The economics of his tariffs, as we argued last week, are a mixed bag. While obviously the steel and aluminum industries will benefit — indeed, companies are already announcing expansion and jobs — industries dependent on steel and aluminum will suffer, jobs will be lost and many products will become more expensive.
            But those aren’t Trump’s only considerations. During his televised signing ceremony, he declared, “Today I’m defending America’s national security by placing tariffs on foreign imports of steel and aluminum.” Aside from any real national security concerns, there are two reasons for his focus. First, in order to act without Congress, he must justify it on national security grounds. Were the tariffs only for economic reasons, he’d be stuck waiting. Second, the same justification avoids World Trade Organization sanctions.
            From a strategic perspective, Trump’s tariffs are 90% “art of the deal” and 10% bluster — a shot over the bow of NAFTA nations as well as China (see North Korea for why that’s true). Trump is a dealmaker first and foremost, and he arguably knows more about business than any previous president in history — and most definitely more than many of the talkingheads churning the news-cycle rant loop about tariffs. He’s using that knowledge for the purposes of foreign policy.
            As for all the Republican blowback, it’s largely about necessary political cover in an election year. The targeted tariffs play well with Trump’s America First blue-collar base across the nation (formerly the Democrats’ base), and particularly in a few hard-hit industrial states.
            Unfortunately, as we noted Wednesday, EU officials have shrewdly targeted Harley Davidson, based in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, bourbon made in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, and orange juice from Florida, the perennial swing state. That punishes Trump’s allies and voters.
            At the same time, the U.S. economy is an enormous chunk of the world economy and most of our trade partner beneficiaries will tread carefully in terms of retaliation. On balance, we’d say tariffs are a net drag on the economy, as the vehement opposition signifies, but Trump has an uncanny way of turning this kind of chaos to his advantage.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54649-man-of-steel-tariffs

            Judge Andrew Napolitano stated this week, “I believe he’s gearing up and the president remains in his crosshairs.” In fact, Napolitano noted, “There are actually three sets of legal crosshairs, so to speak. One seeks to determine whether the Trump campaign received ‘anything of value’ from any foreign national or foreign government, and whether Trump personally approved of it — a felony. Another inquiry seeks to determine whether the president himself attempted to obstruct the work of the Mueller grand juries by firing then-FBI Director James Comey for a corrupt reason, one that is self-serving and lacking a bona fide governmental purpose — also a felony. The third inquiry seeks to examine whether Trump misused or misrepresented corporate funds or bank loans in his pre-presidential life — another felony. On this last point, he has already been accused by Nunberg, and the grand jury no doubt will hear about it.”
            Finally, Napolitano says, Mueller’s grand juries “could go to the end of Trump’s term.” So it’s looking more likely that the country and Trump will have to endure many more months, even years, of a continued cloud over this presidency.
            Gary Bauer observes, “Every day since the election, the Trump administration has been hobbled and hounded by a hostile media and a resistance movement fueled by the fantasy that Trump will be impeached because of collusion with Russia. Every day that Mueller continues his investigation — continues distracting the administration and dividing our country — is a victory for [Vladimir] Putin’s strategy.” Which is just what the Democrats ordered.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54616-muellers-unending-investigation

            The EPA just revealed that Pruitt’s deregulatory endeavor has yielded $1 billion in cost savings after just one year. This was the direct outcome of nearly two dozen deregulations. More importantly, it’s also only a taste of what’s coming down the pipeline. The Clean Power Plan and Clean Water Rule are just two of the 44 additional deregulations that are currently on the agency’s docket. It’s estimated that the elimination of the Clean Power Plan could single-handedly save the economy upwards of $33 billion. With results like these, no wonder leftists loathe Pruitt with such tenacity.
            Of course, this also speaks to the enormous influence of Pruitt’s predecessor, Gina McCarthy. Much of the current administration’s work is geared toward fixing what she broke and the billions of dollars with which she unnecessarily burdened the economy. Pruitt’s progress could be even further along had he not had to first put out a massive inferno of McCarthy’s making. Even still, he is making significant headway, and that will give the economy more and more breathing room. It’s also a reminder that no government agency should ever have so much control over a free-market economy.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54595-pruitts-1-dollars-billion-rollback-at-the-epa

