by David J Dent

Every US President should visit a BlackJack table in Atlantic City sometime in the first term. It should happen just as they are in the middle of those Dreams From Your Ego, which promise bright new hopes if they can only win that second term.  Those hopes are as real as the possibility of getting the right card on the BlackJack table after you have been dealt two eights. Do you call it quits with 16, or carry bold expectations for the next card, imagining a golden five?  Does your ego lead you to totally discard the climate that confronted your predecessors in their second terms? Do you think you can win with that Five and sweep a 21–defying recent second term history–Watergate, Iran Contra, Monica, Weapons of Mass Destruction? Everything blows up in the second term. GW Bush entered his second term with a 51% approval rating. He ended much lower as his popularity laid the foundation for the Bush Obama America.

For President Obama, it is time to dodge the second term bullets that are providing hope for Republicans–Dreams From Their Nixon. How things change? Just a few months ago, the Republican Party’s identity crisis consumed Washington after the last election. The Elephants have not forgotten their problems with young voters, women, blacks, Latinos, etc. Yet Benghazi, the IRS, and AP are all they need to get by to shift the momentum. But the Republican impeachment dreams are just that–dreams. However, these days, it is not difficult to imagine Barack Obama ending his second term with the popularity level and disgrace that colored the final days of George Bush.

Local papers throughout Bush-Obama counties offer a sense of the impacts of the crisis currently consuming the Obama administration. In San Diego County, a collection of Obama supporters and haters weigh in on the the administration. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/may/13/conversation-irs-tea-party/

Also, take a look at the approval ratings of two recent presidents whose popularity plummeted in their second terms, and compare them with the course that President Obama is currently charting.

Graph 1: Nixon’s approval rating over time:

http://webapps.ropercenter.uconn.edu/CFIDE/roper/presidential/webroot/presidential_rating_detail.cfm?allRate=True&presidentName=Nixon#.UZUtYitEQjl

Graph 2: GW Bush’s approval rating over time:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx

Graph 3: Obama’s approval rating:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/var/plain/storage/images/media/obama_total_approval_graphics/may_2013/obama_total_approval_may_16_2013/921159-1-eng-US/obama_total_approval_may_16_2013.jpg

]]> http://bushobamaamerica.com/archives/1874/feed 0 http://bushobamaamerica.com/archives/1836 http://bushobamaamerica.com/archives/1836#comments Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:54:13 +0000 admin http://bushobamaamerica.com/?p=1836 by David J Dent

Colorado hardly appeared to be drone-obsessed this week, which may seem odd if you consider the state’s Libertarian heritage; the Libertarian Party was actually founded in Westminster, Colorado in 1971. You may also have heard friends …

by David J Dent

Designed by: Thomas Barnes

Colorado hardly appeared to be drone-obsessed this week, which may seem odd if you consider the state’s Libertarian heritage; the Libertarian Party was actually founded in Westminster, Colorado in 1971. You may also have heard friends of Rand Paul pointing with pride to the Drone Filibuster as appealing to Libertarians across the country. However in Larimer, a Bush-Obama county in Colorado, Libertarians are far from rare, but seemed uninterested in Paul’s theatrics. “We have a reader call-in line, where readers can give their opinions on any topic,” says Jeff Stahla, Managing Editor of The Loveland News and Herald in Larimer. “There have been no calls that I have heard about Rand Paul’s filibuster, or drones in general. Right now, the gun control issues in Colorado are sucking all the air out of the room and are front and center on every political mind in the state.”

