Tag Archives: Roy Blunt

Sen. Roy Blunt (r): ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

18 Wednesday Jul 2018

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Ignoring the elephant in the room.

Roy Blunt (r) [2016 file photo].

This morning, via Twitter, from Senator Roy Blunt (r):

Senator Roy Blunt @RoyBlunt
The economy is strong
Americans are keeping more of their hard-earned paycheck
Unemployment is at an 18 year low
#Smallbiz confidence is at record high
10:58 AM – 18 Jul 2018

Oh, and we are a Russian client state.

Some of the responses to Roy Blunt (r):

Only one #Missouri senator holds a town hall, and it isn’t you.
Only one #MO Senator accepts $47,000.00 from the NRA, and it sure isn’t @clairecmc !
What did #Russia get for its money from you, @RoyBluntMO ? What will you do to protect this state’s free and fair #2018elections?

“Across the Heartland, #farmers, factory workers and business leaders are speaking out against the disastrous #TrumpTariffs that are costing American #jobs.”

Yet real wages are falling. Missourians are concerned about lgbt rights, separation of immigration families, the environment, climate change, govt corruption, pls hold a town hall your constituents would like to talk with you

Only @clairecmc does that. Roy is lucky to remember what state he (mis)represents.

i get an extra $6.20 a month. SO MUCH MONEY!!

Don’t waste it now, you know, on things like increased health care and food prices!!

Adjusted for inflation, wage growth is flat or falling. US debt setting records. Corps using tax cuts for stock buybacks. Opioid addiction in MO is high – and most now cannot afford health care. Hottest year on record. Gobal alliances are weakened.

Read the papers, Senator.

They’re a cult of complicit money whores, bought & paid for.

The few who aren’t have apparently bought stock in Kool Aid.

You are a United States Senator. One of my Senators. Stop using emojis. Running the government does not require elementary school graphics.

It was probably a staffer. That tells you a lot, too.

Hold the president accountable for his actions

and Republicans keep on committing treason

The treason is strong too.

Yeah that extra $1.50 is really helping my family. Plus it really helped my college educated friends with their minimum wage job!

So who cares if the president is in bed with Russia?

What we want to hear from you is that you stand for America and not Russia. That you are appalled at the Russian interference in our election and pledge to take EVERY possible action to stop it and prevent it. #TreasonSummit

Deficit at record high

All republicans consider that a feature, not a bug.

The forgotten people are still forgotten. Only the rich benefited from what you said.

Oh yeah, treason much?

You forgot to mention our reputation and influence is getting to an all time low around the world….

And ol’ Cash & Carry Blunt keeps collecting dollars from the NRA and other corporate sponsors. Makin’ out like a bandit, Roy.

And the president you blindly support is selling the US to Russia. Makes me wonder what Putin has on you, Roy…

Those paychecks are smaller and are not keeping pace with inflation. Meanwhile, the richest grow richer. #GOPTaxScam.

And our debt has increased a trillion dollars with this administration. Your failure to stand up to Trump is endangerong our country.

You need to rein In Trump

Yeah, average American is just seeing so much more. Whatever.

In what world is small business confidence high? And I’d gladly pay more taxes to have guaranteed healthcare and roads that don’t blow out tires and suspension. Those cost money too.

Emoji day is over, Roy. Americans’ wages are stagnant, despite massive corporate subsidies you gave away in January. Wealth & income inequality gaps have never been larger. Our President has proven over & over that he’s a puppet of an adverse foreign power. But you. Do. Nothing.

I still don’t want Vladimir Putin engineering and hijacking my vote and the election!

Meanwhile, my healthcare costs have gone up (& will skyrocket during next plan year with the destabilization of healthcare markets & drug costs) increased gas costs, higher interest rates, tariff wars. Any Tax savings are offset by a major rise in expenditures. Get back to work!

Gas is at an 8 year high, health insurance premiums have increased 40%, medication costs are up 20-100%, rural hospitals are closing, tariffs are costing farmers over 20% in losses and cutting Missouri companies to close. You cannot spin this. People KNOW they are worse off.

You know, Senator, administration figures show hourly pay stagnating or dropping slightly. I hope you and your donors aren’t suffering too much these days. The cost of living is going up. Will you all be OK?

Oh good grief. Surely you know that unemployment has been low for a long time and in fact should NOT go lower or else it will trigger inflation. UNDER employment is still rampant and not helped by the #GOP one whit.

