Thursday Open Thread [12.3.15]

Rick Klein says our political system has failed on gun violence: “Are the responses just timed Tweets at this point, tweaked with a new detail or two? From one side of the aisle, ‘thoughts and prayers’ and a call for a focus on mental health. From the other, ‘this must change’ and a push for gun control, of course. The nation looks to politicians for guidance and help in understanding, if not fixing, tragic circumstances. On this count, when it comes to mass shootings and their aftermath, the political class has failed.”

“If anything, the responses we’ve come to expect now only add to a nation’s numbness. But the simple fact is that politicians and candidates aren’t feeling voter pressure to change their responses or their policy positions. Part of the ritual now is the numbness, followed by the forgetfulness.”

New and old Rule: If you support the NRA and unrestricted access to guns, you are a terrorist.

“As vice president as well as president of the Senate, Dick Cheney once asserted that he was essentially his own branch of government. Nevertheless, he will be immortalized in the Senate beginning on Thursday with a traditional marble bust in recognition of his service there,” the New York Times reports.

I always wanted to see a real bust of Darth Vader.

See @igorvolsky's timeline to see the NRA money that buys politicians' thoughts and prayers (and not action) pic.twitter.com/gLN1UrRgyb

— Brian Ries (@moneyries) December 3, 2015

The Hill:

It was the second mass shooting in six days, the first being an attack at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado. The president reiterated his argument that Congress must pass stricter gun laws to curb the frequency of mass shootings in America.

“What we do know is that there are steps we can take to make Americans safer and that we should come together on a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal,” he said. “We should never think that this is something that just happens in the ordinary course of events, ’cause it doesn’t happen with the same frequency in other countries,” he added.

The president called on Congress to pass legislation that would prevent people on the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list from purchasing firearms.

Frank Bruni on Ted Cruz:

You’re evaluating candidates for an open job in your company, and you come across one who makes a big impression.

He’s clearly brilliant — maybe smarter than any of the others. He’s a whirlwind of energy. And man oh man can he give a presentation. On any subject, he’s informed, inflamed, precise.

But then you talk with people who’ve worked with him at various stages of his career. They dislike him.

No, scratch that.

They loathe him.

They grant him all of the virtues that you’ve observed, but tell you that he’s the antithesis of a team player. His thirst for the spotlight is unquenchable. His arrogance is unalloyed. He actually takes pride in being abrasive, as if a person’s tally of detractors measures his fearlessness, not his obnoxiousness.

Do you hire this applicant?

No way.

Crystal Ball’s Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik provide some insight into calendar considerations for any independent candidacy bid by Donald Trump, or anyone else: “The calendar will help to determine whether there’s a truly prominent third-party candidate on the ballot. Filing deadlines for independent presidential candidates vary by state, but a majority fall in August. That is after the conventions — 38 states’ deadlines are after the RNC ends on July 21 — but not so far after them that a spurned candidate could easily turn around and get on many state ballots. A candidate who wants to get on every ballot will have to start much earlier than that: For instance, the deadline for an independent to get on the ballot in Texas, the second-biggest state, is May 9. So maybe it would be helpful to the Republicans if Trump hangs around in the primary — so long as he doesn’t win the nomination — just long enough for a national third-party bid to be out of reach.”