There's no "liberal media" on the Republican-friendly Sunday talk-show circuit

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Our friend Steve Benen performs yet another valuable service in identifying who made the most appearances on the major Sunday talk shows in 2013:

You'll note the obvious, and if you've been paying attention you'll see confirmed what you saw this past year:

The general impression is rooted in fact: the Sunday shows love Republicans. "Meet the Press," "Face the Nation," "This Week," "State of the Union," and "Fox News Sunday," hoping to reflect and help shape the conventional wisdom for the political world, collectively favor GOP guests over Democratic guests every year, but who were the big winners in 2013?

The above chart shows every political figure who made 10 or more Sunday show appearances this year, with red columns representing Republicans and blue columns representing Democrats. For 2013, the race wasn't especially close – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) easily came out on top, making 27 appearances this year.

*****

In all, 10 of the top 13 are Republicans, as are six of the top seven.

I actually had no idea that Rogers had made that many appearances (though it makes sense that the media would favor him, given his intelligence role, just like McCaul with his homeland security role), but otherwise it's the usual suspects, the right-wing darlings who command the media attention in Washington, notably McCain, Gingrich (who of course doesn't even hold office), Graham, Paul, and King.

Sure, there are a few Democrats on the list, but they're of the establishment variety (Durbin, Schumer) or otherwise on the right wing of the party (Manchin, likely there in large measure for his bipartisan efforts to enact pro-gun gun control after Newtown). And while there are a number of far-right Republicans on the list (Cruz, Corker, Paul), there are no genuine progressives at all.

Read more »

The new gun-control movement, post-Newtown

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I wasn't terribly disappointed when the Manchin-Toomey gun bill was defeated in the Senate (even though it got well more than 50 votes, because of a Republican filibuster), because it was a bad bill. But it did include an expanded background checks provision, along with various pro-gun provisions, and so in the end it was probably better than nothing.

And yet in defeat that bill did more for the gun-control movement that it would have done had it ever become law, and in that sense a lot of good may come from what at the time seemed like a serious, embarrassing, and revealing setback.

Actually, though, it started not on April 17, 2013, but on December 14, 2012, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. There had been many other mass shootings previously in America, including recently at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, but Newtown was different. It was a brutal attack on a school, where parents leave their children and expect them to be safe, and the fact that so many children were killed in cold blood was simply too shocking, too powerful, too overwhelming, to ignore. (And there was a cultural/racial element to it as well. This wasn't inner-city Detroit. This was a part of America with which more Americans, including the political and media elites who shape public opinion, could identify. It's easy, sadly so, for many to ignore the plight of a city like Detroit. But if it could happen in Newtown, it could happen anywhere.)

This is not to say that the country was suddenly ready for significant gun control. That will take time. No, if not that, it was at least ready for something meaningful to be done to curb gun violence, to put a stop if at all possible to a mostly unregulated gun market that has resulted in guns, including weapons of mass destruction for which there is no reasonable justification for private ownership, falling into the wrong hands way too many times.

President Obama himself took the lead. In an incredibly moving vigil in Newtown a few days after the shooting, he said:

We can't tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.

And this: 

Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Avielle, Allison, God has called them all home. 

For those of us who remain, let us find the strength to carry on and make our country worthy of their memory.

Yes, the country was finally ready, at least for expanded background checks, and perhaps for much more, and they overwhelmingly expressed that in poll after poll. 

Read more »

Craziest Republican of the Day: Pat Toomey

By Michael J.W. Stickings

No, not for his and Democrat Joe Manchin's less-than-stellar but probably better-than-nothing gun control bill that went down in the Senate because of a Republican filibuster but because he is blaming his fellow Republicans for its failure.

And not because he's necessarily wrong, because he may be right, but because it's generally not a wise thing to do to criticize Republicans if you're a Republican yourself, particularly if the Republicans you're criticizing pretty much dominate the party. Actually, it's not just unwise, it's fucking crazy if you have any hope of getting your party to support you ever again:

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) revealed that some members of his party opposed expanding background checks for gun sales recently because they didn't want to "be seen helping the president."

Two weeks ago, only three Republican senators voted for the bipartisan background checks amendment sponsored by Toomey and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), despite overwhelming popular support for such a measure.

"In the end it didn't pass because we're so politicized. There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it,” Toomey admitted on Tuesday in an interview with Digital First Media editors in the offices of the Times Herald newspaper in Norristown, Pa.

Republicans are "politicized" and obstructionist -- opposed to anything and everything the president wants to do simply because it's the president? Sure. This has been the Republican strategy ever since Obama took office. It's a way of life now for Mitch McConnell and the minority Republicans in the Senate.

Read more »

Manchin-Toomey: A gun control "compromise" manufactured by the gun lobby

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Gun-crazy "bipartisanship"

I wrote on Friday that there was no hope in hell of meaningful gun control legislation getting through Congress. Manchin-Toomey may be a "bipartisan" "compromise," insofar as it has a few Republican backers, but even if it were to get through the Senate it would still have the House to contend with -- and there the NRA, which opposes the measure, has even more sway. Which is to say, we're a long way even from this limited measure making its way into law, and it may never get there.

Ah, but the tide is turning, is it not, what with two Republican senators -- John McCain and Susan Collins, joining Mark Kirk -- coming out this weekend in support?

