Open Thread

Long week already...and Gonzales testifies tomorrow. Read the rest of this post...

Wisconsin paper calls on former WI governor and GOP prez candidate Tommy Thompson to drop out of race

Aw man, now Tommy Thomposon is probably gonna drop out before we could get to the fun stuff about him. Read the rest of this post...

In case there's still any doubt, smart is good

This past Friday, I had an absorbing and enjoyable lunch with Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and illustrious blogger at Informed Comment. His blog is, quite simply, the best internet resource for Iraq analysis. My knowledge of the region and its history pales in comparison to his, and it was a pleasure to be able to pick his brain. I occasionally disagree with Juan, of course, but his analysis is always logical, incisive, and worth reading.

Not to get too meta, but what Professor Cole does in the blogosphere is highly unusual for academia, a world that rewards long-form and long-term scholarship far more than input to the issues of the day. But these kinds of individuals, these intellectual resources, are tremendously valuable analysts, especially when political and policy issues intersect with their fields of study.

Many Americans have something of a love/hate relationship with expertise. For a variety of reasons, it is in vogue, especially among conservatives, to denounce and disapprove of intellectualism and knowledge. Something like, if you’re not going with your gut, you’re not to be trusted – thinkers are bad and scary and wrong. I don’t want to try to explain that orientation, but I will say that learning from others is a great thing, so I’m always happy to stumble across people who make complicated issues understandable and accessible. Over the years, I’ve learned a ton from Juan, who is an invaluable resource due to his particular combination of knowledge and courage, especially in a time when there’s a dearth of people who understand the policy and political forces we’re dealing with in the Middle East.

Things aren’t getting any better in Iraq, with the government trying to navigate minefields (now literal as well as figurative), often unsuccessfully. Maliki’s cabinet is falling apart, protests are rampant, and somehow we’ve gone from a surge of limited duration for the purpose of creating political space to compromise . . . to, instead, an escalation of unlimited duration with the impossible goal of killing/capturing all the bad guys in a country of 25 million people. We need all the experts we can get. Read the rest of this post...

The real history of guns and the 2000 election

"Guns" was an issue in the 2000 elections. Contrary to the conventional wisdom among the punditry, the candidate who was running scared on the gun issue in 2000 wasn't Al Gore. It was George Bush.

I know it for a fact. Believe me, I do. I started working on state legislative issues at Handgun Control Inc. in April of 1994. I knew every position on guns that "Governor" George Bush had ever taken. That's why it was so startling to watch him creep to the anti-gun center in 2000. He even supported renewing the federal assault weapons ban, and that was huge. The assault weapons ban was the "third rail" for the NRA, the issue you did not cross them on - but Bush did it anyway. In fact, Bush's 2000 run for president was probably one of the first times the NRA supported a candidate who supported the ban on AK-47s, Uzi and high capacity magazines.

I lived through this, so I know it's true - but it was also well documented. Frank Bruni wrote a piece on March 18, 2000 in The New York Times titled "Bush Moves a Little Away From the N.R.A.'s Positions." The article is in the Times archives, but here are a few paragraphs:

Long considered an opponent of significant new gun control and a faithful friend of the National Rifle Association, Gov. George W. Bush seems to be taking small steps away from the powerful organization and signaling a greater receptiveness to additional restrictions on firearms.

Several times over the last few days, Mr. Bush expressed support for two measures -- the mandatory sale of trigger locks with new handguns and the implementation of ''smart gun'' technology -- that the rifle organization has frequently criticized.

Even more striking, Mr. Bush openly criticized the N.R.A.'s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, for his recent assertions that President Clinton, rather than vigorously prosecuting the laws, tolerated a certain level of gun violence to keep his public crusade for gun control on the front burner.

''I don't think the N.R.A. was right to characterize the president the way they did,'' Mr. Bush said in an interview at the governor's mansion here on Wednesday.

Jake Tapper, who is now with ABC News, wrote a similar piece for Salon on May 17, 2000:

On Friday, right before the Million Mom March in favor of more gun laws, Bush came out in favor of giving away thousands of trigger locks for anyone who wants one, an apparatus he has pooh-pooohed in the past. He also did and said absolutely nothing last year when two pieces of state legislation -- both requiring that guns be sold with trigger locks -- were introduced.

