Politics Plus

Yesterday President Barack Obama spoke in Hartford, CT, accompanied by eleven family members of gun violence victims.  They joined him aboard Air Force One and are coming to Washington to lobby Congress for sensible firearms regulation.  Lets start with the complete video of Obama’s speech.

Obama was right to shame Republicans for politicizing an issue on which almost all Americans agree, since the Republic an response was more pro-death sabotage from Bought Bitch Mitch McConnell.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would join a group of Senate Republicans threatening a filibuster to oppose a cloture vote if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moves a gun bill to the floor this week.

Reid has promised to move a gun bill to the Senate floor this week, but it’s unclear which one. It depends on whether Democrats can strike a deal on background checks on gun sales — otherwise, they may settle for a less strict bill that includes some form of background checks, increase penalties for gun trafficking and increase school security. In order to get around the filibuster, Reid has indicated that he would file a cloture motion, which would require a 60-vote margin to move the bill.

“While nobody knows yet what Senator Reid’s plan is for the gun bill, if he chooses to file cloture on the motion to proceed to the Reid Bill (S. 649), Senator McConnell will oppose cloture on proceeding to that bill,” McConnell spokesman John Ashbrook said in a statement.

McConnell joins a group of 13 senators who have already vowed to block any gun legislation… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Politico>

That’s right.  Even though negotiation is incomplete, he and the other Republicans will obstruct the bill, no matter what it does.

Rachel Maddow covered the story well and interviewed Jillian Solo, whose sister was killed in the Sandy Hook massacre.

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In short, these Republicans believe that the “right” of people to evade the law and purchase guns illegally outweighs the right to life taken from over one thousand people killed in the short time since the Sandy Hook massacre.

It is criminal that the only way victims’ families have to help fix the problem is to put their raw grief on display to shame these Republicans.  It is imperative that we join with them in keeping the urgency alive.

As absurd as this may sound, an anchor from the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, had the audacity to claim that the reason Republicans are intransigent about their economic stance is that America does not have the money to do otherwise.  Horse feathers!

On "This Week," Greta Van Susteren failed miserably in her attempt to explain Republicans’ ideological refusal to raise taxes…

…Let’s start with her claim that "people" don’t want to "take the safety net away" with the fact that Republicans have signed on to a budget which slashes the safety net to give tax cuts to rich people, authored by an Ayn Rand disciple who once complained that the nation’s "takers" outnumbered our "makers" and famously derided Social Security as a "hammock."

Oh, and by the way, the new chairman of the Heritage Foundation just went on Van Susteren’s network and basically called 70 million Americans welfare queens.

So to argue Republicans don’t want to get rid of the safety net is to literally argue that up is down…

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

Here’s the video:

Of course, it’s standard for Republicans to say that they are not doing what they are doing, while projecting what they are doing onto Democrats.

As far as their poverty is concerned, I can not only say that Americans do have the money, but also, tell you where it is.  Vulture capitalists have rat-holed enough money in offshore tax havens to pay off the entire national debt several times over.

Republicans are in love with conspiracy theories, because, after years of brain numbing by the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, sheeple are sufficiently dumbed down to believe anything.  They want you to get your gun and head to the border, Granny!  They say those Obama illegals are after your Social security benefits.  Call it Social InsaniTEA.

The Senior Citizens League, a conservative outfit focused, as the name suggests, on scaring the crap out of senior citizens in order to best solicit money from them, is out with a new mailer that claims:

"of all the items being considered by our leaders in Washington, the illegal immigration amnesty plans hatched by the Obama administration presents the greatest potential threat to Social Security." The mailer also contains a personalized complaint form that individuals can fill out and return to the Senior Citizens League, which the group would then send to their elected officials in Congress. Not surprisingly, the reply form asks for a donation "to help cover the cost" of the national petition. The group used similar scare tactics to derail President Barack Obama's health care reform law.

The premise is that if we were to allow a path to citizenship for people already in the country, those people would then expect Social Security benefits and all the other accoutrements of citizenship, and how dare they, and somehow that's going to mean less money for you and yours, grandma.

There's an obvious flaw in this logic, of course. Many undocumented workers already pay Social Security taxes, as well as a great deal of other taxes, and they don't get much benefit back because, as undocumented workers, they don't have a right to. Right now, the Huffington Post points out that undocumented workers have contributed almost 10 percent of the overall total in the Social Security Trust Fund; allowing a more secure legal status for those people is, if anything, only going to boost the taxes they pay… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

Needless to say, the bigoted Republican claims are pure garbage.  There remains one severe threat to Social Security, the Republican plan to give it to Banksters.  Some of you might disagree, over Obama’s purported intent to adopt chained CPI.  While I believe that we should continue to protest it with all vigor, keep in mind, that that offer depends on Republicans agreeing to significant revenue increase through cuts in tax welfare for the 1% and corporate criminals.  I don’t see that happening, and the Republican response is that they’ll take the chained CPI only, but not the revenue increases.  When Republicans do agree to tax increases for the rich, the Stanly Cup playoffs will be held in hell.