Hillary Clinton Playing Politics Like a Republican

How long might it take for liberal Democrats to support Hillary Clinton if hell were to freeze over and she became the Democratic nominee?  After today it will be longer than yesterday.  There just is no end to the horse-rot that comes from Hillary Clinton or her campaign as she grasps for anything she can grab in her zeal to be president.

This morning, George Stephanopoulos began his televised interview with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by asking if she could name a single economist who supported her plan for a gas-tax suspension.

Mrs. Clinton did not. “I’m not going to put in my lot with economists,” she said on the ABC program “This Week.” A few moments later, she added, “Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans.”

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But like every other candidate, Mrs. Clinton has a team of economists behind her policy positions. Is she dismissing their work? And in the coming weeks, how far will she take her anti-elitist argument? After all, the race will likely end up in the hands of the superdelegates — many of whom are, by definition, the Democratic Party elite.

Hillary is even talking like President Bush and uttered the small-minded phrase “are they with us or against us’ in a speech about the oil problem in America. 

Clinton sent out a mailer this weekend attacking Obama on guns.  There is no level that she will not stoop in a Democratic primary to snatch a few votes.

Technorati Tags: HillaryClinton, BarackObama, Election, IndianaPrimary, NorthCarolinaPrimary, Election08, Democrats

Will The Wisconsin State Legislature Act On Gun Legislation?

I find it interesting to see that the Wisconsin State Journal is asking their readers what story they would like to see on the front page of Tuesday’s paper.  Readers know I think this is a ridiculous way to run a newspaper.  But putting that aside for a moment, I noticed that one of the possible reads was a story about the Wisconsin  State Legislature being able to get anything done in the final week of their session.

There are plenty of things the Legislature should do, but between the stalling pattern of  both the Republicans in the Assembly, and the Democrats in the Senate, all for political reasons of course, there is not much hope for the big issues being dealt with.  All of those issues that were not voted on will then be fodder for the fall campaign.  God, I hate this style of politics!!

I would think that if the folks that were elected to act this term on the issues of the day can’t see fit to finish their work, they might at least consider a small but very worthwhile piece of legislation that would make the state a bit safer given the number of guns that pollute our society.

As the Milwaukee Journal editorial notes, this is a no-brainer. 

A bill that makes it possible for Wisconsin to join the 32 other states that share mental health information with a federal database that is used for background checks on gun purchases.

Guns - irrationally - tend to constitute a third rail of politics. The National Rifle Association would have it no other way. But this measure is so modest and so common-sensical that it should not be lumped into that category. And one indication that it isn’t is that Rep. Scott Gunderson (R-Waterford), a gun advocate, is one of the authors - with Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills).

The bill would make it possible for the state to apply for a federal grant to update technology that would allow the state Department of Justice to share its mental health records with a federal database.

Of course, this raises privacy questions. So please note that state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen supports the bill because the records shared involve only those who have been involuntarily committed for treatment or are involved in court-ordered guardianships or placement. It doesn’t affect those who voluntarily seek mental health treatment.

It is time for the citizens to demand not only for sensible gun legislation in this state, but also that the elected officials complete their work BEFORE seeking another term in office!

Technorati Tags: MilwaukeeJournalSentinel, WisconsinStateJournal, Guns, GunControl, MentalHealth, Madison, Wisconsin, WisconsinStateLegislature

Citizen’s Thoughts On NIU Shooting And Needed Gun Control

These are good.   From Chicago Channel  2 News.

How many more wake up calls do we need until law makers realize that some new, strict gun control laws need to be passed? How about a much longer waiting period? One, two, maybe even three months? How about a limit on the number of guns a person can have, say, two? How about more detailed background checks? If you’ve ever been admitted into a mental hospital, suffer from depression, ever been charged with assault, etc. then no guns for you, period. How about anybody found with a gun that isn’t registered to them automatically serves a day or two or a week in jail along with a massive fine? Maybe make them as expensive as a car? Make certain guns cost $10,000 dollars and the bullets cost a premium as well. Ban all assault rifles, period. These ideas may seem unfair or extreme to some, but the bottom line is guns are instruments of death, it’s their only function, and to own them should be a privilege, not a right. We’re not living in the colonial times circa 1776, we live in a densely populated, well protected country and it’s time to get over this mentality that “If I have a gun then I can protect my self from someone else with a gun”. The truth is, if someone is going to shoot you, you’re probably not going to see it coming anyway, and in attempting to shoot someone that just shot at you, you stand a good chance of shooting someone other than the person you’re aiming for. Imagine if half the students had been armed at NIU, can you imagine in all the chaos and pandemonium how much collateral damage there could’ve/would’ve been?! You would’ve had kids shooting randomly out of shear panic! Anyway, that’s how I see it. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims of the NIU shooting. –Jeff Hughes, Chicago

