars-and-stripes shirts, gathered for a buffet breakfast and workshop in a Phoenix hotel.

The NRA says Democratic control of both houses of the U.S. Congress make curbs more likely. It is organizing members to campaign for gun-friendly candidates -- usually Republicans -- in the mid-term congressional elections next year.

Many gun owners see curbs looming and are stocking up.

In the first four months of this year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ran just over 5 million instant background checks on individuals applying to buy firearms from licensed dealers or at gun shows, its data shows.

This was an increase of more than 25 percent from the 3.9 million checks made over the same period last year.

Activism is also buoyant, with hundreds of members taking part in a grassroots workshop and breakfast in Phoenix. The NRA also launched a phone campaign firing up activists to object to legislation they say infringes on the right to bear arms.

"Right now is a pivotal time in our history with a president and a total administration that is anti-gun," said Leonard Junker, 56, a truck driver and Republican Party organizer from Tucson attending the workshop.

"I truly believe that they want to disarm us," he added.
© 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

10 Lives Saved - College Student Shoots, Kills Home Invader

COLLEGE PARK, Ga. -- A group of college students said they are lucky to be alive and they’re thanking the quick-thinking of one of their own. Police said a fellow student shot and killed one of two masked me who burst into an apartment.

Channel 2 Action News reporter Tom Jones met with one of the students to talk about the incident.

“Apparently, his intent was to rape the women and then murder us all,” said student Charles Bailey.

Bailey said he thought it was the end of his life and the lives of the 10 people inside his apartment for a birthday party after two masked men with guns burst in through a patio door.

“They just came in and separated the men from the women and said, ‘Give me your wallets and cell phones,’” said George Williams of the College Park Police Department.

Bailey said the gunmen started counting bullets. “The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough,” said Bailey.

That’s when one student grabbed a gun out of a backpack and shot at the invader who was watching the men. The gunman ran out of the apartment.

The student then ran to the room where the second gunman, identified by police as 23-year-old Calvin Lavant, was holding the women.

“Apparently the guy was getting ready to rape his girlfriend. So he told the girls to get down and he started shooting. The guy jumped out of the window,” said Bailey.

Click to watch the video

A neighbor heard the shots and heard someone running nearby.

“And I heard someone say, ‘Someone help me. Call the police. Somebody call the police,’” said a neighbor.

The neighbor said she believes it was Lavant, who was found dead near his apartment, only one building away.

Bailey said he is just thankful one student risked his life to keep others alive.

“I think all of us are really cognizant of the fact that we could have all been killed,” said Bailey.

One female student was shot several times during the crossfire. She is expected to make a full recovery.

Police said they are close to making the arrest of the second suspect.
Click to go to the article and watch the video

Do Democrats Want to Take Our Guns? - Does a bear...

Once government knows exactly who has the guns, could confiscation be far behind?

from Pajamas Media
May 4, 2009
by AWR Hawkins

Few things in this life are more politically divisive than guns. Generally speaking, liberals hate them and conservatives love them. Yet both history and experience teach us that few things are as integral to freedom as guns. Therefore, when liberal politicians push for more gun control, freedom-loving Americans panic because they know that an assault on guns is an assault on freedom.

Our Founding Fathers were confident of the connection between guns and freedom, and they were convinced that the American people were freer than others because of the right to keep and bear arms. Said James Madison: “[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

At our nation’s birth, the Founding Fathers tried to institute a political framework that would neither tend toward mob rule (democracy) nor an overbearing central government (tyranny). They knew freedom resided somewhere between the two extremes. To prevent democracy they designated our nation a republic via a written Constitution that established indirect elections for the presidency and gave the citizens no role in electing senators, so as to preserve the rule of law instead of the rule of the majority. (Today’s direct election of senators was established by the 17th Amendment in 1913, under President Woodrow Wilson.) To prevent tyranny, the Founders established checks and balances between the various branches of government and recognized the people’s inalienable right to be armed. Alexander Hamilton surveyed the newly born nation and said: “The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”

The great orator Patrick Henry, who demanded to be given “liberty or … death,” concurred: “The great principle is that every man be armed.”

As long as the government is not tyrannical, the government need not fear the people’s arms. Thus Madison’s observation that the federal government at our nation’s founding was not “afraid to trust the people with arms.” But if the government were to ignore its constitutional limitations and run roughshod over the people’s liberty, our Founders expected the people to rise up and preserve freedom. Said Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots.”

