If you disagree with what you’re hearing from Wayne LaPierre, let him know by sending your membership card back.
The NRA no longer speaks for the majority of its members, let alone the majority of this country, just the lunatic fringe and the gun and ammo manufacturers.
According the WSJ*, when John Boehner told the President on December 13 that now he wanted the deal they’d been negotiating in the summer of 2011, the President stated the obvious: “You missed your opportunity on that.”
I think this exchange reveals what’s going on with the GOP. They see the 2012 election as a simple return to the status quo, billions spent on essentially nothing, with the President still in the White House, the Democrats still in control of the Senate, and the Republicans still in control of the House. Things of course would have been better for them if Mitt had won and even better if Mitt had won and they’d taken the Senate, but they don’t really see the election as a victory for the Democrats.
The way the GOP looks at it, they didn’t win, but they didn’t really lose either. From their perspective, they had an opportunity to win on November 6, but the President really didn’t have that opportunity.
This, of course, is delusional. The country got to weigh in and choose, and they chose Mr. Obama. But for gerrymandering of congressional districts, the Democrats would have retaken the House. In the summer of 2011, no one knew how the election of 2012 would go. But the Obama that Mr. Boehner, his House, and his party face now is not the Obama of 2011. The Obama of December 2012 is a leader with a mandate.
Thus far, the fiscal cliff negotiations have revealed a GOP unwilling to face the fact that elections have consequences — whether or not they win.
* “How ‘Cliff’ Talks Hit the Wall,” Patrick O’Connor and Peter Nicholas
After the election, the GOP promptly turned on Mitt Romney, blaming his 47% percent speech as a dooming and damning moment in Mitt’s out-of-touch campaign.
But since the election, the GOP has amply shown that they agree with exactly what Mitt told us.
How else do you explain their refusal to raise taxes even on those making $1 million or more, while insisting on cutting Medicaid and food stamps? They support the rich and spit on the sick and struggling.
Mitt admirably represented his party, a party that in no way currently represents the overwhelming majority of the country.
At first I was dismayed when I saw that the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre will be on Meet the Press tomorrow. I thought why give his garbage any more of an audience?
But then I realized that it’s wonderful he’s on, so we can hear him explain how much good that armed guard did at Columbine.
From “Playing Taxes Hold ‘Em,” Paul Krugman, NYT:
This [Boehner’s failure to get enough votes for his Plan B] means that any real deal with Mr. Obama would be met with mass G.O.P. defections; so any such deal would require overwhelming Democratic support, a fact that empowers progressives ready to bolt if they think the president is giving away too much.
“As in 2011, then, the Republican crazies are doing Mr. Obama a favor, heading off any temptation he may have felt to give away the store in pursuit of bipartisan dreams.
“And there’s a broader lesson here. This is no time for a Grand Bargain, because the Republican Party, as now constituted, is just not an entity with which the president can make a serious deal. If we’re going to get a grip on our nation’s problems — of which the budget deficit is a minor part — the power of the G.O.P.’s extremists, and their willingness to hold the economy hostage if they don’t get their way, needs to be broken. And somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen in the next few days.”
It’s hard to say who is more clueless, the NRA wanting to solve our gun problem by bringing guns into our schools or the Tea Party congresspeople refusing to raise taxes even on those making $1 million or more a year.
Don’t they have any idea how bizarre and alien they look to most of the country, how out-of-step they are?
The President has been meeting with Harry Reid about a scaled-down approach to the fiscal cliff, and is expected to speak at 5 EST.
They are discussing a Senate bill that would extend tax cuts for families under $250,000, delay the sequester (yes, kick that rusty can even further down the road), and extend unemployment benefits.
If this passed the Senate, and every Dem in the House voted for it, they would need 26 GOP votes.
President Obama has officially nominated John Kerry to be the next Secretary of State. A happy day for defeated Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who is tap dancing against semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity clips as fast as he can, and who will now get another bite at the senatorial apple after his loss to Elizabeth Warren.
Meanwhile, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has officially come out against former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) for Secretary of Defense. Cornyn is both a member of the Armed Services Committee and the GOP whip, so he’d be a major player in a Hagel confirmation.
A new American Express/Harrison poll finds that 67% of the One Percent (those who make more than $450,000 a year) think they should pay more in federal income taxes.
Embattled Farmers 