John Lewis staging a sit-in Nashville in the 1960s v John Lewis staging a sit-in in Washington in 2016 pic.twitter.com/w2EoTG7fWj
— georgia (@normanisreyes) June 22, 2016
In addition to enforcing Jim Crow, I bet that Nashville restaurant pictured at left also paid its female employees less than the men. It was the 1960s, after all, and women still aren’t being paid equitably 50 years later.
Was John Lewis tacitly endorsing the oppression of women by signifying a desire to eat at that lunch counter? Fuck no. I bet he didn’t even have a hankering for that joint’s particular pot of stale coffee and congealed, lumpy grits. Lewis was doing something much more important than trying to order food: He was dramatizing the unfairness of segregated public accommodations.
John Lewis, genuine American hero, has famously been getting in “good trouble” for longer than most of us have been alive. And now he and the Democrats in Congress are engaging in “good demagoguery.” They are exposing their Republican colleagues as the NRA lickspittles they are.
Mass shooting after bloody, appalling, inexcusable mass shooting have rendered so many of us numb to yet another round of “thoughts and prayers” and inaction on basic gun safety laws that the vast majority of Americans support. If Newtown couldn’t change things, there’s no hope, many of us thought — and still think.
Well, the Democrats are doing something courageous and amazing right now. They are hanging the Republicans’ intransigence on guns around their necks in a simple, visceral way that can be understood even by the people of the land, the common clay of the new West — you know, morons!
The script for this bit of political theater includes the chant, “No fly, no buy.” Should this be understood as a Democratic embrace of the unfair “no fly list”? Nope. No legislation will come out of this protest. The sit-in is political theater that is meant to “dramatize” — as John Lewis carefully put it — Republicans’ refusal to do their jobs.
You’re watching a drama, and a damn good one, with a cast of Democrats who are displaying spine and fire on an important issue as we’ve been demanding for fucking years. You can choose this moment to nitpick the script. But if so, you’ve lost the damn plot, IMO.
Patricia Kayden
Paul Ryan can’t get any more smarmy than when he was claiming that the Democrats are engaging in a publicity stunt — as if that’s a bad thing.
Hope this is the start of the Democrats being more proactive about fighting for progressive causes. And the American people must show their support for progressive causes by voting for Democrats so that we don’t have the same Congressional obstructionism during Clinton’s presidency.
Ann
What Betty Cracker said. An awesome post.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Well said.
Gin & Tonic
I had a pre-scheduled visit with my D congressman yesterday afternoon. Got to his office to find the TV’s tuned to C-SPAN showing this (he was participating.) His staff excused his absence and re-scheduled the meeting, but they were positively giddy about the “optics.” They said, repeatedly, that this was historic.
As noted in other threads, my pass to the gallery was pretty much useless, as by the time I got there, there was a 3-hour wait to get in. People who’d gotten in earlier weren’t leaving, I guess.
Bobby Thomson
Great post.
Ejoiner
Need some help! I’m in a “discussion” with a very patriotic gun lover who has – suddenly – started spouting off about gun control and it’s attack on the 5th Amendment/due process. I can’t find any arguments against his interpretation since my google-fu is weak and I keep getting NRA sponsored/supporting articles and links. Anybody please send links or post a response explaining this to me (when I asked for an explanation he said – seriously – just remember that the laws of the Constitution always trump emotional appeals.) Thanks in advance!
TaMara (HFG)
Should be repeated hourly. Channel surfing this morning, the morning shows totally missed the revolution. Too bad. But at least it pushed Trump to like the third story.
burnspbesq
Reminder: Supreme Court meets at 10;00 Eastern. Likely that 2-4 decisions will be issued. Live-blog here.
http://live.scotusblog.com/Event/Live_blog_of_opinions__June_23_2016
rikyrah
I found it amusing that the muthaphuckas that have taken over 50+ votes to repeal Obamacare would have the nerve to call ANYTHING a stunt.
They actually got to VOTE on repealing Obamacare.
That’s all these folks want – the chance to VOTE on this legislation.
And, then, to think, that they thought that they could somehow outsmart John Lewis in this ‘ civil disobedience’ thing…
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.
Them shouting Eddie Munster Ryan down last night was a thing of beauty, and sent me to sleep with a smile on my face.
John Lewis is a bonafide American Hero, and not one of them is fit to shine his shoes.
burnspbesq
@Ejoiner:
That may not be the hill you choose to die on, if the issue is refusing to sell guns to people on the no-fly list or some other “terrorist watch list.” There are real and substantial Due Process issues with respect to those lists, startiing with arbitrary and non-transparent selection criteria and the lack of a fair and transparent way to contest inclusion.
bemused
Re: women getting paid less than men. I’ve had Cyndi Lauper singing “Girls Just Want Equal Funds” with James Corden buzzing in my head this morning.
Fair Economist
Wanting to “nitpick the script”, in Betty’s compelling phrase, reflects ignoring the fact that this is real. You can nitpick a script in a Hollywood meeting, but you can’t nitpick reality. It doesn’t obey your demands. If you want to change reality, you have to do real work, and sometimes you just can’t.
And this isn’t a script meeting. People are dying of gun violence AS WE SPEAK, nearly 100 every day. To say nothing should be done because you’re not happy with some detail is being complicit in that violence.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: “like”
Mary Jo
Yes, yes, yes.
burnspbesq
Three boxes of hard copy opinions have been delivered to the SCt press room. Looks like it’s going to be a busy morning.
D58826
@burnspbesq: The problem is even if guns disappeared tomorrow, the constitutional issues with the no-fly lists would remain. And on the Senate side the same people who are so concerned about due process for gun owners want to expand the black hole powers of the FBI over national security letters.
gene108
@Ejoiner:
Some of these guys are so far off the deep-end in what they consider Constitutional, you aren’t going to win. I’ve encountered gun-nuts, who say drunk driving laws are unConstitutional because, if a person isn’t in an accident, what reason is their to charge them with drunk driving because they haven’t caused any harm.
The whole idea of crimping on an individual’s right to do what he wants for the sake of public safety, in their minds, violates the Constitution.
This spills over into gun control measures, such as background checks, gun permits, etc.
hovercraft
These people do know that everyone can see these tweets right ?
burnspbesq
@D58826:
Agree completely.
Fair Economist
@Ejoiner: Tell them you’d be happy to improve the due process of the no-fly list. But terrorists shouldn’t be buying guns and in any case, the exact list of restrictions on people on the no-fly list has nothing to do with whether the list follows due process.
maya
@burnspbesq: Yes. “Due process” is the new rallying cry for unlimited gun sales, with no interruptions. It’s the #1 Talking point for repos and libertarians across the land now.
Due process for large numbers of Americans being systematically excluded from voting, not so much. Perhaps “provisional gun applications” are in order?
geg6
YES! YES! YES!
Tell it, Betty!
burnspbesq
First opinion announced is Mathis v. U.S., re sentence enhancements under the Armed Career Criminal Act. 5-3 for defendant.
MattF
“Well, you may have a point, but your behavior is so… undignified.” Tee hee.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Well said, Betty, and it’s the only way to force the issue to the forefront that I see, other than voting every one of these NRA terrorist organization enablers out of office. Also, as a couple of commenters mentioned last night, it’s literally Lewis and Clark exploring the frontier, again, of sanity around gun rights. We need the “well regulated militia” part of the 2A back ultimately. I hope Scalia is still roasting in the pits of hell.
MPAVictoria
“But terrorists shouldn’t be buying guns”
There are almost a million people on that list. If they are all, or even most of them, terrorists the US is doomed and we better start buying canned food and cigarettes. As a leftist I love political theater and I am happy to see the Democratic party bring some attention to this very important issue. I just can’t figure out why they are doing it in favour of this awful legislation. The no-fly list is a racist, Kafkaesque nightmare and Liberals used to recognize that.
Iowa Old Lady
I’m listening to Maddow’s show from last night and am pleased that I still know the words for multiple verses of We Shall Overcome.
Barbara
When you think about the disparate arrest and prosecution of African Americans (in particular) for a whole host of low level offenses (marijuana, disturbing the peace and on and on) it seems almost quaint to whine about due process and gun ownership. These people had NO ISSUE with the process used to compile the no-fly list — whether due or completely undue — until it touched on their firearms fetish. So, basically, from their perspective, it was perfectly okay to deny due process to people who are a risk to THEM and THEIRS because of a risk of terrorism, however small or hypothetical, but how dare you even suggest something that might even potentially deny elaborate protections to mitigate the risk to millions of people whose everyday lives are a living hell because of the threat of gun violence. And that’s not even those who are on the receiving end of lunatic mass shootings. That’s what we call privilege — the privilege that some people have of being protected from the tiniest of risks while being completely indifferent to the massive risks faced by others they don’t care about. I don’t know how Paul Ryan sleeps at night. His commitment to civil rights (for those on the no-fly list) and racial equality is so theoretical it falls apart at the first hint of a real life test.
geg6
@maya:
I want to marry this paragraph.
Gelfling545
@Ejoiner: my own feeling is that this could be a 2 birds, 1 stone deal. It access to firearms is attached in any way to that list the due process issues will be cleaned up so fast your head will spin. The NRA will demand it and maybe, though accidentally, do something useful with their wretched existence.
Corner Stone
The incredibly low bar the media has set for the Trump general election campaign is stunning. I am stunned.
Apparently as long as he can read from a script and minimize his ad libs then he is pronounced disciplined and on message.
Sondra
I had the honor of meeting John Lewis a few years ago. When I told him he had been my hero since I was in High School in 1965, he gave me the biggest bearhug I have ever had. He is just a few years older than me so he knows that I experienced that era too even if I was too young to do what he did. Now what I can do is embrace my 3 Florida Democratic Representatives the next time I see them and tell them thank you in person.
Until then I have written them all emails to thank them for sitting-in on my behalf and to say that I’m proud to have helped get them elected and they are doing exactly what I want them to do.
burnspbesq
Burchfield, the case about blood-alcohol testing. Supremes split the baby: warrantless breathalyzer ok, warrantless blood test not ok.
Chip Daniels
One of the worst impulses in activism is making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Every gun control measure will inevitably draw friendly fire for being an iperfect kludge, or including unappealing side meadures, or ignoring other urgent issues.
