Day: April 21, 2015

It is now fair to ask whether the National Rifle Association is winning — or has in fact won — this era of the gun debate in this country. Gun control advocates have tried to use the horror that exists in the wake of mass shootings to catalyze the public into action around sensible gun restrictions. But rather than these tragedies being a cause for pause in ownership of guns, gun ownership has spiked in the wake of these shootings. A striking report released Friday by the Pew Research Center revealed that “for the first time, more Americans say that protecting gun rights is more important than controlling gun ownership, 52 percent to 46 percent.”

As the Supreme Court prepares to take up same-sex marriage next week, conservative scholars have produced a last-ditch argument to keep the scourge of homosexual unions from spreading across the land: Gay marriage kills. They’re saying that legalizing same-sex marriage will cause 900,000 abortions. The logic is about as obvious as if they had alleged that raising the minimum wage would increase the frequency of hurricanes. If anything, you’d think that more same-sex marriages would mean more adoptions.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley had – on NPR, of all places – referred to Marco Rubio’s economic worldview as “bullshit.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Rude Pundit feels your pain. He'd love, love, love for a real liberal to run for president. He says this pretty much every election, often supports whatever quixotic candidate is taking a shot this time until he (and, sadly, it's only been "he") drops out, and then votes for the moderate who he mostly agrees with on Supreme Court picks. In 2008, he supported Barack Obama because he thought the movement Obama had started would be transformative, not realizing that the president cared less about the movement than about governing from the presumptive middle (which, truth be told, Obama's pretty damn good at). Obama didn't move left. The middle moved right. This time, though, it seems as if we're not getting the token liberal. And we're not getting anyone of color. Those who are remaining are either the white liberals who say they're not running - Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders - and the white dude who might - Martin O'Malley. If that liberal appeared, the Rude Pundit would love to jump on that bandwagon. But he or she won't be there this time. As much as we want to say that Hillary Clinton should have a primary candidate or whatever other bullshit we want to hide behind, the truth of the matter is, as everyone knows, very, very simple. Hillary Clinton is the nominee. She is more or less running as an incumbent. Last week, the Rude Pundit said this and was attacked on Twitter (which is the rhetorical equivalent of a gnat buzzing by you) for being racist because somehow he was dissing Obama. Sorry, but, Alan Keyes' paranoia aside, Obama can't run. And there is no man or woman of color who is even on the bench at this point, something that better be corrected or the Democrats will seem as out of touch as the Republicans. So what are we left with?