There is simply no understanding the prevalence of gun violence in America - as evidenced by the recent attempted assassination of a congresswoman during a mass shooting - without discussing the nefarious role played by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
Once an organisation primarily concerned with the education and training of sportsmen, in a coup that came to be known as the Cincinnati Revolt in 1977, hardliners took over the leadership and believed that any gun regulation would take us down a slippery slope to Khmer Rougism.
In the years since, unlike the US in the wake of the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy - or for that matter Australia after the Port Arthur Massacre - the response to senseless gun violence has been to discuss everything from the rhetoric on our airwaves to the weather outside.
But any public conversations regarding restricting who has access to guns has been considered verboten (although, thankfully, this time some cracks are beginning to show).
This is largely because the NRA's duping its own members, which we'll discuss below, and coming to the realisation that the real money was in actually protecting the rights of gun manufacturers, which we'll discuss in Part II of this series.
If the NRA leadership is not radical, they certainly see the benefit in playing radicals on TV in order to enrich their financial benefactors who produce and sell the weaponry of death.
In the 1990s, in a climate of fear and paranoia that produced the Oklahoma City bombing, they were all too happy to refer to the government authority that tries to enforce gun laws, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms (ATF), as "jack-booted thugs". This led former president George H.W. Bush to resign his membership.
They then decided to up the ante by accusing former president Bill Clinton of murder and saying he "had blood on his hands" - all for the crime of supporting background checks at gun shows - which is among the many legislative proposals to reduce gun violence that they have repeatedly blocked.
Others include a ban on high-capacity magazines, banning sales to those on terrorist watch lists, and fully funding the aforementioned ATF (think about the latter when they say they want to "strengthen existing gun laws" after each new tragedy).
In fact, just a few days after the mass shooting in Tucson it was reported by Ryan Reilly from TPMMuckraker that a "jihadist" in America who was... "a moderator and contributor on Islamic extremist web forums, posted songs praising suicide bombers, discussed his jihad fantasies in the open..." was able to get an AK-47, no questions asked.
Emerson Begolly, the "jihadist" in question, responded when queried about this with laughter and facetiously exclaimed that "someone at the FBI showed up to work drunk". Perhaps, but if they were, it was only because the NRA forced them to do keg stands.
What is the state of the union when a madman can come within a whisker of assassinating a member of Congress? When his rantings and ravings and drug use don't stop him from getting a high-capacity magazine? When a sophomore in high school can show up to school with a gun in his backpack, and accidentally shoot two of his classmates?
I'm not sure, but I know I'd really like to hear President Obama address this during his SOTU address--without platitudes, but with an actual plan of action. One which might include demanding that the Senate confirm his nominee to run the ATF forthwith, fixing gaps in government databases of mental health and criminal records, requiring states to share data on those who have been deemed mentally unfit, questioning the intelligence of selling high-capacity magazines to just anyone, allowing concealed carry without a permit, as Arizona and two other states do, wondering whether those with firearms should just be able to meander up next to their member of Congress, and closing loopholes that allow the crazed and criminal to get guns at gun shows while firmly ensconced on terrorist watch lists.
Oh yeah, it would also mean he is FAR to the Right of that key element in our democracy known as the American People:
"Large majorities of Americans agree with the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own guns, and Americans strongly oppose efforts to ban handguns," said Bob Carpenter, vice president of American Viewpoint, the Republican polling firm that joined with Democratic firm Momentum Analysis to conduct the survey. "But Americans and gun owners feel with equal fervor that government must act to get every single record in the background-check system that belongs there and to ensure that every gun sale includes a background check. Most Americans view these goals, protecting gun rights for the law-abiding and keeping guns from criminals, as compatible."
Some findings from the poll results, provided exclusively to The Huffington Post:
-- 90 percent of Americans and 90 percent of gun owners support fixing gaps in government databases that are meant to prevent the mentally ill, drug abusers and others from buying guns.
-- 91 percent of Americans and 93 percent of gun owners support requiring federal agencies to share information about suspected dangerous persons or terrorists to prevent them from buying guns.
-- 89 percent of Americans and 89 percent of gun owners support full funding of the law a unanimous Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed after the Virginia Tech shootings to put more records in the background-check database.