Jeff Stahla

State lawmakers are debating legislation that could set a standard as the toughest guns laws passed by a Mountain West state. The reasoning is not hard to follow when you consider Columbine High School in 1999 and the Aurora movie theater shooting last July. “There are 7 major bills that are addressing gun issues. They run the gamut. I would say probably the one that’s a little bit more progressive than we’ve seen in many years would attach a liability to manufacturers and sellers if a gun is used in a crime.”
In traveling across the state, I have found people who are not blindly jumping on either side of the issue. I have met many gun owners who want tougher laws and are NRA members, andthey are far away from the NRA on the issue. However many are equally frustrated with hardliners on the other side of the debate who are not focused enough on mental health issues. “The way we treat the nation’s mentally ill has not kept up with other healthcare initiatives that have occurred in the last 30 years,” says Stahla. “That there’s a lot more awareness of cancer and heart disease and all these other diseases, but we have not, in the same breadth, moved forward with funding for mental health treatment, which is a big part of the gun issue here. I think the people are frustrated by some of the disconnects between some of the gun control measures versus comparing them to the data of what really is occurring, at not only the mass shootings but also just in the lower-profile shootings nationwide.  Whether the solutions that are being offered are solutions to identifiable problems that have occurred, or something that were taken out of the back of the trunk of an agenda that might be 20 or 30 years in the making.  In other words, I hear a lot of frustration from my readers, asking ‘Where’s the science? Where’s the data to back up new control measures versus what’s actually occurring out on the street?”

You can’t view gun control through the easy red-blue lens in Colorado, reflecting the purple wave in partisan logic in many corners of the state where both parties appear to be losing solid blocks of support. The emerging portrait indicates that Colorado will easily remain a quintessential swing state again in 2016. ”There are many, many, many more people registering as Independents than as party members.” asys Stahla. “ And many members of both parties, switching to Independent status. That has made the primaries more interesting.  I hear it more from my Republican friends who don’t like the direction that their party is going, but they’ll never be a Democrat. So they declare themselves Independent. But what that does is make it easier for marginal candidates to win the party’s nomination.  It’s fascinating to me, just kind of in terms of where we’re seeing our local politics go…Our candidates have gotten more conservative over the past decade.  Actually, the National Review came out with the recent ranking of the most liberal and conservative senators.  And Colorado’s two Democratic senators were both between 40 and 50, the 40th or 45th most liberal.  So in other words, very middle of the road.  And what we’re finding, is that the Democrats that are getting elected out here are tacking toward the middle to get that vote in the statewide races. However in the smaller districts, where there is less heterogenous voters, they don’t have to do that.  And so you’re seeing, more stark division starting to come down to the local level in some places.”

 

]]> http://bushobamaamerica.com/archives/1836/feed 0 http://bushobamaamerica.com/archives/1830 http://bushobamaamerica.com/archives/1830#comments Fri, 01 Mar 2013 18:00:07 +0000 admin http://bushobamaamerica.com/?p=1830 They have nothing to fear in the sequester.  After all, they have marijuana and much experience with the perils of poverty. Residents in California’s Trinity County are accustomed to economic doom coupled with the promise of pot. “Here we used …

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Designed by: Thomas Barnes

They have nothing to fear in the sequester.  After all, they have marijuana and much experience with the perils of poverty. Residents in California’s Trinity County are accustomed to economic doom coupled with the promise of pot. “Here we used to rely heavily on timber,  says Wayne R. Agner, Editor of Trinity Journal. “It used to be a timber county for a long long time. At one time, we had 30 mills, we’re down to one…But we’re sitting here in the middle of the Emerald Triangle where the marijuana grows. When you’re talking the economy, you’re talking marijuana for us too…It has been an economic stabilizer for us in terms of replacing some of the timber that is no longer here. We’ve gone to another form of agriculture you can say. Yes, its an underground economy and those dollars flow through the county.”

Wayne Agner

The unemployment rate in California’s Trinity County has grown to 17 percent, up from 11 percent in 2003. The median income is 35,207, which is 61 percent of the state average and  one of the lowest of all Bush-Obama Counties. “This is a county that has been doing without for a long time,” says Agner. “We’re a fairly poor county, so we’ve learned to roll with the punches pretty well. We just know that nobody is riding in with a white horse and with a big check. So we don’t even start thinking that way.”

It is one of three counties in the Emerald Triangle, giving medical marijuana as much relevance as the sequester when considering the economy. It is legal to grow pot in certain parts of the county but the regulations around growing the drug are tough. Many residents still see marijuana sales as a weapon against things like a sequester.

Beyond marijuana, many county leaders see economic hope in tourism. Trinity is a scenic county with world class fishing and rugged and mountainous lands. You can’t find  a traffic lifght or a freeway in Trinity. The population is a little more than 14,000 and the county sits along the Trinity River in Northwest California.

