Top House Republican claims White House already caught in lies about IRS scandal

Gateway Pundit has the story. I have to say, I can't stand O'Reilly's interview style. He doesn't let the guest say much.

No media bias?

For those in my acquaintance who like to insist there is no media bias, I give you the resignation of Sharyl Attkisson, 20 year veteran investigative journalist and winner of 5 Emmy awards for her reporting, for reasons of media bias.

Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network's liberal bias, an outsized influence by the network's corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt like her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air.

Others have suggested that CBS News itself was politically biased: "It's no secret that Sharyl has been unhappy about CBS's lack of interest in investigative reporting, especially when it comes to stories about the Obama administration," a source close to Attkisson said.

I have followed her stories on Fast and Furious and Benghazi with rapt attention. I wish her the best, and hope that she will now be able to publish more freely.

An end to austerity under Obama

Obama is wasting no time now that the Republicans have officially suspended the debt ceiling. Not raised the ceiling, mind you, just suspended it; Obama can borrow as much money as he wants.

With the 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to the era of austerity that has dogged much of his presidency and to his efforts to find common ground with Republicans. Instead, the president will focus on pumping new cash into job training, early-childhood education and other programs aimed at bolstering the middle class, providing Democrats with a policy blueprint heading into the midterm election.

The idea that Obama thinks the first 6 years of his presidency were "austere" is very, very worrying. Without a debt ceiling in place, he can borrow -- and through the federal reserve, print -- as much money as he wants to pay for whatever policy he wants. Congress has officially surrendered the power of the purse, a tradition that extends past the founding of the United States back through the British parliament into the reign of King Charles II in the 17th century.

Hat tip to Patterico for the story.

Police brutality

Police strip an apparently unresisting man naked, then kick and punch him repeatedly while he is handcuffed, outnumbered 5 to 1 and still not resisting:

Supposedly the police also arrested a colleague of the person recording the video.

Thankfully, this incident occurred in South Africa, not the US.

Request for longer metadata retention denied

I reported earlier on a government request to keep metadata longer than the current 5 years, claiming it was to help deal with the emerging legal issues on the topic. That request has now been denied by the court.

Obama Surgeon General nominee supports asking about guns

It seems that the NRA is right to be scoring the confirmation vote on Vivek Murthy. I wasn't sure previously, since doctors with anti-gun views are hardly new; but the combination of doctors asking patients about guns combined with making patients' private medical records available to the government under Obamacare means the Obama administration would be able to collect a list of gun owners for harassment or even denial of medical treatment.

The problem with Murthy, rather, is his position on guns. Namely, he thinks one of the questions doctors should ask patients during a routine medical history is whether the person has any guns in his home. One especially troubling aspect of Murthy’s view that doctors should counsel their patients against exercising their Second Amendment rights is that such information entered into a patient’s private medical records would be available to the government under Obamacare.

Putting someone with the announced desire to politicize medicine by using doctors to create a gun owner registration list into a position where they have the authority to do just that is something we need to stop if we can.

Doctors are not gun experts.

Smith and Wesson refusing to confirm position on microstamping

They said they were pulling out of the California market due to the gun control laws there, particularly the one requiring an approval process for any gun models sold:

In Smith & Wesson Rejects Microstamping, we covered and commented on the fact that Smith & Wesson will be removing many of its semi-automatic model firearms from the market in California due to the recent gun law, specifically citing microstamping as one of the barriers to compliance.

But they aren't saying whether they will continue to sell their firearms to law enforcement in California, which is exempt from the microstamping requirement.

Lerner documents to be released to Congress

... and on the day after she pled the 5th again. The timing on this is very suggestive; it appears to be an attempt at protecting Lerner from contempt of Congress charges that could pressure her to testify. My guess is that we'll see a partial release of documents that the IRS believes it has sanitized but will take Congress time to sort through.

I wonder if Lerner has a private email address she has been using to conduct government business?

Newspaper wins case for New York gun records

It's just one county, but there are other suits in the works.

A state judge has ordered Putnam County to turn pistol permit records over to The Journal News, which sued for the data last fall after the county denied the newspaper's Freedom of Information Law requests.