Our “hard-earned” paychecks are smaller (real wages are down), insurance costs are rising due to your sabotage, and the deficit will hit $1 trillion.

If you try to distract from your complicity in treason, at least have the honesty not to cherry-pick your economic stats.

I’m not keeping more of my paycheck and my health insurance premium went up. Btw, why is Trump so chummy with Putin and when are the children of immigrants going to be reunited?

Wages are flat. Your tax policies don’t justify your support for a President that sided with Putin over America.

Some people are currently doing well, the voters you care about. Other Missourians are not faring so well under Trump. Also, OUR VERY DEMOCRACY IS IN DANGER because our president is beholden to Putin and nobody in your party sees fit to do anything.

Our president is committing treason ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Liar

Where are wages? Have you checked the data? And when are you going to get rid of @realDonaldTrump that Liar-in-Chief?

Wages are down and president is a traitor – recession likely on the way – thanks gop!!!

Goods are costing more due to tariffs and the monies in our accounts are less because of #TrumpTariffs. This is not an overall advancement of the people of America.

If the economy is so strong why are wages stagnant?

Treasonous acts at an all time high

And if you support Trump, you’re no better than he is.

And our president puts Putin first and you blindly go along with it

I get an extra $250 per month! Of course, that’s because I now pay for all of my own medical bills out of pocket, so…. Yeah. That’s not better at all.

You’re delusional and laughably out of touch, Blunt. I can’t wait to vote against you!

We have a Russian stooge in the White House. Step up – #Historyhasalongmemory

What will your legacy be? Will the history books reflect that YOU stood & defended our country from this petulant president…, Or YOU defended & stood with him?

Any little bit middle class got being eaten up by higher gas prices and rising prices because of trump and GOP tariffs. Pharmacy industry and rich people like you got the biggest share. Quit saying you are for middle class Americans

You can say this bullshit every day, but most working people live with the reality and stress of the current labor market.

Besides you’re a senator not a freaking hype man. There is a #tradewar and #traitor that you should be dealing with.

Farmers are hurting.
The rich keep getting richer.
The poor keep getting poorer.
POTUS just brown nosed the heck out of PUTIN.
But you keep feeding us those emojis, Blunt.

Our president is a traitor! Do something!!!

45 just handed our democracy to Putin. You need to get on the #rightsideofhistory and IMPEACH. #Treasonsummit #TrumpPutinSummit #HelsinkiSummit2018

…and our @POTUS is a traitor.

Touting the economy right now is a distraction from your man Trump making traitorous remarks overseas. Better keep up Roy, everyone else is paying attention.

Trump is a traitor. When are you going to defend democracy! That’s what you swore to do. #GOPComplicit

None of that would change if we get rid of the elephant in the room.
Once the elephant is gone we can all be confident in the future.

Shame on you Senator. The Traitor just committed a public act of Treason against the American People and you are carrying on like business as usual. You have a duty: protect the Republic. End this Presidency now.

Russia
Do something
Russia

You lie for a traitor.

And you’re fucking silent as our President sells us out to Russia.

Meanwhile, our pussy-grabbing President colludes with a murderous dictator. Tweet about that.

The president is a traitor
Americans are tired of your complacency
You are a puppet to the rich
#youdontworkforMO
#25thAmendmentNow

They seem to be a little upset.

Fake News Flash – Roy Blunt wins healthcare awards.

11 Wednesday Jul 2018

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Yesterday I wrote about how gobsmacked I was to receive two glossy mailers asking me to thank GOP Senator Roy Blunt for “being a champion of Medicare access,” and for “being a 2018 champion of Health Care Innovation.”  My reaction was due to the fact that Blunt  has been a reliable foot-soldier in the GOP war against expanding healthcare access, including, as I noted,  mumblecore disavowals of pre-existing conditions protections. He’s also expressed his distaste for Medicare in the past.