Many residents leave the beauty in order to earn a living. “Well if the whole family is not moving out of the county, the breadwinner is. So you’re seeing some families that are apart so they can earn a living or they’re making the commute. They may stay there for 2-3 days a week and come home for the weekends.“

Agner says people are furious with both Congress and the White House. The county voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, Obama in 2008. Romney returned the county to its red roots barely winning with 55 votes in 2012. The county seems to have a slight affinity for independent candidates. Four percent of those at the polls voted for a candidate other than Obama and Romney in 2012 and Ross Perot carried the county in 1992. Before 2008, the last Democrat to win the county was Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Many residents would like to see more support for small businesses in the county.“There are a lot of businesses in town that are really just hanging on by their fingernails, and it would only take one wrong thing for them to go under,” says Agner. “And we’ve had a few businesses go under, that’s really the economic impact. There’s been some long-term and short-term businesses that just couldn’t make it any more, and they gave up and closed the doors.”

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Ann Coulter is a white Crystal Wright. I met Crystal more than ten years ago when I interviewed her for my book, In Search of Black America. She is still sharp and beautiful even though her contemporary web persona is puzzling yet extremely entertaining. On Twitter, her handle is GOPBlackChick and she is editor of conservativeblackchick.com. The last headline on her website proclaimed “Blacks are Fed up with Obama; It’s about Time.”

Really Crystal?  Are Blacks fed up with Obama? Every sign of Black opinion on Obama I see is compatible with the recent Pew-USA Today poll, which places President Obama’s favorability at its highest since 2009. I have not seen any evidence of black discord from those numbers.

It must be so frustrating to be an Obama-hater now. Perhaps it is like being a liberal who did not consider Ronald Reagan to be the God of the White House in the Eighties. Now, through the Sequester and a shaky economic recovery, Obama clearly displays some of that Reagan teflon that easily carried the former president through Iran Contra. This is a moment of Revenge of the Liberals who survived the Reagan years. In fact, one of Wright’s own tweets yesterday implied Obama supporters were as locked to the president as Reagan-lovers were during the Eighties. Wright tweeted, “if the president told his supporters to jump off a bridge for hope & change, they would say how many times?”

Now it is time for my own confession: I love reading the blogs of conservatives, especially black Obama haters. Maybe it is a fascination with “the other.” Maybe it is akin to my comfort and ability to be entertained in a room of Ronald Reagan lovers 30 years ago. Conservative tweets are great bedtime reading–almost like watching Comedy Central. Conservative William Carter Jr. describes himself as “God-fearing, Husband, Father, Brother, Son, Friend, American, Gamer. Life is short, enjoy it while you’re here, you only get one.” Carter tweeted that the president could propose to bring back slavery, and his supporters would “clap at the SOTU when it’s announced.” Derrick Burnette says: “If Obama spit in his supprters face they’d say thanks 4 the rain Mr President.”  Just pass the popcorn or pour me another glass of Merlot.

Wright, Carter or Burnett may have felt at home at a dinner I attended in the Eighties with black Republicans honoring Richard Nixon. Someone compared Tricky Dick’s record on race to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. To be fair, the speaker was referring to the former President’s black capitalist initiatives.

Beyond her tweeting sensations, Wright makes some solid points. There are some thoughtful elements in her blog posts exploring the GOP’s pathetic efforts to reach out to black voters. And she takes us back to those “binders”—not Romney’s books of good women. Wright notes that the Congressional Black Caucus gave President Obama “binders full of blacks to appoint to cabinet positions but Obama isn’t giving his 95% a single nom. Zero.”

There are some rumblings outside the black conservative corridors that Obama has, like most other Democrats, ignored his most loyal voting supporters, African Americans. I explored this question with someone who follows the pulse in Florida’s only Bush-Obama county, Hillsborough and statewide. Charles Cherry is the Publisher, General Manager, and columnist for the Daytona Times, which covers African American communities across the state of Florida. He is not a black conservative or Obama hater but says African Americans should engage politics beyond labels and parties. He also says too many African Americans in Hillsborough County and elsewhere are soft on the president. “I don’t think they’re evaluating him by the same standards that they evaluated George Bush.”

