Writers I respect, Rebecca Traister, Ed Kilgore, and Nancy LeTourneau, all seem to be discomforted today after witnessing the raucous Democratic debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in Brooklyn last night. Maybe it’s my New York metro background, but I thought it was probably the best and most clarifying debate we’ve had so far, and I had no problem with the audience showing some real Big Apple passion.
To each his own, in some respects, I guess, but I do have some basic disagreements.
For starters, I don’t think people should worry about the Democratic Party coming together at the end of this process to unite against whatever candidate the Republicans eventually cough up. There’s no need to fret that these candidacies are poisoning each other, and if Bernie Sanders is going to run this out until he is mathematically eliminated, he should take it seriously and play to win rather than go out there like a tomato can waiting for his cue to take a dive. If he lands some haymakers on Hillary’s chin in the process, well, it’s good to know that she still has that famous steel jaw she’s known for, and getting some sparring rounds in now is good for her. She doesn’t want to come out unprepared the way President Obama did in his first debate against Mitt Romney.
Sanders may be in denial about “The Math,” but he has a point when he says he’s won seven of the last eight contests, some in landslides, and that he’s got some momentum. I agree with Traister that his disparagement of the Deep South in the debate sounded an awful lot like a disparagement of the black vote, but it’s not like he isn’t on a winning streak. He’s trying to win, and it may be a longshot but I can’t begrudge him playing hard. His supporters deserve nothing less.
So, yes, he’s hitting her hard on those Goldman Sachs speeches, and for being overly hawkish in her foreign policy. He’s laughing in her face when she attempts to argue that she had a stern talking-to with Wall Street executives. I think these are legitimate criticisms and they help Democratic voters understand what their choices are.
And she’s blasting him for his refusal to see the merits of holding gun manufacturers and distributors accountable for making sure their lethal products don’t get into the hands of criminals and psychotics. What’s the harm in making that point?
Does anyone think it wasn’t healthy to have the two of them go at it over Israel-Palestine policy? And what better place to have that debate than in Brooklyn?
So, I’m not concerned about the tone. I wish they’d displayed the same strong contrasts in the early debates. They really are different, you know, and I think they’re both getting better at being presidential candidates as this goes along.
In any case, one of them will get the nomination in Philadelphia, and this will all be forgotten a few days later when people get focused on the actual choice they’ll have in November.
and have said for since the issue came up but until Sanders releases his tax returns I feel it is very hypocritical of him to be making that argument. And no Jane does them and we have been really busy aren’t good enough excuses. Serious candidates for the presidency release their tax returns. That is the bare minimum standard required for running for this job and Sanders hasn’t met it.
The weird thing is I doubt there is anything damning in them, much like I doubt there is anything damning in the transcripts but his team fumbling this is amateur hour and as I said it takes a lot of wind out of his “release your transcripts” sails.
I think he may be just annoyed that anybody’s even asking for them. Probably thinking, “What is this bullshit? I’m not Donald Trump, for God’s sake.” A bit like asking Obama for his birth certificate.
Birth certificate. That was a request made of Obama and no other candidate all in an effort to “other” him. Tax returns are the minimum standard of transparency for serious presidential candidates. If Sanders is annoyed to being held to that standard then he needs to get over it.
I’ll go further,
If he is annoyed about releasing tax returns, he should get the hell out. You should not preach standards when you cannot meet the minimum.
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I’d be annoyed too. Please name me the last presidential candidate that didn’t have a net worth of over 1 million dollars (and this is a very low bar in my opinion).
It is the ridiculous amounts of money people who run for president have which really drive this “release the taxes issue”.
This does not work as well with Sanders as his net worth has been estimated at around $500K, so I can see why he would be annoyed.
Releasing tax returns has become a minimum standard of transparency for that endeavor. Saying just trust me doesn’t cover it.
As far as net worth the Obama’s were worth between one $1 and $2 million in the 2008 campaign and most of that that could be traced to one big source – advances and royalties from his two books. Still he didn’t balk at releasing the returns because he knew it was the minimum standard for transparency.
He’s annoyed? Boo fucking hoo. Why the hell is anyone excusing it? It’s SOP. I realize there is a difference in comparisons with Romney refusing to release his own (which he never did).
I find any excuse about not releasing tax returns to be about as convincing as Clinton’s “that’s what they offered” or “everyone but me is corrupted by money”.
Rather than inventing excuses for it like Clinton people are doing — and are effectively willing to sell down the river acknowledged principles and evidence that money is inherently corrupting — make the same demands of transparency.
