By Lois Beckett, ProPublica

In mid-April, Kansas passed a law asserting that federal gun regulations do not apply to guns made and owned in Kansas. Under the law, Kansans could manufacture and sell semi-automatic weapons in-state without a federal license or any federal oversight.

Kansas' "Second Amendment Protection Act" backs up its states' rights claims with a penalty aimed at federal agents: when dealing with "Made in Kansas" guns, any attempt to enforce federal law is now a felony. Bills similar to Kansas' law have been introduced in at least 37 other states. An even broader bill is on the desk of Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell. That bill would exempt any gun owned by an Alaskan from federal regulation. In Missouri, a bill declaring federal gun laws "null and void" passed by an overwhelming majority in the state house, and is headed for debate in the senate.

Mobilizing the pre-Civil-War doctrine of "nullification," these bills assert that Congress has overstepped its ability to regulate guns — and that states, not the Supreme Court, have the ultimate authority to decide whether a law is constitutional or not.

The head of the Kansas's State Rifle Association, an  affiliate of the National Rifle Association, says she put the bill together and found it a sponsor. While the NRA regularly lauds passages of states' gun-rights laws, it stayed silent on Kansas' law, and, so far, has kept a low profile on nullification. (The group did not respond to our requests for comment.)

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Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) said Tuesday that most opponents to his controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) are teenagers in their basements as the Obama administration threatened to veto the measure for its potential to violate civil liberties.

"People on the Internet -- if you're, you know, a 14-year-old tweeter in your basement … I took my nephew, I had to work with him a lot on this bill because he didn't understand the mechanics of it," Rogers continued. "I hear that a lot. Once you understand the threat and you understand the mechanics of how it works and you understand that people are not monitoring your content of your emails, most people go, 'got it.'"

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, reflected concerns shared by the White House and many civil liberties groups, arguing that the bill did not do enough to ensure that companies, in sharing cyber threat data with the government and each other, strip out any personal data of private citizens.

"They can just ship the whole kit and caboodle and we're saying minimize what is relevant to our national security," the Democrat said. "The rest is none of the government's business."

Rogers stressed that his bill doesn’t extend any extra surveillance powers to the federal government, despite condemnation from critics that say exactly that. “It does something very simple: it allows the government to share zeroes and ones with the private sector,” he said. Rather, he called it "a critical bipartisan first step for enabling American’s private sector to defend itself" and "improves cybersecurity without compromising our civil liberties."

“We have yet to find a single United States company that opposes this bill,” said Rep. Rogers.

But companies do in fact oppose CISPA. Facebook rescinded their support of the act, according to Cnet’s Declan McCullagh, because a spokesperson for the social media site says they prefer a legislative "balance" that ensures "the privacy of our users.” Facebook made the decision to rescind their support for the legislation after facing pressure from Demand Progress, the Internet freedom advocacy group founded by Aaron Swartz.

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This is your Moment of Clarity #222: The Obama Administration's unmanned drones have been bombing targets on their "kill list" for several years now. A new report from McClatchy on some leaked documents show that the military is not only killing high level al Qaida.

And here's Glen Greenwald's article on the use of the word "militant" to mean... anybody.

I started a Kickstarter to keep the Moment of Clarity Show going, this short video describes the project:

Please spread the word, and help me continue to have a show that corporate America will hate.

Keep fighting,

Lee

Journalist Matt Taibbi assesses the Obama Administration’s approach to holding banks accountable for their behavior, and early indications are not promising. Taibbi tells Bill Moyers that fearing another economic calamity is no excuse for turning a blind eye to shockingly unethical decisions and management.

“The rule of law isn’t really the rule of law if it doesn’t apply equally to everybody. If you’re going to put somebody in jail for having a joint in his pocket, you can’t let higher ranking HSBC officials off for laundering $800 million for the worst drug dealers in the entire world,” Taibbi tells Bill. “Eventually it eats away at the very fabric of society.”

Watch Bill’s full conversation with Taibbi on this weekend’s Moyers & Company.

Occupy the Rose Parade plans to descend upon the annual showcase of flowered floats and bands with a undetermined number of protesters. The movement’s latest plans were announced in November and could bring anywhere from 4,000 to 40,000 protesters to the highly attended and viewed event.

There will even be a "rapping 'billionaire" to accompany the floats during the event. Watch as they prepare in the video above.

Via:

The demonstrators are planning to form a human float in the shape of an octopus for the third phase, and are expected to trail the final parade float down Colorado Boulevard. The octopus is meant to represent the hold corporations have on the country.

“The last float in the parade is number 43,” said Occupy protester Pete Thottam in a past interview. “We’re going to be float number 44, which coincidentally is the Obama Administration’s float number.”

The Occupiers plan to gather for a pow wow in the final phase of the event, which may include a press conference at Pasadena City Hall and a subsequent music concert.

Though demonstrators maintain they have planned a peaceful protest, the Pasadena Police Department is expected to beef up security at the event. They plan to have helicopters flying above the parade route and to employ an armored vehicle during the parade.

I just don't get what is so threatening, or frightening about a group of hippies gathering for a cause. Especially hippies with floats? C'mon...

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