Right-Wing Victimization: Untruths and Consequences!

Wow, where do I even start going down this series of right-wing rabbit holes? The Hill posted an opinion by Joe Concha that exemplifies the rampant weeping victimhood that has been exploited so perversely by those brave but cowering "real American" Republicans. 

As pointed out by Concha, it all started with the brutal and mindless potshots leveled at Parkland school shooting student David Hogg, a supposed puppet of liberal villain George Soros:

"Ludicrous claims of him being a child actor or being coached soon followed and have, thankfully, been dismissed by those not living in a world of conspiracy theories or blinded by pure partisanship." 

Free Speech has Consequences?: Conspiracy theories come and go quickly, so the only thing left in the Republican arsenal? Personal unrelated attacks, like Laura Ingraham's attempt to discredit Hogg via his grade point average? Good one...

Hogg responded by listing 12 prominent advertisers of "The Ingraham Angle" in calling on a boycott. He proceeded to expand the list to 100 by sharing a list by Media Matters ... Notably, Hogg chose to accelerate his boycott effort after Ingraham's apology.

Silencing Conservatives? Hogg's call to boycott Ingraham's advertisers isn't an attempt to silence anyone, but it is an attempt to hold character assassins accountable for their words. Period.

As Concha pointed out in his crybaby opinion piece, right-wing "victims" are faced with two dangers:

1) Fear of reprisal for criticizing Hogg, who has the benefit of being protected from any criticism while being free to level it.

2) Fear of being seen as "the person attacking a mass-school-shooting survivor," regardless of whether there's a basis for such criticism or not.

Don't forget, poor helpless Laura Ingraham has media giant Fox News behind her, while Hogg has only himself and his ideas.

Concha stuns the senses making it seem like Hogg was being unfair, by praising victim and national conservative columnist Ben Shapiro for speaking out. Oddly it was Shapiro's own publication that ripped Hogg's college rejections, so Shapiro should actually be the last person to make the following argument:

Ben Shapiro. "I look forward to Hogg's apologies to Republicans ('sick f***ers'), Dana Loesch (she was 'hypocritical and disgusting' for criticizing Broward Sheriff Scott Israel), and Marco Rubio (he said Rubio was bribed by the NRA to give away children's lives)," Shapiro wrote in the online publication he founded, The Daily Wire. "You may not like what Ingraham said. You may disagree with it. I did. But it isn't remotely CLOSE to the level of viciousness with which Hogg has attacked people who disagree with him," Shapiro added.

From the party of Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwartzenegger and now TV reality superstar Donald Trump; guess what, these students are now pawns of big money...forget that they have the backing of the American people. From a tweet storm posted by crazy conservative Parkland student Kyle Kashuv:

1. The #March4OurLives had so much potential to be pure and grassroots but became very far from that. It was exactly what conservatives hate and what liberals love. At this point, with millions of dollars involved, every student, including myself, became a pawn in a game of chess.

2. They've agreed to work with organizations like the Woman's March who have affiliations with Lewis Farrakhan - a known antisemite. Regardless of what they think, the cause was hijacked by Hollywood and became a Hollywood event.

3. The media took interest in him to push an agenda. They've propped people up and have turned them into shields. I am not doubting anyone's sincerity, but people have certainly been hiding behind my classmates to push an agenda.

"Not doubting anyone's sincerity"? No, not at all.

Finally this:

And yet...

Finally, finally...I am forever amused by Republicans who think that criticism means they're being silenced, that they're somehow "not allowed" to exercise their First Amendment right.  

Student Protesters Nationwide Smarter than Republican Politicians on Gun Crisis.

It always seemed the gun debate pitted logic and common sense against cliches and imagined 2nd Amendment gun rights that even covered specific gun models.

The Children: For example, here are the fearless articulate messages we're hearing from high school students:



and this...



The "Adults:" Now here are the "look over there" distractions being sold first, by Wisconsin's own embarrassing NRA sellout Paul Ryan, who couldn't look or sound more ridiculous:



and this position...where "we has the wisdom."



Republicans are Everything They Say We Are: We have to come up with a new word to describe those blindly hypocritical "real Americans." It's not funny or ironic anymore. How do you have a debate with someone who has no self-awareness at all? For instance...this kid's protest sign and the fact that schools had to cancel their protests due to what, armed threats?

Schools Try to Stop Student Protesters with Threats, Suspensions: Those "constitutional conservatives" out there never did like the First Amendment much. You know, this part...the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" lacks the necessary obedience-to-power Trumpian right-wingers can't get enough of.

First, from the Waukesha School District, in the words of one student there:

As students at Waukesha North march and walk out to create a movement, we are being faced with threats of truancy tickets from an administration which has backtracked their own statements to the point of incoherency. First, student organizers at North were threatened by the School District of Waukesha for any type of advocacy in any way pertaining to them or their students. After the district's statement made national news on CNN, Todd Gray gave an interviewing denying his stance against students taking part in the movement.

Then again, they changed their stance, with principals giving guidelines to something closer resemble an assembly than a protest. Still, we tried to find a compromise. The realization that they were warping our ideas beyond recognition came when we were told we couldn't call it a walk out or a protest. The same administration with the audacity to tell us that The Women's March, a group actively advocating for legislative change so that it's harder for students to get hurt, was using us to push their own agenda, turned out to be using us to warp and quiet the story.

