Reading List for Congress Members

14 Comments

1. 

   Brendan Skwire on April 17, 2013 at 10:41 pm

   I want every senator that voted No to personally feel the grief of a lived one lost to gun violence. And not a distant relation either. I’d love it if God went Biblical on their first born.

2. 

   JeffL on April 17, 2013 at 10:52 pm

   Both IL senators voted for the background check: Durbin and even Repub Mark Kirk.  Kirk knows what this state wants.  But he is going to have to switch parties to have a chance to win his next election in 2016.

3. 

   BooMan on April 17, 2013 at 11:12 pm

   The most inexplicable vote was on the Leahy amendment that called for stronger penalties for straw purchasers.  

   • 

     Phil Perspective on April 18, 2013 at 1:31 am

     Why was it inexplicable?  The GOP/NRA wants any nut to be able to get a gun how ever they can get it.

4. 

   BooMan on April 17, 2013 at 11:20 pm

   A fertilizer plant in West, Texas (yes, that’s the name of the town) blew the hell up.  

   • 

     Marie2 on April 17, 2013 at 11:42 pm

     Here’s a live feed

     • 

       BooMan on April 17, 2013 at 11:54 pm

       Check this out.

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         Phil Perspective on April 18, 2013 at 1:28 am

         Yeah .. what the hell was he thinking?  When a fertilizer plant catches fire, the best thing to do is to get the f-ck away.  Far, far away.

       • 

         clearskies on April 18, 2013 at 1:51 pm

         Holy crap

5. 

   BooMan on April 17, 2013 at 11:41 pm

   Gabby Giffords:

   SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

   On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms — a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

   Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

   I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.

   Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on.

   I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

   People have told me that I’m courageous, but I have seen greater courage. Gabe Zimmerman, my friend and staff member in whose honor we dedicated a room in the United States Capitol this week, saw me shot in the head and saw the shooter turn his gunfire on others. Gabe ran toward me as I lay bleeding. Toward gunfire. And then the gunman shot him, and then Gabe died. His body lay on the pavement in front of the Safeway for hours.

   I have thought a lot about why Gabe ran toward me when he could have run away. Service was part of his life, but it was also his job. The senators who voted against background checks for online and gun-show sales, and those who voted against checks to screen out would-be gun buyers with mental illness, failed to do their job.

   They looked at these most benign and practical of solutions, offered by moderates from each party, and then they looked over their shoulder at the powerful, shadowy gun lobby — and brought shame on themselves and our government itself by choosing to do nothing.

   They will try to hide their decision behind grand talk, behind willfully false accounts of what the bill might have done — trust me, I know how politicians talk when they want to distract you — but their decision was based on a misplaced sense of self-interest. I say misplaced, because to preserve their dignity and their legacy, they should have heeded the voices of their constituents. They should have honored the legacy of the thousands of victims of gun violence and their families, who have begged for action, not because it would bring their loved ones back, but so that others might be spared their agony.

   This defeat is only the latest chapter of what I’ve always known would be a long, hard haul. Our democracy’s history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate — people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.

   Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.

   • 

     euzoius on April 18, 2013 at 8:42 am

     Eloquent statement by Giffords, but eloquence carries no weight whatever in our failed “conservative” nation.

     Neither does the mountains of data on how many people are being injured by the ocean of firearms we insanely live in.  Indeed, we quickly get told that we’ve never been “safer”, there’s never been less violent crime than now, gun play was more common in the 50s, etc, etc, which is the NRA’s main argument, indeed they credit their guns for this supposed Golden Age of American Safety. I’d say that’s reeking bullshit, but it’s not my job to know the stats.

     Every state is a different story.  I’d say most folks in the braindead Deep Red states simply don’t care about the endless stories of gun deaths and injuries, including in their states.  They are the ones gorging on the “Obammy’s takin’ yur guns!” conspiracy theories.  All their senators (except McStooge) just voted to do nothing. The deaths and injuries are just a cost of their warped and perverted idea of “liberty”—waterin’ the tree o’ liberty—a vile deformation of a noble concept, mutilated by the monstrous “conservative” movement and putrid NRA fiends like LaPierre.

     On the other hand, Blue states like IL and NY had municipal handgun bans—but the 5 “conservative” male activists on the Repub Supreme Court have made up a phony second amendment gun “right” and invalidated these blue state gun bans.  Thus the states that have sane citizens can’t do anything thanks to the “conservative” federal courts.  

     So the Red State morans don’t care and the Blue State citizens have been hamstrung.  As for the Congress, I still can’t figure out the motivation of the naysayers.  Were they really “afraid” of the NRA?  The polls would seem to indicate that fear was baseless.  

     Instead, I think this was an anti-Obama political statement vote.  The naysayers are mostly from states that hate Obama and voted against him (with some exceptions of course—the turd Grassley was able to filibuster even though Iowans voted for Obama and likely strongly favor some gun action.  And Tester was able to vote for cloture, but not Baucus.) Obama must be turned into a lame duck and the process starts by defeating legislation he strongly backed.  So that’s what these Repubs did.  It’s always about defeating the hated Obama.  What the country needs comes a poor second.  Party over country, always.

     America is a degenerating society and nation.  It is degenerating because of a horrible political movement called “conservatism”, which has been created and funded by plutocrats for decades.  It has now totally paralyzed the gub’mint.  The rest of the world can see this, although we cannot.  We are a global disgrace and at some point the effects of that will begin to kick in.  The rest of the world isn’t going to be led by the blind and the cretinized.        

     • 

       BooMan on April 18, 2013 at 9:01 am

       McCain voted against stronger penalties for straw purchasers.  Screw him.  

6. 

   Geov Parrish on April 18, 2013 at 12:24 am

   Yeah, but the kids and adults in those incidents who died now are FREE. Really, really, really free.

7. 

   blue moon on April 18, 2013 at 9:40 am

   My wish is for every progressive activist to remember this moment.

   Have we ever been prouder of our President?  Has he ever been a stronger leader?  Has he ever represented us, fought for our interests, better than he has today?  Has any other President?

   I want us all to remember what it’s like to hear the President speak for 13 minutes on our behalf with absolute conviction.  To put the full weight of his position behind either persuading the people who vote on that law or galvanizing the public against them.

   I want us to remember the thirteen minutes of his speech in the Rose Garden so when we find ourselves speaking about political capital, about his powerlessness in the face of an unyielding minority, about the political realities that determine his behavior, we will stop and recognize these arguments as rationalizations for self-interest and cowardice, whether they be his, his advisers’, or our own.  When we ask another progressive “What is he supposed to do?”, I want us to answer our own question with today’s speech.  I want every progressive to understand that for each of us, this speech exists for an issue that we care deeply about.  We can hear it as clearly as the speech spoken out loud today. We know it by heart, even if the sentences have yet to be composed. And when we argue with each other about where the President stands on an issue, it is only because today’s speech has yet to be uttered.