Ted Cruz and Dianne Feinstein had this explosive exchange at a Senate Judiciary Hearing on guns earlier today:
"The question that I would pose to the senior senator from California is," said Cruz to Feinstein, "Would she deem it consistent with the Bill of Rights for Congress to engage in the same endeavor that we are contemplating doing with the Second Amendment in the context of the First or Fourth Amendment, namely, would she consider it constitutional for Congress to specify that the First Amendment shall apply only to the following books and shall not apply to the books that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights? Likewise, would she think that the Fourth Amendment's protection against searches and seizures could properly apply only to the following specified individuals and not to the individuals that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?
"I'm not a sixth grader," said Feinstein. "Senator, I've been on this committee for 20 years. I was a mayor for nine years. I walked in, I saw people shot. I've looked at bodies that have been shot with these weapons. I've seen the bullets that implode. In Sandy Hook, youngsters were dismembered. Look, there are other weapons. I've been up -- I'm not a lawyer, but after 20 years I've been up close and personal to the Constitution. I have great respect for it. This doesn't mean that weapons of war and the Heller decision clearly points out three exceptions, two of which are pertinent here. And so I -- you know, it's fine you want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it. Just know I've been here for a long time. I've passed on a number of bills. I've studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well educated, and I thank you for the lecture."
Finally, in response to Cruz's question, Feinstein likens so-called assault weapons to child pornography, which she suggests is a limit to the First Amendment and can legally be banned.
Not everyone will have to abide by Senator Dianne Feinstein's gun control bill. If the proposed legislation becomes law, government officials and others will be exempt.
Senator Dianne Feinstein announced an assault weapons ban today on Capitol Hill, saying, "The purpose is to dry up the supply of these weapons over time":
The Very Rev. Gary Hall, dean of the National Cathedral in Washington, said Thursday morning that "people of faith" should come together to fight for gun control against the "gun lobby." In his opening remarks at a press conference on gun control organized by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, Hall spoke about the influence of the so-called gun lobby in Washington. "Now, everyone in this city seems to live in terror of the gun lobby," Hall said. "But I believe the gun lobby is no match for the cross lobby." Watch the video below:
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California will introduce an "assault weapons" ban today on Capitol Hill. Yesterday, Feinstein touted the announcement on Twitter:
Tomorrow I will introduce my assault weapons legislation. Weapons of war do not belong on our streets. #AWB2013
During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Congressman Mike Rogers, who is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, accused political appointees in the intelligence community of spinning the September 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi.
Mitt Romney will hit President Obama for high-level national security leaks coming from the White House, according to excerpts of the speech the Republican presidential candidate will deliver later today at the VFW in Reno, Nevada. Romney will call the leaks "contemptible" and a betrayal of "our national interest."
Senator Dianne Feinstein, a top Democratic from California, accused the Obama White House of leaking national security information at a recent event in Washington, D.C. Here's video of Feinstein's accusation:
In this week's issue, Jeffrey Dressler explains that the Obama State Department has yet to designate the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization, in spite of bipartisan pressure from lawmakers to do so. Led by the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein (D, California), this week they've introduced legislation to list the Haqqanis.
General David Petraeus, the current commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said today that President Obama’s decision to withdraw over 30,000 troops from Afghanistan by September 2012 is a “more aggressive” plan than the one on which the president’s military commanders had advised.
“The responsibility of combat commander in that kind of situation is to provide options to the president to implement his stated policy,” said Petraeus. “And that’s what I did.”
Diane Feinstein, freshly back from a trip to Asia, was pressing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, yesterday about the need for engagement with China: “I think that the most important thing we can do right now is establish some military-to-military contact," she said to him in a defense appropriation hearing.
The Moscow Treaty signed by George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in 2002 did not require the actual destruction of a single U.S. or Russian warhead. All that it mandated was that warheads be taken from operational status—say, sitting on the tip of an ICBM—and moved to storage. Although the treaty was ratified by the Senate by a vote of 95 to 0, along the way Senate Democrats unrelentingly slammed the Bush administration for this deficiency.
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