What Did We Learn (if anything) Yesterday?

The Sunday talk shows have become a testing ground for new talking points. Republicans are now trying to switch the blame of a government shutdown on Senate Democrats and the president because they won’t negotiate the repeal of Obamacare. Senator Ted Cruz is trying to say Harry Reid will use every trick in the book to strip out the repeal of Obamacare portion of the bill. That’s not a trick, Mr. Cruz, that’s normal procedure. He said that Harry Reid should not pass a partisan bill. Hello, that’s what the House of Representatives did.

Here’s the deal, as long as the president of the United States is named Obama, the Affordable Health Care Act will stay intact.

The GOP has won the continuing resolution battle so far, because the sequester spending cuts are part of this bill. That’s something that the house Democrats wants to look at when the bill comes back to them.

Yesterday, Chris Wallace put up his partisan bullet points on how terrible Obamacare was, but he never mentioned that the law was doing quite well in states that have accepted the transition. Senator Claire McCaskill was ready when he mentioned that Walgreens was no longer covering their part-time employees. She explained that Walgreen's is issuing vouchers to their part-time employees, so they can purchase much cheaper health insurance. Chris Wallace tried to say that the vouchers might not be enough, but that is just an assumption. The president has always said that if you can come up with something better; than by all means do it. Chris Wallace then mentioned that the president promised that if you liked your current healthcare policy with your company, you would be able to keep it. The president did not envision the steps companies would take to deny health care benefits. I guess you could choose to blame the president if you like, but it’s a weak argument if you ask me.

 I advise reading J.R. Ortega, of the Victoria Advocate, column about the health care issue in today’s newspaper or you can read the on line version here.

I’m one who believes in polls but I never thought that we would use the results to try and repeal a law. Social Security and Medicare would not get 100% likeability in a poll. I’m surprised that we used the poll to decide whether we should bomb the Syria or not. It’s funny; the poll that states that 90% of Americans favor background checks continues to be ignored.

I don’t know why “Meet the Press” continues to invite Wayne La Pierre of the NRA to be their guest after another gun mass murder. All they have to do is replay what he said the last time and double down on it. Now he’s said that there weren’t enough good guys with guns. He was calling for those in a military to be armed on a base where civilians are the majority. When I was in the service, our rifles were locked up for a reason. We had the military police for security. Mr. La Pierre’s statements have become weirder and weirder. David Gregory asked the chief lobbyist for the gun manufacturers, why it is in reasonable to require a background check for gun sales between strangers. Mr. La Pierre said “ just down the road(Washington, DC) 13-year-old girls were being trafficked, illegal drug deals were being made, and now you want two hunters to be under the thumb of the government when they purchase a hunting rifle from each other.” We should stop fooling ourselves. Congress will not do anything except maybe make some small changes that are cleared beforehand with the NRA. The changes will have to come from communities, where the real power is. Only 35% of household own guns, so a community is not beholding to the NRA. When those communities get sick and tired of all the violence, steps will be taken as they were in New York.

Too Soon?

The first thing I heard this morning was how inappropriate it was for the president of the United States to be talking about partisan politics while people at the Navy Ship Yard were still dying. Of course Joe Scarborough laid it on with both barrels saying that the left would have been outraged if George W. Bush would have done that. I can see people checking through the archives looking to see if they can find a similar circumstance.

In my opinion,we will no longer have a time out to reflect on the sadness of a situation because the last incident is still fresh on our minds and we don't have a way to control  the instant response from Twitter and Facebook.   We will just take up where we left off.

 I have to agree with Jeff Greenfield when he said that nothing could have be done to prevent the mass shooting yesterday.    He was talking about the laws and policies that we have in place today. Aaron Alexis did see a VA doctor about his mental problems,he was not charged in the two gun incidents he had, so he could legally buy a gun. He played a lot of violent video games  but we are not going to take steps to keep those games out the hands of adults. Finally,he legally bought a shot gun and apparently acquired the other weapons after he shot the first security office who approached him.All that's left is the lack of security at the base but since Mr. Alexis is dead, we will never know his motive.

Aaron Alexis did see someone at the VA about his mental problem but apparently there is not a way to force him to complete his sessions. His friends in Ft. Worth said he was likable fellow but  one friend said he was addicted to violent video games. He joined the Buddhist religion which is a pacifist group. Try and figure that out. 

I will note once again that the only good guy with a gun happened to be law enforcement. We all saw the chaos in looking for a second and the possibility of a third shooter. It might be just me, but I think an armed civilian might have gotten shot by the police yesterday. We still haven't found a way to control adrenalin in those situations. So much for the theory that shooters don't attack a facility where someone night be armed. 

As I was hearing  about the shooter's past ,I started thinking that there's got to be way to connect all those dots. I thought of a credit bureau type of system  that assigns points to different actions. A domestic violence will get a flag,treatment for PTSD another,violent games and so on and I'm sure NSA could tell us how. Yes,the credit bureau makes a lot of wrong entries,health information should be private and the NRA would be against it but someone -somewhere is collecting all that data right;why not put it to good use. We know the gun shops won't Google the potential buyer,so we've got to give them a tool they can use besides the instant background check. 

I think we can all agree that security needs to be beefed up at our military installations especially one where civilians outnumber the military personnel. 

We can Think Tank this to no end but until we change the culture of America,these shootings will continue.  

  

Should Zimmerman Get His Gun Back?

I thought I had my fill of the Zimmerman trial and the aftermath but sometimes events beyond my control pulls me back in.Yesterday, I was minding my own business, as the therapist applied my heat treatment, so I could start my twice a week torn rotator cuff exercises. Sitting at the next table was an elderly man speaking in fairly loud voice about the terrible treatment that Zimmerman was getting from the mainstream media. Several of us could see that the subject made the young therapist, who was helping him ice his knee, very uncomfortable but the man didn’t seem to care. He asked her if she had a gun and when she said no, he said he couldn’t understand why not. A lot of us snickered when she got the best of him by asking, “have you been threatened?" He promptly said, “no but you need to stay ready these days” and wouldn’t you know it; the timer went off, which meant it time for him to go.

This morning it was time for my routine quarterly blood tests, so I decided to make a taco run and get a McDonald’s hot coffee afterwards. Out of habit, I turned on the radio where KTSA’s Trey Ware question for his right-wing listeners was “Should Zimmerman get his gun back?” I expected his listeners to say yes but their answers went far beyond that, and some were astonishing. One caller said that the government wanted to disarm white people, so they couldn’t defend themselves against minorities, and Trey agreed. A majority of the callers thought “not guilty” meant that George Zimmerman could resume his life as if nothing happened, and others thought he deserved hero status.

I never gave much thought to the idea of Florida giving Zimmerman his gun back; in fact, I thought they did. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t want an armed civilian patrolling the streets of Tanglewood. I would not want a neighborhood watchman who does not take the advice of a dispatcher, who had already sent a patrol car to the area. One of KTSA’s callers said people like Trayvon are not taught to respect authority. Excuse me, but a civilian on neighborhood watch does not have any authority.

The jury in the Zimmerman case found him “not guilty” of 2nd degree murder or manslaughter because they could not find enough evidence to meet the “beyond reasonable doubt” threshold. During the initial vote, three jurors thought Zimmerman was guilty of something. The verdict does keep the state from revoking Zimmerman’s conceal permit but giving back his property is a different matter. I wouldn’t mind Florida giving Zimmerman his gun back but allowing him on the streets with a gun is a scary proposition for the state he wishes to reside in.

I'm glad that there's a push to get some of those "Stand Your Ground" laws revised or repealed altogether. I'm glad those who are not happy with the verdict in the Zimmerman trial are not rioting on a large scale and are more focused on the path forward. Allow the family to go seek justice in a civil trial and let the DOJ complete their investigation.

The Sunday Talk Shows

All the talk shows minus Fox centered on gun control issues, Obama's first 100 days of his second term, the immigration standoff, Syria, and Al Qaeda and its relationship to the Boston marathon bombers. Fox News Sunday continued with their obsession over Benghazi. The conservative broadcast station wants to find that smoking gun that pins the first scandal on President Obama.

As it is every Sunday, conservative republicans outnumbered the democrats as guests. Republicans are allowed to continue pushing their background check talking points without opposition. They continue to say background checks would not have prevented Sandy Hook, without a Democrat saying that it's about the past shootings and future ones and not only about Sandy Hook. The tragedy that took place in Sandy Hook was the basis for a call to action. There are not enough people on the left who will stand up and say that background checks is merely the starting point and work towards an agreement from that point of view. This argument started with a watered down background check bill and will only get passed in the House after it's weaken even further. Everything is being played on the GOP's home turf because this tactic of governing as though you've won the last two elections seems to be working for them.

The hosts and guests all agreed that the president is off to a shaky start but they also had to admit that he has a lot of tools at his disposal to be considered irrelevant. I think President Obama is playing the long game; losing some battles along the way to win the war.

The base of the GOP has already gotten over the shock of losing two consecutive presidential elections, so they don't feel a need to change their views. They still believe that a policy that does not deport 11 million people who are here illegally is indeed amnesty. The base would rather that the 30 GOP governors impose some more voting repression laws instead. Despite what Senator Rubio says, they know that if the immigrants become citizens, most of them will vote for Democrats and the win will go to the president. The Senate would have to pass a bill with at least 75 vote margin to have any king of leverage on John Boehner and the Tea Party coalition.

Republican representative, Tom Cotton of Arkansas didn't waste any time on Meet the Press to go after what he perceives to be a weak president in Barrack Obama. He continues to talk about the five attacks on the homeland since the president was elected. That's what's wrong with a Sunday's talk show where no one wants to confront a controversial person or subject because of a national audience. Tom Cotton, Peter King, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz don't mind saying controversial things because their base eats it up. Let's take the misfits who wanted to blow up the Sears building in Chicago. In reality they couldn't find Chicago using a GPS, the same goes for the Manhattan bomber who locked himself out of his car and couldn't ignite gasoline. Timothy McVeigh and the terrorist who hijacked the airplanes to attack our country are the real deal and not be put into the same category as the losers and wannabe jihads. I don't know where to put one of the Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his three friends who tried to dispose vital evidence. I do think that they should all be tried in a Federal court and be punished accordingly. Dzhokhar was obviously brainwashed by his older brother but there's still not any evidence that shows he was affiliated with a radical Islamic group. I think a Congressional hearing on the events that led to the bombing is in order.

The GOP controlled House will hold another of many Benghazi hearings because they think the whistleblowers will shed some more light on the horrific event eight months ago. Supposedly the whistleblowers were threatened by the State Dept. to withhold crucial testimony. I'm pretty sure that the government gave a stern warning to the employees, as any large bureaucracy would. We'll see what it amounts to. For example, I imagine a petrochemical company would warn an employee about his testimony to the EPA. The Republicans remind me of what the democrats had to go through to get classified and non-classified 9/11 documents from the Bush White House. Yesterday, the GOP guest on Fox News was complaining of the State department looking over their shoulder as they looked over documents. The State Dept. probably remembers how Sandy Burger tried to stick documents in his socks a few years back.

I think Cokie Roberts hit the nail on the head when she said “there are a lot of people criticizing the president because he's not intervening in Syria but they don't really offer an alternative because there's not a good one.” Oh sure, now that Israel has struck the Syria a couple times people like John McCain can mock our current military leaders for their reluctance to set up a no-fly zone because  of  Syria's air defense system. I'm pretty sure the president regrets his “Red Line” statement but I seriously doubt that it weakens our country if we don't follow up on our threats. It's like a 6'5” 365 pound who gives you a stern warning but some reason choose not to beat you beat you up at the moment. Does a 5' 0” 110 pound person really feel emboldened after that or does he consider himself lucky?

The Gun Issue is not Going Away

Like so many Americans, my heart aches for the family of a two-year-old  that was accidentally shot killed by her five-year-old  brother. I was surprised what, Kentucky State Police Trooper Billy Gregory said “In this part of the country, it's not uncommon for a 5-year-old to have a gun or for a parent to pass one down to their kid," he said.  I was  equally surprised that a gun manufacturing company  makes a gun and a commercial that caters to juveniles.  There's a couple of manufacturers who cater to children but this one puts out rifle they call “Cricket.” They make a pink version for the young girls.

I know that children who are raised in rural areas learn how to drive a tractor at a very young age, and they are also taught how to shoot and respect a weapon at that age. I don't know the complete story of the Kentucky shooting and I'm not one to start placing blame on the parents because lord knows they have to live with this situation for the rest of their lives.  My blame is saved for gun manufacturers who make money by enticing young children. How are they different from the cigarette manufacturers who make commercials targeting teenagers?

Last night I saw a very civil discussion between a liberal host, Chris Hayes and a gun enthusiast, Dan Baun who just wrote a book titled “ Gun Guys.”Dan Baun started by saying that he was angered by Chris Hayes’s intro where he described a gun culture out of control.Mr. Baun said that he was taught to shoot at age five, but his dad kept the rifle in a locked cabinet where children and thieves would have trouble gaining access to the weapons.  Mr. Braun is not a member of the NRA because he said they've been radicalized since 1977.  Come to think of it, 30 years ago we didn’t equate the second amendment with the NRA.  In those days the NRA magazine was called the “American Rifleman” and its prime objective was to teach gun safety.  I remember back in the sixties where the country kids had a rifle in their pickups mounted behind the seats and  no one paid attention.  The liberal and the gun enthusiast agreed that everyone should go through a background check to purchase a weapon and that we need to improve a system that allowed 237 people on the terror watch list to purchase a gun.  

This issue continues to be about the $22 million the gun manufacturers will lose if any gun legislation prohibits the purchase of a weapon in any form or fashion.  Poll numbers do not frighten legislators because as Senator Flake of Arizona said, “ those are just polls that are promoted by left wing websites.” Those were the same polls that stated that Senator Flake was going to win a close election.  I am completely surprised that Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire told her constituents that she was afraid that background checks would lead to a  Federal registrar. Senator Ayotte used to be a prosecutor, and we all know how they go through the law with a fine-tooth comb. I'm 100% positive that she knows that the bill included a 15 year prison term for anyone who kept  a record of the background check.  She's hoping that her constituents were too dumb to notice and but her approval has dropped 15% since she cast that no vote.  Oh when you practice deceive. 

The NRA and will hold its annual convention tonight in Houston Texas and  they have chosen all the right wing crazies to speak to their crowd. Glenn Beck is the keynote speaker but in between the convention will feature the likes of Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum,Ted Nugent,Ted Cruz, and governors Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry. They will also hear from their newly elected president, an Alabama lawyer named Jim Porter. He'll fit right in because Porter said that the Civil War was about northern aggression, Obama was a fake president, and that Mr. Holder and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were“trying to kill the Second Amendment at the United Nations.” The vendors selling tinfoil hats and kool aid will make a killing.  You've got to know that the media will attend the convention just so they can report on the ridiculous comments coming from that crowd.  The NRA convention is CPAC on steroids. The speakers can’t wait to get to the gun show where they will get their picture taken displaying them holding an AR15. Nothing shows intelligence more than sporting a couple of bandoliers, a Bowie knife clinched between your teeth while holding an AR15 at the ready.

As I understand, another version of a background check bill will be submitted but this time it'll be much simpler.  It won’t be submitted until after the immigration bill, and it will just include commercial sales like gun shows and the Internet sales.  There's nothing like dumbing and watering down a piece of legislation to get Congress’s approval.  We'll look back on this chapter of history and call it the era of wooziness.

That’s the Cure All……..More Guns

Last night, Lawrence O'Donnell,had former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark) as his guest to explain the results of his NRA funded report on school safety. Lawrence was rather rude to his guest, but I think it was due to the frustration of this issue. I think a lot of us knew what the answers would be before the NRA commissioned the 12-person task force to find a reason ,other than guns,to stop the needless killing. They didn’t disappoint; their conclusion: arm teachers and loosen gun laws that restrict people from carrying a firearm on school property. They also recommended training interested school personnel (40-60 hours of gun training) and then the schools should be willing to arm them.

Earlier in the day, Asa Hutchinson told a CNN pundit that he would consider a universal background check that exempted sales between family members. That exception for family members is a gigantic loophole that the gang bangers will use in Chicago and New York.  The uncle in the drug cartel would like to pass off a lot of guns to his family members.Oh the inconvenience of a typical five-minute  background check. When my daughter gave me her used pick-up truck, we had to drive downtown, look for a parking place, stand in line and finally produce our proof of insurance before we were allowed to pay the transfer fee. That’s we do in a civilized society. We willingly comply to help the system work more efficiently.

When Mr. Hutchinson was told that Connecticut was likely to ban high-capacity  magazines and assault weapons; he said that it was totally inadequate because it doesn't protect children. Mr. Lawrence angrily corrected Mr. Hutcheson, telling him that children need to also be protected when they are at malls or in movie theaters. Lawrence also reminded Mr. Hutchinson that Columbine had armed school guards.  Mr. Hutcheson used response time as his selling point but every mass shooting I have read about, the first responders got to the scene in less than 10 minutes. Adam Lanza was able to fire off more than 150 rounds in 5 minutes, and you are telling me than an armed teacher would stand a chance?They might stand a chance if you are going to equip them with the same weapons and not worry about innocent bystanders.

It’s frustrating to see a popular background check measure being sabotaged by the extreme right wing of the Republican Party. “ Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee — all Tea Party favorites — say they will "oppose any legislation that would infringe on the American people's constitutional right to bear arms or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance." A filibuster is just a cowards way of avoiding of getting on the record as one who opposes the will of the people for their political expediency. The Second Amendment is settled law and not even the partisan NRA is using that argument. I’ll go on the record offering a cash reward to anyone who can find one word that evenly remotely suggests taking a law abiding citizen’s gun away. For the paranoid,that slippery slope will always be there.

John Boehner considers himself a shrewd politician because he took the easy way out. He won’t allow a gun bill to come up in the House until the Senate passes one allowing his members to go unscathed. Hopefully, the voters will be smarter than that in the mid-term elections because only 33% of American household's own guns.

By the end of the week, Connecticut will join New York and Colorado as states not bending to the wishes of the NRA and enacting some of the toughest gun laws in our country.

In the meantime the crazies will dominate the headline news and I’ll leave you with one. “Serbu Firearms used Thomas’s image in a t-shirt and Facebook campaign, using the phrase “No Serbu for you!” to mimic the Soup Nazi’s famous expression, “No soup for you!” from Seinfeld. In protest of the recently enacted Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act–which prohibits private citizens from owning certain assault weapons–Serbu has refused to sell semi-automatic sniper rifles to the New York City Police Department.

“I refused to sell my rifles to the NYPD, and when I talked about it online, it blew up like crazy,” company founder Mark Serbu told The New York Post Tuesday. “Everybody liked the idea of a gun law biting the government on the ass. There are only two manufacturers of semi-automatic 50-caliber rifles in the U.S., and neither will sell to the NYPD. This is like, ‘Screw you, New York.’ People are less safe without our rifles to protect you.”

I don’t know about you, but I want law enforcement to have better weapons than criminals. We have DAs and law enforcement dying for doing their job, and we are left without a clue as who committed these crimes but some are fighting tooth and nail to make background checks less disruptive and make law enforcement and government the enemy.

We are Like a Dog Chasing its Tail

I never thought I would be agreeing with Michael Reagan, but he’s right. There’s just so many times that we can repeal Obamacare, revisit the different philosophical disagreements and pretty much “scrub, rinse and repeat” the same ol’ subjects’ day after day. In Mr. Reagan’s latest column, he was complaining about Sean Hannity running roughshod over selective liberals over the identical subjects' night after night. He said that was getting stale and I agree.

The different factions have been arguing gay marriage, abortion rights, immigration, sequester, gun control, and just about every fiscal policy under the sun. We’ve heard the arguments; let’s get to the solutions, keeping in mind that we can revisit the problem if we made the wrong choice.

The gay marriage or marriage equality issue will be before the Supreme Court this week but no matter how they rule it’s inevitable that gay marriage will not be an issue five years from now... The court may take a bold step and decided it as a human right issue or take the easy way out and kick it back to the states. This issue used to be stale, but I’ve noticed that the evangelicals are no longer using the scriptures to argue their case. Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Gary Bauer was using his own set of poll numbers and saying that the latest polls are skewed. Mr. Bauer said that over 30 states voted again same-sex marriage, but that was back in 2004. I think the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will be ruled unconstitutional because the federal government has no business defining marriage. I think California’s Proposition 8 will be kicked back to the state, but no human issue should ever be on the ballot.

There’s no use arguing about brand new gun laws anymore because the opposition to them has settled on an answer. Any newfangled gun law is a step toward confiscation, so it’s no longer about the Second Amendment. The answer to background checks is that they don’t work because criminals in will not be prevented from buying guns. The politicians know that 92% of Americans want background checks, so they inserted a poison pill like the record keeping process. They adamantly oppose any type of record keeping or time consuming background checks for private sales. A watered-down version of a universal background check is a complete waste of time and resources. Instead of doing what’s right, it’s about passing a version that can get six Democrats elected in a red state and that’s just in the Senate. There’s no telling how much more water they’ll have to add to pass a bill that will get an up and down vote in the house. Perhaps they’ll settle on a lottery where only the unlucky few will have to go through a background check.

It’s funny how politicians from both sides of the aisle know that their budgets are dead-on arrival, and that they are too far apart to be reconciled. I can’t imagine any scenario where President Obama would say, “hand me those pens, so I can sign this budget that repeals my signature legislation." President Obama is going to have to enlist the help of Houdini if he’s going to submit a budget that both sides can agree on. Lately, he hasn’t turned in one that even his own party likes. I still think jobs, and growth projects should be the emphasis in the short-term and after the economy rebounds, we should immediately turn to fixing the long-term debt.

The abortion issue is going to get attention because once a state prohibits an abortion after six weeks, it’s begging for an immediate court ruling. There’s no doubt that a ruling like that is unconstitutional and the legislators know that. They’re begging for another chance for the Supreme Court to strike down Roe v Wade.

It’s not like the committees who are working on an immigration policy don’t have a template to work from. I heard a discussion between Governor Rendell and a GOP legislator this morning. Governor Rendell asked the legislator for a definition of a secured border. The legislator tried to avoid the question but Governor Rendell kept pressing asking him why E- Verify couldn’t be the answer. The representative said that he liked Rand Paul’s idea of revisiting border security on a yearly basis. That sounds like a delaying tactic looking for a perfect solution and one that labor markets will not be able to rely on.

I hope we can come to some kind of resolution on the issues I mentioned because we still need to start a discussion about our future energy policy, climate change, education, jobs, Wall Street and tax reform while we are working on world peace..

Let That be a Lesson to You..Senator Ted Cruz

 

It was like a breath of fresh air when I saw Senator Dianne Feinstein hand the junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, his head as he sit there with that frozen smirk on his face. The very idea of a brand new senator questioning the constitutionally of a matter before the judiciary committee is laughable. All proposed Constitutional Amendments have passed through the Judiciary Committee; even Senator Feinstein’s initial ban of semiautomatic weapons.  Her legislation lasted 10 years without objection from the Supreme Court. Ted Cruz’s lectures are better suited for Tea Party rallies than they are on serious matters before the committee. 

Senator Feinstein held back a little because she had enough ammunition (no pun intended) to really embarrass Ted Cruz.  Yesterday, the final report on Sandy Hook was released.  It was reported that Adam Lanza fired off 152 rounds in less than five minutes.  He had one round in the chamber of his AR15 and a 30 round magazine and then switched them out four times. The mass murderer used one round in his semi-automatic hand gun to kill himself. She could have said, “Senator Cruz, Adam Lanza researched mass murders before he decided to act out his fantasy. If the Bush administration and the GOP would not have let the assault weapon ban sunset, the killer’s mom would not have been able to purchase the AR15 or the 30 round ammo clips. Do you think Adam Lanza would have tried this massacre with 14 ten round magazines?” Then she could have concluded by saying, “never mind, I yield the rest of my time.” 

