Monday, June 29, 2015

If Each GOP Candidate Were a Conservative News Site, Which Would They Be?

If you were a tree, what kind of a tree would you be? I’d be a weeping willow because… sigh. More important question about personifying inanimate objects: If the 15 or so Republican presidential candidates were conservative news websites, which ones would they be?
Let’s attempt to answer that question because it’s Monday and we’re all in for a long 497 days until Election Day 2016.
Note: We’d make a companion piece for the Democrats and liberal news sites, but there are only four options. So here goes: Hillary Clinton is the Huffington Post; Bernie Sanders would be Democracy Now!; Martin O’Malley would be ThinkProgress; and Lincoln Chafee would be… oh man, is there even a site out there that would fit the profile?
And now the Republican field (yes, some haven’t announced yet)…
 
Donald Trump – Breitbart
trump_breitbart
Think of the most common words used to describe Donald Trump: “Blowhard,” “obnoxious,” “clownish,” “troll,” “windbag,” “xenophobic.” Sounds exactly like the preponderance of material coming out of Breitbart, right? (It also doesn’t hurt that Trump’s unofficial stenographer is the site’s most prized reporter.)

Marco Rubio – IJReview
rubio_ijreview
Did you know Senator Rubio is young(ish), likes hip hop, uses hashtags, and does clever non-old-person things? He’s one of the cool kids, you guys. #YOLO.

Ted Cruz – The Right Scoop
poop_cruz
If you are a loyal reader of The Right Scoop, you’d come away thinking literally every word uttered by Sen. Ted Cruz is “FANTASTIC” (all-caps required). No, really… take a look. With that in mind, it seems like the most appropriate fit.

Lindsey Graham – Washington Free Beacon
lindsey_wfb
Because Sen. Graham loves to troll; because he’s never met a war he didn’t like; and because hedespises Rand Paul. Oh, but he also knows it’s all about taking down Hillary Clinton in the end.

Mike Huckabee – NewsBusters
hucklebusters
If there’s a gay person kissing on your television, a voluptuous woman singing about sex on your radio, or a Hollywood celebrity saying something about Republicans or Christianity, Mike Huckabee is there to sermonize against it.

Scott Walker – NRO
walker_nro
Slightly wonkier than the rest, slightly more buttoned-up, classically conservative in the William F. Buckley tradition, and definitely opposed to unions.

Rick Santorum – TheBlaze
blaze_santorum
TheBlaze founder Glenn Beck once described former Sen. Rick Santorum as “the next George Washington,” and while it’s not a perfect fit, both the site and the candidate have an obvious appeal to “Real American” religious conservatives who homeschool their children and are terrified of the coming apocalypse.

Bobby Jindal – The Daily Signal
jindal_dailysig
Because he got in the race way too late and no one really cares.

Jeb Bush – The Weekly Standard
tws_bush
Because anything with the name “Bush” or “Cheney” would get the thumbs up from Bill Kristol & Co.

George Pataki – Power Line
pataki_pwl
Think of it this way: Years ago, Power Line had its time in the conservative spotlight when it broke the scandal that ended Dan Rather‘s CBS News career. Now, though? No one cares.

Ben Carson – WorldNetDaily
carson_wnd
Because the theory that prison sex proves homosexuality is definitively and always a “choice” is something you’d expect to see next to an article questioning President Obama’s birth certificate or a column suggesting the Sandy Hook school massacre might’ve been staged.

Carly Fiorina – The Daily Caller
fiorina_thedc
Because, yes, the Daily Caller is a staunchly conservative website that projects a tough-guy attitude, but occasionally it just wants to be a beautiful, strong woman.

Chris Christie – Wall Street Journal
wsj_christie
Well-moneyed, at one time considered the mainstream, and decidedly east coast when it comes to politics. Also because Jeb Bush was already taken.

Rand Paul – The Federalist
federalist_rand
Rick Perry – RedState
redstate_perry
The former Texas governor is as red state as they come. Sure, any of the southern state Republicans could embody the sensibilities of Erick Erickson‘s RedState blog, but the devoutly Christian Gov. Perry has had a long, close relationship with the site. This doesn’t hurt either.

HERO COP SINGLE-HANDEDLY TOOK DOWN ESCAPED CONVICT

In the end, it was a one-on-one battle between New York State Police Sergeant Jay Cook, 47, and escaped convict David Sweat, 35, in an upstate New York cornfield two miles south of the Canadian border.