This friendly fire should be recognized as the tool of the opposition that it is.
The is no such thing as a One Weird Trick wad no one single law that will, by itself, solve our gun related madness, any more than there was one single law that demolished Jim Crow.
burnspbesq
Fisher; 4-3 in favor of UT affirmative action in admissions.
MattF
There’s also the fact that the Ryan et. al. were trying to prevent strengthening of the rules for financial advisors to retirees. A true ‘ox being gored’ moment in the House.
And the sit-in took all the attention away from the roll-out of Ryan’s agenda. So much goodness there.
Wapiti
@Ejoiner: You might have to accept that you can’t win the discussion. Your “friend” may likely be a person of faith; he holds his guns and gun rights above all else.
MattF
@Corner Stone: A pivot from extinction-level to merely catastrophic.
Face
I’d say this protest is equally effective at highlighting both the inanity of relatively unfettered access to weapons of mass death, and the inanity of a opaque, secretive, oft-faulty, and nearly inescapable subjective list of possible criminals.
The terror list has always amazed me. It’s not a list of actual terrorists….it’s a list of people the gov’t thinks may possibly commit some type of untoward act. All purely subjective and limited to human interpretation and bias.
Redshift
@Ejoiner: I would caution against getting into an argument purely on the ground your opponent has chosen, but with that note:
1. Have a look at comments from patroclus on last night’s late night open thread about the broader OFAC list and constitutionality. TL;DR, yes, there are legitimate due process concerns, but they have been ruled constitutional.
2. Congress can fix due process problems, and various improvements were part of Senate builds that were voted down. The protest is to demand a start to working on legislation, not a view on an existing final bill. If you actually care about due process, rather than using it as an excuse to block gun limits, you should be welcoming a debate on those bills.
3. Those due process problems already exist with respect to other rights the lists curtail (freedom of association, etc.) If you’re truly concerned with those problems, isn’t it far more likely they’ll be addressed in debate on a bill that proposes to apply one or more of the lists to one of the most vociferously defended rights we have?
burnspbesq
A vintage whine: Alito’s dissent in Fisher is 50 pages long.
Bobby Thomson
@burnspbesq:
Good, and not what people were predicting based on the history of the case.
eric
@Ejoiner: The response is easy: There are no due process problems with the no-fly list. It is that simple. As soon as he disagrees, and he will, then you ask him how he can support a law that violates due process. make him embrace HIS hypocrisy.
Corner Stone
I do not like the No Fly list and I am against using it in any way that lends it legitimacy. I note that this is an attempt to highlight the poor nature of No Fly, as well as get a vote on gun control, but it’s a damned poor wedge to try and open the door.
D58826
@Bobby Thomson: I suspect Satan just cranked the heat in Scalia’s level of h+ll to 11
Chyron HR
@MPAVictoria:
Oh no, what if some completely innocent, law-abiding person is unfairly added to the no-fly list and denied their constitutional right to summarily execute “dindus” in the street? :^(
Corner Stone
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Where else would he be? Has someone spotted in the back of an adult movie theater in his robes?
Aimai
@Ann: yes! Awesome! Awesome! Fantastic post! Thank you betty cracker! And thank you john lewis, kathleen clark–my rep–and all the dems for doing this!
CaseyL
@burnspbesq: I’m astonished and relieved SCOTUS upheld AA in any way, shape or form. I wonder if this will percolate to other universities and colleges. UWashington has seen its POC enrollment plummet since a state referendum outlawed AA, so my question is whether this SCOTUS decision affects the state law in Washington.
glory b
@burnspbesq: I heard an on-the-fly radio interview with one of the protesting congresscritters who said that they would have an amendment that would provide appeal rights to those on the list.
I was in the car and didn’t hear the whole thing, but they don’t disagree and seem to be addressing that.
FlyingToaster
@Corner Stone: With the current Congress, we’re not getting any pristine wedge issues.
Idiocracy wasn’t supposed to be a documentary…
Bobby Thomson
@Chyron HR:
My thoughts exactly.
Aimai
@MPAVictoria: isnt it more like 80,000? Whats with the hysteria?
ThresherK
@burnspbesq: I have no idea what that case is about, I never knew we had an “Armed Career Criminal Act”* but simply the words you’ve posted make me think it’s a positive step.
*Which makes me think of that scene in Raising Arizona:
D58826
Don’t mean to sound like troll here but if we wiped away the no-fly/terrorist watch lists/patriot act, what if anything would we replace it with. There are nasty people out there who would love to get on a plane with a bomb or who have links to terrorists but just haven’t gone operational yet.
Corner Stone
@Aimai:
It sounds like next time there is a BJ meetup in MA y’all should invite Rep Clark as she seems to represent about 90% of the MA commentariat.
Aimai
@Corner Stone: really? I think its a great wedge. It delegitimizes either the no fly list or unfettered gun rights. Its a fantastic wedge issue.
Lowtechcyclist
I have been calling the Dems the “scared rabbit party” longer than I can remember due to their tendency to run away from taking any sort of stand. I can only hope that this means the party has found some intestinal fortitude.
Mai.naem.mobile
Alito is reading the Fisher decision from the bench. Guess it wouldn’t look good for AA recipient Clarence Thomas to be reading it from the bench.
MomSense
@maya:
Yeah these same ammosexuals who are all about civil liberties and due process are first to defend cops shooting unarmed black children for walking in the street instead of on the sidewalk. Apparently that “crime” is a capital one in their constitution.
taras
@MPAVictoria:
Some perspective. There are approximately 1.1 million on the terrorist watch list (TIDE). Of those, 680,000 are on the No Fly List.
But…
– 20,800: The number of U.S. persons (citizens and lawful permanent residents) in TIDE.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/numbers-tell-story-our-governments-watchlisting-binge
Aimai
@Corner Stone: i am totally going to offer to hold a fundraiser for her.
O. Felix Culpa
Although a mere child during the civil rights era, I recall *reasonable* adults ostensibly agreeing with MLK goals, but ever so *reasonably* in solemn tones disagreeing with the tactics. Because reasons. Concern trolling, I believe what the kids call it these days. Same applies here.
Goal is to highlight the GOP contradictions, not endorse current no-fly list practices. Progressives should love it.
Wapiti
@Aimai: And maybe corrects one or the other, possibly both.
FlyingToaster
@D58826: Let the relevant agencies make a meaningful list. With descriptions (photographs where available) and bios. So that the check-in and airport security folks can see immediatedly that 3-year-old John Smith is not the ‘droid they’re looking for.
You’d probably still have 85K people on the list, but the list would make a heck of a lot more sense than it does now.
MattF
@D58826: Something with due process?
Corner Stone
@FlyingToaster: I’m not making a perfect-enemy-good argument. Simply expressing my opinion that the No Fly list is not merely imperfect but abhorrent in its nature.
Feathers
@Ejoiner: This is the same level of argument as “presumption of innocence” means that if a dude says he didn’t rape a girl it is impossible for him to be a rapist, so everybody should just shut up about it all already, OK.
However, it does seem to be referring to Haynes v. US, where it was ruled (if I’m reading this right) than you can’t charge a felon for not registering a gun they aren’t allowed to own, as registering it would force them to self incriminate as a felon. Apparently, the laws were changed to avoid this. Ms. Felon would still be charged with illegally having a weapon, but not with having an unregistered one.
I hope somebody understands this better than I do.
burnspbesq
@Mai.naem.mobile:
Alito is reading from his dissent. Kennedy had the majority opinion.
FlyingToaster
@Corner Stone: Clark got Markey’s old seat; north and west “suburban” Boston.
“Suburb” in quotes because I still have a hard time considering Watertown a “suburb” with 8K+/sqmi.
Feathers
@Aimai: Announce it here! I’m in her district too. Arlington.
Corner Stone
@Aimai: I disagree in that it allows them to keep their junk hidden behind the kimono. Any opportunity for obfuscation is extra material that’s not needed, IMO.
Fair Economist
@MPAVictoria:
The no-fly list already exists, will continue to exist if that bill fails, and won’t be a bit larger if it passes. This event is also about two other bills, BTW – one to close the gun show loophole, and one to *allow research* on stopping gun violence.
Basically you’re complaining that the bill does nothing about the no-fly list and recommending we – do nothing about the no-fly list. Compelling!
glory b
Can we have a Supreme Court thread?
MPAVictoria
” isnt it more like 80,000? Whats with the hysteria?”
Pretty sure it is more like a million. Vox has the “terrorist watch list” at 700,000
http://www.vox.com/2015/12/7/9865756/no-fly-list
And that is the list they are talking about from what I understand.
burnspbesq
@ThresherK:
It has something to do with sentence enhancement based on prior convictions. The holding, apparently, is that some weird shit in the way Iowa defines burglary means that an Iowa burglary conviction can’t be used as a predicate offense.
MPAVictoria
” isnt it more like 80,000? Whats with the hysteria?”
Pretty sure it is more like a million. Vox has the “terrorist watch list” at 700,000
“link removed so i don’t go into moderation. Google it if you like”
And that is the list they are talking about from what I understand
MPAVictoria
“The no-fly list already exists, will continue to exist if that bill fails, and won’t be a bit larger if it passes. This event is also about two other bills, BTW – one to close the gun show loophole, and one to *allow research* on stopping gun violence.”
Great! I support both those bills. I don’t support any bill that uses secret, racist gov’t lists. You shouldn’t either.
burnspbesq
U.S. v. Texas.; preliminary injunction against DAPA remains in effect.
It’s apparently 4-4.
different-church-lady
@FlyingToaster: In the pre-sprawl days, Watertown would be a “streetcar suburb”. Today I use the personally-coined term “near-burb” to describe it with a bit more precision.
In just about any other largish city in America, Watertown would be a neighborhood within the city limits instead of a separate entity. Boston proper is a comparatively small place.
geg6
@MPAVictoria:
Um, I saw several reports that the list is less than 100,000 people, 90% or so of whom are not American citizens. I guess I weigh the lives of possible victims against the right of those 10,000 citizens to get a gun immediately and lives win. If that makes me insufficiently liberal for you, I really don’t give a damn. I’m not a fan of the way the no-fly list is compiled, but lives beat buying a weapon of mass destruction every single time, in my mind.
