“Taking Aim”: On Virtually Every Measure, The N.R.A.’s Messaging Is Off
This week the president aimed high in the gun debate, and the National Rifle Association aimed low, despicably low.
On Wednesday, the president outlined a broad range of measures — including universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons, a ban on high-capacity magazine clips, as well as improved data collection and sharing about backgrounds of potential gun buyers. It was all intended to increase public safety over all and make an honest effort to prevent mass shootings and lessen the carnage in the event that there are more
The N.R.A., for its part, released on Tuesday an ad called “Elitist Hypocrite” that invoked the Obama children and their Secret Service security as evidence of a president who values his children above those of average Americans.
It was an outrageous, unnecessary and ultimately stomach-churning ploy to pit the value of some children against others while completely ignoring the longstanding and very real threats that presidents and their families face.
As the Christian Science Monitor reported in November, “Since 2007, the Secret Service has disrupted several assassination conspiracies — including some involving white nationalists — and arrested dozens of people who have made less-than-idle threats against the president.”
Most of us don’t have to worry that our children live under the constant threat of harm. Heads of state do. Feigning ignorance of that distinction for political expediency only suggests that you may not be feigning at all.
Furthermore, the president hasn’t voiced opposition to more school security. He has, however, said that he doesn’t believe that that’s the sole solution. In a recent interview on “Meet the Press,” the president said, “I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools.”
Lastly, as the White House pointed out in an e-mail to me last month, the administration proposed money for “Secure Our Schools” policing grants, which provide funding to improve school safety, “however, Congress zeroed out the program in 2012.”
In fact, the president’s proposal as presented on Wednesday specifically states:
“We need to enhance the physical security of our schools and our ability to respond to emergencies like mass shootings, and also create safer and more nurturing school climates. Each school is different and should have the flexibility to address its most pressing needs. Some schools will want trained and armed police; others may prefer increased counseling services. Either way, each district should be able to choose what is best to protect its own students.”
And one of the president’s executive orders reads: “provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.”
On virtually every measure, the N.R.A.’s messaging is off.
The president’s proposals, on the other hand, are very much in step with public opinion, which has shifted toward more restrictions, according to a number of polls reported Monday.
A poll by Gallup found that dissatisfaction with America’s gun laws has “spiked” to 38 percent after the Newtown shooting and the public discussions that followed. As Gallup points out, “this is up from 25 percent who held this set of views a year ago, and is the highest since 2001.” That’s an increase by more than half in one year — reversing a trend of continuous decline.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll found that “most Americans support tough new measures to counter gun violence, including banning assault weapons and posting armed guards at every school” and that “[m]ore than half of Americans — 52 percent in the poll — say the shooting at the elementary school in Newtown, Conn., has made them more supportive of gun control.”
And a Pew Research Center poll found that most Americans now support a federal database to track gun sales, background checks for private sales and sales at gun shows, preventing the mentally ill from purchasing guns, and bans on semiautomatic weapons, assault style weapons, high-capacity ammunition clips and online ammunition sales.
But as Pew pointed out, “there is a wide gap between those who prioritize gun rights and gun control when it comes to political involvement.”
The report continued: “Nearly a quarter (23 percent) of those who say gun rights should be the priority have contributed money to an organization that takes a position on gun policy, compared with just 5 percent of those who prioritize gun control. People who favor gun rights are also about twice as likely as gun control supporters to have contacted a public official about gun policy (15 percent vs. 8 percent).”
This is where gun control advocates — those who believe that a society can be safer and more civil with fewer rather than more high-powered, high-capacity killing machines — must have their mettle tested. This is where they must take a stand, become vocal and active, and demand accountability from elected officials, not just now but also in the future.
One of the most profound lessons to emerge from the Newtown tragedy is the power of voice. Americans refused to cede the discussion to the N.R.A. and other gun interests. They refused to buckle to fear or be swayed by propaganda.
Yet too many politicians still quake at the mere mention of the N.R.A. They are more interested in protecting their jobs than protecting society.
The public must make them quake at the idea of doing nothing on this issue.
We must never forget what happened in Connecticut last month and we must never forget what happens in Washington in the coming months.
The tragedy of Newtown must herald the dawn of a new America.
