Thanks, NRA cowards, for the Connecticut bloodbath

By Marc McDonald

Thanks, NRA, for fighting any meaningful regulations that could help keep guns out of the hands of the violent and mentally ill. Thanks to you, guns can be bought in America as easily as a loaf of bread.

We also appreciate your work on ferociously opposing the Brady Act (which Ronald Reagan, by the way, supported). Rest assured, though, despite your crazy, paranoid fantasies, NO meaningful action will be taken on guns in the aftermath of this latest horrible bloodbath.

Thanks to you, dozens, if not hundreds of more children will be brutally slaughtered in the decades to come.

The NRA truly is a cowardly organization. For example, they cowered under a rock and waited nearly five days to offer any kind of response to the Connecticut bloodbath. How chickenshit is that? If they had the courage of their convictions, they would have spoken up sooner.

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Still worried about Kerry

By Frank Moraes 

Jonathan Bernstein at The Plum Line blog encourages us, "Don't Worry Too Much About John Kerry's Senate Seat." I not exactly worried about this, but I have been opposed to it. Of course, that was when Kerry was going to be moving to the Pentagon. Moving to State seems like a better deal, but I still think it is a questionable idea.

Bernstein argues mostly that Scott Brown isn't that big a threat. First, he says that Brown is not the favorite to win the special election next summer. But as reported yesterday by his own paper, "Scott Brown Would Win Special Election Today." That's just a poll nine months out, of course. But exit polling of the 6 November election showed that the people still liked Brown by a lot; they just liked Warren more. So Brown has at least a decent chance to take Kerry's seat.

Bernstein says not to worry because the seat comes up for re-election in 2014. So the Democrats would have a second chance to defeat Brown. This strikes me as a very weak argument. If Brown wins the special election, he will almost certainly win the off-year election.

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We need a federal agent at every...

By Frank Moraes

(Ed. note: This post was written last night. Frum must be up to, like, 2,109 such tweets by now. He is, as they say, en fuego. -- MJWS)

In an update for a post earlier today, I noted that Jim Naureckas tweeted, "If only an armed guard could be placed next to every state trooper." Well, it has become a thing. David Frum has now similarly tweeted 14 times.

First, dental clinics:

We need a federal agent at every dental clinic abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?sec…
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) December 22, 2012

Later, strip clubs:

We need a federal agent at every strip club wdrb.com/story/20372337…
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) December 22, 2012

And most recently, muffler shops:

We need a federal agent at every muffler shop topix.com/forum/philly/T…
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) December 22, 2012

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A.M. Headlines

(The Guardian): "John Boehner: From humble origin, the fiscal cliff may be his undoing"

(Washington Post): "Tax fight sends GOP into chaos"

(New York Times): "Events recall a more bipartisan era, and highlight gridlock of today"

(Washington Post): "Obama calls on Congress to craft at least a minimal "Fiscal Cliff' deal"

(The Hill): "Fearing primaries, GOP members opt to shun 'Plan B'"

How the truth could destroy the NRA

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Michael Moore (@MMFlint) tweeted at 9:15 PM on Fri, Dec 21, 2012: 

If the public could see what a .223 bullet from a Bushmaster does to a 6 yr old face or body, the gun debate would b over & the NRA finished 

It's a horrible thing to think about, but he may well be right. These are horrific weapons of mass destruction, and they must be treated as such under the law.

Even the NRA, after all, is no match for the brutal truth of gun violence.

In the wake of Sandy Hook, it's time we took hold off this issue once and for all and forced the gun nuts to defend the truly indefensible.

