POLITICS

The Five Things You Have To Know Before Today’s Gun Policy Hearing

By Zack Beauchamp on Jan 30, 2013 at 9:03 am

At 10 AM on Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearings on new legislation to reduce gun violence in the United States. Here are the five things that’ll help you make sense of the policy and politics at play in today’s hearing.

1. America has a gun problem. Study after study after study has found that the spread of guns in the United States has led to more people being killed by guns. The old “more guns, less crime” theory has been conclusively debunked. The question now is how to limit the spread of guns, particularly by better mechanisms to prevent people who would commit murder and other gun crimes from getting them.

2. The National Rifle Association is not interested in real measures to address it. In today’s hearing, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre will say that we have to “be honest about what works,” but his organization has proven uninterested in any real reform beyond its own quixotic quest to put more guns in schools. The NRA refused to meet with the President to discuss his framework for gun violence prevention and has spent the days post-Newtown blaming everything other than guns for the deaths they cause. NRA members don’t share the organization’s absolutist positions.

3. There’s real evidence that gun regulation can work. Research comparing murder rates across states found that those with stricter gun regulation found that “[f]irearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation.” These regulations include the main measures being debated today — universal background checks, a strengthened assault weapons ban, and limits on high-capacity magazines. Strengthened background checks and oversight over gun dealers has in particular proven effective — one “study using crime gun trace data from 54 U.S. cities”found that “strong regulation and oversight of licensed gun dealers, regulation of gun sales by private sellers, and permit-to-purchase licensing systems (which require potential gun purchasers to apply for a license directly with a law enforcement agency, where they are typically photographed and fingerprinted) were each associated with significantly fewer guns that were diverted to criminals.”

4. This debate isn’t about the Second Amendment. Since the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in D.C. v. Heller, banning the ownership of guns “in common use” has been legally impossible. That’s why none of the proposed regulations ban handguns or most shotguns and hunting rifles. Justice Scalia’s ruling specifically allows restrictions on “dangerous and unusual” weapons and stipulates that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

5. This is the best chance for Congressional action on guns since 1994. The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary hasgalvanized American public opinion on guns in a way unlike any other event in recent memory, with public opinion firmly behind new regulations — 90 percent of Americans, for example, support expanded background checks. And while House and Senate Republicans still appear firmly opposed to most of the proposed regulations, key Republicans like Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Tom Coburn have indicated openness to action on background checks.

Communism, Polygamy And Human Cloning Are More Popular Than The NRA’s Position On Gun Safety

By Adam Peck on Jan 30, 2013 at 9:00 am

More Popular Than The NRA's Position On Guns

Later today, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre is set to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and will reaffirm his organization’s opposition to universal background checks for persons who wish to purchase a firearm. According to a copy of LaPierre’s prepared remarks that was leaked on Tuesday, the NRA’s top executive will claim that “when it comes to the issue of background checks, let’s be honest – background checks will never be “universal” – because criminals will never submit to them.”

Meanwhile, the latest poll from Gallup shows that just 8 percent of the country agrees with the NRA on background checks. Other polls found a higher approval rating for polygamy (which 11 percent of respondents support), and Congress (9 percent). Additionally, polls have found more support for support Hugo Chavez (9 percent), human cloning (17 percent) and communism (9 percent) than the NRA’s position on this issue. Exactly the same percentage of people support the Panetta-Burns deficit reduction plan — which doesn’t exist.

 

TUESDAY, JAN 29, 2013 05:08 PM EST

Arkansas town enacts martial law

Officers with AR-15s will patrol Paragould, stopping everyone out walking for their IDs

BY NATASHA LENNARD

(Credit: GuyJ.Sagi/Shutterstock)

Following a rise in violent crime in Paragould, an Arkansas town of around 26,000 residents, the mayor and police chief announced that starting this month police in SWAT gear carrying AR-15s would patrol the streets.

“If you’re out walking, we’re going to stop you, ask why you’re out walking, and check for your ID,” police chief Todd Stovall told a December town hall meeting. As if to render the implementation of a visible police state more palatable, Stovall assured residents that police stops would not be based on any profiling: “We’re going to do it to everybody,” he said.

Stovall also told residents he had not consulted an attorney before instituting the plan. HuffPo’s Radley Balko noted that Paragould is not the first town to bring in such measures:

Using SWAT teams for routine patrols isn’t uncommon. Fresno did this for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The city sent its Violent Crimes Suppression Unit into poorer neighborhoods and stopped, confronted, questioned, and searched nearly everyone they encountered. “It’s a war,” one SWAT officer told Christian Parenti in a a report for The Naiton (not available online). Another said, “If you’re 21, male, living in one of these neighborhoods, and you’re not in our computer, then there’s something definitely wrong.”

Balko picked up on interesting detail in Stovall’s comments. The police chief said, “This fear is what’s given us the reason to do this. Once I have stats and people saying they’re scared, we can do this.” As Balko pointed out, although there was an uptick in violent crime in Paragould, “fear” of crime was used as the pretext to implement martial law — based on such troubling reasoning, there is never not fear in U.S. towns today and so there is never not a pretext to introduce patrolling SWAT teams.

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com.

NRA to again push armed guards for schools in Senate hearing

NRA to again push armed guards for schools in Senate hearing

By Kasie Hunt, NBC News

The National Rifle Association will appear Wednesday at the first congressional hearings on gun violence in the wake of Newtown – at the invitation of Democrats.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy invited the group to testify alongside Mark Kelly, whose wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot at a Tucson supermarket in 20 while she was greeting constituents.

The NRA strategy, at least according to prepared testimony, remains the same as it has since 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.: push for armed guards in schools and insist that measures like an assault weapons ban and universal background checks won’t help matters.

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“When it comes to the issue of background checks, let’s be honest – background checks will never be ‘universal’ – because criminals will never submit to them,” chief NRA lobbyist Wayne LaPierre plans to say, according to prepared testimony released in advance of the hearing.

Universal background checks – closing the loophole that allows private gun sales to people who haven’t had a criminal records check – is one of the gun safety measures most likely to pass the Senate. Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican, told Tulsa TV station KRMG that he is working with Democrats to craft a bill that would mandate the background checks.

NRA officials, though, insist that won’t keep guns away from criminals; they also point to studies showing the assault weapons ban in effect from 1994 until 2004 didn’t reduce crime. Gun safety advocates say that 10 years wasn’t enough time to measure the ban’s effectiveness, among other arguments.

LaPierre will instead tout the NRA’s gun education programs and argue for measures that will help states put armed guards in schools.

“It’s time to throw an immediate blanket of security around our children.  About a third of our schools have armed security already – because it works,” he will say.

And he will repeat calls to strengthen measures aimed at keeping powerful weapons away from the mentally ill.

“We need to look at the full range of mental health issues, from early detection and treatment, to civil commitment laws, to privacy laws that needlessly prevent mental health records from being included in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System,” LaPierre plans to say.

The NRA is also claiming increasing membership: The group claimed 4.2 million members just three weeks ago, but the Wednesday testimony says it has 4.5 million members now.

Democrats asked LaPierre, Kelly and Baltimore County Police  Chief James Johnson to appear at Wednesday’s hearing. Republicans on the committee called Colorado academic David Kopel and attorney Gayle Trotter as witnesses.

Privacy fears as government renews law that allows it to take data on suspects from Apple and Google cloud servers

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 22:04 EST, 29 January 2013 | UPDATED: 04:43 EST, 30 January 2013

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Campaigners raised fears that a renewed piece of American legislation allows federal agencies to spy on foreign nationals without warning by hacking into cloud-based servers. 

Now because of the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the U.S. government granted itself the right to spy on anyone using the internet storage facilities provided by American companies.

This move means that any non-American who opts to store data on the cloud services that are used by the likes of Amazon, Google, and Apple, opens themselves up to investigation by the federal authorities.

At risk: All data stored in network clouds, used by companies like Apple, can now be accessed by the U.S. government

Cloud computing allows internet users to store their information and data in an network server as opposed to in a physical memory stick or tangible location on their hard drive or on their smartphones.

FISA is nothing new: it was first put into place under President George W. Bush in 2008, and it was quietly renewed in December of 2012 under President Obama's purview.

The legislation allows a wide swath of the federal government- including the CIA, the FBI, and the National Security Agency- to look at any information they would like that is saved on cloud servers.

One of the most shocking portions of the legislation is the fact that the officials do not need to use the guise of a threat to national security as a way to justify their snooping.

Round one: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was initially signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2008 (pictured) but was renewed by President Obama in December 2012

They are able to look into foreign individuals' data for purely political reasons as well.

A report produced about the topic stresses that it is 'much graver risk to EU data sovereignty than other laws hitherto considered by EU policy-makers'.

Slate quoted Caspar Bowden, who co-wrote the report which is now being examined by the European Union, as saying that the legislation has been so gravely ignored by European government officials.

'It's like putting a mind control drug in the water supply, which only affects non-Americans,' he said.

For now, privacy advocates appear to be the only ones up in arms about the issue.

Google responded to requests made by The Independent, saying: 'It is possible for the US government (and European governments) to access certain types of data via their law enforcement agencies. We think this kind of access to data merits serious discussion and more transparency.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270461/Privacy-fears-government-allowed-data-suspects-Apple-Google-cloud-servers.html#ixzz2JSxC0Mrz
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Sarah Palin’s Entertainment Career By The Numbers

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jan 28, 2013 at 1:33 pm

According to a news analysis by the Smart Politics project of the the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, during former Gov. Sarah Palin’s tenure as a contributor to Fox News—which ended last week with the decision not to renew her contract—Palin was paid $15.85 per word she spoke on the network. Given that Palin and her family are now primarily working as entertainers, rather than as public servants, commercial fishermen, or even spokeswomen for teen pregnancy prevention, it seems worth taking a look at how well that’s working out for the Palins—and the people who’ve employed them.

-$1 million: Sarah Palin’s annual salary as a Fox News analyst.

-189,221: Words Palin spoke on Fox during her three-year contract.

-$1.25 million: Palin’s advance for her memoir Going Rogue.

-469,000: copies of Going Rogue sold in its first week on the market. The memoir would go on to sell 2,670,000 copies in 2009.

-797,955: Copies of America By Heart, Palin’s second book, sold in 2010.

-$100,000: Palin’s speakers’ fee, as negotiated by the Washington Speakers Bureau, as of 2010.

-$200,000: The reported low estimate for Palin’s per-episode fee for Sarah Palin’s Alaska, her TLC show, which ran for a single season. One of the reasons the show ultimately wasn’t renewed? Palin’s salary demands for a second year.

-3.2 million: The average number of viewers who tuned in to Sarah Palin’s Alaska. She earned additional fees for the weeks she survived elimination.

-$15,000-$30,000: Bristol Palin’s range of speaker’s fees, as of 2010.

-$125,000: Bristol Palin’s base salary for her appearance on Dancing With The Stars.

-$354,348: Alaska tax subsidies for Bristol Palin’s reality show, Life’s A Tripp.

-726,000: Number of viewers who tuned in to Life’s A Tripp. Unsurprisingly, Lifetime cancelled the show after two airings.

-5.24 million: The number of viewers who tuned in to the first episode of Stars Earn Stripes, a 2012 NBC reality show in which Todd Palin and other celebrities competed to earn money for charities of their choice. That number fell to 2.88 million by the finale, and the show has yet to be renewed.

From a business perspective, the results are clear. Palin might be a good deal when it comes to book publishing, particularly if bulk sales to conservative book clubs and the like continue to bolster her overall figures. But it’s probably worth keeping an eye on her declining sales figures to peg her advances to. And when it comes to television, be it news analysis, dancing competitions, or getting stuck on the way up Mount McKinley, the Palins aren’t any more than utility players. Hollywood’s notorious for helping to facilitate upward failure. But even the Palins seem to be coming to the end of their chances to prove themselves big draws instead of utility players.

Texas Legislature Wants To Reward Companies That Deny Employees Contraception

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Jan 28, 2013 at 1:00 pm

A bill recently introduced in the Texas state house aims to reward employees who violate Obamacare, offering subsidies to any company that uses religious objection as an excuse for denying its employees copay-free contraception.

House Bill 649, introduced by state Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R), was apparently inspired by the controversy over craft chain store Hobby Lobby. That store sued to deny its employees contraception coverage, citing its male president’s religious objections. But since Hobby Lobby, and companies like it, will be forced to pay a fine for violating the law, Strickland wants to compensate them with tax breaks:

The tax credit would be limited to the amount of a federal fine that the company pays or the amount of state tax the company owes.

“When a business is being stressed nearly to the point of bankruptcy by punitive federal taxes, of course the state should give them relief,” Stickland said in the news release.[...]

“The Obama administration’s mandate and their threats to bury Hobby Lobby with $1.3 million per day in tax penalties aren’t just unconstitutional, they’re unconscionable,” he said. “It is simply appalling that any business owner should have to choose between violating their religious convictions and watching their business be strangled by the strong arm of Federal mandates and taxation.”

By offering to help compensate these companies, Strickland is accepting a drastic cut in funding to the Texas government. His plan proposes letting organizations like Hobby Lobby off the hook for state taxes up to the amount they owe in federal penalties. Since Hobby Lobby is estimated to owe a fine of $1.3 million a day (more, in a year, than it would be paying in state taxes), Hobby Lobby would get a pass on giving a single cent to the state of Texas.

But more importantly, it’s unlikely that this bill would survive if it went to the courts. Federal law does not simply supersede conflicting state law, it also invalidates state laws that “stand… as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress” — a doctrine known as “obstacle preemption.” Since the entire point of this Texas bill is to thwart a federal law, it would likely run afoul of this obstacle preemption.