‘I think they’re going to let it ride, hoping some judge throws out case’

A fifth state – South Dakota – has decided that guns made, sold and used within its borders no longer are subject to the whims of the federal government through its rule-making arm in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and two supporters of the growing groundswell say they hope Washington soon will be taking note.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds has signed into law his state’s version of a Firearms Freedom Act that first was launched in Montana. It already is law there, in Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming, which took the unusual step of specifying criminal penalties – including both fines and jail time – for federal agents attempting to enforce a federal law on a “personal firearm” in the Cowboy State.

According to a report in the Dakota Voice, the new South Dakota law addresses the “rights of states which have been carelessly trampled by the federal government for decades.”

“As the federal government has radically overstepped is constitutional limitations in the past year or so, an explosion of states have begun re-asserting their rights not only with regard to firearms, but also in shielding themselves against government health care, cap and trade global warming taxes, and more,” the report said.

South Dakota’s law specifically notes “any firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in South Dakota and that remains within the borders of South Dakota is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.”

The provisions are nearly a mirror of the original law penned in Montana as well as those adopted in subsequent decisions by Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

Gary Marbut of the Montana Shooting Sports Association spearheaded the Montana law and now describes himself as a sort of “godfather” to the national campaign.

He told WND the issue is not only about guns but about states’ rights and the constant overreaching by federal agencies and Washington to impose their requirements on in-state activities.

Here are answers to all your questions about guns, ammunition and accessories.

He said he’s pleased South Dakota has become No. 5, and noted Alaska, Idaho and Oklahoma all have legislation that is approaching the stage of being presented to a governor to be made into law.

The Firearms Freedom Act website also reveals that other states either with pending legislation or pending plans include Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.

Map showing 5 states adopting gun exemptions (in green)

Marbut said Washington appears to be reacting the same way it did when states legalized marijuana or rejected the REAL ID national plan: by ignoring it.

“Ultimately we hope there will be lawsuits in other federal circuits, because there are two things that predispose the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case: the national scope of the issue and differing appellate decisions,” he told WND.

Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center said Washington likely is not anxious for a confrontation.

“I think they’re going to let it ride, hoping some judge throws out the case,” he said today.

“When they really start paying attention is when people actually start following the [state] firearms laws,” he said.

WND reported earlier when Wyoming joined the states with self-declared exemptions from federal gun regulation.

But when Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed his state’s bill into law, it included penalties for any agent of the U.S. who “enforces or attempts to enforce” federal gun rules on a “personal firearm” in Wyoming including up to two years in prison and up to $2,000 in fines.

The bellwether likely is to be a lawsuit pending over the Montana law, which was the first to go into effect.

As WND reported, the action was filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Montana Shooting Sports Association in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont., to validate the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, which took effect Oct. 3, 2009.

Marbut argues that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states and the people, and it is time for the states to begin drawing boundaries for the federal government and its agencies.

The government’s filing in the case demands its dismissal, citing a lacking of “standing” for the plaintiffs and the court’s lack of “jurisdiction,” as well as the Constitution’s Commerce clause. The government filing argues, “The Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit have repeatedly held that even purely intrastate activities, such as those the MFFA purports to exempt from federal law, do affect interstate commerce and thus are within Congress’ power to regulate. As a result, even if plaintiffs had standing and jurisdiction existed, plaintiffs’ amended complaint fails to state a claim and must be dismissed.”

The Commerce Clause, however, can be interpreted to have been amended by the 10th Amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights, adopted subsequent to the U.S. Constitution, Marbut explains.

His organization said, “The Commerce Clause was amended – by the 10th Amendment. It is a bedrock principle of jurisprudence that for any conflict between provisions of a co-equal body of law, the most recently enacted must be given deference as the most recent expression of the enacting authority. This principle is ancient. Without this principle, laws could not be amended or repealed.”

Learn what you can do about your nation. Get “Taking America Back,” Joseph Farah’s manifesto for sovereignty, self-reliance and moral renewal

For example, U.S. courts repeatedly affirmed slavery before it ultimately was rejected.

