Concluding his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Obama invoked the families of recent gun violence victims, who attended the speech to represent the need for gun violence prevention measures. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) stood in respect.

Obama talked with emotion about 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who was gunned down shortly after performing in Obama’s inaugural parade. He then recognized the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, the Aurora theater shooting, the Sikh temple shooting, the Tucson shopping center shooting and the Virginia Tech shooting:

Hadiya’s parents, Nate and Cleo, are in this chamber tonight, along with more than two dozen Americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence. They deserve a vote. Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote.

Watch it:

The NRA recently dismissed the grief of these families as “the Connecticut effect,” which would subside in time for the lobbying group to continue to push a radical gun agenda.

Obama’s gun regulation plan calls for universal background checks, expanded mental health care services, improving gun ownership databases and a ban on high capacity magazines.

Federal prosecutors will crack down on recreational marijuana dispensaries and growers even in states where they are legal, U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told a Canadian news magazine this week. The statement appears to be the first from a federal official to state explicitly that the federal government will prosecute dispensaries and producers once they are licensed in Washington and Colorado. During an interview on 20/20, President Obama told Barbara Walters only that the federal government has “bigger fish to fry” than going after recreational users, but did not address those who produce or distribute marijuana. MacLean’s reports:

Q: In the November elections, two states—Washington and Colorado—voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use. President Obama has said that the U.S. government has “bigger fish to fry” than to go after recreational users in states where it is legal. Where do things stand with regard to producers and distributors of marijuana, which is still illegal under federal law?

A: You’ll continue to see enforcement against distributors and large-scale growers as the Justice Department has outlined. They will use their limited resources on those groups and not on going after individual users.

While the questioner rightly points out that distribution and production of marijuana are illegal under federal law (as is possession), Washington and Colorado’s laws do explicitly make both production and distribution of marijuana legal under state law if the entities are licensed and follow regulations.

In states where medical marijuana is legal, federal prosecutors and Drug Enforcement Administration agents have ratcheted up crackdowns of those distributing medical marijuana in seeming compliance with state laws. And Kerlikowske’s statement suggests the federal government will take the same approach to the recreational marijuana laws, in spite of growing public support for state marijuana legalization in the wake of the November election.

Neither Attorney General Eric Holder, nor other representatives from the DOJ or DEA have spoken publicly about their planned approach, other than to issue a statement immediately following the ballot initiatives’ passage saying that enforcement of federal law “remains unchanged.”

The threat of not only shutdown, but harsh federal mandatory minimum jail sentences of ten years just for marijuana distribution — and as high as 85 years if other associated charges are lobbed on – would no doubt have a chilling effect on the recreational marijuana industry, and thwart state efforts to experiment with new approaches to achieving public health and safety goals in the wake of the failed War on Drugs. It remains to be seen, however, whether federal agents would make significant use of their prosecutorial discretion, or merely retain the right to prosecute in very limited circumstances.

The best way to eliminate this threat would be to amend the federal Controlled Substances Act, which the executive branch remains responsible for enforcing. Members of Congress proposed bills last week to regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol in those states where it is legal. Last session, other bills proposed simply exempting those states with marijuana laws from the Controlled Substances Act, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said he was open to decriminalizing marijuana. But given congressional inaction on absolutely everything, it will likely fall to prosecutors to decide how the law gets applied.

The NRA responded to the “Connecticut effect” controversy on Tuesday by claiming no connection to the lobbyist who represents the NRA’s Wisconsin chapter.

On Monday, ThinkProgress broke the story about how NRA lobbyist Bob Welch said the organization will simply wait for the “Connecticut effect” to subside before resuming its push to weaken the nation’s gun laws. Welch’s comments came at the 2013 NRA Wisconsin State Convention over the weekend.

Now, the NRA is attempting to disavow any association with Welch or its Wisconsin chapter. In an email to TPM on Tuesday, the NRA wrote that “Bob Welch is neither a staff lobbyist nor a contract lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. He does not speak for the NRA.”

