It’s the headline that a President facing re-election with a dismal economic record didn’t want to see:
1.2 million people driven out of the workforce in a single month!
A frantic White House exploded into damage-control mode, as a deeply shaken President Obama retreated into his chambers. Nervous spokesmen fanned across the airwaves to stammer apologies, search for silver linings among the storm clouds, offer campaign boilerplate about “hope and change,” and desperately search for some way to blame George Bush for an absolute unemployment disaster that occurred over three years after he left office…
What’s that, you say? You didn’t see that headline? Well, of course not, silly. All you’re seeing in the headlines is good news, because the official, heavily-massaged U-3 unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. Fewer people in the workforce means the percentage of unemployed people in the workforce drops.
A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million.
No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation.
As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.
Now, I suspect that while a lot of people dropped out of the workforce last month, part of what we’re seeing here is some numerical mutation that caused an abnormally large chunk of the labor-force reduction from the past year to be piled into a single month. There was some decent overall job creation in January, with about 243,000 jobs added to non-farm payrolls, and a nice 50,000 job bump in the manufacturing sector. That total is good enough to modestly outpace current population growth. With the usual backwards adjustment to previous months, it looks like the final quarter of 2011 pretty much kept pace with population growth.
However, the fact remains that even as we get back to the (dismal) 8.3 percent U-3 unemployment we last saw in February 2009, the work force is about half a million people smaller in absolute numbers, and that doesn’t include the increase in the working-age population over the past two years. Throw them in, and you’re looking at roughly 1.5 million jobs completely vaporized, to the point where they don’t even count in the official, widely-reported unemployment statistics.
Famed economist Dr. John Lott comments:
A 1.2 million drop out of the labor force is the record for any one month. And 500,000 a month dropping out of the workforce because they are just giving up because there jobs just aren’t out there. This is something we have not seen before. People just start giving up.
This is a great speech on what is conservatism and what is the difference between Conservatives and (leftist) Liberals.
“Regulations have to make sense, not just make jobs for government bureaucrats. We need to have clean air and water for sure, but the regulations need to have some sanity.”
“This is what President Obama would call a “teachable moment”. The teachable moment here is when we elect a president who brings this progressive philosophy to bear to government, they decide how our rights are to be granted and given and organized. And if they clash with our first amendment right of religious freedom or something else then we know who wins in that exchange. This is much much bigger than about contraception or something like that, this is about religious freedom, first amendment rights, and how this progressive philosophy of fungible rights or a living, breathing constitution really clashes and collides with these core rights that we built our society and country around,”.
In some failing unionized schools in New Jersey the kids have only a 17% proficiency rate in literature and math.
Via Real Clear Politics:
“An outrageous statement. I cannot express how disgusted I am by that statement by the head of the largest teachers union in our state. But I also have to tell you I’m not the least bit surprised, because I think it so succinctly captures what their real position is,” Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) said about a union boss who makes 500K a year telling the poor “life’s not fair.”
“It’s an immoral position, and it continues to prop up abject failure in districts across our state,” Christie also said.
Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: “New government data shows profits for America’s largest financial firms are once again reaching record highs not seen sense before the financial crisis of 2008. In fact, Wall Street firms have earned more in the first two and a half years of the Obama presidency than all 8 years of the Bush presidency. Over 85 billion dollars in profits compared to 77 billion.”
Joe Scarborough: “Wait — you mean in the first two years they made more than in eight years than in the Bush administration?”
Brzezinski: “That’s correct.”
The facts are that while Obama claims to be against Wall Street and is a champion of the poor against the rich, he is in Wall Street’s back pocket. The Dodd-Frank bill and these other regulations passed in the name of defending the poor, actually tilt the playing field to his donors, expend the power of the federal government to pick winners and losers and Lord help you if you are a part of the smaller competition. I explored this subject for years in great detail on my old college blog.
Related:
Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2012 – Hint: Most goes to Democrats – LINK.
Top 20 Industry Money Recipients This Election Cycle – Who is in the back pocket of Wall Street? – LINK.
Corruption You Can Believe In: Failed Sub Primes and Mortgage Fraud Lenders Funneled Money to Dodd & Obama the Most. Fannie & Freddie Gave $200 Million to Partisans-Most Went to Democrats! Dodd, Obama Among Top Recipients. Republicans Attempted to Pass Reforms-Blocked by Democrat Leadership! – LINK.
Hypocrite! Elizabeth Warren Takes Wall Street Cash! – LINK.