By: Charles M. Blow, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, January 16, 2013
“We Still Aren’t Good Enough”: Morally, We Have Failed To Make A Brotherhood
How fitting it is that this weekend’s shabbat observance, which I plan to share with the B’nai Tzedek Congregation in Potomac, coincides with two other weekend celebrations: Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the swearing-in of President Obama.
There is much to commemorate: the exodus to freedom from slavery in Egypt; the life and legacy of America’s foremost civil rights leader; and a changing United States that reelected its first black president.
But delve deep below this weekend’s celebratory moments and consider our world with introspection, and you might well be led to an observation that King made in 1954, one that still holds true.
In a sermon in Detroit, he said that you didn’t have to look far to see that something was basically wrong with our world.
Society, he said, has more knowledge today than people have had in any period of human history, whether the topic is mathematics, science, social science or philosophy.
“The trouble isn’t so much that we don’t know enough,” King preached, “but it’s as if we aren’t good enough.”
The trouble isn’t so much that our scientific genius lags behind, he said, but that our moral genius has not caught up.
Through our scientific advances, such as the building of jet aircraft that can transect the globe, we have made the world a neighborhood, King said.
But morally, he said, we’ve failed to make it a brotherhood.
Examples abound.
Consider these words: “It is high time to assess how many [members of parliament] and government members are of Jewish origin and who present a national security threat.”
Do you think those evil thoughts were expressed during Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich? Marton Gyongyosi of the neo-Nazi Jobbik Party of Hungary spoke those words last fall.
The fire of anti-Semitism that reduced a once-thriving Hungarian Jewish population to a third of its size still smolders. The smoke also rises in other parts of the world.
Some government leaders condemned Gyongyosi’s remarks, belatedly. But there are plenty of others, such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who belong in Gyongyosi’s camp.
They remind us, just as King preached at the tender age of 29, that we still aren’t good enough. King declared that some things are right and some things are wrong, eternally and absolutely.
And there still exists one undeniable wrong that must be faced.
Despite scientific and technological advances that have taken us to places unthought of only a few years ago, in 2013 bigotry has global dimensions. It represents a moral challenge to the world.
King spoke of creating a worldwide fellowship that lifts concern “beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation.” Embrace all mankind, he said.
Now that is a tough call for an American president, to move from national to ecumenical concerns.
Fixing the economy, rebuilding infrastructure, strengthening the middle class, managing the debt, protecting our homeland, defending the vulnerable and changing gun laws are presidential priorities that can’t wait. They all cry out for action.
But bigotry is a global curse, a growing cancer on the world. Can America turn a blind eye to hatred?
Would that the questions stopped there.
Is hatred a popular subject for a reelected Barack Obama to address? The polls would probably say no.
We have enough on our hands here at home, is the common answer. What do ethnic and religious rivalries have to do with us, anyway?
Besides, is it good politics? The politicians probably would universally say no. There are no votes in taking on world hate.
But is it the right thing to do?
King would say yes.
Not because he believed that a word from the president of the United States would change the world.
But King might contend that the president of a racially, ethnically and religiously diverse nation founded on the principles of liberty and equal rights — however haltingly observed in the past — has an obligation to take sides against bigotry wherever it is found.
King wrote from his Birmingham jail cell that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
“We are” he said, “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. What ever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Bear this in mind as we gather this weekend to remember, rejoice and observe.
By: Colbert I. King, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, January 19, 2013
“A Beginning, Not A Conclusion”: Showing Resolve, President Obama Pushes Republicans Toward Surrender
Watching his Republican adversaries in the House of Representatives tiptoe gingerly away from another destructive confrontation over the debt ceiling just before his second inaugural celebration, President Obama must feel a measure of satisfaction. Yet this is a beginning, not a conclusion. The hopes of the nation that re-elected him depend on whether he understands why he is winning – and how he can continue to prevail.
The formula for success was simple enough: He wouldn’t relinquish fundamental positions on taxes and spending. He stopped pretending that the old bipartisanship is currently possible on Capitol Hill. He refused to negotiate under threat from the Republicans. And he called their bluff on the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling.
Adopting those firm positions, he persevered despite the usual deluge of complaint from commentators, politicians, editorial boards, and other Beltway sages, who predictably roasted him for behaving as if he meant what he said during last year’s campaign. Not surprisingly, however, the popular majority admires him and ignores his critics.