As everyone realizes, we are no longer the pioneer society we were when gun laws were first instituted in this country. I don’t understand why legislators don’t get it - gun control laws are extremely out of date. Who needs the right to own assault weapons? Are they not weapons of mass destruction? I don’t think hunters use AK47’s and 9mm weapons to hunt. I’m just dumbfounded by this gun shop owner who “was so surprised” to hear about the shooter - who had purchased his gun just a short time prior to killing students at Northern. Come on! Is he as ignorant as his comments sounded? What the hell else is there to do with these weapons? Hunt rabbits? It’s shameful how some people think its some big infringement on their constitutional rights - the right to bear arms. Bear them where? On the farm or in the neighborhood? There is no place for them in our society anymore. And shame on the creators of the violent video games that encourage the normalization of the violence behind guns - and shame on the parents who buy these games for their kids. Does anyone else recognize the fall out in the young generation of high school and college mass murderers - who get-off on killing randomly at their learning institutions? I’m no right winger - I’m just sick of the ignorance in this society - how many innocent children and adults need to find this out the hard way?
It’s sad and discouraging what goes on in the minds of those opposed to stricter gun laws - what are they so afraid of? –M. McKenna

It is outrageous that there are so many gun incidents and tragedies in this country! Heartbreaking, maddening and indecent. Our country stands alone as being the one country with more guns in private hands and is, consequently, the country with the highest homicide rate in the world (more than 30,000 people killed annually). A simple quote: Actually, guns DO kill people. –Sara

Technorati Tags: GunControl, NRA, GunDeaths, NIU, HandgunControl

Green Bay Gun Dealer Sold NIU Killer AND Virginia Tech Killer Items For Rampages

Virginia Tech Shooter

The news is amazing.    And this points to one large area where many have argued for a long time that tougher, tighter gun laws need to be enacted.  Gun dealers make money, and parents get to buy coffins for their loved ones.  No way in hell should either of these men been able to buy guns.  If the type of required tougher background check that many have advocated for years been in place with these shameless gun dealers, many things would be different for several families this weekend.  A gun dealer should not be allowed to sell and profit in his manner.  When things like this happen there needs to be accountability, and the gun dealer needs to loose his business.

If a day care center had kids continually drowning in the bathtub they would be closed.  If a nurse kept administering the wrong medications she would be fired.  There also needs to be accountability for gun dealers who sell to those who commit these types crimes.

The Green Bay, Wis., gun dealer who sold Northern Illinois University killer Stephen Kazmierczak empty magazines and a holster for a semi-automatic pistol also sold a gun to the killer in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

I was just shocked,” said Eric Thompson, 34, whose company TGSCOM Inc. sells weapons over the Internet. “There are over 90,000 licensed dealers in the U.S.”

Thompson’s company sold a Walther .22-caliber handgun to Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people last April at Virginia Tech before killing himself. The gun was delivered through a Virginia dealer, who was required to do a background check on Cho, Thompson said.

Kazmierczak bought his weapons from Tony’s Guns and Ammo in Champaign, sources say. The shop is in a working-class neighborhood.

Signs in the front yard say “Tony’s Guns and Ammo.” The shop is in a fenced-in building behind a home.

On the front door is a sticker that says “Guns Save Lives” — a sentiment shared by Thompson, who said preventing NIU students from carrying guns is “perhaps a mistake.”

Technorati Tags: ChicagoSunTimes, GreenBay, GunDealers, GunDeaths, NIU, VirginiaTech

NRA Has Six More Dead Americans On Their Hands

Thursday afternoon I was on the west side of Madison doing some grocery shopping when I heard on the car radio the horrible news of yet another slaughter at the hands of one with access to deadly weapons.  Guns.  As I drove and listened to CNN I was also looking at the faces of other drivers wondering if they too were hearing the news, and feeling as sick in their stomach as I was in mine.  And then my mind clicked to what the parents and families of those victims of gun violence would feel when they heard the news.

I was prepared to come home and blog about the bloody outcome of yet another senseless act caused by the NRA, which is responsible for the lack of real gun control legislation in the nation.   But to be honest I was too upset by the whole idea of what took place on the college campus in Illinois to even write about it.  So it is now Friday, and after listening to the folks on radio who live in Chicago, and feel the effects of this even more than any of us here in Madison, I feel better able to post this blog.  Better able that is, because I know full well that my initial reaction is supported by many of my fellow citizens.

As I drove Thursday my first thought after the gut wrenching news hit, was that this is the time for sensible Americans to rise up in an election year and demand that gun control be an issue that is designated as one that we want addressed by the next person to sit in the Oval Office, along with the next Congress.

For far too long we have allowed…..yes ALLOWED….the money grabbing lobbyists of the NRA to dictate…yes DICTATE…how gun laws are to be made in the nation.  As a consequence we have tens of thousands of gun deaths in this nation every year.  The fact that guns are more likely to cause a death, than defend a victim, is glossed over by the nauseating and contemptible manner in which the NRA plays to the lowest common denominator among the electorate. 

As a result of the political actions of the NRA who seem content to allow as many guns in as many hands as possible, there are dead college kids at Northern Illinois University.  Due to the gross misinterpretation of the Second Amendment pushed by the NRA there are funeral directors prepared to make six young people look presentable for a funeral.  Families are preparing to look for coffins for their kids due to the selfish gun owners that make up the NRA, and seem to think their supposed right to own handguns supersedes the safety of the majority of their fellow citizens.

Kids are not supposed to die before their parents, much less be murdered with a hand gun.  But thanks to the NRA there are 6 more names to be added to the growing list of folks who were killed by guns in America.

It is time to stand up to the NRA and their lobbyists.  How many more young kids must die before you think it time to end gun violence in America?

Technorati Tags: NRA, NorthernIllinoisUniversity, Guns, GunControl,

“Gun Nuts Boasting They Can Open Fire”

The Capitol Steps sum it up nicely, with a Christmas musical flair.  Turn your speakers up and share with your office mates on a Friday afternoon.

Technorati Tags: Guns, NRA, CapitolSteps

Questions?

There is a tide to history and we all recognize it if we have sat through any lectures on the rise and fall of empires. In light of the tragic death of 33 people this week I pose the following questions.  If you care to address them here please feel free.  If not, muddle it over in your mind and think about it.

Is there any practical use for a 9 millimeter handgun that holds over 20 rounds, which was previously illegal before 2004, such as the one that  was used to murder 33 people on Monday in Virginia?

Is this a sign of our decline as a nation?

What Bush Should Have Ordered After The Campus Shootings

As a mark of respect for the victims of the South Korean student who was merely exercising his rights under the Second Amendment of the United States constitution to bear arms, and to carry as many weapons and as much ammunition as possible at one time, I hereby order the flag of the United States to be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset Sunday April 22, 2007, but not at the national headquarters of the National Rifle Association or any of its members.

George Bush,

President of the United States of America

Technorati Tags: NRA, Bush, Guncontrol, SecondAmendment, CampusShooting

We Are All Responsible For Gun Violence

UPDATED

Breaking News from ABCNEWSVIRGINIA TECH KILLER SEUNG-HUI CHO PAID $571 FOR GUNS AND AMMUNITION AT A ROANOKE, VA. GUN STORE ON MARCH 13.

CBS News has learned one of the guns used in the massacre — a 9MM

semi-automatic Glock 19 — was purchased brand new at a Roanoke, Va.

gunshop, Roanoke Firearms, 36 days ago.

The NRA should  be proud.

One of the first letters to the editor of our local paper I wrote as a teenager concerned the need for strict gun control.  It was even clear to me then that the  Founding Fathers did not intend for the Constitution to allow for tens of thousands of handgun deaths in the country.  The twisted and confused thinking that we all have a right to a gun is not only wrong, but deadly.  The lack of stringent regulations on the sale and ownership of guns in the United States has been a mystery to me for decades.  So though it was indeed sad news today that the nation suffered the loss of so many people on the Virginia Tech campus none of us can say this type of horror was unexpected.  The specific case, yes.  The overall trend towards more gun violence, no.  In the end the depravity that was exhibited in Virginia on Monday was not only the result of a tortured mind, but also the result of our addiction to guns,  and our lack of resolve to stop the NRA.  Though it may anger some to hear it, we are all a part of the problem with gun violence.

One figure tossed out on the news networks this afternoon was that there exists more guns in America than people.  That is a sickness that infects all geographic areas and economic classes.  When we start to review what happened in Virginia we need to be mindful that each of us played a role in the disaster.  Both Democrats and Republicans who take the NRA funds and do the bidding of this blood soaked lobbying organization in Congress are responsible.  Each voter that accepts the malarkey from the NRA that gun control means stripping rights from hunters, and then casts a ballot based on that lie is a part of the problem.  I too am responsible in that I and other Democrats do not force our candidates to take bolder gun control stands while running for election.  We do not hold our elected official’s feet to the fire and demand that they pass gun legislation with teeth while in office.