And so many others...

Nevada school administrators threatened to withhold students’ diplomas and kick students off sports teams for participating in the walkout.

Students in Texas were told they would be suspended if they protest gun violence, on the same day a local 14-year-old was charged over a shooting threat..."All will be suspended for 3 days and parent notes will not alleviate the discipline ... A school is a place to learn and grow educationally, emotionally and morally. A disruption of the school will not be tolerated.”

Sophomore Rosa Rodriquez the only student to walk out of Sayreville HS this morning #nationalwalkout Under threat of suspension several hundred others allowed to attend gathering in school auditorium #1010wins

A number of high schools cancelled or postponed their planned walkouts after receiving anonymous violent threats related to the protests. In Broughton High School in Raleigh, North Carolina; Hackensack High School in Bergen County, New Jersey; D.C. Everesthigh school in Weston, Wisconsin; Mukwonago High School in Wisconsin; and Romeoville High School in Illinois, protests were cancelled or postponed because of threats, sometimes in instances in which the threats were found not to be credible, out of an abundance of caution. In one instance, Shikellamy High School’s protest in Pennsylvania was cut short because of the threat of a drive-by shooting. Clearview Regional High School and Clearview Middle School in Gloucester County, New Jersey, were closed entirely because of an anonymous threat.

And finally...a school that forced their students to take a side:

An Ohio high school student has found himself at the center of political controversy after an online post about his suspension for staying in class during the national student school walkout went viral ... he chose not to join his classmates because he didn’t go to a designated area of the school where the non-protesters were supposed to be, he didn’t want to choose a side, and instead stayed by himself in a classroom. 

On social media Shoemaker’s now-viral suspension slip has been spun into a tale about how a liberal school system impeded the rights of a student who supported the Second Amendment, On Twitter, users shared Shoemaker’s photos of the suspension slip with hashtags such as #GunControlNever and #LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder. One person tweeted, “To paraphrase George Orwell, some speech is more equal than others.”

To all the students who suddenly realized they all have truly remarkable power. Their message is so clear and so well-stated that it stands in stark contrast to the mindnumbing nonsense spewed out by Republican politicians.

Teen Activists, Consumers, and Voters key to gun laws...and change!

On guns...

"Yea, I'm more hopeful about gun control than I have been in a long time because the most powerful stakeholder in the American economy is the consumer .... and It seems the consumer is getting angry about this, and teens were the most important consumer in the world, because we wear their clothes, we take their cues in terms of media, what phones we want, what restaurants are cool, what vacation spots we want to go to. They are the tip of spear." - Professor Scott Galloway

I thought the quote above and the video clip below touched on new territory, that was exciting and so potentially powerful. And it could change the nations political dynamics...soon.

For decades, Republicans believed the longer a person experienced the harsh realities of life, the more conservative they would become. Of course that was ridiculous. Republicans believed that teens were too young to vote, naive, and weren't getting the kind of civic lessons they needed to become "real American." So Republican states now require a civics test to graduate. Big mistake. Curriculum changes already emphasized American history. That said, students were now arming themselves to be adept political realists and activists, hell bent on changing society for the better.

If you have the time, check out Professor Scott Galloway's interpretation of the events surrounding mass shootings and what he sees as a time for real change: 

NRA selling Guns to fight "Elites...that threaten our very survival" trying to stop Right Wing from Fact Checking them?

Where do I start on gun rights, or should I say, weapons rights? The Second Amendment doesn't mention guns specifically, so what we're talking about is anything a citizens wants to use to protect themselves. Oddly, conservatives say there should be no limits on the Second Amendment, but then are fine with limits on tanks, bombs and chemical...etc?

A recently released NRA ad that's just starting to get attention now, especially after Charlottesville, Trump's dog whistle endorsement of the white nationalist movement and his pardon of racist and former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, is unapologetically calling liberals "elites," the enemy "threatening our very survival," and promising psycho guns nuts will be "coming for you."

Fox News: The NRA has put out a series of videos that announce a "shot across the bow," and say the gun-rights group is "coming for you" and that "elites ... threaten our very survival," terms that suggest opponents are enemy combatants.

Here's a look at the 2 incendiary ads featuring Dana Loesch, a supposed "former liberal."

The first ad targets the NY Times, and promises to "fact check" the papers criticisms by first destroying the whole idea of actual fact checking, and then reinforcing the right wing myth someone is trying to stop them from fact checking:

"We've had it with your narratives, your propaganda, your fake news. We've had it with your constant protection of your Democrat overlords, your refusal to acknowledge any truth that upsets the fragile construct that you believe is real life. And we've had it with your tone-deaf assertion that you are in any way truth or fact-based journalism. Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow. ... In short? We're coming for you."

A Call for an Armed Insurrection: This is not a joke:

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Associated Press the tone and language is "overwrought rhetoric" that, viewed by the wrong person, could lead to violence. The kicker on one of the videos — "We're coming for you" — is straight out of the movies, she said, and "that phrase means that violence is imminent and we will perpetrate it."

Armed Revolution Coming: My conservative friend in Milwaukee (since the 1960's), who is now a drooling Trump supporter, recently texted the message below after I reminded him of how the white nationalists are running scared and canceling events after encountering the small but growing ANTIFA (anti-fascist) movement. And this wasn't the only time he's said this...:

"If you want to defend your fascist ANTIFA racist pals, go ahead. You want to be on that side of a civil war, be my guest. Just remember, we got the guns, the ammo, and there will be no rules for rules of engagement. Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization just as ANTIFA...we will win."

He really did say that. And I can't discount that there are many others who feel the same way.

A recent Charlottesville video surfaced showing a Nazi sympathizer firing a gun into a crowd of protesters... a "shot across your proverbial bow?" Oh, and this guy is another one of those "responsible" gun owners, until he's not:

NY Times: A white nationalist protester in a bulletproof vest turned, pointed a pistol toward the crowd and fired a single shot at the ground, in the direction of a black man wielding an improvised torch.

To make his escape, a video recording shows, the armed protester strolled past a line of about a dozen state police troopers who were safely positioned about 10 feet away behind two metal barricades. None of them budged. “We all heard it and ran — I know damn well they heard it,” said Rosia Parker, a community activist in Charlottesville. “They never moved.” Police had a suspect in the shooting in custody on Saturday morning ... But residents are still demanding to know why officers did not act in real time as heavily armed people fought and a car sped toward a crowd, killing a woman.

UPDATE: From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

In 2013, a bandana-sporting, Baltimore-area man named Richard Preston served as a Klu Klux Klan imperial wizard, arguing that the KKK was not racist but simply wanted to "stop Barack Obama," as he said at a county meeting that year. He wore a white hood in the appearance.

"We're going to do this all over America nonstop," he said at the meeting. "We're not going to stop."

The Preston arrested on Saturday now faces a charge of discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school, according to CNN, a felony that could lead to 10 years in prison.

Peaceful Armed Nationalist Movement? And while Trump supporters spread vile stories of violent ANTIFA protesters breaking windows and burning cars, they never seem to mention stuff like this:

Investigators are also close to making arrests in the case of DeAndre Harris, 20, a local teacher’s aide and African-American who was beaten with a metal pipe and slabs of wood in a parking garage just a few yards from Police Headquarters, the city manager, Maurice Jones said.

Here's Loesch throwing out a few "concerned" looks bragging about how she'll "fisk" (slang, meaning to refute or criticize a journalistic article or blog point by point) the NY Times, perpetuating the surreal myth someone is out there trying to stop them, even the NRA, from fact checking the media. Who comes up with this stuff?



Jacking up Gun Sales under a GOP Authority:

Critics of the NRA contend the organization is relying on the "fake news" mantra started by Trump to whip up its followers after a dip in gun sales that has taken place since Trump succeeded President Barack Obama.

Mike Nelson, a Democratic congressional candidate in Arkansas and self-described hunter and gun-rights supporter, to label them as "hate speech." Nelson, whose website lists the NRA among more than two dozen organization he's supported, said he can no longer back the NRA. In a Facebook post, Nelson wrote: 

"If the NRA does not stop their hate campaign, I will call them out on sedition. Sedition is the willful undermining of the legal authority, the Incitement of Violence."

Robert Spitzer, chairman of the political science department at State University of New York at Cortland, who has examined the firearms industry and Second Amendment issues extensively and a member of the NRA as well as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said "They've held up the U.N. as ready to swoop in and take everybody's guns." Plenzler, who has since dropped his NRA membership, said he was disturbed by the videos. 

"Lately, it seems like they've gone well out of the bounds of any sort of sane responsible behavior. If you want to advocate for the Second Amendment, which I unapologetically believe in, that's fine. But I think at the point where you are going to demonize half the American population in a recruitment effort to get more members, I've got a big problem with that."

NRA Declares War on Liberals.

I've been writing about the Republican authoritarian movement for some time now along with their sheepishly devoted voters. They've been vilifying liberals, progressives and Democrats for years. Not coincidentally, I've also noticed my conservative friend in Milwaukee has made the attacks more personal, with an arrogance rooted from one party rule. After all, they "won" and will never lose power again. And according to my friend, with the appointment of conservative judges, liberals will lose in the courts as well.  

NRA Ad Warning: What I've seen from tweets and blog commentary is perfectly summed up in the recent NRA ad. It is literally all there, with the added call to arms of course. Trump's blatant attack on the First Amendments very clear protections of the press, the rise of right wing media, and the many years of vilifying  "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," the NRA ad may be the marker right wing authoritarians have been waiting for. Especially after the way this ad hit the fan:

"They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars and singers and comedy shows and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their ex-president to endorse “the resistance.”

All to make them march. Make them protest. Make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia. To smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law-abiding — until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness.

And when that happens, they’ll use it as an excuse for their outrage. The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth.

I’m the National Rifle Association of America. And I’m freedom’s safest place."

As Vox's Zack Beauchamp put it:

This chilling NRA ad calls on its members to save America by fighting liberals: A liberal insurgency is destroying American society. The “only way” to protect yourself from this surge in left-wing violence (a made-up threat, to be clear) is to donate to the NRA.

