The reason we don’t have a Surgeon General is because of the NRA, Blue Dogs and Republican intransigence:
The nominee, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, an internist and political ally of the president’s, has come under criticism from the National Rifle Association, and opposition from the gun-rights group has grown so intense that it has placed Democrats from conservative states, several of whom are up for re-election this year, in a difficult spot.
Senate aides said Friday that as many as 10 Democrats are believed to be considering a vote against Dr. Murthy, who has voiced support for various gun control measures like an assault weapons ban, mandatory safety training and ammunition sales limits.
Of course it’s just taken as a given that Republicans will never support anything Obama does, so the 10 Blue Dogs who can’t stomach a Fox News second amendment shitstorm get the rap for blocking Murthy even though every single Republican would block Jesus H Christ, MD PhD if Obama nominated him. That said, the Senate is still in session. Why not confirm him now?
Baud
The Senate isn’t out for the election?
constitutional mistermix
@Baud: It’s in pro forma sessions, yes:
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/d_three_sections_with_teasers/calendars.htm
I assume anyone with an election isn’t in town but they could have a vote if they wanted to.
Pee Cee
Why does the NRA hate Eddie Eagle?
max
even though every single Republican would block Jesus H Christ, MD PhD if Obama nominated him
Fox News: ‘You won’t believe what Obama has done now!’
max
[‘He’s nominated a dyed-in-the-wool communist!’]
Chris
The NRA is the poster child for the fact that if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile (more like a lightyear). There are few debates that’ve been won as thoroughly by the right as the gun control debate on the national level, and yet, they still need to find things to flex their muscles on.
“Give a man power and he’ll abuse it” might not be universally true, but “give a right winger power and he’ll abuse it” most definitely is.
GregB
This is great news for John McCain.
paradox
Well, technically the Democrats still have a majority in the Senate, but because filibuster reform failed we have no nominee.
Now, yes, there a re 10 filthy spineless blue dogs on the vote, but some leadership and urgency of the matter could sway enough.
Filibuster reform was not held up by principle, it was blocked by monstrous egos who want the power at their very own fingertips to stop a bill.
Fo the trillionth time, junk that piece of shit bicameral Dianne Fienstein fucking horror show called a Senate. [shrugs] Completely futile statement, I know, but it should be stated on principle anyway.
This is what a successful presidency looks like. Oh my fucking god, please, a successful presidency would never happen without your Party in charge of Congress the whole time. We actually had that, but some fucking genius thought one inadequate stimulus was enough. Told y’all forever a million times it wasn’t, but what was the response? The Lily Ledbetter Act.
Yes the fucking Republicans are scumbags, but they wouldn’t be half so brazen if they hadn’t walked all over weenie Democrats before. If leadership is weenie for the fight then weeenie Democrats in Congress will run. That’s precisely how you get this filthy scenario when we desperately need a Surgeon General.
Where is Obama on the terrible cuts to NIH and this issue? Any decent politician would strangle the Republicans with it and then spit on their lousy corpse. What do we get? The Transformative One.
I’ll be in my short fiction for the rest of the day, this filthy shit has soiled by brain, life and dignity enough. If you can’t fight for the country and the Party god just shut up and get another job, I can’t believe how fucked the country is by all this cowardly evasiveness. [raises middle finger]
rikyrah
Karen Lewis has brain tumor, not running for mayor
Mon, 10/13/2014 – 5:01pm
Michael Sneed LAUREN FITZPATRICK AND FRAN SPIELMAN
Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, who just pulled out of mayoral contention, is suffering from a cancerous brain tumor that was diagnosed shortly after she experienced a severe headache last week.
As a result, Lewis underwent a five-hour surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she is scheduled to undergo a regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, according to a source close to Lewis.
The tumor had nothing to do with her weight loss surgery in Mexico.
Lewis has wanted Mayor Rahm Emanuel gone practically since he took office, but she will not be the one to unseat him in February, the head of her mayoral exploratory committee said Monday.
The feisty 61-year-old CTU leader will not run for mayor, Jay Travis, the head of her mayoral exploratory committee said in a statement Monday.
“Karen Lewis has decided to not pursue a mayoral bid,” Travis said. “Yet she charges us to continue fighting for strong neighborhood schools, safe communities and good jobs for everyone.
“The tens of thousands of signatures collected for Karen confirm what the polls have already said: Chicagoans from Beverly to Uptown want to feel safe in their neighborhoods; they want an elected representative school board; and they want political leadership at every level that is responsive and responsible.”
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/karen-lewis-has-brain-tumor-not-running-mayor/mon-10132014-501pm
Punchy
On the topic of “Killing Us All”, this blurb at the end of this article:
These fuckers are so scared of the Ebola boogeyman that they wont even take creamated ashes of the virus. Ashes of the virus are now seemingly infectous in Louisiana. Unfuckingreal the stupidity.
rikyrah
it’s quite interesting that nobody in the MSM will bring up that we don’t have a Surgeon General and WHY
FlipYrWhig
@paradox:
Um, no. This nominee isn’t being jacked up because of a filibuster. He’s being jacked up because he doesn’t have majority support.
geg6
@rikyrah:
I am about to choke while typing this, but I have to give CBS News some credit here. My John was watching it last night and I caught part of the report on this and they totally discussed the lack of a Surgeon General and why. I almost passed out from the shock.
Face
@FlipYrWhig: And if the election goes badly for Dems, as expected, the only candidates the Senate would consider for SG are Ted Nugent or Doughy Loadpants. Anyone to the left of Theodore Cruz doesn’t even get a hearing.
Botsplainer
@Punchy:
Even worse, the injunction was granted.
Meanwhile, Louisiana is the happy recipient of unknown content fracking waste because jobs and Freedom.
Cervantes
@Face:
Don’t expect! Get out the vote. And I mean that literally: early voting has begun in many places.
(By the way: while “Ted” is actually “Rafael Edward,” your ironic “Theodore” fits him nicely, too.)
RaflW
I saw on twitter that Fox was going after Obama on the Ebolas last night.
My question is, if Texas is such a Republican utopia, and Rick Perry is the governor there, why the fuck isn’t what’s happening in Dallas glued to his ass?
States are the laboratory of democracy, jackass.
Botsplainer
@RaflW:
“Ah’m from the gubmint, and you’re on your own, you goddamned moocher. Sew on your own fuckin’ bootstraps. Somebody at mah church could make some money off these contracts I got at a leetle markup, so amble your ass on outta here, shoo before Ah pop a round off at you….”
OzarkHillbilly
@paradox: You need to stop beating around the bushes and tell us how you really feel.
boatboy_srq
Someone please remind me why the NRA, who has shown a remarkable propensity to pressure anyone left of Franco into doing their bidding then campaigning against the same for
unOrthodoxyinsufficient dedication to the 2nd Amendment, is a force any Democrat should be listening to in 2014. It doesn’t matter how Blue Dogs vote, the NRA is their sworn enemy at this point, and no vote they could cast short of mandating proof of firearms ownership for voter registration will be sufficient.RaflW
@Punchy: Yeah, well, this is what happens when edumacashun in ‘Merica keeps deteriorating.
The death rate from guns, trans fats, drunk driving and everything else remains unchanged. But by g-d, we won’t be having those blackity black foreign Ebola ashes in precious Louisiana. Nosiree!
lamh36
“Nearly 50 people were exposed to Ebola before the nurse, and none of them has been diagnosed with the disease.” http://t.co/Ai6GWqEF7T
In other words, she fucked up…IJS
PIGL
How is the NRA not a proscribed terrorist organisation, how come it’s leaders are not in prison, wherefore are the shadowy billionaires backing it still fucking breathing?
It’s not the Village whose heads need to be on pikes, much as that would become most of them…it’s the backers of the junta in being.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@paradox:
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass as you go fuck off.
boatboy_srq
@Botsplainer: @RaflW: That’s cuz oil’n’gas men done made that there state, and eeebowlah is one o’ them sciencey terms like raydeeayshun – and we all know now that raydeeayshun is bad fer ya even though they done said it weren’t for decades. We’ll trust the folks what made us
sickrich, thankeeverruhmuch./snark
Botsplainer
@lamh36:
My guess has been that she either stuck herself or (more likely) was sloppy in washing up after taking off her gear, followed by mouth, nose or eye touching. If you follow the protocol to the letter, it works.
Elizabelle
@geg6:
CBS Evening News gets brownie points from me, too.
