Shooting Holes Into Our Democracy – Again

So the DISCLOSE Act, Congress’s attempt to remedy the wretched Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, could not pass without granting an exemption to the NRA, whereby it would not have to disclose its top donors…related to spending on advertising and other political activities, as HuffPo tells us here.

Why not? Could it be that all of these supposedly brave Americans who absolutely demand that their gun rights come before all else are too afraid to admit when they support a particular politician or political advocacy group?

Yes, I know all too well (particularly in PA) that the NRA tells our lawmakers to jump, and they plead “how high?” Yes, I know the political reality.

But it really doesn’t demonstrate any courage to attack a political opponent when you don’t even tell people who you are (and it’s no comfort that bending yet again to the “lock and load” crowd is what it took to get the DISCLOSE bill to pass).

You want to know what real courage is, NRA? Listen to Colin Goddard, a survivor of the Virginia Tech shootings, calling on all of us to tell our utterly craven, spineless politicians to, at long last, close the gun show loophole. Goddard has no problem with telling people who he is and why his story matters.

Unlike you (and by the way, I’ll ask again why Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli hasn’t impaneled a grand jury over this).

Update 6/17/10: I was a bit unclear in the post above; the DISCLOSE Act passed the House with the NRA provision, but the Senate awaits (and good for Dianne Feinstein here, though she needed to make up somewhat for this).

Monday Mashup Part One (5/17/10)

Three items from “the old gray lady” here, people…

I’m usually a fan of Gail Collins of the New York Times, but I have to wonder what she was thinking when she wrote the following in an otherwise sensible column on Saturday…

“Do you support allowing people to carry loaded guns into an American airport?” Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey asked the attorney general at a recent Appropriations Committee hearing.

The proper answer to this question would seem to be: “Huh?” However, Eric Holder is a dignified guy, so he settled for “very worrisome.”

Lautenberg has a knack for proposing laws against things that most people would presume were illegal already. You may remember him from such past hits as “Let’s Not Let Convicted Felons Buy Weapons at Gun Shows” and “Don’t Sell Assault Rifles to People on the Terrorist Watch List.”

Neither is anywhere near being passed. Or even coming up for a vote.

Yeah, well, as noted here, people on the terror watch list are able to buy guns about 91 percent of the time, though the NRA rank-and-file membership (which has just about always acted more sensibly than its leadership) basically disapproves of this idiocy (here).

Also, this story in the Times tells us that the U.S. Senate voted to allow Amtrak passengers to carry unloaded and locked handguns in checked baggage (and as I noted at the time, Amtrak train baggage is not “checked,” and anyone who thinks it is has obviously never ridden on Amtrak, or else they would know better…update: please see comment).

Neither Collins nor anyone else should “presume” what is illegal and what isn’t. That’s exactly how the wingnuts are successful, by filling that information void with their propaganda that gets repeated to the point where it becomes “conventional wisdom.”

Also, it appears that John Harwood has been doing hallucinogenic drugs again, or something, based on this…

Three United States Senate primaries on Tuesday offer new signs of the election-year intentions of America’s dyspeptic voters.

A few voters, anyway.

By the way, for those of you who haven’t eaten a Thesaurus for lunch or something, I should point out that “dyspeptic” means disgruntled.

In Kentucky, Rand Paul’s bid for the Republican nomination will again test the strength of the Tea Party right against the establishment, represented by Trey Grayson.

In Arkansas, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s attempt to oust the incumbent Democrat, Senator Blanche Lincoln, will measure the left’s resistance to compromise in the age of Obama.

Oh, that’s cute (and Harwood then goes on to talk about Specter and Sestak in PA and how that race could show whether or not “partisan inconstancy is too much to bear”).

If Harwood would decide to give a rest to his wankery for a minute and do some actual reporting, he would learn, among other things, that the Arkansas Democratic primary is actually a three-person contest between Lincoln, Halter and D.C. Morrison, the “Ralph Nader” candidate, if you will (harking back to Bush/Gore 2000…still painful, I’ll admit), who has zero chance of winning, though he could take just enough votes away from Lincoln in particular to keep her from getting 50 percent of the vote and thus force a runoff between her and Halter in June (all of this, along with more of Lincoln’s putrid record, is noted here).

Also, the supposed “resistance to compromise” by “the left” has not a damn thing to do with an odious ad sponsored by a business group sympathetic to Lincoln criticizing Halter for offshoring of jobs to India; the highly questionable veracity of the ad is noted here, along with the fact that, though Lincoln has criticized it, that hasn’t stopped her from using imagery from the ad in a mailer (unfortunately, the ad appears to have succeeded in its goal so far; it is particularly galling for Lincoln to imply that she gives a damn about workers in this country when she opposes the Employee Free Choice Act).