The next question is just who is trying to help Senator Blunt pull the wool over Missourians’ eyes? The mailers state that they are paid for by the American Life Sciences Innovation Council (ALSIC) and the Alliance for Patient Access (AfPA) respectively. So who do these groups represent? Not too hard to figure out when one consults the InterWebs:

AfPA.jpg

The Alliance for Patient Access, featured in the brochure above, is a straight-out big pharma controlled entity that uses unwitting journalists and greedy or insecure politicians to push “platforms that help drug companies’ bottom lines”:

The AfPA offers cover for lawmakers who carry out the pharmaceutical industry’s agenda, some observers say. In one striking example, the group accepted $7.8 million in 2014 and 2015 to give Medicare “Patient Access Champion” awards to members of Congress, according to its IRS disclosures for those years. The AfPA annual report shows that 50 awards were presented. The awards appear to be a way to thank cooperative legislators while also pressuring them and others to enact the AfPA’s policy agenda. […]

Some say those awards […] shielded lawmakers from criticism for voting against Medicare cost controls, such as an independent rate-setting board and other measures.

 

ALSIC.jpg

The American Life Sciences Innovation Council, which awarded Blunt a similar “healthcare champion” award, isn’t the  501(c)(3) charitable, non-profit educational organization that it seems to be, but instead works to influence “the effects of government regulation on key factors that drive life science innovation,” which is to say,  the bottom line of the medical and pharmaceutical companies whose creation it undoubtedly is. It spends the bulk of its income on activities such as robo-calls touting he “winners” of their awards, as well as mailers like the one above or newspaper ads pushing the same message (There have been several of these ads in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in recent months; I’d bet good money that they’ve appeared in other newspapers around the state.)

Upshot? It’s all fake. Senator Blunt is no healthcare hero or defender of Medicare. He’s just another good ol’ boy wallowing in the swamp.

Roy Blunt hustles to hide his healthcare history

10 Tuesday Jul 2018

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I can remember back in the day, when Obamacare was just a gleam in the of the Democratic-majority  congress and GOP Senator Roy Blunt was one of the point persons in the GOP House effort to preserve the status quo of the American healthcare mess. Nor do I remember that he bucked House or Senate leadership, or, more recently, the Trump administration in any of their efforts to destroy or destabilize healthcare delivery to Americans. He, in fact, continues to spout misleading and dishonest claims about the ACA.

All of which made me scratch my head in wonderment when I received a couple of glossy mailers touting Blunt, who was on the record as saying a few years ago that he thought Medicare was a mistake,  as a “champion of Medicare access,” and as a “healthcare champion.” Whew!  Do you, like me, think that somebody’s shoveling some of that old time barnyard fragrance producer that’s so prevalent in the GOP political world?

Maybe ol’ Roy heard the folks who were making all that noise when Trump and his collection of more or less ornamental GOP congressional garden gnomes actually went after the ACA last summer. Perhaps, as a result, he’s decided that he needs to make some adjustments to his messaging and cover his tracks.

Consider  his message on coverage for pre-existing conditions back in 2010 when he was actively carrying water for GOP forces fighting against improved healthcare delivery:

Access for kids who have pre-existing conditions, who would be against that? But access for adults, who have done nothing to take care of themselves, who actually will have as I’ve just described every incentive not to get insurance until the day that you know that you’re going to have medical expenses, that’s, that’s a very different kind of story.

Now contrast that bit of flim-flam  with ol’ Roy’s line in 2017:

Since my days in the House, I have supported providing insurance options for people with pre-existing conditions. As we move forward, I’ll work with my colleagues to be sure that no one is denied the care they need based on a pre-existing condition.

Admittedly, if you parse this phrase carefully, there’s lots of weasel language. But it’s equally hard to deny that he wants Missourians to believe that he supports the popular Obamacare provision. More importantly, it essentially contradicts his 2010 “personal responsibility” attempt to divert folks from the tragedies that typified healthcare for the millions of Americans suffering from chronic disease – through no fault of their own, contrary to Blunt’s claim.

So where does the “tight-lipped” (for a reason) Senator really stand? For instance, has anyone heard him endorse or condemn fellow-GOPer Josh Hawley’s participation in a court fight that would end protections for those with pre-existing conditions? Shouldn’t that be the next test for the wooden-faced guy who talks out of both sides of his mouth so adeptly.

 

Senator Roy Blunt (r): suffer the little children

20 Wednesday Jun 2018

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A mom got so fed up with Donald Trump’s decision to separate children from their families at the border that she took to social media to see if fifteen or so friends would join her in front of Senator Roy Blunt’s (r) office at Tenth and Walnut in Kansas City to express their concerns. That was on Monday. By this morning over four hundred individuals expressed their support and over one hundred people joined Wendy Baird in front of the building entrance at 10:00 a.m.

