Friday Open Thread [10.2.2015]
NATIONAL.PRESIDENT.DEMOCRATIC.PRIMARY.USA Today/Suffolk: Clinton 41, Sanders 23, Biden 20, Chafee 1, Webb 0, O’Malley 0
NATIONAL.PRESIDENT.REPUBLICAN.PRIMARY.Economist/YouGov: Trump 25, Rubio 16, Carson 15, Cruz 9, Fiorina 8, Bush 7, Paul 4.
SOUTH.CAROLINA.PRESIDENT.REPUBLICAN.PRIMARY.Gravis: Trump 29, Carson 16, Fiorina 11, Cruz 8, Rubio 8, Bush 6, Kasich 4, Huckabee 3, Graham 2, Paul 1, Christie 1, Jindal 0
SOUTH.CAROLINA.PRESIDENT.DEMOCRATIC.PRIMARY.Gravis: Clinton 50, Biden 19, Sanders 13, Chafee 1, Webb 0, O’Malley 0
FLORIDA.PRESIDENT.REPUBLICAN.PRIMARY.FL Chamber: Trump 25, Rubio 14, Bush 13, Fiorina 11, Carson 9, Cruz 6, Kasich 4, Christie 3, Huckabee 2,Paul 2, Jindal 0, Santorum 0, Graham 0
TEXAS.PRESIDENT.REPUBLICAN.PRIMARY.Texas Lyceum: Trump 21, Cruz 16, Carson 12, Bush 10, Fiorina 6, Rubio 3, Huckabee 2, Kasich 1, Paul 1, Jindal 1, Santorum 1
TEXAS.PRESIDENT.DEMOCRATIC.PRIMARY.Texas Lyceum: Clinton 36, Sanders 24, Biden 15, Webb 2, O’Malley 0, Chafee 0
WISCONSIN.SENATOR.Marquette: Feingold 50, Johnson 36
Michael Davis at the Oregon Statesman Journal:
As President Obama said on Thursday evening, “Thoughts and prayers are not enough.” […] Here’s an idea: Maybe instead of fundraisers for new band instruments or football uniforms, school kids should hire lobbyists to look after their interests in Congress and state legislatures. I’d bet the kids lobby could get some attention, if they funneled money to the right candidate.
If I sound slightly cynical, I apologize. I’m embarrassed for us as a nation because we are just one big polarized mess right now.
And it doesn’t seem to bother us enough that American kids pay the price with their lives.
Ed Kilgore on our exceptional hospitality to mass shootings:
America is mainly exceptional among advanced democratic nations not in our personal or economic liberty, but in our strange belief that letting everyone stockpile weapons is essential to the preservation of our freedom, and in the consequences of that strange belief. That’s what the worship of the most extreme interpretation possible of the Second Amendment, fed by the gun lobby and politicians (mostly, though not exclusively, conservatives) has wrought. And yes, it’s something that can make you angry.
James Fallows at The Atlantic:
There will be more of these; we absolutely know it; we also know that we will not change the circumstances that allow such episodes to recur. I am an optimist about most things, but not about this. Everyone around the world understands this reality too. It is the kind of thing that makes them consider America dangerous, and mad.
I consider every supporter of an absolute 2nd Amendment with no gun control measures of any kind to be terrorists. Their hands are dripping with blood, and I really would rather they use the guns they love so much on themselves.
First Read notes that the Republican Party’s House campaign arm, the NRCC, ran the following fundraising solicitation yesterday: “You’re now a Benghazi Watchdog. Let’s go after Obama and Hillary Clinton. Help us fight them now.” It’s since been deleted. So when they say that their partisan Benghazi committee is not political and that this is a serious matter they’re investigating, they are directly lying to you and you should punch them directly in the face.
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION
The National Rifle Association is pleased to posthumously congratulate CHRIS HARPER MERCER on winning the coveted title of BEST SHOOTER IN OREGON. This CONSTITUTIONAL HERO reminded everyone today of the INVIOLABLE SANCTITY of the SECOND AMENDMENT and the vital necessity of having a range of armaments and ammunition always available in our PROUD COUNTRY.
We look forward to determining Mr. Mercer’s standing in the MOST KILLS, LONGEST RAMPAGE, and MOST HEADSHOTS competition as this information becomes available.