Of course, there is nothing new here: Americans prefer a political leader who displays a touch of grit, even if they don’t fully agree with that leader’s views or actions. Establishing a determined and principled persona is vital; compromise can come later.
Certainly Obama’s power has been enhanced by his election victory — a victory achieved by stiff resistance to the Republican agenda and willingness to fight back. Except for the second debate, when he reverted to old habits of vacillation and diffidence, the president showed steel during the campaign. And since Election Day, he has remained consistently decisive.
The rewards of steadfastness can be seen in the polls. Gallup shows a 7-point climb in his approval rating since last August, from 46 percent then to more than 53 percent last week. Rasmussen shows a climb of roughly 10 points during the same period, with a corresponding decline in disapproval. In the CNN/Time surveys, the president’s margin of approval has risen from 3 points last August to 12 points today. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that 61 percent regard him as a “strong leader,” 58 percent agreed with his view of the debt ceiling – and 67 percent say that congressional Republicans haven’t done enough to compromise with him on important issues. In all these polls and others, the public voices an exceptionally low opinion of Congress — and especially of congressional Republicans.
The Republicans still mutter threats about the budget, but their slow-motion surrender resulted directly from a growing perception of Obama’s resolve. He should continue to stare them down, unblinking, unless and until they abandon the Tea Party tactics of obstruction and blackmail.
By: Joe Conason, The National Memo, January 19, 2013
“Who’s Behind “Fix The Debt”?: Just Another Corporate Fraud Using A Collection Of Former Congress Members
Look out… the “fixers” are coming.
Top corporate chieftains and Wall Street gamblers want to tell Washington how to fix our national debt, so they’ve created a front group called “Fix the Debt” to push their agenda. Unfortunately, they’re using “fix” in the same way your veterinarian uses it — their core demand is for Washington to spay Social Security, castrate Medicare and geld Medicaid.
Who’s behind this piece of crude surgery on the retirement and health programs that most Americans count on? Pete Peterson, for one. For years, this Wall Street billionaire, who amassed his fortune as honcho of a private equity outfit named Blackstone, has run a political sideshow demanding that the federal budget be balanced on the backs of the middle class and the poor. Fix the Debt is just his latest war whoop, organized by a corporate “think tank” he funds.
This time, Peterson rallied some 95 CEOs to his plutocratic crusade, including the likes of General Electric boss Jeffrey Immelt and Honeywell chief David Cote. (Note: Both Immelt and Cote, while cheering for cuts to programs that we working Americans pay into, are themselves taking money hand over fist from taxpayers in terms of military contracts and corporate subsidies for their corporations. But they aren’t concerned about defense spending and ending subsidies that benefit their bottom line.)
All of them are not merely “One Percenters,” but the top one-tenth of One Percenters. Of course, a group of pampered, narcissistic billionaires would not make a credible sales argument for this dirty work. Having elites piously preach austerity to the masses would be as ineffective as having Col. Sanders invite a flock of chickens to Sunday dinner.
Presented with this image problem, Fix the Debt needed to give their campaign a more benign image, and Peterson and Co. followed a tried-and-true formula of political deceit. As described by Mary Bottari of the Center for Media and Democracy, the trick is to “gather a bipartisan group of ‘serious’ men, hire a PR firm to place them on TV shows, blanket the media with talk of a looming crisis and pretend to have grassroots support.”
In this case, a collection of former member of Congress, each of whom had a reputation for being moderate to the extreme, were recruited to give the campaign a sheen of high public purpose. Backed by a $40 million budget put up by the corporate interests, these “elder statesmen” are now the face of Fix the Debt, doing dozens of TV interviews, hosting breakfast sessions with members of Congress, making speeches about “mutual sacrifice” and generally going all-out to sell the financial elite’s snake oil.
But wait — being an elder does not automatically mean you’re a statesman. Let’s peek at the résumés of these so-called public-spirited fixers of the debt. Start with Jim McCrery, a former GOP lawmaker from Louisiana. While urging Congress to cut people’s programs, he’s also a top-paid lobbyist pushing Congress to give more tax subsidies to America’s richest people and to such multinational corporations as General Electric.
Former Democratic senator Sam Nunn is a fixer, too — but he’s also paid $300,000 a year to be on the board of directors for General Electric. Likewise, Democrat Erskine Bowles, a co-founder of the fixers’ front group, is on the board of Morgan Stanley, drawing $345,000 a year. And former GOP senator Judd Gregg takes about a million bucks a year as advisor to and board member for such giants as Goldman Sachs and Honeywell.