There’s no question that the components of the Bill of Rights have authority: Just look at the First Amendment, Marbut explained.

In an analysis by the Tenth Amendment Center, the gun laws were described as a nullification.

“Laws of the federal government are to be supreme in all matters pursuant to the delegated powers of U.S. Constitution. When D.C. enacts laws outside those powers, state laws trump. And, as Thomas Jefferson would say, when the federal government assumes powers not delegated to it, those acts are ‘unauthoritative, void, and of no force’ from the outset,” Boldin wrote.

“When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned. Implied in such legislation is that the state apparatus will enforce the act against all violations – in order to protect the liberty of the state’s citizens,” he continued.

Source: World Net Daily

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The Republic is Dead; We Are Ready to Fight, Now What?

INDIANAPOLIS — Pendleton police have seized a license plate of a so-called “sovereign citizen,” a growing group of Indiana residents who claim to be outside the law.

Police said the plate was going to be placed on a vehicle by a self-proclaimed diplomat in lieu of a state-issued plate.Members of the sovereign citizen movement contend that they no longer have to pay taxes, claiming their homes as embassies and using identification cards that show them as diplomats, 6News’ Rafael Sanchezreported.

This is a column from Robert Montgomery for ESPN Outdoors. As a Senior Writer for BASS Publications, Montgomery has written about conservation, environment, and access issues for more than two decades. It’s part of a series of articles from Montgomery on the issue. See a response from editor Steve Bowman regarding concerns with this column.

The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

	One sign at the United We Fish rally at the Capital summed up the feelings of recreational and commercial fishermen.

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is “fluid” and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

Fishing industry insiders, who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force, had grown concerned that the public input would not be taken into account.

“When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big-game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario,” said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.

“Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard-working American families and small businesses are being ignored.

“In spite of what we hear daily in the press about the President’s concern for jobs and the economy and contrary to what he stated in the June order creating this process, we have seen no evidence from NOAA or the task force that recreational fishing and related jobs are receiving any priority.”

Unless more anglers speak up to their Congressional representatives so their input will be considered, it appears the task force will issue a final report for “marine spatial planning” by late March. President Barack Obama then could possibly issue an Executive Order to implement its recommendations.

Led by NOAA’s Jane Lubchenco, the task force has shown no overt dislike of recreational angling. As ESPN previously reported, WWF, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Environment Group and others produced a document entitled “Transition Green” shortly after Obama was elected in 2008.

What has happened since suggests that the task force has been in lockstep with that position paper, according to Morlock.

In late summer, just after the administration created the task force, these groups produced “Recommendations for the Adoption and Implementation of an Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes National Policy.” This document makes repeated references to “overfishing,” but doesn’t reference recreational angling, its importance, and its benefits, both to participants and the resource.

Additionally, some of these same organizations have revealed their anti-fishing bias with their attempts to ban tackle containing lead in the United States and Canada.

Also, recreational angling and commercial fishing have been lumped together as harmful to the resource, despite protests by the angling industry.

Morlock’s evidence of collusion — the green groups began clamoring for an Executive Order to implement the task force’s recommendations even before the public comment period ended in February.

On Feb. 12, the New York Times reported on that “President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.”

Continued at ESPN

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The Southern Poverty Law Center bunches in WeAreChange with “Hate” groups

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This list of Active Patriot groups is an appendix to the SPLC and ADLs list of active Hate groups. Patriot and constitutionalist groups (Constitution party, John Birch Society, InfoWars, GCNLive, AmericanFreePress, Militias etc and now WeAreChange)are being listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League as non racist “hate” groups, along side the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis!

It is not so surprising that WeAreChange has been added to the updated list of Active Patriot Groups in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s special issue of their magazine “Intelligence Report”. I say this because last year’s list of active patriot groups, which was an appendix to the list of active “hate groups,” included WeAreChange allies and affiliates like InfoWars, GCN Live, John Birch Society, Constitution Party, AFP, militias, and other patriot-constitutionalist organizations. The special report also contains a “hate group” map, where patriot groups are shown alongside the KKK and neo-Nazis.