Sweat fought the law and the law won.
Cook, a 21-year law enforcement veteran, was on patrol by himself Sunday about 3 pm eastern about 5 miles north of the 22-square mile search area where as many as 1,000 fellow officers were looking for Sweat, when he spotted a man dressed in camouflage clothing jogging on Coveytown Road in the Town of Constable, just 2 miles north of the Village of Malone, New York.
Cook called to the man to stop. Instead of stopping, the man looked back, turned north and plunged into farmer Tom McDonald’s cornfield, running straight towards a tree line a mile and a half from the border.
As the man turned to look at him briefly, Cook recognized the face. It was David Sweat, the still-at-large convict whose fellow escapee Richard Matt, 49, had been shot and killed 12 miles to the south just two days earlier.
Cook, who is also a firearms instructor for the troop to which he is assigned of the New York State Police (Troop B which covers Franklin, Clinton, St. Lawrence, and Essex Counties), grabbed his service weapon and took off after Sweat.
According to a 2006 press release, the Glock pistol, Model 37, .45 caliber, is the service weapon provided by the New York State Police to its 5,400 officers.
Cook soon realized he would not catch the escaped convict on foot before he reached the tree line.
He raised his service weapon, aimed at Sweat and fired twice.

[VIDEO] Chris Christie Teases Campaign Launch

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie released a video Sunday evening previewing his formal presidential announcement highlighting his commitment to “telling it like it is.”
The video seeks to cast Christie’s famously outspoken persona in a softer light, featuring the presidential candidate re-telling a familiar story from before his mother’s death. “There’s nothing left unsaid between us,” he says, quoting her at a New Hampshire town hall.
“You better tell them exactly what you’re thinking and exactly what you’re feeling,” Christie continues. “And when you ask about my moral compass, that’s it. That’s it.”
Christie, whose poll numbers have cratered at home and nationally following the politically motivated closures of lanes to the George Washington Bridge by former aides in 2013 and an ongoing fiscal crisis, is betting his political future on his unfiltered style and substance resonating with voters. His campaign’s strategy is New Hampshire-or-bust, seeking to follow the path of Sen. John McCain’s 2000 and 2008 bids.
But the “Straight Talk Express” is a lot more crowded this cycle, with more candidates seeking to appeal to voters by showing a willingness to stand up to the party base.
Leaving no doubt about the nature of Christie’s announcement Tuesday at his former high school in Livingston, New Jersey, the video is paid for by “Chris Christie for President, Inc.”

[VIDEO] Sanders Calls for Single Payer Health Care: ‘We Need to Join Rest of Industrialized World’

Senator and 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning that he would move for a “Medicare-for-all, single payer” health care system, though he acknowledged that this was not an immediately practical goal.
“We need to join the rest of the industrialized world,” Sanders said. “We are the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people as a right, and yet we end up spending much more than they do.”
“So I do believe that we have to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system,” Sanders said, adding that he had “certainly voted for” the ACA. “It’s not going to happen tomorrow, but that certainly should be the goal.”
 
Sanders’ comments come after the Supreme Court “saved” Obamacare by ruling in favor of its federal subsidies last week, the latest and perhaps last of the law’s major existential threats.
The socialist senator from Vermont is enjoying a mini-surge in the early primary states of New Hampshire and Iowa, making him the only Democratic figure to currently pose a plausible challenge to prohibitive frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Revealed: Feds predicted surge of illegals, see another 127,000 this year

Despite claims the administration was caught off guard, the White House and four Cabinet departments predicted last year's surge of at least 60,000 illegal juveniles over the U.S.-Mexico border and expect it to more than double to 127,000 this year, according to an internal document.
A 24-page administration PowerPoint for congressional appropriators dated April 22, 2014 bluntly stated that border arrivals of "unaccompanied alien children" would rise "by nearly a factor of 10" in 2014 to 60,000 and jump to 127,000 "if these growth rates continue." It is shown below.
Indications are that this year's surge won't meet that record number, but will be the second highest in recent history.
The document and accompanying graphs, provided by congressional sources, also set a price tag of $2 billion "to accommodate" the juveniles, some members of the MS-13 crime gang, this year.
The briefing counters claims by top federal officials that they didn't see the surge coming last year. President Obama called it an "urgent humanitarian situation" in seeking nearly $4 billion, and a top aide said it "was much larger than we anticipated."
It also indicated that the administration is changing its policy in handling the minors in a way that could expand the number allowed into the country, and is funnelling money to countries such as Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to reverse the trend.
Recent reports show that most of the illegal immigrants allowed into the United States have skipped out on their immigration and deportation hearings.
The appropriations briefing was presented by the Office of Management and Budget and the departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice and State.
Shocked at what's in the PowerPoint briefing, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz fired off a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell demanding answers raised in the briefing.
A sign at the Falfurrias Station's U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint about 70 miles north of McAllen, Texas, shows the tally of drugs and illegal immigrants taken by last July. AP Photo
Cruz, a leading Republican presidential candidate, said that it appears the administration is deceiving the public about surge of kids. Referring to the 24-page PowerPoint, he wrote Burwell that it "raises significant questions about whether the administration has been truthful with the American people and Congress about its knowledge of the scope of the UAC problem."