Fix the Debt is nothing but another corporate fraud. I wouldn’t let this gang of fixers touch my dog, much less my Social Security!
By: Jim Hightower, The National Memo, January 16, 2013
“Shameless, Repulsive And Dangerous”: Leave The President’s Kids Out Of It
Abusing a president is fair game. It is practically an American pastime.
Abusing his spouse is usually tasteless, but spouses have become political surrogates, and they have to expect a little rough-and-tumble now and again.
But abusing a president’s children? Practically daring the harmful, the hateful and the hideous in our society to make them targets? How shameless do you have to be to do that?
Ask the National Rifle Association.
That organization has been running a Web video verbally targeting the president’s two daughters. I do not suggest the NRA actually desires them to come to harm. I am (reasonably) sure nobody in the upper reaches of the NRA is that morally depraved.
But the NRA is using its members’ dues not to protect the rights of hunters, which is what the group used to do, but to run a video twisting the Secret Service protection of the president’s children to aid those who make a fortune by manufacturing and selling guns.
The ad says that armed guards protect the president’s children but that because the president thinks armed guards in every school might not be a sensible idea, he is an “elitist hypocrite.”
In point of fact, the president has never said he absolutely opposes armed guards in every school.
What he said on “Meet the Press” recently was: “I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools.”
He is skeptical. I am skeptical. Columbine High had an armed guard, and 12 students and one teacher were still murdered.
What I am not skeptical about is that the family of our president needs Secret Service protection.
What I am not skeptical about is that raising the question of the safety of the president’s daughters was not just repulsive, but dangerous. Yes, the president’s daughters live in a mansion called the White House, and they have servants and their own bowling alley and get to go around in (armored) limousines.
But come on. They are kids. They are 14 and 11. Do you think they really like the protective bubble they have to live in?
And do you think they are not at special risk requiring special protection?
“To go so far as to make the safety of the president’s children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday.
I would call Carney’s statement downright restrained.
A few hours later, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden announced their own ambitious gun control plans. Some parts of it can be accomplished immediately by the president through executive action (though keep in mind, what one president does, a later president can undo).
And some can be accomplished only by Congress, a body so dysfunctional that it has become an elephants’ graveyard of hope.
But the president made one thing clear: What he wants to do about guns, he wants to do for America’s children.
“This is our first task as a society: keeping our children safe,” he said. “This is how we will be judged.”
He said he believes the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. “I respect our strong tradition of gun ownership and the rights of hunters and sportsmen,” he said. “I also believe most gun owners agree that we can respect the Second Amendment while keeping an irresponsible, law-breaking few from inflicting harm on a massive scale.”
There is nothing in the president’s proposals that would keep a hunter from hunting or a target shooter from shooting. Changing a gun magazine every 10 rounds is not a burdensome task.
Having a background check for people who buy guns at gun shows is not a unique abridgement of personal freedom. Their personal “freedom” is already abridged. And by gun shows, I know this because I have been checking the websites of gun shows, and a lot seem to have the same rule: no loaded guns allowed.
“No loaded firearms and no loaded magazines are permitted in any Crossroads gun show,” one site said. “Your personal safety is our No. 1 priority while you are at the show.”
Personal safety? I thought loaded guns created personal safety.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Wayne LaPierre, the CEO and executive vice president of the NRA, said a week after the massacre at Newtown Elementary School in Connecticut.
So I don’t get it. What if a “bad guy” with a loaded gun, who had become deranged by playing a video game (which is one of the NRA’s greatest fears), barged into a gun show? Wouldn’t we want a whole bunch of “good guys” with loaded guns to stop him?
So why disarm people at gun shows?
Because “personal safety” is the No. 1 priority, that’s why.
And that’s why we have to reduce the easy availability of guns in our society and ban military-style assault weapons and large-capacity gun magazines.
As Obama said Wednesday: “If parents and teachers, police officers and pastors; if hunters and sportsmen; if responsible gun owners; if Americans of every background stand up and say, ‘Enough. We’ve suffered too much pain and care too much about our children to allow this to continue,’ then change will come.”
For some, it will come too late. For some, it has already come too late.
But enough is enough.
By: Roger Simon, Politico, January 16, 2013
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