If you’re worried about your personal safety as the CONSTITUTIONAL HERO competition continues, please purchase weapons and ammo at our webstore. Remember, as we say at the NRA, “nothing’s going to change, so you might as well go with it.”
Paul Krugman on the differences on tax policy and deficit spending between the GOP presidential candidates: “So Donald Trump has unveiled his tax plan. It would, it turns out, lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit…This is in contrast to Jeb Bush’s plan, which would lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit, and Marco Rubio’s plan, which would lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit.” Yet, adds Krugman, “According to Gallup, only 13 percent of Americans believe that upper-income individuals pay too much in taxes, while 61 percent believe that they pay too little. Even among self-identified Republicans, those who say that the rich should pay more outnumber those who say they should pay less by two to one.”
Politico notes that “Some of the country’s biggest liberal donors are quietly huddling this week with Democratic state lawmakers in Washington, preparing a nationwide fight to take back state legislatures from Republicans. The closed-door meetings represent a milestone for the young group orchestrating the fight, the State Innovation Exchange — or SiX for short. The group appears on track to outraise previous efforts to push liberal polices in the states and is looking to generate more cash and momentum.”
Thank God.
Republicans don’t like Trump as much as they used to.
The autumn of Trump isn’t quite as “high energy” as the summer of Trump. While The Donald continues to lead in most national polls, his support has fallen since the second Republican presidential debate, on Sept. 16. Also, fewer Republicans like him. […] Trump’s net favorability rating (the share of Republicans who have a favorable view of him minus the share who have an unfavorable view) sits at +13 percentage points, according to the most recent live-interview polls. That’s the lowest it’s been since the beginning of August.
The Treasury Department said it would reach the debt limit a month earlier than was expected by many on Capitol Hill, Roll Call reports.
“Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told Congress in a new letter that thanks in part to lower-than-expected quarterly tax receipts, the extraordinary measures to forestall breaching the debt limit, combined with the new revenues, will run their course just a week after the resignation of Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) takes effect.”
I almost wonder if this was planned by the White House, to give the GOP even less time to try to organize a plan of hostage taking, and to delink the debt ceiling with the budget/government shutdown. Right now, the House GOP is in absolute disarray, so I doubt they will get their act together anytime soon.
Another great poll question.
America is used to gun slaughter and the occasional massacre, until the victims are the rich or their children nothing will change. Had the shooting occurred at Yale or Harvard things would be different.
I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you bamboozer. A sitting Representative in the US House was shot in the face and that didn’t do it. The families to which the corpses belong and where there are piled up is irrelevant. The phallic fetish for metallic hand-cannons is way too strong and we’re way too self absorbed (eg exceptional!) to let a minor factoid like three dozen gun deaths a day stop us. I mean it’s right there in the Constitution. Just duck and cover.
Sure banning guns solves the problem. We know this already. But how’s Uncle Tater-Brain suppose to defend his goose blind from Obama’s secret army otherwise? An individual’s disproven ideas and penchant for violent sex toys are more important that safety. I think Voltaire said that.
On an unrelated note, the testimony of the drunk driver who killed the bicyclist in Hockessin has my shorts in a knot.
He claims he was driving at “35 to 38 mph,” which is absolute bullshit. I drive that road daily, and yesterday I drove it at 38 mph. The notion that you could hit something at that relatively low speed and not know what it was is a bald-faced lie, as is the claim that he had a minimum of six drinks (the last two tequila shots) from lunch to dinner but that it didn’t affect him.
He fled the scene because he knew he was drunk and still won’t accept responsibility. I hope the judge sends him away for extra time for the lying.
So a big thanx should go out to KWS for rubber stamping Highmarks request for a 22% increase on those of us in a private plan, not a group. Her official statement was that after careful scrutiny her office denied 3% of the 25% requested, and only allowed the 22% to go forward. Another royal screwing of people not qualified for the exchange, but not part of a protected group.
In the words of the red queen ” off with her head!”
” Their hands are dripping with blood, and I really would rather they use the guns they love so much on themselves.”
Gotta love idiotic comments like that!
http://fee.org/freeman/the-cause-of-freedom-begins-with-me/
That dude is a moron.