-- 86 percent of Americans and 81 percent of gun owners support requiring all gun buyers to pass a background check, no matter where they buy the gun and no matter who they buy it from.
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Closing the so-called "terror gap" has particularly strong support. A 2010 Government Accountability Office report found that during the past six years, individuals on the terror watchlist were able to buy firearms or explosives from licensed U.S. dealers 1,119 times.
The NRA has opposed bipartisan legislation closing the gap on the grounds that the list is flawed -- some individuals are put on the list by mistake, while many who pose legitimate threats are never added.
But this position puts the NRA far to the right of even its members. A survey last year by conservative pollster Frank Luntz found that 82 percent of NRA members supported "prohibiting people on the terrorist watch lists from purchasing guns." Eighty-six percent agreed with the statement that the country can "do more to stop criminals from getting guns while also protecting the rights of citizens to freely own them."
This folks, is about whether we want democracy by ballot or intimidation by bullet. It goes to the very heart of who we are and want to be, and it is most certainly an issue of National Security--or security for our democracy. Lets hope President Obama does the right thing.
We are coming down to the end of the 111th Congress, and we are all surprised that a number of things actually got done: a nuclear arms reduction treaty appears to be on the verge of approval, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed; we have new health care and financial reforms (admittedly, they're imperfect solutions, but...), food safety reform, a better way to do student loans, and a credit card reform act that's forcing issuers to spend thousands of labor hours to develop new and better ways to work over consumers.
And yet there is one important bit of legislation that is still being blocked by Republicans, and, amazingly enough, it's a bill that would provide health care and compensation for those people who ran down to the World Trade Center site on September 11th, and for months thereafter, in the effort to rescue and recover victims, and to restore normal operations in the city after the attack.
Yes, folks, you heard me correctly: the Party of waving flags and "Second Amendment solutions" and tri-cornered hats and Rudy ("noun, verb, 9/11") Giuliani is now engaged in a desperate battle to screw over the very 9/11 first responders that you would think they would be...well, putting up on a stage somewhere next to Rudy Giuliani.
The Virginia federal judge who ruled against a key component of health care reform on Monday has ties to a Republican consulting firm. Judge Henry Hudson is a co-owner of Campaign Solutions, as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! reports.
Hudson, a President George W. Bush appointee, has earned as much as $108,000 in royalties from Campaign Solutions since 2003. A cached version of the firm's client roster lists such vocal opponents of health reform as Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), the Republican National Committee and the American Medical Association.
In November, Collins and Snowe joined McConnell in signing an amicus brief to challenge the constitutionality of health care reform in a separate suit in Florida. Campaign finance records show that Campaign Solutions has also worked for Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who is spearheading the lawsuit. Tiahrt added an amicus brief to Cuccinelli's lawsuit.
Today, the mandate. Tomorrow, the regulatory state?
Hudson ruled that the individual mandate of health care reform is unconstitutional. The mandate stipulates that, after 2014, everyone who doesn't already have health insurance will have to buy some or pay a small fine. The judge argues that this requirement exceeds the federal government's power to regulate interstate commerce.
The Commerce Clause gives the federal government the power to regulate commerce between the states and international trade. Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones explains that this clause underpins the power of the federal government to regulate the economy in any way:
But the issues at stake in Cuccinelli v. Sebelius (Ken Cuccinelli is the conservative attorney general of Virginia; Katherine Sebelius is President Barack Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services, or HHS) are actually far broader. Hudson's ruling doesn't just show how the Supreme Court could gut the health law-it shows how the court could neuter the entire federal government.
Is it constitutional?
Chris Hayes of The Nation interviews Prof. Gillian Metzger, a constitutional law scholar at Columbia University, about the merits of challenges to the constitutionality of health care reform. According to Metzger, "the argument that [the mandate] is outside the commerce power is also pretty specious given the existing precedent."
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly accuses Judge Hudson of committing an "inexplicable error" in legal reasoning. There is a longstanding precedent that the federal government can regulate economic activity under the Commerce Clause. Hudson acknowledges this, but he maintains that this power doesn't cover regulations of "economic inactivity" (i.e. not buying health insurance). As Benen notes, people who don't buy insurance aren't opting out of the market, they're opting to let society absorb their future medical costs. Everyone who does buy insurance pays more because freeloaders coast without insurance and hope for the best.