Did you catch that? No less a man than Thomas Jefferson described as “patriots” armed citizens who refuse to let go of their liberty, even at the cost of their lives.

During the 1990s, when the Clinton administration pushed for expanded gun control laws, various people warned: “Fear the government that fears your gun.” Law-abiding citizens understood that our Founders’ worldview had been completely flipped on its head, not by ubiquitous gun ownership but by a government that feared the idea of an armed citizenry.

With the election of Barack Obama, citizens are again confronted by an administration opposed to an armed citizenry, the tenets of our Founding Fathers, and thus to freedom itself. Although Obama has only been in office for three months, various gun registry schemes have already been promoted. And during an April 7 appearance on Good Morning America, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put in plainly: “We want [guns] registered.” Of course she assured those watching Good Morning America that Democrats “don’t want to take … guns away.”

We could ask ourselves, “What’s wrong with using registration to create a list of guns and gun owners to which our president has access?” But to ask that question is to answer it. Plus, here’s a better question: “Why weren’t our Founders intent on registering firearms and their owners?” The answer to this question is as profound as it is simple. They wanted “every man” to be armed, not just certain men.

In describing the dangers of gun registration, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said: “Ultimately registration will let the government know who owns guns and what guns they own. History [then] provides the outcome: confiscation. And a people disarmed is a people in danger.”

After Hitler and the Nazis registered all the guns in Germany, millions of Jews, Christians, and handicapped persons knew firsthand the “danger” of which LaPierre speaks. They were rounded up and starved to death, or used in inhumane medical experiments, or killed outright in the death camps.

But what could those Jews, Christians, and handicapped persons do? They couldn’t fight back, for they were without guns and thus without a means to ensure their own survival, much less their freedom.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

A Yard Sign For Your Liberal Neighbor!

Thanks to Mark for forwarding this.

I would like to credit the person who created this image, but I don't know it is. Anyway, 'thank you' to whoever you are for providing me with a good laugh.
Rees

Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms? Vote your conscience!

Please vote regarding your Second Amendment Rights.

Thanks to Ron for forwarding.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/quickquestion/2007/november/popup5895.htm

Obama Outsources His Presidency

He may come to regret letting Congress write his major legislation.
from The Wall Street Journal
By KARL ROVE
May 1, 2009

While officials in the Obama White House dismissed yesterday's "100 Days" anniversary as a "Hallmark Holiday," they understood it was what sociologist Daniel J. Boorstin called a "pseudo-event." By that, Boorstin meant an occasion that is not spontaneous but planned for the purpose of being reported -- an event that is important because someone says so, not because it is.

What happens in a president's first 100 days rarely characterizes the arc of the 1,361 that follow. Jimmy Carter had a very good first 100 days. Bill Clinton did not.

Still, a president would rather start well than poorly -- and Mr. Obama has a job approval of 63%. That leaves him tied with Mr. Carter, one point ahead of George W. Bush, and behind only Ronald Reagan's 67%. Four of the past six presidents had approval ratings that ranged between 62% and 67%, a statistically insignificant spread.

Mr. Obama is popular because he is a historic figure, has an attractive personality, has passed key legislation, and receives adoring press coverage.

However, there are cautionary signs. Mr. Obama's policies are less popular than his personality, the pace of polarization with Republicans has proceeded faster than ever in history, and independents are thinking more like Republicans on the issues and less like Democrats.

The first 100 days can reveal a pattern of behavior that comes to characterize a presidency. In this respect, there are two emerging habits of Team Obama worth watching.

One is the gap between what Mr. Obama said he would do and what he is doing. His administration is emphasizing in its official 100 days talking points steps he has taken to "deliver on the change he promised." During the campaign, Mr. Obama denounced the $2.3 trillion added to the national debt on Mr. Bush's watch as "deficits as far as the eye can see." But Mr. Obama's budget adds $9.3 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. What happened to Obama the deficit hawk?

From Mr. Obama's Denver acceptance speech through the campaign, Mr. Obama did not publicly utter the phrase "universal health care." Instead, his campaign ran ads attacking "government-run health care" as "extreme." Now Mr. Obama is asking, as he did at a townhall meeting last month, "Why not do a universal health care system like the European countries?" Maybe because he was elected by intimating that would be "extreme"?

