Uh oh, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has some 'splaining to do.

Oops.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

An American lobbyist for Russian interests who helped craft an important foreign policy speech for Donald Trump has confirmed that he attended two dinners hosted by Jeff Sessions during the 2016 campaign, apparently contradicting the attorney general’s sworn testimony given this week.

Sessions testified under oath on Tuesday that he did not believe he had any contacts with lobbyists working for Russian interests over the course of Trump’s campaign. But Richard Burt, a former ambassador to Germany during the Reagan administration, who has represented Russian interests in Washington, told the Guardian that he could confirm previous media reports that stated he had contacts with Sessions at the time. 

“I did attend two dinners with groups of former Republican foreign policy officials and Senator Sessions,” Burt said.

Okay is there ANYBODY associated with this administration that is NOT somehow connected to the Russians?

I am beginning to think that on the Trump Administration job application there is a box marked "Are you besties with any Russians."

If you mark "Yes" you continue on, but if you mark "No" you are instructed to immediately hand in your application and leave the premises voluntarily or be escorted out by security.

This Burt guy was asked if he knew whether Sessions realized that he was a Russian lobbyist, and he said he did not.

But seriously at this point, after all of the Russian contacts that Sessions conveniently forgot, are we buying it?

Sarah Palin posted a picture of Florida lawmakers to illustrate foreigners cheering to celebrate the Paris accords costing America billions.

Courtesy of Politifact:  

It’s clear that Sarah Palin hates the Paris climate agreement. 

What’s unclear is why she used a photo of Florida lawmakers to make her point in a Facebook meme. 

"Don’t be fooled! The Paris climate accord is a scam," stated the headline at the top of Palin’s Facebook post June 6, 2017. (By June 7, the Facebook meme was no longer available but PolitiFact had taken a screenshot of her post, which had been shared at least 8,000 times.) 

Beneath the headline is a photo of an unidentified group of mostly men cheering. The Facebook post doesn’t identify the people in the photo, but they are Florida House members at the state Capitol in Tallahassee. 

Beneath the photo Palin shared is text that says: "They pretend it’s about fixing our environment ... But it’s really about stealing billions from the American people and giving it to foreign countries, governments and lobbyists!"

To be clear many of the folks in the photo are Florida Republicans who are certainly not fans of the Paris Climate Accords, and in fact many of who do not accept the conventional wisdom about climate change.

When Politico contacted them about this Facebook post, they had this to say:

Florida Republicans and insiders couldn’t stop mocking and laughing at Palin’s error. 

“I’m appalled. … As the owner of a publishing company, I find it appalling that she would use a low-res picture like this when a high-res picture is readily available,” joked state Rep. Scott Plakon, who’s in the picture standing with his hands together as he claps with joy. 

Plakon said, “I was almost in tears with laughter” that Palin got it so wrong with her 9:37 a.m. Tuesday post — which was shared nearly 8,000 times and generated hundreds of comments before it was deleted. “I’m not sure what she’s saying. Are we cheering for Paris or against it? I think she’s saying we’re celebrating Paris.”

You know making mistakes is simply part of blogging, but remember Palin outsources her Facebook posts and blog posts to a third party, who apparently gets paid for their work. 

I mean if this were the work of some coffee swilling middle aged dude in his pajama bottoms, that would be one thing. But this is a paid professional posting on the Facebook page of a former D-list political celebrity.

I think one would expect better.

But then again this is Palin, so perhaps this is exactly what we should expect.

The most powerful medical association in America prepares to do battle in Congress over stricter gun control laws.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

The largest medical organization in the United States, the American Medical Association, passed a historic resolution last night in response to the weekend’s mass shooting. After years of tiptoeing around the topic of gun control, AMA leaders voted to officially call gun violence a public health issue — and respond accordingly. That means flexing the organization’s powerful political muscle on Capitol Hill to refocus federal funds toward studying gun violence. 

To see this through, however, Congress would need to lift a 20-year-old ban that blocks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from funding any research related to gun violence. But the AMA, with one of the largest political lobbying budgets of any organization in the U.S., appears ready to fight. 

“Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country, the Congress prohibits the CDC from conducting the very research that would help us understand the problems associated with gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of firearm-related deaths and injuries,” said AMA President Dr. Steven Stack, in a written statement. 

“An epidemiological analysis of gun violence is vital so physicians and other health providers, law enforcement and society at large may be able to prevent injury, death and other harms to society resulting from firearms,” he added.

Remember how I said that we were reaching a breaking point over gun deaths? 

Yeah well I might have underestimated that a little.

Apparently the NRA is choosing our Supreme Court justices these days.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and appointed with the advice and consent of the National Rifle Association, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). 

McConnell offered this unusual view of the confirmation process during an interview with Fox News Sunday. In response to a question from host Chris Wallace, who asked if Senate Republicans would consider the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court after the election if Hillary Clinton prevails, McConnell responded that he “can’t imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm, in a lame duck session, a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association [and] the National Federation of Independent Businesses.”

So now lobbyists have a say in who we choose to place on the highest court in the land?

Is there any bottom to this rabbit hole we have fallen into?

Home schooling lobby "Make the anti-vaxxers seem rational."

“I’ve never seen a lobby more powerful and scary,” said Ellen Heinitz, the legislative director for Michigan state Rep. Stephanie Chang, who ran up against HSLDA backlash when she tried to pass home-schooling regulations a few months ago. “They make the anti-vaxxers seem rational.”

The above quote was taken from a Slate article that reports on the struggle that one New Jersey State Senator faced when trying to pass legislation to require parents to notify the state that they were homeschooling their children, submit proof of annual physicals, and to complete the same yearly tests that other New Jersey students had to take.

The response to this bill was quick and incredibly aggressive:

Soon afterward, a small group of home-schooling parents began following Weinberg around the capitol. The barrage of phone calls from home-schooling advocates so jammed her office phone lines that staffers had to use their private cellphones to conduct business. “You would have thought I’d recommended the end of the world as we know it,” said Weinberg. “Our office was besieged.”

Ultimately the state senator, Loretta Weinberg, dropped the bill and has little success with modified versions of it, removing the testing requirements, since.

Slate also reports similar obstacles which halted legislation in other states. Including Michigan which is where we get that quote at the top.

Now for those who simply do not trust the government, and do not want them educating their children, this might seem like no big deal, but there are some very troubling statistics:

• Forty-eight states have no background check process for parents who choose to home-school. Two have some restrictions. Arkansas prevents home schooling when a registered sex offender lives in the home, while Pennsylvania bans parents previously convicted of a wide array of crimes from home schooling. 
• Fewer than half of states require any kind of evaluation. In some of these, including Washington, New Hampshire, and Georgia, home-schooled students are tested, but these tests are not submitted to the school district, and there are no ramifications for failure. Others, like Oregon, require parents to submit the test scores only if the local districts request them. A third category of states, including Maine, requires that test scores be submitted but set no minimum score. 
• Seventeen states have no required subjects for home-schooled students. Of the 33 states that do, 22 have no means of checking whether a parent is actually teaching those subjects. 
• In 40 states, home-schooling parents are not required to have a high school diploma, even if they intend to home-school through 12th grade. 
• Twenty-five states do not require home-schoolers to be vaccinated. Another 12 mandate vaccinations but do not require records. Only five states require home-schoolers to submit proof of vaccinations at any time.

Now I recognize that whenever I introduce the topic of home schooling on this blog that emotions run high, and that several of my regulars have home schooled their children and are advocates of home schooling in general.

However as many of you know I have very strong reservations concerning home schooling, ESPECIALLY religious homeschooling, based on my own experiences and interactions with home schooled children over the years.

So I will simply suggest that you read the article over at Slate and perhaps come back here afterwards to share your thoughts, whether they be pro or con.

Michael Bloomberg to donate 50 million dollars to start his own anti-NRA movement.

Courtesy of The New York Times:  

Michael R. Bloomberg, making his first major political investment since leaving office, plans to spend $50 million this year building a nationwide grass-roots network to motivate voters who feel strongly about curbing gun violence, an organization he hopes can eventually outmuscle the National Rifle Association. 

Mr. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, said gun control advocates need to learn from the N.R.A. and punish those politicians who fail to support their agenda — even Democrats whose positions otherwise align with his own. 

“They say, ‘We don’t care. We’re going to go after you,’ ” he said of the N.R.A. “ ‘If you don’t vote with us we’re going to go after your kids and your grandkids and your great-grandkids. And we’re never going to stop.’ ” 

He added: “We’ve got to make them afraid of us.”

This is good news for all of those who thought that gun control legislation was a non-starter after  the last attempt was blocked in the Senate.

Bloomberg is right that the only way to combat the NRA is to outspend them, out lobby them, and out threaten them.

If politicians find themselves facing a lobby as aggressive as the NRA they might just be willing to start making the hard choices, by creating gun legislation that makes sense and preserves constitutional rights, while protecting American lives from gun nuts and the mentally deranged.

I think it is well past time for politicians to stop fearing the NRA, and start fearing the people victimized by the NRA.

New bill making it legal to fire warning shots in Florida written by NRA lobbyist. Wait, what?

Courtesy of Gawker:  

The bill is sponsored chiefly by two National Rifle Association members, Republicans Sen. Greg Evers and Rep. Neil Combee, with a longstanding history of support for the gun lobby. But they did not write the bill, one of the legislators told Gawker in an interview: That honor fell to former NRA president and current gun lobbyist Marion Hammer. 

That revelation is just the latest chapter in Hammer's nearly four-decade NRA career, marked by ever-expanding pro-gun laws in Florida that become model legislation for other states. She was instrumental in the state becoming the first to issue across-the-board concealed weapons permits to residents in the '80s, and she almost singlehandedly created Stand Your Ground in 2005 in similar fashion, feeding language for the bill to its two sponsors—one of whom was Evers' immediate predecessor in the Senate. 

Now, she's put her imprint on a bill that would allow Floridians to openly brandish guns for the first time, and could lead to more permissive open-carry laws or lighter requirements for licensing in the future. 

The current bill would amend the state's expansive Stand Your Ground law—which permits residents to use deadly force in numerous circumstances—so that it also allows the nebulous "threatened use of force." In effect, it means that gun owners could walk free for brandishing their gun in a threatening manner or firing a shot indiscriminately to "warn" a potential assailant. 

That also means gun owners would get blanket immunity from the state's "10-20-life" law, which mandates an automatic 10-year sentence for anyone accused of flashing or using a gun in the commission of a felony. Numerous Florida politicians, including Jeb Bush, have long credited that measure with significantly decreasing the state's gun crimes.

You know you would think that a lobbyist for the NRA would be aware at some level that a bullet fired from a gun to "warn a potential assailant," is a bullet that can then find an innocent target to injure or kill.  So is that person now to be considered "collateral damage" in the legally protected right of some gun nut to fire their weapons indiscriminately?

You know years ago Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski was called out for allowing two oil lobbyists to write an amendment that stripped the EPA of its authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

But as egregious as that was, and it really was egregious, it pales in comparison to allowing lobbyists for an organization that receives its funding from gun manufacturers to write bills that quite literally increases the chances that a citizen of Florida could be shot dead in the streets by a bullet meant to "warn" somebody. 

Boy, School House Rock sure has changed. And NOT for the better.

I think I prefer the original.

Shadowy conservative lobbying network which works behind the scenes to impact policies, ALEC, has fallen on hard times following the furor over the Trayvon Martin shootings.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

An influential US lobbying network of Republican politicians and big businesses is seeking to avert a looming funding crisis by appealing to major donors that have abandoned it over the past two years following criticism of its policy on gun laws. 

The Guardian has learned that the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which shapes and promotes legislation at state level across the US, has identified more than 40 lapsed corporate members it wants to attract back into the fold under a scheme referred to in its documents as the "Prodigal Son Project". 

The target firms include commercial giants such as Amazon, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Kraft, McDonald's and Walmart, all of which cut ties with the group following the furore over the killing of the unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida in February 2012. 

Alec was embroiled in the controversy surrounding Florida's 2005 "stand-your-ground" law under which George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch volunteer who shot and killed the 17-year-old Martin, initially claimed self-defence. The Florida law was picked up by Alec, and, working in partnership with the National Rifle Association, used as a template for one of its "model bills", which was then taken up by other states across the country. 

The Guardian has learned that by Alec's own reckoning the network has lost almost 400 state legislators from its membership over the past two years, as well as more than 60 corporations that form the core of its funding. In the first six months of this year it suffered a hole in its budget of more than a third of its projected income.

I find it interesting that such a powerful group found themselves so terribly damaged by an association with Trayvon Martin's shooting and the Stand Your Ground law. It almost makes it seem that Americans really are ready for tighter gun control laws, and that ALEC and the NRA are losing their influence over lawmakers they have put in place to stop them. 