Corruption: Most Stimulus Funds Spent in Democrat Districts – LINK.
The taxes Democrats propose to “soak the rich” always seem to miss those who they demagogue for not paying their fair share. They have been “soaking the rich” for decades and keep missing the target. Why? – LINK.
Four years ago, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning shows celebrated the “rock star” Democrats running to replace George W. Bush, and no candidate set journalists’ pulses racing faster than Barack Obama. Now, after three years of high unemployment, trillion dollar deficits and an onerous new health care law, how are those newscasts covering Obama’s re-election campaign and the candidates vying to replace him?
To find out, Media Research Center analysts examined all 723 campaign segments which aired on the three broadcast network weekday morning programs from January 1 to October 31, 2011, using the same methodology we employed to study campaign coverage on those same programs for the same time period in 2007.
Four years ago, the network coverage promoted the Democratic candidates and cast their strong liberal views as mainstream. This year, our study finds the networks are disparaging the Republican candidates and casting them as ideological extremists:
Labeling:
– This year, network reporters have employed 49 “conservative” labels to describe the Republican candidates, compared with only one “liberal” label for President Obama.
– Four years ago, when Obama was a relatively unknown candidate, the morning shows also provided just a single “liberal” label to describe his ideology, and never once labeled Hillary Clinton, John Edwards or the other Democrats as “liberal.”
Agenda:
– By a 4-to-1 margin, ABC, CBS and NBC morning show hosts have employed an adversarial liberal agenda when questioning this year’s Republican candidates. But those same hosts’ questions for President Obama leaned in his direction, with mostly liberal-themed questions.
– Four years ago, questions for the Democratic candidates tilted by more than two-to-one to the left, a friendly agenda.
Tone:
– In 2007, Democratic candidates were regularly tossed softball questions. This year’s interviews with Republicans have been much more caustic, with few chances for the candidates to project a warm and fuzzy image.
– Despite the poor economy and low approval ratings, the morning shows continue to treat Barack Obama as more of a celebrity than a politician, airing positive feature stories about the President and his family — a gift not bestowed on the conservative Republican candidates.
During the 2008 campaign, the network morning shows acted as cheerleaders for the Democratic field. This time around, they are providing far more hostile coverage of the various Republicans who are running, while treating Obama’s re-election campaign to the same personality-driven coverage that was so helpful to the then-Illinois Senator four years ago.
If the real decisions in our democracy are to be in the hands of voters, then the news media owe viewers a fair and unbiased look at the candidates in both parties. That means asking the candidates questions that reflect the concerns of both sides — liberals and conservatives alike. And the syrupy coverage awarded year after year to the Democrats’ celebrity candidates in no way matches the pretense of journalists holding both sides equally accountable, without fear or favor.
Even at 15 percent, the rich will pay more. For argument’s sake, someone who earns $100,000 would pay $15,000 in taxes, while someone who makes $100 million would pay $15 million. Delicate calculations confirm that $15 million exceeds $15,000. The rich will pay more dollars in taxes, but as a proportion of income equal with everyone else. Hello, “fair share.”
Gingrich also would chop America’s corporate tax from 35 percent (the industrial world’s second highest, after Japan’s) to a flat 12.5 percent, which would tie Ireland’s as the lowest and most competitive among developed nations. Coupled with immediate, 100 percent expensing of capital purchases, such a stimulus would unleash dramatic economic expansion — rather than the Obama-style “stimulus” that yields bankruptcies, layoffs, and FBI raids.
Compared to Gingrich’s gutsy blueprint, Romney’s exhibits the caution that has made the former Massachusetts governor the “Oh, well, if we must” choice, even among his supporters.
While Romney would ditch the death tax and cut the corporate tax to 25 percent, he would preserve today’s income-tax rates. He would scrap taxes on interest, capital gain, and dividends, but — echoing Obama — only for those making less than $200,000. – [Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton – the vast majority of those who make over $200,000 in what the IRS calls “earned income” are small and medium sized businesses. Mitt’s plan is so mild that it cannot do the economic heavy lifting to get us out of this morass. Speaking in economic terms, Obama’s plan is an economy killing machine and Mitt Romney’s is only marginally better.]
(CNSNews.com) – So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent.
When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon, an increase of 26 percent. By December 2011, the price of regular unleaded gas per gallon was $3.28, an 83 percent increase from January 2009.
The price of unleaded gasoline never reached the 10-year high of $4.09 back in July 2008 under George W. Bush’s administration, but it did get close.