Speaking of, Obama had his own choice words about that in his own book:
Somehow I don’t think Clinton is going to hug it out with Obama on THAT issue.
Pardon me, but is it SOP for primary candidates? If so, since when? (I know some candidates choose to release their tax returns at various times during their political careers either because it makes them look good or there’s been issues or questions in the past and they want to dispense with them in their current campaign.) Perhaps I missed it, but I only recall in the past few election cycles that tax returns were demanded of those that had secured the nomination. iirc Kerry and McCain’s were limited to themselves and not their extremely wealthy wives. Cruz and Kasich have just recently released summary returns. Who knows what Trump will do, but unlikely that anything will be seen unless he’s formally nominated.
A good guess on Sanders delaying the release is that a cursory review by a tax pro spotted an error and they’ve turned several years of tax returns over to the pro to perform a complete review to check for all errors and correct all of them at the same time instead of possibly risking a drip, drip, drip as the Clintons were put through way back in the ’90s.
Probably richer than he wants people to know, or charitable contributions are not up to some arbitrary standard. Something relatively minor.
But still, you don’t release your tax returns it sends a couple signals;
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I confess, I don’t get the tax return thing… what are Hillary supporters hoping for, that he made like $100 in interest on a mutual fund that holds bank stocks or something? Whatever is in his tax returns, it’s going to be small potatoes, especially compared to the millions HRC made talking to the banksters. The two issues are not even in the same league.
horrible in them. For me it is about the principle of that matter. Don’t rail about transparency if you aren’t adhering to the basic standard of transparency expected in a campaign. Until he is willing to release those tax returns I want him to shut it on the transcripts issue.
This comparison provides a little information about Hillary Clinton’s and Bernie Sander’s 2014 income via CNN Money.
Hillary Clinton’s 2014 income: $28 million
Majority from:
$10.5 million in speaking fees
$5.6 million in royalties
Bernie Sanders’s 2014 income: $206,000
Majority from:
$156,000 Senate salary
$46,000 Social Security benefits
http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/hillary-clinton-vs-bernie-sanders/
Hillary’s team made the point she donates millions to charity. I might too with that money. But it sure sounds impressive.
Ya, it sounds impressive. But it’s not.
Romney also bragged about it.
I would assume everyone knows that rich mainly do it for the tax deduction. I would hope so.
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“As for charitable donations, the Clintons gave just under $15 million over the eight-year period, which is 10.8 percent of their total income. The vast majority of that — about $14.8 million — went through the Clinton Family Foundation, the vehicle the Clintons frequently use to make personal donations, and another $57,000 went to the Clinton Global Initiative.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/hillary-clinton-releases-her-tax-returns/457896/
Here are the tax returns that Bernie promised during last nights debate. Now it’s time for Hillary Clinton to release the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches.
http://www.motherjones.com/documents/2804313-Bernie-Sanders-Just-Released-His-Tax-Returns
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/15/politics/bernie-sanders-jane-sanders-taxes/index.html
As Bernie Sanders says, “They are very boring tax returns. No big money from speeches, no major investments. Unfortunately — unfortunately, I remain one of the poorer members of the United States Senate. And that’s what that will show.”
And no change from the summary report released earlier; so, after checking, no errors were found.
That’s the way it looks. Typical much ado about nothing. When HRC released her family tax returns from 2007-2014 showing $141M earned income, she said, “I want more Americans to have the chance to work hard and get ahead, just like we did.”
Really an unforced error not releasing them.
A classic campaign screw up.
Ahem:
The Clintons are using 5 shell companies to save on taxes in Delaware
Forget Panama: it’s easier to hide your money in the US than almost anywhere (particularly Delaware)
Not releasing them allowed the Clinton shills to suggest something was amiss.
One of Sanders strengths is his authenticity. It is the source of much of his appeal.
And I must say, Sanders is a true believer. He could have become rich if he wanted – he choose the life of an activist. For most of his life this has meant a POOR activist.
It is this personal story that aggravates the Clinton people so much, because it stands in sharp contrast to her own behavior.
Sanders people should have released them early and it would never have come up.
That is why I think it is an unforced error.
Oh, I agree. I’m young. I’ve only grown up in an environment where this is SOP. If it’s not, I want it to be, and I want Sanders to set that example. That was my point above.
However, I also understand with the people annoyed. I watched MSNBC this morning to hear Bakari Sellers yammer on about “Well ok, but what about the past 10 years?” I believe Sanders should release those, too. But, it’s clear to me that these hacks won’t be satisfied by anything, and are simply attacking Sanders over nonsense because of it. They’ll continue to move the goalposts.