Chuck Cherry: Generally speaking, he does get a pass… based on the fact that most black people really understand that the Republicans hate the guy and that many of our readers don’t want to be seen as assisting his enemy… if you’re asking about what are folks saying in the streets – I don’t think they’re evaluating him by the same standards that they evaluated George Bush. I think, frankly, there’s a double standard with regards to the performance of Obama, and I think that people have a tendency to rationalize what he’s done, and they have bought some of the talking points that the administration has put out: that he’s not the president of black america, white america, he’s the president of America…But I think there are a lot of conflict issues in play, and I think any place you go in black Florida, you’ll find somebody that has an opinion that may be a bit different about Barack Obama, but I think where you have general unity is from a symbolic perspective. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t believe and understand that it’s very powerful symbolism to have a black man as the most powerful man on the planet, to be reelected twice, and to have an unapologetically black, smart woman that’s his wife, with those two black girls in the white house. You won’t find any disagreement among black folk as far as the symbolic nature of the president, but we start dealing with the issue, you start having some division…

Q: Beyond the symbolism, in terms of economic issues, and appointments–what is different than having a George Bush or Bill Clinton?

From my perspective, not much…I’m just going to do what we’ve always done, which is to see what happens and to make decisions based on the actions that the president takes or he doesn’t. We’ll try to hold him to the same standards–no higher or lower–than we have over the years that we’ve been in print, which is since 1978. I mean same thing we did with Carter, Reagan, Bush. Bush, you know…Many of our readers say he’s already got folks that hate him, I’m not going to part of the brigade of folks that hate this guy, I’m going to give him a chance to do what he needs to do. I think–once he gets re-elected, he’s going to come and start doing the things he knows he couldn’t get done in the first administration.

Q: Is that similar to say how some African Americans rationalized support for the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, arguing that once he became a Supreme Court Justice, he would be free to turn away from what some considered an anti-black perspective?

…I think there’s a parallel there… Again, when we look at what’s going on in our neck of the woods, probably, the most direct predictor of how somebody feels about Barack Obama in black Florida–I can ask you, are they male or female? Typically, the sisters will defend him to the N^th degree, while brothers will criticize him on his lack of aggression on certain issues, we’re the ones who will disagree with him on issues…. It’s more as a consequence of the family that he has.  He has self-identified as a black man–clearly.  In terms of trying to find his black roots, after got away from his grandma, grandad in Hawaii and all the rest of that–and I think it’s good to talk about his search for his identity as a black man–he married a black woman, he’s got two beautiful young black kids, I mean, man, you can’t buy that kind of loyalty from sisters, man.  [laughs]  And let me tell you something.  In my experience, and it’s not just sisters here in my state, but any black women that I’ve talked to, they are loyal to a fault, to not just Barack Obama, but the Obamas.  And Glenn and I were talking about how, brothers, we can’t even say anything!  Cause if you criticize even the issues, you a hater….  If you criticize him on the issues, you’re in bed with the enemy.  You know, Republicans hate him, and you gonna help the enemy destroy this black man and his family.  Those kinds of things.  Those are the reactions you get typically with black women, even when you try to have a rational, fact-based, issues-based discussion about what you would consider to be some qualms or concerns you have about the administration.  So it’s difficult to have just a fact-based discussion about the administration’s policies and issues, it’s very difficult if you’re sitting across the table from a black woman, it really is.

The black publishers have met with him twice in the white house.  First time was a meeting after, in March of 2009… When we had the last meeting at the White House, we had a panel discussion with some of the folks in the administration, the black people in the administration. This was in 2012, so this was before the election. Essentially, what they wanted us to do was to go o and tell the success story of the President to black america. He came in, he gave a pretty basic, fill-in-the-blank speech about some of his accomplishments… Didn’t take any questions, shook some hands, and left. But I wasn’t impressed by what he had to say because–he’s been very inconsistent in what he said he was going to do in terms of black america. Which is, his theory has been that a rising tide is going to lift all boats. So when he said that back in 2008, I took him at his word. I think that he just believes that if he does right by the rest of America, the weakest and least of these, which are black folks in disproportionate pain, will, our lot will improve.

Q: Do you agree with that?

