Tuesday, June 21, 2016

White House: Senate gun votes ‘a shameful display of cowardice’

The HillThe White House on Tuesday blasted the Senate's "cowardice" for rejecting four separate gun control measures.
“What we saw last night in the United States Senate is a shameful display of cowardice,” press secretary Josh Earnest said on CNN.
Here is what The Hill and the White House leave out:  Democrats Tanked Gun Control To Up Their Election Chances
Senate Republicans agreed to vote on four gun control proposals—two offered by Democrats and two offered by Republicans. The Democratic proposals included Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s bill linking a terrorism watch list to a gun sales ban. On the Republican side, Sen. John Cornyn also offered legislation that would link a terrorism watch list to a gun sales ban, but his version added due process protections for Americans who are put on the list. The other two proposals expanded the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, although the Republican version did not go as far as the Democratic version. For a brief moment it seemed as if the Senate would take some kind of action.
Then all four gun control proposals were voted down because of the Democrats.
Rather than agree to the incremental gun control measures Republicans proposed, the Democrats chose to pass no gun control legislation at all. At some point after loudly demanding legislation for more than a week, Senate Democrats decided it would be better for their reelection prospects that no gun control bills pass the Senate during the election season. Their decision was hypocritical, unprincipled, and pure politics.
Flashback to 2010 when the issue came up for a vote after Newtown: Harry Reid kills assault weapons ban
Virtually the entire press corps frothed at the mouth when the president, grandstanding at the State of the Union speech, thundered that a list of gun violence victims “deserve” a vote on these sorts of measures. (“Gaby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote.”)
Reid doesn’t think so. And in fact no one “deserves” a vote on anything; the Senate leader decided he couldn’t prevail upon his members to cast a vote. Cowardly? Maybe. Or maybe the votes aren’t there and to maximize his chances on other measures he took the assault weapons ban out. That is the nature of the legislative process. But at least we can dispense with the notion that Republicans are standing in the way of assault weapons ban legislation.
Indeed, this is further evidence that getting the Senate to actually cast votes is very helpful to the GOP. It clarifies where Dems really stand (e.g. high taxes, more spending) and alerts the Democratic base that a lot of what Reid and Schumer say is for show.

9 comments:

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Indeed. The Democrats don't want it to be known that they are for gun confiscation, gun control, banning the most popular hunting rifle in the country and doing away with the due process and in general want to abolish the 2nd amendment. The Democrats want to disarm the population and leave us helpless. At the mercy of terroists and criminals who mean us harm and mean to kill us. The Democrats think that we should be helpless and dependent on the government for everything.

They would do away with the 1st amendment too if the could and probably all the rest as well.

They do NOT want their voters to know how radical they are because there are a LOT of Democrats who hunt, use guns for self protection. Guns are a big part of the culture in that nasty old fly over country territory and the Democrats know they would lose their voters if the voters ever were to discover just what creeps and weasels the Democrat pols really are.

So....they hide. Until after the election when they can re-institute their attacks on the American people and our freedoms.

ndspinelli said...

The Dems have more than the 2nd Amendment in their cross hairs. They hate the 1st and 6th as well. Gun control is the overriding sentiment in the northeast, where all these mofo's spend most of their time. Just look @ how guns fly off the shelves after a terrorist attack. As people become increasingly aware we need to protect ourselves the more shrill the gun haters in NYC and the northeast become.

ndspinelli said...

I'll dig through my old baseball boxes and see if I still have any No Whining t-shirts. I'll send one to the WH if I do.

edutcher said...

God forbid the Whigs listen to their base instead of Black Narcissus.

ndspinelli said...

The Dems have more than the 2nd Amendment in their cross hairs. They hate the 1st and 6th as well. Gun control is the overriding sentiment in the northeast, where all these mofo's spend most of their time

Name an Amendment they do like.

PS The Northeast covers a lot of territory. Lexington Ave in Gotham is very different from, say, parts of Bucks or Chester County PA

ndspinelli said...

Well, some is situational. Team Hillary are LOVING the 5th Amendment now. They get chubbies just thinking about the 10th. They unabashedly love the 13th, 15th, 16th, 19th[hated by Methadras] and 24th.

edutcher said...

Nice point.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

It's called We count on low info voters to stay that way.

Or as Gruber put it... “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass,”

The strategery will be in effect until it stops working.

Methadras said...

Democrats have done this so many times that it's laughable that GOPe still falls for it. Put up setup bills to fail to show how callous, mean, and degenerate the GOPe is. Then Urkel gets on TV and blames the GOPe. Shocker.

Chip Ahoy said...

La La Latch Choreographed Lia Kim (Everybody's named Kim over there, but she's extraordinary)

Song by Pentatonix

Covering my ears like a kid
Where in your words mean nothing I go la la la
I'm turning up the volume when you speak
If my heart can't stop it, I find a way to block it
I go la la, la la la la la la


The Kabuki is horrible and has no meaning.

* A horrible criminal public event occurs involving guns
* Emotions flash across the nation. The same emotions must be exercised. They must.
* All discussions run up the exact same dead end emotion-lined street.
* The left insists for the love of humanity something be done
* Both right and left leadership knows that's impossible
* The left leadership must act as if it is trying.
* The right leadership must act as if its not already 100% completely over this issue and still cares quite deeply and so must revisit their arguments that have not changed one bit since the last time.

Kabuki is a bad analogy because girls can't play. Our school took a field trip to one once. the worst field trip ever. Every single one of us hated it. Incomprehensible melodramatic crap that nobody cared about. We couldn't get out fast enough. In that sense it's a good analogy, but only that. Useless theater for somebody else. All this is to exercise and to assuage somebody else's emotions.

See, I'm rational and everyone else is nuts. You really should enjoy the video, now, there is drama worth watching, actual creativity built upon musical creativity. If you look you'll see they are speaking, cover ears, preach, fire, etc., interpretive dance ain't what it used to be.

La la la la la la
It's catchy.