The NRA takes a victory lap for electing Donald Trump.

Courtesy of Salon: 

After spending $30 million in ads to prop up Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the NRA is now planning to get a return on its investment. 

“This is our historic moment to go on offense,” explained NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre told members in a post-election video address. 

LaPierre also vowed that he would work to reverse the “tyrannical erosion of gun rights” and denounced states with tight gun control laws as having “deceitful web of gun bans, ammo bans, magazine bans, exorbitant fees, and taxes and registration schemes.”

LaPierre wants to convince the NRA members that they are responsible for the election of Donald Trump.

But of course we know that they would have been rendered impotent without the help of Russian hackers, fake news stories on Facebook, and the FBI's James Comey putting his thumb on the scale.

Funny how some people puff out their chest when their participation in a victory was negligible at best.

Must be why they need to carry guns in order to feel like a man.

NRA members wondering why Wayne LaPierre issues statement of support for police officers shot in Dallas but not a word for the black man killed by police for possessing a legal firearm.

Statement by @NRA Executive Vice President & CEO Wayne LaPierre#DallasPoliceShooting #Dallas #NRA pic.twitter.com/guzpI6B8Gt

— NRA News (@nranews) July 8, 2016

Courtesy of Fusion:  

Absent from the statement is any mention of the protest where the shooting occurred or the reason for that protest: the killing by police of two black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Castile was reportedly a licensed gun owner. His disclosure to the officer that he had a gun in the car led the officer to shoot him, according to Castile’s girlfriend who made a Facebook Live video shortly after the shooting. 

It’s exactly the sort of case that you might imagine would outrage the NRA, an organization dedicated to protecting the Second Amendment right to bear arms. But despite rushing to mourn the death of police in Dallas, the NRA was silent in the days after Castile’s death.

That hypocrisy did not fail to catch the attention of some NRA members who took to Twitter and Facebook to express their outrage. 

So many comments like that from members on the @NRA Facebook page. Here are a few more. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/seH2swKcRr

— Laura Keeney (@LauraKeeney) July 8, 2016

Uh oh, it appears that certain NRA folks are starting to notice a rather unsettling pattern.

Gee, it certainly took them long enough. 

NRA head Wayne LaPierre blamed the shootings in America on gun free zones. And did so while standing in a gun free zone.

Courtesy of RT: 

NRA head Wayne LaPierre spoke Thursday at the annual conservative convention, lambasting the creation of gun-free zones. He called the areas ‒ which often include schools, movie theaters and restaurants ‒ "the worst and most dangerous of all lies." 

"The simple truth [is] that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre said, repeating a favorite conservative talking point. “The politicians and the media be damned."

There was of course this rather embarrassing fact about the convention at which LaPierre was speaking.

At CPAC there will be no good guys with guns :/ pic.twitter.com/Kn8tUWyubs

— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) March 3, 2016

Yep the conservatives want to allow guns at every public place in America. Except in one where they might be shot of course.

On a related note:

On Thursday, gunmaker Smith & Wesson (SWHC) reported huge quarterly numbers. Third quarter revenues rose 61% year-over-year to $211 million, boosted by a 25.3% jump in handgun sales. Earnings per share of $0.59 beat estimates by $0.18, and the company is even more optimistic about the future, issuing strong guidance for next quarter. 

In the company’s latest annual filing, the gunmaker said, “We experienced strong consumer demand for our firearm products following a new administration taking office in Washington, D.C. in 2009. In addition, speculation surrounding increased gun control at the federal, state, and local level and heightened fears of terrorism and crime can affect consumer demand for our products. Often, such concerns result in an increase in near-term consumer demand and subsequent softening of demand when such concerns subside.”

In other words with the NRA's help gun manufacturers were able to dramatically increase gun sales with claims that the Obama administration would soon make some gun sales illegal, or would even be "coming for our guns."

That fear, punctuated by reports or mass shootings, helped to put more guns in the hands of frightened people, terrified by the government, crime, and of course terrorism. (The Islamic kind of course, not domestic.)

Fifty percent of Americans support President Obama taking executive action on gun control.

