…and the elected GOP establishment is nothing more than their personal representatives.
Adolphus Busch IV requested the NRA immediately cancel his lifetime membership, one day after the U.S. Senate rejected a bill that would have expanded background checks on guns:
“…One only has to ask why the NRA reversed its original position on background checks. Was it not the NRA position to support background checks when Mr. LaPierre himself stated in 1999 that NRA saw checks as ‘reasonable’? [...]
I am simply unable to comprehend how assault weapons and large capacity magazines have a role in your vision. The NRA I see today has undermined the values upon which it was established. Your current strategic focus clearly places priority on the needs of gun and ammunition manufacturers while disregarding the opinions of your 4 million individual members.
One only has to look at the makeup of the 75-member board of directors, dominated by manufacturing interests, to confirm my point. The NRA appears to have evolved into the lobby for gun and ammunition manufacturers rather than gun owners.”
jetgirl78: “I’ve heard some say the blocking the step would be a victory. My question is victory for who? Victory for what? All that happened today it was the preservation of the loophole that lets dangerous criminals buy guns without a background check. That didn’t make our kids safer.”
jetgirl78: “I’ve heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. A prop, somebody called them. Emotional blackmail, some outlets said. Are they serious? Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don’t have a right to weigh in on this issue?”
———————————————————————————————————
“I have something I want to say to the victims of Newtown, or any other shooting,” Davis said. “I don’t care if it’s here in Minneapolis or anyplace else. Just because a bad thing happened to you doesn’t mean that you get to put a king in charge of my life. I’m sorry that you suffered a tragedy, but you know what? Deal with it, and don’t force me to lose my liberty, which is a greater tragedy than your loss. I’m sick and tired of seeing these victims trotted out, given rides on Air Force One, hauled into the Senate well, and everyone is just afraid — they’re terrified of these victims.”
“I would stand in front of them and tell them, ‘go to hell,’” he added.
“MSNBC just aired an audio clip of Rush Limbaugh mawkishly sobbing in a toddler’s tone, “I don’t want to die,” in what Limbaugh, uh, humorously charged was a White House child-prop tactic to sell sensible gun control on Capitol Hill. This was, without a doubt, the most contemptible thing this jackass of a fascist fathead has ever slobbered on-air.” — Rush Limbaugh, and the last straw (via)
Gun Appreciation Day is Sponsored by a White Nationalist Party: Following the publication of this story, Gun Appreciation Day removed American Third Position from its sponsors. A3P describes itself as representing “the unique political interests of white Americans.”
Fox 5 Anchor Announces The “N*gger Inaugural”: There’s a list of words that TV reporters should never say, and it must be racing through their heads whenever the camera’s on. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Well, Fox 5’s Holly Morris said it. In a morning broadcast yesterday on extravagant inauguration deals, Morris fell over herself and declared the Willard Hotel the spot for the “n*gger inaugural.”
…
“Quite frankly it’s going to be difficult going back and working with people you sit next to and whenever they were in need, we responded immediately. Not one member of Congress ever voted against or said one word in opposition to aid going to other states when the money was needed. We were going around like third world beggars. At least they put us in that position.” — Rep. Peter King (R-NY), on his fellow House Republicans’ behavior on disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy in NY and NJ.
GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway told House Republicans at their retreat that they need to stop talking about rape, Politico reports.
How [Republicans in] Congress Wrecked a Smart Debt-Ceiling Fix: in 1979, Dick Gephardt, “who would later become House Democratic leader and twice run for president, devised a simple fix that met the absurd requirement of a two-step process. With help from the House parliamentarian, he established the Gephardt Rule, which decreed that when Congress adopted a budget resolution (the first step) it was automatically ‘deemed to have passed’ a commensurate increase in the debt limit (the second step). Presto. Problem solved. The Gephardt Rule held for a decade and a half, during which there were no fights over raising the debt ceiling. But when Republicans took control of the House in 1995, they killed it… Gingrich thought the second vote was a good pressure tactic to limit spending. Yet the threat of debt default didn’t work because nobody took it seriously. What’s different now is that many Republicans seem willing to follow through. Even Gingrich is worried.”
The panel, entitled Discussion on Successful Communication with Minorities and Women, suffered an image problem from the get-go: Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who heads Republicans’ campaign efforts, deflected a question regarding the irony of a panel trying to help the GOP woo minorities happening in a room named after a slave-owning family’s plantation. ”I don’t pick the rooms we meet in,” Walden said. “I know the Democrats have held their retreats here too and I assume you’ll go and figure out if they ever held meetings in that same room.”
Fair enough, but having a panel on minorities and women that seemed to be well-stocked with white guys proved perhaps even more awkward: But then why, a final reporter prodded, did this panel on communicating with women and minorities include three white men: Representatives Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Scott Rigell and Frank R. Wolf, both of Virginia? Mr. Walden, who was not responsible for putting together the event, pointed out that the panel also included several women: “a woman from CNN” (Ana Navarro) and “Sean Duffy’s wife” (Rachel Campos-Duffy). Mr. Duffy is a congressman from Wisconsin; his wife is a television personality. Also on the list was Ms. Herrera Beutler. But, unfortunately, her name was misspelled.
Florida Business Leaders Vow To Block Paid Sick Day Laws During Worst Flu Season In A Decade: The U.S. is currently experiencing its worst flu season in a decade, but many workers can’t heed the advice of public health experts to stay home when they’re sick due to a lack of paid sick days. And Florida business leaders are looking to keep it that way: The Florida Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday that one of its top legislative priorities this year would be blocking local governments from adopting paid sick-time measures such as the one pending in Orange County. At a news conference in Tallahassee, Chamber President Mark Wilson said his powerful business group wants a law that would ban cities and counties from creating varying paid-sick-leave rules across the state. The passage of local sick-time laws would, Wilson said, “make pockets of Florida very uncompetitive.”