He should set an example of what transparency looks like, but we also need to be aware of and fight off the bullshit from the spinmasters.
possible was using release transcripts/ release tax returns as a campaign point – that was my thought about it
i.e a way to keep the transcript issue out there
Switch the names for me.
Whats troubling is HRC refused. They appear to exist and shes choosing to take the hits rather than release them? Why? Its the same reasoning, either shes fumbling or theres something bad in there. Or what…?
On the tax issue, my wife does ours. She is big on doing them as soon as she can while I’d wait until this week to do them. So I basically give her the information she needs and then ignore the matter. So I’d have no clue about releasing our tax returns. I do think this is on Jane, and he should release his tax returns sooner rather than later.
The transcripts thing could just be simple risk-aversion. If she strayed from her prepared remarks, or there was some give and take with the audience that she may not remember, she may not know with 100% certainty whether there’s anything in them of note. I don’t know. I doubt she gave a primer on how to steal from everyday folk.
Thats just it, HRCs risk aversion takes a line used against her and sustains it making people wonder about either her character in what she said or her judgement on releasing them.
Tax returns are bullshit to throw the hounds off the trail. Hers would be far more interesting. Has she released them? Bernie is likely run of the mill but who knows, maybe he is a secret multi millionaire.
I actually doubt there is much incriminating in those transcripts. So it remains something of a mystery to me.
“They really are different, you know…”
Amen. They are very, very, very different. Anyone saying otherwise is blowing smoke–or inhaling it.
Hell yes, Booman. Hell yes!
Woops… my comment was mistakenly posted as a reply…
To repeat:
Hell yes! It was nice to see them really mix it up.
I really enjoyed the contrast between the “big picture problem diagnosis” vs the “Work the system and the machine to solidify and advance progressive gains”…
And I think that the criticisms that each candidate had of the other are valid criticisms:
What use is your political maneuvering if you’re not maneuvering toward a sharply defined and forward looking progressive/liberal goal??
What good is your diagnosis of the multitude of distortions and ills in the system if you cannot articulate a workable plan to address those problems?
These are tough and good questions.
Nice!
———-
What use is your political maneuvering if you’re not maneuvering toward a sharply defined and forward looking progressive/liberal goal??
What good is your diagnosis of the multitude of distortions and ills in the system if you cannot articulate a workable plan to address those problems?
———–/
That is a REALLY good summation of the ‘problem’ with both sides.
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Booman, we’ve had some disagreements about the Sanders campaign, but I can’t fault anything you say here. I think this is the right way to look at it.
One detail — I don’t think disparagement of “the Deep South” = disparagement of “the black vote”. If there’s one thing we’re seeing it’s that “the black vote” is not monolithic. Indeed, to treat it as monolithic is a kind of stereotyping, not unlike the idea that all Jews have the same attitudes towards Israel. Sanders has significant black support, even if it’s not the majority. This support does have regional characteristics; it is weakest in the Deep South. I’ll bet you it’s a lot stronger than that in New York.
Maybe it wasn’t the right approach for Spike Lee to have begun his radio spot for South Carolina with the words “WAKE UP, SOUTH CAROLINA!” But the fact is, he did, and I’m sure he meant it.
Sorry, you are very wrong.
It’s a dog whistle. A rather big one.
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It was a dog whistle played by the Clinton camp.
Evidence?
If you think it was a dog whistle from Sanders, then you haven’t the slightest understanding of Sanders. Why on earth would Sanders be sending such a “dog whistle”?
That said I also don’t buy his contention that Southern Ds are conservative Ds. Take Houston proper. That is Southern Ds and they elected an openly Lesbian mayor. The largest city to ever do so in this country.
Dallas proper has a lesbian Hispanic sheriff and for years Craig Watkins was DA of Dallas county and a leader in using DNA evidence for to reverse wrongful convictions.
Senator Sanders writing off people who voted for the office holders I mentioned above as too conservative shows a profound lack of understanding of the region. It also is very much a one true Scotsman argument.
Heh,
‘A one true Scotsman argument’. Nice. Very nice.
It’s also a complete refutation of the 50 state strategy. I guess some votes are more important than others. Funny how it’s always the POC votes that are less important.
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How in heaven’s name did you figure that one out? Just saying so doesn’t make it so, no matter how hard you wish.
True. And what’s seldom mentioned is that H. Clinton got similar blowout numbers from white Southern Democrats. All this dovetails with what we already know about the South: it’s more conservative than the rest of the country.