By May 2011, gas prices hit a high under the Obama administration at $3.93, about four percentage points away from the July 2008 high.
The U.S. city average retail price for one pound of 100 percent ground beef was $2.36 in January 2009. As of December 2011, that price had risen to $2.92—a 23.7 percent increase and a new peak. (Ground beef prices have risen every month since November 2009 – 26 months of price increases.)
Whole wheat bread prices from January 2009 to December 2011 increased about five percent (5.02 percent) from $1.97 to $2.07. (The inflation rate in December 2011 was 3.0 percent.)
Among the first 36 months of Obama’s presidency, the last four (September, October, November, December) showed the average price of one pound of whole wheat bread hovering slightly above two dollars.
Other refrigerated items like ice cream and bacon have increased by substantial amounts.
Ice cream prices, for a half-gallon, were $4.44 in January 2009 and $5.25 in December 2011, an increase of 19.1 percent.
One pound of sliced bacon in January 2009 was $3.73 and in December 2011 had climbed $4.55, an increase of 22 percent. The price hit a high in September 2011 at $4.82 per pound.
When you head down to the beach for a little fun this summer, county officials want you to leave the pigskin at home.
The Board of Supervisors this week agreed to raise fines to up to $1,000 for anyone who throws a football or a Frisbee on any beach in Los Angeles County.
In passing the 37-page ordinance on Tuesday, officials sought to outline responsibilities for law enforcement and other public agencies while also providing clarification on beach-goer activities that could potentially disrupt or even injure the public.
The updated rules now prohibit “any person to cast, toss, throw, kick or roll” any object other than a beach ball or volleyball “upon or over any beach” between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Exceptions allow for ball-throwing in predesignated areas, when a person obtains a permit, or playing water polo “in or over the Pacific Ocean”.
However, during the winter off-season, the new rules will be relaxed.
Officials warned that any activities that could potentially harm “any person or property on or near the beach” should not be allowed during the peak summer season.
Your kids could also end up costing you big bucks: the ordinance also prohibits digging any hole deeper than 18 inches into the sand except where permission is granted for film and TV production services only.
The city of West Allis has agreed to pay $30,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit prompted by one of the first tests of Wisconsin residents’ right to openly carry guns.
Brad Krause was planting a tree in his backyard in August 2008 — while wearing a holstered handgun — when police arrived, drew their weapons and arrested him.
In February 2009, a municipal judge found Krause not guilty of disorderly conduct, and in April of that year state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen issued a memo advising law enforcement agencies that the mere fact of wearing a gun, by itself, would not support a charge of disorderly conduct.
“This is a clear victory for Mr. Krause and Wisconsin residents who wish to assert their rights under the state and federal Constitution to bear arms lawfully,” said his attorney, John Schiro.
In reaching the settlement, the city did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.
Several other gun rights advocates arrested for openly wearing their weapons in public, assisted by Wisconsin Carry Inc. and a Georgia attorney who specialized in such cases, have won similar lawsuits against other Wisconsin municipalities. Settlements ranged from $6,500 or $7,500 to $10,000.
But after his acquittal, and even after the Van Hollen memo, Krause contends, he was warned by West Allis police that if he wore a gun in the city he would be arrested again.
In fact, when TV reporters were interviewing Krause in West Allis about the Van Hollen memo on April 21, 2009, two squad cars pulled up with their emergency lights on, and officers began to question Krause, according to his lawsuit.
“During the questioning, one officer stated that had television camera not been filming, Plaintiff would have been taken to the ground at gunpoint, disarmed, and possibly arrested,” the suit reads.
Now keep this in mind, the officers knew who this citizen was, knew he was not a threat, and yet they put him at gunpoint anyways, meaning that they were looking for an excuse to pull the trigger and take his life.
Self defense shootings in Detroit are up 79% as the police has been cut from 5,000 to 3,000 – LINK.
I found a report, “Fighting For Our Future,” which Chairman Webb gave at a meeting of the National Committee of the Communist Party on June 26, 2011. Webb said:
“Socialism isn’t yet embraced by large sections of the American people…. In these circumstances, the role of the left is to step up our efforts to energize, broaden, deepen, and, above all, unite the movement against the draconian plans of the Republican right…. Nothing is more important than the ideological and political strengthening of this movement….
It is obvious that there is a growing feeling of frustration and even anger among supporters of the Democratic Party with its performance over the past two years…. I am also disappointed with some aspects of the Obama administration’s domestic and foreign policy. But I don’t forget that this administration governs in a very hostile political environment in which the right is laboring overtime to wreck its initiatives at every step of the way….
