Monday, April 13, 2015

Nuclear Cartoon


Right to Bear Arms? Gun grabbing sweeping the nation


Cherished family heirlooms were among the 21 firearms Michael Roberts surrendered to the Torrance Police Department in 2010, after his doctor filed a restraining order against him.
The court order was the result of a dispute Roberts had with a member of the doctor’s staff and, after Roberts pleaded no contest, the matter was resolved. Yet, even though he filed the proper Law Enforcement Gun Release paperwork on four separate occasions, obtained clearance from the California Department of Justice and had two court orders commanding the return of his guns, police refused to hand them over.
With the backing of the National Rifle Association and California Rifle and Pistol Association, Roberts filed a federal lawsuit in May 2014, over the $15,500 worth of firearms. In the end he got the money, but not the guns. The police had had them destroyed.
Second Amendment lawyers say his case is not rare.
“NRA and CRPA constantly get calls from law abiding people having problems getting their guns back,” said Chuck Michel of Long Beach based Michel & Associates, who represented Roberts in the case. “The state Department of Justice wrongly tells police not to give guns back unless the person can document ownership of the gun and it is registered in the state DOJ’s database. But the law doesn’t require this.”
Gun owners can’t comply anyway, Michel said, because police themselves routinely fail to enter the firearms into the DOJ’s database, and most people don’t have receipts for the guns they own.
While Americans have the constitutional rights to keep and bear arms – and protect their property from government’s unlawful seizure – it is not just in California where guns are seized and destroyed illegally, attorneys charge.
"This kind of below-the-radar bureaucratic gun confiscation is a growing Second Amendment and property rights violation problem, particularly in strict gun control states like California, New Jersey and Massachusetts,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation. “People can't afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees to get back a $500 firearm."
The Second Amendment Foundation’s most recent case involves Rick Bailey, a 56-year-old Navy veteran from Glendale, Ariz., whose entire collection of 28 firearms valued at $25,000 was seized by authorities because of an ongoing dispute with a neighbor.
After Bailey complained over several months to the city of Glendale that his neighbor frequently parked his landscaping company’s dump trucks in front of Bailey’s home -- and toxic chemical odors were coming from his neighbor’s property -- the neighbor obtained a harassment order against Bailey. Police showed up and seized Bailey’s gun collection.
 “Mr. Bailey is devastated by this situation. We seem to live in an environment when someone’s life can be turned upside down on an allegation that should have been thoroughly investigated before any action was ordered by a court,” Gottlieb said. “We’re helping Bailey in his appeal of the judge’s order so he can not only reclaim his valuable firearms, but also some of his dignity as well.”
Probably the most notorious gun confiscation case happened after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005 when the city’s then-mayor, Ray Nagin, ordered all legally owned firearms seized. The Second Amendment Foundation successfully sued on behalf of thousands of law abiding gun owners to stop, or reverse, the confiscations. But hundreds more gun owners without legal representation or ownership paperwork had to abandon their guns. Those firearms still have not been destroyed, Gottlieb said.
'This kind of below-the-radar bureaucratic gun confiscation is a growing Second Amendment and property rights violation problem.'- Alan Gottlieb, Second Amendment Foundation
In Massachusetts, residents who had their guns taken because of restraining orders or other reasons must pay a fee to a private storage company when their legal issues are resolved, regardless of their own culpability. The fees can run in the thousands of dollars, often exceeding the value of the guns. Instead of paying the fee, they often forfeit the firearms and the company auctions them off, Gottlieb said.