I think they’ve looked at NBC’s warmongering and ABC’s “we’re young and hip: here’s a dog video that’s gone viral! You need to see it!” and decided actually doing the news might be a winning strategy for them.
Walter Cronkite approves.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq:
“Should”? No. But “should” doesn’t matter here. Some of them _do_ listen to the NRA, not because they think it earns them any chits with the NRA, but because going against the NRA paints a target, so to speak, on their backs. In close races, as with bear attacks, you don’t want to make any big sudden movements. They want to keep the crazies in their customary, baseline level of craziness, rather than getting them all amped up. It’s a defensible, if uninspiring, strategy. But that’s what running as a Democrat in a red state is like.
Cervantes
@paradox: OK, so what’s the paradox?
Also, thanks for your service. Are you prouder of the food-bank garden or your time in the Navy?
Cervantes
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): You showed him, didn’t you?
(I won’t say what.)
Belafon
And as what’s-his-name in Alaska is finding out, being a Democrat and supporting the NRA will get you…not being endorsed by the NRA. Though the upside is they didn’t endorse his opponent.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
That’s why Dan Rather was taken down. He actually tried to do his job, more often than not.
FlipYrWhig
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Now, now, paradox was loudly for trillions of dollars of stimulus, and the mere fact that paradox is (presumably) not a member of Congress and has no connection to any decision, policymaking, or repercussions for same hardly dampens the significance of that view at all.
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig: The target is ALREADY on their backs. That’s the trouble. It doesn’t matter what votes they cast, the NRA has already judged them insufficiently armed and therefore in need of unseating and replacement. Look at the last two elections: Dems were opposed regardless of their voting record – including some with near-perfect NRA scores. It no longer matters – the NRA has become an overt partisan, and pandering to it will not help Dems in any way because the people they’re trying to convince no longer care about anything but the party affiliation.
Elizabelle
@Botsplainer:
And therein the issue. It’s humans who must follow the protocol. They need to make it redundant, with maybe another layer. Maybe a buddy system too.
I think being isolated and having your pets quarantined will get people motivated. Maybe the gowning stations should have a poster: “Want Fluffy and Little Billy to stay home? Stay vigilant with Ebola awareness. This can kill or hurt. Your pet and family too.”
Nurse Pham is in my thoughts. Nurses rock.
Citizen_X
@paradox:
BULLEE PULPITT!!!
Cervantes
@Belafon: In good faith or not I can’t say but I think Begich raised the question of Murthy’s age and experience as a physician — which is a valid question in general, I suppose, but I think Murthy in particular would make a fine SG and ought to be confirmed as soon as possible.
Elizabelle
@Cervantes:
There’s money and prestige to be made in actually providing news, even amidst today’s infotainment crap. Comedians have showed us the way.
And damn professional journalists for falling so far and leaving an opening for Jon Stewart and John Oliver and the incomparable Colbert.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig:
How about you? Do you feel you have “no connection to any decision, policymaking, or repercussions for same”? Because if so, you know, that might be part of the problem.
scav
I have to admit, I’m really going to enjoy watching the ‘Mercan Free
Market Health System is the best in the world and Exceptional! Don’t you dare touch it! Crowd run bleating to the Close the Borders! We need Designated Better Centers as All others are ill-equipped megaphone when Nigeria apparently managed to stomp on its outbreak. How exceptional.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle: I’m less enamored of Stewart than Oliver and especially Colbert — but other than that detail I couldn’t agree with you more.
OzarkHillbilly
@boatboy_srq: A lot of Democrats around here get “A” ratings from the NRA, without which they could not get elected to dog catcher. It would be nice if it was possible to have an intelligent discussion about guns in my locale but when one side endlessly repeats NRA talking points as facts, any discussion has already entered the lower quintiles. I have tried on occasion to introduce some uncomfortable facts into any such debates and invariably am met with embarrassed silence, and a quickly changed subject.
It may be personally satisfying, but I sure as sh!t haven’t changed any minds.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Because Democrats are terrified squishes who are more afraid of Republicans calling them names than they are of the people who put them in office. Fact.
I freely admit I have no idea how you solve this problem save by “withholding your vote from squish Democrats”, which has consequences that I think no sane person is willing to endorse. Certainly not me.
Rock, meet hard place.
PurpleGirl
@Elizabelle: NYC’s own hospitals have, I believe, already changed their protocols to include a system for nurses to work in pairs. The private hospitals usually follow what the City hospitals do.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Personal satisfaction is important!
Plus minds will change, slowly and eventually, where by “eventually” I mean that growth in the rate of carnage will simply not be sustainable. (Just my hopeful opinion, of course.)
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq: But they’re not “pandering to it,” they’re just trying to negate it as an animating campaign issue. IOW, “[Joe Democrat] hates guns and freedom” will probably always be on the table, but “[Joe Democrat] did this specific thing that got him on the news for how much he hates guns and freedom” may not be.
Also, some Democrats genuinely care about “Second Amendment Issues.” I’m personally a strict constructionist when it comes to the militia clause of the 2nd Amd., so I’m not someone who cares about “gun rights,” which does vastly more harm than good, as far as I can tell. But not all Democrats are like me. I just think we shouldn’t presume that pro-gun Democrats are “pandering,” meaning that deep in their souls they’re skeptical about guns but they pretend otherwise to get votes. Sometimes they actually believe things. Would that it weren’t so. But it, um, be.
Elizabelle
Warning: It’s HuffPost. Although written by Will Bunch, author of “Tear Down this Myth” about Ronald Reagan.
Gary Webb, Jon Stewart, and the Stories That Are Too True to Tell
Bunch caught a weekend showing of “Kill the Messenger”, starring Jeremy Renner as 1990s California journalist Gary Webb, and how his career suffered for getting too close to a huge story.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: My point is that it doesn’t mean two cold shits that “paradox” wanted a bigger stimulus. Paradox is just some dude. He doesn’t get credit for that wish, any more than a 2-year-old gets credit for wanting the orange sippy cup instead of the green one. It’s the easiest thing in the world to want. The part where the wanting turns into the doing, kind of slightly more important.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig: Agree on all counts.
Elizabelle
@Cervantes:
Yeah, I wince at Stewart often. Too much “both sides”, but when he is on, he is on.
Maybe he believes the “both sides” crap, and maybe he goes softly so he does not seem too overly partisan. Because facts do have a liberal bias, once presented fairly.
Colbert is one of the bravest individuals ever. And funny too. Killer combo.
FlipYrWhig
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
You assume that the people who put them in office don’t share their views on issues like gun “rights.” I think this assumption is false.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: ^5
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig: Are you arguing that one need not respect someone’s opinion about legislation unless he’s a Senator who enacted it, or a President who signed it, into law?
You can’t be arguing that — so what are you arguing?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
I got an NRA anti-Hagan robocall yesterday that lasted a minute and a half. I couldn’t stomach listening to it, so I put the phone down and just listened for the babbling to stop. I think they got the same voice actor who does the “The FBI Reports a break in every 15 minutes…” calls.
Heard a new Kay Hagan ad this morning pushing back against Tillis’ “Hagan is leaving our troops with nothing to show for the blood they spent in Iraq” ads. And she sounded pissed.
And last night I made a friend mad when I pointed out that her anti-ebola preparations were useless for the stated purpose. You have to protect the mucous tissues, including the eyes. Latex gloves and cloth surgical masks ain’t gonna do it, but apparently eye protection costs too much. smdh
I did say that her prep list is perfect for a major flu outbreak, which is infinitely more likely to happen, and said that I think that’s great. Just please don’t add to the misinformation and panic.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: Paradox was establishing his (?) bona fides by saying he (?) wanted a bigger stimulus: “Told y’all forever a million times it wasn’t” big enough. I don’t think this is a very convincing Toldja So. Why wasn’t it bigger? Obvious reasons. I could tell y’all forever a million times that cold fusion would revolutionize energy production. Whoop dee doo. Is it possible? Kind of a more important question, no?
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig: You’re still missing my point. The NRA no longer cares what a Dem thinks beyond putting the D next to his/her name. Their voting record is irrelevant; their commitment to gun rights is irrelevant; their NRA membership is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that they’re not wild-eyed gun-totin’ pro-NRA-all-the-time Teahadists. The NRA campaign spending alone proves it. I sympathize with more “moderate” Dems (what used to be called “conservative” Dems before the Teahad lemmings ran for the Reichwing cliff) to a point, and I respect their philosophical choices; but if they think that their lukewarm milquetoast support for conservatist issues like this is still a winning strategy then they’re sadly mistaken.