The NRA’s attempt to claim no association with Welch and its Wisconsin state chapter is laughable. Welch is a registered lobbyist for the Wisconsin NRA group, known as WI-FORCE (Wisconsin Firearm Owners, Ranges, Clubs & Educators), so any association between WI-FORCE and the NRA is an association between Welch and the NRA.

Let’s briefly review whether or not WI-FORCE is connected with the NRA.

WI-FORCE’s website notes that the group is “An NRA Chartered State Association.” Their annual convention last weekend, where Welch’s comments were made, was billed as the “2013 NRA Wisconsin State Convention.” Among the attendees at the event was NRA President David Keene, who sat right next to Welch before the lobbyist’s speech.

The brochure pictured below, which notes that WI-FORCE is the NRA’s 2011 Association of the Year and a National Rifle Association Chartered State Association, even includes a testimonial from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R): “As the NRA’s chartered State association, Wisconsin FORCE’s support for Constitutional rights of Wisconsinites was helpful as I signed important legislation into law.”

Given how offensive Welch’s comments were, it’s clear why the NRA is trying to confuse the public about its association with its Wisconsin chapter.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is fighting back over the controversy. The Connecticut senator condemned the comments in a Senate subcommittee hearing and a Huffington Post op-ed.

The 15-year-old girl who was killed just days after performing at President Obama’s second inauguration was a victim of Chicago’s rampant gang violence, authorities told the AP on Tuesday.

Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed on January 29 in a case of mistaken identity; her murderers, 18-year-old Michael Ward, and 20-year-old Kenneth Williams, thought that Pendleton was a girl in a rival gang:

Pendleton, a popular high school majorette, was with a group of friends who took cover during a rainstorm under a canopy in a park about a mile from the Obama home on the city’s South Side. Police said a man hopped a fence, ran toward them and opened fire with a handgun before fleeing in a waiting car. Pendleton was struck in the back and died later that day. Two others were injured.

McCarthy said Ward told investigators he thought he was shooting into the crowd of a rival gang, and that the shooting was meant as retaliation for Williams being shot in the arm in July. Police said neither Pendleton nor her friends were affiliated with gangs.

Gang violence has plagued Chicago over the last year. In January of 2013 alone, the city reported more than 40 homicides.

Pendleton’s parents will be attending the State of the Union on Tuesday night, where the President will likely discuss his recent initiatives to curb gun violence. Among those initiatives is an effort to close the gun show loophole. Criminals in Chicago, and other cities facing the horrors of gang violence, can easily obtain weapons thanks to federal gun loopholes that allow anyone to buy a gun from a private seller without a background check.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) cherry picked data and misled the public about gun research in a Senate Judiciary hearing on Tuesday, painting a picture of America’s gun problem entirely at odds with reality. Cruz made two false arguments when questioning US Attorney Tim Heaphy — first, that gun regulations resulted in higher crime rates in American cities; second, that there was no empirical evidence that gun law reform would reduce crime:

CRUZ: San Antonio has 7 murders per 100,000 people. Austin has four murders per 100,00 people. El Paso has two murders per 100,000 people. That means Detroit, the murder rate is 24 times higher than it is in El Paso…None of those cities I discussed, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, are isolated islands. Indeed, in the entire state [of Texas] you can purchase firearms and what we see with the murder rates is that the murder rates are consistently lower. My question to you, is not your subjective beliefs, but are you aware of any empirical data — every one of us wants to reduce murder rates — my question to you is there any basis to say that stripping the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens would result in decreasing murder rates rather than increasing them which, unfortunately, is the pattern I think we’ve seen.

Watch it:

State level data contradicts Cruz’s assertion. The two states with the highest per capita murder rates in 2011, Louisiana and Mississippi, received F ratings from the pro-reform Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (the third highest, South Carolina, has a D-). Louisiana and Mississippi don’t require background checks on private sales, demand that firearm dealers acquire licenses in order to sell guns legally, or limit the number of guns any one person can purchase at once.