"That's a huge change for him," says Sudbay. "It seems to be a very crass political move timed in conjunction with the Million Mom March and also to diminish his very pro-gun record."

"I think he saw himself being pushed out on one of the wings when he got embroiled with [Sen. John] McCain and he saw that his best way to regain support was to shift back to the center," says TSRA's Talbot.

Why would Bush try to gloss over his previous strong support for the NRA's agenda? Obviously for votes. One of the few polls taken in the last few months that had Gore leading was conducted by ABC News immediately after Robinson's comments, showing Gore with an edge, 46 percent to 38 percent. Clearly, Bush is worried, otherwise he wouldn't have had his handlers rush to book him on NBC's "Today" show to announce his new free-trigger-lock entitlement program for gun owners.

So what happened that the pundits, and the media, now think guns was ever a losing issue?

George Bush, you'll recall, won the election in 2000 by portraying himself as a uniter, not a divider. His move to the center on guns fit with that rhetoric. Candidate Al Gore, however, stopped talking about guns altogether. Just stopped. In February of 2000, one of Gore's top aides was screaming at me that they needed Sarah Brady's endorsement in the primaries pronto. But come the summer, we didn't exist.

Bush was afraid of the gun issue politically, but Gore, on the advice of his "brain trust," was the candidate who ran from the issue. That was a double whammy. Gore lost the ability to attack Bush for signing the law that allowed handguns to be carried in churches, nursing homes and amusement parks. At the same time, Gore, who was being challenged for having no core beliefs, looked like he was hiding his true positions (sound familiar?). That left Bush's "he was for guns before he was kind-of against them" record unchallenged while comporting with a growing sense that Al Gore had no core.

Again, Jake Tapper captured the moment for Salon. As you'll read, Tapper talked to an executive at a gun control group who was, in fact, me. If I knew the damage their idiotic positioning would create, I would have blasted him even more strongly:

But one executive of a Washington organization concerned with this issue says that Gore is misreading these swing voters. If so, Gore's attempt to portray himself as having little opinion about the issue is not only disingenuous but politically stupid.

Though the executive, who did not wish to be named, agrees that Gore shouldn't be making his positions on guns a major talking point, he thinks that Gore's failure to portray Bush as an extremist on this issue has been a "missed opportunity."

The executive points to the fact that many swing states have rejected the NRA's position on concealed-carry laws, which allow individuals to carry loaded, concealed weapons in public. One of the first bills Bush signed into law as governor of Texas was a concealed-carry law. Bush went so far as to amend the law, the first of its kind in Texas in 125 years, to let licensees carry their loaded guns into churches, amusement parks and nursing homes.

This mindset, the executive argues, is foreign to the swing voters Bush and Gore are fighting for.

Gun law battles in key swing states attest to that idea. Despite NRA lobbying, there are no concealed-carry laws in Wisconsin, Ohio or Illinois. Recent attempts to weaken the requirements for concealed-carry licensees in Minnesota and Michigan have gone nowhere. A 1998 referendum on closing the "gun show loophole" in Florida passed with 72 percent support.

Last year in the bellwether state of Missouri, gun law advocates such as Handgun Control Inc. were outspent by the NRA more than 4-to-1 in a concealed-carry battle. Nevertheless, the NRA position, opposed by the late Gov. Mel Carnahan, lost.

After the elections, the Democratic brain trust immediately blamed the gun issue for their election losses. In today's Salon piece, Alex Koppelmann explained how former Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO) was one of the first to lay the blame for the 2000 election losses on guns. I always found that interesting, because in the 1998 election, the Gephardt campaign called Handgun Control the Friday before the election begging for Sarah Brady to cut a radio ad for them to run over the weekend. Of course, she did.

It was painful to watch this all play out. But, this is what Democrats do far too often. They take an issue that the GOP fears and somehow turn it (or allow it to be turned) against themselves. People vote for candidates who have convictions -- but, too often, Democrats run from their convictions.

Lots of people are deifying Al Gore these days, but in 2000, he ran a bad campaign. He never should have lost to George Bush. He ran from Bill Clinton, who, by the way, never backed away from the gun issue. But Gore didn't become president, and the Democrats didn't take back the House, so guns became the culprit. (Interestingly, the Democrats did take back the Senate by defeating pro-NRA candidates in Washington, Missouri, Michigan, Delaware and Florida.)

All those pundits and commentators who so glibly claim that guns was the losing issue in 2000 should really do their homework. Sometimes the conventional wisdom is wrong (e.g., George Bush is a popular president). And sometimes, it's even deadly. Read the rest of this post...

Virginia court found that VA Tech killer was mentally ill and dangerous

And he was allowed to buy a gun anyway. God bless America. Read the rest of this post...

Why does the Bush administration have a list of everyone who has ever used anti-depressants?

Guess what? They do. From ABC News, regarding the VA Tech shooter:

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

We don't even have a list of gun owners, and we have a list of everyone who has been prescribed anti-depressants? And in fact, the article suggests that this isn't just a database of patients who use anti-depressants, it's a federal database of every prescription drug you've ever bought.

What exactly do the Bushies do with that list? And what other lists do they have of which medications you've ever taken? Read the rest of this post...

It's time for a 2nd Amendment Iraq Marshall Plan

Guns don't kill people, evil-doers kill people. That's the theory a lot of Republicans are now promoting about the violence at Virginia Tech. If only those now-dead students had all been armed, the story goes, they'd have been able to start a mass circle of gunfire in the middle of their classroom and kill the shooter (and sure, they'd kill everyone else in the classroom too, but they'd be dead AND exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, so it'd be okay). Anyway, I say the Republicans put their money where their mouths are and establish a 2nd Amendment Marshall Plan (we can call it the LaPierre plan), and ship as many guns and other weapons as possible into the hands of every single Iraqi in order to help them defend themselves (and we could hire Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend to run it - a two-fer!). First off, we'd be guaranteeing the 2nd Amendment rights of every Iraqi, and after all, that's way more important than winning (or even living). And second, if everyone had more weapons, they'd all be able to join in on keeping the peace that much better. While we're at it, why not give em all WMD? Nothing stops a tuhrerist from driving a chlorine truck into a market like knowing that every grandma in that market has her own chlorine truck ready and waiting to drive back into YOUR market.

Yes, weapons for all. The lessons of Virginia Tech live on. Read the rest of this post...

VA gunman was suicidal, accused of stalking 2 women, yet still able to buy a gun

So your daughter has been stalked by some nutjob. How do you feel about the stalker being able to buy a gun in Virginia?

It's one thing for normal people to buy guns - I'm happy to debate, and consider, if that's okay. It's quite another for some guy who stalked two women. Why do we treat gun owners like they're something special. And oh yeah, so much for the "oh but he always seemed so normal" defense. No, he didn't always seem so normal. In fact, he seemed quite abnormal. And Virginia sold him a gun anyway. And he even bought a bulletproof best, which is interesting, because how many normal people need bulletproof vests? Raise of hands please. Yes, the answer would be zero.

We have a gun problem and a violence problem in this country, and no one wants to touch it because the Republicans will be mean to us if we talk about gun violence. And we all know that if Democrats just stop talking about guns, the Republicans will turn around and be nice to us. Just like we stopped talking about gay civil rights, and the environment, and abortion, and civil liberties and all those other issues that makes Republicans mean. And we wonder why people think the country is going in the wrong direction. It is.

Oh and PS, yes there are laws about not selling guns to people with restraining orders against them. And that's great. But shouldn't the standard be higher when we're talking about kids with guns (or anyone with guns)? You should be 100% clean if you're going to buy a gun, and requiring a restraining order or criminal record isn't enough. You should be 100% clean or you don't get the gun. Being suicidal and having two recent stalking accusations isn't 100% clean. It's scary, with or without the gun.

Your right to own a gun stops when 33 kids and adults are murdered. Read the rest of this post...

Reuters: Supreme Court upholds ban on some abortions

"BREAKING NEWS" From Reuters:

A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the first nationwide ban on a specific abortion procedure, restricting abortion rights in a ruling on one of the nation's most divisive and politically charged issues.