P.M. Headlines

(Reuters): "NRA calls for armed school guards as US mourns massacre"

(CBS News): "No cliff deal under the Christmas tree"

(Reuters): "Wall Street falls on fiscal cliff setback"

(Politico): "Behind the scenes of the GOP meltdown"

(BBC News): "John Kerry: From good soldier to secretary of state"

(Daily Beast): "Hagel's mea culpa on gay rights"

Friday afternoon schadenfreude

By Frank Moraes 

John Boehner seems like a nice enough guy. The truth is, I feel kind of sorry for him. He doesn't seem like a ideologue. It's possible that over the years, he's come to realize that his party has no ideas other than the commitment to stay in power. Every time I see him, he looks like he would much rather be in a bar somewhere drinking. (And I'm pretty sure he spends a large part of the time I don't see him doing exactly that.) At this point, I suspect his beliefs have ossified and he doesn't even think about it anymore. Outside of the House, he'd probably be an alright guy.

Having said that, I'm really enjoying this whole thing. The Republicans (and to a lesser extent the whole conservative movement) is in a full tilt meltdown. I don't usually allow myself to experience this much schadenfreude, but I think I deserve this. It isn't just that the vote for "Plan B" had to be called off. It is that they went ahead with a really vile spending cut bill to woo recalcitrant Republicans. This bill was a great big "Fuck you!" to a large majority of America. And they voted for it, because -- and I don't say this lightly -- Republicans hate America. They have a hard time passing up any opportunity to flip off the Home of the Brave.

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No, this is the stupidest thing you’ll read

By Mustang Bobby 

(Ed. note: For more on this stupidity, see Dave Weigel, who did the research Allen didn't do and notes that there were in fact men at the school, not that it would have mattered. -- MJWS) 

Earlier this week I shared the wit and wisdom of Megan McArdle, who said the solution to school shootings was teaching the kids to gang-tackle the attacker, thus making it easier for the coroner to find the bodies. I called it "probably the stupidest thing you'll read today."

My apologies to Ms. McArdle. Or at least I should tell her to get out of the way; she's been overtaken by Charlotte Allen at National Review, who says that the reason all those kids died was that there weren't enough men and well-built 12-year-old boys at Sandy Hook Elementary:

In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the "reading specialist" — were female. There didn't even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza's knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, seemed to have performed bravely. According to reports, she activated the school's public-address system and also lunged at Lanza, before he shot her to death. Some of the teachers managed to save all or some of their charges by rushing them into closets or bathrooms. But in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.

Seriously, where does she get this shit?


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Colin Edwin and Jon Durant: Burnt Belief

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Today marks the release of the album Burnt Belief, an instrumental collaboration between Australian-British bassist Colin Edwin (notably of Porcupine Tree fame) and American guitarist Jon Durant.

Thanks to the good people at Fresno Media, who no doubt discovered me from my frequent blogging about Porcupine Tree (my favourite band not counting Pink Floyd), I was sent an advance digital copy of the album earlier this week and have spent much of the past couple of days listening and re-listening to, and contemplating, what is a really wonderful piece of music from start to finish.

I had been hoping to put up a comprehensive review today, but various things are preventing me from doing that. I should have it up over the weekend, once I have more time to give it serious thought. And besides, this is not an album that one can absorb quickly and then largely forget. It's instrumental, with no vocals at all, but also profoundly intellectual. Its release was timed specifically to coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar -- which of course does not mean the end of the world, just a return to the beginning -- and it examines the conflict between science and religion.

No, this isn't just background music, which is what we often expect of instrumentals. This is music that captivates you, that engages you, and that rewards patience and reflection.

You can stream the album at Prog magazine. Below is a teaser clip at YouTube. And, again, I'll have my full review up soon. In the meantime, enjoy!

21 December 2012

By Frank Moraes

This is a little early. NASA means to put out the video below on 22 December 2012, tomorrow. They want to be there to explain why the world did not end. Even though it has not yet not ended. If you know what I mean.

My friend Toni asked me what I was planning on doing for the end of the world. I told her I would stay in and watch some comedies. I would definitely want to to see a few films again: Animal Crackers, The In-Laws, His Girl Friday. But if I really thought the world was coming to an end: I'd be frantically looking for a painless way to kill myself. I'm assuming here that we would be killed by an asteroid and that it would result in being burned alive. I don't want to be around for that.

