The Hill reports that the Republicans are making absolutely no adjustments in reaction to the Tucson Massacre:
“The Pledge to America is our plan,” Kevin Smith, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), told The New York Times Thursday, “and our immediate focus is on addressing the top priorities of the American people, creating jobs, cutting spending and reforming the way Congress works.”
The strategy is indication that, while the assassination attempt on Giffords might have prompted a weeklong breather from the bitter legislative fights the new Congress has in store, GOP leaders have no plans to let the temporary outpouring of bipartisanship divert them from the course they plotted beforehand.
That doesn’t mean that the Republicans aren’t demonstrating their trademark bedwetting cowardice:
Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) wants the House gallery to be shielded in plexiglass. And Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, intends to introduce legislation prohibiting people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of members of Congress.
Dan Burton is awfully brave when he’s armed in his backyard and faces nothing more threatening than a gourd-like squash. But he’s afraid that someone will slip past the Capitol Police and shoot him on the House floor. Pete King likes to talk a lot of smack about Muslim-Americans but he wants special protection from gun violence as he walks around his district. I thought there was no greater honor than to die for your country. I think Martin Luther King Day is a good day to denounce false bravado. Some people are willing to put their lives on the line and others want to hide behind plexiglass. This is what Dr. King said the day before he died.
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
The only mountaintop that the Republicans know is mountaintop removal.
But I thought these clowns wanted to pack heat themselves? If you close off the gallery, what’s the point of packing heat?
packing heat is and always has been about intimidation, not protection. none of this stuff is grounded in logic- you’ve got to let the rational part of your brain go and start “thinking with your gut” as Colbert would say.
Yeah, whatever happened to “Make congress live by the same laws they pass for the rest of us”? They have crammed guns down in throats in bars, theatres, schools and churches. The only place in the US that you cannot carry is on planes and in the galleries of the US Congress and the State Houses.
Again – what makes Congressmen so special that they deserve a special 1000 foot anti-Second Amendment zone around themselves? Why are their lives worth more than a judge’s life? Or a radio host’s life? Or an actor’s life? Or a performer’s life? Or my life?
I’m perfectly willing to allow that EVERYONE should have a 1,000 foot no-gun zone around themselves. If Congress wants to make it a Federal crime for anyone to get within 1000 feet of another person with a gun sign me up. But if we’re going to be carving out special rights for Congressmen, I need a better justification than “I’m a coward who is afraid of having to live in the country that the gun laws that I support has created”.
Exactly. Since guns don’t kill people, there’s no reason for protection for anybody. It would be extremely interesting to see how things would change if members of Congress and the Supreme Court were required to live with the same level of “protection” as schoolkids in the rest of the country.
Shameless cowards! Are there any women in Congress calling for guns and shields?
The NRA’s enemy Carolyn McCarthy is thinking about protecting other Americans before herself.
But guns don’t kill people, remember? So why would they need to be shielded from these harmless objects? People kill people, remember? So why aren’t they going for a law to keep all people at least a thousand feet away from them, if they’re so scared?
Too bad we don’t have any journalists in this country to clear up this confusion. But all we’ll get is how this proposal might affect the 2012 election.
Courage. That’s what MLK had in abundance, genuine courage. He was probably scared to death sometimes, knowing any minute could be his last, but he was okay with it, knowing that he could not accomplish what he set out to do without taking the chance that it would mean his death. Compare what he did with these gun-brandishing, flag-waving, trash-talking right wing nitwits and they really come up short.