But the main question from a strategic point of view is this: Does it make any difference, from the standpoint of the class and democratic struggles, which party gains political ascendency?
In our view, the differences between the two parties of capitalism are of consequence…. Neither party is anti-capitalist, but they aren’t identical either. Differences exist at the levels of policy and social composition. Despite the many frustrations of the past two years, the election of Barack Obama was historic and gave space to struggle for a people’s agenda….
The 2012 elections have begun…. No other struggle now or in the foreseeable future has the same possibility to effect a change in the political balance of forces in a progressive direction…. While millions understandably feel dissatisfied with the Democratic Party…it is the only viable alternative to the Republican Party at this moment.”
Recently we saw Donald Trump blast Rick Santorum for losing his Senate seat by 18 points in the Democrat 2006 landslide.
Ummm hey Donald, when Mitt Romney ran for Senate he lost by 16 points. And the same year Rick Santorum lost, Romney was polling so bad he dropped out of the race.
So your teachers union asks you to donate the the children’s charity associated with the union. They do everything to hide the fact that the money does not go to help children at all. It goes to billionaire John Kerry and multimillionaire Barack Obama.
Here’s a quote from House Oversight Committee testimony re unions:
“Later that day, while in the restroom, I over heard two ladies from California discussing the Children’s Fund. I asked them if they were required to give and the ladies told me no. They did not give to it because it is a political contribution. I cannot tell you the rush that came over me at that time. It was a mixture of anger and stupidity. I felt as though I had been totally duped. To add insult to injury, later that afternoon, then NEA President, Reg Weaver announced the NEA would be endorsing John Kerry for President. President Weaver went on to announce the NEA Children’s Fund had raised a large amount of money; and that, too would go to our friend in education, John Kerry. I felt a wave of illness come over me like none I have ever felt before. These who were supposed to be my people; duped me into donating to a candidate I was voting against.
Anyone who has ever used a Catholic hospital or school and enjoyed those services should not vote for another Democrat. The Democratic Party from Obama on down has declared war on these services.
By the way, we conservatives warned that this could happen under ObamaCare as it was phased in. The elite media and the Democrats said we were crazy liars. Well, now here we are.
Of course here is the rub. Mitt Romney after promising it wouldn’t happen, ended up having RomneyCare mandate that Catholic Hospitals had to give day after abortion pills under some circumstances.
Oh and you Catholics who dare to act surprised by this; your church leadership has been pushing statism (far left Democrats) for decades. Now you have it. Learn from this and do the country a favor and make it a lesson you remember.
Here is a video of Rick Santorum’s speech. After the introductions and thank you’s his message to President Obama and the American people is a solid conservative economic message – LINK.
DENVER — It took one night for Rick Santorum to become a player again in the Republican presidential race.
The former Pennsylvania senator came out on top in the voting in all three contests Tuesday night, including an unexpected five-point victory in Colorado’s caucuses. Santorum also won the Minnesota caucuses, by an 18-point margin, and he won by 30 points in the Missouri primary.
Santorum moves on without any new delegates, but with plenty of momentum.
For everyone who flat-out declared the GOP battle a two-man race between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, voters in three states Tuesday night said, “Not so fast.” Rick Santorum pulled off huge wins in Missouri, Minnesota and, incredibly, Colorado — a state Romney was supposed to have locked up.
“Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota,” Santorum told a cheering crowd in Missouri.
Santorum was such an underdog that, just a week ago, people were speculating he’d drop out. Last night, he not only won — he blew out his competition.
Indeed. Romney is not selling us a product, he is just carpet bombing the other candidates with almost 100% of his ads being negative. Why should we vote for Mitt Romney? What policy heavy lifting has he gotten done for conservatives? This is a must see.
Can you imagine? When Rick Santorum was running in 1994 for the Senate. He won his house seat against a Democrat in a 3 to 1 Democrat district and he ran as a Conservative. He ran statewide in 1994 as a Conservative in a relatively blue state, a heavy union state. And in 1994 he was talking up Ronald Reagan. Go over a few states, or up a few states, and there you have Massachusetts, at almost exactly the same time, if not exactly the same time, Romney was running for the Senate against Kennedy, TRASHING Ronald Reagan. Distancing himself from Republicanism. Called himself an Independent PROGRESSIVE if I recall correctly. Now THIS Romney is attacking Santorum from the Right, as if he’s the Conservative and holds the high ground. Mitt Romney is not questioning Santorum’s Conservative credentials. He is attacking Rick Santorum from the Right. This is what is so damned annoying, because it is so disingenuous.