Luckily, the odds are that I'm not going to burn to death. What's more, it almost certainly won't happen tomorrow. So part of how I am spending my day is watching this video. According to it, the Mayan calendar is supposed to be cyclical like a car's odometer. After you get to 999, it goes back to 000. All of my cars have managed this transition without exploding or even being hit by an asteroid, much less being engulfed by a huge solar flare.


(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Cory Booker takes a pass on challenging Gov. Christie

By Richard K. Barry

No great surprise here, but it looks like Newark Mayor Cory Booker is going to take a pass on challenging incumbent New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, opting instead to "explore the possibility of running for the United States Senate in 2014."

In a video posted to his YouTube page, Booker said that he would finish out his term as mayor and then see about running for the Senate. He said he would consult with 88-year-old Democrat Frank Lautenberg, who currently holds the seat and is up for re-election in 2014.

What was left unsaid is that at the moment it appears Gov. Christie would be damned hard to beat as he enjoys record-high approval ratings in polls taken since Sandy hit the state.

The decision will no doubt be sad news for Jersey Democrats who must see Booker as their best chance for taking back the state house in what is usually a blue state. Still, in politics everything is timing and now appears not to be the time for a gubernatorial run, though, as a young man, Booker still has time on his side.

Here's the clip:

Cliff report

By Mustang Bobby

As we draw ever closer to January 1, the talks on the budget are beginning to sound less and less like serious fiscal management and more like a Roadrunner cartoon:

The clearest indication that House Speaker John Boehner's final fiscal cliff ploy backfired came late Wednesday when he began modifying his so-called Plan B.

Plan B, recall, is legislation to lock in the Bush tax cuts for all incomes up to $1 million — a fallback plan he hopes will strengthen his negotiating hand with President Obama.

But late Wednesday, faced with a daunting whip count, Republican leaders did two things. First, they began entertaining the notion of tacking spending cuts on to the bill — to entice skeptical House conservatives to provide badly needed votes. (Their skepticism is understandable: Why should they vote for legislation designed to strengthen Boehner's hand in deficit reduction negotiations they don’t support in the first place?)

Second, and crucially, they scotched a tandem plan to vote down legislation, supported by most Democrats, extending the Bush tax cuts for income up to $250,000.

That was the biggest tell of the day: Boehner can't deep-six that bill, because he may need to pass it -- with help from Democrats -- if fiscal cliff negotiations with Obama fall apart completely.

Meep, meep.

A.M. Headlines

(Huffington Post): "'Plan B" vote spiked in House in major setback for Boehner"

(New York Times): "Boehner cancels tax vote in face of GOP revolt"

(Wonkblog): "Will Boehner's speakership survive until 'Plan C'"

(Associated Press): "Cliff poses tiny dollar gap, wide political ravine"

(ABC News): "NRA to offer 'other meaningful contributions' on preventing more gun violence"

Senate letter condemning Zero Dark Thirty

By Frank Moraes 

A remarkable thing happened yesterday. Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin, and John McCain sent a letter to Michael Lynton, the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment. It was regarding the portrayal of torture in the new film, Zero Dark Thirty. Feinstein does it as the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

It is a most reasonable, if direct, letter. They point out that they understand that writers make things up to tell a more dramatic story. Their concern is with the opening of the film which displays on the screen, "Based on first-hand accounts of actual events." They call for the producers to make clear that torture was not helpful in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Read more »

P.M. Headlines

(Bloomberg): "Why does the NRA fear the truth about gun violence?"

(Fox News): "First responders cite difficulty in getting past scenes witnessed at Sandy Hook Elementary"

(The Hill): "Leader Reid rules out Senate vote on 'Plan B'"

(NBC News): "Holiday travel alert: Central U.S. storm brings flight disruptions, deadly blizzard, and a tornado"

(NBC New York): "Cory Booker will run for U.S. Senate in 2014: Sources"

The president has already agreed to a deal I don't like

By Frank Moraes 

I saw a bit of The Ed Show last night as I was making dinner. Ed Schultz said something that shocked me. I don't have the exact quote, but it was more or less, "I know that the president isn't going to agree to any deal that we don't like." I could hardly believe it. Did he really just say that? After chained-CPI and $400,000 lower limit for tax increases? Maybe by "we" he meant "multi-millionaires on TV." Because the only liberals who expect Obama not to make a very bad deal are liberals who aren't paying attention. 