            The EPA just revealed that Pruitt’s deregulatory endeavor has yielded $1 billion in cost savings after just one year. This was the direct outcome of nearly two dozen deregulations. More importantly, it’s also only a taste of what’s coming down the pipeline. The Clean Power Plan and Clean Water Rule are just two of the 44 additional deregulations that are currently on the agency’s docket. It’s estimated that the elimination of the Clean Power Plan could single-handedly save the economy upwards of $33 billion. With results like these, no wonder leftists loathe Pruitt with such tenacity.
            Of course, this also speaks to the enormous influence of Pruitt’s predecessor, Gina McCarthy. Much of the current administration’s work is geared toward fixing what she broke and the billions of dollars with which she unnecessarily burdened the economy. Pruitt’s progress could be even further along had he not had to first put out a massive inferno of McCarthy’s making. Even still, he is making significant headway, and that will give the economy more and more breathing room. It’s also a reminder that no government agency should ever have so much control over a free-market economy.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54595-pruitts-1-dollars-billion-rollback-at-the-epa

In his letter of resignation Huckabee expressed his hurt over being mischaracterized and bemoaned the “intolerance” expressed by those who were critical of his appointment. Writing to the CMA Foundation, Huckabee said, “I have no expectation that it will change the irrational vitriol directed toward you or me for my religious or political views that necessitated my abrupt departure. I want you to know what you would never know by reading intolerant and vicious statements on the internet about who I am or what led me to want to be a part of your efforts to empower kids with the gift of music.” He adds, “Music changed my life. I was never good enough to make a full-time living at music, but the confidence I gained by playing, being in front of people, and competing against myself and the low expectations I grew up with was transformative.”
          Huckabee then called out what has become increasingly prevalent within much of the mainstream media culture today — leftist intolerance. He wrote, “If the industry doesn’t want people of faith or who hold conservative and traditional political views to buy tickets and music, they should be forthcoming and say it.” The fact of the matter is that when artistic expression is relegated to only one political and social worldview, it quickly loses its genuine artistry and devolves into mere ideological propaganda. And it loses audience appeal.
          Perhaps that’s because this is yet another case of a loud minority of gender confused people dictating policy for a larger group.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54563-is-the-country-music-industry-turning-left