In Kentucky, a law passed in 2014 that allows law enforcement to take firearms from those accused – not convicted – of domestic violence crimes. Similar laws are in place in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Louisiana.
In Lakewood, Ohio, in August 2011, police seized 13 firearms valued at $15,000 from U.S. Army veteran Francesca Rice while she wasn’t home, according to Cleveland Scene. Police reportedly had an employee of the condominium complex let them in.
The firearms collection of Rice, who served her country in Iraq, included handguns, shotguns, a vintage Chinese SKS M21 semi-automatic carbine and a semi-automatic rifle.
The seizure was based on a “situation involving the gun owner's absence from a VA hospital where she had been receiving treatment…. However, no charges were ever filed, and a year later, Rice's requests to have her guns returned had gone unanswered,” the Ohio-based Buckeye Institute reported, noting after the lawsuit was settled, the police were ordered to return her firearms.
These tactics are a way for police departments or the government to make it more costly to own guns, said John Lott, an economist, leading expert on guns, and author at the Crime Prevention Research Center. Lott believes the illegal policies most hurt poor gun owners, who not only are less likely to afford to get their property back, but also typically live in neighborhoods where they are more vulnerable to crime.
Seizing legally owned guns can also be a way for law enforcement agencies to boost their revenue if, as in some cases, they sell the firearms rather than destroying them, Lott said.
In the Roberts’ case in California, police blamed a letter from the California Department of Justice that required gun owners to produce documentation showing it was their firearm that was seized and ordered them to register all firearms that previously had been exempt.
The receipt the police department issued when confiscating the firearms wasn’t sufficient proof, the DOJ said, and most firearms owners don’t have other proof of purchase, especially for firearms passed down from generation to generation.
The case was settled for $30,000 and the department changed its policy, but Roberts suffered through three years of aggravation and lost family heirlooms as a result of the department’s actions.
In 2012, California civil rights attorney Donald Kilmer represented the Second Amendment Foundation and CalGuns Foundation in the first legal challenge in California for wrongful retention of firearms and won, leading San Francisco and Oakland to change their policies.
But remarkably, the situation in California in some respects is getting worse.
“The legislature has never met a gun regulation they didn’t like and the state is populated with millions of people who want to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” said Kilmer.
The problem now is that the State Bureau of Firearms is issuing letters that misstate the law with regard to what documentation gun owners must produce to get their property back, Kilmer said.
In the past, if firearms were seized in California from a home because of psychiatric issues, domestic violence allegations, restraining orders or other issues, the firearms were returned after the case was resolved through a court order.
However, under a new law, Kilmer said a background check is required to ensure the property is not stolen, the owner has to prove ownership, and then the owners get a letter clearing them to pick up their property.
“It makes sense on its face, but it is taking longer to issue letters,” Kilmer said, adding most gun owners can’t meet other requirements because they don’t have paperwork to show title, many legally owned guns are not registered, the federal government is forbidden from keeping firearms ownership records with the exception of for specialty guns, and California just started its database in 1996 exclusively for handguns.
“People keep forgetting the right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment, is protected by the U.S. constitution, and private property is protected under the Fifth Amendment,” Kilmer said. “Government cannot take property without just compensation and due process. The great thing is that when it comes to guns, you get protection under both amendments.”

