While the suspension of the sales of “modern sporting rifles” is temporary, it’s a step. Please show Dick’s your support for making the move permanent, and if you need a soccer ball, some running shoes, or new fishing gear, you know where to go.
“I think it’s important on a day like today to view this as I know the president, as a father does and I as a father and others who are parents certainly do, which is to feel enormous sympathy for families that are affected and to do everything we can to support state and local law enforcement and support those who are enduring what appears to be a very tragic event. There is, I’m sure, will be, rather, a day for discussion of the usual Washington policy debates but I don’t think today is that day.[Emphasis added]
In what universe is entertaining the idea of limiting the public’s exposure to guns, “the usual Washington policy debates?” When was the last time Washington debated this topic? When Jimmy freaking Carter was president? Like 80 or 90 or several hundred mass shootings ago?
We never think today is the right day to stand up to the National Rifle Association and the Gun Owners of America, but it’s always a fine day for multiple funerals.
And the first person who says, “If those little kids or the teachers had their own guns, this never would have happened,” is going to get blasted — verbally — by me. The answer to too many guns is not more guns.
Count Justice Antonin Scalia among those who consider homosexuality to be a lifestyle choice, like whether to drive an SUV or a hybrid; whether to vote Democratic or Republican; whether to have lunch at Taco Bell or McDonald’s.
But for those of us who know we couldn’t just wake up one day and “choose” to be attracted to one gender or the other (i.e., anyone who’s honest with him or herself and who is not bisexual) think Scalia’s recent comments, even though he’s trying to sell a book, are outrageous.
Scalia: If we legalize homosexuality, we’ll have to legalize masturbation and sex between consenting, unmarried adults too
“Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home,” Scalia wrote. “They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.”
…Congressional Republicans, and their ostensible leader, John Boehner, can’t make the deal they know they have to in order to avert across-the-board tax increases.
Why can’t they? It’s not because they care about deficits. More than 40 years of GOP history, from Reagan’s deficit-exploding tax cuts to George W. Bush’s, on top of massive defense spending, wars paid for off the books, the budget-shredding “war on terror” and Medicare Part D — which was also not paid for — proves that Dick Cheney wasn’t kidding back in the day when he said that “deficits don’t matter.” Specifically, they don’t matter to Republicans. What matters to Republicans is rich people.
Joy Reid: For Republicans, it’s not about deficits, it’s about rich donors
Reid adds that while Democrats keep expanding their base with lots of small donors who give lots of small gifts, Republicans keep concentrating very large gifts from fewer donors. And many of those donors are not…well, people you’d want to hang out with.
Big GOP donors are very, very conservative. In fact, some of them are kooky, conspiracy minded, and radical.
Donald Trump, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch Brothers, the list of freaky, axe-to-grind for being unpopular in junior high donors goes on. Any way you slice it, Republicans have made a deal with the devil. Read the whole column.
Far be it from us to defend Republican Party Chair Reince Priebus. But the way some of his fellow travelers on the road to obstruction are talking about him after the GOP’s sound defeat in 2012, we have to speak up. Listen to what they’re saying.
A postelection civil war is brewing among Republicans, with some conservative activists angry over the party’s poor performance this cycle gunning for party Chairman Reince Priebus and planning demonstrations at the Republican National Committee’s annual winter meeting in Charlotte, N.C…
What’s wrong with the GOP is clearly not all the fault of Reince Priebus but he might be taking the fall
“Republicans want a change. They have had it with Priebus,” said Mike Karem, a Kentucky GOP strategist who has been involved in Republican presidential campaigns since Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election victory. “We lost the presidency; we lost House seats, Senate seats; we picked up only one governor; and we had 3 million fewer Republicans turn out for Romney and other Republican candidates than turned out in 2008.”
“If [Mr. Priebus] worked for you, would you keep him based on his record?” Mr. Karem added. “The answer is, ‘Hell, no!’”
I’m not deriding these people because it’s so easy to point out their cluelessness
Great leaders are skilled in strategy and compromise that achieves underlying goals, according to “Lincoln” screenwriter Tony Kushner. Which explains why there will never be any great tea party politicians, whose only strategy is to storm off in a huff if they don’t get their way.
But the secession petition Florida rightwingers recently sent to the White House points up another problem for the tea party: many of these folks are not bright.
Was there really no one on the petition writing squad who made an A in English?
The problem isn’t the deficit, which has fallen faster over the past three years than it has since the end of World War II, but employment, says economic analyst Jed Graham. So let’s not go down the path of Europe and apply unneeded austerity measures that plunge us back into recession.
Believe it or not, the federal deficit has fallen faster over the past three years than it has in any such stretch since demobilization from World War II.
In fact, outside of that post-WWII era, the only time the deficit has fallen faster was when the economy relapsed in 1937, turning the Great Depression into a decade-long affair.
…From fiscal 2009 to fiscal 2012, the deficit shrank 3.1 percentage points, from 10.1% to 7.0% of GDP.
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats, reports Florida Phoenix. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle. Currently, women hold about one-third of state legislative seats across the country — a record level of representation but nowhere near parity.
“Prediction markets about the 2026 midterm elections have surpassed $1.4 billion in trading volume as Election Day fast approaches,” CNN reports. “This year has seen massive growth in the prediction industry, where people can bet on real-world events like sports, entertainment and the weather. While small-scale election markets have been around for a while, they gained traction before the 2024 presidential election and have seen huge numbers for the 2026 midterms.”
G. Elliot Morris: “Low-knowledge 2024 voters say they backed Trump by 8 points, according to our poll. Today they give him a net job approval of ?27, a 35-point shift. Compare that to Trump’s approval rating among voters who got both questions right: These voters backed Harris by 1 point and now give Trump a net ?24 approval, a 23-point shift. … Low-information voters have moved against Trump at a higher rate than high-information voters, by 12 points.”
President Donald ?Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low as Americans worried about high gasoline prices and appeared ready to punish his Republican Party in the November 3 congressional elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday. Some 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s ?performance in office, down a percentage point from two weeks earlier and the lowest level in ?either of his presidential terms, the four-day poll showed.
KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”