It’s not. I don’t agree with it at all. I think there ought to be some type of selective… triage. There’s got to be some triage–there are some people that are hurting worse than the others, those are the people that deserve help the most. Now, part and parcel of what he’s talking about just this past weekend–Chicago, the gun violence there, when you start getting to the roots of that, a lot of that is economics and education and destruction of the black family there. A lot of that goes to the chronic unemployment and the disproportionately high unemployment in black america, particularly among black men…. In Miami, in Fort Lauderdale. You can go to any of our urban areas here in Florida–Jacksonville, Daytona, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale–it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing around the country. Those are the kinds of questions and kinds of issues that, if you were doing this from a triage perspective, you know, that’s what needs to be addressed first. But it hasn’t been done, you’re not talking about it now. I’ve been listening to him in the last 24-48 hours…

Q: Yet doesn’t he have to do that in order to appeal to many swing voters in Bush Obama counties. Do you think strong appeals soley to black voters would sacrifice support from other places that he receives?

It might, but from a leadership perspective, he has to do those things that are the right things, and that are the proper things, and then the leadership says, this is why I did it. I think that he’s a very cautious politician. He doesn’t seem, to me, to have the kind of political strategy–his strategy has never been divisive in terms of leadership. I think he considers himself to be a cautious, collaborative leader. That’s his leadership style. He has not, in my mind, I haven’t seen him do anything that sort of splits the country down the middle and says, “Hey, here’s why I‘ve done this.” I think–the administration has a tendency to do polling and focus groups and this that and the other, before they try to direct.

We have asked actually, during the campaign, we asked the White House–we wanted to feature the black folks that were in the administration, actually from top to bottom, and we never got a response from them. It wasn’t because they ignored it, I think they chose not to respond because I think during the campaign, they didn’t want to bring a whole lot of attention to race and the issue of diversity in the federal government. I’m not personally impressed with what you could call “black faces in high places.” I think again, look at the actions, look at and evaluate the issues–I mean, from my perspective, I’d rather have somebody of whatever color that would take a stand that we think that, on the issues that are most important to black Americans compared to someone that’s black that will just sit there and take up space.

Designed by Cameron Carr

Republicans in swing counties are struggling to recover. Many closely watched the President’s State of the Union and the responses, searching for something to use in their battle to stave off the predictions of the doom in the GOP future most recently cited in The New Republic and commonly voiced in the land of punditry. We are travelling back in the Bush Obama counties to see how the partisan battle lines are forming for 2014 and 2016. We begin in Ottawa County. Since 1948,  not one presidential candidate has won the White house without winning the Northwest Ohio, Bush Obama  County. We interviewed Joel Mann, Co-Founder of the Ottawa County Young Republicans.

 Q: How do you think the Republican party can recover right now?  It seems like it’s a little tough these days, particularly with the hispanic vote.  It was what – 70% for Obama?  It seems like putting a guy like Marco Rubio on the ticket is an attempt to cull the Latino vote.  What do you think about that?

Mann: Well, I think you’re pretty on with that assessment. The thing is, he’s one of the only ones in the Republican party that’s really speaking out against Obama and the administration. I think because he’s younger, he doesn’t have the Washington influence and the lobbyists buying him yet. So he has a little bit more flexibility, and I think that’s why he’s out there in the front right now.

I think the majority of the GOP right now – there’s too many establishment Republicans that have been there for way too long. A lot of them are no different from the Democrats, and so that’s why nothing is happening. And that’s why I’m a firm believer of term limits, and we need term limits to kick them out after a couple years. Because no matter who goes there, with whatever intentions they have, when you’re there stuck in that environment for a few years, it doesn’t matter what side you’re on. You’re now stuck in a corrupt system, and that’s the problem we’re facing.

Do you think Marco Rubio and Rand Paul are going to be effective in recapturing the Republican Party?

It’s interesting you mention Rand Paul, those two right there are the two I would love to see on the ticket. Both of them will grab the majority of Republicans and definitely re-energize the party, more than what Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney did. I liked them, but I wasn’t excited about them.  That is what almost everybody was saying. It wasn’t as bad as with McCain, where there wasn’t much excitement at all, but I guess last time, it wasn’t energized. The base was just not energized enough, and that’s why we lost.

Rand Paul and Marco Rubio will hopefully do a good job of attracting their base.  What about winning over Democrats or the undecided?  Particularly since many people are dissatisfied with Obama.