Courtesy of Reuters: 

Half of all Americans support President Barack Obama's executive actions on gun control, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Tuesday, with a majority saying they would support the next president taking additional steps to tighten federal gun laws. 

Obama, frustrated with inaction from lawmakers, ordered stricter gun rules last week that he can impose without Congress' help, angering Republicans who say he is overstepping the boundaries of his office. 

Fifty percent of those surveyed said they supported Obama's executive actions. More than 80 percent of those from his own party said they were in favor of his steps, while 72 percent of Republicans opposed them and said his successor should try to dismantle them.


The survey of 1,559 Americans was conducted from Jan. 8 to 12, with a credibility interval of 3.2 percentage points.

I would be willing to believe that the number is much higher for wanting to increase background checks and keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill and those who are identified as a potential terrorist.

Which for that last one I would contend is just about everybody who calls themselves a sovereign citizen, participates in open carry demonstrations, and/or belongs to a militia.

In other news NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre has challenged President Obama to a debate. (As you know the NRA was invited to the President's recent town hall on gun control, but refused to attend.)

I would contend that the only reason that LaPierre is asking for this is because he believes Obama has too much on his plate to make time for it, but I would not be surprised if the President took him up on his offer and then just cleaned his clock for him.

And finally remembering the three year anniversary of Sandy Hook.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

There are at least 555 reasons to ask whether American children are safer from gun violence today than they were three years ago, when the unthinkable happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School. 

That's how many kids under the age of 12 have died from gunshots — both intentional and accidental — since Adam Lanza stormed into the school in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012, and shot dead 20 children and six staff members, according to an NBC News analysis.

That figure, derived from news reports, other publicly available information and data from the Gun Violence Archive, is likely significantly lower than the true number of child gun deaths, as suicides often are not covered by news media and other gun deaths sometimes go unreported. Even so, it works out to a rate of just under one death of a child by firearm every two days in this country.

I don't know about all of you but the massacre at Sandy Hook hit me almost as hard as the attacks of 9-11.

Just like 2001 I was riveted to my TV, completely unable to fathom what I was seeing.

And then I thought, "Well this is it. Surely NOW we will start working on comprehensive gun legislation to keep our children safe from another attack like this one."

And I could not have been more wrong.

It was not that there were more victims in the Newtown shooting than in other massacres before it, but these were babies. Surely that would be enough to shock people out of their complacency and get the country angry and frightened enough to insist that we do something.

Something perhaps like what Australia had done in the wake of THEIR mass killing.

But that didn't happen.

Instead NRA President Wayne LaPierre blamed the politicians and the schools themselves:

" Politicians pass laws for gun free school zones, they issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them. And, in doing so, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk."

Sarah Palin responded by suggesting no real answer to gun violence other than more prayer:   

Unspeakable evil slammed America in the beautiful little town of Newtown, Connecticut, just days ago. No words can express the collective shock and sorrow shared by Americans who know the murder of innocent children is the most horrendous crime imaginable. The Connecticut state motto, “Qui transtulit sustinet,” promises that only God can sustain us. Though still insufficient and unfulfilling for the grieving families of these beautiful babies in the Lord's arms now, perhaps those words are all the inconsolable loved ones can hold on to at this time. May God show His sustaining love to them right now. Please Lord.

(Palin also claims in her book "Good Tidings and Great Joy" that she responded to the calls for more gun laws after Sandy Hook, by buying Todd a new gun.)

Other conservative politicians responded in similarly cowardly ways, as did a few Democrats, and then of course we have the Sandy Hook Truthers who simply refuse to believe the attack happened at all.

However it was President Obama who went to Newtown and tried to comfort the people who had lost loved ones and try to ease their pain:  

The president took a deep breath and steeled himself, and went into the first classroom. And what happened next I’ll never forget. 

Person after person received an engulfing hug from our commander in chief. He’d say, “Tell me about your son. . . . Tell me about your daughter,” and then hold pictures of the lost beloved as their parents described favorite foods, television shows, and the sound of their laughter. For the younger siblings of those who had passed away—many of them two, three, or four years old, too young to understand it all—the president would grab them and toss them, laughing, up into the air, and then hand them a box of White House M&M’s, which were always kept close at hand. In each room, I saw his eyes water, but he did not break. 