In a 2013 op-ed, for example, NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre argued that a lawless America was inevitable if the liberals succeeded in their nefarious plan to take your guns … it functions as a kind of anti-politics — casting the NRA’s political opponents as devious enemies who can’t be opposed through normal politics. Republicans control all three branches of government and a large majority of statehouses nationwide. There is literally zero chance that any kind of major gun control passes in America in the foreseeable future.

The threat, instead, is from a kind of liberal-cultural fifth column: People who are acting outside of legitimate political channels to upend American freedoms, through protest and violence. It’s a paranoid vision of American life that encourages the NRA’s fans to see liberals not as political opponents, but as monsters.

The ad features right-wing pundit Dana Loesch, who seems determined to turn everything in our country beet red:

The NRA made the mistake of using "blue" as their background, making it ripe for parody, like this...

Democratic Gun Protest Sit-In "like college kids taking over a campus." - C-Span Caller

Leave it to our sociopathic Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to calmly dismiss the call for common sense gun background checks and revised terrorist watch list, and call the Democratic outrage a "publicity stunt." Well, that's how his party would see and exploit the idea:

The Democratic sit-in was described this way by a caller on C-Span today:

Caller: "...and as to the Representatives taking...basically taking the House hostage....the peoples house....it doesn't have a place on the floor of the House. They can't expect leadership to give into them, when they're basically holding Congress hostage. These are people paid to represent us, and to be there...this is more like college kids taking over a campus and saying, we're going to do this."

An NRA radio show came out with this gem describing Democratic efforts to pass reasonable and popular gun control:

"The NRA radio show considers participants and Rep. John Lewis' gun violence sit-in to criminals and terrorists." 

Our "freedom and liberty" party of cafeteria constitutionalists are starting to rationalize the sit-in this way:

One of the dumbest men alive, Louie Gohmert ignored all the other mass shooting and instead focused on "radical Islam." 

Idiocracy - with a Vengence!!!

This could be the trailer for Idiocracy 2, right? Instead, it's just the NRA reminding us how dangerous they are to us and themselves. You won't believe this...from the now cartoonish country singer Charlie Daniels.

Oh, and these famous lyrics come to mind...

"...Killed him a bear when he was only three." 

"You haven’t met the heartland, or the people who will defend this nation with their bloody, calloused, bare hands, if that’s what it takes. You haven’t met the steelworkers and the hard-rock miners, or the swamp folks in Cajun country who can wrestle a full-grown gator out of the water.

You haven’t met the farmers, the cowboys, the loggers and the truck drivers. You don’t know the mountain men who live off the land, or the brave cops who fight the good fight in the urban war zones.

No, you’ve never met America. And you oughta pray you never do."

The NRA's Guns for Kids Programs: Red Riding Hood has a Gun, and Iowa's Toddler Militia?.

Here's a couple of really bad idea's, backed by the radical gun lobby group, the NRA, to put guns in the hands of our kids:

Adding guns to the world of the Brothers Grimm drastically reduces death rates, according to a couple of stories published by the NRA. In the NRA's reimagined fairy tales, putting rifles in the hands of children creates a safer world.

The NRA Family site published its first reimagined fairy tale — "Little Red Riding Hood (Has A Gun)" in January, and followed up with "Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns)" last week.

On Twitter, inspired by the series:

@SarahFMcD wrote: "Prince traveling kingdom 2 find owner of glass slipper shot dead by gun wielding evil stepmother,"


@Scott_Craven2 offered: "The porridge was too cold, the bed was too hard, but this AK47 is just right. Who's up for some bearskin rugs?"

Just a sample of the NRA's fractured fairly tales:

In the NRA's rewrite, Little Red Riding Hood walks through the woods with a rifle in her hands, warding off the wolf along the path. "The wolf leaned in, jaws open wide, then stopped suddenly. Those big ears heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun's safety being clicked off. Those big eyes looked down and saw that grandma had a scattergun aimed right at him. He realized that Grandmother hadn't been backing away from him; she had been moving towards her shotgun to protect herself and her home.

Or the classic Hansel and Gretel: The two kids set out into the woods to feed the family. Gretel takes down a 10-point buck ... When they see the gingerbread house, they save two boys who were trapped by the witch.

Like all bills named by Republicans and the NRA, they usually mean just the opposite of the legislation. Yahoo News:

The Youth Safety & Parental Rights Act (House File 2281), (would let) people under the age of 14 be permitted to handle “a pistol, revolver or the ammunition” in the presence of an adult. Current law prohibits anyone under 14 to use handguns, and plenty of Iowans want to keep it that way.

Democratic Rep. Kirstin Running-Marquardt, who supports the right to bear arms and worked in a gun store for about five years, spoke out against the bill, saying, “We do not need a militia of toddlers.” Running-Marquardt said ... handguns are simply inappropriate for very young children and don’t even fit their hands.

Regarding “parental rights,” Running-Marquardt noted that there many things children in Iowa are not allowed to do: They cannot drive under 14 (even with parental supervision) or be employed under 10. “You have to balance the rights of the children with their life and safety."

