2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumObama vs. the NRA
Obama always promised to take on the special interests. Now he is set to square off against the strongest interest group of all.
By John Dickerson
There are two ways to kill a policy idea in Washington: Broaden it to include every interested person with an opinion, or appoint a commission. If you broaden it, it quickly becomes a cacophonous mess, and everyone throws up his or her hands. Commissions, almost by design, are where action goes for a nap. So when President Obama unveiled his preliminary response to the Newtown, Conn., massacre in his news conference on Wednesdaya commission headed by Vice President Joe Biden to drum up some wide-ranging recommendationsyou might have had reason to worry that Obama wasnt serious about committing himself to gun control.
But not so fast. Obama might have sensed your pessimism, and he is very aware of the dreary history of Washington commissions. Indeed, he spoke directly to that point. This is not some Washington commission, he said. This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. Instead, he called for quick action and then more action, backed up by the power of his office.
Still, who wouldnt be doubtful? After all, Obama has done that before. Why wont he wimp out or drift away in frustration as he did with his promise to close Guantanamo Bay or push for comprehensive immigration reform? Of course, he might. But in the five days between the shooting and Wednesdays news conference, the president has raised the moral ...
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Filibuster Harry
(666 posts)This and the fiscal cliff talks are why we, as democrats, must regain the house. If the gun control issue is settled by then we can pass it --house and filibuster senate. wishful thinking - I know.
jimmy the one
(2,708 posts)jay bookman, great read: Wayne LaPierre {exec vp, nra}, gave me a call at home the other day. In the taped message, my friend Wayne warned me that unless I and other patriotic Americans stepped forward to stop it, the dastardly United Nations, with Iran, China, North Korea and other evil countries behind it, would soon come into our country and into our very homes, strip the Second Amendment out of the Constitution and take away every pistol, and rifle and shotguns that we owned.
... I recognize that the boundary between serious and seriously crazy has shifted considerably in recent years. But doesn't this kind of nonsense still qualify on the fully crazy side of the ledger?
.. such hysteria is part of the NRAs own strategy for raising money for its coffers. Once the LaPierre robo-rant about the UN finished, for example, an operator quickly came on line to ask me to donate money to the NRA. I politely declined.
Finally, its also a matter of increasingly delusional paranoia infecting the NRA. Prior to the 08 election, the gun group warned its members that Barack Obama had a secret 10-point plan to end gun ownership in this country.
Point One was a federal ban on the use of guns for home defense. Point 3 was a ban on the sale, manufacture and possession of handguns. Point 4 was the closure of 90% of American gunshops. Federal taxes on guns and ammunition were supposed to go up 500%, and the sale of ammunition for hunting rifles was supposed to be banned altogether.
..three years later, none of that has come to pass. Obama has made no effort whatsoever to alter the nations gun laws.
So, given their hyperbolic claims, you might think that would make LaPierre and others a little embarrassed, right? LaPierre explained that by taking no action to implement his alleged 10-point program, Obama had actually proved that the NRA had been right all along. You see, before the president was even sworn into office, they met and hatched a conspiracy of public deception to guarantee his re-election in 2012 by just PRETENDING not to seize guns. The failure to act is all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment.
[link:http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2011/09/27/the-flat-out-paranoia-of-the-nra-and-wayne-lapierre/?cxntfid=blogs_jay_bookman_blog|
jimmy the one
(2,708 posts)(warning, offensive language from ted nugent follows):
NRA board member and {ultra rightwing newspaper} Washington Times columnist Ted Nugent refused to back down from his recent inflammatory comments about the Obama administration.. Speaking at the NRA's annual meeting Nugent accused President Obama of having a "vile, evil America-hating administration" that is "wiping its ass with the Constitution."
He went on to tell a crowd {apr2012} that "We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November" and said that "If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year."
The Secret Service is reportedly reviewing Nugent's comments {they did in an interview, & dismissed concern's after nugent danced around his comments as metaphoric}
Nugent added more derogatory comments about Democrats. He described Democratic chair Wasserman-Schultz as a "brain-dead, soulless, heartless idiot," and said Nancy Pelosi was a "sub-human scoundrel."
Nugent isn't some whackjob gunnut from bumflucktown anystate, he's a board member on the NRA, an OFFICIAL whackjob gunnut.
Like his nra colleague wayne lapierre, who says similar bizarre paranoid psychotic accusations & ad hominem, nugent is a premiere member of the NRA upper management.
Media Matters presents Nugent's top 10 most inflammatory, offensive, extreme comments.
Dec2011, Wash Times- "Occupy stooges on parade: It's fun watching Democrats getting hauled off to jail," Nugent wrote about the "hearty laugh[s]" he had after "watching the cops pounce on and pepper-spray a few Occupy stooges and then drag the dirtballs off to jail in shackles."
Nugent"f it was up to me, if you uttered the word 'gun control,' we'd put you in jail."
Nugent said of then-First Lady Hillary Clinton: "You probably can't use the term `toxic cunt' in your magazine, but that's what she is. Her very existence insults the spirit of individualism in this country. This bitch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro."
"If Islam is the religion of peace, then I'm a malnourished, tofu-eating anti-hunter," adding "Islam is no more a peaceful religion than Jim Jones was a Christian prophet."
while brandishing what appeared to be two assault rifles, Nugent said, "hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk," adding, "hey Obama, he's a piece of shit, I told him to suck on my machine gun." He went on to say that while he was in New York, "I said, 'hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch." He also said that Sen Boxer (D-CA) "might want to suck on my machine gun," adding of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), "ride one of these you worthless whore."
[link:http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/02/15/nra-spokesman-ted-nugents-top-10-inflammatory-c/184266|
jimmy the one
(2,708 posts)NRA executive Wayne Lapierre's speech today was typical specious reasoning intended to distract from the real problem confronting america - easy access to firearms.
Lapierre managed to shift blame onto several peripheral issues - comprehensive mental listings, violent video games, & arming schools, rather than even address the true concern, easy access to firearms.
Arming schools sounds fine & has merit within lapierre's specious plea, but consider, school shootings draw attention due the mass attack on school children, but overall they do not comprise a large percent of yearly murders, even 100 per year dead is but one percent of yearly gunmurder in the USA.
LaPierre appeared on Meet the Press was in 1995 after the Waco, Texas, fiasco. LaPierre had sparked controversy for writing a letter to NRA members accusing federal agents of being jack-booted government thugs.
He went on Meet the Press to clarify the remarks, but only made things worse when he said the agents wear Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens. Two weeks later, he was forced to apologize, saying, If anyone thought the intention was to paint all federal law-enforcement officials with the same broad brush, Im sorry and I apologize.
.. in the mid-'90s, former President HW Bush quit the NRA because Wayne LaPierre, the head of their lobbying wing, called agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), "jack-booted thugs."
La Pierre had a different response to the Giffords shooting: Government policies are getting us killed, he said, referring to gun-free zones that prevent concealed weapon permit holders from bringing their guns inside (the parking lot where Giffords was shot was not such a zone and a citizen was indeed armed).
LaPierre .. that Obama had intentionally avoided doing anything on guns in his first term in order to lull gun advocates into a false sense of complacency. Theyll say gun owners theyll say they left them alone, LaPierre said, But its a big fat stinking lie!
Its all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country.
15 days ago, he told Glenn Becks program that Obama was planning to carry out a siege on the Second Amendment in this country like weve never seen before. Hes also warned that U.N. globalist vultures are trying to take away our guns with a {international small arms} firearms treaty. {largely aimed at removing illegal small arms from 3rd world countries with violence problems}.
While its not clear if LaPierre actually believes any of this stuff, what is clear is that for years, he and the NRA have been pushing paranoid black helicopter conspiracy theories to incite the base. They probably have little reason to stop now especially since real gun control may actually happen this time.
[link:http://www.salon.com/2012/12/20/dont_trust_the_nras_wayne_lapierre/|