I sincerely hope that Harwood’s readers don’t grow “dyspeptic” over his preoccupation with “resistance to compromise” and “partisan inconstancy” as opposed to the reality point of view.

Finally, I give you The Moustache of Understanding (here)…

… in a world where our demand for Chinese-made sneakers produces pollution that melts South America’s glaciers …

Uh, you wanna run that one by me again, Mr. “The Mall Is Flat” (and by the way, how did the stock of General Growth Properties do last week)?

So it’s supposed to be our fault that the sneakers we may buy at a big-box retail store come from some country made by someone paid a starvation wage under conditions of oppression most of us cannot imagine?

In response, I give you David Sirota (here)…

This is Tom Friedman’s world view – a view that has made him the shining star of what economist Jeff Faux calls “The Party of Davos.” It is a view we see not only in his writing about the UAE, but in his book “The World Is Flat.” His vision is of a world that is terrific for wealthy people like Friedman. He writes glowingly of booming metropolises in India, China and the UAE. But he refuses to go even one inch beneath the alluring veneer and actually look at day-to-day life for non-elites in the countries he trumpets as “modernizing models.”

That’s not by accident, because Friedman is not stupid. His utopia is a world where a tiny handful of very rich people use “free” trade to move their capital wherever they please, exploit the most oppressed workers on the planet, and underwrite dictatorships who disenfranchise citizens. It is a world where the term “shared prosperity” means hundreds of billions of dollars being shared only between a tiny group of sheiks, dictators, businessmen and political elites. It is a world where the President of the United States simultaneously talks about his supposed desire to spread democracy, then publicly fawns all over the world’s worst dictators, and then wonders why anti-Americanism is on the rise.

That world is a dream for someone like Friedman – it means he and his fellow class warriors get to continue living the high life, no matter how much anti-Western resentment their rhetoric and policies breed throughout the world, no matter how much economic destruction they are wreaking on ordinary people.

And oh yeah, Friedman also says “We’ve become absorbed by shorter and shorter-term thinking.”

As in “the next six months”?

Thursday Mashup (4/22/10)

1) Occasionally the Bucks County Courier Times experiences a journalistically lucid moment, and they did so yesterday here in an editorial about departing County Operations Office David Sanko…

Sanko, an ex-big wig with the GOP, was hired in 2004 at $125,000 a year, not exorbitant for the chief executive of a large organization. But let’s remember that his was – and remains – a government job, which means the benefits are good and holidays plentiful.

When Sanko resigned five years later, he was earning $140,688. Again, not outrageous. But during that time Sanko also drove a county car, compliments of taxpayers. And, it turns out, he received a sweet retirement deal – also compliments of taxpayers.

How sweet became clear this week when the county revealed that Sanko received $76,500 – the amount the county deposited into a “457″ retirement fund for Sanko over his tenure. Unlike the shrunken 401(k) retirement accounts most people in the private sector have, Sanko did not have to deposit any of his own income into the account, according to the county finance director.

That’s not how it works for other non-union county workers. Their 457 retirement plans are built on the employees’ own contributions; the county doesn’t throw in a dime. That Sanko’s retirement deal turned the formula upside down made it unique in Bucks County, the finance director said.

Uniquely generous!

In fact, when taxpayers file their federal income tax returns next year, they might consider claiming part of Sanko’s retirement as a charitable contribution. Or maybe they should consider it a political contribution.

Either way, taxpayers’ charity doesn’t end there. The “deferred compensation” Sanko received is just part of his retirement deal. When Sanko reaches 60 he’ll be entitled to pension payments of $18,000 a year – for his five years of service here.

The editorial points out that Dem Bucks County Supervisor Diane Marseglia has quite rightly said that a deal should not be signed for a new supervisor unless the compensation for this individual is held up for public scrutiny.

Well, given that Director of Finance and Administration Brian Hessenthaler was promoted yesterday to fill Sanko’s job (supported by all three commissioners, as noted here), I think any hint of controversy has been avoided for the moment at least (Hessenthaler deserves the benefit of the doubt, though I’d be curious to learn more about the other job applicants).

Oh, and in the story about Hessenthaler’s promotion, we also learn the following…

Commissioner Jim Cawley said there has been an unfair implication that Sanko’s benefits were concealed, when, in fact, his contract was a public document from the moment he was hired.

Well, I don’t know where this public document supposedly is. I just spent a few minutes here looking for it, and I’ve come up empty.

And I’m sure Hessenthaler will represent an improvement over his predecessor, who is recalled not so fondly here.

2) Also, I stumbled across this item in which Fix Noise pokes fun at another Democrat, in this case Harry Reid for not returning a campaign donation from Goldman Sachs (I’m not thrilled about him receiving a donation like that either, though there a lot of corporate malefactors out there besides them; Lloyd Blankfein and his pals are particularly bad, I’ll admit)…

It’s no secret that politicians constantly travel to Wall Street to raise money from the deep-pocketed financial industry executives. It happens all the time, and the financial crisis didn’t change much. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-CT, recently reiterated that this is a good reason to enact public financing of campaigns!

I assume that the nameless individual behind this commentary doesn’t fancy the idea of public campaign financing, hence the exclamation point. However, the following should be noted in response (here, from January)…

WASHINGTON (AP) — About 40 current and former corporate executives have a message for Congress: Quit hitting us up for campaign cash.

In a letter to Congressional leaders on Friday, the executives urged Congress to approve public financing for House and Senate campaigns. They sent the letter a day after the Supreme Court struck down limits on corporate spending in elections.

“Members of Congress already spend too much time raising money from large contributors,” the letter said. “And often, many of us individually are on the receiving end of solicitation phone calls from members of Congress. With additional money flowing into the system due to the court’s decision, the fund-raising pressure on members of Congress will only increase.”

The companies represented by the executives who signed the letter include Playboy Enterprises, the ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, the Seagram’s liquor company, the toymaker Hasbro, Delta Airlines, Men’s Wearhouse, the Quaker Chemical Corporation, the Brita Products Company, San Diego National Bank, MetLife and Crate and Barrel.

They sent the letter through Fair Elections Now, a coalition of good-government groups that has long lobbied Congress to pass legislation establishing public campaign financing.

This also takes you to a site where you can learn more about public campaign financing, including an interactive map to find out what your state has done on this important issue.

You want to get rid of the Michele Bachmanns, Jim Inhofes, Steve Kings and Louie Gohmerts out there, people? Limit the election cycle to 30 days, keep the corporate money out of it (tough, because a lot of people make a lot of dough out of this stuff, including the broadcast networks), and force these people to run on their accomplishments, or lack thereof (my grand and glorious plan also depends on an informed electorate, though, I realize).

And if you think they look silly now…

3) Finally, we recently observed the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, but we’re also a week beyond the third anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings. And with that in mind, I give you the following USA Today story from last December…

Administrative buildings began shutting down nearly 90 minutes before the first campuswide alert about the April 2007 shootings that eventually left 32 students and teachers dead.

According to the report, two unidentified university officials notified their own family members of the first shootings more than an hour before the first alert was issued at 9:26 a.m., April 16.

Campus trash collection was even canceled 21 minutes before students and teachers were warned.

One of the two officials also alerted a colleague in Richmond more than 30 minutes before the campuswide alert but cautioned the colleague “to make sure (the information) doesn’t get out” because the university had not made an official announcement.

The first warning came more than two hours after the first shootings and 14 minutes before Seung Hui Cho continued the rampage in a classroom building where some students were shot at their desks in the most deadly campus shooting in U.S. history.

“What happened at Virginia Tech is by its very nature inexplicable, and we may never fully understand the tragic events that transpired that terrible day,” (former Governor Tim) Kaine said in a written statement Friday. “However, the Commonwealth has remained committed to providing as accurate a factual narrative as possible.”

After reading this account, I have a question; why isn’t a grand jury looking into this (I’ve looked around and found no news story on that)?

Why was campus trash collection, for example, halted before the entire campus was notified that a shooter was on the premises (allegedly)?

Oh, I forgot – Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is too busy suing over health care reform as part of burnishing his conservative bona fides (as noted here) to do the job he was tasked to do by Governor Bob McDonnell (who isn’t far behind him in the winguttery brigade).

I have no doubt that Virginia Tech is, among other things, a wonderful community of individuals of all kinds of ethnicities, life experiences and skills. And it is a tribute to the talent and resiliency of the school’s students, faculty and other personnel that it has come back from one of the darkest experiences surely that any institution of learning could imagine.

And that makes it even more of an almost unspeakable travesty that the shootings that very nearly tore it apart have not been investigated as fully as possible as part of every effort to ensure they never occur again.

Update 5/25/10: More bang-‘em-up pro-gun antics from McDonnell – somehow, I’m sure he knew what he was doing by allowing the name of the non-existent group here.

Wednesday Mashup (10/7/09)

This tells us the following…

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) — At least 47 school-age children in Chicago have been killed in homicides, mostly by guns, since the month President Barack Obama took office.

The latest youth homicide in his adopted hometown was different only in that the attackers used splintered railroad ties and were captured on video broadcast globally.

The Sept. 24 attack prompted Obama to send his attorney general and education secretary to Chicago today after the killing tarnished the city’s drive to win the 2016 Olympics.

Oh, so NOW we’re being told that Chicago lost the 2016 Olympics because of gun violence? What a joke (not the violence, which is all too terrible – just this ridiculous attempt at an explanation).

And get a load of this…

Chicago’s violence has long burdened Obama’s political career, including the embarrassment of a missed vote as a state senator that hurt his 2000 bid for Congress.

You’ve got to be fracking kidding me! What can that POSSIBLY have to do with what this story is supposed to be about?

Yes, the vote in question was detrimental to Obama at the time, but I think the following should be noted from here (about the vote McCormick goes out of his way to mention)…

…Obama didn’t help his record in Springfield when he failed to come home from a Hawaiian vacation to vote on the Safe Neighborhoods Act. His vote wouldn’t have made a difference, but Obama’s been a strident supporter of gun control, so a lot of voters thought he’d disappeared when his voice was needed most. Obama takes his family to Hawaii once a year to visit his 80-year-old grandmother, Toot. Both his parents are dead, and Toot is the only living relative he knew growing up. This year he almost canceled the trip because the fight over the Safe Neighborhoods Act went on until December 22. The Obamas managed to get out of town on Thursday, December 23, and planned to fly back the following Tuesday, so Barack could be in Springfield when the legislature reconvened the next day. But on the day of the flight, Obama’s 18-month-old daughter came down with the flu. He decided to stay in Hawaii one more day. If Malia seemed to be recovering, the Obamas would go home together. If not, Barack would fly out alone. On Wednesday Malia was well enough to fly, and the family returned to Illinois.

“I made an assessment based on the fact that I didn’t want to leave my wife and daughter alone without knowing how serious her condition was, and my assessment was based on the fact that this was a largely political vote, in the sense that either Pate Philip was going to agree to a compromise, in which case the bill was going to pass, or there were going to be negotiations taking place,” he says. “We put our families through so many sacrifices in this process anyway that every once in a while you have to make a decision in terms of what you think is best for your family, and I think that this was one of these decisions. Politically, I took a big hit.”

And by the way, since John McCormick has no interest in balance here, I believe that it’s incumbent upon yours truly to provide the following information, showing how Obama has balanced supporting common sense gun measures with the legitimate rights of gun enthusiasts and sportsmen (and women).

It seems like the latest attempt to kill any semblance of a public option that could still yet emerge in the battle for a health care reform bill is the notion from Republican-lite senators such as Tom Carper and Ben Nelson that states could provide their own “public option” instead of one federally mandated.

However, as Think Progress tells us here…

Large progressive states like New York and California will likely embrace this proposal; more conservative states may wait to see if these public plans save money.

And it’s not clear that they will. State-based public options would enter concentrated markets (already dominated by one or two private insurers) and lack the market clout to negotiate significantly cheaper rates or institute reforms that change the way care is paid for. Existing state-run employer plans (and Medicaid in many states) have already given up on the ‘public’ aspect of their plans and outsourced the work to private insurers. As a result, they have failed to significantly lower health care costs or bring any real change to the market place. In other words, like Carper’s proposal, they are ‘public plans’ in name only.

And by the way, as noted here…

The (report by the Commonwealth fund, a health policy research organization) analyzed the rate of growth of U.S. health care spending between 2010 and 2020 under three possible reform scenarios. One plan would include a public option with healthcare providers paid at Medicare rates; another includes a public option with providers paid at rates midway between Medicare and private insurance plans; and the final plan would have no public option, instead relying exclusively on private insurers.

…

The researchers found that, compared to cost projections if the nation’s health system remains unchanged, reform would “bend the cost curve” — that is, health care spending will still rise, but at a slower rate. They found that reform that includes a public plan tied to Medicare rates would save nearly $3 trillion through 2020, a public plan with higher reimbursement rates would save $1.97 trillion and an insurance exchange with only private plans would save $1.2 trillion.