Ya think? Just how did this happen? You can blame one dad's selfish intentions and complete disregard for every other kid in the state:

Nathan Gibson, a hunter, has been lobbying for the bill on behalf of his daughters, Natalie and Meredith, 12 and 10, who share his passion for shooting as a sport. The bill, he said, would allow Natalie and Meredith to participate in youth events with the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation. “This is literally about youth scholastic shooting, which leads to eventually, potentially as a father could hope, an Olympic gold medal, scholarships, things like that,” Gibson said to Yahoo News. “It’s about my daughters’ sport.”

Why didn't the bill address a logical age limit for kids participating in competitive sports only? Because Republicans can't govern:

But Running-Marquardt said the bill is so poorly worded that it does not specify an age at which children could use handguns or make exceptions for children training for competitions. The National Rifle Association strongly supports the bill ... Republican Rep. Jake Highfill, who proposed the bill, did not respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News.

Walker Justice candidate Bradley features fake "hunter" picture for single issue gun vote.

Scott Walker's shopping mall for hunters who don't have a lot of time, game farms, is another administration effort to privatize a very popular public sport.

To the left is DNR Sec. Cathy Stepp in a Wern Valley game farm vest prominently featured in the state's "Deer Hunt 2014" video. That's not all, the shows host...

...and a number of presenters chose to wear Safari Club International hats. This seemed a bit odd for a DNR-produced program. Safari Club International is a lobbying organization, and a pretty radical one at that-- they promote trophy hunting, canned hunts, hounding bears/wolves, and oppose endangered species protections.

But there's not just money to be made by the game farm industry, its also a great place for would-be politicians and Supreme Court Justices who don't have a hunting license to get a gun toting campaign picture, like the photo here of Justice candidate Rebecca Bradley. JS-Marley:

The photo was taken in November at a Waukesha game farm, where hunting licenses aren't required. Rebecca Bradley made an implicit appeal to hunters … baseball cap emblazoned with the initials of the National Rifle Association. State Department of Natural Resources spokesman George Althoff said there is no record of Bradley having a hunting, fishing or boating license in the past five years. 

Bradley for some reason wouldn't say where she stands on the now decided 2nd Amendment decision by Justice Scalia, which in Republican world means she's all for it, but Justice candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg offered a more insightful detailed view:

"What I can say is that Heller does demonstrate that a judicial philosophy that claims to hew to the original intents of the men who wrote the constitution 250 years ago does not by itself resolve complex legal questions. Both Justice Scalia in his majority opinion and Justice (John Paul) Stevens in his dissent reviewed the text and history of the disputed Second Amendment language. Justice Scalia chose to place less weight on some of the words in the Second Amendment as compared to others and so reached a decision that some legal scholars contend was consistent with Scalia's own ideology rather than with an originalist reading of the constitution."

Yes, Republicans want to sell arms Terrorists in US!!!

When you summarize a failure like banning the sale of guns to terrorists, you can see just how radical Republicans have become, and mindlessly beholden to the wacky NRA. 

Democrats are renewing calls for Congress to pass legislation aimed at preventing terrorists from buying guns. Similar bills — including a post-9/11 measure backed by the Justice Department under Republican President George W. Bush — have been stymied for years, thanks in large part to opposition from gun-rights groups and congressional Republicans.

Yes, our frightened party of armed panicky paranoids have been arming terrorists for years and no one knew, especially those brainy tea party dunces.

According to a March analysis by the Government Accountability Office, people on the FBI's consolidated Terrorist Watchlist successfully passed the background check required to purchase firearms more than 90 percent of the time, with more than 2,043 approvals between 2004 and 2014. The office is an investigative branch of Congress.

I guess it fits into the current narrative, that any gun law is worthless, since terrorists and criminals will find a way to get fire arms anyway. So what's the use?

Seriously, this new bill fine tunes the ban on gun sales to terrorists, and it's still expected to fail to get the votes in the Republican Senate and House:

The new Democratic push would let the attorney general compile a list of known and suspected terrorists. Federally licensed gun dealers would be barred from selling firearms to them if government officials believed they might use the weapon for terrorism.

Again, inept Republicans want to reassess and discuss it, you know, talk about it for awhile, until we forget about it completely. Now that's governing with courage and leadership:

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., did not respond directly when asked Thursday if he favored barring people on the watch list from buying guns, saying, "We are just beginning this process of reassessing all of our security stances."

The fact that the new Democratic proposal is a fined tune list of suspected terrorist, and not just those many people on the "watch list," the NRA wants to misdirect and anger members by accusing the Dems of exploiting the Paris attacks:

The National Rifle Association signaled this week it will oppose Feinstein's bill, as it did those before it … "It is appalling that anti-gun politicians are exploiting the Paris terrorist attacks to push their gun-control agenda and distract from President Obama's failed foreign policy." 

Walker's Anecdotal Driven Vision of America; Fiction turns into state and U.S. policy.

Tone deaf much?  Scott Walker and his plundering legislative pirates didn't seem to care how bad it looked when they passed a deplorable gun law that specifically protects irresponsible and impatient owners, especially at a time when the nation mourned the victims in Charleston. Heck, back in 2013 "Assembly Republicans refused to consider a resolution honoring the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting." Yet time after time, I'm still surprised.

But the repealed 48-hour waiting period Republicans claimed had something to do with quicker background checks, was actually a distraction from the real reason; repealing the cooling off period based on an anecdotal lie.