West Point study on ‘violent far right’ shows ‘dramatic rise’ in attacks: Some conservatives object to the report. The Washington Times, The National Review, and World Net Daily all report on critical reactions from the right, according to the Atlantic Wire, with blogger Pamela Geller calling it an “appalling attempt to demonize loyal Americans and whitewash the Islamic threat.”
The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says “State” instead of “Country” (the Framers knew the difference – see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too. In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the “slave patrols,” and they were regulated by the states…
The NRA has an actual ad in which they attempt to portray the President as an elitist hypocrite for protecting his daughters with armed Secret Service agents. To those of us with a functioning brain, that just sounds pretty reasonable.
Rachel Maddow called the NRA’s ad ‘trolling.’ She said,
“Trolling is a key part of the conservative-entertainment/media business model,” she said. “These guys say stuff all the time that they do not intend to be persuasive. They’re not trying to explain something, or bring people along to their way of thinking, they’re just doing something to attract attention, and hopefully condemnation and outrage from the mainstream, and particularly from liberals. They want to offend you. They seek to offend you. That is the point.”
Maddow said that “trolling” was a “tried and true schtick” for conservatives. Not just for media figures, but for politicians as well. She described Rep. Steve King (R-IA) as a “permanent troll.” [...]
“Trolls have a purpose in our politics,” Maddow said. “They help niche, unpopular positions and people fund themselves and promote themselves as pseudo-political actors by tricking people who ought to know better into punching down at them.”
We just all need to remember to not feed the trolls. Especially when their most serious arguments are devolving into self-parody.
###
“To talk about the president’s children or any public official’s children who have, not by their own choice, but by requirement, protection and to use that somehow to try to make a political point I think is reprehensible. You know, the President doesn’t have a choice and his children don’t have a choice of whether they’re going to be protected or not. I think it’s awful to bring public figures’ children into the political debate. They don’t deserve to be there. For any of us who are public figures, you see that kind of ad and you cringe.” — Chris Christie, Jan. 17, 2013
Meanwhile: Security Guard At Chatfield School In Lapeer Caught Leaving His Gun Unattended – The school decided to up their security by adding armed guards in the wake of the mass shootings over the past few weeks. This morning, a security guard accidentally left his gun in the bathroom unattended for a few moments. Someone’s going to need to remind us why “more guns” is the answer to this nation’s gun problem. (via current)
Hunter | Daily Kos: read this story of a Newtown resident who is now under constant assault for being supposedly “in on the conspiracy” and weep:
What did Rosen do to deserve this? One month ago, he found six little children and a bus driver at the end of the driveway of his home in Newtown, Connecticut. “We can’t go back to school,” one little boy told Rosen. “Our teacher is dead.” He brought them inside and gave them food and juice and toys. He called their parents. He sat with them and listened to their shocked accounts of what had happened just down the street inside Sandy Hook Elementary, close enough that Rosen heard the gunshots.
Rosen did media interviews about his involvement; this, apparently, was enough to unleash an onslaught of phone calls, hate mails, and the like from America’s strong and growing contingent of Fucking Stupid People, many of whom have convinced themselves of the notion that the murder of twenty elementary school students and six adults was actually all just a government-sponsored hoax, a not-so-elaborate plot to fake yet another mass murder in yet another American town to justify taking their own personal guns away. This, in turn, is because there is a small but very loud collection of Fucking Stupid People in America who are far more concerned about the rights of their guns than the rights of your children, to the point of not even believing your children actually exist, if that’s what they have to believe in order to support the rich, creamy notion that all the world and its myriad horrible events exist only to be in support of, or in direct opposition to, their own personal little metal penis extenders.
[...] If you think the gubbermint is after your guns, and you specifically think that the latest summary execution of a new record number of schoolchildren (or theater patrons, or college students, or restaurant-goers—really, there’s quite a list to choose from) are, according to the voices from your dental work, hoaxes in support of that wider anti-you plot, then yes—the gubbermint should be taking your goddamn guns, and your ammo, and they should probably go into your house and put safety covers on all your electrical outlets just so you don’t go around sticking your tongue in them.
The Washington Post reports that “Vice President Biden said Thursday he sees an emerging consensus around “universal background checks” for all gun buyers and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines as he completes the Obama administration’s broad study of ways to curb the nation’s gun violence.”
Sounds reasonable to me.
“But the National Rifle Association, a participant in an afternoon meeting with Biden, strongly rejected what it called “an agenda to attack the Second Amendment” and indicated it would have nothing more to do with the vice president’s task force on gun laws.”
What now? Common sense safeguards on gun ownership is the same thing as attacking the Second Amendment? But wait, it gets worse. From Think Progress:
“The CEO of Tennessee-based Tactical Response, a firearms training company, delivered threats on YouTube that White House action would “spark a civil war.” Here’s what CEO James Yeager said, in part, if gun violence prevention goes any further:
‘I’m not letting anybody take my guns! If it goes one inch further, I’m going to start killing people.’
Award people like Mr. Yeager all the guns, obviously, because who knows what might piss him off in the future. If he’s going to gun down everyone he doesn’t agree with, shouldn’t he at least be well-armed?
Finally, did you know the NRA has a “special needs” section? Here’s their spokesman:
“There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed.” — Ted Nugent
###
christopherstreet: There are 311,000,000 people in this country who are not members of the NRA. And, 4,000,000 that are members. I’m pretty sure that the 311 million of us have a little bit more say and power than the 4 million.
“… in the day and a half since the Aurora massacre another 100 or so people have been shot to death in America. The land of the free. The home of the brave.” – Andrew Cohen, on gun violence in America. (via: thepoliticalnotebook)
