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You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Open Thread: “Doing Nothing Is No Longer Acceptable”

Open Thread: “Doing Nothing Is No Longer Acceptable”

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Damn fine ad, IMO…


Good for Mr. O’Rourke. He may have decided that going full “gun-grabber” is the best position for him at this time — if it isn’t what the horse-race touts like to call a ‘deal changer’ for his own campaign, at least it keeps the topic front & center in the media.


(Let the frothing proponents of the LAWNORDER!!! party defend ‘… but only if it’s laws I happen to agree with’ in public, during a high-profile election season.)

Reader Interactions

58Comments

  1. 1.

    Felanius Kootea

    Saw that ad earlier today and was very happy to see it. The Dem candidates seem to really get it this time – with the Parkland kids and March for Our LIves,
    there is a new crop of voters who may very well be single issue gun-control voters. About time.

    OT: on a completely different note, I’m really looking forward to the new sitcom Bob Hearts Abishola
    which starts later this month. It has Gina Yashere as a co-writer and I’ve loved her since her stand up days in London. First time I’ll get to see Nigerian immigrants
    like me represented in a network comedy. Looking forward to it.

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jim Sciutto @ jimsciutto
    -CNN Exclusive: The US extracted one of its top spies from Russia in 2017, worried about exposure and Trump’s handling of intelligence:
    https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/politics/russia-us-spy-extracted/index.html …

    -New tonight: Given NYT has now made details on Russian spy public, I can now report additional info we had withheld. Asset had direct access to Vladimir Putin, including the remarkable ability to take photos of presidential documents, and had served US for more than a decade. 1/
    -2/Asset had risen to the highest levels of Russia’s national security infrastructure. US offered extraction months earlier during Obama administration, but asset refused. Asset’s information was crucial to IC assessment that Putin had directed election interference to favor Trump
    -This is based on Trump and Obama administration officials with direct knowledge.

  4. 4.

    Ruckus

    That Saul Kapur tweet with Beto’s reply

    “I would expect Americans to comply with the law.”

    Is perfect. Of course the people who would be most likely to complain are the people who already are not complying with the law, unless there is some law I’ve never heard of that says racist white people can shoot people at their hearts desire.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: it’s the passivity of a sizable chunk of the American people that flabbergasts me. From the sort of soft trump supporter to the “I disapprove but impeachment is too much” side…. what the fuck does it take?

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Brian Beutler @ brianbeutler
    -Since Trump is just too impulsive and reckless to handle classified intelligence in general, we’re exfiltrating prized assets everywhere and not just specifically from Russia, right?
    -Oh, it’s just Russia? How odd! Why does the IC trust Trump sufficiently to leave spies in place everywhere but there? Who will help me solve this impenetrable mystery?

  8. 8.

    Ruckus

    @zhena gogolia:
    If you look at most if not all republican federal office holders, their loyalty is/appears to be to the republican party and mammon, not necessarily in that order. End of concept. Laws of the land? You’re kidding right? They believe in a higher power. And he didn’t have a son who died on a cross. And they see their opportunity with drumpy in office.

  10. 10.

    Another Scott

    I knew a guy in high school who had a real, genuine, Tommy gun. I don’t think it was licensed.

    My dad told me a story just a few years ago about going out to the mountains in Colorado with his dad and shooting a German machine gun that his dad brought back home after WWII. He said they eventually took it somewhere to have it disabled.

    Yeah, Beto’s proposal wouldn’t get every single AR-15 and AK-47 out of every house in America. But it get the vast majority of them – not as quickly as we’d like, but more and more over time. And it wouldn’t require ATF breaking down everyone’s door to do it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  11. 11.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:
    A friend of dads had a fully functional Army half track from WWII and a 50cal machine gun to mount on it. I believe he rented it out for movies.
    Also knew a guy from OH who had a federal firearms license and would go to machine gun shoots with his buddies.

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: My favorite Ohio uncle had a big gun collection, a 3-pounder cannon that he’d fire at artillery ranges (he’d use black powder and frozen-orange-juice cans filled with concrete as the shells), and a life membership to the NRA. He said he could get a “tax stamp” to get a machine gun, but it didn’t interest him. He lived in a small town in NW central Ohio, so getting checked out by the local sheriff, etc., was probably pretty easy if he wanted to go that route.

    He was a nice guy and I never really thought of him as a “gun nut” (he didn’t talk about them much at all), but …

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    With a leak like that (about the Putin-knowledgeable asset that had to be extracted) one has to think we’re going to be hearing more and more counterintelligence investigation-related stuff from now through trumpov’s un-re-election next November (assuming he makes it that long). The IC knows that this country cannot take 4 more years of the way he and his fellow grifters deal with intelligence info, as if it were a thing to be bought and sold for the benefit of the trumpov org.