Luckily for the Obama administration, the judge did not bar the implementation of health reform while the case works its way through the courts. The Supreme Court will ultimately hear this case. In the meantime, the federal government can continue building the infrastructure that will eventually support health care reform.
This is the third time a federal judge has ruled on the constitutionality of health care reforms and the first victory for the anti-reform contingent.
Mandatory mandate
Paul Waldman reminds TAPPED readers why the mandate is critical to any health care reform based on private insurance. With a single-payer system, you don't need a mandate because everyone is automatically covered. A mandate only comes into play when you have to force people to buy insurance.
Without a mandate, healthy risk-takers who don't buy insurance will starve the system of premiums while they are well and bleed the system for benefits when they get sick. Meanwhile, people who already know they're sick will sign up in droves, and the Affordable Care Act will force insurers to accept them. Without a mandate, the private health insurance industry would collapse and take health care reform down with it.
Is expanding Medicare the answer?
Matthew Rothschild of the Progressive argues that the legal headaches over the individual mandate illustrate why it would have been legally and procedurally easier to achieve universal health care by simply expanding Medicare to cover everyone.
At Truthout, Thom Hartmann argues universal health insurance in the form of "Medicare Part E" would spur economic growth and innovation because entrepreneurs could start businesses without worrying about how to provide health insurance for their employees.
Meanwhile, Brie Cadman reports at Change.Org, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is trying to defund health care reform by cutting funds for preventive health care. Coburn is urging his fellow Republicans to vote against a House-passed measure that would allocate $750 million for the 2011 Prevention and Public Health Fund. Cadman notes the irony of a medical doctor like Coburn, who also claims to be a fiscal conservative, trying to scuttle funds to control preventable diseases which would otherwise cost society billions of dollars a year.
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Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, is committed to opposing a supplemental spending bill that includes $33.5 billion to escalate war in Afghanistan, unless the funds to pay for it are found.
On May 10th Senator Coburn wrote to his colleagues asking for their support for an amendment that would offset the new spending in this bill with cuts elsewhere. I spoke on Monday with Senator Coburn's communications director John Hart who assured me that Coburn intends to oppose the supplemental spending bill unless such an amendment is passed.
If you thought Republicans would loosen their obstructionist ways once health reform was done, think again. Tom Coburn's filibuster of the unemployment extension, an effort which was supported by many other Republicans, appears to have been successful. The Senate will adjourn until April 12th, without extending benefits, even though for many those benefits will run out on April 5th:
Senate Democrats and Republicans spent hours negotiating among themselves and with each other to find a compromise. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) discussed the possibility of a one- or two-week extension of benefits that would be fully paid for, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was opposed to the idea, according to two Senate aides.
As a result, the House and Senate will leave town without further action. COBRA and flood insurance will expire March 30, and unemployment benefits will expire April 5. The Senate will return to session April 12.(...)
The Senate GOP's refusal to agree to the House's version of the bill was led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who objected to bringing up the bill. Coburn said that by adding to the federal deficit, we are "stealing future opportunity from our children."
Democrats probably had 60 votes to reach cloture and pass the bill. However, Coburn had denied unanimous consent for a motion to proceed. Without that consent, either Cobrun and his supporters have to relent, or else here is the process required:
Leader Reid moves to proceed to an HR [House of Representatives] bill, which will be the vehicle for the Senate health care bill, and files a cloture motion on the motion to proceed
Two calendar days later, the cloture motion on the motion to proceed ripens (there has to be one intervening calendar day between the day you file cloture and the day you have the vote)
The cloture vote on the motion to proceed occurs one hour after we convene on the third day (If cloture is filed on Wednesday, the cloture vote is Friday. If cloture is filed on Thursday, the cloture vote is on Saturday, etc)
Assuming 60 Senators vote to limit debate on the motion to proceed and end the filibuster, the Senate invokes cloture on the motion to proceed
Thirty hours after cloture is invoked the Senate will proceed to vote on adoption of the motion to proceed itself (This assumes (a) consent will not be granted to yield back any post-cloture time on the motion to proceed and (b) consent will not be granted to adopt the motion to proceed itself---adoption of the motion to proceed itself is routinely agreed to by UC but Rs could force a roll call vote).