In a five-page decision Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Robert Neary cited the NY-SAFE Act, a sweeping series of gun-control measures that allowed gun owners to remove their names from a public database after the law was enacted in January 2013. Neary ruled that the names remaining on the database — those who did not ask to be removed from it — are a public record and therefore subject to open disclosure laws.

I'm not sure what to say here. If the law allows you to request an exception for your records not to be public, and you don't, it's hard to argue they should be private from a legal perspective. From a policy perspective, of course they should be private; legall,y though, the law says what it says.

Not that I necessarily trust the judge to be honest about what it says.

It IS interesting that someone is blaming the earlier publication on the passage of the SAFE act in New York. Rather than, say, gun control efforts after Newtown.

The report also led to the enactment of NY-SAFE. Passed in January 2013, the law gave pistol permit holders a 120-day moratorium to request that their identifying information be removed from the public list. When that period ended May 15, 2013, The Journal News filed new requests for the names of those remaining on the database.

Claiming that New York passed the SAFE act to protect the privacy of existing gun owners, rather than to crack down upon same, strikes me as a desperate move.

10 Democrat senators who want the IRS to target you

They voted to kill legislation from Senator Cruz that would block the IRS from targeting political opponents of the administration.

Patrick Leahy of Vermont
Dianne Feinstein of California
Charles Schumer of New York
Richard Durbin of Illinois
Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island
Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken of Minnesota
Chris Coons of Delaware
Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut
Mazie Hirono of Hawaii

Richard Durbin is up for re-election this year.

Using the IRS to censor speech

Obama has a long history of winning elections by using the system to attack his political opponents:

"The best way to look at this is as a continuum of a very long and determined political strategy that dates back to 2008 and a man named Barack Obama," Kimberley Strassel, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, declared at The Heritage Foundation on Friday. Strassel argued that "this is a president and his team of political operatives who have always understood the power of speech, but more importantly, the power of denying it to their political opponents."

The Power Line blog also has a related article.

Lott on background checks

First of all, criminals don't submit to background checks; they find an alternative source. The people harmed by background check delays and denials are overwhelmingly law-abiding citizens with a name similar to a criminal:

So let us look at these numbers, a relatively typical year. Out of the 76,142 initial denials in the federal system only 44 individuals were prosecuted and only 13 were convicted of illegally trying to purchase a gun when they were prohibited from doing so.

As if that wasn't bad enough, those convicted were hardly what one would call dangerous criminals — usually people with relatively trivial records from years earlier that didn't realize their offense was covered.

Delaying access to self-defense tools like firearms increases violent crime slightly:

My own research suggests that delays caused by the Brady background checks likely increase violent crime slightly, especially rape.

Background checks don't actually reduce crime:

Indeed, there is no real scientific evidence among criminologists and economists that background checks actually reduce crime. In fact, a 2004 National Academy of Sciences panel concluded that the Brady background checks did not reduce violent crime, not even a single category of violent crime. Later national studies have not found a beneficial effect either.

I concluded recently that background checks, either "universal" or merely those at licensed dealers, do not provide sufficient benefits to counteract the inherent registration system of submitting purchaser information to the federal government. We must begin to look for alternatives that respect gun owner's right to privacy and prevent an abusive federal government from persecuting us.

So long as the technology is voluntary..

A Geek With Guns argues for smart gun technology:

The idea behind smart guns isn’t inherently bad. There are even valid reasons to want a firearm that cannot be fired by anybody by yourself. Instead of fearing future firearm technology we should be embracing it. So long as the technology is voluntary there is no reason to oppose it or try to drum up unnecessary fear of the technology. Making arguments against laws that mandate any firearm technology is certainly appropriate but making arguments against the technology itself is, in my not so humble opinion, short sighted.

The problem, of course, is that governments want desperately to make smart guns mandatory.

If the military or police want to pay 5 times the price of a standard handgun to buy an anemic .22lr handgun that stops working when the battery runs out, can't be shared between combatants or even between hands in a battle, has reliability certain to be worse than firearms without the technology, is certainly vulnerable to hacking and jamming, and doesn't actually offer any nifty friendly-fire features yet, they are welcome to do so.

The price alone will ensure that any individual without a personal armorer from Q branch will never even consider buying one. And that is the free market speaking.