Elizabelle
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Good to hear about the Kay Hagan call. She needs to sound pissed. She can get away with it, and North Carolina has some serious buyer’s remorse re Art Pope and Governor Koch Puppet.
I picked up a Virginia robocall from Newt Gingrich, railing about middle easterners — with or without ebola, I don’t recall — pouring in through our Southern border. His “assistant” was standing by; dial one for a human.
Think I got that one because I voted for Ron Paul in the 2012 GOP primary.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: Yeah, I have the same hope, but I know people around here and a more fact averse group I have never met.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@boatboy_srq: And you’re missing his. It has less to do with the NRA’s direct spending on campaign ads than with the actual voters in the district / state. If you can keep the local gun-fondlers fairly quiet, things like constituent services can shine through. If you give the gun-fondlers an excuse to start shrieking, you’ve committed electoral suicide.
boatboy_srq
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Let me put this another, simpler way: if you as a US Senator think that a medical professional saying that use of firearms can result in human injury or fatality is somehow scary enough that you won’t voice support for that medical professional’s judgment in any other medical capacity because your gun-totin’ backers won’t like it, then you’re not supporting gun ownership – you’re running scared of the gun lobby. And in a case like that, you could demand that said medical professional retract any such statement and issue one in its stead that says every natural born US citizen should be issued a loaded AR15 along with his/her birth certificate, and the gun lobby would not flinch in its drive to remove you from office simply because you’re a Democrat.
chopper
@Cervantes:
i think he’s arguing that one need not respect someone’s chest-thumping over their opinion on legislation when said person is just a random schmuck on the internet. especially given a commentariat that, by and large, had the same exact opinion back then.
OzarkHillbilly
@boatboy_srq: There are more than a few Dems in the MO State legislature that wouldn’t be there if the NRA went after them, which you are saying they do.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq: I don’t think I’m missing your point. I don’t think it’s a good strategy, but I think it’s a defensible strategy, because while the NRA may be in a permanent state of panic and aggression, non-NRA-member people who care at least a little about guns include a fair amount of Democrats, and the point is to avoid agitating the NRA to the point where NRA extremism spills over to the “moderate” gun-owning crowd. At a certain point it probably becomes a better strategy to say “Fuck the NRA,” or, rather, “I stand with the Surgeon General nominee, who like me is concerned about the damage unregulated firearms do to our neighbors and communities,” and own it, and gut it out. But that’s not going to work everywhere. Sometimes what looks like political cowardice is cowardice. But sometimes it’s based on actual beliefs (alas!). And sometimes it’s an attempt to reflect the opinions of the district. If your constituents are hunter-environmentalist types (like my in-laws), you might want to make sure that whatever the NRA says about you and guns feels like crazy people saying crazy things, rather than that it has the ring of truth.
FlipYrWhig
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Thanks, this is a nice compact way of saying what I was saying at painful length just before:
boatboy_srq
@OzarkHillbilly: They do at the federal level, and I’ve seen them go for state legislators in VA and FL. If they’ve skipped MO so far it may just be they haven’t focused there yet.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq: The gun lobby’s views on you may never change, but what you’re trying to do is prevent the non-extreme gun-havers from buying into the gun lobby’s arguments. You’d think it would be easier to do what you said, but the fact that most politicians don’t do that suggests to me that the advisor/strategist class has looked into it and found that it wouldn’t work.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
I read the full book based on his articles (“Dark Alliance”) about two years ago, and am still amazed that something like that’s managed to disappear completely down the memory hole.
Between that and Iran-contra, the Reaganites deserve recognition as the ones who enshrined the security state’s status as untouchable, above the law and above even more than that.
OzarkHillbilly
@boatboy_srq: I am not saying they don’t do it, I am saying they don’t do it all the time. And not just on the local level. McCaskill would not be in DC if she did not know how to talk to those people.
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig: IOW, we should give up on responsible medical guidance (among other policy failures) until the next Teahad pResident because we can’t offend LaPierre’s precious fee-fees.
This is why (a few posts back) I said KL looks better every year: at least Malaysia is upfront about their discrimination and inequality. The US left can posture and preen all it wants, but the moment the rubber meets the road there really isn’t much distinction between left and right beyond whether it’s conviction or terror that drives them.
Cervantes
@Chris: Somewhat surprisingly, Webb’s work was acknowledged in passing recently in the NYT.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq: I know it’s strange, but politicians have this thing where they like to get votes from more people than their opponents do, and sometimes those people are motivated to vote by petty bullshit, so the politician tries to minimize the amount of petty bullshit she has to face.
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq:
Have you read Malaysian quasi-official newspapers (which is most of them)?
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig: That’s even worse: you’re saying that all governing is sausage-making, so we should just shut up and accept that the people we elect don’t do what we put them in office to do because they’re scared of bad publicity and they like
campaign fundsvotes.jibeaux
It will always drive me bonkers that 99% of proposed gun control wouldn’t even intrude on legitimate gun rights, but is reflexively opposed by a statistically significant part of the population anyway. I don’t know if that’s because they haven’t thought it all the way through to “I can pass a background check, don’t usually take my gun to the DMV anyway, i keep it secured, etc.” or it’s a slippery slope belief or what.
trollhattan
@Cervantes:
Christ, when Walter Cronkite died the wingnuts emerged to piss on his fresh grave as the villain who “Lost the Vietnam War.”
They take their hate quite seriously.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: I live in the world of the Washington Times, and I’ve read the Tampa Tribune and the New York Post, and I don’t really see a difference. Malaysian papers aren’t exactly Red Pepper.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig:
1. It is a “he.”
2. I read his comment far less defensively than you seem to have done.
3. Thanks for clarifying (for me, anyway) your response to his comment.
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq: Sure, but I was suggesting there’s a certain inaccuracy in your statement that “at least Malaysia is upfront about their discrimination and inequality.”
trollhattan
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
One day the “perfect” flu virus will emerge from China and we shall all dream of the “good old ebola” days. Am beginning to think it’s so scary solely because of where it came from.
BTW, anyone else read recently they’ve traced AIDS back as far as the 1920s? I had no idea the CIA existed way back then. [/left-wingnut]
Omnes Omnibus
@boatboy_srq: No, it’s more that I may have voted for candidate x because of her stands on eduction and labor issues. The guy down the block may have voted for her because of her pro-gun stance. No candidate is ever going to be perfectly aligned with my views – or yours.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: By which I meant “codified into their legal system.” As in Xtians, non-heteros and other “minorities” are partially disenfranchised from the get-go and stipulated that way in their laws. Not quite the same as “splashed across their front pages.”
Amir Khalid
@boatboy_srq:
I’m flattered that you think so highly of my country. But sometimes I think the grass here just looks greener from your side of the planet.
boatboy_srq
@Omnes Omnibus:
So calling them out for political cowardice is verboten just because you voted for them? How are they supposed to get that those positions are bad without getting heat for them? There are two ways to deal with wingnut pressure: wait for it to blow over or make it more uncomfortable for pols to yield to it than to oppose it. You’re suggesting we roll over until the fever breaks just because the cowards are doing some things we approve of.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: BTW, anyone else read recently they’ve traced AIDS back as far as the 1920s? I had no idea the CIA existed way back then.
I’m sure Bob in Portland will be happy to explain the truth.
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq:
Sure, discrimination (of the bad kind — of several bad kinds) is completely legal in Malaysia and has been since at least 1969.
Discrimination (of several bad kinds) was also the law in the US for centuries — and some kinds still are legal — though with the help primarily of our federal courts (and a careless opinion from Scalia) we do seem to be getting a handle on at least some of it.
boatboy_srq
@Amir Khalid: I’ve lived and worked/claimed-unemployment through dot-bomb 1.0 and dot-bomb 2.0. Southeast Asia was cranking all through both of those. It makes for a bit of professional envy. Plus the weather is decent (and yes I know about typhoons – hurricanes aren’t any better) and the food is way more interesting.
Chris
@trollhattan:
Dolchtosslegende: it’s not just for Germans.
gene108
@Chris:
The gun-nuts will crawl over razor sharp smoldering hot lava rocks to vote to keep their precious guns.
Liberals don’t give a rats ass, if a politician succeeds on implementing a gun-control law.
Bill Clinton passed the most comprehensive gun control law, since 1968.
Liberals were not turning out in droves to show their support, in 1994, for Clinton’s success in advancing the liberal agenda.
Gun-nuts did turn out in droves to show their displeasure.