Citing the 2014 prediction, which was nearly correct, Cruz wrote, "Far from being an unforeseen crisis, the high number of UAC that approached the United States-Mexico border last summer appears to have been calmly predicted."

Global Financial Crisis: Greece, China, Puerto Rico Teetering On The Brink .... Could It Happen To The US?

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • China makes desperate move to prevent stock market crash
  • Puerto Rico’s governor says the island’s debts are ‘not payable’
  • Greece’s Tsipras appeals for calm after banks are forced to close
  • How complex systems fail

China makes desperate move to prevent stock market crash

People's Bank of China
People’s Bank of China
As we’ve been reporting, China’s stock markets have been in free fall since June 12, falling almost 20 percent in a couple of weeks.
Desperate Chinese officials are scrambling to stop the implosion and restore the bubble, and so the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) made a major move, cutting interest rates sharply, to a record low. This makes more money available to banks, which officials hope will flow into the stock markets and prop up stock prices.
According to a Nomura analyst quoted by ZeroHedge:
“The policy easing should be viewed as a measure to contain the risk of a hard landing or systemic crisis rather than one to achieve faster growth. In this case, the stronger-than-expected monetary easing may help stem the decline in the equity market following a 10.6 percent drop over the past two trading days. The positive wealth effect of the equity market on consumption or aggregate demand is limited in China, but an equity market collapse would hurt millions of mid-class households and pose great danger to the economy and social stability.”
In other words, the purpose of the policy measure is to prop up the stock market, but it will have little effect on growth, which is the “normal” purpose of interest rate easing. Whether it will even succeed in propping up the stock market and preventing “an equity market collapse” remains to be seen in the next few days.
As of this writing on Sunday evening ET (Monday morning in Shanghai), stocks are up two percent, though it’s been bouncing in and out of negative territory. (Bloomberg andZeroHedge and Reuters)

Supreme Court upholds use of drug implicated in botched executions

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the use of a controversial drug that has been implicated in several botched executions. Two of the justices said for first time that death penalty itself probably is unconstitutional.
The justices voted 5-4 in a case from Oklahoma that the sedative midazolam can be used in executions without violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
The drug was used in executions in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma in 2014 that took longer than usual and raised concerns that it did not perform its intended task of putting inmates into a coma-like sleep.
Justice Samuel Alito said for a conservative majority that arguments the drug could not be used effectively as a sedative in executions is speculative.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, "Under the court's new rule, it would not matter whether the state intended to use midazolam, or instead to have petitioners drawn and quartered, slowly tortured to death, or actually burned at the stake."
Alito responded, saying "the dissent's resort to this outlandish rhetoric reveals the weakness of its legal arguments."
In a separate dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer said the time has come for the court to debate whether the death penalty itself is constitutional. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Breyer's opinion.
The Supreme Court's involvement in the case began in January with an unusually public disagreement among the justices over executions.

MSNBC’s Schultz: America’s ‘Desecration’ of Confederate Flag is ‘Unproductive’

PicMonkey Collage - Schultz
During his podcast before his Thursday show on MSNBC, Ed Schultz offered his thoughts on the nationwide renewal of the controversy surrounding the Confederate flag. Schultz said that while he understood why people wanted to remove the flag from government buildings in wake of the Charleston shooting, “the attempt to erase American history as if it’s going to change our course as a nation” is an overboard response.