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
He’s a Mediocre White Man, Corner Stone.
You haven’t even BEGUN to see them cape for him.
ThresherK
@O. Felix Culpa: Don’t forget “tone policing”.
Fascinating that I can’t remember anyone in the press tone-policing a Republican.
PsiFighter37
SCOTUS deadlocked on immigration.
#1 reason you vote for Clinton and a Democratic Senate this fall right there.
O. Felix Culpa
@ThresherK: You lie! //
CrowsSong
@MPAVictoria: The terrorist watch list is a different list than the no-fly list.
nominus
@Redshift:
Nail on the head.
The greater picture is that all these bedroll lawyers think they can obfuscate an issue with a flurry tiny little detailed distractions. My response is “So fix it.” That’s what we elect Congress to do, that’s the whole function of government, is to address the issues we can’t fix individually. If you can’t find a solution then you work until you can. You lock your interns in a room for a week Frank Underwood style and beat the issue to death. You get off your ass and work. But if any of them want to just shrug their shoulders and say “well gee, there’s just nothing we can do, people are going to have to die needlessly because we can’t or won’t find a solution” then I say they need to get the fuck out of government, because (like everywhere else in the world) there isn’t room for dead weight morons that won’t do their job. If those conservative assholes want the government to run like a business, then run it like any other business and unemploy the lazy.
rikyrah
@Mai.naem.mobile:
The Fisher Case was bogus as phuck to begin with. I can’t even begin to explain how ridiculous it would have been to strike affirmative action over this case, of a mediocre White girl who was either too stupid or too lazy to do the work that would have gotten her into the top 10% of her class, and thus, an automatic spot at UT.
geg6
@burnspbesq:
Wow. I really didn’t expect that. Nor did anyone with whom I work. Good.
burnspbesq
Done for the day. That leaves three cases unresolved: Whole Women’s Health, McDonnell, Voisine,. Probably will all be announced on Monday.
gvg
I think it is a strategic way to unjam a log jam by using 2 different groups of issue lovers against each other instead of in support of each other.
The no fly list is problematic. I don’t understand the legal argument that it’s ok. to me it’s not. It really doesn’t allow a due process which is unfair to people. Since it has no review and nobody ever gets removed, it has no quality control and has filled up with junk so it’s esentially useless too at doing what it was supposed to. If you are really afraid of an airplane attack, then you shouldn’t want this list to be so dumb. I don’t know how to argue it’s unfair because that seems so obvious to me I can’t understand what there is to argue.
People have said all of these things from the begining till now and nothing is getting done because the fear people won’t let it.
The 2nd amendment has been embraced by a bunch of people who IMO really like how important it makes them feel for their hobby to be so important. Others like intimidating people. The problem is they have succeeded. It’s not dumb for us to be afraid of these cultists. sometimes they do kill people who speak out for any regulation. I suspect that this really isn’t what the 2nd was meant to be but I am not a lawyer and I no longer care. If these anarchist bullies won’t allow any safety regulations and are always a threat to my life, well I am now in favor of repealing the damn thing. I will settle for a more rational regulated world. I really don’t care how we get there. Problem is a minority of life threatening bullies have managed to get rules made fewer and laxer even as the problem gets worse. Shootings in the past have actually resulted in fewer laws.
There is overlap. a lot of the terrorist fear babies are also gun fondlers, but not all and using this particular flawed law to pit them against themselves seems like a wise chess move.
Suppose this law did happen. I am almost positive that that one little thing would finally after all the non success, get the no fly list to have a review process with deletions for no cause. It still won’t be perfect and would take several revisions to get to be fair and useful but you never get to pretty good if you don’t even stop.
Any revision that made gun laws tougher after a shooting instead of weaker would be a shot in the arm of hope to energize the gun regulation side after so much despair. It’s needed.
Yossarian
Tell them you’d be happy to improve the due process of the no-fly list.
This is it, exactly. In the old days, with a functioning Congress where a bill like this might actually work its way through a committee and come to the floor for a vote, good-faith critics would potentially withhold their vote in exchange for some salutary improvements to the no-fly list (which should happen anyway!). I’d put good money on the idea that plenty of Dems would join any due process-loving Repubs to make that fix — hell, they’d probably outnumber them. Then we’d get some gun control legislation AND some potential due process fixes by members operating in good faith — you know, the whole “problem-solving” element of being an elected political official.
But since we can’t get that, you throw up some political theater dramatizing GOP obstructionism on an issue that the public overwhelmingly agrees with you on.
Percysowner
It strikes me that if we do pass “No fly, no buy” that we may suddenly have the extremely powerful NRA lobbying for due process in creating no fly lists. So this could be a win/win.
Lurker Extraordinaire
@Barbara: Thank you! This, exactly.
burnspbesq
Dollar General is also affirmed by an equally divided court.
D58826
3rd cop in Baltimore found not guilty
WarMunchkin
I get the purpose of this. Just one day ago I was reading Letter from a Birmingham Jail which provides valuable instruction as to the purpose of this sort of thing:
On the other hand, I also recall very strongly one Barack Obama’s words from “Tone, Truth and the Democratic Party” here:
There is absolutely value in dramatizing and creating a sense of crisis, as if there were no crisis already(!) over gun control. People are actually dying. But I do think that the “truth should be the hallmark of our response”, and the unmistakable truth is that the no-fly list has been an awful erosion of what we stand for, that cheaply using it as a way to gain support merely obfuscates the issues at stake. You can both do a sit-in and speak truly at the same time.
rikyrah
@burnspbesq:
What does that mean?
geg6
@MPAVictoria:
The terrorist watch list is not the same thing as the no-fly list. Two completely different things.
Face
@burnspbesq: I would think a judgement like this would be the kinda thing that would motivate Hispanics/Latinos/whomever else to vote their fucking ass off. One more proggy robe and this 5th Circuit shit is overturned.
Pretty straightforward: Allow Trump to win, you get a wall and deportation (and maybe both). Vote HRC and your kinfolk get to stay in this country. Pretty clear.
peach flavored shampoo
@burnspbesq: What’s Dollar General?
O. Felix Culpa
ETA: Sorry if my link-fu didn’t work. Someday I shall overcome. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/politics/house-democrats-stage-sit-in-to-push-for-action-on-gun-control.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region%C2%AEion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1&mc_cid=0c359e5b82&mc_eid=d206ccc0af
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
It was a conservative wet dream, financed by a right winger who’s dream is to remove the boot of oppression that is keeping the white man down.
Frank Wilhoit
@gene108: No conservative can support the 5th amendment — or the 4th, or the 1st, or the 6th.
Kazanir
The no-fly list is under 100k people. This bill actually uses the “terrorist suspect database” which is nearly a million people, and has no due process protections around it. (The no-fly list has *a few* due process protections around it thanks to 15 years of lawsuits.) Thus the confusion that Aimai and MPAVictoria are having.
This has not been made clear in the media around the bill; I learned the distinction (and that this bill is using the larger TSDB) from Billmon’s Twitter feed, which I regard as a reliable source.
All that said, this is a bad bill and so is the political theater supporting it. I say this because political theater which promotes racist and anti-due-process terrorism rhetoric is bad theater. I refuse to have this dismissed as “nitpicking” — due process is fundamental to American values and enshrining this sort of Cheneyite homeland security rhetoric as valid by having it coming from Democrats is deplorable. The Democrats should be embarrassed on that score — if they had done this sort of thing in service of the universal background checks bill I would have been all in favor.
DJW at LGM is right when he says that this is a totally shameful thing to go to war for.
rikyrah
@D58826:
So, I guess they really are going for that Freddie Gray killed himself and severed HIS OWN SPINE 80%
What DA PHUQ is this bullshyt?!?!
rikyrah
@Face:
That’s how I see it too, and the DNC better be making ads just that brutally explicit.
hovercraft
Did you catch Debbie Dingle’s speech ? From NY Magazine
She went on to describe how she was threatened at gunpoint as a child:
I lived in a house with a man that should not have had a gun. I know what it’s like to see a gun pointed at you and wonder if you are going to live. And I know what it’s like to hide in a closet and pray to god, ‘Do not let anything happen to me.’ And we don’t talk about it, we don’t want to say that it happens in all kinds of households, and we still live in a society where we will let a convicted villain who was stalking somebody of domestic abuse, still own a gun.
schrodinger's cat
NRA marching orders must be out, suddenly we have multiple trolls bleating about civil liberties.
Shell
I was impressed at all the people gathered outside, showing their support.
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
If your question is about U.S. v. Texas, it means that implementation of DAPA remains on hold, and the case moves forward for trial before an extremely hostile district judge in South Texas.
Calouste
@Kazanir: We’ll dismiss it as ammosexual purity trolling then.
The bill doesn’t have any chance to pass. It’s simply about getting Republicans on the record as either being seen as terrorist enablers or as opposing the NRA. Neither of these is good for their future electoral perspectives.
lollipopguild
@Corner Stone: As long as he can show up and not piss and shit all over himself he will be considered “on message”
agrippa
@Patricia Kayden:
I agree 100%
rikyrah
@burnspbesq:
Nope.Dollar General..what’s it about?
rikyrah
@Calouste:
Absolutely correct. the point is to get them on record with a vote and make them defend it.
and the pound the shyt out of them- calling them out about their vote.
Mnemosyne
Prezackly.
schrodinger's cat
@Face: Once they succeed with that, they want to get rid of family integration green cards and birthright citizenship. Then get rid of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Then interning undesirable citizens like the judge with Mexican heritage. Its all a part of Make America White Again. Most immigrants get this.
That’s the wishlist of the people whose rhetoric Trump is bringing into the mainstream.
MPAVictoria
Thank you Kazanir.
burnspbesq
@Kazanir:
WADR, I think you’ve drastically overreacted, by assuming that the known and serious Due Process issues related to these lists can’t or won’t be fixed at the same time that the use of the lists is expanded. Most of the folks who are in favor of sensible gun control are also broadly in favor of a semsible approach to civil liberties. Chill and be patient.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Calouste: Jesus I don’t understand why people don’t get this. If anyone wants to read more appalling missing the point comments head to Booman’s joint. Damn they hate Democrats over there.