The biggest thing that the Republican party needs to capitalize on is media, especially Facebook – just get better at communication. I don’t know which Democrat or who started it, but blaming everything on Bush – it sounds silly, and it’s funny – but it’s effective, and it has worked. One of the marketing things that has really helped with the Democrats is just getting that whole idea that it’s just Bush’s fault.  And Bush is a Republican.  It’s something so simple and so easy that the Democrats have just run with it, and everybody believes it now, that it was all Bush’s fault.  And now that it’s been a few years since Bush has been president, you look back at those times, and it wasn’t nearly, nearly as bad as what it is now. The economy wasn’t as bad. Yeah, we were in a few wars, but we’re still there.  It’s something that the Republicans need to do, something that simple, to get the message across that, hey – Obama’s wrong. How do we convince these people that Obama’s wrong, especially when most of them are so delusional that they’re not even willing to look into other possibilities – either they’re Democrats, or because he’s a liberal, or, I hate to say this, but just because he’s black. I mean, it’s sad. That that’s the way people vote. They don’t look at the character or the person as an individual to be president.

You mentioned “delusional.”  That’s a very interesting term, particularly when it comes to gun control.  Do you think, in your county, where people hear “Assault Weapon”, do they associate that with submachine guns that can fire 30 rounds a second, or do they associate that with hunting rifles, that may just look like them?  Do you think people have a grasp on the terminology being used in this ban?

In Ottawa County, we’re rural country people.  We understand the terminology.  It might be different as you get closer to the metro areas and the cities, but arms are mostly understood out here.

It’s interesting how many people across the board are saying we need to completely eliminate assault weapons, and they’re not talking about assault weapons at all. They’re talking about something quite different.  How is it that people can form such strong opinions about something they don’t understand?  Why is there so much mystery surrounding something like terminology?

That’s a question I’ve been asking for the last six years. Why don’t people understand something like the constitution? Why don’t people understand term limits, government antennas? Why don’t people understand the difference between federal and state? It’s all right there and I blame it on the failure of our public school systems because they don’t teach it. The only way for someone to find out about it is to go online and learn it themselves. Because the public school systems just fail.  I don’t believe that that’s by mistake – I think that’s intentional. Someone or some group does not want the American population to understand these things. With guns, they want people to be uneducated on them so they go and vote the way they want it, and they can pretty much ban all weapons so that we the people are pretty much powerless against them. I don’t want to sound like a crazy lunatic, but quite honestly the more and more I see what government is doing, the more I see that America is not the free country and even nation that we were ten years ago.

You can’t blame it all on the Democrats or Bush – it’s all of us, and “we the people” have let it happen. That’s what more and more people around here are saying. They’re asking “What is going on?” “What’s going on in Washington?” “What’s going on in Ohio, what’s going on in Columbus?” More and more people are waking up and saying, “What’s really going on here?” We now have an administration and president that have made it a little easier for people to say “Oh, something is going wrong.”  The last few administrations have hid it pretty well, and now all of a sudden we have an administration that is pushing more socialism, more government control and takeover. It’s easier to notice than in previous administrations. We notice it.

http://www.houstonianonline.com/news/gun-control-debate-sparks-at-sga-forum-1.2810450#.UR0oox04vE0

http://www.kens5.com/news/Texas-AG-Ted-Nugent-defend-guns-on-Piers-Morgan-Tonight-189834221.html

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/State-local-leaders-differ-on-gun-control-4200443.php

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Gun-control-bill-to-be-introduced-4218551.php

http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/188199551.html

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/news/texas-sheriff-not-all-gun-control-violates-rights/article_93a49613-36fa-5163-a03c-adf038e946cf.html

General Texas
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP97dc2bc357df483095ed76e0568f6b5f.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandon-friedman/texas-mayors-gun-control-rick-perry_b_2523814.html

Dallas

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20130212-senate-dems-gop-clash-over-need-for-new-gun-curbs.ece

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20130123-lynn-woolley-let-s-put-facts-over-emotions-in-gun-control-debate.ece

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20130206-dallas-panel-addresses-stigma-of-mental-illness-calls-for-more-funding.ece

http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/02/07/4608264/perry-abbott-tell-residents-of.html

