Silicon Valley Libertarians Cling to Their Guns: “Gun Control is Technology Control” | TechPresident

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Gene Hoffman is standing in the middle of his sunny corner office in Belmont, California, and he’s showing me his AR-15.

If California State Senator Leland Yee had his way, Hoffman could get arrested for this. In 1989, the California legislature passed a law banning semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 on the basis of a combination of features such as pistol grips and telescoping stocks. But Hoffman and some other gun enthusiasts scrutinized state regulations and found a way around the legal code in 2007 by creating a button that fixes magazines in place. That theoretically renders a rifle legal because its magazine could then not be detached without using a tool, as required by state law. Gun owners could still rapidly reload with this button in place, because all they have to do is poke it with the tip of a bullet to unlock empty magazines. Last year, Yee floated a bill that would add button-equipped guns to a list of banned weapons.

So when I asked Hoffman to explain the device — a controversial add-on called the “bullet button” — he didn’t have to close his office door before pulling the seven-pound Lauer LCW-15, unloaded, from a large rectangular case on the floor. He did anyway — “Just so I don’t alarm anyone,” he said.

via Silicon Valley Libertarians Cling to Their Guns: “Gun Control is Technology Control” | TechPresident.

Why is Wal-Mart worried? Payroll tax could cut consumer spending – CSMonitor.com

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Retailers are preparing for a triple whammy as the restoration of the payroll tax, surging gas prices, and stagnant employment and wages take a bite out of consumers’ disposable income, leaving them with less cash to spend on clothing, groceries, and eating out.

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Payroll tax cuts may boost the economy more than you think

Time to say goodbye to the payroll tax cut? It’s looking that way.

Wal-Mart’s profits can indicate how the nation’s economy is doing. Recent reports forecast lower spending at the retail giant this year.

As a result, more than three years after the recession officially ended, American consumers might be preparing to downshift again, if only slightly, with low-income consumers hit the hardest. Sensing consumer trepidation, retailers are scrambling to adjust.

via Why is Wal-Mart worried? Payroll tax could cut consumer spending. (+video) – CSMonitor.com.

MASSIVE TURNOUT at Hudson Council Meeting After Lib Alderman Slams “Psychotard” Gun Owners | The Gateway Pundit

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Committee President Moore said the group was upset at being confronted by such a large and angry crowd who were obviously “against us” and stressed the committee was not trying to “do anything sneaky.”

But shouted questions from the audience forced the committee to call on Marston to respond to the vile comments he had written to Smith when she had questioned his stance on the proposed law in an email several weeks ago.

Besides calling her a “gun toting tea party psychotard,” he had accused her of “grandstanding on mythical narratives of victimization,” described her ” spit” as “the white stuff frothing on the ends of that rotten little mouth of yours from which you spew this hateful ignorant trash,” and invited her to come to Hudson to protest the law, writing, “We’ll be happy to beat you barbarians back with the clubs of reason & responsibility, radical lunatics that you are.”

Liberal David Marston told the crowd tonight, “I let my lesser self get the better of me.”

He ended his rant with this classic:

“And say, a quick ProTip, since you’re the ‘organizer’ for unemployed guns nuts USA.  Next time you think these unhinged rants will change the mind of anyone who has even a modicum of intelligence, you might instead just go back down into your basement & watch another episode of wheel-of-fortune.  It’ll certainly be just as effective.  Remember: there are millions of Eagle Scout God Worshiping Patriots who find you & your radical ilk as disgraceful to American Democracy as the Brown Shirt jackboots you act like.  I happen to be just one of them.  Good Luck.”

Before the crowd of hundreds of infuriated gun rights activists Marston told a different story. He apologized, saying he had drafted his response to her in “the heat of the moment” and he acknowledged the email had been inappropriate .

“I let my lesser self get the better of me,” he said.

That wasn’t good enough for the crowd. One shouted, “Joanne (Smith) is the one he insulted, He should issue her a public apology.” They also insisted the Committee permit her to speak.

When she moved to the front of the room to say a few words the crowd erupted in cheers.

Smith, who is responsible for organizing the Second Amendment Rally in Albany on Thursday, February 28, featuring NRA President David Keene, State Legislators, the NYS Rifle and Pistol Association and SCOPE said she expects a turnout of between 10,000 to 15,000 at the event.

And, for what it’s worth, according to the Hudson City Attorney there’s no chance of the proposed gun law going into effect as it would be preempted by county and state ordinances already in effect.

via MASSIVE TURNOUT at Hudson Council Meeting After Lib Alderman Slams “Psychotard” Gun Owners | The Gateway Pundit.

Obama DHS Purchases 2,700 Light-Armored Tanks to Go With Their 1.6 Billion Bullet Stockpile | The Gateway Pundit

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Maybe this could have been part of the sequester. Are they this worried about IEDs in Kansas?

The Department of Homeland Security (through the U.S. Army Forces Command) recently retrofitted 2,717 of these ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.

Although I’ve seen and read several online blurbs about this vehicle of late, I decided to dig slightly deeper and discover more about the vehicle itself.

The new DHS sanctioned ‘Street Sweeper’ (my own slang due to the gun ports) is built by Navistar Defense (NavistarDefense.com), a division within the Navistar organization. Under the Navistar umbrella are several other companies including International Trucks, IC Bus (they make school buses), Monaco RV (recreational vehicles), WorkHorse (they make chassis), MaxxForce (diesel engines), and Navistar Financial (the money arm of the company).