By a 5-4 vote, the high court rejected arguments challenging on various grounds the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act that President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003 after its approval by the Republican-led U.S. Congress.

Obviously need more details, but this looks like a victory for the theocrats. They've got the Supreme Court they want now -- and they won't stop here. Yes, this means a woman's right to choose is in peril. That's the dream of Bush, his Republican party and the theocrats who support them. Read the rest of this post...

Americans support the Democratic position on Iraq

For all the hand-wringing by the pundits, there is more evidence that the American people are with the Democrats on the Iraq issue -- and they're actually paying attention according to a new CNN poll (thanks ThinkFast at Think Progress):

A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released this morning finds support for the war in Iraq remains low amid widespread feelings that the war is going badly and that sending additional troops to Iraq won't make any difference.

Most Americans (72%) say they are closely following the ongoing dispute between President Bush and the Democrats in Congress over proposed timetables for withdrawal -- and a likely Bush veto of the Iraq appropriations bill if it includes such a proposal. Six in ten think that they would wind up siding with the Democrats in this dispute; 37% say they are more likely to take the President's side.

Overall, 32% support the war, while 66% oppose it.

John Murtha always said the American people were way ahead of the politicians when it came to Iraq. When Murtha gave that first major speech on changing the policy in Iraq on November 17, 2005, one of his first lines was, "The American public is way ahead of us." He's been right all along.

And, as evidenced in the post below, the war is going badly and sending more troops is not making a difference -- except causing the deaths of more troops. Read the rest of this post...

AP: Violence in Baghdad approaching pre-escalation levels

It's not working It's even worse -- 127 are now dead. When AP first posted this article noting that violence had was climbing, there were 33 people dead in 3 explosions:

Four large bombs exploded across Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 127 people and wounding scores as violence climbed toward levels seen before the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to pacify the capital began two months ago.

In the deadliest of the attacks, a parked car bomb detonated in a crowd of workers at the Sadriyah market in a mostly Shiite area of central Baghdad, killing at least 82 people and wounding 94, said Raad Muhsin, an official at Al-Kindi Hospital where the victims were taken.

-- UPDATED -- it's even worse:

Four big bombs exploded across Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 66 people and wounding nearly 150 as violence climbed toward levels seen before the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to pacify the capital began two months ago.

To the west of the city, U.S. troops killed five suspected insurgents and captured 30 others in a raid in Anbar province, a day after police uncovered 17 decomposing corpses beneath two school yards in the provincial capital.

Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Tough watching the stories about the victims of Virginia Tech. In an old job, I used to deal with victims and survivors of gun violence every day. Believe me, there was no shortage. I met the greatest people -- but only because they'd had the worst possible thing had happened to them and it shattered their lives. I've had a knot in my stomach since Monday because I know this ritual all too well. It's so uniquely American.

There's lots of hand wringing now, but nothing will change. Never does. Basically our leaders think we just have to deal with it. They'll show up at ceremonies and offer prayers, but that's it. Just deal with it.

On that note, just start threading. Read the rest of this post...

Bush and Republicans want to block drug price negotiation bill

Once again, proving that they could care less about limiting tax payer costs at the expense of rewarding big business friends. With this kind of attitude it is no wonder spending has been wildly out of control during the Republican control.

The White House threatened on Tuesday to veto a Senate bill proposing to allow the U.S. government to negotiate prices for prescription drugs under the Medicare program.

The Senate was expected to cast a test vote on Wednesday, when Democrats try to end debate and go forward with consideration of the bill. Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, who opposes the bill, has vowed to filibuster or talk the bill to death.

In a statement, the White House said the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate bill "would have a negligible effect on federal spending and provide no substantial savings to the government or Medicare beneficiaries."

For something that would have a "negligible effect on federal spending" these sure are strong reactions. I question just how negligible those savings would be, but going along with that line of thought, what would happen if the administration could find similar negligible savings in other areas. It all adds up and even a little is a lot with the US government spending.

Why are the Republicans so opposed to trimming spending? Read the rest of this post...

Death squads continue to roam in Iraq

85 dead bodies, some tortured found across Iraq. I thought there was supposed to be some kind of security operation going on, no? Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Bed time Read the rest of this post...