Shell
Funny, wasn’t that exactly the same low bar the media gave Dubya during his debates?
Fair Economist
While there are problems with applying the terrorist watch list to legitimate privileges, there’s no problem with applying it to purchasing mass murder weaponry. Nobody should be buying those anyway.
schrodinger's cat
#116
Oh look, NRA sock puppets high fiving each other.
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
Tribal court jurisdiction over non-members.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/11/argument-preview-the-future-of-tribal-courts-the-power-to-adjudicate-civil-torts-involving-non-indians/
agrippa
Betty Cracker –
excellent post
lollipopguild
@Shell: Yes, pretty much.
BR
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
Booman’s site used to be much better. His writing is still good, but the rest of the site (the comments and Steven D’s posts) are awful.
WarMunchkin
@O. Felix Culpa: “Rather be inconvenienced than dead” is, by the way, identical to the rationale for discrimination against people after 9/11, and a subset of discrimination that I, my friends and my family have personally experienced in those years. It is identical to the “if you have nothing to hide, you don’t need to worry” rhetoric that eroded rights against search and seizure.
Have someone tell you that you should be placed on the no-fly list and strip searched before entering a subway because of your race, just for their own statistical safety, then come back and tell me how you feel about it.
Punchy
How long can McConnell refuse to hold hearing for a new SCOTUS judge once HRC is confirmed? Semi-serious question. I realize this implies the very unlikely scenario that Dems get the WH but fail to take the Senate, but assuming this is the result….Can McConnell argue that 8 is fine for the time being and just stonewall for 4 years?
rikyrah
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
They are some whiny azz, purity pony muthaphuckas.
Booman’s still good, which is why I still go over there.
BR
The thing I find funny about all these newfound defenders of the 2nd amendment and civil rights is that they probably don’t get profiled. I get profiled — I know what it’s like. And yet I think this is a nice piece of political theater to put the GOP on the wrong side of many issues simultaneously.
Mai.naem.mobile
@rikyrah: Abigail Fisher is a WATB.Fishers daddy was a close friend of Edward Blum who’s been bringing these AA suits. She may even be his goddaughter.
Cacti
@MPAVictoria:
What airtight and unassailable logic. Let me try:
I don’t support any mass shootings and you shouldn’t either.
rikyrah
@schrodinger’s cat:
I am so glad that you understand it all. Because, YES, this is what they’re after.
Keep on spreading that truth.
burnspbesq
@Punchy:
Realistically, he can stonewall until the Dems have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Anoniminous
@burnspbesq:
Read that as “preliminary injunction against DARPA” and wondered what scientific research those clowns in Texas were objecting to now.
ETA: Need more coffee
LAO
Before I join the argument — I seriously need to vent, off topic, about my f*cking toilet. 3 years ago I was “forced” to buy a super fancy, one-piece, European toilet because of space limitations in my tiny NY bathroom. The goddamn seat has been broken for a couple of months — what every anchored the seat is broken. I don’t have the installation instructions — so nobody can figure out how to fix it. The store that I bought it from went out of business and dealing with the manufacturing company has been like a surrealist comedy. As Dog is my witness — I have slid off this toilet for the last time today. I will personally rip the entire thing out of the floor and move on with my life.
Back to arguing about due process rights and gun humpers. I feel a little better.
Emma
So if I understand our anti-sit-in writers, nothing can ever be done about people being killed by assault rifles carried by insane people, since unless we have a perfect bill we should not use any kind of political capital to highlight the differences between Republicans and Democrats.
Interesting.
(edited for clarity)
BR
@WarMunchkin:
I have experienced it personally.
And I’m saying that I think this political theater is good. Sure the lists are crap but the aim here is to close the gun show loophole, restrict certain weapons from folks on the list, and study gun violence. All three are worthwhile to fight for whether or not the list itself is crap. As people have pointed out, the NRA will be happy to help improve the quality of the list and/or ensure better review/complaint processes, so we get help fixing the broken list as well.
rikyrah
@MPAVictoria:
Seriously?
You really think surveillance of citizens is new?
Really?
Seriously?
D58826
John Lewis ‘walking with the wind’
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/national-interest/item/94807-once-again-john-lewis-walks-with-the-wind
dww44
Thanks, Betty, for focusing on what matters. My first time on the internet today, but last night there were all these folks on MSNBC moaning about the badness of the specific legislation. Most especially including Chris Hayes, who I thought was wrong in his assessment about the violation of civil liberties, etc with the “no fly, no gun” list. Reinforcing the only argument that the GOP has to counter the demands for new gun control legislation. Turns out he wasn’t the only one. Based on tweets, the esteemed Billmon is one. He seemed to be beside himself. LGM had a couple of posts up promoting the same theme about how bad the proposed legislation is, vis-a-vis civil liberties.
Then there were a whole passel of commenters over at Booman’s place who went on and on about those terrible misguided inestimably weak House Democrats. Tilting their swords at the wrong windmills, you know. I keep dipping my toe into the comments to see if the tenor is changing (away from “never met a Democrat that was worth a dime”), but Booman’s posts are still very much worth the read. He manages to keep his eye on the prize.
Lurker Extraordinaire
@rikyrah: @rikyrah: Exactly. And it’s not like UT was the only place she could get a college degree from. She went to LSU, graduated, and now works in, of course, finance. It’s just that she didn’t get to go to the school she wanted to.
Spare me your tears, spoiled, rich, whiny white girl.
liberal
@Kazanir:
Next thing I know you’ll be telling me that political theater which promoted a Social Security “grand bargain” rhetoric is bad theater.
hovercraft
So what would have happened if these knuckleheads had reached said ‘drug den’ ?
Bobby Thomson
@Punchy:
Based on current polling, it’s far from unlikely. Democrats are blowing several races that should be winnable, including NH, PA, FL, and possibly even OH.
gwangung
Basically, this IS political theater, designed to cut into republican support by taking two of their most powerful rallying forces, gun rights and fear of brown people, and setting against each other.
Folks have some justifiable queasiness about using that second fear…but I think Dems can use that vocal queasiness to say, OK, we’ve heard your concerns about due process…let’s use a more rigorous process and use a more fair list. The devil is in the details, after all….
Mnemosyne
@Kazanir:
Forty-nine (49) people are dead. In one night. Killed by one (1) asshole with a semi-automatic rifle and a handful of high-capacity magazines.
At this point, I don’t give a flying fuck which bill the Democrats use to force Republicans to either stand up to the NRA or to explain to voters why it’s more dangerous to let someone sit in an airplane seat than it is to let them have a semi-automatic rifle.
If the form of a bill that has ZERO chance of actually passing is more important to you than HUMAN LIVES, then you are part of the problem. Go fuck yourself.
Fair Economist
@BR:
Bernie’s campaign seems to have driven the lefty wing there crazy. Now they say Hillary’s proposal to raise estate taxes is unacceptable neo-con DINO because she’s not proposing to completely abolish all inheritance. They used to be pretty reasonable. It’s really bizarre.
Anoniminous
@LAO:
Go to a plumber’s supply store, NOT your local hardware store, with your story of woe and ask them how to fix it.
Mnemosyne
@MPAVictoria:
I guess John Lewis is the real racist here, amirite?
Cacti
For the no fly list fret-ers, could one of you clue me in to the life, liberty, or property interest that triggers a Constitutional due process review?
Is the right to fly commercially next to the right to own an AR-15 in the Constitution?
rikyrah
Supreme Court blocks Obama admin’s immigration policy
06/23/16 11:01 AM—UPDATED 06/23/16 11:08 AM
By Steve Benen
In November 2014, soon after the midterm elections, President Obama announced he’d found a way forward on overhauling immigration policy, relying exclusively on his executive authority. As regular readers may recall, the result was a policy known as DAPA – Deferred Action for Parental Accountability – in which the White House, among other things, extended temporary status to millions of undocumented immigrants, shielding them from deportation threats and allowing them to apply for work permits.
At the time, the Justice Department took the unusual step of publishing a dense, 33-page legal memo, explaining in great detail exactly why the president’s executive actions are legally permissible under existing laws, rulings, and precedents. Federalist Society members couldn’t come up with a constitutional objection; Obama’s actions are in line with what some of his Republican predecessors did without incident; and the whole legal argument against Obama’s actions seemed a little silly.
And yet, the White House’s Republican critics felt a little differently, and 26 states a filed suit challenging DAPA. In an unexpected result, the far-right opponents of the administration’s policy have won – at least for now. NBC News’ Pete Williams reported this morning:
Corner Stone
@LAO: God, where is Punchy when he is so needed?
Kazanir
@Calouste:
I’m aware of the bill’s chances of passing, and I suspect that if it got close that the Democrats would at least try to do something to ameliorate my concerns. But in the meantime we have Democrats painting anyone who opposes secret terrorist suspect databases as “terrorist enablers”, as you have so kindly demonstrated.
I find that sort of rhetoric deplorable. If we knew what was good for us, we would reject it. It is a shame that the Democrats in Congress have sacrificed this principle in the hopes of trying to make Republicans look bad and score a political victory.
petesh
Yay, Betty!
When John Lewis sat in at a lunch counter in Nashville in 1960, it wasn’t because he was hungry.
Lewis et al. are engaged in something it gladdens the heart to see. Yet some of these pusillanimous soi-disant lefties are actually trying to undermine the protest. It’s as if they thought the 1960 complaints were about undercooked hamburgers or factory farming.
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: You are welcome. A lot of what Trump is spouting has been discussed in online forums for years of anti-immigration sites like Numbers USA and FAIR. Illegal immigrants or the undocumented are the low hanging fruit. Their endgame is much bigger than the 11 million undocumented.
They are emulating the highly successful tactics of anti-choice activists. Go after late term abortions first and eventually get rid of all access to birth control.
elm
If you want to complain about the no-fly list provision, put the blame on Susan Collins. Her fake proposal for a compromise bill set this up, these House Democrats are calling the GOP’s bluff.
Here is Collins’s bad-faith proposal.
Their plan was to pretend to support Collins’s proposal and then to allow it to die (quietly) in the House. This is an attack on the quietly part.
Betty Cracker
@Kazanir:
Fair enough. And I refuse to have my applause for the performance of Rep. Lewis, et al, be mischaracterized as support for or indifference to the no-fly list as-is. Good faith…how does it work?
LAO
@Anoniminous: I have to laugh. I just got off the phone with a salesman from the manufacturer. He (1) went into the showroom (2) took apart the toilet seat (3) sent picture of each step (4) a picture of a phillips head screw driver — cause I’m a woman and I might not know what that is and (5) called back me with step by step instructions. I might marry him — if he hadn’t sent the picture of the screw driver — cause that’s just insulting. I can’t wait to go home and try it out!
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: I’m not so much concerned about this bill as the things we might get railroaded into supporting in the future, when the political situation favors actually passing something (which could actually be not too far off). In the 9/11 attacks nearly 3,000 people were killed (thought to be more like 5,000 at the time), and I don’t think that made the Patriot Act OK, even leaving the ill-conceived wars aside.
O. Felix Culpa
@WarMunchkin: I doubt that anyone protesting on the House floor supports racial profiling. They also didn’t expect this flawed bill to come up for vote, much less pass. To Betty’s most excellent point, the Dems were highlighting the contradictions and callous disregard for lives in favor of the NRA and second amendment absolutism.
I truly appreciate the concern for due process. I would love to have that concern extended to the children of Sandy Hook, gay folk and allies at Orlando, movie-goers in Aurora, and future victims yet to be named.
Kazanir
@burnspbesq:
I hope you’re right — it isn’t out of the question that these concerns would be addressed before passage of an actual bill. I am actual far more hopeful about the behavior of Democrats than many people. But it doesn’t change the fact that (at least some of the) Democrats are trying to use Cheneyite tactics and messaging against the GOP right now.
– That’s bad on its own terms, because that sort of rhetoric is evil, and implicitly endorses the “war on terror” framework that stokes fear of people with brown skin, weird religions, or funny names.
– And it is bad in tactical terms because it lends “both sides do it” legitimacy to that sort of messaging in the media.
– And it is bad in leadership terms, because seeing Democratic leadership use that rhetoric teaches Democrats that it is okay to use. (Witness the use of it in this very comment section, against me and others!)
– And finally it is bad in optics terms, because it makes clear to cynical observers that they are right to be cynical because they can clearly see that the Democrats will sacrifice principles like “due process of law” in the hopes of scoring a political victory.
I reject wholeheartedly the idea that these concerns make me “part of the problem” around gun control. As I said, I would be 100% on board if Democrats had taken this action to try to pass universal background checks. But they screwed up instead.
Miss Bianca
@Sondra: your whole post makes me smile.
elm
@Kazanir:
This is calling a bluff. Susan Collins and a handful of pretend-moderates in the Senate GOP say they would support a proposal that:
1. Prevents people on the no-fly list from buying a gun
and
2. Allows an appeals process for people on the no-fly list.
The NRA also pretends to support this.
The GOP/NRA plan is to smother that proposal in the House. That’s why this action takes its current form. Sorry it’s not pure enough for you. Go talk to Susan Collins about that.
They are. That is one of the proposals they’re trying to force a vote on.
Halcyon
All the people who assume that this will lead to due-process around the Terrorist Watch List because the NRA would push for it if we tie gun restrictions to it are insane. Why on earth would they do that? That would lead to the bill actually staying. The very first thing that would happen is that someone would challenge the lack of due process in the courts, who would strike it down as violating due process rights, and then we get absolutely nothing. You don’t get gun restrictions OR a revamp of the TWL. You get nothing, and Republicans can RIGHTLY SAY they defended your rights from Democrats who were willing to sell them out unconstitutionally but were too incompetent to even get that done. This is not the hill to die on.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@MPAVictoria: Pushing gun restrictions onto the limits resulting from the no-fly list makes it a Constitutional issue, and that means it’s going to be much easier to drag the damn lists into court, and force an open review of the processes used to place people on the list, as well as an examination of why it’s apparently not possible to remove people from the list. As there is, apparently, no guaranteed right that we can travel by airplane, there hasn’t been much chance to have such a review.
So I consider this a win-win–if it makes it even a little harder for legitimately-listed persons of interest to get guns it’s a win, and if it forces the damn lists into court for an open review of process and procedure, it’s a win.
ThresherK
@burnspbesq: Thanks for the updates. Hey, are you trying to put Dalia Lithwick out of business?
Fair Economist
Complaining about the terror watchlist being used is just concern trolling, because the bill won’t use it to limit any valid privileges.
Also, there’s a bill for widened background checks and to allow research on gun violence.
Finally, *it’s just asking for a vote*.
gwangung
I think also part of the conundrum is that I’m not entirely sure this sort of attack on Republicans would even be possible without a no fly/no gun impulse; certainly, it makes the political attack far stronger and makes success more possible.
Cacti
@petesh:
Generation hashtag activism is always ready, willing, and able to carp from the sidelines about how the doers of deeds should have done them better.
Kazanir
@Betty Cracker:
If I have come off that way I apologize — I re-read my posts carefully and I don’t think I have. To clarify: I know that you, and probably every other front-pager here, and probably most of the Democrats on that floor, don’t actually support the idea of due-process-free suspect databases or the current no-fly list.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped (at least some of the) Democrats on that floor from using that Cheneyite messaging to try to score this political victory, and that really sucks. The spirit of 2002 is not something I want to yield even an inch of rhetorical space to.
Miss Bianca
@Corner Stone:
let’s see…got a locked door, a fire that threatens all our lives…am i going to quibble over whether that wedge I use to get that door open is a crowbar or an ax handle? Sadly, no, I am not. I am going to worry about getting the goddamned door open by any means necessary. THEN I’ll worry about what sort of tool I had to use.
lollipopguild
Per our ruckus in the House last night(Could you describe the ruckus?) To steal a line from Young Frankensteen, “A riot is an ugly thing. And i think its about damn time we had ONE!
elm
@Halcyon:
Nobody is saying that who has any fucking familiarity with the actual proposals (rather than the ones they’ve imagined into being).
The fake moderates in the Senate GOP have put forth a proposal that would (in one bill) reform the no-fly list and prevent people on it from buying guns.
They don’t really want that to pass, but they think it looks good for them to act that way.
Lewis, et. a. are calling their fucking bluff.
Cacti
@Kazanir:
I reject the idea that anything is my fault, and instead place the blame where it belongs. With others.
What a good little concern troll you are. Have a troll treat.
Amaranthine RBG
As far as dramas go, I’d say it is comparable to “Lost”. Lots of stuff going on but no possibility of a satisfying ending. The Senate has already voted down the proposals that Lewis’ bill advances so even if there is a vote it will amount to a big nothingburger.
But, hey, mob rule is great — as long as the mob is on your side.
elm
@Kazanir: That’s exactly how you sound, like an uninformed concern troll out here to piss your pants in public and get some attention.
I don’t think you know what the no-fly/no-buy proposal actually says and I don’t think you know what set of legislation Lewis et. al. are demanding action on.
Halcyon
@elm: Except the people on this thread who made exactly that argument. There have been multiple.
I hope you’re right, don’t get me wrong. But given how we have yet to ever actually get anything meaningful and useful done on this after so many tragedies, it’s hard to have faith when there are obvious ways for it to go wrong.
Cacti
As we saw with the Affordable Care Act, there will always be a certain sort of myopic “progressive” who believes hunger is preferable to a half loaf of bread, and shame on the people who got the half loaf for not asking if anyone was gluten intolerant.
gvg
@Matt McIrvin: Bad things we didn’t expect will always happen. If you don’t want bad laws to get passed, you need to make sure we don’t have a government of idiots. Currently that means defeating Republicans. Bigger issue is crushing the popular idea that expertise doesn’t matter of that their feelings trump science or that proof is feeling. Arrgh…I feel incoherent rage coming on. Anyway this is about elections.
rikyrah
@schrodinger’s cat:
I want folks to remember that Jeb actually said this at a townhall to an immigrant. You better get your sister here before I am President, because I’m going to cut that ALL out – family reunification.
But, because he says it in Spanish, it was supposed to be more palatable.
Uh huh.
It’s one of the reasons that I’m grateful to the Spanish-language press, because they are the only ones breaking down like a fraction. They are not interested in pretending that Trump or the GOP mean anything other than what they say.
dww44
@BR: i see you got to the prevailing temperament over at Booman’s place before I did. I’m glad to know though there are others who feel as I do. I simply cannot read Steven D ‘s posts and thanks to a couple of commenters who simply fill the space up with one anti Democratic diatribe ad nauseum, Arthur Gilroy is not so far out there as he once was.
Amaranthine RBG
@Miss Bianca:
“let’s see…got a locked door, a fire that threatens all our lives…”
This right here is the problem. This ginned up sense of panic and impending danger. Crime, including shootings and all other manner of homicide, is a fraction of what it was 30 or 40 years ago.
Assholes on right us fear to sell guns for “protection” and assholes on the left use the same fear to promote gun control.
Amaranthine RBG
@Kazanir:
Bravo or Brava as the case may be.
LAO
@Cacti: This whole thread reminds of that old joke:
CONGRATULATIONS!
@rikyrah: Bike cops broke his back when riding him down. He was already paralyzed when first put in the van, as video amply shows. The prosecution deliberately charged the wrong people and never bothered to even look at the guys who, in the end, killed him.
elm
@Halcyon: If people have been arguing that, then they are unfamiliar with the actually existing proposals, which feature changes to how the no fly list would operate.
The people making actual policy proposals are a couple of steps ahead of the concern trolls.
piratedan
for those asking about the SCOTUS Dollar General decision, my understanding (and IANAL) is that that Dollar General, which has a store on an indian reservation, doesn’t want to be subject to tribal law courts because they feel that the judiciary associated with tribal organizations will automatically be predisposed to rule against whites or corporations…
here’s a nice synopsis from Sam Bee… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD7TGp8XML4
Miss Bianca
@Amaranthine RBG: You know what? I’m tired of people like you. “Gee, crime rates are down, so why are you letting a few mass murders EVERY GODDAMNED DAY get your knickers in a twist, libtard?” I’m tired of the open carry nuts I live among who feel like it’s their gods-given right to shout down and intimidate people who don’t share their views. I’m tired of kids around here having easy access to guns and blowing their heads off, which at least one or two do routinely around these parts every year. And when you have a graduating class as small as ours, that makes a difference. I’m tired of our mouth-breathing sheriffs deciding that learning the difference between one type of clip or magazine or whatever the fuck you want to call it is too strenuous for them, so they’re not going to enforce the state’s gun laws – but they have no problem trying to bust people for growing pot plants, which is actually, you know, *legal* in this state. “Promote gun control”? You’re goddamn right I want to “promote gun control”. Your point?
WarMunchkin
@O. Felix Culpa:
There is no issue with advocating for an assault weapons ban. Or closing the gun show loophole. Or heck, when I’m your benevolent dictator, I will actually take away all your guns – because guns should not be a natural right. 49 people died. Children died. I get this. And just last night I learned that one of my good friends saw his father murdered in front of him two days ago, by a group of 18 year olds who broke into their house intending to steal, waving their guns around. We are all still processing this.
I don’t think it’s right for you to question other people’s sincerity on this issue, of mass slaughter, because they disagree.
This isn’t a criticism of performance @Betty Cracker, this is a criticism of substance. It is not the theater that people are disagreeing with – by all means, let the world know that Republicans are assholes – it is the substance of what you want to actually achieve. Because as @O. Felix Culpa pointed out without realizing, it’s not about exposing hypocrisy on the Republicans’ part – we’ve clearly lost that plot, as @Cacti‘s supportive remarks about the no-fly list on principle show – it’s about the sincere belief that being placed on the list is a minor inconvenience for people that’s worth it due to safety. Which was exactly the 9/11 response, to the letter.
But fine, @schrodinger’s cat I’m an NRA sockpuppet, and @Mnemosyne, I guess I’m part of the problem, and the reason those people lie dead is because of people like me.
hedgehog mobile
@Miss Bianca: Preach. Thank you.
LAO
@Miss Bianca: You are in righteous form today.
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: The current wait for the sibling visa for some countries like India is something ridiculous like 20 years or so. So in effect it is pretty useless.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Here are the victims of the mass shooting at Northern Illinois University.
Go fuck yourself.
gwangung
“The best way to fix the lack of due process in the no fly list is to make white male conservatives concerned about being on it.”
Amaranthine RBG
@Miss Bianca:
It’s fine to harness emotion to advance sensible policy goals, but when wholly illogical emotion is driving the campaign, there’s a problem.
hedgehog mobile
@Miss Bianca: Thank you.
apocalipstick
@Ejoiner:
The argument in reference to “no fly no buy” is (I believe) that since no one on the no-fly list has been convicted of a crime, depriving them of a gun would be the denial of due process. It’s perfect for right-wingers: seems to have a constitutional base and smacks of “common sense”. I would ask if he was so concerned when people were placed in Guantanamo Bay without even being charged. If he wasn’t, then he can kiss due process’s ass.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
When the Patriot Act passed, Republicans had a majority in the House, a +1 majority in the Senate including Cheney’s vote, and the presidency. It would have passed and been signed into law even if every Democrat in Congress had voted against it.
Please explain how Democrats would be similarly railroaded in a situation where we instead held both houses of Congress and the presidency.
Amaranthine RBG
@gwangung: And the best way to win Republican approval of gun control measures is to bar sales only to people on a secret list comprising mostly Muslim or brownish people.
gogol's wife
@apocalipstick:
Right.
apocalipstick
@MPAVictoria:
Because they know there will not be a vote. It is similar to Obama’s offer to cut Social Security when he knew the Teahadis wouldn’t accept it. Makes them look unreasonable, costs the Dems/Obama nothing.
Amaranthine RBG
@apocalipstick: So your thought process here is: Republicans don’t always support due process when it aligns with their political goals, so why should I?
C’mon – aren’t we better than this?
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Here are the victims of the mass shooting in Omaha. I have been listing these since yesterday and this is the first one that did not take place within the past 8 years.
Go fuck yourself.
Miss Bianca
@Amaranthine RBG: You remind me of my mother. She loved to say shit to get a reaction, and then smugly say, “well, there’s no need to get all emotional about it.” Of course, the fact that SHE got “emotional” over any threat to her authoriteh, or what she considered her “rights”, was completely irrelevant. I’m just glad she wasn’t a gun-humper.
That being said…oh, I am so very, very sorry that grief and rage over the state of the sheer number of fucking gun deaths in this country – grief and rage that the mildest, most sensible of measures are so routinely painted as “extreme violations of gun owners’ rights!!” – grief and rage that finally crystallizes into a determination to break the stranglehold that the NRA has over our legislative process – strikes you as “illogical emotion”. Your concerns have been noted. Don’t you have some self-fucking to take care of?
gwangung
@Amaranthine RBG: You’re not making a whole lot of sense here.
Now go fuck yourself.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Here’s my stance: we repeal the Second Amendment and confiscate all guns in private hands.
I’m done with this bullshit and whining and carping every time there’s any kind of action towards reasonable control over deadly weapons.
You’re motherfucking right I’m coming for your guns. I am willing to amend the motherfucking Bill of Rights just to stop assholes like you.
You wanted a war? You’ve fucking got one.
WarMunchkin
@Amaranthine RBG: The thought process is this:
1. Achievable legislation for the cause of protecting Americans from being killed by guns, in the long-run, can only happen when Democrats have more political power.
2. Actions that achieve political power for Democrats are actions that are preferred and should be encouraged by anyone who supports protecting Americans from mass murder.
3. This is an action that achieves more political power for Democrats.
The thought process itself is clear.
amk
It’s pretty telling how the concern trolls here mimic word for word paul fucking ryan’s concern for ‘due process’.
Amaranthine RBG
@Miss Bianca:
You framed the issue as follows: “let’s see…got a locked door, a fire that threatens all our lives…”
I pointed out that the fire has been boring forever and it was actually much worse 30 or 40 years ago.
Your response to that is just another manipulative emotional appeal along the lines of “Well I am sorry if you are offended that I care about all of the dead little children . . .”
You obviously don’t realize it, but such amped up overdramatic and attention seeking behavior actually hurts the cause. It makes it easier for opponents and people in the middle to dismiss gun control arguments as being emotion, not fact, driven. You’re not as bad a Mnemo at least who apparently imagines that she is trudging across the Edmund Pettus bridge as she posts her drivel.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
You are just, so, so brave.
Be sure and take some full-body shots to have handy for when they finally decide to put up those statues of you.
nutella
@Lurker Extraordinaire:
Abigail Fisher will be known all her life as that woman who was too mediocre to get into UT and too dumb to keep that information to herself.
Amaranthine RBG
@amk:
Look, is due process something that people should support? Does what Paul Ryan says about it change anything?
Amaranthine RBG
@nutella:
IKR, how fucking dumb do you have to be to not be in the top 10% of your graduating class in Texas?
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Here are the victims in Orlando, each one of whose lives are less important to you than your ability to own a toy.
I’m done. Your guns will be taken from you, and I will enjoy your salty tears as you cry for Mommy to give your toys back.
Calouste
@WarMunchkin:
Yes, you are, and yes, it is.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne: Your gluten will be taken from you, and I will enjoy your salty tears as you cry for Mommy to give your crackers back.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Awwww, is it tantrum time? Is this where you say it’s not fair that we took your toys away just because you kept hitting your sister in the head with them?
burnspbesq
@ThresherK:
Naw. I don’t mind admitting that she’s better at it than I am. However, she doesn’t show up here at 0-dark-hundred, so you’re stuck with me.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Hey, remember when that guy killed 49 people at a nightclub by throwing gluten at them? Good times, good times.
gogol's wife
@Calouste:
Amen to that.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
What the hell did he even mean by that?
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne: Where are my crackers. I want my crackers!
Cacti
@Amaranthine RBG:
The civil rights movement did it wrong. Gandhi too.
Anonymous internet person hath declared it so.
Miss Bianca
@Amaranthine RBG: And what you’re doing is making an excuse for doing nothing. Because, you know, reasons. And I lerrrvves me my guns, so let me just shut you up with how emotional you sound, little lady, so that will discredit you and your piddly little “gun control movement.”
You’re not “over-emotional” about your guns? Bullshit. You’ll do anything to stop people talking about any need to regulate them. Accusing people who want to put gun control regulations in place of being “emotional” is just the latest trick in your flaccid little bag.
And I fucking hate it when gun-humpers sneer about “all the little dead children.” Because of course, their “nonemotional” attachment to THEIR rights to own guns are SO much more important than some silly emotional reaction to gun-related deaths.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
Apparently 30,000 American die every year because someone threw gluten at them and killed them. You’d think somebody would try and pass a law about that, but I guess there’s a constitutional right to kill people by throwing gluten at them.
germy
@Mnemosyne: But if you take the guns away from good, honest citizens
who will the bad guys steal guns from?
amk
@Amaranthine RBG: awww, appealing to our better nature, are we? where was the fucking due process when the rethugs pushed so many odious bills across the states?
You are just a dishonest bore of a troll.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Yes, if only we’d made sure that Jared Loughner could get his Saltines, he never would have killed those 6 people by throwing gluten at them.
BR
Booman just posted something almost exactly the same as this post.
Cacti
@Miss Bianca:
The RKBA cultists believe that mass shootings are an acceptable societal price to pay for easy access to firearms.
Their solutions for mass shootings are: 1. More guns, 2. Prayers for the victims, 3. Both
schrodinger's cat
@schrodinger’s cat: Correction:
The wait according to the latest visa bulletin for sponsoring siblings is
1. China : 13 years
2. India: 15 years
3. Mexico: 19 years
4. Philippines: 23 years
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@gogol’s wife: I … want to say that it’s tied to some nonsense about healthy eating initiatives? Because I didn’t speak up when they came for the guns, they are now coming for my junk food?
That sounds about at the right sanity level. I think.
Amaranthine RBG
@Miss Bianca:
None of the proposals recently voted on by the Senate or those advocated by Lewis in the house would affect me and my gun ownership in the slightest.