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/01/texas-congressman-likens-obamas-gun-control-efforts-to-saddam-husseins-use-of-children-as-human-shields.html/

http://houston.cbslocal.com/2013/01/23/texas-sheriff-not-all-of-obamas-gun-control-violates-rights/

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20130213-obamas-emphasis-on-issues-a-hindrance-texas-republicans-say.ece

Colorado

http://www.9news.com/news/article/317084/339/Dems-poised-to-expand-gun-checks-in-CO

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22581034/colorado-legislature-consider-three-more-gun-bills-wednesday

http://durangoherald.com/article/20130213/NEWS01/130219805/-1/s

http://www.gazette.com/articles/expect-150966-thursday-high.html

http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/18/colorado-sheriff-wont-enforce-unconstitutional-gun-laws/

http://www.examiner.com/article/colorado-sheriff-joins-other-lawmen-not-enforcing-obama-gun-control

http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/colorado-sheriff-only-courts-can-rule-on-gun-control/article_cfe6ce5e-439d-5fef-9f59-713fb5d2df6d.html

http://kdvr.com/2013/01/22/poll-55-percent-of-coloradans-favor-stricter-gun-laws/

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20130122/COLUMNISTS103/301220032/Knezovich-Controls-don-t-infringe-Second-Amendment

San Diego

http://fox5sandiego.com/2013/01/15/police-chiefs-back-presidents-gun-control-plans/#axzz2KtxW2fWf

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/feb/06/ap-sources-house-dems-offer-own-gun-control-plan/

http://www.760kfmb.com/story/20975025/obama-tries-to-unify-senate-democrats

http://fox5sandiego.com/2013/01/15/chula-vista-supports-gun-control-legislation/#axzz2KtxW2fWf

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jan/16/local-voice-gun-control/

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Guns-Rifles-Weapons-Seize-Increase-San-Diego-County-Sheriff-191235101.html

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/feb/11/giffords-group-starts-airing-gun-control-tv-ad/

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/feb/08/gun-control-san-diego-santana-sandy-hook-opinions/

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/feb/14/5500-attend-connecticut-gun-control-rally/

Tampa (Hillsborough)

http://www.tampabay.com/incoming/feinstein-says-gun-control-faces-uphill-climb/1272567

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/boehner-up-to-democrats-to-prevent-budget-cuts/1275191

http://www.tampabay.com/news/nation/house-republicans-signal-openness-on-some-gun-measures/1273932

http://www.tampabay.com/incoming/thousands-rally-against-stricter-gun-control-in-us/1271487

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/gun-control-officials-set-sights-on-ammunition-background-checks/1273189

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/letters/gun-control-laws-are-important-step/1274924

http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2013/feb/11/st-petersburg-leaders-call-for-gun-control-measure-ar-631368/

http://www2.tbo.com/news/business/2013/feb/04/threats-of-legislation-sparks-sales-for-tampa-gun-ar-624168/

http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2013/jan/17/namaino7-hillsborough-officials-hope-to-grab-fundi-ar-608957/

http://www2.tbo.com/news/pasco-news/2013/jan/22/2/pasco-commissioners-consider-closing-gun-show-loop-ar-613684/

http://bradenton.patch.com/articles/executive-orders-is-obama-going-too-far

http://www.tbnweekly.com/editorial/viewpoints/content_articles/020513_vpt-01.txt

Virginia (Arligton, Fairfax)

http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/20618683/va-lawmakers-go-undercover-at-gun-show#axzz2Ku4dloyN

http://fairfaxnews.com/2013/01/state-senate-passes-bill-to-protect-domestic-violence-victims/

http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2013/jan/24/making-schools-safer/

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/b831643e9f6c495e8b35ebfee09a9a4a/VA–Gun-Rights-Rally

http://www.elonpendulum.com/2013/01/why-gun-control-isnt-controlling-anything/

http://hamptonroads.com/2013/01/false-start-virginia-gunshow-bill

http://arlington-va.patch.com/articles/op-ed-pretend-gun-laws

other Virginia

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/28/virginia-gun-control-laws_n_2565023.html

http://www.newsleader.com/viewart/20130204/NEWS01/302040010/Va-Senate-panel-rejects-expanding-gun-show-checks

http://www.newsleader.com/viewart/20130210/NEWS01/302100026/Va-s-bills-spotlight-once-again

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