Because Romney has now taken in the last few years solidly Conservative positions, even though he can’t articulate them very well past one line in the Declaration of Independence (Come on America. Let’s go. Come on. I’m for America. Come on. Let’s go. Hey. Everybody. Line up. Lets just go) Anyway, the point is, Santorum was a true Conservative. You don’t have to agree with everything he voted for; everything he says. I get all that. Honestly I do. But that’s not the point. His principles were not negotiable. His principles were not mush. You could disagree with a vote here and say that vote does not line up with your Conservative agenda. I get that. I really do. But he was a very high, what was he in the 90’s with the American Conservative Union, if not 100% with pro-life groups and so forth. Romney was mush. He’s Jello. So now he’s going to attack Santorum as a Liberal while Romney is posing as a Conservative. This is why I’m so sick of this and disgusted with it…
I look at Rick Santorum at so many things that he did and tried to do from a Conservative perspective throughout his career and I can’t think of very many that Romney did. I’d even look at Newt Gingrich. You can attack him for a thousand things but one thing you cannot say is that he wasn’t a Conservative speaker. He was a Conservative speaker. Even though people may not have liked certain foibles and all the rest, the fact of the matter is, Gingrich gave us the House back and Gingrich lead a Conservative house and he did it in a way that was more Conservative than the way Boehner is leading this house. And he’s attacked from the Right by Romney too! So while Gingrch was trying to do the right things in the House, Romney was a Liberal; excuse me, a PROGRESSIVE; an Independent. So Romney attacks Gingrich from the Right when Romney at the time was on the Left and he attacks Santorum from the Right when Romney at the time was on the Left. Now he’s Mr. Conservative. How do you get away with this?
I’ll tell you how you get away with it. A massive amount of money to flood underfunded campaigns, a lot of media support, old media and, yes a lot new media which has been sucked right into this like the old media. And everybody just says well that’s just the way campaigns work, negative negative, you know, you’ve just gotta be a big boy…
This idea that Romney can attack bonafide Conservatives, at least they were, from the Right when he was on the Left is just so crazy. I hope you folks in Minnesota and Missouri and the other states coming up, I hope you remember this because you are now going to be flooded with ads telling you that Santorum was no damned good, he was a gutter snipe. Oh, he was a sell-out. He was a this or that. You remember those ads are paid for by a man and people who support a man who was all but trashing Ronald Reagan and when he ran against Ted Kennedy tried to move to the Left of Ted Kennedy; when Gingrich was running the House of Representatives and fighting Clinton and when Santorum was fighting the Democrat machine in Pennsylvania, a formidable machine, to win the Senate as a Republican. Just remember!
Oh, and by the way, the Romney people like to say that Santorum lost his reelection in 2006 by 17 points or 18 points. But in 1994 Romney lost to Kennedy by 16 points. Well guess what. Obama is every bit Kennedy and Kennedy was Kennedy. So, I’m asking you, is this the kind of nominee that you want?”
In my state, Californians for 40 years have hiked taxes; grown their government; vastly expanded entitlements; put farmland, timberland, and oil and gas lands off limits; and opened their borders to millions of illegal aliens. They apparently assumed that they had inherited so much wealth from prior generations and that their state was so naturally rich, that a continually better life was their natural birthright.
It wasn’t. Now, as in Greece, the veneer of civilization is proving pretty thin in California. Hospitals no longer have the money to offer sophisticated long-term medical care to the indigent. Cities no longer have the funds to self-insure themselves from the accustomed barrage of monthly lawsuits. When thieves rip copper wire out of street lights, the streets stay dark. Most state residents would rather go to the dentist these days than queue up and take a number at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Hospital emergency rooms neither have room nor act as if there’s much of an emergency.
Traffic flows no better on most of the state’s freeways than it did 40 years ago — and often much worse, given the crumbling infrastructure and increased traffic. Once-excellent K–12 public schools now score near the bottom in nationwide tests. The California state-university system keeps adding administrators to the point where they have almost matched the number of faculty, though half of the students who enter CSU need remedial reading and math. Despite millions of dollars in tutoring, half the students still don’t graduate. The taxpayer is blamed in constant harangues for not ponying up more money, rather than administrators being faulted for a lack of reform.