By the way, Keith Olbermann will present an hour-long “Special Comment” tonight on health care on “Countdown.” I’ll either watch on the teevee or online, but I’ll catch it somehow, and I think we all should.

And finally here’s some crackpot history from The Old Gray Lady and columnist David Leonhardt (here)…

Democrats dominated the middle part of the 20th century, thanks in part to their vigorous response to the Great Depression. They used the government to soften the effects of the Depression and to build the modern safety net. But they failed to see the limits of the government’s ability to manage the economy and helped usher in the stagflation of the 1970s.

In response, I give you Paul Krugman (here)…

Stagflation was a term coined by Paul Samuelson to describe the combination of high inflation and high unemployment. The era of stagflation in America began in 1974 and ended in the early 80s. Why did it happen?

Well, the textbooks basically invoke two factors. One was a series of “adverse supply shocks”, mainly the huge runup in the price of oil. The other was excessively expansionary monetary policy, especially in 1972-3, which allowed expectations of inflation to become entrenched.

…

But where is the Great Society in all this? Nowhere. The claim that stagflation proved the badness of liberal ideas is pure propaganda, which not even conservative economists believe.

What a shame that David Leonhardt doesn’t even read his own newspaper.

On Sotomayor, It’s “Lock And Load” Time For The NRA

In an example of still more gun-related cowardice by the Democratic Party, Think Progress tells the following from here…

Noting Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s record on the Second Amendment, Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) told Roll Call that that he is “undecided” on her nomination to the Supreme Court (although he added that he is “leaning toward voting in favor”). Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) expressed similar uncertainty:

…

Both senators’ equivocal statements come in the wake of the NRA’s decision to “score” the Sotomayor vote in determining where each lawmaker stands on the NRA’s pro-gun agenda. The NRA claims, falsely, that because Sotomayor once upheld a New York law against a Second Amendment challenge this somehow proves that she is hostile to gun rights. That decision, however, did nothing more than apply well-established law.

Because lower-court judges are required by law to follow the commands of the Supreme Court, Sotomayor once joined an opinion which followed a Supreme Court case holding that the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to the states. Nevertheless, the NRA launched a smear campaign against Sotomayor this month, claiming that she “deliberately misread Supreme Court precedent to support her incorrect view” in this case.

(It’s pretty sad when a Repug shows more courage than a Dem on the gun issue, by the way, as Lamar Alexander does in the Think Progress post.)

Also, as noted here, conservative judges Frank Easterbrook and Richard Posner, both appointed by The Sainted Ronnie R, also held that the Second Amendment did not apply to the states in accordance with a prior ruling from Judge Sotomayor.

All of this comes in the wake of the vote on an amendment sponsored by Senate Repug John Thune of South Dakota here which basically would have allowed an individual who owned a firearm in a state with looser gun laws to transport it to a state and use it – and thus supersede what could be tougher laws in the state where the gun is transported – as he or she saw fit (or, as Think Progress explained, “31 states currently prohibit ‘habitual drunkards’ from carrying guns. The Thune amendment would render these provisions useless.”).

As the prior posted linked to above also tells us, the Thune Amendment was barely defeated in the Senate by a vote of 58-39; as noted here, Colorado Democratic Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet voted Yes, as well as PA’s own Bob Casey.

To me, this prompts the following question: with “Democrats” like these, who needs Republicans?

I realize that such laws pertain primarily to smaller caliber weapons, but I cannot help but wonder whether or not such an amendment by Thune or anyone else (assuming the dark day ever comes when it passes and is signed into law, thus ensuring my political opposition to any person responsible for such an atrocity, be they a Dem or a Repug) could somehow make it easier for someone to sneak a decidedly more lethal weapon (such as an assault rifle) into a public place.

And with that in mind, I should note that last July 18th marked the 25th anniversary of the San Ysidro, CA McDonald’s massacre, in which James Oliver Huberty murdered 22 people (including himself) and injured 19 with a 9 mm Uzi semi-automatic (the primary weapon fired in the massacre), a Winchester pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, and a 9 mm Browning HP (as noted here by Wikipedia).

I tried really hard to find some principled Democratic opposition to the NRA and the pro-gun forces in this country, but unfortunately, aside from Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, I couldn’t. However, I was able to find the following from columnist Mark Shields here from last April, in which a legendary Repug with whom I frequently disagreed spoke what I would call “truth to power” on assault weapons…

Washington and the leadership of both political parties in the city need a collective vertebrae transplant. Just listen to what one of the country’s great conservative leaders, the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., said about these assault weapons in 1990: “I am completely opposed to selling automatic weapons. I don’t see any reason why they ever made semi-automatics. I’ve been a member of the NRA. I collect, make and shoot guns. I’ve never used an automatic or a semi-automatic for hunting. There’s no need to. They have no place in anybody’s arsenal.”