Elizabelle
@Chris:
Well then. Let’s fill in that memory hole. The incomparable Al Giordano of Narco News leads the way.
Narco News, has had 3 (appear to be) great recent posts up in recent weeks. 2 on Gary Webb — the newest has a link to Webb’s original stories (Dark Alliance) in the San Jose Mercury News.
Earlier blogpost is on Democrats needing to find a generational challenger to Hillary Clinton.
(Worries me to see so many eggs in one basket; we need to get our up and comers and already out there into the public consciousness, because old media is wired for Republicans. People can name Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, even if they might not approve of either.)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@boatboy_srq: Primus, all governing is sausagemaking. Secundus, what you elect your representatives to do may not match up with what the constituents in the next district over elected theirrepresentatives to do. My ex-boss worked hard to get Renee Ellmers elected to help stand strong against the near sheriff’s efforts to destroy this country.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@trollhattan: Yeah, she’s really prepping for Captain Tripps.
Omnes Omnibus
@boatboy_srq:
No, I am saying that the person might well be pro-gun. Not every decision or vote that I think is wrong comes from political cowardice. Some, maybe many, possibly most, come from the politician having a different view of the issue than I do. How one tries to change the vote of a politician should change based on why the politician voted the way she did. If it was due to pressure, showing pressure for the other side can work. If, however, it was due to conviction, pressure is less likely to work and other tactics should come into play.
You seem to be assuming that all Democratic politicians share your views and are simply bowing to pressure.
Mike J
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
And may not match up with what your next door neighbor elected her representative to do, even though she voted for the same guy you did.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq:
I didn’t put Senators into office in any state other than my own, and the “we” that did put them into office includes a lot of people who have views on guns far, far to the right of mine. And like Omnes Omnibus was saying, you seem to think that all Democrats are really in their hearts just like you, and when they don’t vote that way it’s because they’re chicken. I don’t presume that. I presume that most Democratic office-holders vote in ways that square with the positions of the median voter who elected them–and when they have positions that are too far out of step with those voters, that’s uncommon and they need to come up with convincing justifications, and not all of them can pull that off. This is why someone like Joe Lieberman is a special kind of weasel, and why I cut someone like Mark Pryor a lot more slack.
Cacti
Maybe the CDC and NIH can just shoot Ebola.
FlipYrWhig
@jibeaux:
Because the slope won’t slippery itself. Everyone knows The Real Agenda is to take away all guns and leave the populace vulnerable to tyranny and rampaging dark-skinned hordes. Bwahahahahah!
Chris
@Elizabelle:
To be clear, I’m not saying that nobody ever talks about it, even in the media, but that in the general public consciousness… not so much. Take the average guy and tell him “Iran-contra,” “Watergate,” “McCarthy” or even “internment of Japanese people in World War Two,” he’ll know basically what you’re saying. But tell him “Gary Webb,” “Dark Alliance” or whatever the buzzword is, and you’ll get a blank stare; tell him “U.S. intelligence was partly responsible for the drug explosion in the eighties” and you’ll probably be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. Even though it’s all out there.
Frankensteinbeck
@trollhattan:
Just this once, I think the ‘black people are scary!’ connection is not the big one. Remember, most conservatives think it’s still the 80s. They’ve heard for decades from the news about ebola being this mysterious super-deadly thing that rots flesh or something and slaughters entire populations. They’re already in a panic because black people are suddenly so powerful one of them’s president. I’m surprised that when they heard ebola came to the US they didn’t soil themselves.
boatboy_srq
@Omnes Omnibus: @FlipYrWhig: No, I’m saying that if that is a strongly held philosophical plank, and other adherents don’t agree that you share it with them, then it’s time to reevaluate whether that plank is something you have in common with your anticipated support base. And I’m saying outright that Senate Dems who are caving, not on an assault weapons regulation or other firearms legislation, but on the appointment of a Surgeon General (which in any other universe would be an unrelated position), are more interested in pandering to the gun lobby for the campaign cash and votes that they aren’t going to get from that quarter than in doing their jobs. I get that pols do that: what I don’t get is everyone here saying that’s OK so long as they get their little piece of the policy pie.
NobodySpecial
Once again, we have run into Nothing That We Can Do, which end result is to not have a Surgeon General at all, because reasons.
And don’t expect the President to do anything, because The Bully Pulpit Never Works Ever For Anything, and because He Can’t Be Seen As An Angry Black Man While Presidenting, because then people will be mad at him. And don’t expect Democratic Congresspeople to pick on this, because They Can’t Be Seen Acting Liberal or they won’t get elected. To do whatever it is after they get elected.
Can I sell you some rubber gloves? Only used a couple of times.
lamh36
@Elizabelle: I have a friend who works on the area and he says that they were utilizing a buddy system
Eric U.
@Frankensteinbeck: I think a number of them did soil themselves
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq: Some questions:
Democrat Bill Clinton and the Democratic House and the Democratic Senate did a number of things re gun control in 1993-94, including the Brady Bill and a federal assault weapons ban.
Would you agree that they did those things knowing it was going to cost them mightily in the 1994 elections?
Should they have done what they did, regardless of the role they knew it might play in turning the House Republican and making Gingrich Speaker?
beth
@NobodySpecial: I would love to see some Democratic pushback on this. I see from reading around today that Bill O’Reilly is calling for the resignation of the CDC director because he doesn’t trust him. I guess all of O’Reilly’s medical training is telling him that. I’d love to see many people from either the Dems or the mainstream media state out loud how fucking crazy and dangerous it is to have pundits with no medical background whatsoever pull shit like this. I’m sure all the Fox hosts will be parroting this angle today along with the radio talkers.
Calouste
So the Marchioness de Romney says that the family is “done with elections”. I guess that’s a call to the Mormons to start sending some checks to RomneyPAC, because it is low on funds.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq:
Well, I’ll spare you the effort. It’s not. The “anticipated support base” believes what the candidate believes. They’re not stabbing their liberal base in the back for filthy lucre, they don’t have a liberal base, so they go looking for votes among non-liberals.
FlipYrWhig
@NobodySpecial: Or you can nominate an uncontroversial Surgeon General who has never said anything about guns and has the support of at least 51 Senators. That doesn’t seem like it’d be too difficult. If the majority party doesn’t want something to happen, it won’t happen. Too many Senators don’t want this guy. The end. Same thing that happened to Debo Adegbile.
ETA: These are good people getting a raw deal from a handful of Democrats. But that’s the process. This is what the majority coalition has the power to do.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
Given how long the House and Senate had been majority Democratic until that election, I don’t think you can honestly say they thought it would cost them their majority, though. They probably thought they would be able to squeak by and maintain their majorities by a narrow margin.
Here’s the chart — Democrats controlled the House from 1955 until 1995, and they controlled the Senate 1955 until 1981, and then again from 1987 to 1995. I don’t see any reason why the Democrats would have assumed they would not continue to control at least one house of Congress.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig:
Or sex education, or abortion, or homosexuality, or a healthy school lunch, or Michelle Obama’s exercise initiative for kids, or single-payer health care, or … well, why not just nominate George W. Bush’s last Surgeon General?
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: Sometimes when you’re a politician you do things because they’re right. You know your career will suffer for them, but you do them anyway. It’s admirable. It’s also infrequent. I think we should expect rational self-interest to prevail most of the time, and observe the acts of politicians through that prism. When they do things that _don’t_ resemble rational self-interest, let’s look again, because it’s rare.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne: I can only suggest that you go back and look at commentary and polling from that era — if you weren’t following it in real time.
Keith G
@NobodySpecial: I keep on coming across the “Nothing He Can Do” arguments which are strongly related to the “Not His Fault” assertions. These have been used, in one form or other, by the supporters of every president in my lifetime.
The fact is, despite some nagging disappointments Obama has accomplished a lot. What we don’t know is how much more he could have accomplished had he pushed outside his comfort zone. And we also do not know how permanent many of his accomplishments will be. Designing/building long term support for an idea is just as important as having the idea in the first place.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: I’m not sure how many of those things affect the votes of Democrats in the Senate. That’s the audience. That’s who objected to Adegbile and Murthy. So put up someone acceptable to them. That’s the power they have, regardless of how stupid or self-serving or calculating they might be.
scav
@lamh36: probably everyone here has worked in team environments, can none of us remember failures and near misses, often even when we were trying — albeit hindered by never enough time or resources, especially for unfamiliar projects? Design a system over freaking YEARS by ‘cutting the fat’ and reducing redundancies and profit-maxmizing, blah blah blah blah blah, all that time and money wasted by planning and practicing for low-frequency events — and now people are surprised that the edifice is brittle, thin and prone to breakdown under pressure?! But we’ve got the best-trained cosmetic surgeons in the world! ER departments are dumping grounds for moochers and druggies, not profit centers, let alone the the front line in dealing with dangerous situations. um, well . . . whoops.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig: Nearly everything in politics is a compromise, of course, including the degree to which one should compromise.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: True. But as anyone who’s ever been on a committee knows, sometimes there’s another guy on the committee who just won’t budge and maybe can’t even explain why, and if you need his vote, you’re at his mercy.