And then the entire scene would repeat—for hours. Over and over and over again, through well over a hundred relatives of the fallen, each one equally broken, wrecked by the loss. After each classroom, we would go back into those fluorescent hallways and walk through the names of the coming families, and then the president would dive back in, like a soldier returning to a tour of duty in a worthy but wearing war. We spent what felt like a lifetime in those classrooms, and every single person received the same tender treatment. The same hugs. The same looks, directly in their eyes. The same sincere offer of support and prayer. 

The staff did the preparation work, but the comfort and healing were all on President Obama. I remember worrying about the toll it was taking on him. And of course, even a president’s comfort was woefully inadequate for these families in the face of this particularly unspeakable loss. But it became some small measure of love, on a weekend when evil reigned.

In the end there were a few laws passed in Connecticut, New York, and Maryland, but nothing on the Federal level.

And here we sit, three years later, just as vulnerable as we were on December 14, 2012.

In fact it could be argued with this push for increased gun ownership and more conceal carry permits in the wake of recent terrorist attacks that the possibility for another school, mall, or theater mass shooting has only increased.

Because despite what the NRA might tell you, more guns mean more bullets, and more bullets mean more people killed and wounded.

It's just math.

New York Daily News comes out hard against the NRA for blocking laws that would keep high powered guns out of the hands of terrorists.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A New York City tabloid is continuing its battle with the National Rifle Association, calling NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre “Jihadi Wayne” on the cover of Monday morning’s edition for opposing sensible gun laws that could prevent terrorists from purchasing high-powered weapons. 

The New York Daily News screaming headline “Nowhere To Hide, Jihadhi Wayne” on Monday morning comes on the heels of a similar headline last Wednesday reading: “NRA’s Sick Jihad.” 

At issue is the NRA using their overwhelming influence with lawmakers to block a law that would ban anyone on the terrorist watch list from purchasing a gun. 

The bill, known as the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act, was proposed in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris that left 129 people in Paris dead and hundreds more injured. Gun control advocates say that a legal loophole allows suspects on the terrorist watch list to purchase guns while the same list prevents them from flying on U.S. airlines. 

The bill was originally proposed in 2007, but has been blocked by conservative lawmakers who are heavily backed by the NRA.

Well good for the New York Daily News. Which is not something I get to say very often.

So I guess the next time Americans are gunned down in the streets by terrorists, most likely NOT Muslim terrorists, we will know exactly where to lay the blame.

Not that I did not know that already of course. 

Man brings home breakfast for his wife, she shoots him in the chest. Kinda ungrateful don't you think?

Courtesy of TPM:  

A woman in Fayetteville, N.C. allegedly shot her husband in the chest when he came home to surprise her with breakfast Friday morning, television station WTVD reported. 

Police said Tiffany Segule, 27, shot her husband, Zia Segule, 28, after he returned home to surprise her and set off their home's alarm system, the station reported. 

She had returned to bed after her husband left for work and thought there was an intruder, according to police. She fired a shot through her bedroom door, authorities told the TV station. 

The bullet hit her husband in the chest, but police told WTVD that he was able to walk and talk after being shot. He was released from the hospital hours after the incident.

As Wayne LaPierre  would say, "Just a good woman with a gun stopping a bad man with breakfast."

10 to 1 the husband bought her that gun for protection, and she then went and used it to put holes in him. Women!

Wayne LaPierre was wrong. What it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with some pepper spray.

Jon Meis, hero of Seattle Pacific University.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

On Thursday afternoon at half-past-three, a man walked into Otto Miller Hall at Seattle Pacific University, carrying a shotgun and a handgun. He opened fire, killing one person and injuring three more. 

When the shooter stopped to reload, according to police reports, an engineering student named Jon Meis sprayed him with pepper spray, incapacitating him, before grabbing him in a chokehold. Passers-by helped Meis hold the gunman until police arrived on the scene. 

"There are a number of heroes in this," assistant police chief Paul McDonagh said, according to the Associated Press. "The people around [the gunman] stepped up."

Now I am in no way attempting to suggest that a can of pepper spray is the best possible deterrent against a gunman. Every situation is different, and what works once, may not work the next time.