I own mostly what would be called “hunting” firearms, no so called “assault weapons”, no “large capacity” magazines, I’m TSA Global Entry approved and I still have a security clearance. So none of this will affect me, directly, in the slightest.
Restricting rights based on secret lists is a terrible idea. It’s a step towards dystopian totalitarianism.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
For the record, I’m equally upset by grown-ass adults being shot and killed in mass murder incidents.
But, good news from ARBG — just as many people are killed in gluten-throwing incidents every year as are killed by gun violence, so why are we worrying about bullets so much? Let’s get that deadly gluten-throwing under control, stat!
redshirt
@Amaranthine RBG:
You still don’t get that’s not what the sit in is about, even though that is the subject of this post and many comments directed at you have repeated this.
So do you just not get the point, or are your willfully ignoring it?
Also, your opinion on “Lost” is wrong too, which makes me wonder if you’re ever right about anything.
schrodinger's cat
Correction to my earlier comment about the family reunification green cards
The wait according to the latest visa bulletin for sponsoring siblings is
1. China : 13 years
2. India: 15 years
3. Mexico: 19 years
4. Philippines: 23 years
In short for these 4 countries the waits are so long that those visas are basically useless for the siblings and their spouses.
Miss Bianca
@Amaranthine RBG: Yeah, whereas a society where – oh, no, not me! – just some OTHER people – can buy military-grade assault weapons and slaughter 30, 40, 50 people at a time is a “freedom-loving dystopia”, not a “totalitarian dystopia”. Wow, I am so glad we got *that* straightened out. Is that all you got?
Amaranthine RBG
@amk:I’m not sure what “odious bills” you are talking about, but I very much opposed the curtailment of individual rights embodied in National Security Letters, detention of Americans without trial or charges, the idiotic invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, etc.
The same way the I now oppose using “religion” as a proxy for determining what refugees are safe to admit to this country.
Look, I get it, you think I am a terrible person or something. Fine. Just ignore me. But ask yourself if due process matters, even when those affected aren’t like you. That should guide your thinking here, not whether or not you think I’m odious.
smith
Amazing to me that normal human outrage about mass murders is framed as “illogical emotion” when the gun humpers are nothing but emotion all the way down. They need their guns because they are inadequate men who are too scared to step outside without a deadly penile extension. It’s not about protection, it’s about projection. Really, it would save us all a lot of grief if these guys would just look into implants.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: I wish you’d stop spraying all that gluten around, Mnem – you couild hurt somebody!
Amaranthine RBG
@redshirt: Isn’t one of the bills for which Lewis and others wants a vote whether or not to bar weapons purchases by people on no-fly lists?
Amaranthine RBG
@Miss Bianca: You are silly. You keep moving the goalposts every time your silly arguments gets crushed.
Try to realize that “Never admitting I am wrong” is not the same thing as being right.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
Pretty much any visa from India is backlogged by at least 12 years, i.e if you applied in 2004 you’d get your GC this year.
It’s almost as if there’s an attempt to limit immigration from certain places to the USA. And if there’s not, the effect is the same.
Cacti
@WarMunchkin:
My point seems to have sailed right over your head.
Attaching the no fly list to the purchase of firearms would make it a due process issue by extension. On its own, there is no due process issue that attaches to no-fly, because traveling via commercial airline is not a constitutionally protected liberty interest. It’s a privilege, subject to all manner of regulation in the interest of public safety.
If you dislike the no-fly list on principle, that’s fine. If you think it’s in need of changes, also fine. But it doesn’t alter the underlying fact that there is no right to fly.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Please, tell us more about how many people are killed every year when other people throw gluten at them. It’s clearly a serious problem if you think we should ban gluten before we even consider banning guns.
amk
@Amaranthine RBG: Two lies straight away in one paragraph. Point proved.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: According to the July Visa Bulletin EB-1 is current for India, but your point is well taken for all the other categories.
Mnemosyne
@smith:
I still say that what the “open carry” dudes really want to do is walk around with no pants on so they can show everyone what they’re packing, but that’s not socially acceptable, plus they would feel a little gay.
If we introduce a bill saying that insecure men are allowed to walk around with no pants on at the grocery store, will they agree to leave their gun at home?
wenchacha
We must resolve to NEVER try to address gun rights until we address the obvious lack of due process brought to us at a time when we vocally claimed safety of airline passengers was of greater importance and to say otherwise was anti-American.
redshirt
@Amaranthine RBG: The chances of any bill passing are 0.001%. So what’s your point again?
It’s a political stunt designed to draw attention to the issue. Do you get that? It seems like a simple matter, but then, you’re a BernieBro so who knows.
Mayur
Allow me to throw a little gasoline on this nice blaze y’all have got going:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/06/the-terrorist-watch-list-is-still-a-due-process-disaster-and-trying-to-expand-its-use-is-shameful
I have no problem with what Lewis is doing because it’s pretty obviously political hardball; that said, I think some of you need to take it a bit easy on the folks who are (gently, in some cases) reminding us that these watch lists are terrible and using them to deprive people of rights is bad for Constitutional due process. I think Betty gets it right when she says it’s nitpicking the script to focus on the use of those lists, but a lot of the arguments here seem to be “anything to get rid of the guns!”
I hate guns; I think the 2A is a mess that has no place existing in the modern world and that in any case it doesn’t preclude gun regulation. But it’s worth keeping in mind (as I genuinely believe the Dems in Congress are) that there’s no reason to make deprivation of due process, rather than sensible regulation and BETTER process, the hill to die on.
Miss Bianca
@Amaranthine RBG: *I’m* silly? LOL! You, creature, are *ridiculous*. Far too ridiculous to waste any more time on, dearly as I love a laugh. I’m not “moving the goalposts” – I’m pointing out the fatuousness of your oh-so-serious “arguments” – and you’re getting pissy about it.
germy
@Mnemosyne:
Would that be the Winnie The Pooh Bill or the Donald Duck Bill?
Tripod
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
@Fair Economist:
This does have the added benefit of exposing Bernie, and the “never Hillary” portion of his supporters, as libertarian stooges rather than leftists, and direct action frauds.
Calouste
@wenchacha: We’re not trying to address “gun rights” (since when does a metal object have rights?), we’re trying to address people getting killed for no reason.
Tripod
I figure that Democratic party messaging is effective when BJ gets desperate trolls trying to change the narrative by shitting in the punch bowl.
Mnemosyne
@wenchacha:
And gluten. Don’t forget about the gluten.
germy
Aimai
Christ! Between the bernie leftists for whom no democratic initiative is effective if it doesnt involve birds, giant puppets, or farting and the ACLU’s crack team of concern trolls worried that the democrats will lose the commanding heights of the moral hillock if they once stoop to noisy street theater, cruel manipulation, broad strokes, politics even (faints!)Or anything that smacks of stooping to conquer its no wonder we can’t have nice things. if the various flavors of left purity trolls could stop stabbing us and each other in the back perhaps hillary clinton and the kick ass dems could start to commit some god damned political winning up there.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Hmmm. The open carry/no pants crowd currently bears a strong resemblance to the irascible Donald Duck, but perhaps allowing them to fulfill their heart’s desire of showing off their junk will turn them into cuddly Winnie the Poohs? Hard to say.
germy
@Aimai:
But isn’t chasing a car more fun than catching a car?
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I love this new “being anti-gun is like being anti-gluten” metaphor so much. So, so much. I am picking it up and hugging it and squeezing it and calling it George.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Berniebros in my twitter feed actually think John Lewis and the other Dems were inspired by Bernie fucking Sanders. Try cracking open a history book, delusional idiots, or in the alternative go form a drum circle in the middle of traffic. That works too.
germy
@Mnemosyne: Porky Pig wore a blazer, bow tie but no pants.
germy
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I shared the John Lewis sit-in story with a bernie bro who responded “glad he’s finally showing some gumption”
I kid you not.
redshirt
@germy: Always disturbing.
wenchacha
@Calouste: I was attempting to be facetious, maybe not successfully.
I care about addressing our spate of gun violence/mass shootings/background check loopholes. Tying it to the imperfect No-fly list does not bother me.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@germy:
It’s a fucking cult of ahistorical, delusional morons.
Mnemosyne
@Mayur:
There is a reason I’m slapping a specific poster around. He’s a known, long-time NRA apologist and has demonstrated multiple times that he will accept no reasonable changes to our current free-for-all system.
I think the other people who are wringing their hands about this being the “wrong” bill are misguided and short-sighted. They’re thinking about policy when, right now, the only thing in play is politics. This bill has ZERO chance of passing the House. None. Nada. Zip. So the hand-wringing about it being a “bad” bill is out of place.
It’s not a bill. It’s a carefully designed trap. House Republicans know it, and they’re trying to convince you to let them out.
Miss Bianca
@Mayur: I don’t think anyone here is saying “watch lists, yay! MOAR watch list! cuz they’re just that awesome!”
I think the point that has been made – sometimes gently, sometimes less so – is that the no-fly list exists; its existence and its rationale are a tool that can be used. A tool that can be bent around the Republicans’ collective nutsacks and used to bring them to heel on the issue of meaningful gun legislation. As Jenny Fraser says in Outlander (I’m paraphrasing), “there’s beasts as are biddable, and those that are not, and those that are not require something extra in the way of persuasion.”
in other words, exactly the point Betty C. was making.
chopper
@Amaranthine RBG:
to be fair, you have been sounding like a parrot recently.
chopper
@Cacti:
the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of first graders and gay nightclub goers.
Miss Bianca
@Aimai: Preach it, sister!
Halcyon
Really? The ACLU are concern trolls too if they dare to disagree that this is the wisest and bestest idea ever? Not like they’ve earned a *little* bit of credit pointing out that a plan that involves selling out one set of important rights to get rid of another set of things we don’t want might not go well?
Mnemosyne
@chopper:
As long as it happens to other people, it’s no big deal, amirite? ARBG’s constitutional right to own a gun is clearly far more important than the lives of people he’s never met and now never will, because they’re dead anyway. C’est la vie!
Calouste
@wenchacha: Sorry.
It’s just that the term “gun rights” bugs me. That’s the way the ammosexuals want to phrase it. We should focus on the effects of their fetish and how to prevent it. “Preventing mass shootings” is something that should be a lot harder to oppose than “gun control”.
chopper
@Miss Bianca:
besides which, from what i’ve heard the dems are offering amendments that add appeal rights and scrutiny to the no-fly list. not merely because that sort of thing is overdue but also to add due process rights in one way or another regarding restricting gun ownership thereby.
to me it’s a twofer and it makes the GOP look even more douchey.
Mnemosyne
@Halcyon:
Hard as this is to believe, the ACLU is not actually a political entity whose concern is partisan politics. They make a deliberate attempt to stand above the fray and stay out of Democrat vs Republican spats.
So, frankly, it would shock me if the ACLU came out in favor of this kind of baldfaced political blackmail that exists solely to force Republicans to piss off at least one set of their supporters. It ain’t the ACLU’s job to do that.
ETA: Do I approve of baldfaced political blackmail directed against the Republicans? You bet your sweet bippy I do!
Cacti
For reference, the crowd sourced Mass Shooting Tracker lists 299 deaths, 721 injuries from 196 mass shootings (FBI definition) between January 1 and June 23, 2016.
Incidents have happened in 35 states and the District of Columbia.
Link
schrodinger's cat
@Calouste: In the Republican world, non-living entities have rights, humans on the other hand..
Thus we have states rights, gun rights and property rights.
gogol's wife
I wish I had kept a list of the issues that are used in every single gun-related thread. It’s always a different one, but it’s always something. It’s something else we’re REALLY supposed to talk about — mental health care is a big one — so that God forbid we don’t talk about doing anything to restrict the availability of guns.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
You have to admit, “gluten” is the best one to come along in a while. I think the bottom of the barrel is being scraped for similar zingers even as we speak.
aimai
@Halcyon:
Oh, ok, I think I should take this one. I referred to the ACLU (and I’m a member, by the way) because djw, over at LGM, in a staggeringly stupid thread, referred to himself as an ACLU’er at heart. The ACLU are not concern trolling us here–but concerned citizens are behaving like concern trolls and using the ACLU’s issues and concepts as the method by which they do it.
Here’s the thing–and stay with me for a moment–the ACLU does a very specific kind of legal work. Their opinion on a matter of politics, and especially electoral politics, is not dispositive. For one thing they tend to think in terms of end products (a law) with a specific set of possible precedential outcomes in a court battle. But a politician, even one who is engaged in potentially writing a law has a different set of priorities, a different understanding of the stages by which an idea becomes a law and then gets submitted for review when challenged in a court case. For one thing a legislator has to deal with time, committees, negotiations, trade offs, gestures, outside pressure, tv, as well as the bald language of the legislation. All of these things intervene between the proposal (we should do something about something) and the execution (this is the thing we are going to do). Short circuting that process for fear that the Democrats are going to turn into the Republicans on minority or muslim rights, or that their very proposal gives aid and comfort to the Republicans is absurd and, frankly, insulting.
And the proof of the pudding, by the way, is in the eating. The Republicans are so terrified of linking gun rights (constitutional right, fetishized idol) to the NFL and the Terrorist Watch List that they literally had to shut down congress to escape debating it.
aimai
I always know when a thread is over–because that’s when I really get started posting! I want to say something else about the ACLU/naysayers group of commenters. There’s a whole lot of accusations floating around that people who applaud the Dem sit in are “acting like Republicans” and “using Cheneyite” language, or blurring a necessary distinction between our essential Democraticness (goodness, honesty, openness, purity of speech and deed) and their essential Republicanness (ugly, lying, mean, etc…). Politics–the art of the possible, always local, etc..etc..etc… is, in this model, irremiediably filthy and therefore not becoming to Democrats. Because politics always involves a lot of stuff that seems kind of wrong. Like accusing your opponent of pig fucking just to make him deny it. Or putting your oponent into the position of telling you when he stopped beating his wife. Or drawing his policies out to their absurd conclusion and making fun of him. All these things are certainly very messy, and involve passion (and faking passion) and involve arousing the passions of the voters. They are not the platonic ideal of rational debate of a subject on the merits.
Well–boo fucking hoo. If that is what it takes to get stringent gun laws passed I’m for it. I’m not for extra scrutiny for Muslims, the no fly list, or stripping my fellow citizens of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness but I am for damned sure pro getting guns out of the hands of ordinary citizens.
Time is what makes kittens into cats, and what keeps everything from happening all at once. The Democrats are fighting just to get the chance to talk about gun laws at all. After that we can argue about how new legislation gets drafted. And if you think anyone is listening to the details and will throw in the Democrats faces that they once, for a day, argued that “terrorists” should not be able to buy guns, well–you really don’t know the first thing about the American Public which would have to be hit in the face with a two by four, repeatedly, day after day before they woke up and said “huh? Whuh hoppen?”
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Awesome post, Rikyrah!! Keep up the good work!!
And john Lewis, a hero indeed, still at 76!!! Hope I’m half as active as he is in 12 more years.
Betty Cracker
@aimai:
Indeed. The NRA has held Congress hostage as long as I can remember, but for 24 hours or so, we had those fuckers on the run — and at no point was there a legitimate danger of expanding the reach of the no-fly list. More of this, please.
aimai
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know if you saw it but John Dingell’s wife, who is also a congresswoman, spoke last night. I saw a clip over at Kos. It was a barn burner of a speech and she specifically addresed the ACLU/watchlist issue. She said directly that she had constituents who were muslim and who were being targeted unfairly by these lists, but that the point of bringing this bill to the floor was to open up communication and solve the problems with the list at the same time as we solve the problem of gun violence. Bringing the bill to a vote isn’t the end of the process–the sit in was a direct (and I mean DIRECT) plea to the Republicans to just come to the table and begin negotiating, in good faith, about violence against women, domestic violence in general, gun violence and accidental gun deaths, felon’s rights, stalker’s rights, and also the terrorist/no fly list issue. Short circuiting the entire discussion because some on the left are afraid of a slippery slope to full on anti muslim legislation is just wrong. Its wrong because that is not what is going to happen. More sunlight, more disinfectant. Less fear and less xenophobia.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@BR: Yeah, if you want to puke go read the comments.
Miss Bianca
@aimai: Righteous, aimai! And *now* I realize that according to this definition I have the *perfect* temperment to be a politician! I am *so* willing to go low down to get results! : )
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Mayur: Pfft. Fuck that guy. Here’s the best comment on the post over there, not including all the ass kicking Aimai is doing as well.
PatrickG
@Aimai:
To be fair, this is the entire raison d’etre of the ACLU. The other people on your list, though… yeah.
ETA: The statements I’ve seen from the ACLU are in the “Finally! An opportunity to fix the fucking watch lists! People are paying attention to this! GO TEAM GO!”. The statements I’ve seen from the Purity Ponies are in the “We can’t fix anything! DOOM! DEFEAT! DON’T EVEN TRY!”.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
@aimai:
You should put both of these up at No More Mr. Nice Blog.
Mnemosyne
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
Also, this. We’re not even at the foot of the hill we might die on, but whiners are demanding that we guarantee that we’ll take it before we even start the charge.
aimai
@Mnemosyne: Steve is back so I’m back to posting only on myown blog. But thanks for the suggestion. I think I will. I don’t have time to revise them though! When blogging,as in when politicking, its best not to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
aimai
@MPAVictoria: Aren’t you not even a US citizen? So whether you support or don’t support any given bill is kind of beside the point?
Linnaeus
@PatrickG:
What statements have you seen? The ACLU has written to the Senate and voiced its strong opposition to both the watch list and linking it to gun control.
liberal
@aimai: Someone who thinks HRC’s vote for the Iraq AUMF isn’t important should shut her damn pie hole.
liberal
@aimai:
So, to complete the analogy, should the Democrats support bills legalizing wife beating to prove some point?
liberal
@Aimai:
Instead of unicorns, is it too much to ask for an admission that HRC’s vote in favor of the AUMF was not of little consequence?
PatrickG
@Linnaeus: Thanks for that link, I hadn’t seen that one yet. Ok, guess I’ll have to walk that assertion back.
I’d have to go dig for the ones I’ve seen, but they were issued by regional ACLU groups. It’s possible I hadn’t read them carefully enough, but they very much stressed reform of the watch list. Gun control was secondary.
Anyways, thanks for the correction.
TIlda Swinton's Bald Cap
@liberal: So how much then troll ?
aimai
@liberal: Is someone in need of some attention? Maybe you could call your mother and ask her for some.
Cacti
@liberal:
I guess that depends on what you mean. Was voting for the Iraq invasion and occupation consequential as a matter of general principle? Absolutely.
Was her individual vote in the Senate consequential? Not particularly. It changes the final tally from 77-23 to 76-24 in favor.
I also find it odd that Clinton has become personally responsible for all that was wrong with the Iraq invasion in a way that fellow “aye” votes John Kerry and Joe Biden never have been.
WarMunchkin
@Linnaeus: As has the Council on American-Islamic Relations (here).
Uncle Ebeneezer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: And to think that just a month or so ago I joked to a friend that the BBros would eventually use “he marched with Bernie!!” without irony.
Linnaeus
@PatrickG:
Granted, that link was from the national office. It’s possible that regional offices made slightly different statements along the lines that you describe. TBH, I haven’t followed many of those communications.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
Analogy fail — wife beating is already illegal. If by some strange twist of fate it was still legal, and if Democrats supported a bill that did not make it illegal but trapped the Republicans into having to either individually go on record as supporters of wife-beating by voting for the bill or piss off religious conservatives by voting against it, would you still say that the bill shouldn’t even be voted on because it didn’t outlaw wife-beating entirely?
aimai
@Mnemosyne: Their analogies always fail.
schrodinger's cat
@WarMunchkin: FWIW I don’t think you are an NRA sock puppet. Of course if the hat fits you can were it. I think purity progressive would be a more accurate description of you.
WarMunchkin
@schrodinger’s cat: I actually laughed out loud.
I have this taped to my desk:
J R in WV
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goblue72
@D58826: Precisely. And lets be fucking clear. The only infringement we are placing on people on that list is we won’t let them buy military style assault weapons. Assault weapons which we think NOBODY should be allowed to own.
Talk about losing the forest for the trees. Fuckgin tax lawyers.