Mike J
@FlipYrWhig: For me it boils down to, “would you rather have Mark Begich vote against this particular nominee or have Dan Sullivan help decide who the majority leader will be?”
catclub
@Elizabelle: It seems to me that showering before removing protective gear would be useful. The problem is getting stuff on the pieces you use to take off the protective gear. Complicated.
gene108
@Mnemosyne:
Point being gun control did help to contribute to Democrats losing control of the House, for the last generation and the Senate for a good chunk of time, in the last 20 years.
Why would you go to bat for an issue that liberals will not reward you and your opponents will damn you?
Bill Clinton, the arch-conservative-triangulating-DLC’er-sell-out-who-was-basically-a-Republican, passed the most comprehensive gun control bills, since 1968, over opposition from the NRA and other gun-nut groups.
Yet, when liberals talk about Clinton, they only mention things they do not approve of like NAFTA, and give him no credit for pushing and succeeding in getting this portion, gun control, of the liberal agenda implemented to a greater extent than anyone before or since.
We may talk about how nice gun control is in theory, but it is not something liberals care enough about to actually get fired up and support candidates, who went to bat for them on this issue.
Until that changes and liberals really do something about supporting candidates, who come out in favor of gun control, I do not think we can fault any politician from staying away from it.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: IIRC, it wasn’t the Brady bill anywhere near as much as Hillarycare that did the Dems in in ’94. And the VSPs were all atwitter with how Gingrich’s HoR would be “bipartisan” and a model of cooperation, and for reasons unknown they were believed. The NRA wasn’t so rabid 20 years ago, either, so the pushback there wasn’t so bad: their opposition to Brady was not that it was regulation but that it wasn’t the right regulation. Apples have never been oranges.
Question for you: are you suggesting that Clinton and Congressional Dems should have rolled over on these issues the moment the GOP voiced opposition because pursuing worthwhile policy is less valuable than holding all their seats?
catclub
@beth:
It worked for the VA. Defund it, raise its responsibilities, blame the Obama appointee.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig:
You’re at his mercy if you can’t come up with some other way to play it.
I agree, sometimes there is no other way to play it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Keith G:
You’re right. We don’t know. We can make a pretty good guess that he would have accomplished less if he made a big fuss, and we can look at what he’s accomplished with his current strategy and see that it’s way above most presidents. That’s about it, and the guess is an educated guess, nothing more.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike J: That, and then there’s what Team Begich would almost certainly say: “Look, why does it have to be Murthy? I’ll happily vote for anyone else who’s qualified and uncontroversial.”
Jim Kim is currently head of the World Bank and his expertise is in public health. Maybe he’s overqualified?
shortstop
@Keith G:
I don’t know how useful that statement is unless you unpack the level of opposite-party obstructionism each president has faced. These things can, after all, be quantified to a very great degree. I assume it’s not your intention to imply that because every president has been up against obstacles created by the opposing party, all presidential experiences in this regard are interchangeable?
lol
@FlipYrWhig:
The Obama admin wanted a bigger stimulus too but strangely he never gets any credit for it.
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq: I agree that the Clintons’ health-care effort was a primary weapon used against them in 1994. It was not the only weapon, and neither was gun control. The Republicans used gays in the military (and I mean that as worded). Heck, Gingrich even used Susan Smith (“I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things. The only way you get change is to vote Republican.”)
Have I suggested that? No, I don’t think I have.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq: It’s the “should” in these questions that bothers me. I can’t answer “should.” I can feel free to say that every politician in existence, from Louie Gohmert to Elizabeth Warren, “should” do things I want to see happen. It’d be a great world, everyone agreeing with me and doing what I like! Why not? Of course, why do most of those “shoulds” never come to pass? Because people have this habit of seeing things differently than I do, and believing in things I don’t, often deeply; and politicians in particular have this need to balance the continuation of their careers with their desire to make the world better. It’s really not worth it to spend all this time on “should.”
FlipYrWhig
OK, _should_ be working, back later perhaps.
shortstop
@Cervantes:
I forgot about that one. Hard to believe Gingrich’s outrageous (and in-your-face hypocritical) behavior in ’94 could seem quaint in comparison to today’s GOP.
Omnes Omnibus
@boatboy_srq: Every legislative action requires compromises. Every legislative action requires weighing the pros and cons. And, of course, some compromises are too big to make. At the same time, some things are so important that they should be tried no matter what the consequence may be. The thing is, each person has to make an individual decision as to where the line should be drawn.
Tone In DC
@Elizabelle:
Thanks for the links. Heard the outline of the story from Amy Goodman a few days ago, but I really wanted to see the original articles.
boatboy_srq
@gene108:
As opposed to going to bat for an issue that conservatists will not reward you and liberals will damn you? That is the original question here.
boatboy_srq
@Omnes Omnibus: Is that yes, or no?
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
You’re dodging the question: do you think that it would have been rational in 1994 for Democrats to assume that they would lose control of both houses of Congress for the next 15 years based on their votes against the NRA? You seem to be vastly misremembering what a huge cultural and political change the Republican victory in 1994 was and how flummoxed the Democrats were by it. Democrats are still trying to recover from it and figure out how to get the House back for more than two consecutive sessions.
Cervantes
@shortstop: Does not seem quaint to me, nor can I forget it.
The man is a psychopath.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes:
Yes; yes, you did. Right there.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne:
Sorry, were you responding to something specific that I said?
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq:
No, that’s not a suggestion. It’s a question I asked you based on the discussion up to that point.
Omnes Omnibus
@boatboy_srq: Well, if we want to play counterfactuals. If dropping an ultimately unsuccessful healthcare bill and a rather piecemeal assault weapons ban for mild do-goooder-ism would have kept Congress in Democratic hands, avoided impeachment, let Gore think that he could run on Clinton’s record, and thus avoided the Iraq debacle, yeah, it might well have been worth it.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not only was the assault weapons ban “piecemeal,” it had an expiration date (2004).
Progress is always difficult. Sometimes it isn’t even progress!
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig:
Interesting article about World Bank chief Dr. Jim Yong Kim in today’s NYTimes. Way worth a click.
Head of World Bank Makes Ebola His Mission
I like these people who are unpopular for many of the right reasons.
Like our much scorned president. History will be kind to both gentlemen.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
I think a lot of the issue is the 1996 (?) Telecommunications Reform [!] Act, which allowed megacorporations and gazillionaires to grab media companies. Since media is now wired for Republicans, it’s made the road that much harder for Democrats.
Would these journalists save us from a Hitler? No. They’d be enthusing over his uniform and decision-making flair.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
Yes, I’m responding to this:
I don’t understand what you are getting from the contemporary polling and commentary at the time that would suggest that the Democrats knew they would lose control of Congress for the next 15 years based on their votes in the 1992-1994 Congress. Can you direct me to a specific poll or essay that indicates they knew that?
My contention is that in 1994 the Democrats assumed, based on recent history, that even if their votes in that Congress led to them losing the 1994 midterm elections, they would be able to gain those seats back in the following election. You seem to be claiming otherwise. If not, please clarify what your actual claim is.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
PS: how did your move go?
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
As I recall, the media was already pretty in-the-pocket for Republicans. They didn’t need pressure from management. They just had to be themselves, a clique of rich, politely racist bullshitters who think hurting people is brave and mature.
StringOnAStick
As far as riling up the NRA voter goes, I am watching polls turn against Udall here in CO at about the same time as TONS of money from various Koch front groups hits the fan, especially the “hunters for gun rights” crap. They’ve learned that openly identifying as NRA scares off rational people, so we get “hunters” groups, since that’s good western family values, right?
And its not like Udall has been huge on gun control, because he hasn’t; his big deal lately has been reining in the NSA but he isn’t pushing that in his ads because the issue is complex and now that everyone is scared shitless of Ebola, we apparently need the security state to root out all those scary terrorists who are weaponizing ebola just in time for the War on Christmas(tm)!