However it is worth noting that Mr. Meis did not accidentally shoot an innocent bystander while incapacitating this killer, nor did his efforts to stop him result in the shooter's death.

Years ago, during my initial training in martial arts, I asked my instructor why he would not teach me to use the Chinese sword that he wielded with such grace and power.

His answer in response was that weapons can malfunction, be stolen, or misplaced but a well trained body, fueled by courage, would never let you down.

I would say that in this case his words proved somewhat prophetic as they have multiple times during my own life.

This young man demonstrated something that many 2nd Amendment advocates seem to lack, the ability to overcome his fear.

Drunk man opens fire at rodeo, gets his ass lassoed.

Courtesy of Odd News: 

A Georgia man who allegedly had too much to drink and then started shooting at a Memorial Day Weekend rodeo was taken out of action by a cowboy's lasso. 

Celestino Moras wounded three people after he allegedly shot into a crowd with a pistol at an annual church picnic and rodeo in Bartow County. 

The incident began after Moras, who was not invited to the event and showed up intoxicated, was asked to leave. Moras became agitated and started firing, causing as many as 300 people to run off, WSB TV reported. 

After Moras ran out of bullets, a cowboy lassoed him and others guests beat on him until law enforcement officials arrived.

Since this happened in Georgia, who also have the stand your ground laws, I am very surprised this guy got away with a simple beat down.

I guess Wayne LaPierre was wrong.

It's not a good man with a gun that stops a bad man with a gun. It's a good man with a lasso.

Jon Stewart eviscerates Sarah Palin over her Waterboarding/baptism remarks.

Click image to play video

Palin: "If I were in charge..."

Stewart: "All I can say there is thank God that is a hypothetical."

Palin: "They would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists."

Stewart: "Where is that speech even appropriate? At an Al Qaeda recruitment how-to video workshop? At the yearly gathering of the Dummolos?"

Stewart goes on to mock Palin for several more minutes, which he concluded in this segment, during which Stewart also went after Wayne LaPierre, Rick Santorum, and the NRA in general for promoting gun violence as a remedy for all kinds of perceived ills, including government overreach, Obamacare, public education, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, etc.. etc., etc..

Ultimately Stewart's point was that as crazy as Palin's remarks seemed, at the NRA convention she was speaking to a crazed choir who agreed with, and parroted her every opinion.

And that is by far the most troubling thing about all of this. Not that Sarah Palin says crazy things, but that there are so many others who find what she says perfectly reasonable.

NRA unveils new ad. "It's Us against the World."

Apparently this was unveiled during the same rally where Palin suggested that waterboarding was just the way we baptize terrorists.

Here is more from the You Tube page: 

At the NRA's annual convention on Saturday, Wayne LaPierre unveiled a new ad the group is planning to air on TV and boy, is it a doozy. The ad is very evocative of a movie trailer for some inspirational drama, complete with b-roll of average Americans and sweeping, dramatic music to convey a simple message: it's us against the world now. Who's with the good guys? 

The people featured in the ad declare things like "You are surrounded by a world where mad men are famous and good ones forgotten" and "'The good guys are a lie,' they laugh. Everyone's corrupted." It stakes out a clear position that there are "good guys" in the world fighting against the "hypocrites, chameleons, bullies, and yes-men." 

After showing the ad, LaPierre declares, "Ours is a national movement. Right now it's sweeping the country in homes, in churches, in coffee houses, in PTA meetings."

Yes it is the good guys versus the bad guys. 

And clearly the good guys would be the ones brandishing firearms and advocating an armed response to the policies of the federal government.

Wayne LaPierre on Navy Shipyard shooting. "There were not enough good guys with guns."

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Courtesy of Press Pass: 

In his first television interview since the mass shooting last Monday in which gunman Aaron Alexis killed 12 people, LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, described the Navy Yard as a military facility that was “largely left unprotected.” 

LaPierre said more personnel who work at military facilities, including retired military personnel, should be armed so they are able to stop attacks such as the one at the Navy Yard. 

“We need to look at letting the men and women that know firearms and are trained in them, do what they do best, which is protect and survive,” he said. 