And just in case Republicans were confronted with the issue of preventing impulsive heat of the moment gun purchases, they were ready with the NRA anecdotal story of Bonnie Elmasri. These GOP ghouls, even after being told the story was a lie, were unrepentant:

Cooling off  period ends proudly,
based on an NRA lie.

Daily Beast:  Scott Walker’s Gun Bill Is Based on a Lie ... the falsehood at its heart is even worse ... a decades-old fiction concerning another gun horror, this the 1991 killings of a Wisconsin woman named Bonnie Elmasri and her two children. In the aftermath of that triple homicide, pro-gun advocate James Fendry offered a remarkable tale. Fendry—who reportedly founded his Wisconsin Pro-Gun Movement in 1981 at the urging of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action—announced that a woman named Bonnie had called him a day or two before the tragedy, saying she was desperate to get a gun to protect herself from her estranged and abusive husband ... he had explained to the woman that Wisconsin had a waiting period. 

The local police were forthrightly dubious that Bonnie Elmasri had ever contacted Fendry or sought to obtain a gun. Her brother, Gary Greenberg ... denounce the tale as a fabrication ... “My sister would never buy a weapon ... Never ... I believe he (Fendry) is either making it up entirely or that somebody named Bonnie called him but that was not my sister.”

Upon learning of the renewed effort to use this twisted tale in violation of the victims’ right to the truth, Bonnie Elmasri’s brother had much the same reaction he had when it was used back in 1991. “That is a made-up story,” Greenberg told The Daily Beast. “That is a total fabrication.” 

Almost everything steering the Republican agenda is anecdotal, which makes it easy to never take responsibility for their actions once the truth comes out:

When Wanggaard’s office was informed ... a spokesman said the senator had gotten it “from the Congressional Record”—which in this instance is to say from the NRA and Fendry. The senator had not bothered to verify its authenticity. The bill passed and landed before Walker ... He may very well not be aware of the falsehood at the heart of the measure. The fact remains that he signed into law a gun de-control measure with that shameful falsehood at its core. Walker did it even as the families down in Charleston were preparing to bury their dead, even as most of us were despairing over the never ending gun violence.

The Best case against Guns.

Sadly it took an Australian to "Hulk Smash" EVERY ridiculous argument about guns and the 2nd Amendment. Down Under's gun ban is working out quite well.

Australian comedian Jim Jefferies was the victim of a home invasion once. He was tied up and beaten, and his girlfriend was threatened with rape. So you might think he'd sympathize with the idea that Americans want guns to protect their families. Quite the opposite — he does an excellent job of summing up why so many foreigners are baffled by America's gun culture:

NRA Myths Busted & Gun crazy convention goers were sitting targets for armed attackers (yet nothing happened).

It appears our fanatical gun drooling concealed carry bots don't even trust their fellow armed and obsessed "law abiding citizens:"

The National Rifle Association will hold its annual convention April 10-12 in Nashville. Here's a breakdown of what you need to know:  "16 acres of guns," according to an ad for the event; All guns on the convention floor will be nonoperational, with the firing pins removed, and any guns purchased during the NRA convention will have to be picked up at a Federal Firearms License dealer…

Media Matter's hit the nail on the head by throwing the NRA's own talking points back at them. Funny, gun hobbyists have not yet responded to this obvious hypocrisy:

NRA To Host "Marquee" Event In A "Gun-Free Zone" After Describing Such Places As Advertisements For An "Insane Killer" - NRA's Wayne LaPierre Recently Fear-mongered About Terror Attack On Gun-Free Mall.

At the same time, new research is backing up what has been painfully obvious to many of us; guns kill people, and don't make us safer. What a revelation...from MotherJones:

New Harvard Research Debunks the NRA's Favorite Talking Points: 

Anyone familiar with the gun debate has heard the talking points of the National Rifle Association and other gun rights advocates: "Carrying a gun for self-defense makes you safer." Or: "If only more ordinary citizens were armed, they could stop mass shootings" ... these arguments don't stand up to scrutiny. After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, commented on another long-running assertion from the gun lobby: "There is no evidence that having more guns reduces crime," he told the New York Times.

Here's a little background, and a graph showing some of their findings:

Hemenway says that some in the media have continued to treat such assertions as legitimate points of debate. That leaves the public thinking, "Okay, so there's disagreement on this," he says … so he set about surveying a wide range of experts on guns. The Harvard team has completed nine surveys so far, with about 100 researchers responding to each: They show that a clear majority of experts do not buy the NRA's arguments (see the growing dataset here). 

NRA's LaPierre rally's gun toting cowards with unmistakable racist dig at Obama.

From Media Matters, this bombshell of a comment:

Holy crap, Sheriff David Clarke is Insane, literally!!! And he's allowed to carry a gun?

Why Milwaukee keeps electing this friggin' lunatic is beyond me. You can read his comments here, or if you're feeling up to it, watch in disbelief as this showboating instigator of gun violence in Milwaukee panders shamelessly to the drooling gun toting freaks afraid of their own shadow:

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke stirred up the audience at the National Rifle Association national convention on Friday with an outlandish “proposition” involving the Great Seal of the United States, Right Wing Watch reported.

