MI Morning Update: Supremes Secure 2nd Amendment - McCain Reacts - State Budget Deal Reached
By saul anuzis Posted in 2nd Amendment | John McCain | Michigan Republican Party | Republicans | Saul Anuzis | Supreme Court — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
130 Days until Election Day
June 27, 2008
MORNING UPDATE:
SECOND AMENDMENT SECURE...FOR NOW...The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history. Obama backed the DC gun ban case that lost...judges do matter.
McCAIN SAYS... Unlike the elitist view (read Obama) that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right - sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly. See more below.
BUDGET DEAL IN LANSING...state spending to increase to over $44 BILLION...and Republicans force the Governor and Democrats to hold the line on any new taxes. Last year, the Democrats jammed through the largest tax increase in Michigan's history...over $2 BILLION in new revenues. Taxpayers...be vigilant.
CONNIE BINSFELD HONORED...a great crowd of Republicans gathered in Traverse City last night to honor Lt. Governor Connie Binsfeld and her career in politics. Governor John Engler was the keynote speaker and talked about Connie's contribution to Michigan and the Republican Party. I drove up there with Ingham County Chairman Norm Shinkle.
CHERRY CAPITAL CHORUS...performed the Rail Road Rag along with several other songs for the dinner crowd in Traverse City. It was a great night!
THE TWO OBAMAS...A SELL OUT...here is a great op-ed in the New York Times that very methodically lays out who the "real" Barack Obama is...or isn't. A Must Read.
OBAMA'S PRESIDENTIAL SEAL....Karl Rove pens a great op-ed piece about Obama's arrogance and self-centeredness in the Wall Street Journal.
HYPOCRISY...DEMOCRATS START THEIR OWN ‘K-STREET PROJECT'...where's all the outrage from the press? When Republicans tried this, they were hung high and dry. The mainstream press is just showing their unbelievable bias in this regard. Obama's Democrat machine moves to secure their own lobbyist corp. See more info below.
MICHIGAN MATTERS..What's our state's biggest problem and what can be done about it? And what about education? Is enough being done to better prepare young people for the new knowledge economy? Watch "Michigan Matters" this Sunday with show host Carol Cain. Anuzis is joined by other political, business and educational leaders such as Edsel Ford, Congressman John Dingell, University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, Sen. Debbie Stabenow who also share their opinions with Cain during her exclusive one-on-one interviews with them at the Detroit Regional Chamber Mackinac Policy Leadership Conference. Watch "Michigan Matters" at 8:30 a.m. Sunday on WWJTV (CBS Detroit) and also 11:30 a.m. Sunday on CW50/WKBD.
ATTENTION REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES, CAMPAIGN MANGERS, AND ACTIVISTS...The Michigan Republican Party, in partnership with the Republican National Committee, is excited to announce...GET OUT THE VOTE (GOTV) TRAINING SEMINARS (more below).
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FOR THE LATEST NEWS, COMMENTARY & INFORMATION:
Check...out...our...online Articles of Interest.........News...you...can...use.........
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THE REST OF THE STORY:
JOHN MCCAIN ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT:
John McCain today issued the following statement regarding today's United States Supreme Court ruling on District of Columbia v. Heller:
"Today's decision is a landmark victory for Second Amendment freedom in the United States. For this first time in the history of our Republic, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was and is an individual right as intended by our Founding Fathers. I applaud this decision as well as the overturning of the District of Columbia's ban on handguns and limitations on the ability to use firearms for self-defense.
"Unlike Senator Obama, who refused to join me in signing a bipartisan amicus brief, I was pleased to express my support and call for the ruling issued today. Today's ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller makes clear that other municipalities like Chicago that have banned handguns have infringed on the constitutional rights of Americans. Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right - sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly.
"This ruling does not mark the end of our struggle against those who seek to limit the rights of law-abiding citizens. We must always remain vigilant in defense of our freedoms. But today, the Supreme Court ended forever the specious argument that the Second Amendment did not confer an individual right to keep and bear arms."