Obama DHS Purchases 2,700 Light-Armored Tanks to Go With Their 1.6 Billion Bullet Stockpile | The Gateway Pundit.

Why the Choice to Be Childless is Bad for America – Newsweek and The Daily Beast

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“I like seeing people with their children, because they have their special bond, and that’s really sweet, but it’s not something I look at for myself,” says Tiffany Jordan, a lively 30-year-old freelance wardrobe stylist who lives in Queens in a rent-stabilized apartment and dates a man who “practically lives there.”

Jordan and her friends are part of a rising tide. Postfamilial America is in ascendancy as the fertility rate among women has plummeted, since the 2008 economic crisis and the Great Recession that followed, to its lowest level since reliable numbers were first kept in 1920. That downturn has put the U.S. fertility rate increasingly in line with those in other developed economies—suggesting that even if the economy rebounds, the birthrate may not. For many individual women considering their own lives and careers, children have become a choice, rather than an inevitable milestone—and one that comes with more costs than benefits.

“I don’t know if that’s selfish,” says Jordan, the daughter of an Ecuadoran and an Ohioan who grew up in the South Bronx, explaining her reasons for a decision increasingly common among women across the developed world, where more than half of the world’s population is now reproducing at below the replacement rate. “I feel like my life is not stable enough, and I don’t think I necessarily want it to be … Kids, they change your entire life. That’s the name of the game. And that’s not something I’m interested in doing.”

via Why the Choice to Be Childless is Bad for America – Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

Kerry dishes $250 million to Morsi in the middle of the sequester

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi’s pledges of political and economic reforms by releasing $250 million in American aid to support the country’s “future as a democracy.”

Yet Kerry also served notice that the Obama administration will keep close watch on how Morsi, who came to power in June as Egypt’s first freely elected president, honors his commitment and that additional U.S. assistance would depend on it.

“The path to that future has clearly been difficult and much work remains,” Kerry said in a statement after wrapping up two days of meetings in Egypt, a deeply divided country in the wake of the revolution that ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak.

via News from The Associated Press.

U.S. Capitol official: Obama wrong on janitors’ pay cut – CBS News

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The president’s mention prompted Carlos Elias, the superintendent of the U.S. Capitol building and the Capitol Visitors Center, to email his employees within hours of Mr. Obama’s comment.

“The pay and benefits of EACH of our employees WILL NOT be impacted,” Elias wrote.

“There was a specific mention in the news today by a high ranking official that said ‘The employees that clean and maintain the US Capitol will receive a cut in pay’ (not specific quote but very close to it),” Elias continued.

“This is NOT TRUE,” wrote Elias. “Therefore, I request that you please notify all of our employees about the importance of ignoring media reports.”

via U.S. Capitol official: Obama wrong on janitors’ pay cut – CBS News.

Woodward’s Apostasy by Harry Stein – City Journal

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Bob Woodward’s charge that he was threatened by a high-ranking Obama administration official after publishing a column critical of the White House was, it turns out, at least somewhat exaggerated. But it’s no accident that the media has chosen to focus on Woodward’s characterization of his exchange with White House economic director Gene Sperling, while all but ignoring the essence of the column that touched off the brouhaha in the first place: that Obama’s claims about Republican responsibility for the looming sequester were false, and that it was “months of White House dissembling” that had “eroded any semblance of trust between Obama and congressional Republicans.”

Indeed, the media treatment of the episode provides an all-too-telling glimpse into the administration’s relationship with the press. It hardly bears repeating that from the start of Barack Obama’s career on the national stage, he has enjoyed an unprecedented kinship with the media—one that, as frustrated opponents rightly observe, often seems indistinguishable from outright alliance. On contentious issues like those involving the budget, especially, the administration has been hugely dependent on a compliant press—not only to shore up public support for its ongoing campaign of class warfare, but also to marginalize competing arguments.

via Woodward’s Apostasy by Harry Stein – City Journal.

Actor John Cusack: ‘Is the President just another Ivy League A**hole?’ | WashingtonExaminer.com

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Yes. Next question.

“One is forced to asked the question: Is the President just another Ivy League A**hole shredding civil liberties and due process and sending people to die in some sh*thole for purely political reasons?” asked actor John Cusack in a recent piece published yesterday on TruthOut.org.

Cusack was sharply critical of President Obama’s decisions to continue President George W. Bush’s drone program and continuing the war in Afghanistan.

Referring to a speech given by the president at West Point in May 2010, Cusack noted that “the Christian president with the Muslim-sounding name, would heed the admonitions of neither religion’s prophets about making war and do what no empire or leader, including Alexander the Great, could do: he would, he assured us ‘get the job done in Afghanistan.’”

via Actor John Cusack: ‘Is the President just another Ivy League A**hole?’ | WashingtonExaminer.com.

What We Lose When Kids Can’t Play in Their Own Streets – Neighborhoods – The Atlantic Cities

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As children run and wheel and dance their way across the liberated asphalt, the adults on the street – mostly mothers — look on and smile. The things they say bring home just how much we lose when we give the streets to cars, in both urban and dense suburban settings.

“We wanted our children to have the same sort of freedom that we had to play outside,” says one of the group’s organizers, Alice Ferguson. Her co-founder, Amy Rose, adds that they were looking for “a model that took away the traffic problem and brought people together and explored the street as play space.”

via What We Lose When Kids Can’t Play in Their Own Streets – Neighborhoods – The Atlantic Cities.