Another emphasis in the Obama 100 days talking points is that the president is a decisive leader. However, Mr. Obama is enormously deferential to Democrats in Congress and has outsourced formulation of key policies to them. He appears largely ambivalent about the contents of important legislation, satisfied to simply sign someone else's bill.

On the $787 billion stimulus package, he specified less than a quarter of the bill's spending and let House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey decide the rest. On cap and trade, Mr. Obama is comfortable to let Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey write that legislation with virtually no White House guidance. On health care, the White House is providing very little detail. Mr. Obama tees up an issue, but leaves its execution to congressional Democrats.

This leadership style may be a carryover from his Senate years, when he was unusually detached from the substance of legislation. Mr. Obama's focus on broad descriptions of a goal will produce laws, but handing over control of the process may produce deeply flawed products.

The stimulus bill turned into a liberal spending wish list that will retard, not hasten, recovery. Already, with mounting job losses the gap between the 3.675 million jobs he said he would create or protect in his first two years and the number of actual jobs in the economy has risen to nearly five million. Reaching his job target now requires creating 249,400 new jobs a month for the next 20 months. Democrats will not fare well in next year's elections if there is a yawning Obama "job gap."

Democratic congressional leaders are ecstatic about Mr. Obama's willingness to outsource major legislation to them. They thrive on sausage making and, with the president's popularity high, they appreciate that his strengths are not their strengths. Yet Mr. Obama clearly did not gain their respect for his legislative abilities during his Senate years.

Mr. Obama is a great face for the Democratic Party. He is its best salesman and most persuasive advocate. But he is beginning to leave the impression that he is more concerned with the aesthetics of policy rather than its contents. In the long run, substance and consequences define a presidency more than signing ceremonies and photo-ops. In his first 100 days, Mr. Obama has put the fate of his presidency in the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He may come to regret that decision.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

MUST READ! - The Gathering Storm Over Guns - Prepare to defend your second amendment rights

If you're not worried about losing your second amendment rights, you will be after you read how Obama as put into place all the people necessary to take away those rights. Read what they've not only said, but individually have tried to do. Imagine what they can accomplish together.

These people are already marching in locketep. They're poised and waiting, and when the time is right, they're going to go for it.
Rees

from Human Events
by Wayne LaPierre
05/01/2009

Barely 100 days into the new Obama-Biden administration, ominous storm clouds are already gathering over your most fundamental right as a free citizen: Your right to own a gun to protect yourself, your family and your freedom.

Betraying all their campaign promises to protect your right to keep and bear arms or your freedom to hunt, the Obama administration has put its chess pieces in place and set in motion its strategy to do just the opposite.

Throughout the West Wing, they’ve appointed a cabinet composed of some of the most experienced and politically effective gun grabbers Washington, D.C. has ever seen.

Meanwhile, powerful members of the U.S. Senate and House have admitted that gun bans remain a top objective, but only “when the time is right.” Which really means “when some awful tragedy conveniently captures national attention.”

Yes, Barack Obama had an extensive and extreme anti-gun voting record as an Illinois senator. Yes, he called for gun bans during the Democratic presidential primaries. But once he won his party’s nomination, Obama reversed that spin and spent millions showering key states with flyers promising voters that he would never try to take their guns. But after winning the presidency, those pro-freedom showers dried up overnight.

Pre-Election Promises Become Post-Election Perfidy

Barely 100 hours after winning the election, the Obama-Biden transition team posted an Internet web page outlining its ambitious anti-gun agenda.

Its legislative goals included permanently reinstating the Clinton gun bans, banning sale or transfer of firearms between private citizens (at gun shows and presumably anywhere else), and requiring that handguns be “childproofed” through nonexistent technology that, even if developed, would make them prohibitively expensive and far less reliable.

American voters immediately and rightfully cried foul. That’s when Obama and Biden -- who’d bragged, “I’m the guy who originally wrote the assault weapons ban” -- quickly deleted that web page from the Internet.

But they swiftly set about assembling an anti-gun all-star cabinet to achieve all that and more. Consider just a few of the gun-ban extremists who populate Obama’s inner circle.

