They’ll wake up in China!
And shame on me for being shocked, but really I am.
The RNC has a new ad criticizing President Obama for “a string of defeats” in Congress. As they catalogue those defeats, they show the President with one of the Newtown mothers, Nicole Hockley.
So the Republican Party is blaming President Obama for the failure to pass gun reform!
From “A Shameful Day in the Senate,” Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast:
“Every strong political movement, besotted with the fragrance of its own power, hits the point of overreach, and the pro-gun movement hit that point yesterday in the morally repulsive Senate vote on the background-checks bill. We all know the old cliché that the National Rifle Association has power because its members vote on the guns issue, while gun-control people aren’t zealots. Well, Wayne LaPierre and 46 craven senators, that ‘majority’ of the Senate, have just created millions of zealots, and as furious as I am, I’m also strangely at peace, because I’m more confident than ever that the NRA will never, ever be stronger in Washington than it was yesterday.
“You cannot oppose the will of 90 percent of the public and expect no consequences. You can’t have people saying what Rand Paul said, that monstrous comment of his about Newtown parents being “props,” and think that you haven’t offended and infuriated millions of people. You can’t introduce amendments that encourage more interstate transfer of weapons and give it the way-beyond-Orwellian name ‘safe communities’ act and think that karma will never come back around on you. And you can’t sneer at the parents of dead 6-year-olds and expect that God isn’t watching and taking notes.
“Sickening. The whole thing. The four cowardly Democrats, too. Max Baucus, Mark Begich, Mark Pryor, and Heidi Heitkamp. Heitkamp won’t face her voters again for five years. Baucus has been around long enough to be able to be bigger than this. Begich and Pryor, who face reelection next year, have the least lame excuses of all, but they are cowards too. They have to know they did the wrong thing. If Joe Manchin could do what he did—and trust me, I’m from West Virginia, and I know Joe, and our families knew each other, and the whole thing. If Manchin could do what he did, from a state every bit as tough on this issue as theirs, these four pygmies really have to be ashamed of themselves.”
“Not to give me a vote on this [the assault weapons ban] would be a major betrayal of trust.”
California Senator Dianne Feinstein speaking about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
In the first election to national office since Newtown, Robin Kelly has defeated Debbie Halvorson in the Dem primary for Jessie Jackson, Jr.’s House seat. Winning the Dem primary in Chicago means you will win the general, so Kelly is going to Congress.
Kelly had been graded “F” by the NRA, while Debbie Halvorson had an “A” rating.
Mike Bloomberg’s super PAC Independence USA ran over $2 million in ads supporting Kelly, and gun control was really the only issue in the race.
“You’re safe now; your parents love you.”
Officer William Chapman to a little girl he found at Sandy Hook Elementary School breathing and with a slight pulse, as he carried her to an ambulance. She did not survive.
From “Reliving Horror and Faint Hope at Massacre Site,” Ray Rivera, NYT
FL Sen. Marco Rubio said on Fox News today that Congress won‘t have time for gun legislation in this term.
I thought if Newtown didn’t change things, then nothing will. So now I think nothing will.
What we need is for gun owners and non-gun owners to come together and align themselves against the nut jobs who don’t just want appropriate weapons to hunt or protect themselves or shoot for fun at a range, but want military arsenals to fight the government.
Charles Krauthammer was on Hannity tonight, and I agree with his take on Obama’s gun control proposals.
He said that all the items in the executive order list are “useless.”
He also said that there is “less here than meets the eye” because all the meaningful stuff requires congressional approval, and that won’t be forthcoming.
I’m way beyond discouraged, I’m totally disgusted.
Obviously, I’m very relieved that Mittens won’t put his hand on the Book of Mormon and take the oath next week, while his entitled princess bride looks on smugly. But, mostly because of Newtown and my sense that we are not going to seize the moment to seize military weapons and ammo, I’m not as excited about the Inauguration as I thought I’d be on election night.
Maureen Dowd (“Takes One to Tango,” NYT) isn’t feeling very upbeat either:
“But the cost of W.’s misbeggoten wars and his mishandling of the economy overwhelmed Obama’s first term. And Obama underwhelmed on traits everyone thought he’d excel at: negotiating, selling, charming, scaring, bully-pulpiting, mobilizing, dealing with Capitol Hill and, especially, communicating. It’s taken the White House four years to develop a coherent message: Pay your bills.
“We’re facing default. Again.
“We’re mired in partisan trash-talking. Still.
“And despite the tragedy of the children riddled with bullets in Newtown, Conn., no one is expecting any consequential fixes to our absurdly lax gun laws.”
I too have felt that Obama hasn’t ‘splained often and well enough. But the bottom line is that if you’re a GOP congressman more worried about a primary from the right than the general, Obama could be Demosthenes and it wouldn’t make a difference.
Crazies in and out of Congress are threatening to impeach President Obama over his executive actions on guns.
Yes, those actions are very scary.
For example, he is going to nominate a director for the ATF.
He’s going to begin a conversation about mental health.
He’s going to begin a campaign to emphasize safe and responsible gun ownership.
He’s going to clarify what mental health services Medicaid must provide.
He’s going to offer additional training for active shooter situations.
Nominations and conversations and campaigns and clarifications and training, oh my!
All of the executive actions he outlined today are pretty wimpy and none of them can be interpreted as taking away anyone’s Second Amendment rights.
All the big stuff, the meaningful stuff is going to Congress, and it looks as if we may get better background checks, but we won’t get a ban on assault weapons or large ammo clips.
I can’t believe that this moment is going to slip away, but now I think it is. And if Sandy Hook doesn’t get us to act, I have no idea what will.
It’s awful enough that those beautiful children and brave teachers died. Even worse is that they will have died in vain. Even worse is that the paranoid fringe is going to win.
“The public wants guns out of the schools, not in the schools. I don’t think the NRA is listening.”
GOP pollster and evil genius Frank Luntz
Embattled Farmers 