Free Republic

President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress in early March, as part of his fiscal 2015 budget, to reduce some of the tax advantages for employer-sponsored retirement plans for higher-income earners, according to published reports. Plus, the president wants to limit the value of all tax deductions, defined contribution exclusions and IRA deductions to 28% of income — and include an overall cap on all retirement accounts, including pensions, that could bring in $1 billion a year in new tax revenue, according to a Pensions & Investments report. Read Companies bracing for 1-2 retirement punch . According to the report,...

<p>When you hear, “Hello, I’m from the federal government and I want to help you manage your retirement savings,” the best advice is to run away, as fast as you can.</p>

Hartford Courant demands blood in the streets if that's what it takes for firearms confiscation. Only thing is, they don't seem to believe that it will be THEIR risk they're running. Silly sods. "State Can't Let Gun Scofflaws Off Hook -- Gun Registration: Break the law, pay the price." I don't think they appreciate the dimensions of the problem Lawlor and Malloy have made for themselves.But the bottom line is that the state must try to enforce the law. Authorities should use the background check database as a way to find assault weapon purchasers who might not have registered...

On Jan. 1, 2014, tens of thousands of defiant gun owners seemingly made the choice not to register their semi-automatic rifles with the state of Connecticut as required by a hastily-passed gun control law. By possessing unregistered so-called “assault rifles,” they all technically became guilty of committing Class D felonies overnight. Police had received 47,916 applications for “assault weapons certificates” and 21,000 incomplete applications as of Dec. 31, Lt. Paul Vance told The Courant. At roughly 50,000 applications, officials estimate that as little as 15 percent of the covered semi-automatic rifles have actually been registered with the state. “No one...

by Gina Cassini | Top Right News Today, an Arizona state senate committee approved a bill that would virtually nullify all federal gun acts, laws, orders, rules or regulations. The vote was 6-3.Along with twelve sponsors and co-sponsors, Arizona State Sen. Kelli Ward introduced the Second Amendment Preservation Act in the Grand Canyon State. SB1294 prohibits the state from enforcing “any federal act, law, order, rule or regulation that relates to a personal firearm, firearm accessory or ammunition within the limits of this state.” “We’ve sat back and allowed the federal government to trample the Constitution long enough,” Ward said. “We’re going...

Police have called upon the military for help and are scratching their heads as to how and why a man in southern Sweden managed to amass an arsenal of hundreds of weapons, 557 of which he had a licence to own. . . . . . . . Fearing an explosion, officers cordoned off the house and called in a bomb squad and the military for help. Closer inspection showed that the homeowner had actually had licences for 557 of the weapons, but questions have been raised as to whether such an extensive collection is nevertheless in breach of Sweden's...

Hold on to your wallets, folks. Without a powerful intervention, California may soon become the first big domino to fall in America's public pension debacle. To help prevent catastrophe, the California Public Policy Center (CPPC) has just made public a new database detailing the size and scope of the state's outsized expenditures on public employees — the largest ever compiled in California. Legislators and voters should take note, because California can't afford another round of fact-free partisan warfare. As recently reported in the New York Times, the fate of California cities such as Desert Hot Springs — where civic bankruptcy...

This is a stark warning by our brothers at Sun News in Canada that we are headed directly for gun confiscation and are blazing the same path that they took. It starts in Connecticut where they have now forced gun owners to register their weapons and Brian Lilly explains precisely how this new registration law will lead to gun confiscation. This is a MUST WATCH:

For the first time in the United States, a citizen who has legally registered a gun will have to submit to a renewal process. The consequences of not knowing about this new law or missing the specific 60-day window are dire. Starting on Jan. 2, every single D.C. resident who has registered a firearm since 1976 must go to police headquarters to pay a $48 fee and be photographed and fingerprinted. The Metropolitan Police Department estimates there are at least 30,000 registered gun owners. If the registrant does not go to the police station within three months after a set...

SACRAMENTO — Gun registration had always seemed like the “line in the sand” — a proposal that would so offend the nation’s gun-rights advocates that they would bring out their full political muscle to stop it. Yet a California law mandating government record-keeping for all new long-gun purchases goes into effect on Jan. 1 and few people even seem to know about it. (snip) The new law will bolster a program that has generated much controversy. Earlier this month, legislators held hearings on the effectiveness of the Armed Prohibited Persons System, used to confiscate the firearms of California residents who...

