NRA Publishes List of Gun Control Advocates

By Erin Haust 

Jan 09, 2013 

 

Unions, celebrities, advocacy groups, writers and newspapers all made the list. After the Journal News published the names and addresses of more than 33,000 legal handgun permit holders, making families, homes and neighborhoods vulnerable to theft and assault, the National Rifle Association decided to hit back. If the intent of the newspaper was to shame those with gun permits living in their community, the NRA has upped the game by publishing the names of gun control advocates all over the country. Many of the names on the list are companies, organizations and individuals that are guarded by armed security. (Click the link above)

 

[ed. How many of these organizations are paid for by George Soros?...]

Court says Obama exceeded authority in making appointments

By Robert Barnes and Steven Mufson,
January 25, 2013

President Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by making appointments when the Senate was on a break last year, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court’s broad ruling would sharply limit the power that presidents throughout history have used to make recess appointments in the face of Senate opposition and inaction.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit flatly rejected the Obama administration’s rationale for appointing three members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) while the Senate was on a holiday break.

Chief Judge David B. Sentelle sharply criticized the administration’s interpretation of when recess appointments may be made, saying it would give the president “free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction.” He added, “This cannot be the law.”
The issue seems certain to end up before the Supreme Court, which ultimately could clarify a president’s authority to fill his administration and appoint federal judges when a minority of the Senate blocks consideration of his choices.
Although recess appointments have been made throughout the nation’s history, they have been more commonly made by modern presidents who face partisan opposition that has made it hard for nominees to even receive a vote in the Senate.
Additionally, Friday’s decision casts doubt on hundreds of decisions the NLRB has made in the past year, ranging from enforcement of collective-bargaining agreements to rulings on the rights of workers to use social media.
The ruling also raises questions about the recess appointment of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to head the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and about the actions taken by the agency during his tenure, including major new rules governing the mortgage industry. Obama named Cordray at the same time as the NLRB nominees, and his appointment is the subject of a separate lawsuit in D.C. federal court.
The White House criticized the court ruling. “The decision is novel and unprecedented, and it contradicts 150 years of practice by Democratic and Republican administrations,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Friday. “We respectfully but strongly disagree with the ruling.”
Presidents from both parties have made hundreds of recess appointments when the Senate has failed to act on nominations. Ronald Reagan holds the record with 243. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, made 105, and it was during his term that Senate Democrats began holding pro-forma sessions, some lasting less than a minute, when the Senate went on break. They contended that that kept the Senate in session and did not allow Bush to make recess appointments.
Republicans took up the practice when Obama was elected. But Obama decided to challenge it in January 2012, when the Senate was on a 20-day holiday but holding pro-forma sessions every three business days to block presidential action.
Obama moved ahead with the nomination of Cordray, who many Republicans considered overly antagonistic toward business, and three NLRB members — Sharon Block, Terence F. Flynn and Richard F. Griffin Jr.
At the time, the NLRB had only two members and was thus unable to take any official action. Some Republicans were worried that the board under Obama would be too pro-union.

Obama said he had the authority under the Constitution’s recess appointments clause, which grants power for such appointments “during the Recess of the Senate,” when senators are unavailable to provide their advice and consent.
Sentelle, joined by Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson and Thomas B. Griffith, said that the Constitution’s reference to “the Recess” means that appointments are allowed only during the recess between sessions of the Senate, not when the Senate is simply on a break. It was not up to the president to decide what constitutes a recess, Sentelle said.
The ruling noted that another federal appeals court has read the Constitution differently, which adds to the likelihood the Supreme Court will have to settle the issue.
Sentelle and Henderson went where apparently no other court has gone. They said that the president has the authority to make appointments only to vacancies that arise during a recess, which would drastically limit a president’s ability to make use of the recess appointment power.
A senior administration official who was granted anonymity to discuss White House legal strategy said it was unlikely that the White House would ask the full D.C. Circuit court to take up the case. The official said it might be better to wait for other courts around the country to rule on similar cases and then seek Supreme Court review.
Senate Republicans said the decision was a victory for the separation of powers.
“Today’s ruling reaffirms that the Constitution is above political party or agenda, despite what the Obama administration seems to think,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).
Some Democrats said the ruling will encourage Senate Republicans to block Obama’s nominees by refusing to allow them to come to a vote.
“Today’s circuit court decision is not only a radical departure from precedent, it ignores the fact that President Obama had no choice but to act,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Harkin said that “throughout his presidency, Republicans have employed unprecedented partisan delay tactics and filibusters” to block Obama’s nominees.
The case was brought by Noel Canning, a company in Washington state that challenged an NLRB ruling by saying the three Obama board members were not properly appointed. The court’s ruling on Noel’s behalf leaves hundreds of decisions in which the three members have participated open to court challenge. Block and Griffin continue to serve. Flynn resigned last year.
NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce said the board, which now has only three members, will continue with business as usual.
“It should be noted that this order applies to only one specific case, Noel Canning, and that similar questions have been raised in more than a dozen cases pending in other courts of appeals,” Pearce said in a statement on the board’s Web site.
But labor unions were alarmed. “Chaos” is the way Pamela Allen, legal director of National Nurses United, described the effect of the court ruling. She said, “It’s a field day for the employers. This decision will be appealed, but to a [Supreme] Court that hasn’t always been friendly to labor over the years.”
Allen said that hundreds of NLRB rulings might be contested by employers. One example, she said, was a recent ruling to force a rural California hospital to award back pay to union activists and to accept a vote by its nurses to let the union bargain on their behalf.
Charles I. Cohen, a former NLRB member and senior counsel in the labor and employment practice of the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, said the result of the court ruling was “a cloud” over the NLRB that would “present a quandary for employers about how to comply with the law.”
The work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could also be in jeopardy because the law requires the agency to have a director in place before it can exercise its power to write regulations and enforce them.
In the past three weeks alone, the bureau has issued seven rules changing the way that homeowners interact with the mortgage industry by limiting upfront fees, providing free appraisals and curtailing harmful practices such as interest-only payments, among other things.
“There will be lots of lawsuits, lots of uncertainty about what the rules of the road are, and lots of taxpayer money wasted on things that potentially turn out to be invalid,” said Andrew J. Pincus, an attorney who represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Cordray’s recess appointment expires at the end of this year. Obama renominated him on Thursday, but GOP leaders have said they continue to oppose him.