In 1960, there were far fewer government officials, far fewer prisons, far fewer laws, and far fewer lawyers — and yet the state was a far safer place than it is a half-century later. Technological progress — whether iPhones or Xboxes — can often accompany moral regress. There are not yet weeds in our cities, but those too may be coming.
The average Californian, like the average Greek, forgot that civilization is fragile. Its continuance requires respect for the law, tough-minded education, collective thrift, private investment, individual self-reliance, and common codes of behavior and civility — and exempts no one from those rules. Such knowledge and patterns of civilized behavior, slowly accrued over centuries, can be lost in a single generation.
A keen visitor to Athens — or Los Angeles — during the last decade not only could have seen that things were not quite right, but also could have concluded that they could not go on as they were. And so they are not.
At first blush United States v. Jones is an important victory for the Fourth Amendment because it reaffirms the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Court held that the Government’s planting of a GPS device onto a Jeep constituted a “search.” Antoine Jones, a nightclub owner, was convicted in Washington DC of dealing drugs. Much of the evidence used to obtain his conviction (2,000 pages to be exact) was procured from a GPS that had been planted to the bumper of his wife’s car.
The decision is important principally because it re-affirms an enormously important principle articulated by Justice Harlan in Katz v. United States, which states that the Fourth Amendment protects people not places and as such a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.” It was thought before cases like Katz that the Fourth Amendment’s protections extended to places…homes, private residences, etc (arising from the idea of trespass).
Yet the opinion itself is far more interesting than the ruling of the case because the Court’s dicta (outside the ruling on the matter at hand) raises some profound issues. The first of these is that it addresses how a person’s reasonable privacy expectations need to be defined by the Legislature in light of how technology has affected our lives. There has been a shift in the balance of power between the governed and the State.
Of course the so called “assault weapon ban” did not target guns used by criminals or actual assault weapons at all. They target self loading rifles popular with collectors, enthusiasts and sportsman while showing you a picture of a machine gun.
CONTACT:
Shawn Feddeman
Nicole St. Peter
(617) 725-4025
ROMNEY SIGNS OFF ON PERMANENT ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN Legislation also makes improvements to gun licensing system
In a move that will help keep the streets and neighborhoods of Massachusetts safe, Governor Mitt Romney today signed into law a permanent assault weapons ban that forever makes it harder for criminals to get their hands on these dangerous guns.
“Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts,” Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony with legislators, sportsmen’s groups and gun safety advocates. “These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”
Like the federal assault weapons ban, the state ban, put in place in 1998, was scheduled to expire in September. The new law ensures these deadly weapons, including AK-47s, UZIs and Mac-10 rifles, are permanently prohibited in Massachusetts no matter what happens on the federal level.
“We are pleased to mark an important victory in the fight against crime,” said Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. “The most important job of state government is ensuring public safety. Governor Romney and I are determined to do whatever it takes to stop the flood of dangerous weapons into our cities and towns and to make Massachusetts safer for law-abiding citizens.”
The new law also makes a number of improvements to the current gun licensing system, including:
Extending the term of a firearm identification card and a license to carry firearms from four years to six years;
Granting a 90-day grace period for holders of firearm identification cards and licenses to carry who have applied for renewal; and
Creating a seven-member Firearm License Review Board to review firearm license applications that have been denied.
“This is truly a great day for Massachusetts’ sportsmen and women,” said Senator Stephen M. Brewer. “These reforms correct some serious mistakes that were made during the gun debate in 1998, when many of our state’s gun owners were stripped of their long-standing rights to own firearms. I applaud Senate President Travaglini for allowing the Senate to undertake this necessary legislation.”
“I want to congratulate everyone that has worked so hard on this issue,” said Representative George Peterson. “Because of their dedication, we are here today to sign into law this consensus piece of legislation. This change will go a long way toward fixing the flaws created by the 1998 law. Another key piece to this legislation addresses those citizens who have applied for renewals. If the government does not process their renewal in a timely fashion, those citizens won’t be put at risk because of the 90 day grace period that is being adopted today.”
“Never before has there been such bi-partisan cooperation in the passage of gun safety legislation of this magnitude in this nation,” said John Rosenthal, co-founder and chair of Stop Handgun Violence. “I applaud the leadership of the Governor, Senate President, House Speaker and entire Legislature for passage of this assault weapons ban renewal. They have shown that Massachusetts can continue to lead the nation in protecting the public and law enforcement from military style assault weapons.”
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 