Moreover, there are many factors that go into total homicide rates beyond gun laws, like lead saturation or gang violence) in addition to gun laws. Indeed, a recent crime spike in Chicago (one of Cruz’s examples of places with firearm regulation and high rates of death) predated gun regulations, indicating that the cause of the recent increase in violence isn’t the result of a change in gun laws.

So the question isn’t simply whether we can point to cities or states with lax gun regulation that have higher gun murder rates than those that don’t; it’s whether stricter regulations in any given city would reduce that particular city’s homicide rate relative to its current baseline. That’s something that’s best tested by empirical evidence that takes into account confounding factors.

And this systematic evidence suggests that gun regulations save live and that there is no real proof for Cruz’s suggestion that more guns lead to less crime. Three papers that studied homicides by county found that, when you control for factors like poverty, counties with more guns have more gun deaths. Another study found that, at the state level, stronger gun regulations are reasonably well correlated with fewer gun deaths. And research comparing the United States to other countries found that America’s greater access to guns contributes to higher murder rates.

Virginia’s tea partying Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) has a new book out today: The Last Line of Defense: The New Fight for American Liberty. Here are ten of the most bizarre ideas advanced by this book:

1) Medicare Is ‘Despicable, Dishonest, and Worthy of Condemnation’

Cuccinelli quotes a story about an “elderly woman painfully huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter . . . hungry and in need of shelter and medical attention.” It would be wrong, according to this tale, for a mugger to “walk up to you using intimidation and threats” in order to steal money to pay for the woman’s care. And so, this story concludes, it must also be wrong for government to use its power to tax and spend in order to provide for a sick woman’s needs:

What if instead of personally taking your money to assist the woman, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take your money? . . . Don’t get me wrong. I personally believe that assisting one’s fellow man in need by reaching into one’s own pockets is praiseworthy and laudable. Doing the same by reaching into another’s pockets is despicable, dishonest, and worthy of condemnation.

2) Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and Food Stamps Are Deliberate Attacks On Americans’ Freedom

In what is already one of the most quoted lines in the book, Cuccinelli attacks the entire social safety net

One of [politicians'] favorite ways to increase their power is by creating programs that dispense subsidized government benefits, such as Medicare, Social Security, and outright welfare (Medicaid, food stamps, subsidized housing and the like). These programs make people dependent on government. And once people are dependent, they feel they can’t afford to have the programs taken away, no matter how inefficient, poorly run, or costly to the rest of society.

3) If We Don’t Tax People, They’ll Just Give All Their Money Away To Charity

“Your government will never love you,” Cuccinelli proclaims. Only “[c]hurches and charities can love you and nurture your soul.” So Social Security and Medicare are bad because they take money away that could go to charities that love you — “[i]f instead of spending all this money on social service programs, the government left all those dollars in the hands of the taxpayers, Americans would have more money to donate to private charities and churches.” It apparently does not occur to Cuccinelli that David Koch or Grover Norquist might do something other than fund a nationwide retirement and health care program if relieved of the need to pay taxes.

4) All Welfare Is Unconstitutional

“[P]ublic charity was never supposed to be a function of the federal government,” proclaims Cuccinelli, citing a single 1794 speech on the Constitution by James Madison. In reality, Madison led a minority faction during the early days of the Republic to shrink America’s power to govern itself more than the Constitution’s text permits. He lost.