Obama Cabinet Stacked with Anti-Gun Veterans

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel worked as President Bill Clinton’s point man on gun control. When Clinton administratively outlawed imports of many firearms and accessories, Emanuel bragged, “We’re bending the law as far as we can to ban an entirely new class of guns.”

After leaving the Clinton White House, Emanuel went on to make gun bans his stock in trade as a congressman from the anti-gun mecca of Illinois. There, he co-sponsored a bill to extend and expand the Clinton gun ban and repeatedly voted to expose America’s firearms industry to bankrupting, politically motivated lawsuits.

Attorney General Eric Holder served as deputy attorney general under Clinton, where he tried to make you get a government-issued license to exercise your Second Amendment rights.

He also pushed mandatory waiting periods, “one-gun-a-month” rationing of your rights, mandatory trigger-lock regimes and bans on ammunition magazines.

As signer of a “friend of the court” brief defending the D.C. gun ban before the U.S. Supreme Court, Eric Holder believes that -- as his own Justice Department under Janet Reno asserted -- “the Second Amendment does not extend an individual right to keep and bear arms.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton advocated gun bans long before she even assumed elective office. She helped organize the 2000 “Million Mom March,” and said of the protesters, “The moms have it right: we have to license and register all handguns.”

During her first run for the U.S. Senate, Clinton proposed that gun purchasers should be required to pass tests to obtain licenses; that all gun sales be recorded in a national registry; that new guns be logged in a “ballistic database”; that the Consumer Products Safety Commission regulate guns; and that gun purchasers be limited to one per month.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan was named “Man of the Year” by the Illinois gun-ban lobby last year, and upon his appointment in the White House, the Brady Campaign called him a “wonderful selection” for the job. Their praise is telling.

As the superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, Duncan last year bused Chicago schoolchildren to the state capital -- at taxpayer expense -- to serve as props for lobbyists pushing gun control in the state. He urged schools to have students submit entries in the annual Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence “Essay, Poetry and Art Contest.”

Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein has a long record as a radical animal “rights” advocate. In a speech at Harvard, Sunstein said, “We ought to ban hunting, if there isn’t a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It’s time now.”

Sunstein has also said that livestock and wild animals should have legal “rights” and be permitted to file lawsuit; that current uses of animals are akin to “human slavery”; and that meat eating should be eliminated.

An Anti-Gun Strategy in Search of Tragedy

Though the administration and Congress haven’t publicly put gun control legislation at the top of their agenda yet, they’ve admitted they’re just waiting for the right moment to pounce.

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said so April 12 on “60 Minutes.”

When “60 Minutes” correspondent Leslie Stahl asked Feinstein about the new gun bans, Feinstein allowed that she “wouldn’t bring it up now.”

But when pressed whether she would bring it up at all, Feinstein vowed, “I’m going to pick the time, and the place. No question about that.”

Despite Obama’s campaign promises and his stealthy approach to gun control since then, Feinstein made it clear on “60 Minutes” that she and her anti-gun allies are arrayed from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other.

In her interview, Leslie Stahl asked, “Has anybody -- the Democratic leadership in the Senate, or anybody from the Obama administration -- looked at you and said, ‘Back off’?”

“No,” Feinstein admitted. “Nobody said a word to me.”

Like all anti-gun strategists, they’re waiting for the perfect tragedy to exploit. As of press time, the drug-fueled violence devastating Mexico appears to be it.

At a February news conference, Attorney General Holder plainly blamed Americans’ Second Amendment rights for mayhem in Mexico:

“[T]here are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make,” Holder said, “and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed suit at a news conference in Mexico City, claiming, “We know very well that the drug traffickers are armed by the transport of weapons from the United States.”

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D–Ill.), the senate’s second most powerful Democrat, lamented that “an iron river of guns from the United States arms Mexican drug cartels to the teeth,” and he blamed American gun shows for the violence.

Make no mistake: New gun bans and restrictions are very much at the top of the agenda in the White House and Congress -- even if they don’t admit it yet.

If you want to keep your most fundamental rights as a free citizen, get ready. The onslaught is planned, prepared and unprecedented. And it’s coming.

Get informed and get involved. Join the NRA. Keep up with all the news on your rights through NRAnews.com on the Internet or Sirius satellite radio Patriot channel 144.