The Hillary Clinton Juggernaut: What she'll need to win White House


After Hillary Clinton left the State Department in early 2013, her favorable rating was 64% and her unfavorable rating 31% in an April 14 Gallup poll. In a March 4, 2015, Gallup poll, respondents were 50% favorable, 39% unfavorable. That’s not a good trend.
Nevertheless, the Hillary Juggernaut rolls on. She has no significant challenger for the 2016 presidential nomination—though 66% of Democrats in a March 24 CBS poll wanted Mrs. Clinton to face one.
Her campaign strengths are clear. Raising money, at least from bundlers and events, will be easy. President Obama is in her corner—he needs her to win to protect his legacy. And finally there’s her team. It consists of mostly battle-hardened veterans with a take-no-prisoners toughness, a mix of Obama operatives, key State Department advisers, members of her 2008 campaign apparatus, and some of her husband’s old hands from the 1990s.
Yet each one of these strengths is also a potential weakness.

Clinton announces 2016 White House bid, asks to be 'champion' of America's middle class


Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday officially announced her 2016 presidential campaign, ending months of speculation over her political plans and immediately elevating her as a target for the field of Republican contenders.
Clinton made the announcement in a YouTube video in which she says: “Everybody needs a champion. And I want to be that champion.”
The roughly two-minute video begins by showing a cross-section of Americans working to get ahead before Clinton says: “I’m doing something, too. I’m running for president.”
The 2016 White House winner will assuredly need to appeal to middle-class Americans and win their votes. And Clinton wasted little time making her pitch. “Americans have fought back from tough economic times,” she says in the video. “But the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.”
Clinton later released a similar, more condensed message on Twitter.
The former first lady is seeking the presidency for a second time, after losing the party nomination to then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008.
The 67-year-old Clinton has been the clear Democratic front-runner since speculation started last year about her potential candidacy, and her announcement makes her the only Democrat so far to officially start a 2016 White House campaign. A victory next year would make Clinton the United States’ first female president.
Clinton in 2000 won a U.S. Senate seat in New York, and in 2009 was appointed secretary of state, serving four years.
On Saturday, the group We Are Hillary for America circulated a memo to supporters that organizers called "guiding principles." But the memo also provided some insight into to the underpinnings of a Clinton campaign. "Give every family, every small business and every American a path to lasting prosperity by electing Hillary Clinton the next president of the United States,” the memo in part stated.
Clinton now heads this week to key, early-voting states, starting with Iowa on Tuesday, then onto New Hampshire.
She has signaled that she intends to make a major push in the Iowa caucuses, won by Obama in 2008. Her team has hired a former top aide to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to lead her Iowa campaign.
Her ties to New Hampshire are much stronger. State Democrats remember Bill Clinton's surprising second-place finish in the 1992 primary that helped him overcome charges of draft dodging and womanizing. Hillary Clinton surprised Obama by winning the 2008 New Hampshire primary.
Clinton has faced sharp criticism in recent weeks, after news reports that as secretary of state she used a private server and emails for official business, then made available only about half of the roughly 60,000 messages, permanently deleting those she considered personal.   
Still, a Fox News poll released March 26 shows Clinton with support from 49 percent of early voters, numbers similar to those in other polls for roughly the past five months.
The response to Clinton’s announcement was quick and widespread with Democratic and Republican lawmakers, candidates and political groups eager to get in on the biggest news so far in the early 2016 election cycle.
“Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state resulted in an America that is less safe and trusted abroad,” said Our American Revival, a political action committee for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate. “We must stand together and speak out against Hillary Clinton’s dangerous liberal record.”
Carly Fiorina, another potential 2016 GOP candidate and a former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, release her own video.
“Hillary Clinton’s a highly intelligent woman, hard-working, she’s dedicated her life to public service,” Fiorina says the video that she posted on Facebook. “But unfortunately, she does not have a track record of accomplishment or transparency. … She’s not the woman for the White House.”
Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul, who last week officially announced his 2016 bid, became the first candidate to release an attack ad on another official candidate with a video that in part says: “Hillary Clinton represents the worst of the Washington machine.”
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Clinton supporter who is seriously considering a bid for the Democratic nomination, said through a spokeswoman that he will make his decision “regardless of what other people decide.”
“He’s heard from Democrats that they are looking for someone who offers strong progressive values, new leadership and the experience of getting real results,” spokeswoman Lis Smith said. “The Democratic Party will benefit from a robust issues debate … should Governor O'Malley decide to enter the race.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz welcomed Clinton as the first official candidate seeking the party's 2016 presidential nomination. But she also suggested Clinton would have to work for the mantle.
“We expect a competitive primary for the Democratic nomination,” Wasserman Schultz said. “I look forward to the contributions that Secretary Clinton and all of our eventual candidates will bring to this debate.”
As first lady to President Bill Clinton during the 1990s, she was a driving figure in a failed health care overhaul and lived through multiple ethics investigations and her husband's impeachment.
Clinton graduated from Wellesley College and Yale Law School.
In Arkansas, she was a lawyer at a top firm while Bill Clinton was governor. She advised her husband after he won the White House in 1992. In the Senate, she struck a bipartisan tone at times. Her Senate vote for the 2002 Iraq invasion became a point of contention in 2008; Obama had spoken out against the "dumb war." At the State Department, she was a hawkish member of Obama's national security team. She helped set the foundation for nuclear talks with Iran.
Clinton is the daughter of a small-business owner and homemaker, and grew up in suburban Chicago. As a college senior, Clinton delivered a 1969 commencement speech that earned national attention. The Clintons met at Yale. After working as a child advocate, Clinton followed her future husband back to Arkansas, where he launched his political career. The couple's 35-year-old daughter, Chelsea Clinton, gave birth to her first child, Charlotte, in September.
A 1995 address in Beijing and her final campaign event in 2008 are signature moments. As first lady, Clinton declared in a speech at a U.N. conference on women that "human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights."
The speech challenged human rights abuses of women and helped set the tone for Clinton's work years later in the State Department.
Her critics remember her for blaming her husband's scandals on a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
Clinton wrote "Hard Choices," about her time as secretary of state, and promoted the book around the country in 2014. The book generated mediocre sales and Clinton stumbled at times during the book tour, saying in one interview that she and her husband were "dead broke" when they left the White House.
While they faced large legal bills from the Whitewater investigation, the couple made millions after Bill Clinton's presidency; the comments were considered tone-deaf. Clinton already was a publishing powerhouse at that point.
During her husband's presidency, she released "It Takes a Village" in 1996, a book that discussed her work in child advocacy and steps to help children become productive adults.