The “black people love Hillary” meme isn’t what really happened. Conservatives and those who’d never heard of Sanders voted for her back in January and February and early March.
I stand by what I said the day after in 2008. Fuck. The. South.
The South is a hard nut to crack. I went to college there and have lived there (specifically, Louisiana and Mississippi). While visiting the South, I never forget that their ancestors started the Civil War because some of them don’t let you forget. The good news is that the statue of General Lee on St. Charles Ave. in New Orleans is scheduled for removal to a museum. However, the issue is tied up in court for now and Marse Robert still faces north.
I remember reading companies contracted to move the statue backedout over threats of violence and lost business. Even if there’d been no court case the statue wouldn’t be moved because no one dared move it.
Because it’s “crackpot realism.” (Just to be clear, I hate guns and if it were up to me, we’d get rid of all of them.) Government can ban any product deemed unsafe for people to use and some have been banned (and Sanders has supported banning assault type weapons), but wrt guns in general, it would require a Constitutional amendment and no politician, including Mrs. Clinton, has come close to calling for that. Government can also regulate the manufacture of products for safety if used properly and efficacy if properly used and certain limitations on who can purchase certain products and under what conditions. Guns seem to work and as advertised; so, can’t get the manufacturers on that. There are age restrictions for the purchase of guns and a highly imperfect criminal background check and some local registration requirements. But how the hell is a gun dealer supposed to assess a customer for psychoses? And even if they could, those that suffer from such a disorder are a tiny fraction of those that perpetrate violence with guns. Would such an assessment by a gun dealer have to include the family and associates of the person? (Remember Nancy Lanza was a legal purchaser — was the dealer supposed to figure our that her disturbed son would kill her and take her arsenal on a killing spree?)
We could mandate that a required course in gun operation and safety before one can purchase a gun. But would manufacturers be required to run these schools? If such education were so effective, why do so many cops kill so many people?
When we say, “keep them out of the hands of criminals,” what image does that call up in the minds of Americans? Anyone that says it’s not the same people that are currently being disproportionately locked up is a liar.
Culture is a much larger factor than the availability of products that harm others. We are so steeped in glorifying violence that dickering over one small aspect of it (like Bloomie’s ban on Big Gulps) that we miss the larger picture.
Her “lie with statistics” was so cheap it’s difficult to take anything she says seriously. Let’s also not forget that in 2008 she was a duck hunter and praised the 2nd Amendment; so she’s also a flip-flopper.
Other than the Annie Oakley shot, which is legit, you just spewed a bunch of right-wing talking points, using right-wing logic.
The point of not holding gun manufacturers immune from liability is not to avoid every Adam Lanza that goes psychotic. It’s to keep them from knowingly selling to people they have reason to believe are making the purchase with some criminal intent. Typically, this would be obvious gangbangers or straw purchasers for gangbangers, but it could be anyone who indicates in some way that they aren’t buying for protection or sport.
As for the manufacturers, I don’t know what progress can be made outside of the courts, but the local effort is going forward anyway, as you can see with the case that just got green-lighted by a district judge in Connecticut. Could be that these efforts clarify things for a future left-wing Court.
Gun manufacturers have no control over who guns are ultimately sold to. The furthest you could go with that standard is dealers.
Sold to and the lawsuit was about gun manufacturers selling to distributors who were proven sources of guns used in crimes.
Are they federally licensed dealers? If so, it’s the government’s problem, not the manufacturers. If not, then by all means prosecute for breaking federal law. What are the penalties, maybe they should be bigger.
Demonizing manufacturers isn’t going to get you votes. It’s going to cost you votes.
You seem to have a loophole in mind. Spell out the law but leave the séance to someone else to figure out.
BooMan, if these are right wing talking points why do I see so many Democrats use the same excuse for why they can’t do anything to stem gun violence? Even Obama, until just the last year or so, didn’t get really worked up over the gun issue. I will give him credit for giving some really impassioned, sincere speeches recently, but in the past he may have mentioned the issue but it really didn’t rise to the level of a national epidemic.
Nailing Sanders for this when so many others, even Clinton until very recently, say the same thing seems intellectually dishonest. If anything I would go after Clinton as she seems to have latched onto this issue in earnest just for the NY primary.
the manufacturers don’t do the selling.
I am having trouble with that formulation. If you buy a car a run over someone with it, do you get to sue GM? Sure if the car was defective in some way. Guns are different, I suppose. So if they make a gun and a screwball buys it, what did the manufacturer do wrong? Knowingly selling a gun to Adam Lanza never happened. Mom got the guns as I recall.I don’t know how a gun manufacturer would be able to tell if any of their guns went to a nut. If you want more regulations on them, fine. Maybe I have a real blind spot here, since I owned a number of guns when I was young (no more, I find them offensive), but I still know many people who own them and some collect them. They have the right to purchase them and a manufacturer and gun dealer has a right to sell them, subject to the law. Fix the law.
Sorry for the rant.
Liability requires some sort of negligent behavior. The issue, as I understand it, is that gun makers are legally shielded, even if they were negligent.
Each case would be determined on its own facts. If a gun maker was selling to someone who was known to be putting the guns into the wrong hands, or otherwise irresponsible, they could be legally liable. But they have a special protection.
The same would be true for auto makers, if they were selling cars to a particular dealer who they knew (or should have known) was selling to customers who bought the cars specifically to run people over maliciously. But that’s a much less common issue than with guns.
Sort of what I said. Except I can’t legally ever shield anyone from negligence.
The idea here is that the gun manufacturers could make and aggressively market guns which are harder or impossible to shoot unless you are the identified owner/user of the gun, but they have chosen not to do so.
In previous years, people were not forced to drive automobiles without seatbelts; pedestrians were not forced to walk where they were killed and maimed by cars with body designs which maximized killing/maiming capability; people were not forced to begin smoking cigarettes.
Yet we created laws to find leaders in those industries liable for the damage they did to Americans by creating and marketing products which needlessly harmed people.
A similar premise will hopefully catch the manufacturers and marketers of soft drinks. My understanding is that the recent trend of marketing 7-ounce cans of soda are in apprehensive response to potential future liabilities for their industry.
Also, too, pharmaceutical manufacturers and marketers.
There was a case recently where a gun store owner refused to sell a gun to man he suspected of being a potential mass murderer.even though he passed a background check.
http://wgntv.com/2016/03/28/gun-store-owner-refuses-to-sell-weapon-to-man-suspected-of-planning-mass
-shooting-at-university/
That doesn’t mean I disagree with you. I think gun store owners should be encouraged to use discretion; but still, you can’t just turn that around and say that the person who sold a gun to such a person is responsible.
Sandy Hook was one of the most horrible crimes in the annals of crime, and understandably, the parents and relatives of those killed want justice — in the form of retribution. And the public backs them because they sympathize.
But the fact is that the people most responsible for it — the killer and (arguably) his mother — are both dead. The gun dealers are the most visible, but if anybody selse is responsible, they would be far down on my list. Organizations like the NRA and the whole bogus “Second Amendment” movement bear far more responsibility.
(I call it bogus because it is built on a completely bogus interpretation of that amendment which they figure is legitimate if they repeat it often enough, which they sure do.)
So if you’re at a bar and the bartender serves you too many drinks, and you go out on the road in your car and kill someone, is the bartender accountable? In some place, I think “yes.” Maybe not the liquor manufacturer, but there is accountability somewhere along the line between manufacture, distribution, and use.
Sure, but you have to prove that in court.
Successfully?
Only if the judge and jury are teetotalers.
AG
Fine: then let them go to court and see what happens as opposed to providing defacto blanket immunity. I’m not shy about this: any. means. necessary. I want guns gone. Sanders disagrees with me on the issue. I don’t like his stance. He’s reacting to criticism and changing, because he’s a pol, and that’s what pols do.
The only blanket immunity given is what the NRA confers on them. Anyone can sue if they see a wrong.
What do you mean you want “guns gone”?
If you mean that literally, or anything close, it is just as extreme and unreasonable as those who want no restrictions whatsoever.
I do not own a gun, BTW.
I don’t deny it. I’m a rabid gun grabber. You can have long guns of certain sorts, rifles/shotguns…but most handguns? Nope. Police don’t have guns under my world, either.
I like your passion but I suspect we’ll have single-payer healthcare and free college before a ban on handguns. Handguns are most commonly used in inner-city gun violence and suicides so I can see why you would target them.
Not sure what kind of world it would be where people can have rifles and shotguns but the police won’t have any guns.
The goal isn’t even necessarily an endpoint. I mean, yes, it’s something I want to march towards…but a lot of this is simply about getting people to change their consciousness and how they think about violence and guns altogether. I wouldn’t call it moving the Overton Window, but with fewer and fewer people wanting or caring for guns, it’ll certainly be easier to have an Australian-style solution.
Of course, it’s just as likely that the guns in fewer hands causes said owners to become like rabid hyenas when you even broach the topic of limiting arms in some capacity — as this is what’s currently happening. But we have to try.
The trend IS fewer gun owners. Again, the MSM and fear flogging.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/09/major-survey-number-of-americans-who-live-in-household-wi
th-at-least-one-gun-is-lower-than-ever-before/
If we follow through on that the gun manufacturers will need a staff of detectives to investigate whether their customers are criminals. /s
Can you imagine if weapons manufacturers were held to that standard over foreign sales??? Exp to the third world. The ME? LOL, it is to laugh.
Ah, Marie. So guns are not safe. That’s clear. There is technology to make it safer from accidents or theft & use. You i-phone can use a fingerprint. A car might give a breathalizer test before the ignition will turn on. Or at least a seat belt needs to be buckled. A kid falls on a bicycle and now kids of a certain young age have to wear helmets. The government is in the business all the time of promoting safety. So why not guns too?
And (to all): Do you think anyone’s demeanor last night was “presidential”?
Are you prepared to make it your life project to pass legislation to retrofit 300 million guns to make them “safer” (if they could actually be retrofitted which I doubt)? And also order US manufacturers and importers to only make “safe” guns? How many politicians with that agenda would get elected?
Would those “safer” guns be as responsive if an emergency situation for self-defense? Not that such situations are common, but it will happen that someone will die when his/her “safe” gun was too slow. Who’s liable for that family (who will look for somebody to sue)?
wrt presidential demeanor, there’s no standard. Reagan was a good enough actor that people said he had the appropriate demeanor, but he was also gaga. Was Romney’s demeanor “presidential?” HRC and Sanders were okay on that criteria and better than the ’16 GOP candidates.
So this is a very good point about retrofitting. And I wonder if there are any statistics on the age of guns in use in America. I don’t think too many people do stick-ups or suicides with Lugars from WWII. What’s the life expectancy of a usable gun? It’s a serious question.
I ask (and say) this without much/any knowledge of guns. But if the technology of making them safer could be accomplished with some effort, wouldn’t it be better to begin so that, over time, the situation improved. Old guns become collectors items.
Or, here’s an idea: Manufacture new guns of a new caliber, then stop making the ammunition for the old ones. The gun industry would love it. Think how many new guns (with safety features) they could sell. OMG, what an idea!!!!
I have a Ruger Mach 1 .22 target pistol made in the 1950s, and a Colt Woodsman Match Target .22 pistol made in 1938. Both work just fine, and will continue to do so as long as I maintain them properly.
As to not making ammo for old guns, consider: The lead time to devise a new caliber — no, wait; there are multiple calibers for multiple purposes, so you’d have to create new calibers for each niche of use, create the machinery to make both guns and ammo, test same, get same certified, presumably by the government agency put into place to oversee the industry, then roll them out to the public, and law enforcement, and the military….
And during the multiple years the whole process would take, gun owners would be stocking up on to-be-outlawed ammo in mass quantities.
And every other country in the world that manufactures guns would stand ready to provide ammo as well to the outlawed calibers. When they weren’t doubled over laughing at the insane Americans.
And that’s just the first few reasons I can think of off the top of my head why that idea wouldn’t work.
You’re probably right. So, this is an unsolvable problem? Shouldn’t even try? Or is there something that can be done to decrease gun violence? And I’m not anti-gun, just anti-murder, I guess.
I’m actually anti-gun. Would advocate for the Australian solution. Not politically viable, but it would be helpful to mention it a lot and get people thinking about it. Less than that is more on the order of removing shoes at airport security checks than anything effective to reduce gun violence.
Things can* be done around the edges, for example:
Won’t solve the problem, oh, hell, no, but might save some lives here and there.
I also recommend you read this:
http://www.stonekettle.com/2015/06/bang-bang-sanity.html
and at the bottom you’ll find links to his Bang Bang Crazy series and a brief bio.
*Can assuming political power shifts away from the NRA and its stranglehold on too many legislators, state and federal. Highly unlikely, of course.
#1 sounded interesting until I thought it through.
Is this a product that insurance companies are interested in offering? If so, at what price? If not, then it would fall to governments to issue the coverage and likely cost taxpayers a lot of money.
How would it be enforced?
Thus, it can’t be unless all guns are registered and require annual proof of insurance. Good luck in getting that anytime soon.
Certainly, register all guns. Insurance companies could charge any premium their actuaries thought would cover the risk adequately, or there could be insurance pools like those used to cover coastal communities for flood risk where conventional insurance refuses to write coverage.
In fact, if guns were held to the same degree of registration, training and insurance requirements as automobiles, that would be helpful. Won’t happen, of course, given how powerful the gun lobby and its vociferous gun nut backers are. But it’s at least marginally more possible than the Australian solution.
So all this is interesting, mostly because the solutions presented seem incremental, sensible, and not “pie in the sky.” It’s a serious problem that needs solutions. So people riding motorcycles without helmets often have to pay higher insurance rates than those who choose to wear them. The penalty is that, if injured without a helmet when you are insured to wear one, then the insurance won’t pay. Or, if you have a pit bull or some other (insurance company considered) dangerous dog, they may choose not to cover you at all, or at least will hike your premium. These are steps, financial ones, that deter (like high tax on cigarettes). They are attempts to affect social change through cost. The same might be done with guns. What do permits cost? I remember Romney raising the fees on guns in MA. How much is the tax on buying a gun or ammunition? In other words, how do you start modifying the public mind-set about guns and gun safety. And, of course, people should have lessons on how to use a gun, as they do with driving cars. (Sorry for the stream of consciousness here).
In Massachusetts, if I recall correctly, you pay the regular sales tax on guns and ammo; gun locks and gun safes, however, are exempt from the regular 6.25 percent tax.
All the things we’re discussing in these last two posts are commonsense, reasonable measures that would have some initial impact and might help to shift public attitudes over the long run. Unfortunately, for the gun nuts, “Second Amendment rights” are pretty much a fanatic religion; you won’t shift them with reasoned arguments any more than you’d shift a fundamentalist of any other faith.
A pretty solid post.
People need to grow the fuck up.
It seems shocking to some people that candidates try to win. That they make arguments that belittle their opponents.
They make ridiculous arguments, because that is sometimes the only ones you can make.
The victimization that the Clinton people are buying into is just fucking nuts. And Sanders people are making some bad arguments too.
There is an old line about not talking about politics. It is a good line, because it does get personal.
So if you talk about it, expect to get pissed.
As I said, people need to grow the fuck up.
I presume that the vast majority of the ‘I’m shocked by the attacks that your demonic candidate and her/his supporters are making on my little angel!’ arguments are just supporters angling for political benefit. At least I hope they are. If it works, it works. (Though if anyone’s taking it seriously, they’re pathetic.)
I think the problem is that the Hillary supporters you named are starting to realize that the more the country sees of her, the less they like her. Sure, they want to hold Bernie responsible for her declining favorbility and claim that the “rancor” of the debates and his “negative campaign” are the sole reason for her declining poll numbers, but I couldn’t disagree more.
I think the problem is more that Clinton is trying to run an old-school campaign when all the rules have changed:
I think all of these issues have become more apparent as the primary campaign has gone on, but don’t think for a minute the same thing wouldn’t have happened in the general if she didn’t have a primary opponent. And also, they are probably recoverable from to some extent in a race against a crazy Republican. And even some of the positions that she has had to adopt during the primary might help as well there (if she doesn’t triangulate back)
Because your analysis of what I am thinking as a Clinton supporter is completely wrong. I thought the debate was a wash last night with each having good moment but each stumbling at times. I also think that we didn’t really get any new insight into either candidate.
Think of what most Sanders supporters would be saying if it was Clinton that went to the Vatican!
So much sanctimony, so much hypocrisy.
So much ‘it’s OK If Sanders Does It’.
.
Was she invited as well? Sanders responded to an invitation.
The only thing I heard on cable this morning was Bernie made a mistake to take time out from his campaign.
Actually, I heard that “he invited himself,” and that “The Pope didn’t invite him”, even though nobody ever explained how somebody like Sanders could possibly “invite himself” to such a conference, nor did he ever say the Pope did invite him. But I have an idea where those memes came from, more or less.
A timely op-ed in the WaPo gives the neoliberal slant on global trade-offs and Dean Baker discusses it.
Charles Lane used his op-ed column in the Washington Post to repeat the line that is now quite popular in elite circles: the stagnating wages and worsening living standards of large segments of the U.S. working class were a necessary price for lifting hundreds of millions of people in the developing world out of poverty. Oh yeah, and also the richest one percent happened to get unbelievably rich in the process as well. So people like Bernie Sanders, who want trade policies that will help U.S. workers, are actually being selfish. It’s the one percent who are really serving the poor.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-sanders-pope-francis-moral-economy-could-hurt-the-income
-inequality-fight/2016/04/13/8007b80a-01ae-11e6-9203-7b8670959b88_story.html
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/charles-lane-and-the-washington-post-are-very-generous-with-the
-jobs-and-wages-of-ordinary-workers
Sure, I’m not really one to say someone “won” or “lost” a debate- it’s a very subjective metric.