We must stand united and ready for this fight. Considering the players, their power, their promoters and their war chest, this will be the toughest and most definitive contest to preserve firearm freedoms in America for generations to come.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LaPierre is Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Rifle Association of America.
Click to read the article and the comments

Guns bought this year could outfit 2 armies

WEAPONS OF CHOICE
Report cites surge that coincided with last year's election
Posted: April 30, 200910:55 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
from WorldNetDaily

Guns purchased legally in the United States this year could outfit two armies – and not just any armies, the armies of China and India, according to new government reports cited by a website for sport-shooting enthusiasts.

The federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System database statistics show there were more than 3.7 million background checks during the first three months of this year, compared to about 8 million annually not even a decade ago, according to the documentation assembled by Ammoland.com.

That's not individual guns, that's background checks, the organization pointed out. If a purchaser obtains two, three or even four guns at a time, often there is only one background check.

"You also bought 1,529,635,000 rounds of ammunition in just the month of December. Yeah, that is right, that is billion with a 'b.' This number takes no account of reloading or reloaded ammunition," the report said.

According to the Global Security website, the Indian army is estimated to have about 1 million soldiers. A news report from several years ago estimated the Chinese army at 1.7 million, although recent estimates put that at 2.25 million.

Here is a table documenting the federal gun background checks by month:

The report cites the quote from Admiral Isoruko Yamamota, a World War II leader for Japan, who said, "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."

The report said the evaluation on firearms and ammunition purchases are "based on low end numbers."

"The numbers presented are only PART of the overall numbers of arms and ammunition that have been sold. The actual numbers are much higher."

That's because no private individual-to-individual sales would be included, and there's no assessment of how many guns are purchased through each background check.

"Law abiding citizens appear to be concerned about our 'right to own and bear arms,'" said one forum page participant.

The statistics show that U.S consumers sought 3.1 million gun background checks every three months last year, for an annual total of 12.7 million. The annual averages had been about 8.4 million for a number of recent years, but there was a surge starting last October, when check requests rose suddenly from 970,000 a month to nearly 1.2 million. Totals have remained at that higher level.

The answer is finally here to the real reason why guns and church must mix!

Another forum participant added, "It's logical that gun sales took sharp upturn. The concern is that the super majority of Democrats in Washington will make firearms either harder to obtain or outright contraband. … As for myself, I have all the weapons I could possibly need, so I've just been stocking up on ammo because I think ammo will be subject to new regulations and increased taxes under this president and Congress."

Steve Sanetti, the head of a shooting sports organization, said, "Americans concerned about their ability to purchase many types of home defense, hunting and target shooting firearms in the future are continuing to purchase these products in record numbers today."

WND reported that the usually liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms is "deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition" and long has been regarded as the "true palladium of liberty," so it therefore must be applied against state and local government weapon restrictions as well as federal gun limits.

But the decision appears to run counter to the general direction sought by the administration of President Obama three months into his tenure.

He's already advocated for a treaty that would require a federal license for hunters to reload their ammunition, has expressed a desire to ban "assault" weapons, has seen a plan to require handgun owners to submit to mental health evaluations and sparked a rush on ammunition purchases with his history of anti-gun positions.

Obama also supported the handgun ban in Washington, D.C., before it was tossed out last year by the Supreme Court.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

The Biggest Threat To America

by Michael Ramirez
from Investor's Business Daily

FACT CHECK: Obama disowns deficit he helped shape - He is so incredibly intellectually dishonest!!!

from myway.com
Apr 29, 5:55 PM
CALVIN WOODWARD

WASHINGTON (AP) - "That wasn't me," President Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One.

It actually was him - and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years - who shaped a budget so out of balance.

And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still.

Obama met citizens at an Arnold, Mo., high school Wednesday in advance of his prime-time news conference. Both forums were a platform to review his progress at the 100-day mark and look ahead.

At various times, he brought an air of certainty to ambitions that are far from cast in stone.

His assertion that his proposed budget "will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term" is an eyeball-roller among many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits and economic calamity that the government is negotiating.

He promised vast savings from increased spending on preventive health care in the face of doubts that such an effort, however laudable it might be for public welfare, can pay for itself, let alone yield huge savings.

