National

When your campaign has to continually assert that you haven't dropped out, it is a bad sign. That's where Rand Paul is right now, as he tries to assure donors that he is still running for the GOP nomination... "but also, by the way... donate to my Senatorial campaign, because that is the real campaign." That's a paraphrase.

Mrs. Harper, the mother of the killer, stockpiled firearms because she feared stricter gun laws. She shared an apartment with her son. She was aware that he had mental problems, but chose to stockpile guns in her home because she feared the Obama administration was going to pass laws making it more difficult to get guns. She would seek the least restrictive gun ranges to take her son so the two of them could shoot as they desired, even while knowing her son had problems. She had purchased several guns just weeks before her son killed nine innocent people. I want that woman arrested on 9 counts of conspiracy to commit murder.

The Progressive Democrats for Delaware have two interesting panels/meetings coming up. First, this Wednesday at 7 pm at the Del Dem HQ in New Castle, there will be an Education Panel Discussion featuring Mike Matthews, Kevin Ohlandt, Elizabeth "Tizzy" Lockman, John M. Young, Vicki Bloss Seifred and Brian Stephan. The discussion will cover the huge issue of our state education policy: what's being done, and what should be done. Come November 4, the PDD will have a meeting that will feature a presentation on Citizens United led by Judith A. Butler. Attending the meeting in perhaps their first joint appearance as primary opponents will be Democratic candidates for Congress, Rep. Bryon Short and Sen. Bryan Townsend, both prime sponsors of SCR 6, calling for an Article V Convention to Amendment the U S Constitution concerning Citizens United. Since it is an issue on which they agree, I am not sure there will be much fireworks, but still, the PDD did a great job in getting both candidates together for this presentation.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. calls out Republicans for their shameless pandering to the gun industry and commends President Obama for "politicizing" the latest mass shootings:

President Obama spoke some of the most important words of his tenure last week in response to the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. "This is something we should politicize," the president said. "It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic." This is something we should politicize. His statement was remarkable for violating the etiquette as to what a leader should say after another slaughter by a deranged gunman and the conventional wisdom about how politicians have to pretend that they are not engaged in politics. But Obama was forcing us to face reality. It's politics that has rendered our nation powerless in the face of butchery. There have been at least 142 school shootings since the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, and Congress has done nothing. It's politics, as Obama said, that makes the U.S. "the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months," and politics that leads our learned legislators to pass laws barring the government from "even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths." ..."Politicize" is the right word for another reason: We will not act until politicians start losing elections for opposing even the most modest gun safety measure. We will not act unless political parties that block action lose their majorities. Yes, I am talking about a Republican Party that has completely aligned itself with the interests of gun manufacturers and gun fanatics.

Dionne cites "the conclusion of a study released in August by National Journal: "The states that impose the most restrictions on gun users also have the lowest rates of gun-related deaths, while states with fewer regulations typically have a much higher death rate from guns." Dionne adds, "State laws could be even more effective if they were matched by federal laws that made it harder for guns to get into the wrong hands." Here is that chart. It is huge, so I can't really post it here to fit the page and at the same time have you read it. So go click on that link.

Robert Reich's list of everything that is STILL wrong with the Trans Pacific Partnership are the very reasons Tom Caper and Chris Coons love it so fucking much.

We don't need to stop everybody from buying guns. Just preventing white males (between the age of 15 and 30 who talk about guns a lot) from buying them would work.

President Bush trashed idiot son Jeb! Bush after the Republican presidential candidate shrugged off any need for government action in the wake of the massacre at a community college in Oregon, saying simply that "stuff happens." Said Obama: “The American people should hear that and make their own judgments based on the fact that every couple of months, we have a mass shooting. They can decide whether they consider that ‘stuff happens.’”