FCC scandal has similarities to the IRS, NSA scandals

We're starting to see a serious pattern emerge:

Last week, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai disclosed the existence of the FCC's new "Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs", a study that would send FCC researchers (monitors?) into newsrooms across the nation to determine, among other things, whether news organizations are meeting citizens "actual" as opposed to "perceived" information needs. As designed, the study empowers researchers to not only ask a series of questions of news staff, it also provides (in pages 10 and 11) advice for gaining access to employees even when broadcasters and their Human Resources refuse to provide confidential employee information. The Obama administration FCC is abusing its regulatory authority by attempting to discern the inner workings of American newsrooms.

The bottom line is, the Obama administration wants inside information on how its political opponents structure and finance their operations. The administration has shown no hesitation in collecting the data in secret, passing it to political allies outside the administration, and making use of it in ways that are, frankly, Orwellian. Even if they are backing off of the FCC study for now, it remains a part of the pattern.

Bear in mind that some of the targeted groups faced inquisition from not only the IRS but also OSHA, FBI, BATFE, and others.

What organization could coordinate targeting activities across so many different agencies?

Only the White House... which continues to assert executive privilege and stonewall the investigation.

More details about the Stringray device in Florida

I reported previously about a case in Florida where police used a Stringray cell-phone tower simulator to track a stolen cell phone without a warrant, and then refused to explain how they had tracked down the thief -- eventually claiming that a non-disclosure agreement with the company would not allow them to explain, as if that agreement trumped the constitutional rights of the accused -- never mind the constitutional rights of everyone else within range of the fake tower.

Wired has published more details about that case, and their report indicates that the police have used the device more than 200 times without a warrant in Florida and without even informing the judge.

Texas Judge strikes down amendment to Texas Constitution prohibiting gay marriage

I am shocked. Flabbergasted. And not a little scared for the rule of law.

A federal judge in Texas struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, ruling that the laws restricting marriage to a man and a woman violated the United States Constitution and handing gay-rights advocates a major legal victory in one of the nation’s biggest and most conservative states.

The judge wrote that the amendment to the state Constitution that Texas voters approved in 2005 defining marriage as between a man and a woman — and two similar laws passed in 1997 and 2003 — denied gay couples the right to marry and demeaned their dignity “for no legitimate reason.”

“Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution,” wrote Judge Orlando L. Garcia of United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, in San Antonio.

I have nothing against two men or two women spending their lives together and doing in the privacy of their homes whatever they want to do. If they want to have a commitment ceremony and can find someone willing to officiate it, that's fine too, and they can call themselves husband and husband, or wife and wife, or cottage cheese and cottage cheese for all I care.

Democratic mayors to issue grades for gun manufacturers on gun control

I'm not entirely sure what the point is here. I can only parse it as an attack on free speech with public money.

Members of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors have announced their decision to issue a grade for gun manufacturers on how well they address issues of public safety with firearms and ammunition. Depending on the support of gun control proposals given by the Obama administration, in particular, universal background checks, “assault” weapon bans and magazine capacity restrictions, the group of mayors stated that they may take their business, meaning the money they spend on law enforcement weaponry, elsewhere.

Manufacturers won't refuse to manufacture "assault weapons" or standard capacity magazines because of pressure like this because law enforcement buys a lot of both. They have nothing to do with background checks, universal or otherwise; those are handled at the retail level. So we are left with the Left threatening not to buy guns for their police forces from manufacturers who speak out in opposition to gun control.

I don't know how government procurement policies work, but aren't there some first amendment issues here?

Defining the reach of Heller and McDonald

Dave Kopel talks about how First Amendment law impacts the interpretation of Second Amendment cases.

Gun control in Obama's budget

The devil is in the details.

Supports the “Now is the Time” initiative, the President’s plan to protect our children and our communities by reducing gun violence through improved background checks by the FBI and improved data via the National Criminal History Improvement Program, inspections of Federally-licensed firearms dealers, improved tracing and ballis­tics analysis, and efforts to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals. The Budget provides training for State and local law enforcement to prevent and respond to active shooters and prevent mass casualties, invests in programs to identify mental health issues early and continues the Comprehensive School Safety Program and other initiatives to enhance school security.

Probably the details about improved background checks, identifying mental health issues early, and improved ballistics analysis.