“You know, the one with the American bald eagle holding an olive branch in one claw and arrows in the other. We should take those arrows out of the eagle’s claws and replace them with a semi-automatic rifle, preferably one that shoots M-855 ammunition.”

With a total disregard for history, this “law enforcement” official doesn’t get the symbols of “peace and war:”

The seal, which was first used in 1782, is kept in the Secretary of State’s office. According to the State Department, the olive branch and the arrows “denote the power of peace & war.”

“There is nothing else I would rather hold in my hand when fighting government tyranny than a Bible in my left hand that I use to swear to uphold the Constitution, and in my right hand a Winchester rifle, a symbol of freedom and liberty in the United States of America.” 

 Jaw dropping that someone like this is in charge of anything:

It's not Indoctrination that's bad, it's Liberal Indoctrination that's bad.

Over and over again this same scenario is playing out across the country when it comes to right wing indoctrination;

FDLReporter: Karl McCarty, who teaches history and political science at Oakfield High School, invites politicians to speak ... the class hosted Republican Rep. Thomas Petri (and) Ron Johnson who said any of the GOP candidates would be better than President Barack Obama … jsonline: Call this story Oakfield High School's Excellent Republican Adventure. In a whirlwind trip to Iowa, seven students and two recent graduates of the school, shepherded by teacher Karl McCarty and a father of two in the group, drove six hours from Oakfield to Des Moines, met top GOP candidates.

No tea party complaints over this? Or this attempt to intimidate teachers, change curriculum, and outright deny the ugly side of Republican politics:

A suburban high school government class assignment helped students figure out which beliefs align with certain political ideologies has come under fire. A Nathan Hale High School mother took her concerns public after a teacher graded her son as incorrect for assessing the statement, "We should not help the poor, it's a waste of money," as fascist, instead of what the teacher marked as the correct answer: conservative/Republican. Heather Bronnson (said) "No political party espouses not helping the poor, it's ridiculous. Why can't they just teach the basic political spectrum without lying?" Bronnson's postings elsewhere are critical of unions.  

No tea party complaints over this too? The truth is, liberal indoctrination is bad, conservative indoctrination is not. The best example yet showing the twisted pretzel logic of one party exempt from "the rules,"  is this jaw dropping program of blatant indoctrination:

Raw Story: The recent decision on the part of PTR Industries, a gun manufacturer, to move its headquarters from Connecticut to South Carolina has inspired Republican state Rep. Alan Clemmons to propose what he’s calling the “Second Amendment Education Act.” 

As the name implies, the bill would “provide all public elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools” with “instruction in the Second Amendment” for no fewer than “three consecutive weeks in one grading period in each academic year.” The curriculum would be written by the NRA, of course. 

The bill is an example of the crony capitalism the Tea Party says it hates, with the government aiding a friendly and favored industry — or picking winners and losers, as they like to say. 

The communications director for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Ladd Everitt, told Al Jazeera that the possibility of the NRA writing a three-week-long curriculum is “a nightmare,” because the organization “endorses an insurrectionist interpretation of the Second Amendment.” 

As if there wasn’t enough of this in South Carolina already, an NRA-penned review of American history would leave millions of children under the impression that the Framers saw the Constitution much the same as the men behind the Confederate States of America.

The NRA Militia endorses who else, "Divide and Conquer" Governor Scott Walker, opposes something called a "time tax."

Let me get this right: Gun regulations make it harder to purchase firearms and they get in the way of the 2^nd Amendment. Voter regulations make it harder to vote but don’t get in the way of our federal and state constitutional right to vote. I understand now…we are Borg!

But in a twist I didn't see coming, but should have, the NRA Militia* has decided to exploit the conservative impulse to freeloader with their natural opposition to taxes of all kinds; they're calling it “the antiquated 48-hour “time tax” on handgun purchases.”

Time tax? Nothing says playing to the fears and dislikes of Republicans everywhere like a “time tax.” Ouch. The NRA Militia is apparently renewing and energizing a whole raft of new "taxes" based on the tried and true “death tax” scare. I found this new "tax" at the NRA Militia site designed specifically for Scott Walker. How kind.

I wouldn't be surprised to discover NRA Militia opposition to the;

-"Learning Tax:" Gun licensing courses turning idiots into legal gun toting idiots.

 -"Licensing Tax:" Big government permits to carry and own a firearm. 

-"Open Carry Tax:" Laws blocking open carry at events and businesses.

-"No Guns Allowed Tax:" Where private freedom loving family homes institute and post a no guns allowed sign tax on guests. 

-"Smart Gun Tax:" A free market attempt to destroy the 2nd Amendment with guns that are smarter their owners. 

These are just a few new "taxes" pushed by who else, "tax" and spend liberals who hate America. 

God, if only we had a one party government with a strong leader who'll make the unpopular decisions that they know are best for us. I can dream.

*I call them the NRA Militia now because that's all they're really good for; starting, speaking for and arming militias in the name of firearms sales.  

Good Guys with Guns Killed by Bad Guys with Guns.

The title is a twist on the NRA's idiot one liner, "Only Way To Stop A Bad Guy With A Gun Is With A Good Guy With A Gun," that only the most gullible fools found to be profound.