But fear not their influence is by no means completely dried up.

Alec reconvenes for its next nationwide meeting, described as a "states and nation policy summit", on Wednesday in Washington. The three-day event will be attended by hundreds of state legislators and corporate representatives. 

In a sign of the influence the network holds with Republicans, it will be addressed by rising stars of the party including US senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who led the push for the recent government shutdown, and the party's budget guru, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. 

The network also counts among its former members the two highest ranking Republicans in the House of Representatives, John Boehner and Eric Cantor, as well as prominent Republican governors such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio.

Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz, well isn't that interesting?

So the organization loses support from the establishment conservatives and simply lures in the new kids on the block to replace them. Everything old is new again.

Shooting target company fashions bleeding zombie target to look like actual shooting victim. Classy.

Courtesy of TPM:

A gun control advocate and Virginia Tech shooting survivor is not amused that he appears in an image created by Zombie Industries, the maker of “life-sized tactical mannequin” targets painted to look like “zombies.” 

“Hey @ZombieInd would u remove pic w/me off your ad 4 ‘Gun Control Lobbyist’ shooing (sic) targets pls? Already been shot…,” Colin Goddard wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. 

Goddard was shot four times during the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, and currently works at Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The image he referred to on Twitter appears on Zombie Industries’ Facebook page. He appears in an image set behind the company’s new “Gun Control Lobbyist” target, which, as the company likes to brag, “bleeds when shot.” 

“While I advocate for criminal background checks on all gun sales (which +90% of America supports), I really don’t appreciate this marketing strategy by a few seeking to profit off our efforts to reduce a public health crisis that affects all of us,” Goddard wrote. “‘Bleeds when shot’… been there already, no thanks assholes.”

Isn't this what voodoo is based on? Making images of certain people and then doing terrible things to them, or casting spells on them, in the hopes that it will affect them in some way?

How Christian of them.

You may remember that this same company also makes Zombie Obama shooting targets as well.

You know I wonder what happens when somebody actually gets shot and the police find a target in the killer's home that looks exactly like the person they eventually murdered?

It is exactly this kind of sick shit that makes most of us want to limit the number of firearms that unhinged or people prone to violence can purchase for themselves.

Judge makes gun lobbyist give up weapons after being charged with domestic violence. Gee how will all of his friends know he's a man?

Courtesy of Salt Lake Tribune: 

Clark Aposhian — a political force who helps guide gun policy on Utah’s Capitol Hill — was ordered by a justice court judge Tuesday to surrender all firearms in his home, office and on his person based on pending domestic violence charges and a protective order filed by his ex-wife. 

"I’m going to prohibit you at this point as part of the protective order from having any firearms," Judge Augustus Chin said in a brief arraignment and hearing. "If there are any weapons in your home, I’m giving you 24 hours to remove them. That’s in effect immediately." 

Aposhian, the state’s foremost gun lobbyist and an outspoken concealed weapons permit instructor, pleaded not guilty to domestic violence in the presence of a child and three other class B misdemeanors: trespass, criminal mischief and threat of violence. 

The charges all stem from a Memorial Day incident in which Aposhian drove his 10-wheel, 2-ton army truck into his ex-wife’s Cottonwood Heights neighborhood, allegedly honked an air horn and then backed into the ex-wife’s driveway, nearly hitting a parked vehicle. 

Police said Aposhian later told Ronald Meyer, his ex-wife’s husband, that he would "run over their cars and bury" him. When Aposhian returned to the home after police had arrived, he surrendered his firearm and was arrested. Aposhian’s 11-year-old daughter — the focus of an ongoing custody dispute — told police she was "scared" when her father showed up at the house.

Of course this is standard procedure in situations like this, but you just KNOW that the 2nd Amendment fetishists will use this as proof that "Obama is taking away our guns."

Now I am going to empathize a little with Mr. Aposhian as I remember very well my frustration during the custody battle over my daughter. I have a bad temper and would somedays walk around with my fists clenched in anger.

However I also knew full well that acting on those angry impulses would have meant losing my daughter, so I kept them under tight control. I would NEVER have driven to my ex's house and made threatening remarks, and by doing so this gentleman should expect to lose his precious guns while the dispute is ongoing.

It is only momentary lapse in judgement that turns a threatening confrontation into a deadly one, and the problem with guns is that it allows a momentary impulse to change your life, and the life of the victim, forever.

Pediatricians organize to take on gun lobby. Update!

Courtesy of MSNBC:  

The American Academy of Pediatrics has begun a renewed push to try to get Congress to pass gun control measures, sending more than 100 pediatricians to Capitol Hill earlier this month. But others who have taken on the issue over the past decade have a warning for them: they can run afoul of the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups that are quick to paint anyone who advocates for gun control as a political extremist. 

What the doctors want is an assault weapon ban, mandatory background checks and waiting periods before all firearm purchases, a ban on high-capacity magazines, handgun regulations and requirements for safe firearm storage under federal law. 

“I think we can be honest brokers,” says Dr. Lolita McDavid, medical director for child advocacy and protection at University Hospitals, part of Case Western Reserve University’s school of medicine in Cleveland. 

“We have to have a collectively louder voice,” Dr. Danielle Laraque, who chairs the pediatrics department at Maimonides Infants and Children’s Hospital in Brooklyn, told a meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. “What we need is a call to action, to really look at how we can change public policy that is not often affected by data.”

“If you think that Congress has sort of been asleep…you are wrong,” said Dr. Daniel Webster of Johns Hopkins University, one of the few academic experts who has continued research on gun violence despite efforts to divert funding. “They have been doing a very good job of weakening the laws to make it easier for gun dealers to have the least amount of responsibility. They have made it harder to sue dealers and made it harder to access data on … which dealers are pumping out guns to criminals. They’ve made it almost impossible to prosecute a gun dealer.” 

Pediatricians are puzzled that the statistics aren’t speaking for themselves. 

“Where there are more guns in the United States, there are more people dying,” Dr. Matthew Miller of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center told the meeting in Washington, D.C.. “There are more women dying, there are more men dying, and there are more children dying. We are talking about a lot of people who are dying when they live in places with a lot of guns and homes with guns.” 

Personally I worry about how much impact this can have, I mean if  listening to those horrific stories from the parents of Sandy Hook did not convince Republicans to act like human beings, it is hard to imagine what would.

However what I like about this is that the pediatricians are coming at this from a different angle using statistics to make their case rather than to try to put a human face on the tragedies that happen to dozens of our fellow Americans everyday.

I guess that only works on people who exhibit human emotion.

Update: It looks like the gun lobbyists are already pushing back against the pediatricians: 

The NRA has sponsored legislation to stop pediatricians from asking parents about guns in the home — something that really puzzles doctors who routinely ask about other safety issues, such as using car seats and wearing helmets while riding bikes.

Can they even do that?

Fuck these guys!

Private school lobbyists buying state elections all over the country. The attack on public education is in full swing.

Courtesy of Common Dreams: 

A fundamental struggle for democracy is going on behind the scenes in statehouses around the country, as a handful of wealthy individuals and foundations pour money into efforts to privatize the public schools. 

The implications are huge. But the school privatizers, and their lobbyists in the states, have so muddied the waters that the public does not get a clear picture of what is at stake. 

So it was fascinating when investigative reporter Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ripped the veil off a secretive organization and its hidden political activities by publishing a copy of the American Federation for Children's "2012 Election Impact Report." Billing itself as "the nation's voice for educational choice," the American Federation for Children pushes forward students of color as the beneficiaries of its lobbying work, but the politicians they support are not exactly heroes of the civil-rights movement. 

The report, which was clearly meant only for members and donors, outlines how the American Federation of Children pours millions of dollars into state races around the country to back candidates who support school vouchers and other measures that siphon public money private schools. 

AFC and its affiliates "spent more than $7 million in 2012 to elect candidates in states across the country," the report declares. 

"We engage in elections," the group explains, "because the political process is the first step to enacting meaningful education reform." 

In Wisconsin, the state where AFC spent the most money in 2012, the "first step to enacting meaningful educational reform" meant defending Governor Scott Walker in a recall election after his attacks on teacher's unions and his historic $1 billion in cuts to Wisconsin's public schools divided the state. It also meant ensuring Republican control of both houses of the Wisconsin legislature, so that a controversial plan to expand private-school vouchers could go forward around the state. 

Among the victories AFC lists in its report is the defeat of Democratic state senator Jessica King, who won a recall election against a state senator who supported Walker. AFC spent $325,000 to replace King with pro-voucher freshman Senator Rick Gudex, helping to return the state senate to Republican hands. Gudex, who barely won, by a margin of 590 votes, has pledged not to vote for any budget that doesn't expand school vouchers. 

Wisconsin ranked #1 in the AFC report, which tallied its political spending here at a grand total of $2,392,000. 

Dark money for TV and radio ads further obscures the school-choice issue. Often, these are ads about taxes or crime, and have nothing to do with their sponsors' actual agenda. 

Rules requiring disclose for spending on issue ads "aren't worth the paper they're written on," McCabe says, because they aren't enforced. 

"So this group can tell its members it spent all this money to support candidates and influence elections, and turn around and tell the elections board that it wasn't political spending at all." 

That's too bad, because what the American Federation for Children calls education "reform" looks, to a lot of people, like the dismantling of a state's great public school system.

This is part of the great undermining of the public school system that has been implemented by the conservatives and which includes attacks on teacher's unions, advocating home schooling, and of course the for profit schools that would turn our children's education into a capitalistic enterprise where the focus is on the profit margin rather than on the student's success.

Personally I have never as under assault as I do right now.

And the problem is that so many people are simply unaware of the concerted effort to undermine education and turn children into obedient little cogs in a machine that mass produces apathy and unimaginative pod people.

Oh, and they will be future Republican voters as well.  The worst thing for the Republican party is a nation full of intelligent, well educated, voters.

Does not exactly assure the survival of Christianity either by the way. So is it any wonder that many of these private schools are religiously themed?

Profile in cowardice: Mark Begich.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

As lawmakers gathered in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday to vote on a plan to expand background checks for gun buyers, staffers in the office of Alaska Democratic Senator Mark Begich fielded a steady stream of calls urging him to break with his party and vote against the measure. 

Those callers got what they wanted: Begich voted no - one of four Democrats from gun-friendly states to do so - and the most ambitious gun-control push in two decades went down to defeat. 

It was an impressive show of force by the National Rifle Association, which reaffirmed its reputation as one of Washington's most powerful interest groups by turning back one of President Barack Obama's top second-term priorities.

Here's the thing, if Begich thinks the NRA is going to fund his campaign over that of his GOP rival in 2014 then he may be too stupid to hold public office.

And will this vote mean he will get even ONE more Republican vote in this state?

Very damn unlikely!

All Begich has done is to reinforce the VERY worst of his detractors characterizations of him. That he is a career politician who will do and say ANYTHING to hold on to his seat.

And that is exactly what the Democrats in this state DON'T want in their representative.

What the NRA has done is to demonstrate how spineless Mark Begich is, and that with enough pressure applied he can be threatened, bribed, or fooled into doing just about anything that lobbyists want him to do.

He could have earned respect. He could have stood for something, He could have  been the man that his father, the late Congressman Nick Begich, could have been proud of, but he is not.

Here is a final word from the sister of one of the Sandy Hook teachers that sums up my disgust pretty effectively:

“My sister wasn’t a coward that day, she protected our kids,” said Soto, sister of slain teacher Victoria Soto. “Why aren’t they protecting us?”

That young woman stood up to a barrage of bullets, why can't Mark Begich, and the other 45 cowards in the Senate, stand up to a barrage of NRA directed phone calls?

John Oliver from the Daily Show goes to Australia to confront them on the failure of their gun control program. A "failure" that has resulted in NO gun massacres since the laws were passed.

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This is one of those segments that is SO well done that you really wish the actual cable news channels would follow suit.

The way Oliver traps that gun lobbyist into contradicting himself, demonstrating his desperation to ignore the facts, and making up false equivalencies to protect his case, is a thing of absolute beauty.

Lawrence O'Donnell ridicules Scott Brown's choice to walk away from politics to join Fox News. Says he "completed a full Palin."

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Every time I see Palin's resignation speech I am reminded how incredibly panicky she seemed as if she were terrified of what was coming. Considering how things worked out, she should have been!

You know I don't think I will EVER get tired of seeing Sarah Palin used as a measuring tool for determining just how badly a politician, or public figure, is doing

Top Chicago cop blames gun lobbyists and Sarah Palin for gun violence.

Courtesy of Fox News (Yep you read that right, Fox News.):

Facing a surging homicide rate and several headline-grabbing murders, Chicago’s top cop is taking aim at lobbyists who he says prevent politicians from implementing more gun control measures. 

Appearing on a local Windy City Sunday morning talk show on the radio station WLSAM, Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said special interests that lobby politicians to influence their opinion on gun control are the real problem. 

“If there was a special interest influencing police work, I believe that would be called corruption,” McCarthy said. “So, if it has to do with donating money, versus a popular vote, I think we have a bigger problem in this country and someone has to wake up to that.” 

McCarthy told FoxNews.com he never advocated “getting rid of the Second Amendment.” He said he was making the point that there is popular support for new gun control laws and that lobbyists are stopping elected officials from reflecting the will of the people. 

“How is it [special interests] are controlling politicians?” he said. “How are they controlling elected officials? It’s not by popular vote.” 

McCarthy in the past has blamed “government-sponsored racism” and Sarah Palin for Chicago’s gun violence. He has been outspoken in his opposition to handgun proliferation, telling a radio panel last month he equates fewer guns with improved public safety. 

“When people say concealed carry, I say Trayvon Martin,” McCarthy said, referring to the Florida teen who was shot and killed last February by a neighborhood watch volunteer, sparking controversy across the country. “I say Trayvon Martin because the answer to guns is not more guns, and just simply putting guns in people’s hands is going to lead to more tragedy.” 

McCarthy backs banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for anyone who buys a gun, mandatory reporting of the sale, transfer, loss or theft of a gun and mandatory minimum prison sentences for people convicted of illegally possessing a gun. 

The guy's not wrong. In fact he is absolutely dead on in his assessment that fewer guns, and stricter gun laws, of COURSE lead to fewer gun deaths.

The gun lobby has certainly used their influence to pressure politicians into avoiding the creation of laws to curb gun violence in this country for decades, and have even threatened those that have taken up the cause of tightening gun control laws into dropping them for fear of losing tier House of Senate seats in the next election.

And politicians, most notably Sarah Palin, who romanticized the idea of owning guns, and made it seem as American as apple pie, are most definitely a large part of the problem.

In the case of Palin she has glamorized the idea of guns to the extent that it has made the idea of gun ownership almost seem like a badge of honor, and that only those who hate the Constitution would walk around unarmed.

Of course the big joke here is that, as has been shown over and over again, Palin is really not at all proficient or comfortable with guns, and is simply being used as a tool of the gun lobby to further their agenda.

But that's Sarah Palin for you, always a tool and never a very useful one either.

Your early morning fun fact for today. Did you know the NRA was not ALWAYS full of gun nuts?

Courtesy of the Atlantic:

Today, the NRA is the unquestioned leader in the fight against gun control. Yet the organization didn’t always oppose gun regulation. Founded in 1871 by George Wingate and William Church—the latter a former reporter for a newspaper now known for hostility to gun rights, The New York Times—the group first set out to improve American soldiers’ marksmanship. Wingate and Church had fought for the North in the Civil War and been shocked by the poor shooting skills of city-bred Union soldiers. 

In the 1920s and ’30s, the NRA was at the forefront of legislative efforts to enact gun control. The organization’s president at the time was Karl T. Frederick, a Princeton- and Harvard-educated lawyer known as “the best shot in America”—a title he earned by winning three gold medals in pistol-shooting at the 1920 Summer Olympic Games. As a special consultant to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Frederick helped draft the Uniform Firearms Act, a model of state-level gun-control legislation. (Since the turn of the century, lawyers and public officials had increasingly sought to standardize the patchwork of state laws. The new measure imposed more order—and, in most cases, far more restrictions.) 

Frederick’s model law had three basic elements. The first required that no one carry a concealed handgun in public without a permit from the local police. A permit would be granted only to a “suitable” person with a “proper reason for carrying” a firearm. Second, the law required gun dealers to report to law enforcement every sale of a handgun, in essence creating a registry of small arms. Finally, the law imposed a two-day waiting period on handgun sales. 

The NRA today condemns every one of these provisions as a burdensome and ineffective infringement on the right to bear arms. Frederick, however, said in 1934 that he did “not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.” The NRA’s executive vice president at the time, Milton A. Reckord, told a congressional committee that his organization was “absolutely favorable to reasonable legislation.” According to Frederick, the NRA “sponsored” the Uniform Firearms Act and promoted it nationwide. Highlighting the political strength of the NRA even back then, a 1932 Virginia Law Review article reported that laws requiring a license to carry a concealed weapon were already “in effect in practically every jurisdiction.”