A look at some of his claims Wednesday:

OBAMA: "Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit.... That wasn't me. Number two, there is almost uniform consensus among economists that in the middle of the biggest crisis, financial crisis, since the Great Depression, we had to take extraordinary steps. So you've got a lot of Republican economists who agree that we had to do a stimulus package and we had to do something about the banks. Those are one-time charges, and they're big, and they'll make our deficits go up over the next two years." - in Missouri.

THE FACTS:

Congress controls the purse strings, not the president, and it was under Democratic control for Obama's last two years as Illinois senator. Obama supported the emergency bailout package in President George W. Bush's final months - a package Democratic leaders wanted to make bigger.

To be sure, Obama opposed the Iraq war, a drain on federal coffers for six years before he became president. But with one major exception, he voted in support of Iraq war spending.

The economy has worsened under Obama, though from forces surely in play before he became president, and he can credibly claim to have inherited a grim situation.

Still, his response to the crisis goes well beyond "one-time charges."

He's persuaded Congress to expand children's health insurance, education spending, health information technology and more. He's moving ahead on a variety of big-ticket items on health care, the environment, energy and transportation that, if achieved, will be more enduring than bank bailouts and aid for homeowners.

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated his policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years, even accounting for his spending reduction goals. Now, the deficit is nearly quadrupling to $1.75 trillion.

---

OBAMA: "I think one basic principle that we know is that the more we do on the (disease) prevention side, the more we can obtain serious savings down the road. ... If we're making those investments, we will save huge amounts of money in the long term." - in Missouri.

THE FACTS: It sounds believable that preventing illness should be cheaper than treating it, and indeed that's the case with steps like preventing smoking and improving diets and exercise. But during the 2008 campaign, when Obama and other presidential candidates were touting a focus on preventive care, the New England Journal of Medicine cautioned that "sweeping statements about the cost-saving potential of prevention, however, are overreaching." It said that "although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not."

And a study released in December by the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing preventive care "could improve people's health but would probably generate either modest reductions in the overall costs of health care or increases in such spending within a 10-year budgetary time frame."

---

OBAMA: "You could cut (Social Security) benefits. You could raise the tax on everybody so everybody's payroll tax goes up a little bit. Or you can do what I think is probably the best solution, which is you can raise the cap on the payroll tax." - in Missouri.

THE FACTS: Obama's proposal would reduce the Social Security trust fund's deficit by less than half, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

That means he would still have to cut benefits, raise the payroll tax rate, raise the retirement age or some combination to deal with the program's long-term imbalance.

Workers currently pay 6.2 percent and their employers pay an equal rate - for a total of 12.4 percent - on annual wages of up to $106,800, after which no more payroll tax is collected.

Obama wants workers making more than $250,000 to pay payroll tax on their income over that amount. That would still protect workers making under $250,000 from an additional burden. But it would raise much less money than removing the cap completely.

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Fox Program "Lie to Me" beat President Obama's press conference - Obama lost half his audience from previous one - OUCH!

Fox beats President Obama

TV Newser: The fictional “Lie To Me” beat the presidential version in the TV ratings.

Tee hee hee.

Fox went with regular programming at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, while the other 3 networks carried the presidential press conference.

Citing early Nielsen numbers, TV Newser declared Fox the winner.

Fox drew 7.9 million viewers in the time slot. NBC was second at 6.7 million.

“Overall, Obama’s news conference was seen by nearly 19 million viewers across NBC, ABC, CBS according to the early numbers,” TV Newser said.

That is about half the people who watched his last prime-time press conference.

To be fair, the fictional “Lie To Me” also drew 7.9 million viewers in the same timeslot a week earlier.

Still, I think the shelf-life on these prime-time press conferences has passed.

Interestingly, the peevish president took no questions from Fox. Again.
TV Newser’s report is here.
Robert Seidman has more.
Click to read the article and the comments

Daily Gut: Schoolgirls In Love - The Media slobber fest nauseatingly continues

from Breitbart.com
by Greg Gutfeld
April 30, 2009

So after weeks of delving deeper and deeper into Miss California’s thoughts on social issues, we now turn to last night’s press conference, where one reporter preferred to serve up a question suited more for a pageant than a President.

Check it out, check it outers.

(ROLL FOUR PART QUESTION FROM TIMES DUDE)

Well, someone definitely is enchanted - beguiled and bewitched by a wizard whose spell renders anyone not immune to “The More You Know” commercials to the emotional state of a fawning school girl.