I wonder how much crazier the ads would be if he’d actually pushed for gun control? Much, much crazier; the stuff against the head of the CO senate was all NRA money, and he was recalled thanks to it. It is sad but true that not riling up the NRA means their endless pot of money gets focused on someone else.
Elizabelle
Peter Baker in NYTimes:
Elizabelle
@StringOnAStick:
Is it possible the Koch adspalooza will motivate Democrats to work that much harder on turnout?
Not like Cory Gardner or Beauprez are good candidates. They’re quite right wing (OK; they fit a lot of the rural voters …)
I am hoping the Dems will pull it off in Colorado. What do you think?
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
It’s still ongoing. I foolishly decided to declutter at the same time, so I am really not prepared at all. The moving truck is coming next Wednesday, so I have a few more days. We lose most of Saturday to a work party, but I figure the worst case scenario is that I get everything boxed up and have the movers take it rather than taking it over myself.
StringOnAStick
@Elizabelle: I like this Dr. Kim, and it would be nice to have him as surgeon general but it seems to me that he is more urgently needed at the World Bank currently. His approach to the Ebola issues in Africa will save many, many more lives than being surgeon general will here, plus once he’s successful at that, the wingers in Congress will never let him be SG – too willing to rock the boat at the WB.
I suspect someone that dedicated and involved in such important work amongst the poverty-stricken of the world may not be interesting in a US figurehead position where even advocating for birth control for teens will unleash a shit storm. Maybe when he’s closer to retirement. What we need is basically impossible to find: a doc with lots of experience, no controversial (in a winger’s mind) statements or activity ever during that long career, and willing to step into an underpowered, high target-potential position where even the most common sense of statements will send the shrieking monkeys into overdrive with the fundies and the bathtub-drowners. Plus it might help the near president, so no go no matter what, period. No wonder this is so hard.
lol
@shortstop:
I don’t know. “The only way to stop white women from killing their children and blaming it on black men is to vote Republican” fits right in with the modern GOP.
Keith G
@shortstop: I guess what interests me as someone who has spent a couple o’ decades dealing with this topic academically is how leaders deal with opposition – what are their best choices, what are their plans B? How do they flow between the two?
The level of opposite-party obstructionism each president has faced is a factor and so is the response time and creative flexibility of leadership.
StringOnAStick
@Elizabelle: Voters are working harder here in Jefferson County (biggest one population-wise) thanks to the crazy shit the 3 wingers on the local Board of Education have been trying to pull over high school AP history (I’m sure you’ve seen the stories). That whole mess only happened because the BOE is on a 3 year cycle so it rarely coincides with a major election; this is what the wingers/fundies have targeted national – races like that are winnable. People are angry about that one, and it is having an impact, at least I hope so.
This will be the first election here where it is all mail-in ballot; I am hoping that improves voter participation . I’m also hoping that polling methods skew the vote since I don’t know anyone other than the elderly who answers calls fro number they don’t recognize, and combined with the new mail-in ballot effect, perhaps the poll models aren’t as good as the pollsters think. The so-called “reasons” given by The Denver Post to endorse Gardner over Udall are complete and utter, experience-free BS, but after that came out, the polls have been against Udall.
There are reasons why the polling could be off and why there could be more voters than expected, but mostly I’m just super worried.
Tommy
@StringOnAStick: My grandfather did a ton of stuff with Doctors Without Borders. He felt that the best way for America to present itself to the world, and he was a WWII vet, was through our compassion. The little I know about Dr. Kim makes me think he is like my grandfather. He has bigger issues to work on. And I know my grandfather if he was with us today, would not last 30 seconds in our political environment today. He would say common sense kind of things that would piss off those in power. You know like condoms are a good idea.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: Merely raising the question implies that you think this is a debatable point, and there is an honorable defense for caving on one’s principles to obtain/preserve political office/clout/votes/whatever. Once you ask the question “was it right to [take action x] knowing [negative consequence y]” then x is fungible in terms of y, and the only point remaining is determining what values of y are acceptable before x is unacceptable. It’s the old saw about prostitution, where we’ve already established what a prostitute is and now we’re arguing about what rate prostitutes should charge.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
The impression I keep getting on this issue is that the NRA, for whatever PR hits they may have suffered, are still the unassailable, invincible juggernaut that no pol dare ever cross lest they throw their careers away, and that if they don’t hit you, they’ll just hit your colleagues, the best thing you can do is basically bow down to them and accept them as the Masters of All the USA. Which won’t work since if you’re a Dem, you’re on their shitlist anyway.
It’s wholly fucking depressing that gun control is a dead issue for at least a generation more, at a time where we should be talking more about the craziness surrounding guns and gun hoarders. But nope, the NRA, if anything, has become even more unassailable, and have basically put their muscle behind everything else, not just guns. And at best, we can only fight not to lose too much, because if we dare go on the offensive, we risk being shown that America truly does fucking totally despise us all and will sackbeat us with FREEDOM.
We really are just living in the GOP’s America at this point, aren’t we? The best we can really do at this point in the aggregate is fight in a holding pattern. And anything we do has the risk of backfiring spectacularly, or at best getting small gains that the GOP will roll back fucking instantly soon as they get office again because the entire fucking country is wired for conservatism.
Just let me curl up and ignore everything else, because I just don’t have any will for this shit anymore.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne: Here are the two questions I raised:
I’m not sure how you get from those questions to your interpretation thereof:
Who (except you) said anything about “the next 15 years”? So, when you ask me, “Can you direct me to a specific poll or essay that indicates they knew that?” my answer is (once again) “N/A.”
You continue:
I think your contention is reasonable; I’m sure that some Democrats made that assumption in 1994. (I’m not saying the assumption was reasonable, just that your contention is.)
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq:
That’s one possibility.
But raising the question might also mean that I thought your answer would help me understand better the rest of what you were saying. Turns out I was too optimistic, but that’s not your fault.
boatboy_srq
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re placing a lot of faith in Newt “First Ever Gubmint Shutdown” Gingrich and his HoR playing nice if properly placated. There was plenty of anti-Clinton animosity brewing before Hillarycare, the Brady bill and Those People in positions of power, and backing off those items alone would hardly have guaranteed a placid 1995 (let alone the other things you mention). And the 1995 House was GOP by a mere 22 seats: the current crop of Congresscritters is more skewed than that. So while ’94 was costly, it wasn’t as bad as all the vapors Dems have had over that election and the Contract
OnWith America would have us think.Elie
@Elizabelle:
Nurses DO rock and many of us have had “breaches in protocol” – it happens and I am sure I have too. In this case, the consequences can be deadly, including the fate of her dog — which I am thinking will have to be euthanized. We can’t have a reservoir for this virus in dogs which can be bitten or bite other things ala rabies. Until there is a vaccine for dogs, I am afraid its bad news.
We have to be able to at least safely begin to process Ebola patients in most ERs… It is worthy of note that so far (and Lord willing continues to be the case), no one else of the early exposed people have come down with it. That reflects if it continues, his lower infectivity when he first came in for treatment. The infected nurse treated him at his most infectious — around the time of his death when they were taking heroic measures and using all kinds of equipment with a lot of fluids flung around. I am confident and hopeful however , that she will recover given how early she was caught and treated. Crossed fingers all around.
Tommy
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: It isn’t dead for a generation. I often talk about my moderate Republican parents here. This would be a PERFECT example. My dad has a lot of guns. I don’t own a single one nor would I … ever.
But I have a gun permit. My state is pretty anal about guns and on the off chance he and my mother get hit by a bus tomorrow, he wants me to be to able to legally own his guns. Ponder that thinking for a few seconds, I can assure you I have!
Heck my brother married into this family where one of the kids, 16, is one of the best shooters in the nation (yes that is a sport where I live).
There are a lot of guns around me. All around me. I don’t know a single person that is against sane gun control laws. Not a single person.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@boatboy_srq: What part of “kept Congress in Democratic hands” did you miss?
