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Opposing federal gun control laws, Alaska tries nullification
After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, President Obama and other gun-control advocates have urged Congress to develop bipartisan gun-control legislation. In addition, the president signed 23 executive actions to help curb gun violence.
Lawmakers in some states have responded to the push for new regulations with their own statewide proposals. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo led the charge as the first governor since the Sandy Hook shooting to sign gun-control legislation into law. The legislation calls for a statewide gun registry and places restrictions on ammunition magazines.
Other states have moved in the opposite direction, with lawmakers crafting bills that seek to make federal gun-control laws unenforceable within the borders of their state.
The latest on the list? Alaska. On Monday, the state’s Republican-led House voted passed a bill that would exempt Alaskans from following federal gun laws. Federal agents who attempt to enforce them would be subject to felony charges.
If this sounds like nullification to you, that was exactly what the bill’s sponsor, Speaker Mike Chenault had in mind. In a January press conference, Chenault, a Republican, told a local reporter that individuals in his district were “looking at nullification” in response to President Obama’s executive actions.
The Alaska law passed the House in a 31-5 vote. But there’s a good chance it won’t pass constitutional muster, given the fact that nullification became a thing of the past in 1833, when Andrew Jackson was in office.
The Anchorage Daily News reports that legislative attorney Kathleen Strasbaugh alerted Chenault to the fact that his proposed bill was “largely unconstitutional.”
Chenault is by no means out in the cold in looking for a way to repel the federal government on gun control. At least 15 states are on a similar track. Gary Marbut, a Montana gun lobbyist, proposed a “Sheriffs First” bill, which would give county sheriffs the authority to decide which federal laws can be enforced in their county. If a federal agent neglected to consult with the sheriff prior to arresting someone suspected of violating a federal law, that agent would be subject to arrest and charged with kidnapping. The bill was recently cleared by the state’s House Judiciary Committee.
msnbc
President Obama Speaks on the Impact of the Sequester VIDEO
Watch President Obama Speaks on the Impact of the Sequester Full VIDEO
President Obama highlights the devastating impact of automatic budget cuts on jobs and middle class families if Congressional Republicans fail to compromise to avert the sequester. February 26, 2013.
And then there were eight – Gov. Chris Christie Embrasses Obamacare!
From Maddow Blog
As recently as July, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) was not at all fond of the Medicaid expansion policy in the Affordable Care Act. In a speech at a D.C. think tank, he called the Obama administration’s policy “extortion.”
That was last year. This year, the governor has found more to like about the policy.
Gov. Chris Christie will expand the state’s Medicaid program to cover 300,000 uninsured New Jersey residents, The Star-Ledger learned today. [...]
As for his decision to expand Medicaid, the Republican governor, a critic of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, could reap up to $300 million by expanding the state program in the coming budget year.
For weeks, a coalition of labor, religious, family and consumer groups waged an aggressive letter-writing and media campaign encouraging Christie to expand the Medicaid program. Doing so, they argued, would allow 300,000 uninsured and childless people to apply for Medicaid.
Christie is now the eighth Republican governor to accept Medicaid expansion — as recently as early December, there were zero — and as Sarah Kliff noted, “Taken together, these eight states will extend Obamacare’s coverage expansion to 3.2 million Americans.”
Of course, the politics of this is hard to miss. Indeed, they’re likely to be quite consequential.
John Boehner: Sequester Requires Senate To Get ‘Off Their Ass’
With the sequester budget cuts set to kick in Friday, House Speaker John Boehner had a message for his colleagues in the Senate: Get off your “ass.”
The Ohio Republican congressman delivered that message Tuesday, as President Barack Obama headed to Newport News, Va., to send a similar, although less pungent, message to Republicans in Congress. Obama planned to use a shipyard as a backdrop to illustrate the impact of the impending cuts, which would trim $85 billion from the federal budget over the rest of the year.
Obama and Democrats in the Senate have been blaming the GOP for refusing to move on a package to replace the blunt sequester cuts — mandated as part of the 2011 deal to raise the debt ceiling and reduce deficits — with a mix of cuts and tax hikes.
But Boehner countered Tuesday morning that the House had already passed two bills in the last session of Congress to replace the sequester. Although both of those — which Democrats panned as entirely unbalanced — expired with the start of the current Congress, Boehner colorfully declared it was time for the White House and the Senate to act.
“The president has known for 16 months that this sequester was looming out there when the super committee failed to come to an agreement,” Boehner told reporters on Capitol Hill. “And so for 16 months, the president has been traveling all over the country holding rallies instead of sitting down with Senate leaders in order to try to forge an agreement over there in order to move a bill.
“We have moved a bill in the House twice. We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something,” Boehner added.
He also accused Obama of heading to Virginia “to use our military men and women as a prop.”
Source: huffingtonpost
Iranian Press Photoshops Sleeves On To Michelle Obama’s Dress
Iran’s FARS News Agency restricted First Lady Michelle Obama’s right to bare arms following her appearance at Sunday night’s Academy Awards by digitally altering her dress in an online report about the event.
Obama’s shoulder-baring Oscars dress became one with sleeves covering her shoulders and upper arms in the report.
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