All of this makes up a sophisticated smear campaign of propaganda, which influences the minds of the ordinary public to associate anti-New World Order and 9/11 Truth organizations with racist groups. It is extremely unjust to equate patriotic activists with racism, especially WeAreChange, because our charter explicitly states:
We Are Change is a pacifist organization and is tolerant of all regardless of racial, religious, ethnic or sexual orientation.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been rumored to have been implicated in the OKC bombing and as an intelligence arm, gathering information for the FBI, CIA and other law enforcement agencies on socalled “extremist” groups. The SPLC and ADL are the authors of the MIAC report and the older federal law enforcement manuals about domestic terrorist groups. That claim citing the constitution is a sign of a potential domestic terrorism.

Southern Poverty Law Center’s special issue of their magazine “Intelligence Report”– both 2009 and 2010 — claims that although the patriot movement is not racist, its beliefs are still “Hate”. This has everything to do with the classification of certain types of speech as “Hate” speech, under the new “hate crime” laws certain elites want passed.

Therefore, this defamation is not just an issue for WeAreChange – it sets the pretext for violating every American’s first amendment rights.

The Intelligence Project identified 512 “Patriot” groups that were active in 2009. Of these groups, 127 were militias, marked with an asterisk, and the remainder includes “common-law” courts, publishers, ministries and citizens’ groups. Generally, Patriot groups define themselves as opposed to the “New World Order,” engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines. Listing here does not imply that the groups themselves advocate or engage in violence or other criminal activities, or are racist. The list was compiled from field reports, Patriot publications, the Internet, law enforcement sources and news reports. Groups are identified by the city, county or region where they are located.

NEW YORK (17)
America First Party of New York
Lynbrook
Constitution Party
New York
Empire State Militia 11th Field Force *
Northwestern
Oneida Area
Staten Island
Ulster County
Westchester Area
The Jekyll Island Project
Queensbury
Oath Keepers
Chatham
We Are Change
Hempstead
Ithaca
Long Island
New York City
Oswego County
Staten Island
We The People
Queensbury
Statewide

Click Here For State by State report

Click Here For Other Report

Source: We Are Change

Editors note: Yes We Are Change Colorado Springs made the list as well

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We all predicted this would happen.

In a move typical for that fear-mongering organization with an ever-swelling acronym, the BATFE has written gun dealers in the states of Montana and Tennessee to let them know the BATFE will be disregarding the states’ sovereign gun laws.

The “Montana Made” law, just like Tennessee’s Firearms Freedom Act, is very simple.

Much of the claimed federal authority to regulate firearm sales and transfers stems from a liberal interpretation of every American tyrant’s favorite subterfuge, the “interstate commerce” clause.  In essence, this is what gives the BATFE its nasty teeth.

With this in mind, Montana correctly understood that any weapon made in Montana by Montana residents and sold in Montana to Montana residents is Montana’s business and Montana’s business alone.

Montana thus sought to take charge of its firearms industry with the application of a simple truism:

Any gun made in Montana by Montana residents and sold in Montana to Montana residents is intrastate commerce, not “interstate commerce,” and thus does not full under the purview of the federal government.

Potentially, the state would be able to say goodbye to NICS checks; Brady background checks; NFA taxes, bans and NFA databases — and most importantly, federal “assault weapons” bans, which Montana and Tennessee rightly anticipated.

In effect, the “Montana Made” law would have permitted Montana gun companies to manufacture any kind of weapon banned by federal law — including so-called “assault weapons” – and sell them to fellow Montana residents.

Moreover, in this scenario, no one — neither the manufacturer nor the dealer nor the buyer — would have to kowtow to the BATFE by paying them a $200 tax and surrendering one’s privacy to their notoriously inaccurate and oft-abused National Firearms Registry.

It was a new day for freedom — and other states besides Tennessee were thinking of following suit: Alaska, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.

Well, the BATFE — never one to have its power downplayed (or acronym belittled)– has written letters to both Montana and Tennessee gun dealers letting them know that they proceed at their own risk.