So much for the sportsman’s argument for assault rifles of the kind that the Binghamton (NY) killer used to fire, according to police, 98 shots in one minute.

Shortly before Goldwater made his position so abundantly clear, the then-California Attorney General John Van de Kamp, a Democrat, stood on the floor of the Assembly in Sacramento holding in his hands an AK-47 semi-automatic weapon and said to the legislative body’s 80 members: “Ladies and gentlemen, take a look at your watches and start counting. You are lucky that I am the attorney general and not some nut. Because if I had the ammunition, I could shoot every member of the Assembly by the time I finish this sentence — about 20 seconds.”

But 1994 will forever be remembered as the year when Democrats lost their heart for standing up to the gun lobby. The Democratic-controlled Congress and President Bill Clinton had enacted a ban on 19 types of automatic weapons. That ban had passed the House on a 216-214 vote, guided by the then-Clinton White House adviser (and now Obama White House chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel — and it was blamed by many Democrats for their party’s November loss, for the first time in 40 years, of House control.

(By the way, I read the comments to Shields’ column, one of which chided him for not knowing the difference – as far as the commenter was concerned – between a fully-automatic machine gun and a semi-automatic rifle…as if that would have made any of the victims described by Shields “less dead” as a result.)

And on the matter of the Dems’ ’94 loss of Congress owing to the assault weapons ban, I thought New York Times editorialist Dorothy Samuels made the following good points last May here…

It is hard to make a case that the assault weapons ban was decisive in 1994.

The law certainly enraged many N.R.A. members and might explain the loss of certain Democratic seats. However, there were other major factors in the Democrats’ 1994 loss, starting with perceived Democratic arrogance and corruption (overdrafts at the House bank came to symbolize that).

Add to that voter unhappiness with Mr. Clinton’s budget, his health care fiasco, the Republican Party’s success in recruiting appealing candidates, and that ingenious Republican vehicle for nationalizing the elections known as the “Contract With America.” The contract, by the way, did not mention guns.

Mr. Clinton’s successful 1996 re-election campaign actually stressed his gun control achievements. James and Sarah Brady spoke in prime time at the ’96 Democratic convention, and Clinton campaign ads trumpeted his role in enacting the assault weapons ban and the ’93 Brady law requiring background checks for gun buyers.

And returning to the Shields column once more, I would advise Casey, Udall, Bennet and the other “chicken Dems” on this issue to read the following…

President Obama has long been on record for a permanent ban on assault weapons. But one respected Capitol Hill Democrat, a longtime champion of gun control, despairs: “These (recent) killings have, unfortunately, not moved the needle.”

What would be required to get this Congress to act? “It would take at least a major massacre of kindergarteners.”

I can think of no more damning indictment of our politicians – and really, our country’s collective retreat on this issue – than that.

I Would Now Say That The Honeymoon Is Over

OK, to begin, I’ll say up front that I support President Obama. I have, I do, and I will. In the matter of the 2008 election, if the 2000 version of John McCain had run, it actually would have been interesting. But the 2008 version ran instead, trying to suck up to all of the typical Republican constituencies. And then he selected Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin as his running mate, dontcha know. And the economy tanked. And it became more and more obvious to me who was, resoundingly, more qualified for the job.

Yes, I know this has been covered over and over, but please humor me a bit here, OK?

So then we have the election and the aftermath, including the swearing-in and the parties. And the Lilly Ledbetter Act becomes law, as does the stimulus, followed by lifting the restriction on federal funding of stem cell research put into place by Dubya, SCHIP is passed, and he gives the recent Cairo speech…a lot of good stuff, to my way of thinking.

So what exactly is the problem? Well…

He signed a credit card consumer protections bill that won approval through a provision allowing loaded guns in our national parks, for starters (here).

He flip-flopped on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” here (yes, I understand his point that the bill signed by Clinton was written by Congress, but don’t say here that you plan to end it and then equivocate, especially when individuals such as Colin Powell have called for “reevaluating” it).

He has defended Dubya’s programs of torture, kidnapping, illegal imprisonment, government secrecy, and executive branch dominance over the other branches of government by using the Bush “state secrets” provision, as noted here (basically, all we have is Obama’s word that he won’t engage in the same garbage as his predecessor).

