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Saturday, January 5, 2013

67 Callous Hypocrits

 The Daily Beast

Callous Conservatives: Gulf State Republicans’ Sandy Shame


The Republican congressmen who use New York as a campaign ATM, but turn a blind eye to suffering here must be held accountable, writes John Avlon.

Slap a scarlet “S” on these callous conservatives. Sixty-seven members of Congress–all Republicans—voted against even $9 billion of Hurricane Sandy relief yesterday.

Remember their names, and hold them accountable.

Sandy Debris on Staten Island
A laborer empties debris from a home damaged by Superstorm Sandy on January 4, 2013 in the Midland Beach area of the Staten Island borough of New York City. More than two months after the storm, Congress passed legislation that will provide $9.7 billion to cover insurance claims filed by people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Sandy. (John Moore/Getty)

Twelve of the scarlet 67 voted for Hurricane Katrina relief—which passed ten days after that devastating Gulf Coast storm—but against Hurricane Sandy relief 69 days after its landfall in the Northeast. Their names: Trent Franks (AZ), Ed Royce (CA), Sam Graves (MO), Steve Pearce (NM), Steve Chabot (OH), Jimmy Duncan (TN), Kenny Marchant (TX), Randy Neugebauer (TX), Mac Thornberry (TX), Bob Goodlatte (VA), Tom Petri (WI), and Paul Ryan (WI).

These congressmen are content to use New York City and the tri-state area as an ATM when they are looking for campaign funds, yet they willfully turn a blind eye when hundreds of thousands of homes and small businesses are damaged or destroyed and more than 100 Americans are dead.


Note the name of last year’s vice presidential nominee and potential 2016 presidential candidate Paul Ryan on this list. Donors would do well to ask him about this vote. The Texas delegation likewise asked for federal funds when hurricanes have devastated their state, yet are ignoring suffering in the Northeast. But then conservatives often become liberal when an issue affects them personally. Just two years ago, Missouri Congressman Sam Graves begged President Obama for an emergency declaration to deal with flooding in his district—now he is afflicted with convenient amnesia.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/05/callous-conservatives-gulf-state-republicans-sandy-shame.html

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Canada: Israel disputes NRA claim

The Globe and Mail

Officials challenge NRA’s claims about Israeli gun policies

JERUSALEM — The Associated Press

Far from the image of a heavily-armed population where ordinary people have their own arsenals to repel attackers, Israel allows its people to acquire firearms only if they can prove their professions or places of residence put them in danger. The country relies on its security services, not armed citizens, to prevent terror attacks.

Though military service in Israel is compulsory, routine familiarity with weapons does not carry over into civilian life. Israel has far fewer private weapons per capita than the U.S., and while there have been gangster shootouts on the streets from time to time, gun rampages outside the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are unheard of.

The National Rifle Association responded to the Dec. 14 killing of 20 first-graders and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school by resisting calls for tighter gun control and calling for armed guards and police at schools. On Sunday, the lobby's chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, invoked his perception of the Israeli school security system to back his proposal.

“Israel had a whole lot of school shootings until they did one thing: They said, ‘We're going to stop it,’ and they put armed security in every school and they have not had a problem since then,” Mr. LaPierre said on the NBC News show Meet the Press.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/officials-challenge-nras-claims-about-israeli-gun-policies/article6704341/

Saturday, December 22, 2012

It's time...please watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64G5FfG2Xpg&feature=player_embedded

Yesterday's satire...today's NRA position?

Hat tip to http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.ca/2012/12/if-you-thought-you-had-heard-that.html


Rational thought vs the NRA

PJ:  Rational thought does exist in America as the following article proves.  Sadly up until now, those thoughts have been mere whispers compared to the powerful shouts of the nation's gun lobbies who want guns...more and more guns...without regulations in place for their purchase, possession and use.  

For decades gun advocates have distorted the Constitutional Second Amendment which simply states:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." 

Hmmmm...A WELL REGULATED MILITIA.... 

Hmmmm...the founding fathers wanted regulation of firearms...?  Who would'a thunk it?  


 
Slate Magazine

When Gun Nuts Write Gun Laws, Nuts Have Guns

We are living in the world the NRA has made.

By
So this is what Wayne LaPierre came up with, with a week to reflect on the news that a law-abiding gun owner's legally purchased rifle, in the hands of her firearm-trained son, had been used to slaughter 20 kids: more guns, more law-abiding gun owners, more more more lead-spraying death machinery, more killing to stop the killers until all the killers have been killed. Only when we have eliminated the threat of "gun-free school zones," the danger and horror of children going through a school day unsurrounded by the implements of death, will we all feel safe.
    

People who live in the world of causes and effects and verifiable truths, the world the NRA has long since abandoned, had no trouble pointing out the flaws in LaPierre's analysis—the fact, for instance, that there had been an armed deputy sheriff on duty at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Around the time LaPierre was speaking, someone in Pennsylvania was shooting another batch of people, including armed state troopers.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/scocca/2012/12/nra_press_conference_the_lesson_of_newtown_when_gun_nuts_write_gun_laws.single.html