In the same segment, he talked about how Boehner's "Plan B" (That's the name of a birth control pill, right?) would raise taxes on the poor and middle classes because of other tax cuts that were part of the stimulus bill. Greg Sargent deals with this in detail in an article earlier today at The Plum Line blog, John Boehner, Scourge of the Wealthy, Ctd. ("Ctd." means "continued" because of a previous article.) He shows that half of the households in the top 1% would get a tax break. So this is not a serious plan.

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Newt Gingrich is still an idiot

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Does this make my dick look bigger?

There's really nothing Newt isn't willing to blame on his usual target of all that is wrong with America: secularism. And he was at it again in trying to explain the Sandy Hook massacre:

When you have an anti-religious, secular bureaucracy and secular judiciary seeking to drive God out of public life, something fills the vacuum. And that something, you know, I don't know that going from communion to playing war games in which you practice killing people is necessarily an improvement.

Right, because it wasn't the easily-accessible assault weapons or the mental illness, and as we all know there's never any violence like this when public life is all about God, Christianity being such a peaceful religion that never resorts to bloodshed.

For more, check out my post from November of last year, "Newt Gingrich, hypocrite extraordinaire, blames secularism for 'all the problems we have.'" 

Fucking, fucking idiot.

Getting it

By Mustang Bobby

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has decided to veto a bill that would have allowed concealed weapons in such places as schools, day care centers, sports arenas, bars, places of worship, hospitals, dorms, and casinos. The bill had been passed by the legislature the night before the massacre in Connecticut.

That might have had something to do with his decision to back away from the bill.

So might this:

The approval rating of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) is in the gutter, according to a poll released Tuesday, the strongest evidence yet of the political perils associated with the right-to-work legislation he signed into law last week.

According to the latest automated survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, only 38 percent of Michigan voters approve of the job Snyder is doing, compared with 56 percent who disapprove. In PPP's previous survey of Michigan in November, Snyder's approval rating was 10 points above water: 47 percent of voters approved of his performance as governor, while 37 percent disapproved.

The right-to-work bill, signed by Snyder amid mass protests, appears to have changed the political climate in the Great Lake State. Fifty-one percent of Michigan voters oppose the bill, which made Michigan the country's 24th right-to-work state, while 41 percent support the legislation. Moreover, Snyder trails every Democrat in hypothetical matchups of the 2014 gubernatorial election.

To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, nothing focuses the mind like impending political oblivion. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

WaPo hit piece on Hagel

By Frank Moraes

(Ed. note: Hagel is also being targeted by Billy Kristol and the neocons, of course, basically because he doesn't gleefully fellate Israel. I'm still not sold on Hagel, and I doubt I ever will be, but this just makes me like him all the more. -- MJWS)

I've had my problems with the idea of Chuck Hagel as the new Defense Secretary. Why is it not possible to have a liberal? Why does Obama continue to try to court the right by having Republicans in his cabinet? But The Washington Post has a different take on this in an editorial, "Chuck Hagel is not the right choice for defense secretary." According to them, Hagel is to the left of Obama, and that's a bad thing.

So what are Hagel's sins? First, they claim that nominating a Republican is only done in the name of bipartisanship. Somehow they don't even consider that maybe Republicans of only a few years ago are now to the left of our current president. That can't be. Obama's choice of Hagel would only be to make nice with the right and so he apparently has to pick someone like Allen West.

The biggest problem for The Washington Post is that Hagel thinks going to war with Iran is a bad idea. "Mr. Obama may be forced to contemplate military action if Iran refuses to negotiate..." But the Post does not know how Hagel would act in that situation. Regardless, he would be pursuing Obama's agenda, not his own.
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Chris Christie, America's governor, says he'll be ready next time

By Richard K. Barry

The "next time" to which Christie refers is 2016 for a potential run at the presidency. As he said in an interview in Newark on Tuesday night:

I wasn't ready to run for President this time. If it comes, I know that I will be more ready for it than I would have been this year.

He added:

We lost two national elections in a row. We're not connecting with Americans on the issues that matter most to them. We haven't had the best candidates. I believe that Mitt Romney is a good man. I was out supporting him before anyone else, but he simply didn't connect with Americans.

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Maybe now

By Capt. Fogg

Maybe now's the time. The NRA has taken a serious body blow and in general, the American public is losing faith in the extremists of the GOP and its ability to solve our problems. A CNN poll shows that a majority, albeit a small one, thinks the GOP is too extreme and I don't think we need a poll to show that the National Rifle Association, its frequent unindicted conspirator, is aware that it has blood on its hands. The nation's largest and loudest gun lobby all but turned out the lights and pulled down the shades for 4 days after the Newtown incident and had nothing to say as 300 protesters arrived at their headquarters on Monday.

They have scheduled a news conference for tomorrow and have announced that:

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

Wouldn't that be nice, but while that remains to be seen, I'm given to wonder if the changes they propose and proposed by others will be meaningful as well, or as is often the case, haphazard, oblivious to facts and doomed to be ineffective at best.

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Boehner's failure leaves Obama with all the leverage

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Two must-read posts from Jonathan Chait (with whom I disagree somewhat on what we should be willing to give up for a deal but who as usual is providing some of the soundest commentary on the current fiscal clusterfuck): 

-- Boehner's Plan B Fails; Inmates Running Asylum

-- House Republicans Again Show Why We Need to Wait Until January for a Deal

Basically, Boehner can't get a deal done, at least not a deal that is remotely acceptable to Democrats and that President Obama will sign, even though the president has put a lot on the table already that arouses the wrath of progressives (understandably, in my view) and event though there's no doubt a Republican-friendly deal could get done (if only they were prepared to allow modest tax increases on the rich).

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A place to start

By Mustang Bobby 

Charlie Pierce has a suggestion on how to institute gun control: go after the companies that make and sell them.

This could be the start of something real — a disinvestment campaign, modeled on the one aimed at companies doing business in South Africa and, later, at the tobacco industry, on the part of police, and fire, and school teachers' unions to remove their money from the marketing end of mass killing. A campaign that would redefine gun violence as a public-health crisis, as David Satcher tried to do years ago, and to redefine it on the balance sheet, where that would really count. This could be the start of holding the people who really make the money accountable for how they make it. You could close the NRA tomorrow, and there'd be another lobbying arm started up by armaments money within the hour. You could shoot Wayne LaPierre to the moon, and there'd be 100 other lobbyists lining up to take his place. Both LaPierre and the NRA serve not their members, but weapons manufacturers. (That's why all those polls about "rank and file" NRA members who support, say, background checks, are worthless. At its top, the organization no more answers to them than it does to the Brady Campaign.) The paranoia stoked by NRA fundraising — which, alas, seems to have worked its dark magic on Adam Lanza's mother — is not directed merely against sensible gun legislation. It's to sell more guns to the people who marinate themselves in that paranoia, so the people who make the guns can make even more money. That's the place you want to paint the bullseye.

This is America, after all: the place where everyone wants to make a buck... and then go out and shoot one.

Weaker Boehner's morning after pill

By Carl 

The so-called "Republican Plan B" for avoiding the fiscal cliff will be brought up for a vote today. Like the real-life Plan B, it's pretty much going to be prophylactic in getting passed on into the uterus. I mean, Senate:

House Speaker John Boehner has proposed Plan B, which would extend Bush-era tax cuts on income of up to $1 million. He described it as a fallback option to prevent a sweeping tax hike while negotiations continue on a broader plan. 

GOP leaders also had planned to vote Thursday on President Barack Obama's long-standing proposal to return to the higher tax rates of the 1990s on income above $250,000 for families.

But Republicans decided to drop their plan to vote on extending tax breaks on incomes over $250,000. One GOP aide said that since the president has moved the threshold to $400,000, there is no point to that exercise. 

What's astounding about this plan, even this minimally effective plan, is that Boener is having trouble rounding up enough votes to get it through his House. He's had to hand out lollipops to the children in his caucus, even to the point where the sequestration that both parties in both houses of Congress agreed to two years ago are up for modification.

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A.M. Headlines

(NBC News): "Funerals become a sad routine for anguished Newtown as mourners set to bury 2 more teachers, 4 children"

(New York Times): "Obama facing critical choice after shooting"

(Boston Globe): "Obama urges compromise on fiscal cliff"

(Wall Street Journal): "GOP unveils a "Plan B" if budget talks fail"

(The Hill): "Obama: Climate change among top three priorities for second term"

What could have been: Robert Bork

By Frank Moraes 

It is a sad day. Robert Bork died this morning. But that's not why it's sad. It's sad because of the great opportunity we missed.

One incident in Bork's career explains everything about him. During the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon wanted Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox fired because, you know, he was doing his job. Attorney General Elliot Richardson refused to do it and resigned. So did his second in command, William Ruckelshaus. But Bork was willing to do it. Why? Because he's an authoritarian.

But we missed a great opportunity to have him on the Supreme Court. Instead, we got Clarence Thomas who is 20 years younger than Bork and, more to the point, is not dead. There is really no daylight between Bork and Thomas in terms of how they rule on the cases. They both think children ought to be forced to pray in public school. Women shouldn't have the right to an abortion. People don't have a right to privacy.

Read more »

P.M. Headlines

(Reuters): "White House readies gun-control plan as more children laid to rest"

(CNN): "CNN Poll: Bare majority now support major gun restrictions"

(Washington Post): "Chuck Hagel for defense secretary?"

(Bloomberg): "Building permits increase as US housing rebounds"

(New York Times): "3 resign at State Department after Libya attack report"

(L.A. Times): "Robert Bork, rejected Supreme Court nominee, dies at 85"

Chained CPI madness

By Frank Moraes 

I'm getting sick of having to talk about this stuff. The possible Chained CPI change would be even worse for future retirees than it is for current retirees. According to Greg Sargent at The Plum Line, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is willing to go along with the Chained CPI madness "if it is offset with a small increase in Social Security benefits for longtime beneficiaries." Remember: the CBPP is a liberal group. But does that also mean that they are brainless?

If we use Chained CPI for Social Security, it will mean that the cost of living adjustments will be at least 0.3% too low every year. For current retirees, that means that in ten years, they will see about a 3% reduction in their real (inflation adjusted) benefits. This comes to roughly $100 per month. This is important and we should not accept it. The CBPP is suggesting that we adjust very old retirees' benefits up. There are two problems with this.

First, if we know that the Chained CPI is wrong -- that it won't allow benefits to keep up with inflation -- why are we doing it? The answer, as I've already discussed, is that those in power in Washington want to cut benefits. But they are cowards and don't want to be seen as doing so. So they use this convenient backdoor to gut Social Security.

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Guns: providing freedom and taking it away since 1791

By tmcbpatriot 

Friday's atrocity is starting to sink in with each new day, and it just gets worse and worse. I have not been reading a thing about the killer or the children or that crazed woman who birthed this maniac. I can't. I think I hit my limit with this one. I honestly have to look away. Even reading the news is hard because every story is interspersed with a photo of a dead child who was my son's age. I stare at him while he is eating dinner and try not to imagine, but it just creeps in there and I have to push it away. 

Now, I expected the nuts to come out swinging after this insanity and say their usual line about how it's not guns that kill people, it's people. Guns, they say, have nothing to do with it. It is an incredible feat of the brain to come up with such a theory. To say it without even the slightest sense of awareness or irony is simply chilling and maddening to say the least. These people go on to make comparisons saying things like pencils don't make typos, writers do, or cars don't crash into trees, drivers do. One nut on my blog said this in the comments of my previous post:

Those guns killed no one, the mental missfit tool holding them did, the black trench coat, black brief case carrying tard killed those people and your liberal stench enables whackos like this to roam freely all amongst the general population. You dont like guns, MOVE.

I dare not ask this insane person what happens to me if I don't move. My guess is that he would shoot me.

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Connecticut school massacre: More blood on the NRA's hands

By Marc McDonald

In the aftermath of the deadly shooting that killed 27, including 20 children, at a Connecticut elementary school, there's one theme the mainstream media have been repeating over and over again. 

That is: How could this tragedy possibly happen? 

Actually, there's no mystery at all. 

The problem is that America has practically zero meaningful regulations on guns, thanks to the assholes at the National Rifle Association, an organization that has had great success in pushing its extremist agenda on America over the past 30 years. 

The NRA's vast power is the main reason that America today has far weaker gun restrictions than it did a century ago. For example, in my state of Texas, in the 1890s, it was illegal to carry a concealed gun, unlike today. Which raises a question: how, exactly, did Texans manage to get by back in the 1890s with gun laws that were more restrictive than what we have now? 

One issue that I never hear discussed when there is a tragedy like this is (ironically enough) the Second Amendment's actual text. Oh, sure, the gun nuts regularly talk about the Second Amendment in a general sense. But nobody ever actually cites the actual wording of the amendment. 

There's a good reason for this. Despite what the gun nuts would have us believe, the wording of the Second Amendment is very convoluted and vague.

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The new guy: Tim Scott and Republican extremism

By Mustang Bobby

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has appointed Rep. Tim Scott to fill out the remainder of Sen. Jim DeMint's term in the U.S. Senate. Mr. DeMint, you'll recall, announced his resignation recently so he could go run the Heritage Foundation and turn it into a Tea Party enclave. I'm sure the fact that the previous president of the foundation raked in over $1 million in salary versus the paltry six figures earned by a senator had absolutely nothing to do with it.

As ThinkProgress notes, Mr. Scott's views on issues are virtually the same as Mr. DeMint's, and in his brief career in the House — he was first elected in 2010 — he has made some interesting news: 

Proposed a bill to cut off food stamps for entire families if one member went on strike. One of the most anti-union members of Congress, Scott proposed a bill two months after entering Congress in 2011 to kick families off food stamps if one adult were participating in a strike. Scott's legislation made no exception for children or other dependents. 

Wanted to spend an unlimited amount of money to display Ten Commandments outside county building. When Scott was on the Charleston County Council, one of his primary issues was displaying the Ten Commandments outside the Council building. According to the Augusta Chronicle, Scott said the display "would remind council members and speakers the moral absolutes they should follow." When he was sued for violating the Constitution and a Circuit Judge's orders, Scott was nonplussed: "Whatever it costs in the pursuit of this goal (of displaying the Commandments) is worth it."

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Megan McArdle writes the stupidest thing in response to the Connecticut school massacre

By Mustang Bobby

(Ed. note: In case you missed it, see also Jon Chait's post, "McArdle Wins Worst Newtown Reaction Award." Her comments really were remarkably stupid even by her standards. -- MJWS)

Megan McArdle at The Daily Beast says that to prevent another schoolhouse massacre, kids should rush the attacker:

I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once.

Apparently she was serious.

Not that I would wish that sort of thing on anyone, but the next time it happens, let's all turn to Ms. McArdle and tell her, "You first."

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Obama to sell out Social Security?

By Frank Moraes 

(Ed. note: Frank will have more on so-called "Chained CPI" later today. Stay tuned. -- MJWS)

Ezra Klein is again reporting that a Fiscal Cliff deal is almost done. And once again, I don't get this deal. He says that we will see the 39.6% tax bracket but only for incomes over a million dollars. There will be something less for incomes over $250,000 amount. In return for this, the president gets an extension of unemployment benefits and some unnamed stimulus spending. But the payroll tax cut will end. And the biggest thing of all: we will change the way that cost of living adjustments to Social Security are made.

People are calling this new Chained CPI a reduction in benefits. It is most definitely that! But it is also a backdoor way of destroying Social Security. The program will not keep up with inflation. Over the long term, the program will become more and more irrelevant. And that's why conservatives (and to a lesser extent "liberals") have been pushing this for decades. The truth is that the current COLA for Social Security is probably too low, because of what seniors actually buy. For example, they buy a lot of drugs that don't go down in price and they buy relatively few electronic devices that do.

The trick to Chained CPI is that it assumes that people will substitute. If flashlights get too expensive, people will switch to lanterns! Really. Although it is more along the lines of energy substitution. If heating oil gets too expensive, people will switch to gas. The problem is that this is very likely not an option. When was the last time you changed your water heating system because the price of energy changed? And how much did it cost? But again, the point is not to more accurately model how prices increase; it is to destroy Social Security; or at least to cut it without anyone noticing.

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A.M. Headlines

(New York Times): "Obama facing critical choice after shooting"

(Politico): "Barack Obama to announce gun task force"

(CNN): "Obama not expected to lay out specific policy decisions"

(Los Angeles Times): "Gun lobby's grip on Congress threatened"

(BuzzFeed): `NRA promises 'meaningful' contribution"

(ThinkProgress): "Michigan Gov. Snyder to veto bill allowing guns in school"

(The Atlantic Wire): "Conservatives think Hillary Clinton faked her concussion"

Photo of the Day: Same-sex marriage proposal at the White House

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via Mustang Bobby, from here:

U.S. Marine Corps captain Matthew Phelps gets down on one knee to propose to partner Ben Schock on Saturday night in the first same-sex marriage proposal at the White House.

Be a real man

By Frank Moraes

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend about self-confidence. I am a nervous wreck about what people think of me. If I'm at a club, I find it almost impossible to dance. Or in my work, I've created a number of videos that even I think are rather good, but I can't quite bring myself to post them. It is all so pathetic. But I find it very interesting that I have complete self-confidence about myself as a man. People can openly ridicule me about being weak or bookish or whatever. I don't care. I think I am the very definition of what a man should be. Even more: I find many men to be very insecure in this regard. In fact, it is largely what defines "male culture."

Part of this whole disconnect for me is that I just don't get "guy" stuff. In particular, I don't get guns. I enjoy target shooting. I find guns to be a fascinating technology. And I can definitely get into the skill improvement aspect of it. But guns mean a lot more than this to most guys who are into them. I think they are compensating. Note: I'm not saying that these guys aren't "real" men. I just think they are confused about what a man is and so they try to make up for it by faking.

I've seen a lot of ads from this Bushmaster "man card" campaign. I think these people know very well that there is a hole that needs filling in the soul of the American man. The one above just happens to be for the .223-caliber rifle that was used by Adam Lanza on Friday. I don't mean to imply any causal connection here. That's not my point. My point is that guns are sold in this way for a reason.

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Fox only likes certain amendments

By Richard K. Barry

Isn't free speech a wonderful thing? Not if you work at Fox, apparently. New York magazine is reporting that the network doesn't want its on-air personalities talking about gun control, at least not over this past weekend:

According to sources, David Clark, the executive producer in charge of Fox's weekend coverage, gave producers instructions not to talk about gun-control policy on air. "This network is not going there," Clark wrote one producer on Saturday night, according to a source with knowledge of the exchange. The directive created a rift inside the network. According to a source, one political panelist e-mailed Clark that Bloomberg was booked on Meet the Press to talk about gun control. Clark responded, "We haven't buried the children yet, we're not discussing it." During the weekend, one frustrated producer went around Clark to lobby Michael Clemente, Fox's executive vice-president for news editorial, but Clemente upheld the mandate. "We were expressly forbidden from discussing gun control," the source said.

Clearly Fox is taking the issue of future gun violence seriously as indicated by the geniuses at Fox & Friends who invited Gov. Mike Huckabee to come on the show and discuss the topic, "do we need to get prayer back into our schools?" Gee, I missed the program, but my guess is that he thought that would be a grand idea. Okay, problem solved!