“The desecration of our nation’s history, I think, is dangerous and I think it’s unproductive,” Schultz said. He went on to defend the flag as a part of America’s roots, saying that eradication would not do as much good as putting the flag into a context that teaches and recognizes the historical progression of national values.
“I think its display in public places, number one, is misplaced and it should be corrected and it is being corrected,” Shucltz said. “But to erase the roots of our country serves no purpose for future generations.”
Schultz also took a moment to address the tragic irony that “it took the death of nine people for us to realize, you know, maybe that flag is the wrong message.” Schultz concluded that the Confederate flag still offers value by sending a message that “where we were as a country back then is not where we are today”:
“I think it serves no purpose to this country for future generations if we’re going to totally rewrite the history books and I see an avalanche starting with the removal of the Confederate flag. We have to do this in a smart way.”

After Tunisia, Kuwait and France we should not be afraid to call evil by its name

Today, 'a quieter moment, one all but lost in the calamity and grief of this bloody Friday. The Queen visited Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp where unspeakable brutality reigned.'



In France, in Tunisia, in Kuwait – horror upon horror, in a single day. It played out like some kind of gruesome auction, each atrocity bidding against the others for our appalled attention. The opening offer came near Lyon, where a factory was attacked and, more shocking, a severed head was found on top of a gate, and a decapitated body nearby. The French president said the corpse had been inscribed with a message.
From the Tunisian resort of Sousse, holidaymakers tweeted terrified pictures from their barricaded hotel rooms, describing how they had fled from the beach after sounds they had assumed were a daytime fireworks display turned out to be the opening gunshots of a massacre. From Kuwait City, as if to top the rival bids, a suicide bomber walked into a mosque packed with 2,000 people and pressed the button that he hoped would send scores to their deaths.
Each of these acts pulled our gaze from the event its perpetrators had surely hoped would trump all others. On Tuesday an Isis video – “snuff movie” would be the more accurate term – showed five Muslim men, each wearing a Guantánamo-style red jumpsuit, packed into a cage and lowered into a swimming pool. State-of-the-art underwater cameras recorded the men’s dying minutes, the thrashing and flailing as they drowned. (I rely here on reports: my small stance against the so-called Islamic State’s propaganda war is to refuse to watch its propaganda.)
What are we to make of these events? What are we to do with what we have witnessed? Experts will look for connections, for common authorship. There will be claims of responsibility. Islamic State has already sought credit for the deaths in Kuwait. There will be analysis aplenty of IS’s position, of the global response, of the nature of contemporary terrorism.


WAPO: RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS COULD SUFFER ‘IN A BIG WAY’ THANKS TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE RULING


The start of the erosion of religious liberty emanating from the Supreme Court’s decision that approved same-sex marriage throughout the nation is officially underway. The Washington Post observes that because “real money” is involved in legal marriage, the ruling could cause religious schools that ban homosexual relationships and cohabitation to suffer “in a big way” with the loss of tax-exempt status and accreditation.
“Marriage is a potent symbol, first and foremost, but it also means real money,” wrote Max Ehrenfreund at WaPo Friday. “Same-sex couples pay all kinds of unexpected costs if they can’t marry, and housing and benefits at religious institutions is another example.”
Similarly, in anticipation of the Court’s decision in Obergefell, Laurie Goodstein and Adam Liptak of the New York Times wrote Wednesday:
Conservative religious schools all over the country forbid same-sex relationships, from dating to couples’ living in married-student housing, and they fear they will soon be forced to make a wrenching choice. If the Supreme Court this month finds a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the schools say they will have to abandon their policies that prohibit gay relationships or eventually risk losing their tax-exempt status.
According to the Times, the Internal Revenue Service may feel compelled to remove the tax-exempt status of religious schools if they continue to ban gay relationships and cohabitation “as a violation of a ‘fundamental national public policy’ under the reasoning of a 1983 Supreme Court decision that allowed the agency to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that banned interracial relationships.”

Sundays will never be the same

While the witch-hunt against Confederate flags, statues, paintings and even stained glass windows continues to distract the masses, it’s really the churches Big Government most covet

 Now that Gay Day June 26th has come to pass,  and Barack Obama had the White House flooded in the colours of the gay rainbow, Sundays will never be the same.    Sunday, that is, as the day Christians come to church to worship the Creator.  The progressives want Sunday, and as sure as Lucifer is now calling the shots, they will be coming for it.

Sunday, the day of rest, will ultimately become the day of arrest.

While the witch-hunt against Confederate flags, statues, paintings and even stained glass windows continues to distract the masses, it’s really the churches Big Government most covet.

Before too long churches of every denomination will be incubators for ridding society of Christianity.

Seeking to replace the Christian God with Gaia; having long ago driven the Almighty out of the public square, progressives have decreed the Christian God as a false one and will have no false gods before them.

Instead of taking home profound reminders of the Gospel, worshippers who still turn out for Sunday service will be given pamphlets teaching them how to save the Earth as the ongoing cycle of Gaia replacing Christianity comes full bore.

Over time, congregants will be instructed from the pulpit that homosexuals practice a kind of love that cannot be described as sodomy.  Christian believers with the temerity to argue that this isn’t the truth will be left to the mercy of their pastors, pastors who are capable of having fellow congregants turn on them as hate-worthy ‘homophobes’. 

The progressives are imposing on society the unreal as the real.  How long will it be before self-made celebrities like Bruce Jenner and twerking Miley Cyrus will be brought up to the pulpit to lecture church goers that “love is love”?


Sunday, June 28, 2015

[FLASHBACK] Q&A With Judge Robert Bork: Moral Life of Nation Could be Decided by One Judge


Judge Robert Bork with President Ronald Reagan (Wikimedia Commons)[Editor's Note: In this interview with CNSNews.com in 2009, Judge Robert Bork warned that just "one judge"--Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy--effectively had the power to decide "the moral life of the nation.” Bork made the assertion after warning: "But we are going to see in the near future a terrible conflict between claimed rights of homosexuals and religious freedom. You are going to get Catholic hospitals that are going to be required as a matter of law to perform abortions.  You are going to get Catholic or other groups’ relief services that are going to be required to allow adoption of a child by homosexual couples.  We are going to have a real conflict that goes right to the heart of the society.”] 
(CNSNews.com) - “Now, it’s a funny situation in which the moral life of a nation is in effect decided by one judge, because you have four solid liberal votes, four solid originalist votes, and one vote you can’t predict too accurately in advance,” said Judge Robert Bork, reflecting on the balance of the U.S. Supreme Court, in an interview with CNSNews.com.
Bork was pondering what the outcome might be if the court at some future point were to answer the question of whether the government has the constitutional authority to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.
It is Justice Anthony Kennedy whom Bork believes holds the court’s deciding vote on such issues.
The judge spoke with CNSNews.com Editor in Chief Terry Jeffrey in a videotaped interview Jan. 8, 2009. Here is a transcript of the conversation.
Jeffrey: Welcome to “Online with Terry Jeffrey.” Our guest on this program is Judge Robert Bork. Judge Bork was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He received both his bachelor’s degree and law degree from the University of Chicago. He was a law professor at the Yale University Law School. He served as solicitor general of the United States, and as acting attorney general of the United States.  He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan.
He has written several books, including “The Tempting of America” and “Slouching Towards Gomorrah.” His latest book is “A Time to Speak.” It is published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, where I also happen to be a visiting fellow.
Judge Bork, thanks for agreeing to this interview and inviting us into your home.
Bork: Well, I am glad and I intend to enjoy it.


Jeffrey: Me too, sir. One of the essays published in the book is “Olympians on the March: The Court and the Culture Wars,” which you published back in 2004. I want to read you a passage that you wrote.

Bork: Oh my.

Jeffrey: I am going to hold you accountable. You said: “Only a draconian response to unconstitutional court decisions remains. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ordered the state’s legislature to amend its statutory law to permit homosexual marriage.  It is, or should seem, extraordinary that a court should order a legislature to amend and enact laws. The underlying decision is so self-evidently an act of judicial usurpation of the legislative function, and so wrong as a matter of constitutional interpretation that it might seem that any self-respecting legislature would simply refuse to comply, and if it did comply, that the governor would veto the bill. So accustomed have we become to judicial supremacy, however, that such a course sounds revolutionary. Yet there must be some means of standing up to a court that itself is behaving unconstitutionally in very serious matters.”
You have these issues—this is the issue of marriage—there’s not too many other issues I can think of that would go more fundamentally to what a culture and society is about.  It is being redefined by judges. What can the people do to respond to that kind of judicial usurpation?


Bork: Well, one thing they can do is amend the constitution, amend the state constitution. Of course, that doesn’t always work because the judges then--right now Jerry Brown in California is arguing, he’s the attorney general, he’s arguing that an amendment to the California constitution is unconstitutional.

Jeffrey: Right, this is Proposition 8.

