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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[Via OccupyWallSt.org]

At the end of last year, on Black Friday, Walmart workers bravely went out on strike. The workers and their supporters held protests at over 1,000 stores across the country, shortly following an initial set of strikes by workers in Walmart’s warehouses. The actions were broadly hailed as historic, given Walmart’s long-time practice of crushing the rights of workers at home and across the globe. Walmart, predictably, wasted no time denying the importance of the strikes and protests. On Black Friday, Walmart downplayed the strikes, falsely claiming that “…fewer than five workers walked off the job” and "less than fifty," in other sources.

The massive Walmart PR team continued with the spin to hide the truth of unrest bubbling from our neighborhoods. Even though the strikers had never called for a boycott, Walmart immediately released sales numbers in a nervous attempt to demonstrate that the workers hadn’t impacted its bottom line. In fact, it further added that despite the strikes and protests, the company had its best Black Friday ever. Interestingly, recently leaked emails from Walmart executives tell another story about Walmart’s holiday season and sales following Black Friday. In the leaked emails, one executive asks, “Where are all the customers?” A look at Walmart’s fourth quarter sales reveals “anemic growth” in the market of the United States.

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Selling a home can be a difficult, stressful process, even now after the nation's largest banks have paid billions to settle claims of robosigning, and foreclosing on homes without properly vetting the paperwork.

Now imagine going through the process, receiving multiple offers...the hard part is over, right?

Not for Lily Diaz, a California woman who after receiving two offers on her house, discovered that Wells Fargo had actually foreclosed on the home months earlier.

Via:

Diaz said she was shocked because she has the paperwork that shows she completed a loan modification with Wells Fargo in January.

She said she made every monthly payment on time since it was approved.

“Wells Fargo apparently didn’t let title know the modification was accepted and they let the foreclosure proceedings continue,” said Duarte. “Wells Fargo knows they made the mistake. They don’t know how to fix it.”

As it stands now, the home can’t be sold.

Wells Fargo contacted Diaz to resolve the problem, but in the meantime, Diaz lost two offers on her home.

Despite efforts by federal regulators, it doesn't seem that the problem of mistaken foreclosures has been resolved, as unfortunately, cases such as Lily Diaz' are still not rare.