Upon adoption of the motion to proceed, the Senate will be on the bill
Additionally, cloture cannot be filed when he Senate is voting. So Harry Reid cold not have filed for cloture until yesterday afternoon. That means this entire process would have taken another week, as long as Coburn and his supporters were determined to keep obstructing. Just another reminder that we need broad procedural reform in the Senate.
"Coburn has the stamina of three Bunnings," said a Dem aide. "I really believe this is a retaliation for the passage of health care."
The aide said Reid was not interested in cutting a deal that pays for unemployment benefits with stimulus funds, since offsetting the government spending by withdrawing money from another part of the economy essentially nullifies its stimulative effect. "We're going to keep trying but I don't think we're going to get an agreement," the aide said. "They want to pay for unemployment insurance on the backs of out-of-work people and we're not going to do that."
"We're going to keep fighting back. My hope is we'll just stay and stay and stay," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in an interview with HuffPost. He said he hoped Democratic and Republican leadership will reach a deal before the break. In the meantime, he added: "Part of getting a deal is for people to see how strongly we feel. So that's our job, is to show spine."
I'm with Wyden on this one. However, Senator Stabenow also hinted at a way that Democrats might adjourn without passing the extension:
Stabenow said that even if the Senate adjourns for its two-week break without finishing the bill, the measure would apply retroactively when it is finally passed -- meaning that laid-off workers will get their unemployment checks eventually if there's a delay. "We can't get it done right now, but it will be retroactive."
That would still be damaging. They need to stay and pass this thing.
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Tom Coburn is currently filibustering an extension of unemployment and COBRA benefits. The current extension ends on April 5th. After passing the reconciliation bill, the Senate was planning to adjourn for a two weeks recess until April 5th. So, there is a chance this filibuster could result in the Senate adjourning without passing an extension, which would result in hundreds of thousands losing their benefits for a week or more.
In order to end this filibuster, Democrats need to either file for a cloture vote, or for Coburn to relent and allow unanimous consent. Coburn is being supported by a few other Republican Senators, so don't expect the latter. Even only five or six Senators working in tandem can deny unanimous consent pretty much indefinitely.
So far, Harry Reid has not filed a cloture motion. Mitch McConnell has done so, but on a bill that would use stimulus funds to pay for the extension of unemployment benefits and COBRA. This is considered to be a non-starter, so Harry Reid is going to move to table that motion. He will succeed.
I spoke with an aide to the Senate Democratic leadership who said they are "still trying to figure out another way around this." So, the path forward remains unclear. Even if they did file for cloture, it would take several days to pass the bill, and thus prevent the Senate from going on recess until at least Sunday.
I will post updates on this developing situation as they appear. The Senate needs to pass this extension before adjourning for any recess.
Kill the Bill or be killed by the Senate Health Care Reform Bill. That is the choice Americans face. Death looms large in the United States today. The Single-payer health care plan died in the Senate. Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont, and the father of the more recent Single Payer Plan "which eliminates the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, administrative costs, bureaucracy, and profiteering that is engendered by the private insurance companies" was brought to his knees on the floor of the Senate. As he tried to cope with the loss of common sense and what the citizens crave, reluctantly Mister Sanders acknowledged the proposal did not have the votes to pass.
And this is why: He must hate Louisiana and her people. Coburn, whose state obviously never has had a major disaster (judging from his behavior) introduced an amendment to the Senate healthcare bill stripping it of the $300 million Mary Landrieu had had added to help Louisiana make up for what would be a catastrophic Medicaid shortfall.
Talk about kicking somebody when they're down--Louisiana seriously needs this money.
Now Winfrey has squared off against Coburn, who has blocked S. 1738, the Combating Child Exploitation Act.
Winfrey asked her viewers Monday to call and write the Senate to demand their support for the legislation, sponsored by Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden (Del.).
Winfrey, herself a victim of sexual abuse, has asked viewers to sign and send a letter posted on her website calling for action on the bill.
