DL Open Thread – Monday Feb 8th 2021
oops… I was supposed to put up an open thread this morning and flat out forgot. I’ll just drop this Cape Gazette letter to the editor here and add to it between now and noon.
What are you thinking, Sen. Lopez?
It’s time to rip the masks off politicians like state Sen. Ernie Lopez who profess in public to hold positions they believe are popular with constituents, and then, behind closed doors, vote the other way. Lopez, along with every other Republican senator in the General Assembly, voted last month against a resolution to declare gun violence a public health crisis. This is the same Lopez who not so long ago appeared at an anti-gun rally in Rehoboth and left his constituents with the impression that he supported their call for a ban on assault weapons. Then he voted against such a ban. He did the same thing with equal pay legislation.
It’s difficult to understand the senator’s recent vote on the gun resolution. First, let’s remember this is only a resolution, not a bill. It doesn’t actually do anything. It doesn’t take guns away from gun owners, and it doesn’t ban assault weapons. It does nothing to break that sacred bond between gun owners and their guns. You can’t get much more vanilla.
Second, all the resolution does is state the obvious, that guns are used to commit homicides with guns – not knives, or batons or pea shooters – and that the number of homicides committed with guns in Delaware is pretty darn high.
Facts aren’t fashionable these days but here are a few: 1) Delaware has the 13th highest incidence of gun homicides in the country; 2) nearly 80 percent of all homicides in Delaware are committed with guns, exceeding the national rate; 3) from March through May 2020, unintentional shooting deaths by children increased by more than 30 percent compared with the same three-month period for the previous three years; and 4) according to the latest statistics, gun deaths in Delaware increased by 32 percent between 2009 and 2018.
Spin it any way you want, but the logic is inescapable: When the rate of gun violence is rising, and it’s high to begin with, any reasonable person has to conclude that Delaware is indeed in the midst of a public health crisis caused by guns.
I would love to hear why Lopez voted against this resolution. In the past, he has labeled those with opinions different from his as extremist and “divisive.” He has said that such left-wing radicals are using “a litmus test to tear us apart.” I’m not going to regress to playground insults. But I guess that’s politics as it’s practiced by many today, including another name caller who, using his own criteria four years earlier, lost the last presidential election by a landslide. Maybe people are fed up with politicians who bypass the facts and go straight to name calling.
So what’s up, Ernie? What on earth are you thinking? Why would you vote against a resolution that acknowledges what the facts so clearly show? Gun violence is a public health crisis.
And one other thing: Don’t call me a left-wing extremist. That’s so yesterday. It didn’t work for Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and it didn’t work for Donald Trump.
Texas R Congressman Dies Of Covid:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gop-rep-ron-wright-dies-from-covid-19
Perhaps best- (or worst-) known for his virulent anti-abortion positions:
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/should-women-be-punished-for-having-abortions-absolutely-arlington-rep-ron-wright-says-in-video/215734/
US Sen. Richard Shelby To Retire:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-republican-retirements/2021/02/08/49aa31fa-6a1a-11eb-9f80-3d7646ce1bc0_story.html
He wasn’t as bad as most:
“Shelby had a long partnership with the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.). As Washington lurched through a series of government shutdowns and spending clashes in recent years, Shelby and Leahy would often joke that if it were left to them they could get in a room and solve the problem in 45 minutes.”
He also opposed the candidacy of nut-job Roy Moore. Unless Moore is the nominee, this seat is almost surely to remain in R hands.
Of all the dishonest shitheads on the right, Rand Paul gets special marks in both dishonesty and shitheadedness. His defense of Trump is loathsome.
Trump was just exercising his right to free speech. That’s all. No big whoop. Also – who were “all the Democrats who incited violence?” according to Paul?
Just like the President telling a mob to storm the halls of congress, right? Also this…
Mr. Paul also cited his run-in with an Antifa mob leading up to the 2020 election,
“My wife and I were pushed and surrounded and screamed at by this same type of mob that Maxine likes to inspire, It’s terrifying to have a swarm of people threatening to kill you, cursing at you, and literally holding you hostage until police come to your rescue. That night we were assaulted by the crowd, I wasn’t sure if we’d survive even with the police protection. But no Democrat has ever considered impeaching Maxine for her violent rhetoric. In fact, Republicans, to our credit, have never once thought it legitimate to formally censure or impeach these Democrats.
There’s a reason my old post Conclusive Proof Rand Paul Is a Dick still gets clicks two and a half years after I posted it. Well, two reasons, the other being that if you type “Rand Paul is a dick” into Google it comes up of the first page.
^love^
Need someone down here with name recognition to run against him
Can somebody please translate ‘The Blood Of Kidnapped Children’ into Italian or French for me?
Got a new product I’m bringing to market.
Before I do, I’ll hold a Q&A session.
Is that a “Q&A” session or a QAnon session?
John K.
Yes.
I’ve already drunk ‘The Blood Of Christ’, aka lachrima christi, at Luigi Vitrone’s Pastabilities. You can get it for about $23 a bottle, goes great w/ pasta.
I see this as a ‘can’t miss’ marketing opportunity. Every pervert villified by QAnon is a potential customer.