For some incomprehensible reason, he defended the Defense of Marriage Act in a recent legal brief as noted here by Americablog and the Human Rights Campaign (more here).

And to top it all off, we have this, which tells us the following…

NEW YORK The Obama administration is blocking access to the names of visitors to the White House, according to MSNBC.com — which recently requested the information. The Web site contends the reasoning is similar to Bush administration arguments that a president doesn’t have to reveal his visitors.

You may now consider your humble narrator be officially pissed off at our chief executive.

And by the way, given what I said yesterday about Randall Terry here, it might be a good idea to start enforcing the FACE law (yes, I know Scott Roeder’s craziness definitely predated Obama, but the incidents of Roeder gluing Tiller’s clinic doors shut – a clear FACE violation – occurred on the watch of Obama and AG Eric Holder also).

Also, I would like to reiterate what Bill Maher said here in the way of Obama “taking a page from his predecessor.” Use reconciliation on health care if the votes aren’t there, Mr. President, and if the Repugs stall your nominees like Dawn Johnsen and David Hamilton in response, then scream loud and long about it.

Given the fact that, in the past, Dems generally have shown all the spine of a bowl of warm vermicelli in response to relentless right-wing attacks, I for one would call that change I can believe in.

Update 6/17/09: A nice step in the right direction here… (Oops, looks like I updated too soon, based on this – relocation assistance?).

Wednesday Mashup (5/13/09)

Nothing really in particular to note here except the following…

I got a kick out of this Onion News Network story, dancing on that razor’s edge between news and satire again; My favorite line? “For the first time in my life I know who the secretary of the treasury is…(and) I don’t like it.”

Please click here to access an online petition urging Congress to support President Obama’s health care initiative.

Also, I was intrigued by this story in today’s New York Times, which tells us…

WASHINGTON — An internal government memorandum that came to light on Tuesday challenged the scientific and economic basis of a proposed Environmental Protection Agency finding that climate-altering gases are a threat to human health and welfare.

The undated and unsigned government document, marked “Deliberative — Attorney Client Privilege,” was compiled by the White House Office of Management and Budget from comments offered by various agencies. A White House official said that many of the criticisms and suggestions came from holdovers from the administration of President George W. Bush and had been rejected by Obama appointees.

…

Some of the objections mirror longstanding criticism of the proposed E.P.A. action (to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act) from Republicans and business lobbies who say that the Clean Air Act is the wrong instrument for combating global warming and that such regulation will have devastating effects on the economy.

Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, waved the document at Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, at a hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Mr. Barrasso called it a “smoking gun” that proved that the proposed finding was based on politics, not science.

“This misuse of the Clean Air Act will be a trigger for overwhelming regulation and lawsuits based on gases emitted from cars, schools, hospitals and small business,” Mr. Barrasso said. “This will affect any number of other sources, including lawn mowers, snowmobiles and farms. This will be a disaster for the small businesses that drive America.”

Ms. Jackson replied that the E.P.A. was obligated by the Supreme Court to decide whether heat-trapping gases pose a danger to human health and the environment. She said much of the analysis behind the proposed finding had been completed before she assumed office in January. She added that the comments reflected “people’s opinions” and were not binding on the agency.

Well, well, I would call that some well-orchestrated political theater by a puppet of some of this country’s most notorious energy interests (and I say that based on this article, which tells us the following about Barrasso)…

John Barrasso has received $136,400 in oil contributions during the 110th congress. $110,500 of those dollars were from industry PACS.[5] These numbers make Barrasso one of the top recipients of oil and coal money in the Senate. In addition to oil money, Barrasso has accepted $82,250 in coal contributions during the 110th congress. $70,000 of those dollars were from industry PACS [6].

Oh, and by the way, John, who exactly is it that’s in charge of your party again (here)?

Update 5/14/09: So NOW we know who wrote that supposed “smoking gun” memo, according to Barrasso (here – yeah, way to look legitimate by appearing with Glenn Beck…but you STILL won’t say Flush Limbore runs your party, will you?).

I have to admit that I’m truly puzzled by this story, which indicates more maneuvers by the pro-gun lobby in this country, specifically the following…

The 10th Amendment (to the Constitution) declares that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” It inspired the so-called “Sagebrush Rebellion” three decades ago that swept the West, preventing the federal takeover of public lands pushed by the Carter Administration and propelling the self-proclaimed Sagebrush Rebel, Ronald Reagan, to the Presidency. Now it is being invoked by pro-gun advocates to press for state rather than federal regulation of gun manufacturers. (See pictures of America’s gun culture.)