Okay do you know what? THAT 1920's and 1930's NRA is an NRA that I would have absolutely NO problem with. None!

Listen to what Mr, Fredrick said about the 2nd Amendment protections:  

Preserving the ability of law-abiding people to have guns, Frederick would write elsewhere, “lies in an enlightened public sentiment and in intelligent legislative action. It is not to be found in the Constitution.”

I know right?

So what happened? Well to find that out you need to read that article.

However I will give you a hint. It has to do with the Black Panthers and gun ownership for protections vs gun ownership for hunting. When owning a gun in response to fear, rather than for recreation, paranoia rules the day.

The NRA breaks their silence.

From the NRA-ILA:  

The National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters – and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown. 

Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting. 

The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again. 

The NRA is planning to hold a major news conference in the Washington, DC area on Friday, December 21. Details will be released to the media at the appropriate time.

You know I was trying to come up with something articulate in response to this press release, but all I can think to say is FUCK YOU!

The NRA has worked tirelessly to spread the gun culture throughout this country, and paid off various politicians to fight ANY legislation that limits access to guns of every type and caliber, and the result of that hard work is 20 dead school children.

John McCain number one receiver of NRA political donations

I could care less what they have to say on December 21st, unless it is to say that they recognize how wrong they have been all these years and are firing their lobbyists and closing down their organization.

In my opinion the NRA IS what is wrong with this country and their disappearance could only make America a better and safer place to live.

Stop Handgun Violence founder: "The dirty little secret is that the NRA loves high-profile mass shootings."

Earlier today I was browsing the net looking for interesting stories to share with you,when I stumbled across the above statement over at Crooks and Liars.

Here is the post that caught my eye, and sent a shiver up my spine:  

Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation announced on Thursday that sales had spiked 48 percent in its second fiscal quarter of 2013, setting a record of $136 million. 

"The increase was led by continued strong sales across all of the company's firearm product lines, including M&P™ branded products, such as pistols, modern sporting rifles, and the recently launched Shield™ pistol designed for concealed carry and personal protection," the company said in a statement. 

Smith & Wesson also predicted year-over-year growth of 30 percent for the remainder of the 2013 fiscal year. 

Those are the kind of statistics that boggle the mind and make you ask "Why?" Why with so muhc gun violence in the news would gun sales ACTUALLY be going up?


Apparently some questions are better left unanswered.


Stop Handgun Violence founder John Rosenthal told Current TV's Elliot Spitzer on Wednesday that gun companies were making record profits because lobbying groups like the National Rifle Association had been successful at making sure that the industry was largely unregulated. 

"The dirty little secret is that the NRA loves high-profile mass shootings," Rosenthal explained. "The more gun violence, the better. The more fear, it causes people to buy guns, more profits for the gun industry. And then they funnel it into intimidating Democrats into submission. And then they fund the Republicans and the Republicans just roll over."

 "The dirty little secret is that the NRA loves high-profile mass shootings. The more gun violence, the better. The more fear, it causes people to buy guns, more profits for the gun industry."

Have you ever read something that you hoped with all of your might wasn't true, while at the same time being absolutely certain that it was?

That is how I responded to the above statement. On the face of it it seems counter intuitive. But when you think about the psychology of how human beings react to fear, you realize the obvious truth.

The stunning, frustrating, yet obvious truth.

So how do you counteract a primitive response to fear married to a society that conditions people to believe that possession of handguns equals safety?

I quite literally don't know.

Sharing statistics like this: Family and intimate assaults involving a firearm were 12 times more likely to result in death than non-firearm associated assaults between family and intimates. Means nothing to somebody who is frightened and believes that simply possessing a handgun  will calm their fears.

I think many gun owners literally have NO intention of ever using their gun for anything other than target shooting, and that is undoubtedly the truth for most. But a handgun in the house is an instrument of death readily available to ANYBODY who is suddenly frightened, angered, or unable to make rational decisions.

And it provides the power to end a life to any person in the vicinity with the ability to flex their finger. No matter their state of mind, no matter their gender, and no matter their age.

Guns don't JUST kill people. They make killing them something even a child can do.