I’m talking about this
Right, Spiny, and that’s not last night’s debate or even all the debates, it’s a global impression across the nation. Which is how I understood your comment.
And what I wanted to say is, I think you give a very fine analysis of what’s wrong with her whole approach. It was already apparent by the time she started making noises about running (late 2014) which is exactly when this huge rise in unfavorability started taking off. I thought she belonged to another era in Democratic Party history that Obama had mercifully ended — precisely by defeating her.
This doesn’t mean she can’t win, it just means it will be unfortunate if she does, for all those reasons.
Plus…I am sorry to have to say this, but she comes off as a hectoring mother-in-law on the TV screen when she is displeased with the efforts of her adversary.
We all grew up in a similar culture…the pouting, sarcastic, “I’ll put that young whippersnapper right!!!” mother-in-law is a staple of that culture.
Someone in her retinue ought to tell her please not to set the corners of her mouth in a rictus of distaste when she’s onscreen and being challenged in some serious way.
Every time she does so she loses thousands of votes.
Bet on it.
The stare that sank a thousand ships.
Watch.
Trump will turn it on her.
Watch.
AG
“She comes across as …”
Think Hillary might have a response to that? Something to the effect of: “He comes across as …”?
I mean, the possibilities are endless.
Yes. I think she will have a response to that.
Something along the lines of “He comes across as a lost-in-the-woods, amateur/dreamer.”
The possibilities are indeed endless.
So what!!!???
Which ones will most strongly affect the fix?
That is the question.
AG
Even Hillary supporters must be starting to admit that there is something in her very expensive remarks to Goldman Sachs that she is dead set against seeing the light of day.
It’s probably nothing shocking. Maybe just some overly cozy talk about a productive working relationship between Washington and Wall Street. But in typical Clinton fashion, she’s making things worse for herself with the stonewalling and lies.
It’s an ugly preview of what her administration is going to be like.
I didn’t mind the disagreement or even the shouting. That’s fine. Quite diverting and sometimes even informative. But I’ve about had it with Sanders’ faux aghast, pop-eyed mugging for the cameras. He’s just one step away from doing “Slowly I turned …”
Honestly, the more I see of him the more I think he’s just a really unpleasant person who thinks he doesn’t need to come up with a plan because Hey, he’s Bernie.
Funny, you can replace all that with the name Hillary and I might agree.
Lol. What’s that tell you? It’s getting late in the season …
Funny, there is a very high correlation between when Sanders does that and when Hillary comes out with a whopper.
Sez you.
The Israel-Pakistan dispute is the best thing that came out of any of these debates.
I think the thing about the Deep South is that while Hillary killed Bernie there (and that was largely a result of her strong support among black voters), the Democrats won’t win any of it in November. Thus, the disparagement is not about the black vote, but about the importance Hillary winning the Deep South which the Dems are going to lose this year. Hillary killed Bernie in the states that the Dems are going to lose.
This sort of argument is just silly. Look: Sanders killed Clinton in Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska (for example), which the Democrats are pretty unlikely to carry in November. Is that a now a reason to dismiss Sanders?
Let me think….what do Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska have and what is the commonality of the ‘south’?
Hmmmmmm, thinking, thinking, thinking.
.
and what about AK,OK,ID,WY? are they big Democratic states
let’s not get into this which states matter by general election standards since the electorates are totally different it’s just silly.
FWIW I am not discomfited by the rancor. In case you hadn’t noticed, NYC is s great venue for rancor. It’s good to have a ‘spirited debate’–this is important stuff. In any case, I’m damned sure to vote DemocratIC in the Fall.
. . . that point?”
No harm, if the point is accurate (feel free to substitute “valid”, “true”, “reality-based”, etc., for “accurate”; not exact synonyms, but close enough for blog-comment work).
Plenty of harm if it isn’t.
Is
a fact (as it’s presented in your post)?
Or is that merely Clinton’s characterization (self-serving? questionably accurate? gosh, what a shock that would be: “I am shocked–shocked–to find that gambling is going on in here!”) of his position?
I really enjoyed Bernie’s Washington Square rally. He played all his hits. I understand the math and his long odds. It’s obvious that many people don’t get why it’s important he run as a Democratic candidate (to give us our party back).
I also know that when I read things like this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senate-republicans-judicial-confirmations_us_570c0ab3e4b0885fb50
df519?cna2qtq8bzk3mcxr
It is obvious that the GOP must be stopped. I am voting for whoever wins the Democratic Party nomination, so I too have no problem with the rancor.