LaPierre also vehemently criticized the flaws in the nation’s treatment of the mentally ill, especially of those mentally ill people who try to buy guns. “They need to be committed is what they need to be, and if they’re committed, they’re not at the Navy Yard,” he said. 

“I’ve been into this whole (background) check business for 20-some years; I’ve said the system is broken for 20 years and nobody listens,” he said. “It’s broken in terms of our military bases…. On the gun check, the NRA supported the gun check because we thought the mental records would be in the (national instant check) system, we thought criminals would be in the system. And we thought they would be prosecuted.” 

He said that the records of those adjudicated to be dangerous are not entered into the national instant check system for gun buyers. “So the Aurora shooter in Colorado gets checked and is cleared, the Tucson shooter gets checked and gets cleared, Aaron Alexis go through the federal and state check and gets cleared,” LaPierre said because the nation’s mental health system doesn’t detect a dangerous person such as Alexis.

So the fault for this incident falls to the mental health community for not notifying the Federal government so that Alexis could not pass a background check?   Are these the same universal background checks that LaPierre was vehemently arguing against earlier this year?

La Pierre referred to the mental health system as "completely broken" as if its entire function was to identify potentially dangerous individuals and keep them off of the streets. That is not the function of the mental health community. It is to provide services for "mental health."

In other words it is designed to help people function with their mental disabilities in a way that provides them with the most normalized life possible and allows them to live in the least restrictive environment possible for them.

Getting somebody committed against their will is no easy task nor should it be. To do that you have to have quite a lot of documentation to substantiate the need. In this case there did not seem to be enough.

I agree that the mental health system needs work, but what it needs mostly is more funding. Funding by the way that Obamacare, you know the law that Republicans keep trying to defund,  would help to put in place:

And the Republicans will have the stomach and stones to vote very soon here to defund the Affordable Care Act, which, says University of Chicago health-care expert Harold Pollack, “is the most important change to mental-health and substance-abuse policy in decades,” for two reasons. First, the expansion of Medicaid to all citizens with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty line will mean that millions of people will be able to afford mental-health care who simply couldn’t before. And second, the ACA requires that coverage of mental illness and substance abuse be offered by insurers “at parity” to more traditional medical treatments. Up to now, these treatments have been more expensive, less likely to be covered, and so on.

Gee, perhaps LaPierre needs to take his need for more mental health services case to the Republicans and tell them to leave Obamacare the fuck alone!

However even if there were more money for mental health, that does NOT mean it would have stopped this shooter, as Aaron Alexis did not fall into the appropriate category to deny him access to firearms as the law stands right now:

Federal law prohibits felons and domestic violence misdemeanants from purchasing or possessing a firearm. None of Alexis' criminal behavior fell under this category.

Though Alexis was being treated by the government for mental illness, he was never adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution. The national policy tools that we have just don't cut it. 

Despite the numerous, glaring red flags in Aaron Alexis' background, he was a "law-abiding gun owner" as far as our National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was concerned. And too few states have gone beyond the weak federal standard to prevent people like him from getting guns.

So no Mr. LaPierre the mental health community are not the ones who deserve the blame here, nor are the creators of video games, the fault lies with the impotent restrictions that determine who can and who cannot have a gun in this country.

You know the restrictions that the NRA has made it their mission to keep as easy to get around as possible.

The fault for the shooting lies with them, and more specifically, as the face of the NRA, it lies with Wayne LaPierre. 

Rachel Maddow cleverly destroys the NRA's newest argument against gun control legislation.

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That was beautiful!

Rachel Maddow brilliantly demonstrates how the gun manufacturers are using cigarette manufacturer's tactics to fight new gun control laws. This is a MUST see!

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As a rule I don't like to post two MSNBC clips in one day, as I think it can be seen as a little lazy on my part, or because the shows often cover similar topics.

However what Rachel did last night was a masterpiece. and is SO clearly true that it should be seen by EVERYBODY who is paying attention to the gun violence debate in this country.

Hopefully we will soon see the day that gun manufacturers are forced to pay for advertisements declaring the inherent danger of their products just like cigarette manufacturers do today.

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre gets an unexpected grilling on Fox news. Is no place safe for the head gun nut anymore?