(Now) Montana has passed a law allowing local gun manufacturers to sidestep federal regulations as long as the weapons they make are sold within the territory of the state. “It’s a gun bill, but it’s another way of demonstrating the sovereignty of the state of Montana,” Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer said, according to AP, as he signed the bill into law in mid-April. “I like big guns, I like little guns, I like pistols, I like rifles, and I would like to buy a gun that’s made in Montana.”

And yes, the support of this bill by Schweitzer, who was and may yet be again a rising star in the Democratic Party, was most definitely NOT a shining moment for him.

However, the real “gotcha” part of the story for me comes near the end…

The irony is that most of the major gun manufacturers are located in blue states – Smith and Wesson in Massachusetts, Colt in Connecticut. Other large manufacturers, like Browning located in Utah, are engaged in global commerce. Montana’s bill will apply to boutique gun manufacturers who make expensive, custom-made hunting rifles, usually purchased by affluent hunters and collectors.

Putting aside the utterly farcical notion that any weapon manufactured in a state that passes one of these laws such as Montana would NEVER, under any circumstance, travel outside the borders of that state, possibly to be used in the commission of a crime (with Paul Helmke of Handgun Control saying that such a law wouldn’t hold up because “there are rules when you’re part of the Union”) am I to understand, then, that this law would mandate that these guns could only be purchased and used in the state in which they were manufactured? What the hell kind of business sense (or lack thereof) does THAT show?

Guess that kind of explains why this state has a region known as “the flathead” (the jokes write themselves sometimes, people).

Patrick Shoots Himself In The Foot

It’s truly a sad day when I find myself chastising Patrick Murphy and agreeing with the Op-Ed page of the Philadelphia Inquirer, but that is where we are based on this editorial today…

Murphy was among 85 House Democrats who joined 181 Republicans in approving a bill that would roll back gun-safety measures enacted by the District of Columbia, after the Supreme Court struck down the city’s 32-year-old handgun ban in June.

The legislation would undo gun- registration and trigger-lock requirements, as well as a ban on semiautomatic weapons. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said the measure would “endanger public safety in a city that is already a target for terrorists,” permit “dangerous people to stockpile dangerous weapons,” and hamstring local officials in combating gun violence.

Take that approach nationwide, and it would become easier to buy and own firearms in already dangerous urban areas. That makes no sense, and it’s certainly an odd place for Murphy to be.

As CeaseFirePA President Phil Goldsmith noted in an open letter, Murphy is viewed as “a supporter of reasonable, common-sense handgun safety reforms.” What’s more, his district – even with its slice of Northeast Philadelphia – trends progressive. Hardly NRA country.

Aides insist the congressman hasn’t changed his stripes. He still favors a ban on assault weapons and supports “reasonable gun laws.” The District of Columbia vote was about “striking the proper balance between constitutional rights and reasonable restrictions.”

But it’s hard to see the gun vote as anything but political gamesmanship. With a Republican challenger who’s trying to score points about Murphy’s commonsense view that the United States needs to extract itself from Iraq, Murphy’s vote on the gun bill deprives his GOP opponent – retired Marine Col. Tom Manion – of another issue.

I can’t find a way to disagree with any of that, particularly when (as noted here) Patrick co-sponsored sensible legislation to reintroduce the assault weapons ban last summer (this is a post from a decidedly pro-gun site; none of this information is sourced properly, but I’m presenting it anyway for consideration).

As the son of a Philadelphia police officer, Murphy doesn’t need any lectures from me or anyone else about the importance of keeping weapons of crime out of the hands of criminals. But it is truly disappointing to see such a smarmy act of political capitulation against an opponent who, thus far, has mastered only the accomplishment of remaining utterly invisible (the only defense I’ll give to Patrick is that, in the interim between my May post and now, the Supreme Court, in their rank cowardice and stupidity, struck down the D.C. gun ban as the Inquirer noted, so Patrick has the proverbial fig leaf of legal justification here – once again, since the Supremes did that, they should allow guns in their office buildings and give legitimate sportsmen all the rights they want…tongue slightly in cheek here).

Just because the majority of the 8th district resides in the largely pastoral settings of Bucks County doesn’t mean that it is immune to the threats faced by Philadelphia and other big cites from unregistered handguns (on second thought, maybe Patrick does need to be reminded about that after all).

Update 9/19/08: The New York Times has more here; still shocked that Patrick supported this.