It’s a credit to Obama that even he had to openly acknowledge the convoluted question from Jeff Zeleny, the New York Times reporter - for it was something Barbara Walters would have posed to Barbara Streisand in 1979, right after asking her what kind of tree she would be, if she could be a tree.

(I think she said “spruce”)

So how do you get to a point where a reporter actually feels compelled to ask such a question? It takes two things.

-one: obsession. Remember the Sandra Bernhard character in King of Comedy? Well, that’s the press personified, and Obama is Jerry Langford. I`m beginning to think that many in the press have collages of Obama hanging inside their lockers. Chris Matthews, I hear, has created an Obama love doll in his garage. For a magical thrill, it’s hooked up to a car battery.

-two, acquiescence. The press completely buys into Obama’s worldview, because it`s theirs too. So it’s not really media bias. It’s “me” bias. He is them. Them is…he, if you pardon my grammar. Fact is, the press has always believed the world needs a healthy dose of fairness - meaning other people deserve your money. And that fits nicely with Obama’s main goal - to create a world where all of us are truly equal - by talking up dreams, but leveling achievement.

It’s a surprise that Zeleny didn’t ask Obama to sign his dream journal, which later, he could decorate with hearts. Pink hearts, with arrows in them!

That`s what I would do. But I`m different.
Tonight we have Dr. Michael Baden, S.E. Cupp, Ron Geraci, and Anna Gilligan!!
Fun, fun, fun.

Click to read the article

CURL: Obama looks back in anger

Places blame on the GOP
from The Washington Times
By Joseph Curl
Thursday, April 30, 2009

President Obama said his prime-time press conference on Day 100 of his presidency was intended as a "look forward to ... all of the hundreds of days to follow," but it turned into more of a look back in anger, complete with finger-pointing.

Throughout his hourlong session in the White House East Room on Wednesday, the candidate who vowed a new post-partisan Washington, free from the rancorous bickering that often grinds the city to gridlock, ripped Republicans as the members of a do-nothing party of no.

He began at the top, calling his predecessor, the former head of the Republican Party, a torturer.

"Waterboarding was torture," he said, making no exception for post-Sept. 11 circumstances and giving no credence to claims that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized by George W. Bush saved Americans lives.

"We could have gotten this information in other ways," Mr. Obama said, without adding that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was waterboarded 183 times before he divulged plans of a massive attack planned against Los Angeles.

The cerebral president, who most recently shook hands with America-hater Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and plans talks with nuke-happy Iranian leaders, was content to muse philosophically: "Could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques?"

(Still, he did steal Mr. Bush's daily mantra that his first obligation is to keep the American people safe: "That's the responsibility I wake up with and it's the responsibility I go to sleep with.)

But on the arbitrary day of presidential measurement, Mr. Obama often appeared to still be running for office. In one breath, he said: "I do think that, to my Republican friends, I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine."

In another: "There is still a certain quotient of political posturing and bickering that takes place even when we're in the middle of really big crises," with "political posturing" targeted at Republicans who apparently do not believe their jobs are to rubber-stamp each expensive Obama initiative.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Dear President Obama: Your partisan arrogance makes me sick.

from the blog Dear President Obama
Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Mr. President, as unfortunate for us as it is that you were elected president (God help us) the fact is that you were elected president of ALL of us... including those of us "waving tea bags around."

Your insistence on once again playing the race card is yet another in the many sickening chapters you're writing as you destroy our economy and enslave my children to pay for your socialism. Let me make this clear enough that even a high functioning moron can understand it:

The fact that half of your genetic make up comes from the continent of Africa means nothing to me. It is you incompetence, your fringe-leftist partisanship, your total cluelessness on both domestic and foreign polciy and your massive, unrelenting arrogance that makes you such a colassal waste of skin as our President.

If you were a green lepricon, my distain for you and the damage that you and your minions are causing would be precisely the same. You've made the idiotic mistake of surrounding yourself with yes men and women; you've politicized issues that should not be politicized; you've shown a massive level of disdain for those of us wise enough to oppose your rank stupidity and you've done absoluitely nothing to bring us together except to insult, belittle and punish us with trillions of dollars of debt.

