GOP leaders go slow on Eric Holder contempt vote

Hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt? Not so fast, says House Republican leadership.

Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California have decided to slow Rep. Darrell Issa’s drive to hold the attorney general in contempt over the controversial Fast and Furious program, a move that could infuriate conservatives who have been calling for Holder’s resignation.

Read the Full Story at Politico

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just won’t take “no” for an answer when it comes to trampling the Second Amendment.

We reported to you about his judicial pick of Elissa Cadish for the federal District Court in Nevada.

You may remember that Cadish, when asked in 2008 by a group called Citizens for Responsible Government whether she believed an individual citizen had a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, answered:

I do not believe there is this constitutional right. Thus, I believe that reasonable restrictions may be imposed on gun ownership in the interest of public safety. Of course, I will enforce the laws as they exist as a judge.

Of course, Cadish’s very assertion that “restrictions ... on gun ownership [further] public safety” shows an intense anti-gun bias – and suggests that Cadish, once on the bench for life, will do everything possible to thwart gun owners’ rights.

As for the “enforce the laws” lingo, we’ve heard that before from other Obama nominees, including Sonia Sotomayor.  Like Cadish, Sotomayor also denied that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual, constitutional right. As soon as she had secured confirmation, she went on an anti-Second Amendment rampage on the Supreme Court.

Not content to ignore the Constitution, “ObamaCare Harry” Reid is now threatening to ignore the Senate rules as well – and to ignore Senator Dean Heller’s “blue slip” objection to the Cadish nomination.

Under Senate precedents and traditions, a Senator can veto a judicial nominee from his state by signing a piece of paper known as a “blue slip.” And Dean Heller has in fact “blue slipped” Cadish due to concerns over her strident anti-Second Amendment views.

But this week Reid announced his intention to meet with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) and to ask that he ignore the Senate rules and hold a hearing on the Cadish nomination – even after she has been blue slipped.

ACTION: Contact Senator Dean Heller. Thank him for holding firm in opposition to the nomination of anti-gun Elissa Cadish. Even if you live outside of Nevada, please email Sen. Heller at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Pre-written letter to cut-and-paste:

Dear Senator Heller,

Thank you for standing firm in your opposition to the nomination of anti-gun zealot Elissa Cadish to a judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

Rest assured that, should Harry Reid try to ignore the Senate’s rules, precedents, and traditions in order to push this ill-begotten nomination, America’s gun owners will demand that every Republican Senator vote as a bloc to protect the rights of the minority party – and to stand up for our Second Amendment rights as well.

Sincerely,

Senator Begich’s Lies Exposed!

Recently, Gun Owners of America alerted our Alaskan activists that their Senator, Mark Begich (D), was working behind the scenes to ensure that the overwhelming majority of Alaska’s citizens would not benefit from the reciprocity bill being considered by Congress.

After we alerted them to this, Senator Begich responded to our alerts by saying, “The information you received about my position on this bill is completely false.”

Well, guess what?

Senator Begich has just introduced his own reciprocity bill, S. 2188, and it confirms everything we had been warning about!

Plus, it shows that Senator Begich was lying to his constituents, hoping that they would never investigate the veracity of his claims.

But here are the facts:  Subsection (c)(2)(B) of Begich’s bill requires that anyone benefiting from carry reciprocity possess “a valid license or permit that ... permits the individual to carry a concealed firearm.”

In other words, the Begich bill will NOT protect Alaska non-permit holders -- who are the MAJORITY of Alaska’s law-abiding citizens.

In fact, the central difference between the Begich bill and the soon-to-be-introduced Thune-Vitter bill -- which Begich was trying to sabotage -- is this:

Law-abiding citizens in “Alaska Carry States” who refuse to jump through government hoops to get a permit would NOT be able to carry nationwide under the Begich bill, but they would be able to under the Thune-Vitter bill.

This is true, notwithstanding the fact that language which would protect BOTH PERMIT-HOLDERS AND NON-PERMIT HOLDERS got 58 votes in the Senate two years ago.  And because of the 2010 elections, the Thune-Vitter language now currently has at least 62 Senate votes -- a supermajority -- in favor of it.

US V. Jones And The Fourth Amendment

Law enforcement’s most recent effort to turn America into a Soviet-style surveillance society through the use GPS technology has been rebuffed by a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court.  The Court based its opinion on, and breathed new life into, the Fourth Amendment’s protection of the American People against unreasonable governmental searches and seizures.  Even better, the Court’s decision was based on the original textual meaning of the Fourth Amendment which was based on property rights, rather than its judge-made, evolving doctrine of privacy.  There is reason for hope that in the fight against unlawful searches and seizures; the tide may have been turned.

Read the Full Story at United States Justice Foundation

Analysis of the National Defense Authorization Act

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what’s wrong with Section 1021 of the Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 1540), which the President signed into law on New Year’s Eve.

Let’s assume you’re a member of the Michigan Militia.  That’s all it would take.

Because you once hobnobbed with Timothy McVeigh, an argument could be made that you could be arrested and held indefinitely, without due process, an attorney, or constitutional rights.

Why?

Because subsection (a) of Section 1021 says the President can use all “necessary and appropriate force” to “detain covered persons” and hold them under the “law of war.”

Subsection (c) says those persons can be “[detained] under the law of war without trial until the end of hostilities...”  They can also be tried by a military court [section (c)(2)] or subject to rendition to a country which would torture them in ways which wouldn’t be allowed here [section (c)(4)]. 

In other words, if you’re a “covered person” -– and nothing more -- you can be arrested and detained indefinitely, tried without most civilian rights, and/or shipped abroad for torture, because it’s unlikely that the threat of terror is going to end anytime in our lifetimes.

So what is a “covered person”?

Under section 1021(b)(1), anyone who knowingly or unknowingly aided or harbored a 9/11 culprit in any way is a “covered person.”  Ironically, this is reminiscent to the trial and execution of Mary Surratt, who owned the boarding house at which the Lincoln assassination conspirators met and may or may not have known what was happening under her roof.

Even more broadly, however, section 1021(b)(2) defines a “covered person” as a person who “substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act...”

“Belligerent act” is not defined for purposes of this section.

But, at its core, a person is a “covered person” -– who can be arrested and held indefinitely without trial –- if that person “substantially supported ...any person who has committed a belligerent act,” whether knowingly or unknowingly.

Given the breadth of this statement, you would hope that its components would be defined, for purposes of that section, with precision.  But they aren’t.

In particular:

* Is blowing up a federal building a “belligerent act”?  If so, are militia members who associated with Timothy McVeigh all “covered persons” -– even if they didn’t understand his intentions?  What about a gun dealer who sold him a gun?

* Is Barack Obama “substantially support[ing] ... the Taliban” if he releases prisoners from Guantanamo in order to get them to the negotiating table?

* Do “associated forces” have to be “associated” with al-Qaeda or the Taliban -– or can they consist of persons associated with each other, if one or more members engage in “hostilities” against, for instance, Egypt?  And do “hostilities” include efforts to overthrow the government of Hosni Mubarak?

These questions are unanswerable because section 1021 is not legislation, but rather political positioning by low-IQ legislators who are incapable of formulating legislation which could, with precision, achieve their ostensible objectives.

Incidentally, section 1021 does apply to American citizens acting on American soil.  Although subsection (e) says that the section doesn’t affect current “authorities” governing those issues, the Bush administration established the “precedent” that the President’s authority to combat terrorism under his inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution is effectively unlimited.