http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/01/mitch-mcconnell-to-newton-its-about.html
Yet, if McConnell thinks that the debt ceiling is going to be such a showdown that there will be no time to discuss gun control, he's dreaming. Indeed, what we're seeing is that the GOP threats on the debt ceiling is a "paper elephant" and should just be ignored for the idle threats that they are.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/01/forget-mint-coin-as-debt-ceiling-is.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29
The GOP's position on the debt ceiling and more generally their "leverage" is incoherent. So much so that Mike Tomasky wonders if the GOP is just not any good at politics anymore.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/08/the-incompetent-party.html
As the debt ceiling showdown is fake-there is no showdown; Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling and at some point they will have to, and a number of Republicans will have to vote for it too-the White House doesn't have to juggle this with other priorities and can spend lots of time on the things that are important for it like immigration reform and gun control.
On Sunday, a Washington Post story suggests the White House is swinging for the fences:
"Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported the gun violence task force led by Vice President Biden is considering gun legislation “far broader and more comprehensive…than simply reinstating an expired ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/white-house-gun-rights-activists.php?ref=fpa
The gun lobby claims that this is going to get the attention of all good, gun loving Americans:
"News that the White House is considering significant gun control legislation in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. elementary school shooting is music to the ears of gun control advocates, who have waited decades for a serious conversation about guns. But it’s also being welcomed by gun rights groups, who say leaks from the Biden task force are just the thing to push their flock back into the fight."
“[The article] was a Molotov cocktail right into the middle of this thing,” Dave Workman, a former board member at the National Rifle Association, told TPM Monday. “That lit the fuse, it really did.”
That very well maybe. However, I think for most Americans, the "Molovtov cocktail" was the day 20 first graders were shot down in a class room. While Greg Sargent is surely right that this is going to be a real fight, this is something worth doing. There was actually a very interesting post yesterday in the Washington Post by a conservative who wished the GOP was more like Obama.
It actually put the lie to the idea of many liberals that the President's been nothing but a weak kneed failure.
"I wish more Republicans were like Barack Obama.Really. Give the president his due: he fights for what he believes in."
"In his first year in office, Obama faced a popular backlash against his stimulus spending bill and saw a Republican elected to Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in a referendum on Obamacare. Yet despite these and other setbacks, the president declared he had no intention of moderating his approach. “The one thing I’m really clear about is that I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” Obama said in a January 2010 interview. "
"That attitude is precisely why Obama is a now two-term president."
"Instead of backing down in the face of a rising tea party movement, Obama doubled down. He knew full well that that the majority of Americans disagreed with Obamacare, but he believed it was the right thing to do. So he rammed it through Congress, passing it over the near-unanimous opposition of the Republican Party and the objections of the American people."
"Voters rebuked him in the 2010 midterm elections, putting the House in Republican hands. But by 2012, Americans gave Obama a second term in office. Now, Obamacare is the permanent law of the land — and Ted Kennedy’s seat is back in Democratic hands."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-republicans-should-start-acting-like-obama/2013/01/07/003374b8-58e5-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_story.html
When you think about it, Obama does have a lot of policy successes: stimulus, Dodd-Frank, OabmaCare, Clinton tax rates for the rich. When he has put his capital behind getting policies done, he's succeeded. The gun battle may be a tough one-though I think Mayor Bloomberg may be right that the NRA's a paper tiger-or should we say paper elephant?-however, Obama and other Dems seem to have the commitment.
"Word has it that the White House, Democrats, and gun control advocates are planning to try to “overwhelm” the National Rifle Association when the battle over guns heats up this month. Along these lines, perhaps the most important news of the morning is that Gabrielle Giffords is unveiling a new national effort to push for sensible gun reforms in the wake of the Newtown shooting, with the explicit purpose of counterbalancing the NRA’s influence over Congress:
Americans for Responsible Solutions, which we are launching today, will invite people from around the country to join a national conversation about gun violence prevention, will raise the funds necessary to balance the influence of the gun lobby, and will line up squarely behind leaders who will stand up for what’s right."If the coming gun control push is going to have success, one thing the White House and Giffords’ new effort will have to accomplish is to successfully reveal that the NRA does not speak for anyone but the gun industry and a small minority of Americans. The NRA has high positive ratings in some polls, which suggests gun control advocates have their work cut out for them. But the simple fact is that when it comes to specific gun law reforms, the NRA is far outside the American mainstream. By wide margins, majorities favor the reforms being discussed: A recent CNN poll found that 94 percent of Americans support background checks for gun purchasers, while 61 percent support a ban on semi automatic assault guns and high capacity magazine clips."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/01/08/the-morning-plum-job-one-for-the-white-house-isolate-the-nra/
Not only do we have Congresswoman Giffords on our team, we also have Stanley McChrystal-despite his having to step down in disgrace becasue of the Rolling Stones article in 2010, he's still highly respected -coming out for gun control and an assault weapon ban:
"Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal came out in favor of gun control restrictions in a Tuesday morning appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"I spent a career carrying typically either a M16, and later a M4 carbine," he said. "And a M4 carbine fires a .223 caliber round, which is 5.56 millimeters, at about 3,000 feet per second. When it hits a human body, the effects are devastating. It's designed to do that. That's what our soldiers ought to carry."
"Said McChrystal, "I personally don't think there's any need for that kind of weaponry on the streets and particularly around the schools in America. I believe that we've got to take a serious look -- I understand everybody's desire to have whatever they want -- but we have to protect our children and our police and we have to protect our population. And I think we have to take a very mature look at that."
"McChrystal, though he resigned in disgrace in 2010 after a Rolling Stone article, is still revered by many as a top general, and his comments are significant for a former member of the military. If he does continue to advocate for gun control, he could be a significant voice in a movement whose opposition appeals to machismo."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/08/stanley-mcchrystal-gun-control_n_2431063.html
So Obama is pushing forward with gun control and I also think he'll got big with immigration reform. One thing that isn't going to hold him back is any debt ceiling showdown-as there isn't one.
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