5) Antitrust Law Is Unconstitutional

Cuccinelli also strongly implies that the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prevents monopolies, cartels and similar practices that allow wealthy corporations to exploit consumers, is unconstitutional — “For the first hundred years of our national existence, the Commerce Clause functioned just as Madison and the framers had expected. However, beginning with the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, Congress began asserting more affirmative power under the Commerce Clause.”
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For Tuesday’s State of the Union address, First Lady Michelle Obama will host 102-year-old Desiline Victor, one of the thousands of Floridians who experienced chaos at the polls and waited in marathon lines to vote in November’s presidential election. Victor, a Haitian immigrant who resides in Miami, stood in line for three hours on the first day of early voting, but had to make a second trip to the precinct in order to finally cast her vote:

Victor voted for the president, but it was not easy. On her first visit to the polls on the morning of Oct. 28, the first day of early voting, she waited in line for three hours. Poll workers eventually advised her to come back later, and she did.

She finally cast her vote that evening. Her story spread around the polling place and inspired some would-be voters to stay in line, too, instead of being deterred by the delays.

Victor will now attend the State of the Union as a representative of all the voters who endured multiple obstacles to vote. These obstacles were man-made; Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) cut early voting days, added lengthy and unnecessary amendments to the ballot, and enacted several election law changes which other Florida Republicans later admitted were intended to suppress votes. Their efforts largely paid off — one study determined that at least 201,000 Florida residents gave up on voting in 2012 because of the long lines. Black and Hispanic voters waited almost twice as long as white voters to cast their ballot.

According to the Washington Post, the White House chose Victor after specifically searching for someone who could be the face of voting rights during President Obama’s speech. Though this last election is over, several state legislatures are awaiting the fate of the Voting Rights Act, which will be challenged at the Supreme Court on February 27. If the Court invalidates key provisions, minority voters like Victor are likely to face even more difficulties at the polls.

During a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on reducing gun violence Tuesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called on NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre to repudiate comments made by the group’s Wisconsin-based lobbyist that they were waiting for the “Connecticut effect” to wear off before pushing more pro-gun laws.

The comments were first reported by ThinkProgress on Monday.

“I want to express my regret at a statement that was made I think within the last 24 or 48 hours by a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association who said that his group was hoping that the ‘Connecticut effect’ would pass so that his group could be more effective in its lobbying,” Blumenthal said during the hearing.

Countering the NRA’s belief that the American public will soon forget about the 26 people who were slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Blumenthal cited ThinkProgress’ report and argued that “the ‘Connecticut effect’ will last and it will be a call to action.”

Blumenthal called the NRA’s comment “an insult to all of us in America but most especially to the 26 families in Newtown who directly suffered this loss,” and called on LaPierre to “repudiate and reject it.”

Watch it:

The Wisconsin NRA, which already succeeded in passing concealed-carry in 2011, plans to push for a Stand Your Ground law, made famous after the death of Trayvon Martin, in the Badger State.

While top House and Senate recipients of National Rifle Association’s NRA Political Victory Fund PAC have mostly towed the line organization’s extreme opposition to any gun violence prevention measures, ten Senators who have received heavy financial backing from the NRA have bucked the group in light of the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Ten Senators have received more than $10,000 from the NRA’s political action committee over their Congressional careers, yet have at least expressed an openness to some new common-sense gun laws. They include:

1. SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ) — AT LEAST $33,200

McCain said last month that while he would not support bans on assault weapons or high capacity magazines, he was open to expanding background checks: “If there are improvements that need to be made, as I said, to keep these weapons out of the hands of criminals, I’m sure all Americans, including the NRA, would agree with them, I would think.”

2. SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA) — AT LEAST $27,250

Toomey said last month: “Second Amendment rights are important to many Pennsylvanians and must be protected, but there may be areas of agreement with the White House that can be addressed to improve public safety.” Reports suggest he is also open to stricter background checks.

3. SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-MT) — AT LEAST $27,250

Baucus indicated in December that he was open to a discussion of an assault weapons ban. In January, his office said he is still undecided on expanding background checks.

4. SEN. DEAN HELLER (R-NV) — AT LEAST $21,350

Last week, Heller endorsed expanded background checks, saying: “I think it’s a reasonable step forward.”

5. SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV) — AT LEAST $19,900

Last week, Reid expressed support for expanding background checks and said
gun-magazine limits were “definitely something we have to take a look at.” He also promised to use his position as Senate Majority Leader to bring gun violence prevention measures to the Senate floor.

6. SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R-AZ) — AT LEAST $18,400

Last week, Flake reiterated his support for expanded background checks, saying: “All of us, Republicans and Democrats, have recognized that we need more effective and broader background checks than we have in the past.”

7. SEN. TOM COBURN (R-OK) — AT LEAST $17,850

Coburn is part of a bipartisan group of four Senators working to tighten background checks. He noted that “the whole goal is to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill and criminals.”

8. SEN. TIM JOHNSON (D-SD) — AT LEAST $16,250

Johnson said last month at a press conference that “one size doesn’t fit all” states for gun laws, but agreed that clip size makes some difference in preventing mass shootings and that a package of approaches should be considered. He has indicated a willingness to expand background checks as well.

9. SEN. JOE DONNELLY (D-IN) — AT LEAST $13,900

Donnelly said last month: “In 2007, just weeks after 32 people at Virginia Tech were murdered by a single gunman, Democrats and Republicans came together to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is used to check the backgrounds of most prospective gun buyers. That system still does not work as well as it should and should be examined again in the coming weeks.”

10. SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV) — AT LEAST $11,450

Manchin said last month that expanded background checks are “common sense,” asking, “Why would a legitimate gun retail shop have to go through that, but then the unfair advantage for someone at a gun show doesn’t?” In the days after Sandy Hook, Manchin was among the first to call for new action on gun violence. Like Sen. Coburn, Manchin is part of the bipartisan quartet crafting a background check proposal.

While these Senators may not receive future contribution checks from the NRA PAC, they really have little to worry about politically as a result of standing up for common-sense measures. Even most NRA members differ with the hard-line national leadership and support background checks. Last year’s elections revealed the NRA to be the paper tiger that it is: an analysis of the NRA’s spending revealed that “NRA contributions to candidates have virtually no impact on the outcome of Congressional races.” Recent polling suggests voters are more likely to punish a candidate for having NRA backing than to reward allegiance to the gun lobby.

WAUSAU, Wisconsin— At a state conference this past weekend, the NRA helped distribute a newspaper that called for Wisconsin secession and a new civil war.

The article, which appeared in a Wisconsin-based conservative publication called “The Reality News”, was among the literature being distributed at the NRA’s Wisconsin State Convention on February 9th.

In “What Would Davy Crockett Say?”, author Karl P. Koenigs calls for liberating “our home country of Wisconsin.” If that doesn’t work, Koenigs advocates “a combo Civil/Re-Revolutionary War” to “restore the Rule of OUR Laws on our elected, non-elected and wannabe elected Republican and Democrat Federal servants through the refreshment of the Tree of Liberty by its natural manure.” The last part is a reference to the Thomas Jefferson quote that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

If you understand the Constitution you throw-up every single time you turn on the TV and hear about another thing or program the U.S. Government is ‘going to do for (TO) the American People’. This is a most heinous disease that can only be cured by the constitutional De-Centralized power of our home country of Wisconsin restoring our “supreme Laws” on our Federal public servants within our borders; OR otherwise by a combo Civil/Re-Revolutionary War with the very same goal to restore the Rule of OUR Laws on our elected, non-elected and wannabe elected Republican and Democrat Federal servants through the refreshment of the Tree of Liberty by its natural manure.

See a clip of it below:

Koenigs also used the article to lambaste what he saw as the failed experiment of American democracy. “At the Federal level, until the rule of law is restored, this is an absolute Pipe Dream. At this juncture of ‘Democracy’ of Mob Rule, most feared by our Founding Fathers, and utter 10th Amendment CONTEMPT for The Constitution; ELECTIONS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEM; ELECTIONS ARE THE PROBLEM!”

To be clear, the NRA did not write the article in question. But, by enabling its distribution to conference attendees, the NRA acts as a megaphone for the fringe views of secessionists and helps them gain new followers.