OBAMA-DEMOCRATS HYPOCRISY ON LOBBYISTS:
Key excerpts from Roll Call story on Dem K-Street Project:
After 18 months in the majority and a series of unsuccessful outreach efforts to the business community, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has lost patience with Republican dominance on K Street and started a systematic campaign to force a dramatic realignment backed with threats of a hostile environment on Capitol Hill.
As a result, Democratic leadership staff convened a meeting with a number of key lobbyists Wednesday with aides from Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Reid and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). One Democrat described the meeting as a ‘come to Jesus moment' designed to push K Street to abandon its allegiance to the GOP and throw its weight behind the bill.
Republicans are discounting the significance of K Street's demographics, arguing that any conflicts are a result of philosophical differences between business interests and the Democratic Party. A shot of new Democratic hires on K Street won't change those dynamics, they said.
"How many Republican trial lawyers or unions do you see?" one GOP aide asked.
Democrats came into power with pledges to cut the tight bond between influence peddlers and lawmakers, and as such have sought to keep their distance.
But some say the party has overcompensated for past GOP missteps and should push K Street to increase its Democratic hiring at the highest levels, increase contributions to Democratic candidates and heighten Democratic legislative outreach.
GOTV TRAINING SEMINARS...led by the RNC's Political Education Team, are a great resource for first time candidates and campaign managers, as well as veterans alike.
Also very valuable for grassroots activists who simply want to get involved to help elect our Republican candidates at all levels!!
WHO: Any Republican candidate for office (any level) or grassroots activists
WHAT: GOTV Training (putting together a campaign, essentials of voter contact, Voter Vault training, and more)
WHEN: Two identical seminars to chose from:
SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN
Saturday, June 28th
10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Ram's Horn Restaurant Banquet Center
56129 Van Dyke, Shelby Twp 48316
MID MICHIGAN
Sunday, June 29th
12:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Radisson Lansing Hotel
111 N. Grand River Avenue, Lansing 48933
COST: FREE....lunch included!! SPACE IS LIMITED!
PLEASE RSVP by Wednesday, June 25th to JASON GEER (jgeer@migop.org or phone: 517-487-5413).
TODAY'S TOP STORIES
The following stories and more are available at my Articles of Interest online.
Mich. lawmakers plan long session to pass budget
6/26/2008, 5:48 p.m. EDT
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Michigan lawmakers are preparing for a marathon session to try to pass next year's state budget.
The Legislature meets Friday to start voting on a $44 billion spending plan covering everything from state prisons to training for displaced workers.
Some parts of the budget that starts in October are ready for votes. But big-ticket bills covering public schools, universities and health care for the poor will not be finished until Friday morning at the earliest.
Most items in 2008-09 plan are ready to approve
BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF • FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF • June 27, 2008
LANSING -- What a difference an extra $1.5 billion and an election year make.
The Legislature was poised today to approve most of a $44-billion budget for next fiscal year, ahead of its unofficial deadline Tuesday.
No all-night sessions. No government shutdown. No partisan insults hurled back and forth.
House OKs Great Lakes compact; governor's signature next
Gary Heinlein / Detroit News Lansing Bureau
LANSING -- State lawmakers on Thursday wrapped up work on 12 bills regulating large-scale water withdrawals in Michigan and putting the state into a historic interstate and international pact protecting the Great Lakes from water grabs by outsiders.
The state House approved the final pieces, which had been blessed Wednesday by the Senate. The package is headed for Gov. Jennifer Granholm's signature. She backs the legislation and has hailed it as a "defining moment in Michigan history."
By putting her signature on the bills, Granholm also will authorize the state to join the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact, which prohibits large-scale piping of water from any of the five giant fresh-water lakes outside the basin. The Great Lakes contain 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water and more than 90 percent of the fresh surface water in the U.S.
Proposal surfaces after Suzuki drops out of '09 auto show; financing still must be resolved.
David Josar, Mark Hornbeck and Leonard N. Fleming / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick soon will unveil a plan to add 80,000 square feet of exhibition space to Cobo Center in a $90 million "stopgap" effort to keep more carmakers from abandoning the Detroit auto show, his top aide told the City Council on Thursday.
"We're working out the details now," Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams said. "This will get done. This has to get done. We cannot lose any more vendors."
On Wednesday, Suzuki announced it was pulling out of the 2009 show, saying the space was too small. Porsche also has left the show.
Appeals ruling may affect release of texts from mayor, city officials
Judge says decision in California case may prevent Detroit newspapers from getting access to messages.
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- A Wayne County judge said Thursday Detroit's two daily newspapers may never be able to use their Michigan Freedom of Information lawsuit to seek text messages sent and received by Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and other city officials.
The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press are suing the city for the release of all records related to the $8.4 million settlement of lawsuits filed by three former Detroit police officers. Records already released as a result of the lawsuit show Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, signed a secret deal as part of the settlement to keep under wraps embarrassing and potentially incriminating text messages they exchanged in 2002 and 2003.
The text messages sent and received on Beatty's city-issued SkyTel pager, published in January, pointed to a sexual relationship between Kilpatrick and Beatty and possible perjury about the nature of their relationship and circumstances surrounding the removal of Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown when they testified in that case.
GM chief tells Obama how to save auto industry
Candidate receptive, Wagoner says
BY JUSTIN HYDE • FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF • June 27, 2008
PITTSBURGH -- Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama asked the head of General Motors Corp. on Thursday what he could do to preserve the U.S. auto industry if elected, saying automakers "may need some bridges" to reach the future.
GM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said the industry needed help to shift toward more-efficient vehicles or new technologies.
He said the U.S. government should:
Survey gives edge in Michigan to Obama
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Democrat Barack Obama enters the summer with a small but significant lead over Republican John McCain for Michigan's 17 presidential electoral votes, according to a Quinnipiac University survey poll released Thursday.
Obama leads 48 percent to 42 percent in the survey, conducted for the Wall Street Journal and washingtonpost.com. The poll of 1,411 likely Michigan voters -- roughly double the usual survey sample for a statewide poll -- was conducted June 17-24, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
"Obama is on a roll," Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown said. He noted that the Michigan survey shows Obama leading among independents, consolidating Democratic support and keeping McCain's margins down among the white, working-class voters who supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.
June 27, 2008
The big political headline this week, of course, involves John McCain's endless and humiliating attempts to placate Mitt Romney by bowing to demands he hire his operatives and pay his campaign debt. So far all he's got is a grudging one-sentence endorsement from that rampaging rage-aholic Ann Romney.
Oh wait, got confused, that's Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
McCain backs gun decision, Obama straddles issue
Jun 26, 9:31 PM (ET)
By LIZ SIDOTI
WASHINGTON (AP) - John McCain welcomed a Supreme Court decision invalidating a District of Columbia handgun ban. Barack Obama sought to straddle the subject by saying he favors an individual's right to bear firearms as well as a government's right to regulate them.
The hotly contentious issue surfaced in the presidential campaign Thursday after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a constitutional right to own guns and struck down the city's thirty-two-year-old ban.
McCain, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, heralded the justices' action as "a landmark victory for Second Amendment freedom."
June 27, 2008; Page A12
The 2008 Supreme Court term ended with a bang yesterday as the Justices issued their most important ruling ever in upholding an individual right to bear arms. The dismaying surprise is that the Second Amendment came within a single vote of becoming a dead Constitutional letter.
That's the larger meaning of yesterday's landmark 5-4 ruling in D.C. v. Heller, the first gun control case to come before the Court in 70 years. Richard Heller brought his case after the Washington, D.C. government refused to grant him a permit to keep a handgun in his home. The District has some of the most restrictive handgun laws in the country - essentially a total ban. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision by Judge Laurence Silberman, overturned the ban in an opinion that set up yesterday's ruling by taking a panoramic view of gun rights and American legal history.