Bork: Yeah. There’s no end to the gall of some of these folks. But amending the constitution is the clearest route.  Beyond that, the cures are longer term. They would involve replacing these judges with other judges.  If it’s an elective system, when they come up for reelection, vote them out and get new judges.  If it’s not, wait until they retire or die, and then get new judges.  But as long as we insist upon treating judges as the final word no matter what they say, we’re in trouble.

Via: CNS News
Continue Reading....

Having Trouble, Hillary? Free Tickets To Fundraiser Send Bad Message

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton delivers her "official launch speech" at a campaign kick off rally in Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in New York City, June 13, 2015.  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid  -
Virginia Democrats were offered free tickets Friday to the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Virginia, Hillary Clinton’s first campaign stop in the critical swing state.
In an email leaked to Business Insider, supporters of Clinton’s campaign in Virginia were given a chance to forego the $30 price for tickets to the event, as long as they provide the code included in the email. The event was intended to support democratic fundraising for the state, but Clinton’s appearance and speech are geared toward garnering support among East Coast Democrats.
An operative for a 2016 Republican candidate took a shot at the Democratic frontrunner, referencing the irony surrounding her previous PR disaster of her speech prices.
“How bad is it out there for Hillary? She’s gone from paid speeches to paying people to hear her speeches.”
This isn’t the first time Hillary has struggled to fill seats. In early June, a Clinton event in New York marketed as “just for women” switched to co-ed at the last minute, when the campaign discovered the large amount of $2,700-a-seat tickets that went unsold.
Virginia Democratic Party Communications Director Stephen Carter told Business Insider the free ticket giveaway is not reflective of poor fundraising, since the event raised more money than it has before.
He confirmed the campaign sold 2,000 tickets of the 10,000-seat Patriot Center at George Mason University. (RELATED: Hillary’s Email Claim To State Department Falls Apart)

Supreme Court Ruling On Gay Marriage May Pave Way For Expanded Gun Rights…

With the high court’s latest ruling on same-sex marriages, some contend the decision could lead to increased gun rights, specifically national CCW reciprocity, by using the same argument.
Friday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and recognize those sanctioned by other states.
“No longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the landmark decision that arguably made same sex marriage a reality in the 13 remaining states that continued to ban the practice.
With similar logic applied, gun rights advocates argue that the nation’s patchwork of firearms laws governing the concealed carry of handguns are now circumspect under the same guidelines. In short, they reason if marriage equality is guaranteed from state to state, then so should concealed carry rights.
“To paraphrase what Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy said about same-sex marriage,” noted Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb in a statement Friday, “no right is more profound than the right of self-preservation, and under the Constitution, all citizens should be able to exercise the right of self-defense anywhere in the country. It disparages their ability to do so, and diminishes their personhood to deny the right to bear arms they have in their home states when they are visiting other states.”
While every state has a framework to issue concealed carry permits, they are under no obligation to recognize those issued by other states and territories. For example, Illinois and Hawaii only recognize permits issued by their respective jurisdictions. In contrast, Ohio recognizes licenses from any other state regardless of whether Ohio has entered into a reciprocity agreement.

Tired of high taxes? Maybe it's time to move

Everyone complains about taxes. But millions of American households apparently are doing something about it: Picking up and moving.
A CNBC analysis of tax data and figures provided by two major national moving companies shows that states with the highest per-capita taxes, for the most part, are also seeing the biggest net migration out of those states.
Take Connecticut, for example.
Earlier this week, the Nutmeg State's legislature approved a collection of new taxes to close a two-year, $40 billion budget to help pay the multibillion-dollar tab to repair and replace the state's dilapidated roads and bridges. The package includes a 50-cent-per-pack hike in cigarette taxes and a bump in tax rates on corporations and the state's wealthiest earners.
The budget battle drew heated debate, along with threats from large employers like General Electric, which issued a rare statement that it might consider moving its Fairfield headquarters.
Republican opponents warned that the tax hikes would likely drive residents to flee to lower-tax states. One legislator suggested that a local moving-and-storage company up for sale should do a booming business moving households from the state.
"I think the best buy in Connecticut right now is a business for sale in Westport," Michael A. McLachlan, R-Danbury, told the AP earlier this month as the debate wore on. "For $650,000, a sharp investor can get up and increase this business into a mega moving company, because that's what people are going to be doing, starting today."
Based on an analysis of 10 years of tax data and the figures provided by United Van Lines and Atlas Van Lines, Sen. McLachlan may be on to something.

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