BRING IT ON NRA! - WH: “If the NRA has a list, then Obama for America has a bigger list.”

Facts: since the Assault Weapon Ban expired…

GAME OVER: Kochs Throw GOP Under The Bus

When you've lost the Koch brothers, you've lost the game.

Republicans intent on smashing through the debt ceiling in order to wring some spending concessions out of President Obama are finding themselves awfully lonely these days, but they've kept soldiering on. The latest ally to abandon them may be the toughest to ignore, though. The president of the group Americans For Prosperity, bankrolled by Charles G. and David H. Koch of Koch Industries, yesterday said the group wants spending cuts, but warned Republicans that screwing around with the debt ceiling "makes the messaging more difficult," the Financial Times writes. The AFP president also warned Republicans not to be seen as "hostage takers." That's a marked change from the summer of 2011, when AFP objected to a debt-ceiling deal because it didn't cut spending enough, the FT notes.

This is way, way beyond former House Speaker Newt Gingrich telling House Republicans to give up on its debt-ceiling threat, like he did again yesterday. Newt's always rattling on about moon bases and zoos and stuff, so nobody listens to him. And certainly the House GOP doesn't care that Sen. Susan Collins (RINO-Maine) warned them to bow to the inevitable and raise the debt ceiling, as she did yesterday. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-DebtPanicStan) are a little tougher to take, but the cognitive dissonance arising from their debt-ceiling warnings is still manageable.

But the deep-pocketed Kochs are harder to ignore. Similar warnings recently from Tom Donohue of the Chamber of Commerce, along with the Financial Services Roundtable, the Business Roundtable and other job creators, also can't be ignored. These people have all of the money. And if the economy goes off the cliff, as a new survey of economists strongly suggests it would in a ceiling-breach, then these people will have less money available for campaign contributions. Game over.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/koch-brothers-debt-ceiling_n_2486191.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics

whatever, pass the nuts...

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery
Tuesday, 15 January 2013 09:35
By Thom Hartmann, Truthout | News Analysis

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..........In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they were regulated by the states.

By the time the Constitution was ratified, hundreds of substantial slave uprisings had occurred across the South. Blacks outnumbered whites in large areas, and the state militias were used to both prevent and to put down slave uprisings. As Dr. Bogus points out, slavery can only exist in the context of a police state, and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias.

If the anti-slavery folks in the North had figured out a way to disband - or even move out of the state - those southern militias, the police state of the South would collapse. And, similarly, if the North were to invite into military service the slaves of the South, then they could be emancipated, which would collapse the institution of slavery, and the southern economic and social systems, altogether.

These two possibilities worried southerners like James Monroe, George Mason (who owned over 300 slaves) and the southern Christian evangelical, Patrick Henry (who opposed slavery on principle, but also opposed freeing slaves).

Their main concern was that Article 1, Section 8 of the newly-proposed Constitution, which gave the federal government the power to raise and supervise a militia, could also allow that federal militia to subsume their state militias and change them from slavery-enforcing institutions into something that could even, one day, free the slaves.

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MORE:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery?fb_action_ids=527613423937112&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%22527613423937112%22%3A390307407725537%7D&action_type_map=%7B%22527613423937112%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/15/1179307/-The-Second-Amendment-was-Ratified-to-Preserve-Slavery

"So Why Don't We See More Women & Minorities In Obama's Cabinet?"

"Wouldn't Have Happened If Everyone Had A Bomb."

Horsey Beautifully Illustrates "The Congressional Road Block"

There is no silver bullet

well, well, well: The NRA once supported & helped write federal gun control laws

The NRA once supported gun control
It may seem hard to believe, but for decades the organization helped write federal laws restricting gun use