Courtesy of Business Insider:

 Here's the most contentious exchange: 

LAPIERRE: The President's kids are safe, and we're all thankful for that. 

WALLACE: They also face a threat that most people do not face. 

LAPIERRE: Tell that to the people in Newtown! Tell that to the people in Newtown. 

WALLACE: Do you really think that the President's children are the same kind of target as every schoolchild in America? I think that's ridiculous, and you know it, sir. 

Wallace pressed LaPierre on whether he believes every schoolchild is entitled to armed protection. He also challenged the NRA chief on the gaps in that theory: How they're not protected at the movie theater, the mall, and other places after they leave school. 

LaPierre stumbled, saying, "Which is why we need to do everything else I'm talking about." 

The last contentious exchange came when Wallace disputed LaPierre's logic that only "elite, out of touch" politicians have armed protection next to them. Wallace pointed out that LaPierre also traveled with armed guards to his appearance on "Fox News Sunday." 

"Does that make you an elite, and out-of-touch elite, because you have security?" Wallace said.

Wow! You know if you can't even expect soft ball questions at Fox News, that is when you KNOW the country has turned against you on this issue.

My hat is off to Chris Wallace for holding this douchebag's feet to the fire.

Stephen Colbert talks about the lunatic fringe of 2nd Amendment advocates including those who want to join the Citadel in Idaho. Remember them?

The Colbert Report
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As many of you remember we covered the Citadel about a month ago. And we had a LOT of fun with these batshit crazy freaks.

I am thrilled with Colbert talking about it on his show as he does an INCREDIBLE job of showing what lunatics these people really are! Both he and Jon Stewart are kicking ass on this gun violence issue.

Jon Stewart's EPIC takedown of those who are opposed to gun control. Must see!

Part one

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Part Two

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Jon had a cold but it clearly did not hamper his passion on this issue.

Sometimes Jon really knocks it out of the park, and this is certainly one of those times.

Israeli spokesman: Wayne LaPierre lied about our country and gun control on Meet the Press.

Courtesy of New York Daily News:  

Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, NRA honcho LaPierre said: “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.” 

But Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said the situation in Israel was “fundamentally different” from that in the United States. 

“We didn’t have a series of school shootings, and they had nothing to do with the issue at hand in the United States. We had to deal with terrorism,” said Palmor. 

“What removed the danger was not the armed guards but an overall anti-terror policy and anti-terror operations which brought street terrorism down to nearly zero over a number of years,” he said. “It would be better not to drag Israel into what is an internal American discussion,” he added. 

“There is no comparison between maniacs with psychological problems opening fire at random to kill innocent people and trained terrorists trying to murder Israeli children,” said Reuven Berko, a retired Israeli Army colonel and senior police officer. 

In recent years, restrictions on gun ownership in Israel have been tightened, not relaxed. 

“Israeli citizens are not allowed to carry guns unless they are serving in the army or working in security-related jobs that require them to use a weapon,” said Berko. 

You know it is like the Right Wing and NRA don't understand that we live in a global community where information can be shared very quickly and lies are only minutes or days away from being revealed. 

Well just in case during your Christmas festivities today you have a gun nut in the family, now you have actual facts to combat those completely fabricated talking points.

Political adviser Mark McKinnon, who famously helped Sarah Palin prepare for the Vice Presidential debate, eviscerates the modern Republican party.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

All sanity seems to have left the ranks of those in charge of the GOP—or, more accurately, those who want to be in charge. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) demonstrated in a jaw-dropping performance Thursday on Morning Joe the depth of the problem and why we are bound to go over the fiscal cliff. He made it clear he won’t vote for a tax increase on anyone, no matter how much they make. So, by his logic, we will end up going over the cliff, and raise taxes on everybody, because he and too many others like him in the party are unwilling to raise taxes on anyone. This intransigence will also make a core Republican tenet of broader tax reform more difficult to pursue because the new Congress will then be fixated on smaller bore issues like fixing the rates.