US reportedly steps up involvement in Saudi-led Yemen campaign


The U.S. reportedly has taken on a greater role in the Saudi-led campaign of airstrikes against Shiite rebels in Yemen amid doubts about whether Riyadh can achieve its objectives.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the U.S. Navy has stepped up patrols looking for weapons that American and Arab officials believe have been sent to the rebel forces, known as Houthis, by Iran. On one occasion, the paper reports, U.S. sailors boarded a Panama-flagged freighter in the Red Sea that was suspected of carrying armaments. The search turned up nothing.
The paper also reported that the Obama administration authorized Pentagon war planners to cross-check a list of targets provided by the Saudis against U.S. intelligence and provide feedback ahead of the first airstrikes last month.
Two-and-a-half weeks of aerial and naval bombardment have done little to slow the Houthi advance in Yemen, though it has prevented the rebels from controlling the port city of Aden. The Journal reports that the relative lack of success has caused Washington to call on the Saudis to revisit the goals of their campaign.
Saudi officials tell the paper that their goal is to degrade the capabilities of the Houthis and restore Yemen's deposed president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to his office. Hadi is currently in Saudi Arabia after being forced to flee by the Houthis just prior to the start of airstrikes.
According to the Journal, however, the Obama administration wants Saudi Arabia to focus on stopping the Houthi advances, achieving a military impasse that would force all parties to the negotiating table. The paper reports that the Obama administration has embraced this strategy due in part to fears of more direct action by Iran and concern that civilian casualties will undermine any popular support for the Saudi-led campaign.
United Nations officials say that at least 648 civilians have been killed since the airstrikes began March 25. The Saudis have blamed the Houthis and their Yemeni allies for the civilian deaths and say they are doing their best to limit them.
On Sunday, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister refused calls from Tehran to stop its aerial assault. Iran supports the Houthis, who are fellow Shiites, but both Tehran and the rebels deny it arms them.
Prince Saud al-Faisal said his country is not at war with Iran, but charged Tehran with fueling the cycle of violence in Yemen. Riyadh and Tehran are longtime regional rivals, and also back opposite sides in Syria's civil war.
"Iran is not in charge of Yemen," al-Faisal said during a press conference Sunday in Riyadh alongside his French counterpart, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
Writing in an opinion piece in The New York Times, Hadi on Sunday called the Houthis "puppets of the Iranian government" and declared: "If the Houthis do not withdraw and disarm their militia and rejoin the political dialogue, we will continue to urge the coalition to continue its military campaign against them."
Hadi called for "continued international support to ensure military might on the battlefield" and warned that oil shipments through the Red Sea will be endangered if the Houthis are not stopped.
Saudi military spokesman Ahmed Asiri said during a briefing Sunday that airstrikes hit an airport in the Houthi stronghold of Saada, as well as areas used by the Houthis and their allies in Shabwa, Sanaa, Taiz and Aden.
He added that the Saudi government is coordinating with some of the tribes in Yemen.
Sunday's airstrikes in the oil- and gas-rich north-central province of Marib hit groups of Houthi and allied fighters, Yemeni security officials told the Associated Press. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
Sheikh Saleh al-Anjaf, spokesman for an alliance of Marib-based tribes, said Houthis and Saleh loyalists tried to advance from the ancient ruins of Sirwah but were pushed back following a fierce battle with tribesmen.
Al-Anjaf said six tribesmen were killed and seven wounded in the fighting and that the tribe took six Houthi fighters hostage. The Houthis did not announce any casualties, and Houthi officials could not be reached for comment.

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