Beyond Camp, other lawmakers scheduled to attend the rally include GOP Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.) along with Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Tim Huelskamp (Kan.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio).

More: Glenn Beck IRS Rally Gets Between Dave Camp and Sander Levin - Kelsey Snell

This became the turning point of WWII and the end of Hitler’s reign of terror in Europe.
Here are some videos and pictures of DDay all in color.

Before and After D-Day: Color Photos From England and France, 1944

It’s no mystery why images of unremitting violence spring to mind when one hears the deceptively simple term, “D-Day.” We’ve all seen — in photos, movies, old news reels, and usually in grim black-and-white — what happened on the beaches of Normandy (codenamed Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword) as the Allies unleashed their historic assault against German defenses on June 6, 1944.

But in color photos taken before and after the invasion, LIFE magazine’s Frank Scherschel captured countless other, lesser-known scenes from the run-up to the onslaught and the heady weeks after: American troops training in small English towns; the French countryside, implausibly lush after the spectral landscape of the beachheads; the reception GIs enjoyed en route to the capital; the jubilant liberation of Paris itself.

As presented here, in masterfully restored color, Scherschel’s pictures — most of which were never published in LIFE — feel at-once profoundly familiar and somehow utterly, vividly new.

A few pics. There are many more at the link.

American combat engineers eat a meal atop boxes of ammunition stockpiled for the impending D-Day invasion, May 1944.

An abandoned German machine gun, France, June 1944

Maintenance work on an American P-47 Thunderbolt in a makeshift airfield in the French countryside, summer 1944

And here are three great color videos of the battle itself…

Youtube Video

Youtube Video

Youtube Video

At least seven other states — among them Connecticut, Utah and Wisconsin — have reported budget surpluses in recent weeks, setting the stage for legislative battles that, if not as wrenching as the ones over cuts, promise to be no less pitched. Lawmakers are debating whether the new money should be used to restore programs cut during the recession, finance tax cuts or put into a rainy-day fund for future needs.

More: California’s New Problem - Too Much Money

You can argue that in some of these states with Republicans in control their influence mattered. But all of those states were recipients of “Obama’s” Federal stimulus and none of them have had the urn around experienced by California.

The news is that a semi-automatic rifle belonging to the head of Utah’s biggest gun lobby was reported stolen.

But that’s not the whole story.

First of all, there’s delicious irony to the fact that a fellow who makes a living arguing that people need guns to protect themselves from bad guys has now provided a very powerful gun to a bad guy.

This highlights one of the often-overlooked aspects of the gun control debate: Guns don’t just magically appear in the hands of baddies. All too often, they’re taken from law-abiding gun owners.

It doesn’t require Stephen Hawking to figure out that fewer guns in circulation would translate to fewer guns reaching potential do-badders.

But what really makes this gun-theft story sing is how the rifle was stolen. Its owner, Clark Aposhian, chairman of the blandly named Utah Shooting Sports Council, had the AR-15 in his car.

Seriously. And the car was parked in the driveway of his home.

More: Assault Rifle Is Stolen From Gun Lobbyist’s Car

And yet they wonder why we call them ‘gun nuts’.

According to ABC4.com this picture was taken Wednesday about four hours after President Obama called for a renewed ban on assault weapons:

From RS:

A man in Riverdale, Utah walked into a local JCPenney department store this week armed to the teeth, carrying a holstered handgun, a semi-automatic assault rifle and extra clips on his belt.

The strange display of firepower was enough to draw a scene, with bystanders taking photos and making concerned comments to one another. Images of the man published to Facebook caused a stir in the community.

[…]

Utah state law, however, says the man’s actions are legal, provided the weapons were unloaded. The man was not positively identified, and JCPenney’s public relations team did not respond to a request for comment.

The assault rifle he was carrying was an AR-15, the same firearms platform used to kill 27 people in Newtown, Connecticut in December.

If his name was ‘Abdul Aleem Raashid’ no doubt a SWAT would have been called as precaution.

The NRA Surge: 99 Laws Rolling Back Gun Restrictions

Interactive map at link above

Some particularly noteworthy laws:

Bullets and booze: In Missouri, law-abiding citizens can carry a gun while intoxicated and even fire it if “acting in self-defense.”

Child-safety lock off: In Kansas, permit holders can carry concealed weapons inside K-12 schools and at school-sponsored activities.

Short arm of the law: In Utah, a person under felony indictment can buy a gun, and a person charged with a violent crime may be able to retain a concealed weapon permit. Nebraskans who’ve pled guilty to a violent crime can get a permit to carry a gun.

Sweet Jesus! In Louisiana, permit holders can carry concealed weapons inside houses of worship.

Without a trace: Virginia not only repealed a law requiring handgun vendors to submit sales records, but the state also ordered the destruction of all such previous records.

A Utah Man and His Ghost Town: A Love Story

For 20 years, Roy Pogue has owned these 700 dry acres, including the long-abandoned hamlet of Woodside. ‘It’s the closest thing to real freedom I’ve ever known.’ But it’s going up for sale.

Roy Pogue has loved a lot of things in his 63 years — like his wife, Chris, and her little Daffy Duck tattoo, not to mention the couple’s six children.

Yet few things have made his heart go flip-flop more than a dry-gulch piece of land out in the middle of Utah’s nowhere.

Sometimes, love truly is blind. A lot of words describe Pogue’s backside-of-beyond parcel, where rust rules and the thermometers have all surrendered to the cold and the heat. One of those words is Godforsaken.

More than 700 dusty, rocky acres in all, the spread sits along the trickling Price River, under the boxy shadow of the Book Cliffs. Like Pogue himself, a man in bib overalls, handlebar mustache and well-oiled cowboy hat, the property exudes a bit of Wild West panache: At its core is a creaky old ghost town complete with an abandoned gold mine, cold-water geyser and a supposed onetime hide-out for the outlaw Butch Cassidy when he wasn’t riding with the Sundance Kid.

But now, in a move that breaks Pogue’s heart, he’s put it all up for sale. Despite its scruffy “as is” condition, he’s asking a pretty price: $3.9 million.

Potential buyers might see only isolation and neglect: a jumble of abandoned trailers, water tanks, squat-looking shacks and the shell of an old service station, all surrounded by a fence to keep out vandals.

If most towns rise up out of the desert, this one just lies there. But for Pogue, the place has been a refuge.

The little hamlet of Woodside, located along a lonely rural highway three hours southeast of Salt Lake City, was already long abandoned when Pogue settled here, but that suited him just fine. A disabled veteran from the nearby town of Moab who had a hard time finding steady carpentry work, Pogue says that in his 20 years here, he’s ruled his own fate: He’s been a one-man sheriff, judge, jury and good Samaritan.

More

secularnewsdaily.com

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan attended a fund-raiser in Utah yesterday and was asked about school prayer. His reply was curious.

“That’s a constitutional issue of the states, moral responsibility of parents, education,” Ryan said.

Let’s dissect this a bit. First off, Ryan’s claim that school prayer is “a constitutional issue of the states” is inaccurate. State legislators can, of course, pass school prayer laws if they want, but it’s a waste of time. If a law mandates or compels young people to take part in prayer or religious worship, the courts will strike it down.

It’s not like this is some recent development. The first school prayer case to reach the Supreme Court, Engel v. Vitale, was decided in June of 1962 - 50 years ago. (Read more about the Engel case here.) The high court made it clear - and subsequent decisions have affirmed - that a religious majority cannot compel the minority to take part in worship activities.

So, this is not an issue of “state’s rights.” Ever since the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, states have had no power to infringe upon the liberties guaranteed us by the First Amendment.

Ryan goes on to imply that prayer is the “moral responsibility of parents.” Here I can agree with him - which is exactly why we no longer have government-sponsored prayer in public schools. It usurps parental rights.

The parents who brought the Engel case on Long Island, N.Y., were dismayed after the New York Board of Regents in 1955 composed and adopted a “regents’ prayer” and offered it to schools for daily recitation. The prayer was supposedly “non-sectarian” - although some religious people argued it was really theological pabulum.

In any case, many parents were adamant that it was no business of government bureaucrats to instruct children in when, how or whether to pray, so they filed suit. This seemed to be a profoundly conservative thing to do since it kept the intimate and personal decision about prayer where it belongs - at home with the family. It has always puzzled me why so many conservatives don’t support this ruling.

Political activist Greg Peterson was charged Monday with sexually assaulting yet another woman at his Utah cabin where he hosted events for some of the biggest names in Republican politics there.

Prosecutors in Wasatch County, Utah charged Peterson, 37, with forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony, for a 2010 incident involving a woman he brought back to the cabin, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Meanwhile, Peterson was scheduled on Tuesday morning to appear in court in Salt Lake City for the start of a two-day preliminary hearing, where a judge will determine if there is enough evidence to move forward in a case involving four other women who have accused him of sexually assaulting them since March 2011.

In the most recent case, the woman said Peterson took her to his cabin for lunch in April 2010. There, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, he allegedly exposed his genitals to her and tried to force her to touch him. The woman was able to make him stop when she placed her hand on the holster of her gun, the newspaper reported.

I see what you did there. I guess he didn’t see the Second Amendment being used against him.

Talkingpointsmemo.com

Mitt Romney, registered lobbyist, snagged $1.3 bill in federal gov’t for ‘02 Games

As we await THREE HOUR LONG 2012 Summer Olympic Games opening ceremony, here’s your political/Olympic tidbit of the day: When he ran the 2002 Olympic Games, Mitt Romney was an o-fficial lobbyist.

Ah, lobbyists. We remember what Mitt thinks of THEM. In the GOP primary, he ripped both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for their lobbying pasts.

Romney — an avowed loather of the $787 biiiiiiiiiiiillion federal stimulus package — was SO good at his job that he snagged $1.3 biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillion from the feds. As we all remember — and yours truly was in the presence of Mitt’s hair gel covering The Games for The Chronicle — concerns about security were high in the months shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But not all that money went towards security.

Continue reading at the San Francisco Chronicle.