And so voters look at the “negotiations” and see on one side the president—the guy who just won the election by a substantial margin—willing to compromise by lowering his revenue target from $1.6 trillion to $1.2 trillion and moving the goalpost for tax-rate increases from $250,000 a year to $400,000 a year. And on the other side, they see Republicans like Huelskamp responding with a one-finger salute to everything. 

But there’s more. Huelskamp’s response to the Newtown tragedy? No need to change any gun laws. (Not even better enforcement of the laws we have?) And those who suggest any changes are simply “politicizing” the situation to fit their political agenda. Was George W. Bush “politicizing” 9/11 when he created the Department of Homeland Security? If so, then by all means shouldn’t we “politicize” in the wake of a national tragedy? 

Other Republican elected officials said they wanted to wait to see what the National Rifle Association had to say. On Friday, Wayne LaPierre delivered. No new gun laws, but how about an armed guard in every school, because “the only answer to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Then LaPierre went on to blame every other facet of our culture for the problem. Now, I don’t disagree that much goes into the cultural equation causing violence, and much needs to be considered to address the root causes, like mental health and violent media. But in 2008, the U.S. reportedly recorded 11,000 gun-related deaths, and Japan recorded 11—and I believe the Japanese play video games. So maybe we should at least include guns in the discussion. 

Now, I don’t think more security in our schools is necessarily a bad idea. But it begs the question of funding and federalism, two concepts deeply out of vogue with Republican orthodoxy. And reality. But here’s the deeper point and the bigger problem for the GOP. 

Increasingly, it is becoming clear that the party is against everything and for nothing.

Now Mark McKinnon is only now tenuously connected to the Republican party, having started the "No Labels" political group, but he was STILL an adviser to both President George W. Bush and candidate John McCain so he has the credentials and experience to point out what should be obvious to all but the most cognitive dissonant Republican.

Your party is broken.

Either fix it, or fold it up and go home.

Did you know that George Bush Sr. resigned from the NRA in 1995 due to the hateful statements of its Vice President? You know, the same one they have today.

Back in 1995 Wayne LaPierre sent out a fundraising letter in which he described federal agents as " `wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms' (and) wanting to `attack law-abiding citizens.'

This did not go over very well with ex-President Bush and he replied with the following letter of resignation:

May 3, 1995 Dear Mr. Washington, 

I was outraged when, even in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy, Mr. Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of N.R.A., defended his attack on federal agents as "jack-booted thugs." To attack Secret Service agents or A.T.F. people or any government law enforcement people as "wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms" wanting to "attack law abiding citizens" is a vicious slander on good people. 

Al Whicher, who served on my [ United States Secret Service ] detail when I was Vice President and President, was killed in Oklahoma City. He was no Nazi. He was a kind man, a loving parent, a man dedicated to serving his country -- and serve it well he did. 

In 1993, I attended the wake for A.T.F. agent Steve Willis, another dedicated officer who did his duty. I can assure you that this honorable man, killed by weird cultists, was no Nazi. 

John Magaw, who used to head the U.S.S.S. and now heads A.T.F., is one of the most principled, decent men I have ever known. He would be the last to condone the kind of illegal behavior your ugly letter charges. The same is true for the F.B.I.'s able Director Louis Freeh. I appointed Mr. Freeh to the Federal Bench. His integrity and honor are beyond question. 

Both John Magaw and Judge Freeh were in office when I was President. They both now serve in the current administration. They both have badges. Neither of them would ever give the government's "go ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law abiding citizens." (Your words) 

I am a gun owner and an avid hunter. Over the years I have agreed with most of N.R.A.'s objectives, particularly your educational and training efforts, and your fundamental stance in favor of owning guns. 

However, your broadside against Federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to country. It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us. 

You have not repudiated Mr. LaPierre's unwarranted attack. Therefore, I resign as a Life Member of N.R.A., said resignation to be effective upon your receipt of this letter. Please remove my name from your membership list. 

Sincerely, [ signed ] George Bush

So all the way back in 1995 there were people of principle that simply could NOT condone the attitude and paranoia of the NRA leadership, and yet today we STILL see those same characteristics on display. 

One has to wonder just how badly does Mr. LaPierre have to behave before he will finally drive away all but the most lunatic fringe of the gun owners in this country. Or perhaps more to the point, has he already accomplished exactly that?