    With the guns thing: I’m glad to see the Dems treating it like the majority position it is and adding it to their campaign platforms and talking about it and talking about it some more. I hate to say it, but as statistically unlikely as a school shooting it, a) the urban and suburban parents are terrified and b) their kids are completely stressed from the shooter drills. And the GOP is proposing that we just do literally nothing. Oh, except “thoughts and prayers” and some other nonsense I saw today about using apps(!) to track when someone’s about to flip out(!!). Yes…so very helpful, Republicans, thank you. Or perhaps we could actually reduce the numbers of assault rifles and large magazines available, etc etc.

    GO DEMS! Push hard on this, we have nothing to lose and only our national sanity to gain here. And the vast, vast majority of the country is with us on these issues of universal background checks, closing the gun-show loophole, and prohibiting assault weapons/large clips

  15. 15.

    Eric U

    I’m glad my gun-grabber philosophy is finally being taken up as a serious position. Seems obvious that it’s a good idea. It’s just stunning that shootings like the one in Las Vegas can happen without anything being done to stop them

  16. 16.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ll ask again: What. The Fuck. Does it take? /rhetorical, I know everyone here is asking more or less the same thing

    Natasha Bertrand @ NatashaBertrand
    NEW: Air Force crews—totaling more than 60 service members—have stayed overnight at Turnberry on least 4 occasions, 2 more than previously reported. Prestwick Airport arranged for free rides to & from the resort—and packed lunches!—on at least 1 occasion.

    so… trump wants the airport kept open because his imagined hotel guests won’t be bothered to make the extra half-hour trek from Glasgow’s main airport… the Scots want the airport open because…. ???…. so the the gov’t-owned airport is driving US service members to and from (with lunch!) the president’s money-losing golf resort in order to guarantee revenue and flattery to the man who can arrange large fuel purchases to guarantee revenue for the money-losing airport…

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The four trips — uncovered through interviews with people present, records of expenditures and social media postings — date back to at least September 2018 and continued through at least this past June. They include at least one instance in which a crew member said a nearby airport arranged for rides and lunches to and from the luxury waterside retreat. All the flights were shuttling crews between the United States and the Middle East, and at least three of them of them were divisions of the Air National Guard. In total, over 60 service members stayed at the posh property on these stopovers.

    according to the story, on at least one trip the crew doubled up in rooms, so at least thirty rooms paid for from September to June, when I’m guessing bookings at a golf resort on the Scottish coast drop off a bit

  18. 18.

    cmorenc

    @Jeffro:

    With the guns thing: I’m glad to see the Dems treating it like the majority position it is and adding it to their campaign platforms and talking about it and talking about it some more.

    The reason the NRA has been able to politically punch so vastly far above its weight in numbers all these years is because gun nuts were strongly committed single-issue voters, whereas gun control voters did not rank that as high a priority among other issues, even though their nominal numbers were significantly more numerous. This phenomenon isn’t limited to gun control – it’s why committed single-issue voters on any issue tend to punch far above their weight in numbers. The NRA has also enjoyed far more committed financial backers to their cause (possibly we now know, including Russia).

    What’s hopefully changing is that enough pro-gun control voters have raised the relative importance of the issue to out-weigh and out-number the gun nuts in enough races to make a durable majority difference. Because winning in 2020 races isn’t enough, as 2008 demonstrates – if our voters slack off and we experience a repeat of 2010 turnout differential returning the NRA and gun nuts back in the political driver’s seat to undo whatever we accomplished.

  19. 19.

    hells littlest angel

    What’s the penalty for noncompliance? Jail time? He wouldn’t go there.

    Please don’t turn this into the left’s “anti-abortion” equivalent.

  20. 20.

    gene108

    We are witnessing a sea change in the Democratic Party on gun control

    We’re seeing a sea change in the Democratic Party on a number of issues. Candidates are proudly putting forward a liberal agenda. They are beginning to get an audience for their stances on combating global warming, gun control, etc.

  21. 21.

    laura

    @zhena gogolia: Yes, through campaign cash much of which filteredntheough the NRA would be my best guess.
    Also, good on Beto for mandatory buy backs of assault style rifles.

  22. 22.

    gene108

    @Ruckus:

    unless there is some law I’ve never heard of that says racist white people can shoot people at their hearts desire.

    As long as the targets were dark enough, though that “law” was largely unwritten

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jon Ossoff is running for Senate in GA. If he’s good enough for John Lewis, he’s good enough for me.

    Jennifer Epstein
    Ossoff enters the Senate race with an endorsement from John Lewis, who says he “sparked a flame that is burning brighter than ever.”