          Trump doesn’t mind or believe the opposition. “You know, when we’re behind on every single country, trade wars aren’t so bad,” he argued. “You understand what I mean by that? When we’re down by $30 billion, $40 billion, $60 billion, $100 billion, the trade war hurts them. It doesn’t hurt us, so we’ll see what happens.”
          It should not come as much of a surprise that Trump would raise tariffs. One of his major issues on the campaign trail in 2016 was the bad deal the U.S. was getting on trade agreements like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. His protectionist rhetoric won over voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and helped secure him the White House.
          Trump has already made good on his word by pulling America out of the TPP, and now he has NAFTA in his sights. NAFTA is currently being renegotiated, and Trump has made no secret that he is perfectly willing to walk away from the agreement altogether if disparities in manufacturing and technology that negatively impact American workers are not addressed. While everyone around Trump is getting a case of the vapors about him starting a worldwide trade war, it is Canada and Mexico who may be the real targets of the impending steel and aluminum tariffs.
          As our Nate Jackson said last week, “Trump often uses policies and rhetoric as negotiating ploys. Much as he’s verbally assaulted NAFTA, Trump may be merely setting a bargaining position, to be undone when he feels America’s position is stronger.”
          Lo and behold, citing the trade deficits that the U.S. has with Canada and Mexico, Trump indicated via Twitter this week that he would be willing to make exceptions on the new tariffs with the NAFTA partners, but only if a new trade agreement is signed that is satisfactory to U.S. economic interests.
          The GOP leadership gave voice to the biggest concern about where Trump’s actions will lead. “We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan,” Paul Ryan’s spokeswoman AshLee Strong said. “The new tax reform law has boosted the economy and we certainly don’t want to jeopardize those gains.”
          The case has also been made that if the tariffs are meant to punish China, then they will miss the mark. “Hitting China and Canada with the same tariff doesn’t penalize China relative to anyone else,” says Dan Ikenson of the Cato Institute. “That doesn’t, and shouldn’t, sit well with exporters from countries that have done nothing wrong.” This includes allies such as Japan, South Korea and the European Union, who have already voiced their plans for retaliation.
          EU officials have politically targeted Harley Davidson, based in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, bourbon made in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, and orange juice from Florida, the perennial swing state.
          Raising tariffs is certainly tricky business in our multi-layered global economy. It is almost impossible to avoid collateral damage in other sectors of the economy, as these retaliatory threats prove. But it is worth remembering that the U.S. is already subjected to unfair tariffs from Europe, where American agricultural products are virtually frozen out of the market, and Asia, where manufactured goods and technology have a hard time finding buyers because of high tariffs.
          If other nations can use tariffs to protect their economies and workers, then surely America has a right to do the same. Charles Payne of Fox Business News points out that the EU is offended by America’s new tariffs on steel and aluminum, but levies 10% tariffs on all U.S. car imports.
          Pat Buchanan likewise challenged the assumption that trade protectionism is a surefire recipe for disaster. He writes, “Under protectionist policies from 1865 to 1900, U.S. debt was cut by two-thirds. Customs duties provided 58 percent of revenue. Commodity prices fell 58 percent. Real wages, despite a doubling of the population, rose 53 percent. Growth in GDP averaged over 4 percent a year. Industrial production rose almost 5 percent a year.”
          The new NAFTA deal is supposed to be reached by the end of March, so we may know in a few weeks if Trump’s plan works or not. In the meantime, the broader argument about the wisdom of higher tariffs will continue to play out. And, who knows? If Trump has his way, it may lead to some more trade deals with other countries.   
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54567-the-real-tariff-gambit

          During this inquisition, whenever Rubio or Loesch attempted to introduce facts or reason into the gun debate, a howling mob screamed and shouted them down. The mindless outrage, refusing to allow a different opinion to even be spoken, was reminiscent of the “Two Minutes Hate” in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 — every citizen screaming hate and fury for exactly two minutes each day while watching a film depicting the state’s enemies.
          This is what public debate has been reduced to, with one side demanding the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens be stripped without due process, and accusing any dissenters of the most malevolent motivations and a desire to see children die gruesome deaths. It leads to a sort of security theater where “solutions” are proposed that do nothing to address the actual problem.
          And while this is being mostly driven by Democrats (who, as Justice Clarence Thomas notes in his concurrence in the McDonald v. Chicago case, originally passed gun control laws in order to leave blacks defenseless against KKK mobs), even a few Republicans have joined in, most notably Arizona’s retiring Sen. rino-Jeff Flake.
          rino-Flake introduced a bill that recycles a 2016 bill dubbed “No-Fly, No-Buy,” which would prohibit anyone on the federal government’s no-fly list from exercising his or her Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
          As The Federalist’s David Harsanyi notes,“One day Sen. rino-Jeff Flake is warning America about rising Stalinism and the next he's supporting a bill that strips the rights of citizens who’ve been arbitrarily placed on secret government lists without any probable cause or due process.”
          Indeed, rino-Flake’s bill represents an egregious infringement of the citizens’ First, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, giving often incompetent and/or abusively partisan bureaucrats the power to prohibit both travel and self-defense based on an inaccurate, extrajudicial government list.
          Both the NRA and the ACLU, which agree on very little, nevertheless concur that the “No-Fly, No-Buy” bill is bad legislation, and even leftist rags like The New York Times and Los Angeles Times published editorials in 2014 arguing that such a ban is unconstitutional.
          Why? The no-fly list is arbitrary; hundreds of thousands of Americans placed on the list have not only committed no crime but are not even suspected of committing a crime. By the government’s own admission, 40% of those on the watchlist have “no affiliation with recognized terrorism groups.”
          The Washington Examiner’s Philip Wegmann reports, “According to congressional testimony from 2014, the FBI estimates that those lists ‘currently stands at about 800,000 identities.’ Those names aren’t public though, and neither is the selection criteria. There is only one way to find out if your name is in that database: try boarding a plane.”
          The watchlist is so riddled with errors that Congressmen Tom McClintock (R-CA) and John Lewis (D-GA), as well as the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) found themselves on it. Despite their connections, it took months to get them removed. Granted, Kennedy probably should not have been allowed to drive a car, but that was no reason to keep him from flying. Regardless, if it took a U.S. senator and a congressman months to get off the list, what chance does the average citizen have of righting this injustice?
          Though Democrats are pushing the bill, minorities will be hurt most, especially those of Middle Eastern descent with names similar to actual terrorists. That may seem ironic — until we consider the effect of most Democrat policies. Still, one would think Lewis, who gained fame for bravely defying racist Democrats while crossing Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 and who was beaten with nightsticks by state troopers, would understand the right to defend oneself from violent criminals and tyrannical government alike is not a right to be lightly infringed upon. Alas, he does not.
          While in the aftermath of this horrific tragedy it’s understandable that many feel a desire to do something, anything, to fix the problem immediately, the reality is that the solution will not be found in the law but in the culture; and an angry, screaming mob mentality that sacrifices Liberty for political expediency and a false sense of security is unworthy of the highest traditions of the American founding.
          We wonder how quickly Democrats would change their tune if the proposed law prohibited these “potential terrorists” from voting or having abortions (after all, at least one innocent child is killed in every one of the 900,000 abortions performed annually in the U.S.).
          Strange indeed that Democrats still call for the closing of the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, declaring it a moral evil to imprison foreign enemy combatants without due process, even demanding constitutional rights for them. Yet these same Democrats (and, evidently, some Republicans) are all too eager to deprive actual American citizens, who have NOT been caught engaging in a violent act and who have NOT been accused (much less convicted) of a crime, of their own right to self-defense and free travel.
          Guns are the tools of these mass shootings, not the cause. The cause is a society that no longer respects the sanctity of human life. The cause is a society that actively erodes the traditional family bonds that create good and decent citizens. The cause is a society that immerses itself in graphic depictions of violence while pretending it has no impact on our collective psyche.
          It’s time to address the cause of these tragedies, while leaving our sacred rights intact.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54588-unconstitutional-no-fly-no-buy-wont-prevent-mass-murder

          Laws meant to protect the lawless are ironic, indeed. “The Department of Justice and the Trump Administration are going to fight these unjust, unfair and unconstitutional policies,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Last year, the Justice Department also moved to defund sanctuary cities, which is being challenged in court.
          California is a key battleground because an estimated 2.5 million illegals reside there. That number will no doubt increase. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is named in the DOJ suit, insists California will continue to “keep our communities safe.” In fact, he argues, “We believe we are in full compliance with the federal Constitution and federal law.” Democrats sure have a funny way of defining those terms.
          In some cases, the state is doing even more than claiming supremacy of state law over federal law, in violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2). One example is the recent case of Oakland’s Democrat mayor, Libby Schaaf, publicly warning illegals of upcoming ICE raids, saving an estimated 800 illegals from arrest. It’s one thing to leave enforcement of federal law to the feds and another to actively obstruct that enforcement. Such is the way of today’s Democrat Party.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54583-doj-sues-california-over-immigration-obstruction

          Specifically, those goods and services that have seen the greatest overall price increases are in the fields of medical and education-related services. And those two fields are most directly impacted by the government’s intervention in the marketplace, via subsidy and regulation. As the costs for health care and schooling only continue to increase, they in turn significantly impact the overall rate of inflation.
          As Investor’s Business Daily explains, “All that subsidy money was premised on the goal of making these things [health care and schooling] more affordable. The result is, for many, the exact opposite. By paying most of the tab, the government has insulated consumers from the true cost of these things — a recipe for runaway prices.”
          In short, much of the stock market’s current uneasiness can be laid directly at the feet of government for its work to limit competition, all in the name of making these goods and services more affordable. In the end, the American taxpayer is left footing the bill.   
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54540-biggest-driver-of-inflation-is-the-government

          Scalia devoted his life to the study of the law, and more importantly, the Constitution. A voracious reader throughout his life, Scalia learned that the creation of the Constitution was the result of compromise and, as he stated in a speech in 1991, “a spirit of humility.” His respect and admiration for its creators led him to view their product as “not living, but dead, or, as I prefer to call it, enduring. It means today not what current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.”
          He was a firm believer that the role of the United States judiciary was to interpret laws, but not in a way that would usurp power from the legislative or executive branches.
          In an era where many people seek to denigrate the contributions of our Founding Fathers, Scalia’s lucid prose serves as a clarion call to truly understanding what makes our nation so unique and special. He challenged all of his fellow citizens to read and study The Federalist Papers because, “The Constitution will endure … only to the extent that it endures in your understanding and affection.”
          That is why Scalia was such a staunch advocate of an informed citizenry. He realized that the fate of the country was dependent upon the civic and moral education of its people. That’s why one of the main themes in many of his speeches was virtue.
          In the critically acclaimed book, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived, the editors illuminate the late justice’s passion for education and advocacy for people to get involved in the political process. Scalia said that the limitations on democracy can only be defined by the people themselves, not a committee of judges. “And it is only the people themselves who can add or subtract from those limitations, through the amendment provision of the Constitution.”
          That is why it is imperative that Republican voters make the effort to campaign, as well as vote, in this fall’s upcoming election. The last mid-term election (2014) saw the lowest turnout rate in 70 years. Couple that with the fact that only twice since World War II has the minority party not picked up seats and you have a scenario where every vote will have a real impact on the future of our country.
          Justice Scalia believed that the future of the United States was only limited by the willingness of its people to get involved and make a difference. Out of the thousands of words that he composed during his lifetime there is one passage that truly captures the essence of his love for America:
          “It is a belief that seems particularly to beset modern society that believing deeply in something, and following that belief, is the most important a person can do. … I am here to tell you that it is much less important how committed you are than what you are committed to.”
          Only time will tell if conservatives will heed this call to action.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54546-why-antonin-scalia-still-matters

          It was a surreal combination of Kimmel’s preaching to the choir and Hollywood stars’ virtue signaling their leftist dogma ad nauseam. They ignored their own blatant hypocrisy, all the while congratulating themselves on being the culturally “woke” arbitrators of morality — a nauseating recipe for unwatchable TV. So many Americans simply tuned out and chose to spend three hours Sunday evening engaged in less vacuous pursuits. Honestly, how many people will tolerate being told, “Do as we say, not as we do?”
          Following the show, James Woods, one of Hollywood’s few conservative actors, tweeted, “Sad. How can Hollywood stop itself from alienating its audience?” President Donald Trump had a more humorous take, tweeting, “Lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY. Problem is, we don’t have Stars anymore — except your President (just kidding, of course)!”
          The fact of the matter is that Hollywood has long been a bastion of the Left, propagating its fantasy so incessantly it has become an ideological and isolated echo-chamber that has completely lost touch with real life in America. These Hollywood elites blame their own glaring sins on the rest of America and supposedly backwards conservatives rather than turning introspectively and seriously examining how — maybe, just maybe — they are their own monster.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54557-hollywoods-self-inflicted-ratings-deflation-continues

          Columnist Burt Prelutsky makes a cogent point when he observed, "Those on the Left seem to view all murders through a prism of their propaganda value.” There is no better example than the Left’s demonization of so-called “assault weapons.” Back to Stokes’ point about handguns, they are the primary tool by which homicides are inflicted. According to the FBI’s Crime in the United States data, “Handguns comprised 64.6 percent of the firearms used in murder and nonnegligent manslaughter incidents in 2016.”
          More precisely, of the 11,004 homicides by firearm that year, 7,105 involved a handgun, whereas just 374 — or 0.03% — involved a rifle of any type. You read that right. In fact, the number of homicides committed with rifles is outpaced by “blunt objects,” which accounted for 472 murders in 2016. The bottom line? Rifles unfairly get most of the flak despite criminals’ relatively rare use of them.
          Nevertheless, Democrats are increasingly belligerently opposed to citizens possessing rifles. According to The Hill, “Democratic senators seen as possible contenders for the White House in 2020 are all taking positions in strong support of an assault weapons ban, pressuring their colleagues up for reelection this year.” Those names include Elizabeth dinky-Warren (MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Kamala Harris (CA), Cory Booker (NJ), Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Chris Murphy (CT).
          The piece adds: “Support for the ban on assault weapons has grown among Democrats over the last 11 years. In 2007, 67 Democrats supported a ban. That number continued to grow in 2013 with 83 Democrats co-sponsoring legislation. The number grew to 149 in 2015 before settling on 167 co-sponsors this year.” Alarmingly, the Democrats’ true vexation actually runs even deeper than that. At the national level, a new poll finds that the complete elimination of the Second Amendment has the support of one-third of the Democrat Party and almost one-quarter of all Americans.
          Clearly, the party is moving further left — to the point that they think this is a winning campaign issue.
          Regarding Democrats, Prelutsky writes, “If they thought they could get more mileage out of church shootings, the endless homicides in Baltimore or the attack on the Republican congressmen at the baseball field in Virginia, they would focus on those crimes. But they realize they can better utilize school shootings emotionally because of the age of the victims.” To accomplish gun control, leftists are citing bogus evidence and carefully choosing which tragedies to exploit. Another ban on semiautomatic rifles with certain cosmetic features wouldn’t just fail like the first one did; it would also be a gateway to broader restrictions on and the eventual elimination of the Second Amendment.
          James Madison said, “Power is of an encroaching nature.” The Left’s encroachment on the Second Amendment is Exhibit A. Leftists won’t stop until guns are completely outlawed. To prevent it, constitutionalists need to be effective in opposing lies, damned lies and statistics.    ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54539-dems-coalescing-around-second-amendment-elimination