This afternoon when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spoke from the floor she did not face the issue that needs attention.  While she spoke from the heart about the loss of life there was no mention of the NRA,  and no mention of gun control.  While I can give all the reasons why the issue was not ‘politically correct’ for Pelosi to address I can also add 33 more reasons (at the time of this writing) that common sense should start to rise above the self-interests of the gun lobby.  And the self-interest of politicians!  I am tired of the reasons why real gun control can’t take place and am looking for leaders who know that it must.  And I strongly suspect that with a truthful debate on the merits of gun control enlightened thinking would prevail.

When President Bush spoke about his sadness, and that of the nation, he too forgot that the forces which perpetuate the violence continues because of gutless politicians that will not speak the truth about the NRA. 

With the high level of violence that seeps into too many lives in our nation every day from movies, video games, and television this sad episode today will not make any lasting impression.  It will soon not be talked about until the next crazy loser with a bunch of guns and ammunition that should never have been available makes us think again for a moment or two about the need for gun control.

I could take up space here and explain the need for gun registration, the need to prohibit certain guns from being manufactured, and the way the NRA has prevented gun legislation from becoming law.  Sadly however far too many folks are becoming immune to the effects, images, and shock of gun violence and will watch the news tonight and lament that it took place………and that will be all.  Until the next time…and the next.

We all are a part of the problem.

Does Frank Lasee Want Hollow Point Bullets Too?

This is why backbenchers in the Wisconsin State Legislature should just sit quiet and let the grown-ups talk.

I was taken aback like so many across Wisconsin, and now thanks to cable news and the internet folks all over the country, by the notion of allowing school teachers to carry guns into our state’s classrooms.   A Republican State Representative who is not known for his intellect in the Statehouse, but instead for shooting from the hip before his brain is activated, hatched the idea.

Frank Lasee from the Green Bay area has always been just an idiot, but now is also an embarrassment to the entire political process in Wisconsin.  Advocating that teachers should be armed in the classroom as a way to curtail gun violence in schools shows Lasee is not a serious legislator.  I had to giggle today while driving around town doing errands that our whiz kid now thinks he needs to modify his idea. (I think the outrage from… well……everybody…. might have led him to understand the folly of his idea.)  Now he says, instead of a teacher packing heat like Gunsmoke’s Matt Dillon,  the little ole school teacher would go to a lock box somewhere in the school where a deadly weapon would be stashed for the time when all hell breaks out, and retrieve a handgun to slay someone.  What is in the head of Frank Lasee?

The outrage over this crap has now resulted in two write-in candidates to challenge this mentally inept legislator in the November election.  One is a Republican, Robert Dobbs, who joined the race last week, and now there is a Democrat, Ted Zigmunt, who also has decided to mount a challenge with only four weeks to go to the election. 

Everyone believes that Lasee is using the recent tragedy of dead school children and staff in Wisconsin and around the country at this time to advance his own career.  He can’t introduce any bill until next January so is now just making a fool of himself at the expense of very sad stories.  That is pathetic!  I think from the reaction in Wisconsin he might want to just sit in the back of the Assembly and stay quiet.  Let the grown-ups talk instead Frank.

Gun Violence in Wisconsin School

This morning in Sauk County, not far from Madison, gun violence in a school erupted.  Once again guns and blood are replacing math and reading in our public schools.  In this latest episode a 15 year old boy brought a rifle and handgun to school and shot a principal three times.  As of this writing the victim is in a Madison hospital being treated. 

(Following the writing of this post the man died from the gunshots.)

How guns are so carelessly left around in the homes of Americans is a mystery to me.  How a child walks out of the house on the way to school with a loaded shotgun and a loaded handgun baffles me.  How parents are so tone deaf to the problems that their child is having BEFORE a violent act of this kind, confuses me.  Why we as citizens do not tell the NRA that we have had enough death and violence as a result of their buying politicians, and thereby stopping needed gun legislation from getting passed, is in itself a crime.

I think it is time to hold parents accountable for their children’s actions in cases like this.  For instance, if teenagers use a parent’s home for a party where alcohol plays a role in illegal activity, the parent can be liable.  When a parent has deadly weapons in a home without being locked up they should also be liable.  When a parent has no more sense of what their child is doing with their life other than planning murder with a gun, that parent must face up to their role in the disaster as well.  Being a parent is more than just having sex. 

We are hearing lots in our state in advance of an anti-marriage amendment in the fall election  about what constitutes a family.  Today this episode has brought to our attention that a family is much more than two heterosexuals with a marriage certificate who have sexual parts that work.  A family is also supposed to be a working unit that converses, cares, and watches out for each other.  It is clear that one heterosexual family did not do that in Wisconsin today, and probably had not for some time.  Hmmmm…..

A lot of things to ponder this afternoon here in Wisconsin.