Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

-Ephesians 5:11-13

Small Victory in Congressional War Against Operation Chokepoint

Friday, 30 January 2015 05:54
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, January 29, 2015:

Logo of the United States Federal Deposit Insu...

Following a meeting between Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) and the chairman and vice-chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Wednesday morning, the FDIC issued some changes in how it will enforce Operation Chokepoint.  

Luetkemeyer, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, and Representative Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, have focused on the abuses, intimidation, and blackmail tactics used in the Operation Chokepoint program to shut down retail gun shops, along with payday lenders and other businesses suffering from what the Obama administration calls “reputational” risks. 

In what Kelsey Harkness, a journalist at the Daily Signal, called “dramatic steps” in the battle to dismantle the program, she said that Luetkemeyer told her in a telephone conversation: 

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Questions Senators Won’t Be Asking Loretta Lynch, Obama’s Attorney General Nominee

Thursday, 29 January 2015 04:40
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, January 28, 2015:

Today and tomorrow, President Obama’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as attorney general, Loretta Lynch (shown), will face questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s highly unlikely that any of those questions will focus on how her office handled the case of Felix Sater while she was U.S. district attorney in New York (details on the Sater case further down). Without that information being obtained, however, her confirmation hearings will miss a vital part of understanding just how Lynch is likely to handle the job as attorney general.

Instead, she is more likely to be asked about Obama’s policies using executive privilege not only to impose delays on deporting illegal immigrants, but also to mark up ObamaCare according to his own views, and to launch a war in Libya.

She may well waffle when

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Koch Brothers’ Network to Spend $900 Million on 2016 Elections

Wednesday, 28 January 2015 06:07
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, January 27, 2015: 

Spokesmen for Freedom Partners, the Koch Brothers-funded “chamber of commerce” and sponsor of their annual winter meeting in Palm Springs, announced last weekend that its network of over 200 wealthy conservatives is planning on raising nearly $900 million to invest in the 2016 elections. This is more than double what the network raised and spent during the 2012 presidential campaign, and exceeds what both political parties spent that year put together. 

Freedom Partners is building on the momentum from the November elections that gave Republicans control of the Senate and expanded their majority in the House of Representatives. As Freedom Partners President Marc Short remarked, “2014 was nice but there’s a long way to go.” He noted that his group’s ultimate goal is to make the ideals of a free market “central” in American society, adding, “Politics is a necessary means to that end.” Freedom Partners invested more than $400 million in those midterm elections. 

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Obama to Put Alaska’s Wildlife Refuge Off Limits to Drilling

Monday, 26 January 2015 12:02
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, January 26, 2015:

On Sunday the White House released a 58-second-long YouTube video of President Obama announcing that his Interior Department was about to present a “comprehensive plan” to “make sure that this amazing wonder [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — ANWR] is preserved for future generations.” That designation concerns the 1.5-million acre coastal plain of the ANWR, precisely the area that has been the focus of controversy since the late 1970s. It is said to have more than 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil beneath its surface, and has served as a political football between the oil industry and environmentalists ever since. 

The reaction by Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski was instant: 

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Oil Price Decline Hurting Alaska the Most

Monday, 26 January 2015 11:54
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, January 26, 2015:

State Seal of Alaska.

Although oil-producing states such as North Dakota and Texas are expected to suffer declines in revenues if oil prices continue to drop, other states such as Wyoming, Louisiana, and especially Alaska will feel much more than just a temporary pinch. According to the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Service,

If lower prices persist through 2015, the economies and finances of the energy producing states — Louisiana, Alaska, Wyoming, New Mexico, Oklahoma and North Dakota — will be put to the test.

Oil and mineral revenues account for a third of Wyoming’s budget, one-sixth of New Mexico’s, and one-eighth of Louisiana’s, while Texas — the state that, standing alone, would be the eighth-largest oil-producing country in the world — counts on less than

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Obama shuts down Oil Drilling in Alaska’s ANWR

Monday, 26 January 2015 11:46
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This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, January 26, 2015:

There’s no way, of course, that Thomas Jefferson could have known that President Obama would do everything he could to advance his unconstitutional agenda through audacious moves that challenged legitimate authority. But he knew that someone like him would show up, sooner or later. Wrote Jefferson:

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

On Sunday the White House released a YouTube video of the president doing precisely what Jefferson was worried about: doing an end run around Congress and imposing a “comprehensive plan” from his Interior Department to prohibit forever any kind of energy development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). He even had the audacity to invite Congress to ratify his actions by inviting it to designate that part of the coast where oil developers would drill as a Protected Wilderness Area. Knowing in advance that the Republican-controlled Congress would deep-six his suggestion, he made it plain that his Interior Department would accomplish the task for him without the necessity of Congressional approval. Said Obama, in his 58-second announcement:

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Will Officer Wilson Suffer PTSD like Zimmerman?

Friday, 23 January 2015 17:04
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This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, January 23, 2015:

Regions of the brain affected by PTSD and stress.

Regions of the brain affected by PTSD and stress.

Now that it appears that former Police Officer Darren Wilson will be acquitted of any charges of violating the civil rights of teenage thug Michael Brown in his shooting death last August, some are suggesting that Wilson will soon be able to resume a normal life. They haven’t read what WebMD has to say about Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and how George Zimmerman is still having trouble getting his life back on track after being acquitted in June, 2013.

Calling it a “serious condition,” WebMD says that PTSD

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New York State County Sheriff Trashes State’s Handgun Renewals

Friday, 23 January 2015 16:57
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, January 23, 2015:

Map of New York highlighting Fulton County

Map of New York highlighting Fulton County

The sheriff of Fulton County, New York, Thomas Lorey, made a presentation to some Second Amendment supporters on Friday, January 16. The next day seven minutes of it was posted on YouTube. He told them that Fulton County has been targeted by New York’s state capital, Albany, for a “pilot program” to see if those owning handguns in his county would desire to renew their permits to possess them early, for a small fee of $15. (In New York, one must have a permit to even own a handgun.) He was very against renewing the permits early, or renewing them at all, for that matter. He explained:

I want to set the record straight. Fulton County is one of the pilot counties.… They are going to send out 500 invitations to my county and that’s all they are … invitations.

I’m asking everyone that gets those invitations to throw them in the trash because that is where they belong.

Mike Piccone, the Guns & Gear editor for the conservative blog The Daily Caller, gave a bit of background to the circumstances:

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Officer Darren Wilson to be Acquitted of Civil Rights Violations

Friday, 23 January 2015 06:26
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, January 22, 2015:

Former Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson will not be charged with violating Michael Brown’s civil rights in last August’s shooting. Officials with the Department of Justice are said to be drafting a memorandum outlining the DOJ’s position with final approval expected to be granted without fanfare in the next couple of months by Attorney General Eric Holder.

The FBI’s investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Wilson revealed nothing different from what already turned up in the investigation by the grand jury, which exonerated Wilson completely last November. FBI investigators interviewed more than 200 people, analyzed cellphone audio and video surrounding the shooting along with Wilson’s gun, clothing, and other evidence from the scene. The results of three separate autopsies of Brown were also scrutinized during the FBI’s investigation.

It was unlikely from the first that charges would be brought by the DOJ against Wilson for civil rights violations

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Police Have for Years Used Radar Scanners to See Into Homes

Wednesday, 21 January 2015 14:15
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, January 21, 2015:

After serving jail time for committing an armed robbery, Steven Denson was out on parole. When he failed to report to his parole officer, authorities, after an intensive search, were about to conclude that Denson was gone for good.

Eventually, however, they found that Denson had opened an account for utilities services in Wichita, Kansas. Police obtained an arrest warrant and went out to see if he was home. It had just snowed and they noted footprints in the backyard and the utility meter spinning, giving them reasonable cause to believe that Denson was home.

Just to make sure, however, one of the officers pulled out his

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Many of the articles on Light from the Right first appeared on either The New American or the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor.