Tag Archives: senate majority leader

Apr 9 2013

Obama Demands Vote On 2nd Amendment During Hartford Speech

Source: Kurt Nimmo

Barack Obama traveled to Hartford, Connecticut on Monday and delivered a speech calling for a vote on the Second Amendment. He lashed out at Republicans who plan to resist attempts by Congress to destroy the right to bear firearms.

“Some folks in Washington are already floating the idea that they may use political stunts to prevent votes on any of these reforms,” Obama said. “They’re not just saying they’ll vote no on ideas that almost all Americans support. They’re saying they’ll do everything they can to even prevent any votes on these provisions.”

Obama’s use of the phrase “political stunts” is a reference to the possibility of a Senate filibuster to stop legislation.

On March 22, Republican senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stating their intention to oppose any legislation threatening to destroy the constitutional right to bear arms.

“We, the undersigned, intend to oppose any legislation that would oppose on the American people’s constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance,” the letter states. “The Second Amendment to the Constitution protects citizens’ right to self-defense. It speaks to history’s lesson that government cannot be in all places at all times, and history’s warning about the oppression of a government that tries.”

The establishment media, led by the New York Times, has launched a campaign to portray Paul and more than a dozen other senators concerned about the future of the Constitution as obstructionists.

“The gun lobby is spreading the pernicious falsehood that a background check will lead to a gun registry, and a registry will lead to a knock on the front door by a government SWAT team intent on confiscating the nation’s weapons. Mr. Paul and the other signatories who share this belief have promised to filibuster that bill. And given his newfound interest in the dramatic arts, he is probably planning to perform in another C-Span marathon in the weeks to come,” the Time editorialized as Obama gave his speech in Hartford.

Chris Matthews and Rev. Al Sharpton told MSNBC’s diminished audience that most Americans want universal background checks – and hence registration and ultimately firearm confiscation – and demanded Republicans put aside their “partisanship” and allow Democrats in Congress to vote on a bill that will strike a blow to the cornerstone of the Constitution.

Matthews admitted MSNBC has consistently waged a war against the Second Amendment. “I think MSNBC and you and I and a bunch of other people on this network have been keeping up the fight for gun safety” since the Sandy Hook massacre, “not just a few times but consistently every night,” he said.

 

Mar 19 2013

Feinstein’s Gun Ban Bill Crumbles

California Democrat and influential senator Dianne Feinstein admitted Monday her gun ban proposals will not be part of a Democrat bill to rollback the Second Amendment.

“My understanding is it will not be [part of the base bill],” Feinstein said. “It will be separate.”

Feinstein was told by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about the decision. Feinstein’s bill proposed making illegal 157 models of semiautomatic firearms Democrats characterize as “assault weapons” and outlaw so-called “high-capacity” magazines.

In addition to endangering the larger and more comprehensive Democrat package, Feinstein’s measures would jeopardize red-state Democrats during the 2014 elections.

Senate Judiciary Democrats have approved what they describe as a gun trafficking bill, a measure to expand background checks, and a proposal to increase school safety following the shooting at the Sandy Hook school in Connecticut.

The gun trafficking proposal and its “straw purchase” prohibition has Republican support. Democrats plan to use it as a foundation and add amendments to the bill, possibly including some of the stripped Feinstein measures.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy will reportedly introduce the legislation on the Senate floor this week. It is believed he will schedule the bill for a vote in April following a two week congressional recess.

Feb 4 2013

REPORT: Senate plan to omit weapons ban sought by Obama

(CNN) – President Barack Obama on Monday reiterated his call for a comprehensive package of steps against gun violence as the focus on possible Senate legislation appeared to narrow to expanded background checks and limited ammunition magazines, rather than a ban on semi-automatic rifles that mimic assault weapons.

Obama took part in a discussion with Minneapolis officials before telling police officers and others that an increase in gun violence nationwide, including the Connecticut school massacre in December, made it vital to address the issue now.

“No law or set of laws can keep our children completely safe,” Obama said in calling for “basic, commonsense steps to reduce gun violence.”

He added, “if there’s one life we can save, we’ve got an obligation to try.”

Obama emphasized his support for banning semi-automatic rifles modeled after military weapons as part of an updated version of an earlier weapons ban that expired in 2004.

Opponents led by the influential National Rifle Association, oppose any ban on weapons, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated that such a provision faced an uphill struggle.

Reid told ABC on Sunday that he backed expanding background checks to private gun sales at shows and other steps, but he refused to endorse a ban on what are called assault-style rifles modeled after military weapons.

Obama shooting image gets blasted on the Web

A popular version is the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that can be purchased with magazines holding 30 rounds. A similar weapon was used in the Connecticut school shooting that killed 20 first graders and revived a national focus on tougher gun control measures.

While Obama and some top Democrats, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, seek a ban on many semi-automatic rifles, the NRA and politicians from both major parties oppose such a move as an infringement on constitutional rights.

In his remarks Monday, Obama rejected that argument, urging supporters to tell opponents of renewed weapons ban that “there’s no legislation to eliminate all guns; there’s no legislation being proposed to subvert the Second Amendment.”

Obama’s trip to Minneapolis was intended to raise attention to steps taken in the city, including a recent regional gun summit hosted by Mayor R.T. Rybak and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

Both cities have experienced mass shootings in recent months, and Obama met with two Minneapolis-area law enforcement officials last week when he discussed the issue with local police and sheriffs department members at the White House.

The NRA and its leading supporters in Congress argue that steps proposed by Obama won’t work and would fail to address the problem.

For example, they say criminals skirt background checks, so expanding the system would miss the main target of the legislation. They also contend that the semi-automatic rifles targeted by Feinstein in a proposal introduced last week are used in a fraction of the nation’s gun violence.

Gun debate: Where is the middle ground?

Obama and other supporters of stronger gun control measures say all possible efforts must be made to address what they call a chronic and growing problem of gun violence, particularly involving vulnerable targets such as students.

Reid of Nevada is the top Senate Democrat, who sets the chamber’s legislative schedule. He said Sunday that he wants the Judiciary Committee to produce a bill that could be debated by the full Senate and would be open to proposed amendments by any senator.

However, Reid signaled that the committee version would lack the ban on assault-style weapons.

“If Dianne Feinstein, by the time it’s through the Judiciary Committee, if she doesn’t have her assault weapons, at least let her have an opportunity to offer this amendment” on the Senate floor, Reid told ABC.

Reid, who noted he owned guns and was a former law officer, said he opposed the Clinton-era assault weapons ban that expired midway through the Bush administration.

He called for expanding background checks and steps to halt federal gun trafficking while saying the Senate should “take a look at” unspecified limits on ammunition magazines.

Asked about backing he has received from the NRA, Reid said that “just because they resist it doesn’t mean we can’t do things.”

Other steps under consideration include better monitoring of people with mental illness to prevent them from obtaining guns.

Democrats have said the background check measure would stand the best chance of garnering bipartisan support, including from some pro-gun Democrats. Even if passed by the Senate, a gun bill would face tougher scrutiny in the Republican-led House.

Obama said Monday that lawmakers in Congress from both parties were working together on plans that would expand background checks to all gun purchases and criminalize “straw purchases” in which legal gun owners buy weapons for people prohibited from doing so.

The faces of America’s gun debate

Guns sold through private sales currently avoid background checks — the so-called gun show loophole.

Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said last week that he was in talks with colleagues — including several who are ranked highly by the NRA — on possible legislation to expand background checks on private gun sales.

Sources close to both Schumer and Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma told CNN the two were in serious discussions about co-sponsoring a bill to strengthen background checks. Schumer sits on the Judiciary Committee, while Coburn is a former member.

However, NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre told the panel that the current background check system doesn’t work, so expanding it would only create an unmanageable government bureaucracy instead of reducing gun crime.

During the Super Bowl on Sunday night, a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns broadcast an ad showing the NRA’s LaPierre, in 1999, endorsing the expanded background checks his group now opposes.

Supporters of gun control argue that the constitutional right to bear arms can be limited, for example, by the existing ban on private citizens possessing grenade launchers and other military weaponry.

However, Denver University law professor David Kopel said last week that the Supreme Court made clear that gun control could not include weapons used commonly by law-abiding citizens, such as the top-selling AR-15 that Feinstein’s legislation would ban.

Jan 23 2013

Senate leader may allow vote on assault weapons ban

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) walks to his office at the U.S. Capitol after returning from a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington December 28, 2012. REUTERS/Mary Calvert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, signaled on Tuesday that despite earlier indications to the contrary, he may allow a vote on a possible ban on assault weapons.

Reid, a longtime gun-rights advocate from Nevada, recently indicated he would not permit a vote because the Republican-led House of Representatives was unlikely to go along with such a prohibition.

But after a weekly meeting with fellow Senate Democrats, Reid told reporters he expects “to have a free amendment process” on gun legislation.

That process could result in other Democrats proposing a possible resurrection of a 10-year ban on semi-automatic assault weapons that expired in 2004.

A series of shootings in the last two months, including one at an elementary school in Connecticut in which 20 children and six staff were killed, has triggered a renewed debate on gun control.

President Barack Obama proposed a package of measures last week to combat gun violence that includes a ban on assault weapons, limits on high-capacity ammunition clips, expanded mental health treatments and improved school security.

Powerful gun-rights groups oppose a ban on assault weapons and could seek to unseat any lawmaker who backs it, as they have tried to do in the past.

Reid said he expects the Senate Judiciary Committee, which opens hearings next week on proposals by Obama and others, to produce a bill. It is unclear if the measure will include a ban on assault weapons.

“It may not be everything everyone wants. But I hope it has stuff that is really important,” Reid told reporters.

In a speech in Reno, Nevada, on Tuesday night, Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association gun lobby, accused Obama of trying to take away fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed to Americans under the U.S. Constitution.

“They are God-given freedoms. They belong to us in the United States of America as our birthright. No government gave them to us and no government can ever take them away,” he told a hunting and conservation convention.

“That means we believe in our right to defend ourselves and our families with semi-automatic firearms technology. We believe that if neither the criminal nor the political class and their bodyguards and their security people are limited by magazine capacity, we should not be limited in our capacity either.”

LaPierre also repeated opposition to expanded background checks for purchases of firearms proposed by Obama.

(Reporting By Thomas Ferraro and David Brunnstrom; editing by Fred Barbash and Christopher Wilson)

Dec 25 2012

MERRY ‘CLIFF’MAS

(Reuters) - With only a week left before a deadline for the United States to go over a “fiscal cliff,” lawmakers played a waiting game on Monday in the hope that someone will produce a plan to avoid harsh budget cuts and higher taxes for most Americans from New Year’s Day.

Though Republicans and Democrats have spent the better part of a year describing a plunge off the cliff as a looming catastrophe, the nation’s capital showed no outward signs of worry, let alone impending calamity.

The White House has set up shop in Hawaii, where President Barack Obama is vacationing.

The Capitol was deserted and the Treasury Department – which would have to do a lot of last-minute number-crunching with or without a deal – was closed.

So were all other federal government offices, with Obama having followed a tradition of declaring the Monday before a Tuesday Christmas a holiday for government employees, notwithstanding the approaching fiscal cliff.

Expectations for some 11th-hour rescue focused largely on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, in part because he has performed the role of legislative wizard in previous stalemates.

But McConnell, who is up for re-election in 2014, was shunning the role this year, his spokesman saying that it was now up to the Democrats in the Senate to make the next move.

“We don’t yet know what Senator Reid will bring to the floor. He is not negotiating with us and the president is out of town,” said McConnell’s spokesman, referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat. “So I just don’t know what they’re going to do over there,” he said.

Two-day-old tweets on leadership websites told the story insofar as it was visible to the public.

House Speaker John Boehner’s referred everyone to McConnell. McConnell’s tweet passed the responsibility along to Obama, saying it was a “moment that calls for presidential leadership.”

Reid’s tweet said: “There will be very serious consequences for millions of families if Congress fails to act” on the cliff.

The next session of the Senate is set for Thursday, but the issues presented by across-the-board tax hikes and indiscriminate reductions in government spending, were not on the calendar.

The House has nothing on its schedule for the week, but members have been told they could be called back at 48 hours notice, making a Thursday return a theoretical possibility.

However, aides to the Republican leaders in Congress said there were no talks with Democrats on Monday and none scheduled after negotiations fell off track last week when Boehner failed to persuade House Republicans to accept tax increases on incomes of more than $1 million a year.

“Nothing new, Merry Christmas,” an aide to Boehner responded when asked if there was any movement on the fiscal cliff.

But a senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said White House aides were talking with Senate Democratic staffers about the situation.

SCALED-BACK EXPECTATIONS

If there is some last-minute legislation, Republicans and Democrats agreed on Sunday news shows that it will not be any sort of “grand bargain” encompassing taxes and spending cuts, but most likely a short-term deal putting everything off for a few weeks or months, thereby risking a negative market reaction.

A limited agreement would still need bipartisan support, as Obama has said he would veto a bill that does not raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

On Monday, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison urged fellow Republicans to be flexible.

“We’re now at a point where we’re not going to get what we think is right for our economy and our country because we don’t control government. So we’ve got to work within the system we have,” she told MSNBC.

Two bills in Congress could conceivably form the basis for a last-minute stopgap measure.

Last spring, Republicans in the House passed a measure that would extend Bush-era tax cuts for everyone, reflecting the party’s deep reluctance to increase taxes.

The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a bill in August, extending lower tax rates for everyone except the wealthiest Americans – a group defined at that point as households with a net income of $250,000 or above. Obama has since increased that to $400,000 a year, in an effort to win Republican support.

Analysts say Democrats might be able to get the backing of enough Republicans in both the House and Senate, especially if they are willing to raise the number to $500,000.

Under that scenario, lawmakers might also put off spending cuts of $109 billion that would take effect from January and agree to Republican demands for cuts in entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, the government-run health insurance plans for seniors and the poor.

However, with only a few work days left in Congress after Christmas, there is a good chance that no deal can be worked out and tax rates would then go up, at least briefly, until an agreement is reached in Washington.

“We may go off the cliff on January 1, but we would correct that very quickly thereafter,” Democratic Representative John Yarmuth told MSNBC.

The prospects of the United States going over the fiscal cliff dampened enthusiasm on Wall Street for a “Santa rally” in the holiday season, when stocks traditionally rise.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 51.76 points, or 0.39 percent, in Monday’s shortened holiday session.

Failure to work out tax rates in the coming days would cause chaos at the Internal Revenue Service, said analyst Chris Krueger of Guggenheim Securities.

“Next weekend is going to be a total, total debacle,” he said. The IRS is unlikely to have enough time to revise its tables for withholding taxes.

“The withholding tables are sort of like an aircraft carrier, you can’t turn the thing on a dime.” he said.

Dec 4 2012

Senate Dems defend administration’s right to take guns away from veterans

Source: The Washington Times

A major defense-spending bill hit an unexpected bump on its journey through the U.S. Senate over an amendment on veterans’ gun rights, which devolved into a heated floor debate and foreshadows a potential battle over Democrats’ vows to tweak the filibuster rules in the clubby, traditionally collegial body.

Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, wants veterans who have been deemed “mentally incompetent” to have their cases adjudicated by a judge — rather than the Department of Veterans Affairs, as happens currently — and argued that veterans who simply cannot support themselves financially are needlessly given the label and, as such, cannot buy or possess firearms.

“We’re not asking for anything big,” Mr. Coburn said Thursday evening on the Senate floor. “We’re just saying that if you’re going to take away the Second Amendment rights … they ought to have it adjudicated, rather than mandated by someone who’s unqualified to state that they should lose their rights.”

The late-night tussle served to pick at the scab of the ongoing debate over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bid to reform the chamber’s filibuster rules to place limits on the minority party’s ability to hold up debate on legislation, however.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, objected to Mr. Coburn’s proposal once he found out it was part of a package of amendments to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act the body was to vote on.

“I love our veterans; I vote for them all the time, they defend us,” Mr. Schumer said. “But if you are mentally ill, whether you’re a veteran or not, just like if you’re a felon, if you’re a veteran or not, and you have been judged to be mentally infirm, you should not have a gun.”

After a similar plea from Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, and a warning from Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, that the move could embolden Democrats’ push for filibuster reforms, Mr. Coburn eventually backed off.

“There’s more here, frankly, than just a refusal to allow an amendment,” Mr. McCain said. “That is going to mean that it’s more likely that we have this showdown, which we think — many of us think — would be devastating to this institution and the way that it’s done business for a couple of hundred years.”

The quarrel over the broader bill and the filibuster continued on the Senate floor Monday when Mr. McCain dinged Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, when he alluded to Mr. Paul’s previous threats to filibuster the bill if there was not a vote on an amendment to ensure a trial to American citizens accused of terrorism. That provision was approved by the Senate last week.

The measure that sparked last week’s late-night imbroglio is also part of a still-pending sportsman’s bill that the Senate declined to vote on last week. Similar legislation has been proposed in past years, and a bill introduced by Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican, and Sen. Jim Webb, Virginia Democrat, passed the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs unanimously in September.

The debate on the measure should not be about gun control, but about veterans’ mental health, said Tom Tarantino, senior legislative associate for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

“If even one person will not go to seek the help they need and they fall through the cracks because we failed to remove the mental health stigma as much as possible, then we’ve failed,” he said. “Right now, what happened is someone pulled the thread of politics in something that should not political. And that thread’s starting to unravel.”

But Brian Malte with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said simply that if Mr. Coburn’s amendment passes, more than 100,000 people deemed medically incompetent would immediately be able to purchase guns. He also noted that the declaration is not absolute.

“There is due process,” Mr. Malte said. “Gun possession is allowed if competency is restored. It’s up to the professionals to make that determination.”

The 1993 Brady Bill established a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ enforcement regulations declared that those deemed mentally defective could not purchase or possess a firearm.

The Department of Veterans Affairs forwards the names of those labeled mentally incompetent to the FBI for inclusion in a national federal database, barring them from purchasing or carrying firearms.

 

Nov 15 2012

Failure of Cybersecurity Bill in Senate Paves Way for Obama Executive Order

Source: Kurt Nimmo

Now that Senate Republicans have killed Obama’s cybersecurity legislation, there is a good chance the president will sign an unconstitutional executive order implementing provisions of the failed legislation.

photo
Photo: Blaise Alleyne.

“Cybersecurity is dead for this Congress,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid following the move.

Republicans blocked the legislation in August and again on Wednesday, saying it would lead to further business regulation. The final vote was 51-47, short of the 60 votes required under Senate rules to bring the bill up for passage.

Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced the legislation in February. The bill proposed “voluntary” cybersecurity standards set by the Department of Homeland Security for companies that operate infrastructure considered vital to U.S. national security. It also set standards for companies and the government to share information on cyber threats.

The bill’s defeat paves the way for an executive order. “An executive order is one of a number of measures we’re considering as we look to implement the President’s direction to do absolutely everything we can to better protect our nation against today’s cyberthreats,” White House spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said in September.

“We’ve spent months going over the various faults in the bill – and of the faults in the other proposed Cybersecurity bills,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said following the vote against cloture in the Senate. “We were particularly concerned because the Cybersecurity Act included overly vague definitions for key terms like ‘cybersecurity threat,’ ‘cybersecurity threat indicator,’ and even ‘countermeasures.’”

The failed legislation would have allowed companies to spy on users and share their personal information with the government. As a result of this public-private partnership – defined as corporatism or fascism – surveillance would be outsourced to private companies not beholden to the Fourth Amendment. Companies would have the authority without warrants or judicial process to modify, block, or disrupt internet traffic they and the government believe pose vaguely defined cyber security threats.

In his farewell speech to Congress last night, retiring Rep. Ron Paul stressed the need for a free and open internet without government intervention. “The internet will provide the alternative to the government/media complex that controls the news and most political propaganda. This is why it’s essential that the internet remains free of government regulation,” Paul said.

If Obama signs an executive order and imposes so-called cybersecurity regulation, the ability of the government to impede the free flow of information will undoubtedly be enhanced. As Infowars.com has noted on numerous occasions, critical infrastructure in the United States is not part of the public internet and not threatened by hackers. It has been used repeatedly over the last few years to condition the public to believe that the government needs to regulate the internet.

Government invariably exploits what appears to be well-meaning legislation to attack political enemies. The Department of Homeland Security has excelled at attacking the Occupy movement and considers the patriot movement an enemy of the national security state.

If enacted by imperial fiat, the ability of the federal government to attack that enemy and disrupt and censor the free flow of information on the internet under the guise of protecting public infrastructure will be greatly enhanced.

Nov 1 2012

Republican National Committee alleges voting machine troubles in Nevada, other swing states( Voter Fraud Alert)

The Republican National Committee sent letters to election officials in Nevada and three other swing states on Thursday alleging “a significant number of cases” where voting machines cast ballots for President Barack Obama when the vote was intended for his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The RNC did not provide documented proof of its allegation.

The letter was sent to the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office as well as election officials in swing states Ohio, North Carolina, Colorado. The RNC said the alleged voting machine problems were the result of “miscalibration and hyper-sensitivity of the machines” and asked officials to recalibrate voting machines on Election Day and instruct poll workers to remind voters to double-check their votes.

A spokeswoman for the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office said a statement on the RNC claim will be issued later today.

Eric Herzik, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the RNC needs to “put up or shut up.”

“This is not normal, this is reprehensible,” Herzik said. “If you do not have direct proof you are making a claim that undermines the American electoral process.”

He added, “They ought to have 100 percent proof or they’ve lost credibility as a party. Americans should just be outraged if they have no proof and I’m a Republican.”

In 2010, Republican Sharron Angle alleged voter fraud after losing her bid to unseat U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., something she addressed in her self-published book, “Right Angle.”

Apr 16 2012

IRS Travel Ban: Revoking Citizenship By Stealth

Provision that allows feds to suspend passports of accused tax delinquents expected to pass Congress

Source: Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones

Efforts to pass a bill that would allow the IRS to deny travel rights to U.S. citizens who the feds merely claim owe $50,000 or more in delinquent taxes represents a de facto move to revoke the citizenship of Americans without due process and in complete violation of the Constitution.

Thanks to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a recently passed Senate bill, the suitably Orwellian entitled ‘Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act’, includes a provision that allows the federal government to revoke passports of Americans accused of owing back taxes.

The legislation now moves to the Congress where, despite a Republican majority, the IRS provision is expected to be retained in the final version of the bill because it will raise an estimated $750 million dollars over ten years.

“There is no requirement that the tax payer be guilty of or even charged with tax evasion, fraud, or any criminal offense — only that the citizen is alleged to owe the IRS back taxes of $50,000 or more,” reports the Daily Economist.

Empowering the IRS to deny fundamental rights on a whim is completely illegal and unconstitutional.

“There are also numerous Supreme Court precedents protecting these same rights,” writes Jack Swint. “Furthermore, the law appears to violate Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution, which forbids “Bills of Attainder”, which are laws providing for the punishment of an individual without benefit of judicial process.”

“It takes away your right to enter or exit the country based upon a non-judicial IRS determination that you owe taxes,” Constitutional Attorney Angel Reyes told FOX Business. “It’s a scary thought that our congressional representatives want to give the IRS the power to detain US citizens over taxes, which could very well be in dispute.”

What’s next? If the feds can bar you from leaving the country merely by claiming you have committed some infraction without having to provide any evidence, the prospect of Americans being abducted and interned indefinitely under the National Defense Authorization Act with a similar absence of due process is just around the corner.

Will citizens have their drivers license cancelled if the state claims they are behind on their property taxes? How about the government working with big banks to suspend credit cards if an individual is accused of avoiding inheritance or capital gains tax? Will similar punitive measures of punishment be enforced for Americans who attempt to avoid mandatory government health care?

Presumably because the provision was introduced by Harry Reid, there is a noticeable absence of uproar from the left even though the bill would achieve in one fell swoop what civil libertarians have fought against during the course of over ten years of the ‘war on terror’ – the ability of the federal government to arbitrarily strip Americans of the inherent rights associated with their citizenship status.

While U.S. citizens will be treated as guilty until proven innocent with regard to tax delinquency under this bill, individuals and corporations that have avoided hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes continue to escape any scrutiny whatsoever from the IRS.

Forget $50,000 dollars, people like Warren Buffett owe nearly one billion dollars in back taxes going back a decade, but I doubt you’ll see Buffett being apprehended by the TSA on his next business trip if this bill passes Congress.

This has nothing to do with cracking down on large scale tax criminals and everything to do with greasing the skids for the federal government to randomly deny Americans the right to mobility, effectively revoking their citizenship, merely on hearsay alone.

Apr 15 2012

Owe the IRS? You’re Not Going Anywhere

Source: 

A new bill making its way through Congress could allow the federal government to prevent Americans who owe back taxes from leaving the country.

The provision is part of Senate Bill 1813, which was introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in November and passed by the Senate on March 14 “to reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes.”

Those “other purposes” have come to include a little-known amendment recently introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that would allow the State Department to revoke, deny or limit passports for anyone the Internal Revenue Service certifies as having “a seriously delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000.”

While the provision does make exceptions if the debt “is being paid in a timely manner” or “in emergency circumstances or for humanitarian reasons,” it doesn’t require that a person be charged with tax evasion before having their passport revoked — only that the IRS has filed a notice of lien or levy against them.

Constitutional Attorney Angel Reyes says that’s a violation of due process and is unconstitutional.

“It takes away your right to enter or exit the country based upon a non-judicial IRS determination that you owe taxes,” Reyes told FOX Business. “It’s a scary thought that our congressional representatives want to give the IRS the power to detain US citizens over taxes, which could very well be in dispute.”

Financial Adviser Clark Hodges says the measure is especially concerning given the high number of taxpayers it could affect.

“There are so many people that fall into that situation, and I think that’s too invasive. Especially coming out of a bad economy there are a lot of people behind on a lot of things,” he told Fox Business.

Still, the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act” or “MAP-21″ passed the Senate in a vote of 74-22, and is now headed for the GOP-controlled house where it’s expected to meet stronger opposition.

Boxer’s office declined to comment on the passport provision when contacted by Fox Business, but the Senator vowed last week to do everything in her power to get the bill across the finish line.

“Thousands of businesses are at stake, and eventually we are talking about nearly three million jobs at stake,” she said in a statement. “There are many people on both sides of the aisle in the Senate who want to get our bill, MAP-21, passed into law, and I am going to do everything I can to keep the pressure on the Republican House to do just that.”

Niels Lesniewski, Editor of CQ SenateWatch, says legally the provision has precedent on its side.

“Existing law says that passports may not be reviewed for applicants owing child support in excess of $2,500. So I think supporters would say: ‘You can’t get a passport if you don’t pay child support, but you can get a passport if you don’t pay taxes?” he said.

As for the MAP-21’s prospects of passing the House, Lesniewski says it’s hard to tell if it will withstand Republican opposition, but he believes the passport provision has a good chance at becoming law for one reason: money.

“This provision is expected to raise almost $750 million in the 10-year window that they do the budget,” he said. “I think it will get passed eventually, and not necessarily as part of the transportation bill, but it seems like relatively low hanging fruit.”

Senator Reid’s office did not respond to requests for comment.