(I’m arguing with a purity troll, aren’t I?)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Elie:
NPR report just a few minutes ago said emphatically that her dog will not be put down. He has been removed from her home for care and observation and is reportedly in good spirits.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Tommy:
The problem is, when it comes to actually putting a vote down, people don’t vote based on ‘sane gun control laws’ as they’re actually proposed. They tend to vote based on the caricatures of ‘HOLY SHIT, DEMS ARE GONNA CONFISCATE ALL YOUR GUNS AND LEAVE YOU AT THE MERCY OF SUPERTHUGS!’ And that, apparently, is still apparently wildly effective enough to cow any and all politicians outside of Gabby Giffords, and her efforts look to be increasingly futile all the while.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: I have no problem with principled stands producing suboptimal results and unintended consequences, if that’s what you’re trying to find out. I particularly have no problem with Dems taking those stands because: a) the Teahad’s jihad on moderates is costing them more than just incumbents; and b) Dems do best when they work as Dems and not GOP-lite, and running as Dsub-r against R is usually a recipe for an electoral pounding. I do have real problems with greasy pols telling each and every constituency what it wants to hear, and doing what the big campaign donors want in the hope that it will pay off in campaign cash they can turn into votes next cycle – especially when the big campaign donors clearly have no interest in them or their party, and they’re squandering a chance to lead their constituencies rather than merely play mouthpiece for the loudest blowhards in their districts.
Healthcare was a valiant effort. The Brady bill was something from the Reagan years, and had received solid GOP support right up to its enactment, so opposition there was not predictable at the time. If anything, harking back to Omnes’ counterfactual, 1993 and the ’94 election cycle were necessary precedents for us to see the pattern of “BADMYR” (Being A Democrat Makes You Wrong): part of the reason the ACA succeeded is that it is clearly the same program the GOTea proposed in ’93, based on a Heritage plan, and that was enacted in MA in ’05 – and that the only reason the Teahad opposed it was TABMITWH. Had we not seen that coming after eight years of knee-jerk obstruction of Clinton, it would have been harder to discern, and we would have been slower to mobilize against it.
shortstop
@Cervantes: Of course he is. But at that time he was somewhat unique in the level of his insanity. Now, he’s not even crazy enough to break through the pack.
shortstop
@Keith G: Yes, both of those aspects are important. Unfortunately, I think your earlier comment wrote off the first as a sort of background noise faced equally by all comers, rather than the integral part of the challenge it is.
shortstop
@Tommy:
Sounds almost as though you have no say in the matter.
boatboy_srq
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Didn’t miss it; just didn’t think that a 22-vote margin equates to the “mandate” Gingrich assumed, or merits all the vapors the left had in ’95-6. And no, you’re not: I’m just fed up with everyone who says “When a Dem runs as a Moderate GOPer, against a ‘True’ GOPer, the Dem will lose – so why don’t we run as Dems and be proud of it” completely flipping on that principle the moment a single-issue PAC tries throwing its weight around somewhere, and saying instead “well, you do something like that when X has a presence in your constituency, and that’s just the way it is.” Either we support candidates who aren’t afraid to be non-Teahadist and work to help them win because GOTea-lite is a recipe for disaster, or we accept that all politics is sausage and we have to like the rancid stuff Washington serves us because NRA/FoF/etc own X percentage of Congress and changing that is uncomfortable. We wouldn’t have Warren or Sanders or Brown there if the latter were absolutely true, and we’ve seen what happens (Blanche Lincoln) when Dems run to the right hoping to pry votes away from the faithful of God’s Own Party, so frankly I don’t buy the we-can’t-change-it approach.
Tommy
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: See that is the problem. When I lived in DC I was the victim of crime many times. As a non-gun owner I thought about getting a gun. Everybody I knew that was a gun owner told me that was the stupidest idea I ever had. That isn’t why you buy a gun.
I guess most people that I know that own a gun, and it is like everybody I know, are sane.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq:
But you’re still assuming that the “principle” on which Democrats should stand is _your_ principle. It’s not that easy. Not only is the Democratic politician for whom you’re voting probably to your right as a matter of individual ideological positioning, he or she is probably also dealing with an electorate that is _substantially_ to your right, because, let’s face it, the people who think the Democrats aren’t liberal _enough_ are a very thin wedge in American politics. So of course you “have no problem with Dems taking those stands,” even if they lose, because you get what you want. Why should politicians do what you want, if what you want isn’t a particularly widely held view? Seems a bit utopian. It’s not far off from the way that David Brooks-style pundits think politicians On Both Sides should come together to cut entitlements and so forth. There’s no reason for politicians to do what David Brooks wants, unless the median voter they represent is David Brooks, and that’s kind of not the world we live in.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@boatboy_srq: Gun control is not a litmus test for Dem/not-Dem. It is entirely possible to hold any number of leftish views without being willing to die on Gun Control Hill.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq:
That “principle” isn’t thought through, though. It completely waves away the “we.” Democratic moderates run as moderates not because they want to spite you and fake out everybody, but because they’re aligning themselves with their local Democrats and trying to cobble together a majority–or because they actually believe what they say. Mark Warner is up big in Virginia and runs ads on how bipartisan he is and how he’ll work across the aisle and so forth. He’s not running on how he’s a Proud Democrat, he’s running on the opposite, and he’s the most popular politician in Virginia, and his career has propelled people like Tim Kaine and Terry Freakin’ McAuliffe into office after him. IOW, depending on what your electorate looks like, running as a moderate often _actually works_. Running as Proud Democrats is a high-risk strategy in most states. Some “moderates” are just weasels. Some are true believing moderates. Some have liberal consciences and run as moderates to get elected. Like a professor of mine said in a riff about how sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, “but you can never be sure when.”
boatboy_srq
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: There’s a certain well-known percentage that will always fall for the “UN is coming to take away our rights, impose Agenda 21, found the One World Gubmint, stop us mining/drilling/clearcutting/MTRing/fracking, open the trade superhighway from Canada to Mexico and send our jobs to China, round us all up and send us to FEMA camps where they’ll gay-marry us to treehugging illegal unwed lesbian mothers” scaremongering. Trying to reach those may not be wasted effort but I’m not about to defend it as a worthwhile approach myself. We need a more sane pitch to reach the more sane people: something like – oh, I don’t know, maybe the only thing we have to fear is fear itself…
FlipYrWhig
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: For instance, that was the original logic behind… the Howard Dean candidacy. Pro-gun, rural state, connects with everyday Americans.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq: Yes, and in half the country the “more sane pitch” that wins over the people who aren’t the 27% crazification factor is “Let’s make government work for you by cutting the red tape, innovating and creating jobs, and putting aside our partisan bickering to Get The Job Done.” That’s why Democrats run as moderates, not as proud, battling partisans, in places like Virginia and Missouri and Montana and Arkansas and Georgia and Louisiana and Tennessee and Kentucky and West Virginia, etc.
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig: I’ll happily concede that there are moderate Dems who run as such. I’ve said for some time that the Dem party tent is growing more because of increasing GOTea orthodoxy than from any other cause, and a consequence of that is the growth of a center-right Dem constituency. My problem – especially here – is that the same complaints made of pols who caved to FRC/FoF/NOM, the anti-choice brigades, and the anti-immigrant shouters are immediately discounted the moment N+R+A get keyed in someplace as if that one group were somehow magically superpowerful and different – when they’re no less shrill nor crazy than the others. Going back to the original post: there are plenty of sane ways to support gun owners that don’t involve compromising the US’ ability to promote public health and deliver an effective response to emergency preparation, and there are plenty of ways to say you support a candidate for Surgeon General while playing down one particular statement about gun violence and negative medical outcomes. There’s plenty of trashing of moderate Dems for less-than-enlightened stances on foreign policy, “fiscal responsibility” (i.e. budget cutting), immigration reform, etc.: kowtowing to the NRA shouldn’t get a pass just because the NRA squeals louder than healthcare policy wonks.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq:
Right, agreed, but that gets back to the “should” point I was gassing on about before. Sure, there _are_ ways to do this, but Mark Begich and Mark Pryor aren’t doing them. Why aren’t they doing them? Because they think it will do them more harm than good, and they’re not changing their minds. I can’t tell you when to be frustrated and when not to be. My point is that most politicians do things for explicable reasons, and when they don’t do something that feels like a smart thing to do–like what they _should_ do–that’s usually pretty good evidence that there’s something else driving that choice. You kowtow to the NRA when your advisors and pollsters tell you that fighting the NRA is going to be an unwinnable war. (And if you agree with the NRA already, you’re not kowtowing, and this may be the case for some of these red state Democrats.)
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed. But that should be able to beat “Obama is coming for your incandescent light bulbs” every time. It doesn’t. People like “innovation”: but “change” is scary, and the Teahad is adept at exploiting that fear. Coddling the fearful doesn’t make for good policy any more than the scaremongering does.
The problem comes from the measurable level of panic among otherwise-rational actors the moment the LaPierre says “well,….”. You haven’t exactly sold me on the idea that the Blue Dog opposition to Murthy is principled support for gun rights: as I said, there are plenty of ways to provide that support without caving to the gun lobby. I’m hardly a purist: it’s just that after six years where the Dems have been the only party with any signs of healthy policy debate, seeing a consistent inability to present a unified front against an increasingly orthodox Teahad hell-bent on its rightwardmost principles and committed to opposing anything from the WH just because Democrat is making me angry and I don’t see a solution besides standing up and calling out the GOTea b#llsh!t. We can’t have a healthy debate across the aisle when the other side is one wingnut vote/filibuster away from certifiably insane, and without that it would be worth seeing a Dem pol or two call out the NRA crazy in the same way others have called out the other wingnut PACs.
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: The point is that Gun Control Hill shouldn’t be the battlefield – especially when there are other far more gray-area items where the wingnuts have been beaten back. We give the NRA way too much power: even calling this “Gun Control Hill” plays to their twisted vision since nearly any statement containing “gun” is construed by them as Gun Control. Consider that it’s NRA agenda items that are driving the anti-immigration debate, the anti-terror debate, resistance to extending UI, and a host of other not-immediately-obvious policy debates. In many states physicians are prohibited from discussing gun ownership with their patients – since for some reason the idea that guns can kill people, and sometimes people they weren’t supposed to kill, is good when the NRA talks about self-defense but bad when a doctor is consulting with a patient about inadvertent large-caliber lead poisoning. They use the fear they generate toward Brown People Packing to push all manner of crazy, and (because Some Dems Can’t Win Without NRA Support) we let them. Pat Robertson is fast heading for the lunatic fringe, and Bryan Fischer is right behind him; but that took nearly three decades, countless deaths to HIV, and all manner of political nastiness. We should be able to educate and persuade our way past this deadlock as well, and do it at least as quickly; making excuses for the people who don’t isn’t helpful.
I’m actually surprised that nobody here has yet discussed how to defang the NRA. The org doesn’t represent even a non-crazified percentage of gun owners, and it barely represents that many card-carrying members. There are plenty of us who either own guns or know people who do, who if asked would agree that the NRAs policies are b#tsh!t-crazy. Yet this org plays kingmaker in far too many elections. Instead, we’re arguing over why moderate Dems don’t grow spines and advocate for rational gun policies while denouncing the NRA insanity.
Elizabelle
@boatboy_srq:
Hello there. Have to catch up on the gun control posts. Have been lolling on the back deck enjoying this superb, breezy fall day.
Gun injuries and deaths are a public health issue. It’s sad we can never as a society honestly address them as that, given some rabid ammosexuals’ panicked hysteria.
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed. So, what, then? The rational next step would be to diminish the NRA as a political force. How do we accomplish that? Would the Pink Pistols be a reasonable part of the solution? And no I’m not asking to be snarky: I’m looking for an answer to this that can satisfy gun-owners and gun-control-advocates alike, and at present I don’t see anything in the public space that presents as a positive alternative to LaPierre Inc. – but then I didn’t see a healthy left-leaning Fundie presence twenty years ago, either, so there may be something highly worthwhile that I’m missing that just needs pointing out.
(For the record, on a tangent, I’m really POd at moderate pols who talk up “innovation” and “ingenuity,” but who immediately buy into the scaremongering over the fruits of innovation/ingenuity and fall victim to the lightbulb-and-Solyndra hysteria the Reichwing is so good at ginning up. But that’s probably a different discussion even though it bleeds into this one.)
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq:
I doubt that it is. I think it’s an attempt to punt in hopes of minimizing a pro-gun/anti-gun battle. But I also think that most of the Democrats in question are quite likely to be relatively eagerly pro-gun anyway. So they especially don’t want to end up on the wrong side of a pro-gun/anti-gun battle when they’re actually pro-gun. And, yes, “pro-gun” and “anti-gun” are stupid labels, but that’s part of Democratic branding and counter-branding: “I’m not anti-gun. I respect the Second Amendment and know that many families in Our State hunt to feed their families and keep a gun to defend their homes.” Etc.
The way to defang the NRA is to run aggressively against the NRA and win. Until there’s a way for the strategists and campaign advisors to see that it can be done, they’ll use the tried and true “moderate” lines instead. As they say, “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.”
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig: You’ll forgive me but I read that last and my brain did the “I know how hard it is to put food on your family” thing with it. Totally incorrect and inappropriate, but the chuckle was welcome.
I wonder, though, whether some parallel org might be able to take its place among the “normal” gun owners. Is that too Third Way, though?
Gravenstone
@Punchy: Louisiana, where science holds no sway.
beejeez
@FlipYrWhig: No. If you’re a Democrat who fears or agrees with the NRA, you vote with the NRA on gun legislation. You don’t bloody torpedo your own party’s nominee for surgeon general.
I agree that it’s impossible to be effective as a pol without compromises. But now and then you have to pick a battle, and I haven’t seen a Democrat pick a battle, any battle, in many moons.
I point to the example of the best campaigner of our age, one Bill Clinton. Not always, but once in a while Clinton would be forced to make a campaign commitment that was going to alienate a solid one-half of his potential voters one way or the other. When that happened, he would step up to the mike and say — loudly — “Yeah, I favor blah de blah. And here’s why. (Eloquent defense of his position that respectfully acknowledges opposition and why he disagrees. Maybe even bullet points.)”
Now I’d never claim that Clinton couldn’t or didn’t BS with the best of them when he needed to. But I know Clinton won over a lot of people who disagreed with him because he showed respect for voters, first by not bullshitting them with transparently stupid evasions, and second by showing respect and understanding of those who disagreed with him. No current Democrat, Obama and Hillary notwithstanding, seems to have internalized this lesson.
FlipYrWhig
@beejeez:
Doesn’t matter what someone bloody well ought to do if they’re not doing it and not taking advice about it.
I don’t remember this. Clinton invented “triangulation,” after all. He wasn’t known for boldness and willingness to offend people.
Jay C
@trollhattan:
True: I once followed a link to an obscure blog which had reprinted a long dispatch Cronkite had filed as (what we would nowadays term) an embedded correspondent with glider-borne troops landing in Holland as part of Operation Market/Garden in September, 1944. Harrowing stuff, to be sure: military glider landings were a crapshoot as to survival.
The blog-post had just two comments on it: both castigating Walter Cronkite as a “communist sympathizer” who (apparently single-handedly) destroyed the US war effort in Vietnam.
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig:
Are we back here already? I thought we agreed that they are taking advice about it – just the wrong parties’ advice. If they’re not listening – and given the pols we’re discussing, that means not listening to their own constituents who are not drinking the NRA Kool-Aid – then we go back to “can we haz Dem pols who represent Democrats and not the not-quite-so-crayzee-as-the-Teapubs” question.
FlipYrWhig
@boatboy_srq: They’re not taking the advice of people who offer up the “[liberal] Democrat and proud” strategy. Because they think it’s a loser. They prefer the “OK, a Democrat, but not _that_ kind of Democrat” strategy, because that’s the way a lot of their voters self-identify.
AndoChronic
I don’t get these gun nuts. It’s not to say that I haven’t acquired quite the impressive arsenal though myself, which I had amassed for an eventual sell-off before Mr. O came to office, no luck there I guess. However, if these gunterbaters were really worth two shits in ‘da hood or the bush all they would need is a .38 and a Winchester repeater.
Marc
@Elizabelle:
Yeah, Stewart spent last night railing against the Dems for accepting large-dollar donations (because Both Sides Do It, but only one side is expected to hold themselves above the law of the land), and then railing against Dems for soliciting small dollar donations from ordinary citizens (because apparently he doesn’t know how to hit “delete” in his email), so I’m thinking you can trim your list down to two.
David Fud
@FlipYrWhig: I disagree with defanging the NRA. The way to defang them is to drink their milkshake. Their supporters are way more moderate and NRA doesn’t truly represent them? Fine, start a moderate organization that draws off half their members and provides a sane voice in the debate.
The minute some conservative Democrat starts NRA version 2.0 without the crazy, the whole debate will change.
steve from Antioch
@Elizabelle:
The first step in treating the problem as a public health issue is to make a sober assessment of what passable gun-related legislation would cause the greatest reduction in deaths.
Unfortunately that is not the approach taken by most gun-control advocates who seem to be acting out of the same irrational animus that fuels so many anti-gun control types. For example, the number of people killed each year by assault rifles is vanishingly small, but that has been the cornerstone of gun control legislation for the past couple of decades.
It’s absurd.