 A few weeks ago, Senator McCaskill scolded the young Senator Cruz for insinuating that Chuck Hagel had received money from North Korea.  Senator Cruz is being dubbed, Carnival Cruz, these days because of his McCarthyism tactics. Ted Cruz is like having Allen West, Michelle Bachmann and Louie Gohmert all rolled into one person.  It’s a shame because Ted Cruz got his law degree from Harvard, so he’s not a dummy.  It’s shameful and how he’s using his antics for fund-raising and self-promotion.  I can’t place all the blame on him because GOP leadership is allowing him to get away with his behavior.  It’s highly unusual for a freshman senator to be on two prestigious committees. 

 

Gun Advocates are Losing the Argument but Winning the War…For Now

A blogger, who calls himself Pythagoras, wrote a blog in our local forum because he’s tired of the ignorance of so many Americans. I’m not going to call those who disagree with my thoughts ignorant, but I am going to challenge the points he made in his blog.

I don’t know where we’re going in our local form but it’s hard for me to imagine a bible side –by- side on a table with a nine MM Glock with a 33 round magazine. Posters are interpreting scripture and reading the founder’s mind and their intent, to suit their argument. Let’s consider that not all American citizens are Christian and they don’t all believe in the same bible. The argument is not about where the you call a pistol a weapon or a gun. You can call it a lollipop, but it’s still a gun to me.

I’m going to assume that we are all adults and we can all interpret the Second Amendment as well as any other amendment. I think the 2^nd Amendment was settled as recently as 2008 when in section (2) of the District of Columbia v Heller said “Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.” Petition the Supreme Court and tell them that you want to file a suit based on what you think the founders said or what you think your God given rights are.

From what I see 92% of Americans want universal background checks. That includes those weapons, guns, or whatever you want to call them, that are sold out in the parking lots of gun shows. Legislators want to pass a federal law that imposes a 20- year prison term on those who engage in straw purchases. I can see this piece of legislation passing with some exceptions for private sales and for passed down weapons but I don’t know what language will be used to maintain the integrity of a background check.

I can see where banning the high-capacity ammo clips will be a little harder because it would forbid the manufacture, sale and importation of them. That hurts the gun manufacturers and gun shops, so they will pay a lot of money to legislators to prevent that from happening. The language is not quite clear to me but as I understand it, if you already own a high capacity clip you will be grandfathered. It’s the grandfathered clause that needs to be interpreted because as I read it- it says that “you may be forbidden to give away, sell or in any manner transfer the grandfathered item to anyone else.” I have yet to hear a legitimate argument for the use of high capacity clips other than a Rambo- like hypothetical. Let’s get an up –or- down vote on it; that’s the side of democracy that gun advocates never mention.

The Bushmaster AR- 15 will survive until another gunman uses it to massacre innocent human beings. Senator Dianne Feinstein has a bill to ban 158 semi-automatic weapons with at least one military feature. It would also ban fixed magazines that are capable of holding more than 10 rounds. The bill is too complex and has very little support but who knows if another massacre breaks out?

There are a very small group of gun advocates who don’t want any gun legislation other than what’s on the books right now. Some of them think they are entitled to the same weaponry the government has because they fear gun confiscation similar to those of tyrannical governments. I want law enforcement to have the upper hand on criminals, survivalists, and conspiracy theorists and not the other way around.

We are beyond the “guns don’t kill people…people do” or we would not have banned automatic weapons a long time ago. No argument, a gun is an inadament object but we regulate a lot of inadament things. The AR-15 and the high-capacity ammo clips represent a culture of violence and they’re too readily available for anyone who wants to cause a lot of damage in as little time as possible. As General McCrystal said “I spent a career carrying typically either an M16 or an M4 Carbine. An M4 Carbine fires a .223 caliber round which is 5.56 mm at about 3000 feet per second. When it hits a human body, the effects are devastating. It’s designed for that,” McChrystal explained. “That’s what our soldiers ought to carry. I personally don’t think there’s any need for that kind of weaponry on the streets and particularly around the schools in America.”

I don’t expect the more intensive background checks and the banning of high-capacity clips to be a cure –all, but it’s a start because we can’t keep sitting on our hands hoping that the latest massacre is the last one. That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss the violent movies, games and mental illness but it has to be done as a separate issue.

The gun advocates will continue to use scare tactics like the one used by a poster when she said that police officers are only trained to save themselves and not the general public. She also criticized the response time but first responders have responded in less than 10 minutes in in all of the massacres I’ve read about. Those types always advertise their firepower and their anxiousness to use it.

We Definitely Have a Communication Problem

When Congress left town and allowed the sequester cuts to take place, they took with them any remaining doubt that the two political parties would ever be able to reach an agreement. In three weeks, we will have the continuing resolution battle and then in May; we will have another war over raising the debt ceiling. There will be no new revenues coming from the GOP, even if the Democrats concede on entitlements. The president could give in to the GOP's demands, but he will lose his party and would be ineffective for the rest of his term. He is not about to do that.

There is a little known Washington secret that both parties got what they wanted Friday after the sequester was signed into law, but it's going to be at the expense of the American people. The Republican's spin that it's only 2% of the overall budget is a farce because they know the impact of these cuts will slow our staggering economy. They also know that government contracts are based on outlining years, so if they don't get the necessary funds, they can’t plan for future expansion. And that's not to say that the defense budget is not bloated. Every credible economist will tell you cutting spending in this manner (austerity) will hamper our growth and keep unemployment high. The president misdiagnosed the current Republican party because he was not aware that 158 house members don't care if they take a hatchet to defense spending because to them, a cut is a cut no matter where it comes from. Anyway, the GOP came away a winner because there were no tax increases, and they got the cuts they wanted. Some Democrats got the defense cuts they wanted, so the social cuts weren’t as bad.

They would have been much better off combining all three battles into a more meaningful long term one. We shouldn’t be imposing austerity while our economy is struggling to grow. We need to get rid of the tax loop holes and use that money to fund education, infrastructure and innovation. Look at the growing stock market, we haven’t made a dent on the wealthy, and those sequester cuts will only hurt those who can least afford it. The Democrats need to come to grips with the fact that 50.7% of the Federal budget($1.73 trillion) comes from Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and interest on the debt. With the baby boomers retiring at an alarming rate of 10,000 a day, Social Security and Medicare will grow by 40% by the year 2023. The Social Security Disability Trust Fund will be gone in three years. Walking away from entitlement reform is irresponsible.

The lack of communication doesn’t stop at Washington's doorstep because all you have to do is pick up our local newspaper and read a letter to the editor. For example, the letter written by Kim Smith stirred up the emotions of those who she was trying to reach. For one, the momentum for universal background checks is on the side of those who want to do something about the gun violence in the United States. The Second Amendment has been decided, so extending the reach of background checks does not infringe on any gun rights and imposing stiffer penalties for straw purchases doesn't either. The banning of high-capacity ammo clips might be a little harder, even though there's popular support to ban them because it involves the manufacturer’s bottom line. The Democrats know this so that’s why they separated the background checks from the high-capacity clips and the so -called assault weapons. It makes the gun lobbyist like the NRA spend more money on politicians giving Mike Bloomberg and others a more even playing field.

 You see Kim; you can't make a point with those who continue to make weak arguments because when you do;you are playing on their turf. This issue is not about automobile accidents, the definition of assault, responsible gun owners, the defense of one's home, the next American Revolution or the proverbial tyrannical government. This is about combating gun violence, which is become prevalent in our society. Do we allow the NRA to continue making gun policy for us? I know we can’t allow the fringe element of our society to make policy, so I suggest we confirm someone to head the ATF, and get enough support to pass universal background checks for now. Then we can work on getting legislators elected who are not bought and paid for by the NRA.

Hypocrites You say!

I think the word “hypocrite” is one of the most used words in the blogosphere. I used the word yesterday to describe some GOP legislators who voted against the Sandy disaster funds although all of them are from states that have been on the receiving end of those funds at one time or another.

The sun came up, so that must mean someone from the right wrote another letter-to-the editor. Keep them coming; it makes writing a blog that much easier. All they have to do is parrot what they read or hear on right-wing media and all I have to do is contradict their posting, paragraph by paragraph.I guess, I should be grateful that the writers haven’t posted  one of the  most ridiculous arguments for gun control that I’ve heard so far. A wing nut who calls himself a historian, David Barton, told Glenn Beck that "The great example, in the 1850s you have a school teacher who's teaching," the historian explained. "A guy, he's out in the West, this guy from New England wants to kill him and find him. So, he comes into the school with his gun to shoot the teacher, he decides not to shoot the teacher because all the kids pull their guns out and point it at him and say, 'You kill the teacher, you die.' He says, 'Okay.' The teacher lives. Real simple stuff."
Barton added: "There was no shooting because all the kids -- we're talking in elementary school -- all the kids pull their guns out and says, 'We like our teacher, you shoot our teacher, we'll kill you.'

"Kids did not shoot each other," Beck insisted. 

You’ve got to see the video it will give you a laugh to start your morning.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/beck-historian-history-proves-armed-elementa

Carl Bankston of my home town of Victoria wrote a letter following the theme that was started by the NRA in support of their hideous ad they recently posted. Bankston stated that then Senator Obama voted for a gun control ban in his state and now he and his family are enjoying protection from the secrete service,  so naturally it’s hypocritical to be for gun control. Factcheck.org looked at those allegations and came to the conclusion that the assertion was false. This is Factcheck.org’s analysis :
“The NRA bases this overheated claim on a vote Obama cast on March 24, 2004, in the Illinois state Senate. He was one of 20 who opposed SB 2165. That bill, which passed 38 – 20 and became law, did not make it a crime to use firearms for self-defense, however. Rather, it created a loophole for persons caught violating local gun registration laws.

It states that in any Illinois municipality where a gun ban is in effect, it shall be an "affirmative defense" if the person accused of violating the ban can show that the weapon was used "in an act of self-defense or defense of another … when on his or her land or in his or her abode or fixed place of business."

Letting the owner of a banned firearm escape a municipality's penalty is one thing, but it's another thing entirely to make it a crime to use any firearm – registered or not – in self-defense. The bill came about after Hale DeMar, of Wilmette, Ill., shot a burglar who had invaded his home. At the time, Wilmette had an ordinance that prohibited owning handguns.

Clarification: To avoid any confusion, we've modified this section to make clear the bill would have pertained to municipalities with local gun bans.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/nra-targets-obama/

I have my disagreements with Mayor Bloomberg, but I think he’s more of a moderate but I understand your thinking “either you're a conservative or a stinking liberal.”New York state just passed the strictest gun control laws in the nation, so he’s very much in line with the people from that state, but I’ve never heard him talk of gun confiscation. I bet you can’t provide proof of that and no, wanting firearms to be registered is not the first step to confiscation. I guess state's rights don’t apply when it comes to gun control.

Mr. Bankston, I'm 67 years old, and I have never lived under anything  that even slightly reassembles a tyrannical government, and I grew up in the pre -civil rights era. Tyranny only comes up when a Democrat is president, and I guess you can double down  on that theory when a black democratic president is in office. Tyranny is basically a lack of trust in government especially if your party is not in control but you have a short trigger response if your first course of action is an armed rebellion.Thanks again for the material to write another contradictory blog.

Blog Material won’t be hard to come by because the Texas legislators are back in session. Picking some dribs and drabs whenever I turn on my truck’s AM radio it looks like it’s going to be another controversial session. The lawmakers are introducing more abortion bills, nullification bills, a state smoking ban, and another look for a way to allow more casinos in our state. I imagine the Lotto lobbyists outnumber the church organizers who are opposed to casinos. Our neighboring states would like to keep their Texas customers, so you know their lobbyists are wining and dining our legislators.

Over the Top

The NRA's latest ad represents an organization that has lost its way and explains the reason that only 36% of Americans have a favorable view of them. They will tell you that their membership has increased by 250,000 and gun sales are out the roof since the Newtown shooting, and that's probably true but the Washington Post/ABC poll tells a different story.


In anticipation of President Obama's' new gun control proposals where some may be achieved through executive orders, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said, "   I think having a monarch is what we fought the American Revolution over and someone who wants to bypass the Constitution, bypass Congress — that’s someone who wants to act like a king or a monarch.” I wonder what Senator Paul thought of Ronald Reagan's 381 executive orders or the executive order President George H. W. Bush used to ban the importation of assault weapons. I wonder if the senator knows that the order the latter used halted the importation of some semi-automatic firearms after a mass school shooting Stockton, California." He based his executive order on the 1968 Gun Control Act and used it to ban the shipment of what could be considered “assault weapons” unless they were used for sporting purposes."

Yesterday, the state of New york passed the strictest gun laws in America even though the Senate in that state is controlled by the GOP and Maryland and Connecticut are strengthening their gun laws. After the  bill was signed the governor said, "Common sense can win."  "You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with common sense." The common sense part didn't convince one Republican who voted against the bill. He said that he would have to break the law rather than leave his wife at home with their small children because she needed the high-capacity  ammo clip to protect their home in his absence... He cited a woman who shot an intruder four times to defend herself and her children in Georgia. He forgot to say that she had a six shot revolver. Second point, what kind of kind of neighbor does the legislator live in? If he's that concerned, he should resign and get a job closer to home. I know he was using his family as a prop to state his political point.

 Gun control, mental illness illness and violence in our video games and movies will always be a sensitive subject because we are dealing with the second amendment, first amendment, and privacy issues. We don't have as much push back when we try to regulate the movie or video game industry as we do, when we even mention gun restrictions because even though they may be only 30% of our overall population, they are a well- funded loud 30%. This time it may be different because Mayor Bloomberg is putting his money behind common sense gun laws and the images of the 20 young children's bodies riddled with bullet holes is still fresh in our minds.. 

Right now, it doesn't seem like much will get through the GOP controlled house but the one that has the greatest chance of passing is the universal background checks.  

We need this debate, but we need to leave the president's family out of this. What would you do if you were the president and four mass murders happened while you were the chief executive?. You are going to be hit from both sides no matter what you decide to do.