Coburn is going to fight Winfrey by forcing the addition of a poisoned pill to this bill in the form of increased police powers to snoop on suspected criminals (ie. anyone). Both Alaska Republican Senators are cosponsoring the bill, as is Norm Coleman and Kay Bailey Hutchinson.
Here's Elizabeth Edwards, in an email pitch for the DSCC.
Senate Democrats have tried to fix these glaring injustices, but Republicans have responded by filibustering over seventy bills in a single year - a record of obstruction unmatched in American history.
And Josh Orton and Matthew Yglesias disagree. They argue that final vote tallies are misleading, and that once you whip to 60 votes many more Senators break for a bill so they can add modifications. That's somewhat true.
Still, if Tom Coburn can hold up 100 bills on his own, or if Russ Feingold can spark a debate about the President by offering a censure resolution, perhaps we might consider that the 60 vote threshold is only one and a very narrow way of thinking about the Senate. It also happens to be a persuasive way to convince liberals to back conservative candidates like Kay Hagan, who has not come for net neutrality or FISA, and Ronnie Musgrove, who is featured on MyDD's Road to 60.
I mentioned below how powerful one Senator willing to take retribution can be. Here's what Harry Reid intends to do to go around Tom Coburn and his hold on a hundred bills.
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning a "Coburn Omnibus" for July that would wrap most if not all of the bills held by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) into one large measure to be voted on by the Senate, according to a Coburn aide and two Democratic leadership staffers.
It's an unprecedented move, and an attempt to destroy the 'porcupine power' that Coburn wields so effectively.
In the last year, however, this gadfly has gone through a metamorphosis and is now more of a scorpion: If you're not careful, he'll kill your bill.
For that reason, Senate aides on both sides of the aisle now take legislation directly to Coburn's office before moving forward to make sure he has no objections - whether he's on the relevant committee or not. If he does, they often swallow their pride and make the changes he's asking for.
The article is full of quotes from John Cornyn, Diane Feinstein, Ben Cardin, Ben Nelson, and Reid's office. Ryan grim writes, "Democrats say they regularly debate whether to go along with Coburn." That is real power, what one Senator can do.
This kind of power was used by Jesse Helms to block and destroy progressive aims in the 1980s; one time he tried to block a treaty with the Soviets by "question[ing] Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev's authority to sign the treaty."
"I'm accused of holding up nominations and frustrating the will of the Senate. When you look at the record, it's not so." Then that glint flashes again, and he admits, "The reputation is quite valuable, because it has a certain amount of effect. They know I'm capable of it."
One Senator is quite powerful, and I'm going to guess that Reid's move against Coburn will fail. It shows what can happen when one dedicated Senator decides to be extraordinarily aggressive and consistent about certain key principles. They basically win most of the time on shaping legislation, while probably having an immensely frustrating time getting their own bills through.
Both Helms and Coburn were obnoxiously anti-establishment when they ran for Senate, and acted that way in the Senate itself. They are impervious to press criticism and to the hatred they engender from their colleagues. And it pays off in terms of conservative priorities becoming paramount.
So when you hear about 60 votes, recognize that a filibuster-proof majority is not a substitute for leadership and commitment. Yes, it makes things slightly easier, but in many ways it's a distraction by establishment elites to explain to us why we should pay them to continue to fail.
A battle between the offices of Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) over a controversial earmark intensified earlier this month, displaying how debates on Capitol Hill sometimes can turn personal.
The senators had been at odds over the matter for much of the summer, but it would reach a new level when John Hart, communications director for Coburn, forwarded a news article detailing his boss's request for an investigation of a defense contractor.
The target of the would-be investigation, 21st Century Systems Inc. (21CSI), employs Patrick Nelson, the son of the centrist senator.
Sen. Nelson had requested an earmark for 21CSI, triggering a heated battle between the senators that has raged for weeks.
"This will shut that f---er up," Hart stated in an Aug. 1 e-mail sent from his Senate account to several of his colleagues. "I can't wait to send an In Case You Missed It to Nebraska press that will be forwarded to a--face."
In a reply-all, Coburn legislative director Roland Foster joked that media calls should be directed to Nelson's hairdresser and "his son's probation officer."
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