But it's in an Obama budget, which hopefully means it will have less legal effect than a unicorn fart.

A letter to the editor

Some people just don't think things through:

On another matter, those people owning assault rifles, and the National Rifle Association, which defends them, completely ignore the first part of the Second Amendment, which starts out, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary...” Let’s face it, assault-weapon owners are neither well-regulated nor necessary. We have the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, National Guard, state police, county police, city and town police who are all looking out for our welfare.

... and when they stop looking out for our welfare, and begin to look out for their own? What will we do then?

Iowa refers 80 cases of voter fraud for prosecution

80 votes can swing a close race, especially on the state or local level. More importantly, though, there's no certainty that those 80 cases are the only ones that actually happened. They are only those that were detected and enough evidence was found to consider prosecution.

Well, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation disagrees. Not a state known for its hateful politics, Iowa’s DCI wrapped up its investigation this month and has referred more than 80 cases of voter fraud to county attorneys for possible prosecution. Since the investigation was initiated by GOP Secretary of State Matt Schultz a year and a half ago, five people have pleaded guilty to voter fraud and 15 others are facing charges.

How many illegal votes were not found?

It's not the individual cases of voter fraud that bother me. It's not the occasional person who votes early and on election day by accident. It's the systematic attempts to corrupt the process.

I don't know what to make of this one

See if you can spot the problems:

James was arrested a short time later, and was found to be in possession of a fully loaded assault rifle and hollow point bullets. James is being charged with possession of an assault weapon and a large capacity magazine, as well as possession of armor-penetrating ammunition.

• An "assault rifle" is a machine gun...


• ... but an "assault weapon" is semiautomatic. Which was it?


• He was changed with possessing armor-penetrating ammunition...


• ... but any rifle ammunition will penetrate a protective vest without an armor plate, generally found only on military body armor...


• ... and they said he had hollow points, which are pretty much the opposite of armor piercing in design intent.

Connecticut gun laws working really well!

Look how well they are working!

A Conlon Street man is being held on $1 million bond after being found in possession of two illegal assault weapons, police said.

A million dollars in bail money. That's a lot for two paperwork crimes.

Charles Wandlaincourt, 35, of 9 Conlon St., was arrested Friday after authorities executed a search warrant at his apartment and seized two AR15 automatic assault rifles, police said.

I'm betting they are semi-auto AR-15 rifles, not machine guns.

He was charged with two counts of illegal possession of an assault weapon, two counts of theft of a firearm and two counts of illegal sale or transfer of an assault weapon. Police said they believe the rifles were part of a burglary last year in Farmington in which seven guns were reported stolen.

So not only did he possess two freshly-illegal assault weapons without registering them, he stole them from their lawful owner, and sold some of the guns he stole to someone else who for all we know still has them.

Authorities said they had found the weapons during an unrelated narcotics search and seizure on Feb. 19, which led to the warrant that they executed Friday.

So they found the weapons because of a drug investigation, not because of a gun registry.

Wandlaincourt’s criminal history includes a possession of narcotics conviction in 2012 for which he received 30 days in prison, as well as fifth-degree larceny conviction in 2010 for which he received six months in prison. He also pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in 2007 and was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

AND he was a felon already, so possession of any firearm -- assault or otherwise -- was prohibited.

Now, can anyone tell me how Connecticut's new assault weapon registration law could have prevented any of this?

Electronic Arts bans assault weapons in Battlefield 4

Supposedly it's only a bug. I wonder if Moms Demand Action have been pressuring them lately?

Felony charge for throwing a snowball

If you throw a snowball at a cop, be prepared to become a felon:

Hanging a felony charge on a kid for snowball throwing is not only completely absurd, it has a much greater chance of converting him to a criminal than his cop-targeting snowball throwing does. Way to go, law enforcement (and enablers like Ray Fields): you're generating scofflaws just as fast as you can trump up charges against them.

And once you are a felon, you won't be able to obtain employment at any job more important than washing dishes. For the rest of your life. Which strikes me as a much more significant cause of becoming a criminal than being allowed to throw snowballs without being punished.

Holder has recently announced his desire to restore the voting rights of felons. It seems to me that this is a stupid idea. We should instead make an effort to ensure that ordinary people do not become felons for throwing snowballs.