But as Chris Hayes revealed last night, that was an outright false premise...a lie. Why the press didn't shine a spotlight on this little known fact is even more unsettling.



The National Memo's Gene Lyons wrote this insightful analysis of our current national condition, shortened:

So the Bonnie and Clyde of the great Bundy ranch standoff thought they could start a national uprising by murdering two cops in a Las Vegas pizza joint. After executing Officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo in the most cowardly way possible, would-be freedom fighters Jerad and Amanda Miller draped the officers’ bodies with a Nazi flag and the “Don’t Tread on Me” banner flown at Tea Party rallies, and left a note proclaiming a new American Revolution.

The duo then proceeded to Walmart, where they also died in the most cowardly way possible — a murder-suicide.

Along the way the pair encountered the proverbial “good guy with a gun,” Joseph Robert Wilcox. They killed him too. Wilcox’s mistake was to pull his own concealed handgun without firing. It’s something combat instructors say one should never do, although it’s a decent human being’s first instinct — one good reason ordinary citizens shouldn't carry.

We’d been talking about those “open carry” geeks parading around in Fort Worth restaurants; also the self-appointed Texas posse that vowed to forcibly prevent Bowe Bergdhal’s Idaho hometown from throwing a welcome-home celebration for the recently released POW.

Fox News and CNN succeeded in raising an electronic lynch mob. In essence, these jokers pronounced themselves willing to kill or die to prevent President Obama from getting a bump in opinion polls — the proximate cause of the sickening right-wing media freakout over Bergdhal’s release.

To the nutball right, ordinary Democratic voters have become the main enemy. Their apocalyptic theology requires a Satanic enemy, and it’s the majority. Some won’t rest until they get the violent confrontation they think they want. Then look for the professionals to take down the amateurs, with prejudice. It’s the American way.

Issa's new outrage? Obama's "Operation Choke Point" a threat to Fraud and Illegal Behavior Involving Guns.

Is anyone surprised that another attempt to smear President Obama is coming from Rep. Darrell Issa?

Fox News: California GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (said) the Obama administration resorted to using its executive power to try to put some in the firearms industry out of business. Citing internal Justice Department documents, the committee concluded that the administration used a program known as Operation Choke Point to target legal companies that it finds “objectionable.”

Any attempts at law enforcement involving guns are another wonderful chance by Republicans to scare gun owners about losing their Second Amendment rights. Hey, it sells firearms.

The program was started in 2013 to protect consumers by “choking” alleged fraudsters’ access to the banking system … from companies that are considered “high risk” and are supposedly violating federal law … Issa’s committee show the federal government lumped the firearms industry in with other "high-risk" businesses including those dealing with pornography, drug paraphernalia, escort services, racist materials, Ponzi schemes and online gambling.

So we’re supposed to let fraud and illegal behavior just happen?

Justice Department spokesman Emily Pierce said Friday that all the assertions by the House committee are “false.” She said the documents Issa released actually “make clear that we are targeting fraudulent and illegal behavior” ... the department will continue to hold “accountable” the financial institutions that process fraudulent transactions.

Let’s hear from the gun selling lobbyists:

Andrew Arulanandam, National Rifle Association spokesman, said Saturday“The efforts of the Obama administration to impose its vision of a ‘fundamentally transformed’ America have already fallen hard on those who value the Second Amendment. Some fear this could be yet another example of [the president’s] ‘phone and pen’ style of imperial governance.”

 That'll sell guns.

NRA loses control of Open Carry Thugs Nationwide. Bullies are now burning their NRA Membership Cards.

Ah, the average law abiding responsible gun owner turns out to be…not so responsible after all.

The following NRA admission, saying their high minded responsible members are acting like irresponsible bullies, should be a valuable lesson for them. Maybe they should consider how the majority of unarmed American citizens feel about these same strangers with loaded guns standing next to their families. 

click to enlarge

This is what happens when we cater to the marginal, and encourage irrational laws and deregulation that normally kept the lunatic fringe in check. Yes, the NRA should be worried. The tide of public opinion is turning against these off the show boaters.

See how the NRA ended up using all the negative terms I use to describe our unfriendly paranoid gun thugs:

TPM: NRA Issues Amazing Statement Admitting Bringing AR-15s To Chipotle Is Dumb: The NRA's lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, publicly denounce(ed) the tactics employed by Open Carry Texas and other groups as "weird" and even "scary."

"As a result of these hi-jinx, two popular fast food outlets have recently requested patrons to keep guns off the premises," the unsigned statement said … that using guns "to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners. [W]hile unlicensed open carry of long guns is also typically legal in most places, it is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms," the statement said.

"Let's not mince words, not only is it rare, it's downright weird ...  To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one's cause, it can be downright scary. It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates."

Check out how on one hand, the NRA trusts the people, then don’t so much, it’s hilarious:

The NRA made clear it "does not support bans on personalized guns or on carrying firearms in public, including in restaurants." But it concluded that "when people act without thinking, or without consideration for others – especially when it comes to firearms – they set the stage for further restrictions on our rights." 

Uh oh, looks like the NRA just got on the wrong side of crazy. See picture.......

Here's Chris Hayes with his comment: