“Prayers Are Not Enough”: Your ‘Prayers’ Should Be For Forgiveness If You Do Nothing – Again
In October, following a deadly mass shooting in Oregon, a visibly angry President Obama delivered a message from the White House: “[T]houghts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America, next week or a couple of months from now.”
Two months and one day later, an even deadlier mass shooting unfolded in Southern California, prompting Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to take the president’s sentiment about “thoughts and prayers” a little further. “Your ‘thoughts’ should be about steps to take to stop this carnage,” the senator said on Twitter. “Your ‘prayers’ should be for forgiveness if you do nothing – again.”
Whether Murphy intended to cause a stir or not, his message sparked some criticism. The Hill published a piece under the headline, “Dem senator criticizes post-shooting ‘prayers.’”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) says people who pray for the victims of shootings should be asking for forgiveness for their inaction. […]
Murphy drew criticism from users on Twitter who said his remarks were “offensive” and demeaning toward religious people.
I think this badly misses the point of an important sentiment. Murphy can certainly speak for himself, but the “prayers are not enough” argument generally has nothing to do with criticizing prayer or those who worship. It has everything to do with the idea that extending thoughts and prayers should be the start, not the end, of a constructive conversation about reducing gun violence.
In other words, when politicians – officials who can take steps to save lives through effective policymaking – offer thoughts and prayers after mass shootings, it’s fine, but it’s also inadequate. The sentiment warrants a follow-up question: “The thoughts and prayers are appreciated, but what’s next?”
If the answer is, “We’ll offer more thoughts and prayers after the next mass shooting,” the response isn’t enough.
The New Republic’s Elizabeth Bruenig made an interesting observation yesterday when highlighting Twitter responses to the San Bernardino shooting from the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.
If you’re keeping score, that’s prayers, luck, and blessings from Republicans, and gun policy prescriptions from Democrats. One hundred and forty characters isn’t much, to be fair, but I can think of at least one way to split the difference: praying for the strength and wisdom to fix our heinously broken gun policy, for starters.
And that’s ultimately what this is about. I haven’t seen any politicians or public officials suggest people shouldn’t extend thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families, but there seems to be some disagreement over what should follow the well-wishes.
For their part, congressional Democrats have vowed to continue pushing policy measures intended to curtail gun violence and congressional Republicans will very likely continue to reject those proposals reflexively, just as they did this week.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, December 5, 2015
“Trying To Pull A Page From The Trump Playbook”: Ted Cruz: Most Violent Criminals ‘Are Democrats’
A couple of months ago, Rush Limbaugh reflected on the series of school shootings in the United States, and the Republican host drew a partisan conclusion: “The people that are shooting up schools more than likely vote Democrat.”
There’s no evidence to suggest this is true, but accuracy obviously isn’t a priority. The goal with rhetoric like this is to distract from potential policy solutions while exploiting violence for partisan gain.
And in an unexpected twist, a Republican presidential hopeful yesterday made the implicit case that Limbaugh wasn’t ambitious enough. For Ted Cruz, it’s not just school shooters who are Democrats, but violent criminals in general who are members of the party he holds in contempt. Politico reported yesterday:
Ted Cruz on Monday equated Democrats with violent crime.
In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday, the Texas senator said that “the simple and undeniable fact is the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats.”
In the same interview, the Texas Republican added, “There’s a reason why the Democrats for years have been viewed as soft on crime. The Democrats know convicted felons tend to vote Democrat.”
Media Matters posted the audio clip and transcript of the exchange.
The Cruz campaign hasn’t substantiated the claim, but again, the point of partisan vitriol isn’t to make substantive policy arguments. The presidential hopeful is being provocative for the sake of being provocative.
If that sounds like a certain New York developer leading in the Republican polls, it’s hard not to wonder if Cruz is deliberately trying to pull a page from the Donald Trump playbook. Note, for example, that this latest rhetoric came just a day after his bizarre claims about the Colorado Springs mass shooting.
As for whether felons actually vote Democratic, Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum had a good piece noting that most felons aren’t even registered, though the argument itself serves no real purpose.
[A]nyone can play this game. Just find some demographic group that tends to vote for Party X, and then find some bad thing also associated with that group. In this case, poor people tend to vote for Democrats, and felons tend to be poor. Bingo. Most felons are Democrats.
Or this: rich people tend to vote for Republicans, and income-tax cheats tend to be rich. So most income-tax cheats are Republicans.
Or this: Middle-aged men tend to vote for Republicans, and embezzlers tend to be middle-aged men. So most embezzlers are Republicans.
We could do this all day long, but what’s the point?
Dear Cruz campaign,that need not be a rhetorical question.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, December 1, 2015
“The Diaper Dandy is Done”: I’m Just Glad To See David Vitter Go; I Never Liked That Man
Louisiana state Rep. John Bel Edwards soundly defeated David Vitter in yesterday’s gubernatorial election. Not only that, but in his concession speech, Vitter announced that he won’t seek reelection to the U.S. Senate next year. In other words, David Vitter is finished as a consequential politician, done in mainly by an eight year old prostitution scandal, but also by the immense unpopularity of the sitting Republican governor Bobby Jindal.
The Democratic Party is encouraged to see a flicker of life in the Deep South, although progressives need to keep things in perspective.
From the start of his run, Edwards knew any chance of victory hinged on distinguishing himself from the prevailing image of Democrats among voters. In meetings with small groups in rural parishes, he touted his opposition to abortion and strong support for gun ownership.
The devil is in the details when it comes to opposing abortion and supporting gun ownership. What kinds of bills would be radical enough that Edwards would veto them? Is there a different line than there would be for a Republican governor?
In some ways, it’s already a defeat if Democratic candidates feel that they need to concede the Republican position on these two very important issues in order to get a hearing on other policies. And there’s a price they have to pay when their party is more divided on issues than the Republicans. It waters down the message.
On the other hand, more than anything else, it was the Democrats’ ability to unite around one candidate while the Republicans were slugging it out in a nasty primary that brought them success. “Edwards” is a big name in Louisiana politics, but John Bel Edwards’s clan is not related to former Governor Edwin Edwards. In a pre-election analysis, The Daily Beast‘s Jason Berry did a comprehensive examination of the new Edwards family power in the Bayou State. Here’s part of that:
It also helps Edwards, 49, that his brother, Daniel, 47, is Tangipahoa Parish sheriff—a fourth-generation sheriff in a sprawling family of lawyers, politicians, and law enforcement officials with deep Louisiana roots.
Tangipahoa is a heavily rural civil parish whose seat, the town of Amite (population 4,141) is 82 miles north of New Orleans. Edwards’s law firm is in Amite; he lives in nearby Roseland (population 1,165). For much of the last century, the parish, which is 30 percent African-American, was known as “Bloody Tangipahoa,” with a history of lawlessness that included a gruesome chapter involving the Ku Klux Klan. That stigma changed under Sheriff Frank Edwards, John Bel’s father.
“Frank Edwards was one of the first sheriffs that hired blacks,” says Donald Bell, the African-American pastor of New Life Outreach Ministries in the town of Hammond.
“Frank was balanced. Everybody loved him. John Bel had good training from his daddy. I was close to Frank. He lived and died politics. If Frank told you, ‘Jerry can’t beat John,’ you could bet that Jerry wasn’t gonna beat John. And Frank would give you two, three reasons why. He was a good Catholic guy. They were committed, just like John Bel—he doesn’t miss Mass. John Bel is a people person, down to earth, what you see is what you get.”
According to Pastor Bell, Edwards has always gotten along well with the local NAACP, and he actually won a state House seat that had been drawn up to be held by a black politician. This ability to bridge the racial divide helps explain how he managed to avoid any Democratic challengers in the primary. And, of course, it was his father who paved the way.
With the endorsement of state law enforcement organizations, his strong record at West Point and as an Airborne Ranger, his family’s good reputation for piety and positive race relations, and an opponent who was best known for paying prostitutes to dress him in a diaper, it would probably be a mistake to see this election result as some kind of bellwether for anything.
The Democrats simply had a much better candidate.
They also didn’t have Bobby Jindal hanging around their neck like an anvil. Like all Louisiana Republicans these days, Vitter tried to destroy his opponent by tying him to President Obama, but this tactic was neutralized by Edwards’ efforts to tie Vitter to Jindal. This left Vitter dependent on social issues, like guns and abortion, but there weren’t any meaningful distinctions between the two candidates on those issues, and there wasn’t much question which candidate had the better record for being a good family man.
And, so, we got a result that is surprising but really was foreseeable if you drilled down into the specifics of the race.
As for what happens now, the The Times-Picayune believes that Gov.-Elect Edwards will bring Medicaid expansion to the state and that teachers unions will have more influence. Edwards will try to deliver on a campaign promise to double funding for higher education, but Jindal has left the state’s finances a mess, and he’ll need to work with a legislature dominated by Republicans.
The Democrat has promised to govern from the middle and is expected to appoint Democrats and Republicans alike to cabinet positions. For example, [Republican Lt. Governor Jay] Dardenne is likely on a short list to fill a high-profile position in the Edwards administration.
Edwards may have to govern in a bipartisan manner, not just by choice. The governor-elect has a serious budget crisis on his hands, and will need a two-thirds vote of the GOP-controlled Legislature for many of his proposals to fix Louisiana’s finances.
“I think that the Legislature and executive branch should cooperate fully,” said Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, who is likely to remain atop the state senate in 2016.
But not everyone is excited to see Edwards head up the executive office. The Democrat makes many of the state’s leading business groups nervous. Edwards has not been supportive of the school choice movement, including charter schools and the state voucher program. Business leaders also believe he is more inclined to roll back their tax credits and incentive programs to fix the state’s budget problems than a Republican would be.
Edwards will have to find an enormous amount of money somewhere to shore up the state’s finances. Louisiana is wrestling with a $500 million shortfall in its current budget cycle and a projected $1 billion budget gap in the next fiscal year.
I’m no expert on Louisiana’s legislature, so I don’t know whether Medicaid expansion will get done or not. I do know that Edwards will have four years to rebuild the Democratic Party and that a lot of people will get experience working in his administration.
Above all, I’m just glad to see David Vitter go. I never liked that man.
By: Martin Longman, Web Editor for the Washington Monthly; Ten Miles Square, November 22, 2015
“A Twisted Moral Value System”: In Lousiana Governor Loss, David Vitter Shows Just How Far A Republican Must Sink To Be Rejected In A Red State
As most Washington Monthly readers know by now, Democrat John Bel Edwards defeated disgraced Louisiana Senator David Vitter in his bid for governor to replace failed presidential candidate Bobby Jindal. Vitter was famously the center of several scandals, especially including a prostitution debacle in which he reportedly engaged in not-so-vanilla interests.
Vitter had been trailing heavily in the polls for quite some time, and pulled out all the usual Republican dogwhistle tricks, from scaremongering over Syrian refugees to his own version of the racist Willie Horton strategy, claiming that his opponent would assist President Obama in releasing “thugs” from jail.
None of it worked. Jon Bel Edwards isn’t the sort of Democrat progressives will croon over anytime soon: he is anti-abortion, pro-gun and opposed President Obama on refugees. But he’s the first Democrat to win major elected office in the South since 2009, and his victory will mean that a quarter of a million people will get healthcare who would almost certainly have been denied it under a Vitter administration. That’s definitely a good thing.
But it would be extremely premature to declare that this result bodes well for a Democratic resurgence in the South. Democrats fared far more poorly downballot from the governor’s race, proving that the John Bel Edwards’ victory owed more to Louisiana voters’ disgust with David Vitter than to sympathy for his own agenda. The example of Matt Bevin’s recent election in Kentucky shows that at least the voters who turn out in off-year cycles in the South are more than willing to deny hundreds of thousands of people their right to healthcare and other benefits. It was David Vitter’s personal troubles that hurt him badly enough to hand a Democrat an overwhelming victory.
And that itself is yet another indictment of Republican voters. David Vitter’s prostitution scandal is weird, creepy and untoward for a U.S. Senator. But a legislator’s fidelity and sexual proclivities have very little bearing on their job as a representative of the people, which is to protect the Constitution and do a responsible job providing the greatest good for the greatest number of constituents. Scapegoating refugees and denying medical care to hundreds of thousands are objectively both far greater moral crimes against common decency than a thousand trysts with sex workers. That the latter is illegal and the former is legal is a testament to the twisted moral value system perverted by puritan Calvinist ethics. Vitter should have been ousted for his overtly destructive public morality, not his far less consequential private failures.
But that’s not how Republicans roll. In their world, causing the needless deaths of thousands is fair game. Having sex with the wrong person, on the other hand, is unforgivable.
There may be a large number of people in this world who share that value system. But that doesn’t mean that those with a well-adjusted moral compass must respect it or grant it validity.
By: David Atkins, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthy, November 22, 2015
“America Needs To Get A Grip”: Don’t Listen To This Garbage, Conservatives Are Explosively Soiling Themselves In Panic
The Paris attacks have brought back the dark shadow of America’s Bush-era anti-terror politics. Conservatives are demanding repression and violence, while many Democrats are running scared. They are enabled in this by mainstream journalists like The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza, who breezily declares that barring refugees is “smart politics” because conservatives are worried about Islamic extremism; or Slate‘s William Saletan, who argues that our late period of libertarian isolationism (???) is simply going to have to end.
My fellow Americans: Don’t listen to this garbage. Let’s take a deep breath and get a grip.
First of all, Islamist terrorism is a fairly minor threat. Yes, the Paris attacks (like 9/11, Madrid, Mumbai, and countless atrocities in Iraq and Syria) were a terrible tragedy. But we need to be realistic about how strong ISIS really is. It’s true that decently organized young men with simple explosives and cheap automatic weapons can easily massacre hundreds of civilians and terrorize millions. But that is not even close to a “an organized attempt to destroy Western civilization,” as Jeb Bush ludicrously claimed. Compared to Nazi Germany, or the Soviets with their hundreds of long-range nukes, ISIS is pathetically weak.
Indeed, as Derek Davison argues, ISIS’s recent al Qaeda-like focus on international terrorism is very likely a result of months of defeats on the ground in Iraq and Syria. Only the day before the Paris attacks, Kurdish and Yazidi forces routed ISIS fighters in the city of Sinjar, cutting off a major supply route from Raqqa (ISIS’s major stronghold) to Ramadi. Unable to make progress towards their “caliphate” on the ground, they are lashing out at soft targets in an attempt to restore their old aura of invincibility and progress, and likely to try to reinforce the idea that Islam and the West are irreconcilable.
The truth is that while ISIS’s deranged brand of faux-Muslim extremism has proven durable enough to construct a wobbly little proto-state (and attract a smattering of bored idiot Europeans thirsty for adventure), it is completely doomed in the long run. Every single one of ISIS’s predecessors has died the exact same death: by enraging a powerful nation and getting pounded into smithereens. ISIS only survives today on the political chaos left behind by the bungled invasion of Iraq (half the leadership are former Baath Party) and the crumbling of the Assad dictatorship.
It may take some time for ISIS to completely die off, and the succession of state failures may not be over — Saudi Arabia is looking none too healthy these days — but sooner or later, things will settle down. The Thirty Years’ War can match anything happening in Syria for atrocities, and that was still getting started 12 years in.
Furthermore, sheltering refugees is an obvious way to attack ISIS’s ideological legitimacy. They are really sensitive about the refugee issue, because it puts the lie to their self-image as the holy land for all Islam. When about every Muslim who possibly can is running for their lives, it tends to draw attention to the fact that ISIS is full of mass-murdering child rapists who kill far more Muslims than they do any other religious group. Conversely, assisting desperate people fleeing persecution is a powerful statement that the West will live up to its values of openness and tolerance, and not turn away tens of thousands of innocent people because we might overlook a couple extremists in their midst.
It’s also, you know, the right thing to do. Would Jesus Christ send a 3-year-old orphan back to be butchered by evil fanatics? I think not.
Refugees are a very low risk for terrorism. It is excruciatingly difficult to get refugee status — especially since the process has recently become so Byzantine and paranoid that it’s next to impossible for anyone to actually make it through the application. But here’s the bottom line: Since 9/11, the U.S. has accepted some 784,000 refugees. None have committed any acts of terrorism in the U.S. — and only three have ever been arrested for terror-related crimes, two for sending money to al Qaeda in Iraq and one whose plot was totally preposterous. Similarly, all the Paris attackers firmly identified so far have been EU nationals, not Syrian refugees.
Does that mean it’s totally impossible for some ISIS killer to sneak in with the refugees? Of course not. But tourist, student, and business visas are far easier to get than refugee status, if you’ve got the cash. That’s how every single one of the 9/11 hijackers got into the country. If we were really concerned about ISIS infiltration, that would be the first route to worry about. (Even more important would be sorting out the outrageous disaster zone that is the American security apparatus, but that’s another story.)
The fact that conservatives who are explosively soiling themselves in panic immediately jumped to bar the door to refugees, while barely even mentioning the fact that half of Europe has a visa waiver agreement with the U.S., is stark evidence that it’s anti-Islamic bigotry, not sensible security precautions, driving this attitude. Many conservatives are basically open about this.
So chill, America. This is a great big powerful country, armed to the teeth, with strong institutions and a rich economy. If we can muster the courage to stand with our better angels, ISIS will eventually crumble.
By: Ryan Cooper, The Week, November 18, 2015
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