Connecticut residents waited in long lines on Thursday to register their firearms and high-capacity magazines before the state’s new gun laws go into effect on Jan. 1, 2014. WFSB-TV reports that a “long-line of people” stood outside the Public Safety Building in Middletown, Conn., all day to register semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines. Several residents were upset with the “unconstitutional” requirement, while at least one person didn’t appear to mind. “I understand why they’re doing it, but I don’t think it’s constitutional,” resident Scott Boccio told WFSB-TV as he was registering his guns. Charles Gillette, who was registering magazines, told...

America, if there was ever a time in our nation’s history that it was imperative that we as Americans separated ourselves from the constant dribble of the false paradigm of American politics, the time is definitely now. I find myself in total disbelief as I watch the obvious consequences of the corruption, massive wasteful spending, the outsourcing of the American labor force and many other ills that have plagued this nation for decades come boiling to a head like a massive pimple on a teenager’s forehead. When this pimple pops, it is going to hurt. We have to stop pretending...

Politics Of Sport: While ads featuring violent movies and video games regularly appear on NFL broadcasts, pro football has banned an ad supporting the Second Amendment. The NFL is within its rights, since Item 5 in its prohibited list of Super Bowl ad categories includes "Firearms, ammunition or other weapons; however, stores that sell firearms and ammunitions (e.g., outdoor stores and camping stores) will be permitted, provided they sell other products and the ads do not mention firearms, ammunition or other weapons." But the ad submitted twice by Daniel Defense does not sell firearms or one of the company's popular...

“I’ve always paid my taxes and have never been arrested or charged with any crime in my life. I am a successful small-business man. But in January of this year, I woke up to find that my business’ entire bank account — more than $35,000 — had been wrongly seized.” These are the words of Terry Dehko, who since 1978 has owned Schott’s Supermarket in Fraser, Michigan. His daughter, Sandy, began working with her dad at the store when she was 12, and now helps him run the business. Last year, the IRS conducted an audit of the store, and...

An anti-freedom policy has been spreading across United States police departments, the legalized theft of citizens guns.  Recently, it occurred in Georgia.  I am not talking about forfeiture laws.   They are related but have been  covered elsewhere. This is a problem in many urban areas, and it is spreading.  The policy is to impound guns, in extreme cases, all guns that officers come across, whether involved in any crime or not, then to refuse to return the guns until a judge issues an order to return  them.   As the attorney fees needed to obtain a court order can...

What is happening in California, as shown in this Fresno Bee article, is slow motion gun confiscation over time.  California has established gun confiscation squads that move through California confiscating guns that were registered.   As predicted in the essay "Gun Registration is Gun Confiscation" written in 2000, gun registration is not being implemented in massive door to door searches, though such confiscations have happened in recent history, such as in the Philippines in 1972, and even during a flood in Canada this year (2013).  The agents are part of the California Department of Justice's Armed Prohibited Persons System (APPS), a...

h/t Kirby

You meet some interesting people when you hand out cards announcing that you are a member of the new media.   My new friend, Limmuel, above, caught my attention when he cautioned me against believing that "It could never happen here." Limmuel was only a young boy when it happened to him and his family in the Philippines in 1972.  His father told him the details for years afterward.  Limmuel's father was a security guard at a high school in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos issued this order pursuant to Proclamation No. 1081 dated September 21, 1972. "NOW, THEREFORE, I,...

Another of history’s many lessons is that governments under pressure become thieves. And today’s governments are under a lot of pressure. Before we look at the coming wave of asset confiscations, let’s stroll through some notable episodes of the past, just to make the point that government theft of private wealth is actually pretty common... Will more countries introduce capital controls or asset confiscations in the next few years? Duh, of course. Debt levels are unmanageable, so they have to be lowered. And there are only three ways to do it: deflationary collapse that wipes out the debt through default,...

Russia’s government is temporarily seizing $7.6 billion in savings from non-state pension funds while it carries out inspections, a move critics say looks like a “confiscation” aimed at plugging a hole in next year’s state budget. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told ministers Thursday that the government needs to check that the money Russians channel to private pension funds is safe. To do this, it will seize 244 billion rubles ($7.6 billion) from non-state pension funds and put them into the state pension fund. Pension funds hold more than $100 billion in assets. Nearly half of that is mandatory savings managed...