    “Like the many thousands Jon has already organized and inspired, I am ready to work tirelessly to elect him … Georgia and America need Jon.”

  24. 24.

    gene108

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    What. The Fuck. Does it take?

    Newly elected Dems in R+ districts feeling like they have their constituents support for impeachment hearings.

    I can live with being cautious and seeing these freshman Reps get re-elected, and maintain control of the House, than going all in on impeachment and some of them losing.

    The rest of the country isn’t where on-line liberals are at yet.

  25. 25.

    Leto

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: When Trumpov says he knows nothing, of course he’s lying and of course there’s a paper trial:

    But documents obtained from Scottish government agencies show that the Trump Organization, and Mr. Trump himself, played a direct role in setting up an arrangement between the Turnberry resort and officials at Glasgow Prestwick Airport.

    The government records, released through Scottish Freedom of Information law, show that the Trump organization, starting in 2014, entered a partnership with the airport to try to increase private and commercial air traffic to the region.

    As part of that arrangement, the Trump Organization worked to get Trump Turnberry added to a list of hotels that the airport would routinely send aircrews to, even though the Turnberry resort is 20 miles from the airport, farther away than many other hotels, and has higher advertised prices.

    Trump Organization executives held a series of meetings with the airport officials to negotiate terms that would lead to more referrals, the documents show.

    “As a list of hotels that we use for our business, being honest, Turnberry was always last on the list, based on price,” Jules Matteoni, a manager at Glasgow Prestwick, wrote in June 2015 to executives at Trump Turnberry. “Yesterday’s proposal places Turnberry in a favorable position and gives us food for thought in our placement of crews moving forward.”

    Mr. Trump visited Glasgow Prestwick in 2014 and promised to help increase traffic at the airport, although at the time he was largely referring to plans to drive corporate jets there and attract other commercial traffic perhaps carrying golfers on the way to his resort.

    “Forging a new partnership between the airport and the Trump Organization will undoubtedly be mutually beneficial,” Iain Cochrane, then the chief executive of the airport, said at the time of Mr. Trump’s visit.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/politics/trump-hotel-turnberry.html

    Of course he was lying. Of course there’s a paper trail showing he’s lying. Can’t wait Republicans to justify why the asset is allowed to use tax payer funds like a personal fucking atm. The USAF officials that approved this need to be shitcanned. Add this to fucking list of impeachable offenses. Christ on a cracker!

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    @Eric U:
    Las Vegas should be viewed as a sea change for industrialized gun killing by an individual. You need a bomb to top the nearly 1,000 dead/wounded total and spree killers seem to need shooting, for reasons.

  30. 30.

    planetjanet

    Some commenter had the most amazing nickname for Boris Johnson in a post either today or yesterday. For the life of me, I can neither remember it or find it. Anyone have an idea what it was?

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @Leto:

    “Forging a new partnership between the airport and the Trump Organization will undoubtedly be mutually beneficial,” Iain Cochrane, then the chief executive of the airport, said at the time of Mr. Trump’s visit.

    Less and less surprising that this airport can’t survive without shady deals. This is the business partner they chose. Just put the agents in the windbreakers in and start hauling out boxes. It was over the day they hooked up with the Trump Family.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    The WaPo says the Trump farm bribe is up to 30 BILLION dollars. Can that be true? The entire stimulus was 800 billion. Trump is giving farmers 30 billion for the trade war he started? Just a straight cash gift? I mean, Christ. At least with the stimulus we bought something. We’re paying for food twice?

  36. 36.

    Kay

    It’s true:

    Senior Trump administration officials are reportedly concerned that the president’s $28 billion bailout for farmers hurt by his trade war exceeds the limits of the Commodity Credit Corporation, the government corporation founded during the New Deal that is distributing the funds.
    While attorneys at the Department of Agriculture have reportedly signed off on the bailouts, some experts say existing laws may not apply to such a large and ongoing operation. “There is little precedent for an open-ended farmer bailout of this nature,” says the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein, who reports there is strong political pressure within the federal government to distribute the bailout funds quickly.

    Good Lord. 28 billion. Just to protect the President in 5 states.

    It’s obscene.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    Joe Glauber, who served as the chief economist at USDA in the Bush and Obama administrations, said he had doubts about the legality of the program. “This is an incredible amount of money and sets a terrible precedent. What’s unusual is the magnitude: It’s just enormous.”
    Still, lawmakers have shown little interest in looking into the issue, and Glauber thinks has an idea why. “Congress likes being off the hook, since now they don’t have to take action; the farmers are happy, because they get a lot of money; the administration doesn’t have to worry as much about the fall-out of the trade war,” Glauber told the Post. “The magnitude of these payments is such that there should be much greater scrutiny. But there’s no one guarding the taxpayer here.”

    The plan is to distribute it quickly, before anyone catches on. Also- they’re horribly corrupt so it’s going to cronies. We have to hire an entire new federal police force. They need like 10,000 more just for corruption.

  38. 38.

    Leto

    @Kay: Exactly. It was already a failing airport, the Scottish government bought it for a pound, and then they team up with the worst businessman in the world and here we are. And considering how Wussilini has pissed off everyone in Scotland, I’m sure the Scottish government will be more than happy to hand over documents related to this deal, as well as assist US law enforcement when the windbreaker brigade rolls up on Shitberry and starts hauling out boxes. Maddow said this tonight, but it’s basically true: where the hell do they (House members) start for Impeachment charges when each week brings a new set of actionable items?

  43. 43.

    206inKY

    @Jeffro: I think you’re absolutely right. Active shooter drills are scaring the shit out of suburban parents, kids, and teachers, and sparking a ferocious backlash against gun culture. Beto gets it.

    I keep beating this drum but everyone needs to watch the HBO Documentary “Running with Beto.” He is a generational talent. I had forgotten how effectively he went after Cruz in the debates. I think he’s just not cutthroat enough to go after fellow Democrats, and his decision to campaign in places like Mississippi is too far outside the box for a primary that runs through Iowa whether we like it or not.

    We got pummeled in rural regions last year, but made deep inroads into the suburbs. Democrats urgently need to adjust their priorities to serve the coalition we have, not the coalition we used to have. Arizona is more winnable right now than Wisconsin, which is too white and rural. I’m deeply worried that we will nominate an American version of Jeremy Corbyn and lose the suburbs.

  44. 44.

    mrmoshpotato

    @206inKY: Not only scaring the shit out of people, but fucking up generations of kids. I don’t know when active shooter drills started, but they weren’t in place when I was in high school, and Columbine happened then.

    We’re treating school shootings like fires and tornadoes were treated when I was in school. When did murder become a freak occurrence caused by a lightning strike, old wiring, or stormy weather conditions? None of these shootings “just happen.” And there’s a common element – it’s the guns, stupid!

  45. 45.

    206inKY

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Alongside guns, I think good government— attacking hard on Trump’s profound corruption — is another winning issue in 2020. We need to find the things that easily unite the unusual cross-class coalition that emerged in 2018, and avoid things that divide it.

    I tend to trust Pelosi in all matters of strategy but there’s just no way to interpret the rapid swing of the suburbs toward Democrats as anything but an overwhelming Trump backlash. They didn’t just wake up and find religion on economic justice after decades of sending tools like Darrell Issa to Congress.

  47. 47.

    206inKY

    @mrmoshpotato: Amen! It’s madness that it’s the new normal. My students arrive in college with horror stories from their many years of active shooter drills. They mostly talk about it with dark humor and bitter sarcasm, but beneath the surface they seem to have a solidarity from shared trauma. And this is in Kentucky!

  48. 48.

    206inKY

    @Mnemosyne: True, but here are three results:

    WI Gov
    Evers: 49.54%
    Walker: 48.44%

    AZ Sen:
    Sinema: 50%
    McSally: 47.6%

    TX Sen:
    Beto: 48.3%
    Cruz: 50.9%

    Arizona sure seems like the best bet if I had to pick one of the three for Dems. Sinema’s margin was similar to Cruz in Texas, and Texas is supposed to be insurmountable.

  51. 51.

    206inKY

    @Mnemosyne: Oh definitely! Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree we should go for both. I just think that Arizona seems like the best hedge against the loss of Wisconsin in case it goes the way of Ohio in 2020.

    I guess my larger point — as an admirer of Lisa McGirr’s Suburban Warriors, the best history of the rise of modern conservatism in the 1960s and 70s — is that it’s bonkers and game-changing that Arizona is even remotely in play.

  53. 53.

    sukabi

    @Kay: More than likely several billion of that 30 will find it’s way into drumpfs and other administration members pockets. Most of the rest will go to big agri and avfew crumbs will find their way to red state farmers.

  55. 55.

    206inKY

    @Omnes Omnibus: How come? I lived adjacent to Wisconsin in the 2000s. My thoughts on it have been shaped by Katherine Cramer’s book The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, an ethnography. I teach on AZ and NM but have never lived there, just visited.

  56. 56.

    chopper

    @mrmoshpotato:

    we’re creating entire generations of kids with low-level PTSD, and then we point and smear them as ‘snowflakes’ just cause they act like they want some fucking normalcy and stability in their lives.

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