Republican Leaders Capitulate to Obama; Trump Stumbles in Debate

Republican Leaders Capitulate to Obama; Trump Stumbles in Debate


Please click on the Take Action button after Copying-and-Pasting the pre-written letter below (or your own letter) to urge Donald Trump to reverse his position in support of denying Second Amendment rights to citizens put on a secret government watch list.


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Is Internet Censorship of Pro-Gun Speech Just Around the Corner?

Dear Friend:

This wasn’t a pretty week in politics.

On Wednesday, the Republican congressional leadership gave away the store.

In a series of three votes on Wednesday, the U.S. Senate passed a so-called continuing resolution to fund the government until December 9th.

Later that night, the House followed suit.  And in so doing, the Republican majority proved that it is really President Obama and his liberal Democrat allies who control the Congress.

What’s at stake in the spending bill?

For one thing, as GOA has warned in previous alerts, the U.S. is on the verge of turning over control of the Internet to an international body.  Most likely, that control will end up in the hands of the UN.

Congressional leaders had the opportunity to STOP the Internet giveaway in the spending bill by adopting a measure offered by Texas Senator Ted Cruz.  Instead, they capitulated to Democrat demands not to do so.

“Congress should be leading to protect online freedom,” Cruz said Wednesday. “If congressional leadership is not going to stop President Obama from handing authority over the Internet over to Russia, China and Iran, that is highly unfortunate.”

In the end, Republican leaders were willing to let the U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) lose control of the technical coordination of the Internet’s domain name system (DNS) when its contract expires on Friday, rather than face down Obama in another government shutdown battle.

In response to Republican leadership failures in Washington, four state attorneys general (from Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma and Texas) just filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order to block the government’s plan to relinquish authority over ICANN.  

While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) rejected Sen. Cruz’s amendment to protect the Internet, he continued to fund numerous illegal anti-gun actions like the senior citizen gun ban and the offensive gunsmithing regulations, which GOA has reported on in earlier alerts.

To make matters worse, instead of passing a bill that would keep the government funded until AFTER the new president and Congress are sworn in, the bill that passed this week runs out in December.

That means Obama and a bunch of retiring or defeated congressmen will have the opportunity to set the spending agenda for the next year during a lame-duck session of Congress in November — after the election.

Trump’s Troubles

In the race for the White House, Donald Trump upset many gun owners with his handling of the Second Amendment during the presidential debate on Monday.

It started with a question to Hillary Clinton about improving race relations, in which she ended her answer by pushing for more gun control.

But instead of highlighting the importance of protecting the Second Amendment, Trump pointed to his agreement with Hillary that people on a secret government watch list can be stripped of their right to keep and bear arms.

As GOA’s Executive Director, Erich Pratt, pointed out to a Wall Street Journal reporter the next day, “No one should lose their rights, including those protected by the Second Amendment, without being convicted in a court of law.”

In fairness, Donald Trump’s views on the Second Amendment have changed dramatically from when he wrote in support of gun control sixteen years ago and present a sharp contrast with Clinton.  

Hillary Clinton has made it clear that should she win this election, she’s coming after gun owners.

For instance, when asked about the Australian mandatory government buyback program in which almost a million privately owned firearms were collected and destroyed, Hillary praised the laws from Down Under and said, “I think it’s worth considering.”

Hillary would also shift the evenly divided Supreme Court dramatically to the Left — and the Second Amendment would be her litmus test.

Clinton told supporters that, “The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment, and I am going to make that case every chance I get.”

Donald Trump, on the other hand, put forth a list of twenty-one potential Supreme Court nominees with records supporting constitutional rights.

Trump also spoke out against gun-free zones, calling them “target practice for the sickos and for the mentally ill.”  

He supports concealed carry, telling CNN that, “the right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway.”

And he has pledged to undo Obama’s anti-gun executive actions.  Hillary thinks those orders should have gone farther.

However, his support for taking away the Second Amendment rights of people on a government watch list, without due process of law, is troubling.  

GOA is reaching out to the Trump campaign to urge him to reconsider his position, and I urge you to also contact the campaign through his webform using the pre-written text below. 

In Liberty,

John Velleco
Director of Government Operations

P.S. Please use the pre-written letter below (or your own letter) to urge Donald Trump to reverse his position in support of denying Second Amendment rights to citizens put on a secret government watch list. You can copy-and-paste the letter below and then send it to Trump here.

—– Pre-written Letter for Donald Trump —– 

Dear Mr. Trump,

While I appreciate your statements in support of the Second Amendment, and for putting forward a list of potential Supreme Court nominees who respect the Constitution, I am troubled by your support of stripping Second Amendment rights from people on a secret government watch list.

Innocent people put on such a list erroneously must, with great difficulty and expense, prove their innocence to the government. This turns the right to due process on its head.

And the fact is, many innocent people have been put on these lists in error.  

For instance, legislators like the late Senator Ted Kennedy and Rep. Tom McClintock have mistakenly been placed on this list, as was an 8-year old boy from New Jersey.  Not only that, it took eight long years for one innocent woman to get her name removed from the list.

Hillary Clinton likes to use the sound bite, “no fly, no buy.”  But sound bites don’t make for good law.  

Of course, no one wants dangerous terrorists walking our streets.  But if the government believes a person is too dangerous to fly, law-enforcement should obtain evidence and prove in a court of law that the person should be prosecuted.  

This would both protect our constitutional rights and be enhance public safety.

Sincerely,