Well, there's your "bipartisanship" on an issue that has the overwhelming support of Americans: Democrats plus a few Republicans. And we're not talking about a comprehensive gun control package here. This is just expanded background checks (important, yes, but not nearly enough). And even then McCain's support is a tad wishy-washy: he's "very favorably disposed," which is not a full endorsement, leaving him more than enough room to back out. What's more, Republican Jeff Sessions, a staunch opponent, said yesterday that he didn't think the measure would pass, and co-sponsor Pat Toomey acknowledged that passage is an "open question."

And again, this is just the Senate.

But okay, let's say it does pass, and let's say House Republicans buck the NRA, however unlikely, and support it, doing the least they can do as a way to make it seem like they're doing something, appealing to popular opinion, while pushing off having to do anything else. And let's say President Obama signs it, which he would, even though he's called for much more, because it's something, and something is supposedly better than nothing, and he likes the whole bipartisan thing anyway.

Read more »

Not a hope in hell: Gun control now up for debate in Senate

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There was much ado yesterday about the bipartisan (but still mostly Democratic) Manchin-Toomey proposal to broaden background checks for gun purchases (specifically to cover gun shows and the Internet), a deal that broke the NRA-backed Republican filibuster (the cloture motion passing 68-31) and allows for debate on the Senate floor of a package of gun control measures supported by Obama and the Democrats (and, of course, opposed by most Republicans and the NRA).

Is it a step in the right direction? Yes. Is it possible that something will end up passing, even if it's just expanded background checks (which would certainly be good in and of themselves but which aren't nearly enough)? Sure. And is it encouraging that Majority Leader Harry Reid is demanding a renewed ban on assault weapons and limits on the size of ammunition magazines. Of course.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. You know how the Senate works, you know what Republicans are all about, and you know that the Republican-led House isn't about to support anything resembling meaningful gun control legislation. Indeed, as Jonathan Bernstein writes in a sober -- and depressing -- post looking past yesterday's pro-debate vote to what lies ahead:

[W]e still don't know that an intact bill can make it to the final vote stage in the Senate; we still don't know if an intact bill can defeat a filibuster to get to that final vote; we don't know whether the House would take up a bill if it did pass the Senate; and we don't even know whether a bill could get a majority in the House even if they did take it up. So there's a long, long, ways to go. What happened [yesterday] was the easiest part.

In other words, as it says over the gates of hell in Dante's Inferno: "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."

As you may know, that translates as "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

With Republicans able to block whatever they want, there's really no hope at all.

Craziest Republican of the Day: John Raese

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Surprise!

The Republican candidate for Senate from West Virginia is a global warming denier. As he put it in an interview with RealClearPolitics, quoted at Think Progress:

The oceans that surround the world produce 185 billion tons of CO2 per annum. Man per annum only produces six billion tons, so what could possibly be the concern? One volcano puts out more toxic gases-one volcano-than man makes in a whole year. And when you look at this "climate change," and when you look at the regular climate change that we all have in the world, we have warm and we have cooling spells.

I suspect that global warming denying is quite common in coal-rich West Virginia, but of course it's a pretty standard position throughout the Republican Party -- even if, in this case, Raese looks especially stupid. As Think Progress notes, showing him to be a fool and perhaps a liar:

Human activity puts about 29 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, well over 100 times as much as all the volcanoes in the world. The oceans actually vent about 332 billion tons of CO2 per year, but also absorb that much. Human emissions have disrupted the balance of the carbon cycle, leading to rising concentrations of greenhouse pollution in the atmosphere. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 40 percent, and global temperatures are on an inexorable rise, overwhelming any natural cycles.

Not that the facts are stopping him, as he is hitting his opponent, Gov. Joe Manchin, hard on energy and the environment:

Raese said that his campaign will launch a new television ad on Tuesday hitting his opponent-Democratic Governor Joe Manchin-for pushing through the state legislature last year the Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Act, which compelled West Virginia's utilities to obtain 25 percent of their electricity from alternative energy sources by 2025.

"We call it cap and trade Manchin-style," Raese said. "Do the people of West Virginia trust a governor in the state of West Virginia who has already implemented cap and trade here in West Virginia? They're a little concerned about sending him to Washington right now."

Right, it's just a market-based system, spurring innovation in the private sector, designed to address the most pressing crisis of our time. Why would a Republican ever oppose that?

Obviously, Raese is playing on fear, anger, and ignorance in a state that is worried about the loss of the coal industry. Given the poor state of the electorate, it may just work.

Especially if enough voters buy his utter craziness about volcanos.

Worst Democrat of the Day: Joe Manchin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Another cowardly Democrat sucking up to Republicans:

In Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin's quest to strike a bipartisan chord as he campaigns to fill the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd's seat, he's joining the GOP's call to repeal pieces of health care reform.

Manchin endorsed President Obama's efforts on landmark health care reform and voiced support for the bill before and after its passage in March. Now, just five weeks away from a tougher Senate race than he expected against Republican John Raese, the governor said in an interview with RealClearPolitics that he supports many basic components of the law but volunteered that some of it needs to be repealed.

"I believe in health care reform. I don't believe in the way this bill was passed," Manchin said Sunday afternoon. "Why they overreached, I don't know."

The way it was passed? And how was that? With overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate? With Republicans opposing and obstructing anything and everything despite Obama's many overtures and Democrats' willingness to seek bipartisan cooperation and repeatedly to cave in and make concessions to the point where the final bill ended up looking an awful lot like the anti-Hillarycare Republican plan from the '90s? I mean, it's not like it included even a modest public option, for fuck's sake.

I realize that Gov. Manchin is trying to win a tough race in a fairly conservative state, but wouldn't be nice if these Democrats actually stood up proudly for what they believe in and defended their party's record as the party of the sort of meaningful change America needs?