Danielle Douglas, Scott Wilson and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Attack on family in Compton latest incident in wave of anti-black violence

By Sam Quinones, Richard Winton and Joe Mozingo

January 25, 2013

A Latino gang is intimidating blacks into leaving the city that was once an African American enclave. It's part of a violent trend seen in other parts of the L.A. area.

The trouble began soon after they arrived. The black family—a mother, three teenage children and a 10-year-old boy—moved into a little yellow home in Compton over Christmas vacation.
When a friend came to visit, four men in a black SUV pulled up and called him a "nigger," saying black people were barred from the neighborhood, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. They jumped out, drew a gun on him and beat him with metal pipes.
It was just the beginning of what detectives said was a campaign by a Latino street gang to force an African American family to leave.
The attacks on the family are the latest in a series of violent incidents in which Latino gangs targeted blacks in parts of greater Los Angeles over the last decade.
Compton, with a population of about 97,000, was predominantly black for many years. It is now 65% Latino and 33% black, according to the 2010 U.S. census. But it's not only historically black areas that have been targeted.
Federal authorities have alleged in several indictments in the last decade that the Mexican Mafia prison gang has ordered street gangs under its control to attack African Americans. Leaders of the Azusa 13 gang were sentenced to lengthy prison terms earlier this month for leading a policy of attacking African American residents and expelling them from the town.
Similar attacks have taken place in Harbor Gateway, Highland Park, Pacoima, San Bernardino, Canoga Park and Wilmington, among other places. In the Compton case, sheriff's officials say the gang appears to have been acting on its own initiative.
Sheriff's detectives said Friday they had arrested Jeffrey Aguilar, 19, of Gardena and Efren Marquez, 21, of Rialto, both alleged members of the Compton Varrio 155 gang, and are continuing to look for more assailants.
"This family has no gang ties whatsoever," Sheriff's Lt. Richard Westin said. "They are complete innocent victims here."
The 19-year-old family friend managed to break free that first day and run into the house, where the children were the only ones at home.
The attackers left, but a half-hour later a crowd of as many as 20 people stood on the lawn yelling threats and epithets. A beer bottle crashed through the living room window as the youngsters watched in horror.
"They were scared if they called the sheriff they'd be killed," Westin said. "So they called their mom, who called the Sheriff's Department."
The gang members were gone by the time deputies arrived, but they kept coming back, almost daily, driving by slowly until they got someone's attention, then yelling racial insults and telling them to leave. The mother sent the children to live with relatives and is now packing up to leave herself.
"This gang has always made it clear they have a racial hatred for black people," said Westin, who has worked in the area for more than two decades. "They justify in their own sick minds because of their rivalry with the Compton black gangs. They repeatedly used racial epithets, they use racial hatred graffiti and they tag up the black church a lot."
At the home on 153rd Street on Friday, the rain-drenched street was empty and quiet. But the gang's presence was clear.
Its tags marked several long walls, stop signs, curbs and school crossing signs — often with the nicknames of individual gang members included.
Crews remove the graffiti almost every morning.
Down the street, the Greater Holy Faith Missionary Baptist Church — a remnant from the time when Compton was almost all black — is often tagged, most recently, just below the cross.
Neighbors say its pastors come on Sundays and no longer live in the area.

[ed. Trouble in the multicultural paradise...this is only going to get worse.]