As we wise up to the truth of your perfidy, your popularity will shrink at a rate that even your media leg-humpers will not be able to fix.

And then what?

Idiot.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Hey Criminals - It's On!

Criminals Better Steer Clear Of Kentucky

from Cheat Seeking Missiles.com
Posted by: Laer at 12:43 pm
April 28, 2009

My friend and frequent hat-tipee Jim sent along an interesting table showing state-by-state tallies of firearm background checks. Yeah, I know, not exactly the stuff that compelling blog posts are made of. But don’t be fooled!

The first thing that jumps out is that every state except Louisianna and Utah performed more background checks in February and/or March than they did in January, the month Barack Obama took office. And some of the increases were quite spectacular, like Michigan with a 22 percent increase in checks and Specterville with 21 percent.

But the most interesting stat of all is Kentucky, with 167,035 background checks in January growing to 175,314 in March. To put it in perspective, the nation’s most populous state, California, did just 72,248 checks in April - less than half of Kentucky’s total, even though California’s population is nine times larger than Kentucky’s.

Another way to look at it is to compare Kentucky backgrounders to those in Texas, which has the second highest tally, at 102,372. Kentucky performed 65,000 more background checks, with a population that’s less than a fifth the size of Texas’.

I had the good fortune to live in Kentucky for five years. I like the people - straightforward, straight-talking … and straight-shooting. I’m not looking for a big spike in the crime rate there!

Must check out the table - Click here!
Click to read the article and comments

Montana Gun Law Aimed At Asserting Aovereignty

2nd Amendment, Montana style
from Don Surber.com
April 17, 2009

Montana: You will take our Montana-made guns when you pry them from our cold dead Montanan fingers.

Montana’s legislature exempted Montana-made guns from federal gun laws, a move which underscores a state’s right to legislate commerce that occurs totally and exclusively within its own borders.

Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer immediately, saying, “It’s a gun bill, but it’s another way of demonstrating the sovereignty of the state of Montana.”

He also said: “I like big guns, I like little guns, I like pistols, I like rifles, and I would like to buy a gun that’s made in Montana.”

The Montana Shooting Sports Association, which drafted the bill, has said it will raise the money to pay for any legal costs, the AP reported.

The story is here.

God bless Montana
Click to read the article and comments

DHS Releases Classified Picture Of Rightwing Extremist Group

I'm obviously joking about the photo, but I am very serious about the DHS report and what a smear campaign it is.

Yes, according to the latest report issued by Janet Napolitano at the Department of Homeland Security, all of our brave men and women in America's military are potential Rightwing Extremists with a potential for violent capabilities. I'm not making this up. Please take the time to read the report. It's only 9 pages long and I have provided a link.

Rees

Here is a quick excerpt from the report:

— (U//FOUO) Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists. DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to
boost their violent capabilities.

Here is the actual Department of Homeland Security Report - PDF File

The following sections are directed towards current and former military personnel:

PAGE 7

(U) Disgruntled Military Veterans

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists—including lone wolves or small terrorist cells—to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.

— (U) After Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990-1991, some returning military
veterans—including Timothy McVeigh—joined or associated with rightwing extremist groups. [so they attach the stigma of McVeigh to all veterans - my comment]

— (U) A prominent civil rights organization reported in 2006 that “large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces.”

— (U//LES) The FBI noted in a 2008 report on the white supremacist movement that some returning military veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have joined extremist groups.

PAGE 9

(U) Reporting Notice:

(U) DHS encourages recipients of this document to report information concerning suspicious or criminal activity to DHS and the FBI. The DHS National Operations Center (NOC) can be reached by telephone at 202-282-9685 or by e-mail at NOC.Fusion@dhs.gov. For information affecting the private sector and critical infrastructure, contact the National Infrastructure Coordinating Center (NICC), a sub-element of the NOC. The NICC can be reached by telephone at 202-282-9201 or by e-mail at NICC@dhs.gov. The FBI regional phone numbers can be found online at http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/fo.htm. When available, each report submitted should include the date, time, location, type of activity, number of people and type of equipment used for the activity, the name of the submitting company or organization, and a designated point of contact.

Click to read entire report

The Myth of 90 Percent

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.

By William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott
from FOXNews.com
Thursday, April 02, 2009

EXCLUSIVE: You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."
-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.
Click to read the rest of the article and comments