          The horror that occurred on Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday ended in the loss of 17 lives at the hand of a troubled 19-year-old. It has mobilized many to activism (legitimate or exploited) and has stirred public debate on many issues that permitted this horrific crime — some that are nothing more than straw arguments to avoid addressing the root causes. But under all the opportunistic political theater demanding gun bans and dramatic controls of constitutional Liberty lies failure. The failure of systems already in place.
          Patriot Post readers have certainly learned of the abysmal failure of existing systems in place that should’ve prevented this young man from having a gun or from being inside a school. And you know that more laws can’t stop the manifestation of evil in the hearts of those intent on doing harm to others — those whose minds are afflicted with mental illness and a distorted reality.
          After a reported 45 calls to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, at least two specific interactions with the FBI and the fact that the troubled shooter, previously expelled from school, was also prohibited from carrying a backpack on campus, folks around the perpetrator had seen something and said something. Yet the authorities in place to implement systems of safety and enforcement failed to do anything. They failed to work within existing systems, rules, laws and regulations to stop crimes.
          These system failures, however, are truly a SNAFU — chaos that has happened before and, sadly, will happen again, despite the hashtag herald of #NeverAgain.
          In the Texas church shooting, where the NRA instructor with his own AR-15 and a good Samaritan stopped a man whose domestic violence and troubled record was not adequately captured by the Air Force updating his criminal record, a system failure occurred. Even one of the bombers In the Boston Marathon bombing had been brought to the attention of the FBI at least twice, yet they killed, maimed and terrorized with pressure cooker bombs.
          So the public parade marches on to stop “gun violence.” In the last few weeks, one proposal seems logical and worthy of discussion. Understand, however, that even if a law is passed in various states, it will only be successful to the degree of enforcement and observance.
          Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio responded to the public flogging he took at the CNN town hall meeting — which included him being equated to the actual shooter and lampooned as a prostituted puppet of the NRA — with several legislative fixes. The 2016 GOP presidential hopeful has announced his support of the “Stop School Violence Act” that creates school assessment and crisis intervention teams to work with law enforcement in identifying troubled students. Rubio also called for the expansion of background checks for gun purchases and incentives for states to fully report relevant information to boost the accuracy and usefulness of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which according to a November 2017 article has the NRA complaining of over seven million missing records to the FBI-run database.
          Among the Rubio proposals, Gun Violence Restraining Orders (GVROs) are based on common sense and empower individuals closest to a potential threat to intervene rather than waiting on layers of systems that, based on recent activity, have failed.
          GVROs are temporary court orders to remove guns or prevent purchases for individuals identified through evidence to be a threat, rather than limit the rights of a larger group. GVROs would require the petitioners to produce evidence that an individual was presenting as a potential threat (screen captures of social postings, writings of an individual or sworn testimony). The GVROs would permit due process in that the individual in question would be permitted a response to the evidence with the ability for an emergency hearing, should those circumstances dictate. It’s a high burden of proof before a local judge.
          These temporary orders are already in practice in several states — Connecticut, Washington, Oregon, Indiana and California — and 18 other states are considering them. Similar in nature to restraining orders and orders of protection issued in the cases of domestic violence, the GVROs would be a local, individually applied tool that would involve only parties suspected of being capable of harm to oneself or others, in contrast to sweeping gun bans.
          Caution, as with the other temporary court orders, must be exercised. A court order is effective, whether involving a removal of guns or an enforcement of a distance or other specified relief from an adverse party, if the named respondent follows the rules and observes the terms of the restraining order. While these orders can and have been effective, they can also create a false sense of security from individuals who, by their very nature, do not obey laws nor have the capacity to honor established rules.
          SNAFU will continue until and unless the authentic causes of violence are addressed, whether guns are involved or not. Those on the Left reject individual responsibility and Liberty and demand protections as wards of the state, regardless, that include gun control and the elimination of many facets underpinning the Second Amendment. Those on the Right know that fatherless homes, the casual and regular use of psychoactive substances that cause and mimic mental illness, the devaluing of life along with the glorification of violence in media and the plague of a valueless society that embraces politically correct approaches to law enforcement, mental illness and society writ large are key contributing factors to not only violence but so many of our societal ills.
          Situation Normal: All Fouled Up truly captures the failure of current systems due to the incompetence and timidity of those put in place to employ current law, regulations and standards. Demand leaders who lead versus those who agitate, pontificate and stagnate the necessary debate, legislation and governance to be a functioning, decent society.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54528-guns-and-the-system-

          Erick Erickson explains, “Up until a couple of years ago, Delta had a special perk in the Georgia tax code. It was exempt from paying sales tax on aviation fuel. Other airlines had to pay the tax. Delta did not. When the state reassessed how it calculates and collects transportation taxes during the recession, Delta lost its perk. Delta has lobbied for it ever since.” And the air line won’t get it back.
          Now for the even funnier thing — because criteria for the NRA discount was so specific, just 13 Delta passengers ever bought tickets with it. Losing $40 million for 13 people works out to about $3 million per discounted ticket. In other words, these corporate do-gooders just made one really expensive virtue signal.
          Still, as much fun as schadenfreude can be, this leads us to the larger point that cronyist tax breaks are a fundamentally bad idea. Unfortunately, every state and governor, as well as every city and mayor and every elected official of either party anywhere in between, offers sweetheart tax deals to corporations for locating in that city or state. Bipartisanship! And this corrupt income redistribution leads to all kinds of ugly stuff. For one thing, Delta lobbies in Georgia for all sorts of leftist causes and against conservative ones — like the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Republican Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed in 2016. In this case, however, Delta probably has a case that Georgia Republicans are violating its “freedom of association” rights by using the tax code as retribution for a political stance. Neither would be an issue if it weren’t for such anti-free-market favoritism in the tax code.
          What Delta did was inexcusable political opportunism, but the greater fault lies with Georgia and every other state that favors big, leftist corporations at the expense of small businesses and American taxpayers.  ~The Patriot Post
VIDEO:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DxXHh-p-O4
https://patriotpost.us/articles/54532-its-the-cronyism-stupid