We can only guess what new horrors those words portend — probably more dead housewives and children as disgruntled ATF thugs shoot-to-kill anyone suspected of perhaps owning a firearm not properly taxed and regulated by Washington, D.C., power brokers.

What else would be new.

A few of our members expressed interest in contacting the BATFE to vent some righteous anger – the same thing we did when the Department of Defense said they were going to ban all once-fired military brass for resale.

Remember how the DoD reneged on that commitment after just a few days due to the widespread backlash from gun owners and law enforcement?

Well, this is a bit different.  Writing the ATF and providing them with your information is akin to giving thieves your home address and the hours you won’t be home.

We’re going to take a different, less dangerous approach.

We’ve been talking to state officials from both Montana and Tennessee today to try to figure out the best way we can help these state laws succeed.

Please stay tuned to updates on this supremely important issue in our future emails.

For now, click here to read Luke’s commentary on his blog and leave a comment as this development unfolds.

But before I leave you, would you consider a donation to the National Association for Gun Rights as we continue to fight for the right to keep and bear arms?  Please click here to contribute.

In Liberty,

Dudley Brown
Executive Director
National Association for Gun Rights

P.S. The National Association for Gun Rights can always use your help as we are completely dependent on our members’ generosity.  Please click here to donate.

Source: National Association for Gun Rights

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At a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the launch of the ‘Let’s Move’ campaign to end childhood obesity in the United States, an epidemic she said is costly and a threat to national security.

“A recent study put the health care cost of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion a year,” Mrs. Obama said. “This epidemic also impacts the nation’s security, as obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.”

The ceremony, attended by many officials of President Barack Obama’s cabinet, followed the signing earlier in the day of a presidential memorandum establishing a task force to study the problem and make recommendations after 90 days.

Obama announced a long list of goals she said she hopes the “Let’s Move” campaign will accomplish, including many that can be done “in a generation.”

“This isn’t like a disease where we’re still waiting for a cure to be discovered – we know the cure for this,” Obama said. “This isn’t like putting a man on the moon or inventing the Internet. It doesn’t take some stroke of genius or feat of technology.

“We have everything we need, right now, to help our kids lead healthy lives,” Obama said.

Some of the goals include ending what Obama referred to as “food deserts” with a $400 million a year “Healthy Food Financing Initiative,” which will bring grocery stores to low-income neighborhoods and “help places like convenience stores carry healthier food options.”

Obama called for overhauling many federal laws and guidelines, including adding $10 billion over the next decade to “update” the Childhood Nutrition Act, which feeds 31 million children at school and would add funding to feed more children.

The federal food pyramid would also get a makeover through the campaign, and there would be new efforts to get manufacturers to add “family friendly front-of-package labeling” that discloses a product’s nutritional value.

The First Lady said a broad coalition of groups interested in children’s health are coming together to form the Partnership for a Healthier America, which will use professional athletes, members of the media, and state and local dignitaries to promote the “Let’s Move” campaign and its goals around the country.

Obama used anecdotal details from her own life to explain the challenges faced by overworked parents and children who spend too much time watching TV or playing video games because their neighborhoods are unsafe for playing outside.

“So many parents desperately want to do the right thing, but they feel like the deck is stacked against them,” Obama said. “They know their kids’ health is their responsibility but they feel like it’s out of their control.

“They are bombarded by contradictory information at every turn, and they don’t know who to believe,” she said.

Obama said before she lived in the White House she struggled to balance the demands of working and being a mother, and occasionally fed her two daughters fast food or “less healthy microwavable options.”

“And one day,” she said, “my pediatrician pulled me aside and told me, ‘You might want to think about doing things a little bit differently.’”

She said it was a wake-up call and that the nation should see childhood obesity as a wake-up call, including the fact that children are victims of the epidemic.

“Our kids did not do this to themselves,” Obama said. “Our kids don’t decide what’s served to them at school or whether there’s time for gym classes or recess. Our kids don’t choose to make food products with tons of sugar and sodium in super-sized portions, and then to have those products marketed to them everywhere they turn.”

“And no matter how much they beg for pizza, fries and candy, ultimately, they are not, and should not, be the ones calling the shots at dinnertime,” she said.

A new Web site has also been launched in conjunction with the campaign, www.letsmove.gov.

Source: CNSNews

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WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC IMAGES OF KILLED MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN.

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Why Did We Lose Our Rights if the Government Isn’t Even Keeping Us Safe?

The Criminalization of Protest

After a recent attempted terrorist attack set off a debate about full-body X-rays at airports, a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll finds that Americans lean more toward giving up some of their liberty in exchange for more safety.

The survey found 51 percent of Americans agreeing that “it is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism.”

At the same time, 36 percent agreed that “some of the government’s proposals will go too far in restricting the public’s civil liberties.”

The rest were undecided or said their opinions would depend on circumstances.

As has happened often since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the renewed debate over security is hinging on the balance between personal liberty and safety. The suspect’s success in boarding a Detroit-bound plane allegedly carrying explosives is setting off calls for full body scans, which some find an invasion of privacy, and for new restrictions on passengers once they’re in flight.

To stop terrorists, Americans look first to better governmental coordination and use of intelligence, the poll found, with 81 percent calling that effective and only 11 percent calling it ineffective.

Body scans or full body searches at airports ranked second, named by 74 percent as an effective way to stop terrorism. Nineteen percent called those measures ineffective.

Further restrictions on carry-on baggage ranked third, called effective by 57 percent, ineffective by 34 percent.

New in-flight restrictions such as banning the use of laptops and electronic equipment or restricting people to their seats ranked last, called effective by 50 percent and ineffective by 42 percent.

A solid majority of Americans still feel safe flying, but the number has dropped.

The survey found 75 percent saying they feel safe, down from 86 percent in 2007, and 24 percent saying they don’t feel safe in the air, up from 13 percent in 2007.

Even with the Christmas Day bombing attempt and all the news coverage of it and its aftermath, terrorism remains very low on the national priority list. Just 4 percent called it the country’s most important problem.

The economy and jobs remained the top issue on people’s minds by far, named as the top problem by 48 percent of Americans polled.

Other domestic issues were cited by 31 percent, topped by 9 percent who said that health care was the biggest problem.

Fourteen percent cited some aspect of war or foreign policy, including the 4 percent who named terrorism.

The poll found that 52 percent approved of the way President Barack Obama is doing his job, and 45 percent disapproved.

METHODOLOGY:

These are some of the findings of a poll conducted from last Thursday through Monday. For the survey, Ipsos interviewed a nationally representative, randomly selected sample of 1,336 people 18 and older across the United States. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate within 2.68 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would’ve been had the entire adult population in the U.S. been polled. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including coverage and measurement error. These data were weighted to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the U.S. population according to census figures. Respondents had the option to be interviewed in English or Spanish.

Source: McClatchy

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In his classic defamation segment, ‘Patriots & Pinheads’, Bill O’Reilly condemned the man who confronted former President George H.W. Bush at a Houston restaurant.

“On the pinhead front, President Bush is 85 years old. The other day he was in a Houston restaurant when a deranged person approached him.”

“The guy should have been arrested by the Secret Service,” O’Reilly stated after playing a You Tube clip of the incident. “However, we called them and they will not comment. We don’t know what happened to him. We hope the service will clarify the situation quickly. The guy may be a pinhead but he also deserves to be held accountable– can’t let that stuff go. It’s threatening.”

It’s no surprise that O’Reilly is defending the former President, but at a bare minimum, free speech certainly should protect this man from arrest. He certainly has a right to criticize one of America’s most powerful dynasties, who have condemned millions to death through war, and much more.
Though the man did shout profanities, he clearly made no threats, was not violent and posed no danger to the former president.
In fact, the Secret Service did visit the man’s home the next day, but left shortly after refusing to speak while a camera was recording (i.e. on the record). Whatever their intentions were cannot be immediately known (see video below). He appeared today on the Alex Jones Show, using only his first name, Greg, to explain his perspective on the situation.

Source: Infowars

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