“[multiple voices]…We don’t have time for legislation. There’s over twenty-three hundred children, taken away from their parents. That’s a statement? You’re saying that’s untrue? The children taken away, that’s not a true number, is that what you’re saying? Okay. So you guys agree that they’re taking the children away and all he has to do is pick up the phone, but he’s refusing to pick up the phone. This is not a law and you guys know that. And so everybody here knows it. It’s not a law, it’s a policy. [crosstalk] Twenty-three hundred children who are crying for their parents. This is abuse. This is child abuse. I’m a mandated reporter. You’re a mandated reporter. We should call the hotline. Every one of us should call the hotline, we’re mandated reporters. It’s not ridiculous. Completely, no, they’re children. My children [crosstalk], what would she do? It’s an outrage. I know. Do you have children? This has got to hit here, right? Breastfeeding babies…”

“…[multiple voices] This [bill] needs to include an act to reunite these families, to get these children back to their parents, not just to stop it in the future. To reunite the six thousand, the eleven thousand children that are being detained. Right now. They need to be home with their families immediately. And right now there is no plan. There is no plan. There is no plan. These children, we’re basically creating orphans. Investigate the facilities. [cross talk][inaudible] A Texas non-profit got a half a billion dollars to take care of these children this week. They do not plan on reuniting them. That is sick. And they’re opening more facilities and they’re calling them tender age facilities. George Orwell talked about this kind of talk where you make words that don’t make sense and sound better than what they are. Tender age facilities are places for babies to be housed like jail…”

“…[multiple voices] What is your opinion. I would like to know as a fellow citizen what your opinion on this is. I’m here to take notes. I would like to know what your opinion is…”

Wendy Baird, speaking to Senator Roy Blunt’s (r) staff.

“[multiple voices]…That is a lie. It is not mandated. [crosstalk] It’s separation of families. Jeff Sessions said we’re gonna start this [crosstalk][inaudible]. He could do something. All he has to do is pick up the phone. Introduce it, legislation. I’ll pass it on to him. I, I would like him to take another look at Feinstein’s bill because I feel like this is not doing enough. Why do we have to have a new bill? [crosstalk] It’s clean and it doesn’t have anything to do with the wall and o they’re not going to have anything to do with it. Because they wanted to have the wall.[crosstalk] Are we creating state sponsored orphans…”

“[multiple voices]…When are we going to have a town hall meeting with Senator Blunt? There you go. Town hall meeting. [crosstalk]…”

“[chant]…Reunite the families. Reunite the families. Reunite the families…”

“[chant]…Hey, hey, ho, ho, this policy has got to go. Hey, hey, ho, ho, this policy has got to go. Hey, hey, ho, ho, this policy has got to go…”

Senator Roy Blunt’s (r) staff.

Previously:

Wendy Baird, a mom, age “thirty-something”, from Independence, Missouri and Senator Roy Blunt (r) (June 20, 2018)

Wendy Baird, a mom, age “thirty-something”, from Independence, Missouri and Senator Roy Blunt (r)

20 Wednesday Jun 2018

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My money’s on Wendy Baird.

A mom got so fed up with Donald Trump’s decision to separate children from their families at the border that she took to social media to see if fifteen or so friends would join her in front of Senator Roy Blunt’s (r) office at Tenth and Walnut in Kansas City to express their concerns. That was on Monday. By this morning over four hundred individuals expressed their support and over one hundred people joined Wendy Baird in front of the building entrance at 10:00 a.m.

Wendy Baird.

Show Me Progress: …Why did you come here today?

Wendy Baird: We are here to ask, uh, Senator Roy Blunt to encourage President Trump to make one phone call to Home, to the Department of Homeland Security. It’s his cabinet member, he can ask her to stop this at any time. And that’s what we want him to do.

Show Me Progress: Uh, again, why you?

Wendy Baird: I’m just a thirty something stay at home mom. I had to do something. it broke my heart to hear about these poor kids. We know it’s traumatic for children to be in any kind of situation like that. It’s not good for them. it’s not good for their hearts, it’s not good for their brains, and there’s no reason for it. Um, no other administration would touch this with a ten foot pole. Um, but we’re doing it and apparently we’re all in. And we need to stop.

Show Me Progress: So, what was the reaction of people who you know as you started to organize this?

Wendy Baird: Um, they were fully behind it. Not everybody could come today. I understand, it’s ten o’clock on a weekday morning. Um, but we’re still gonna have a really good group I think. And those who couldn’t be here, they’re calling, they’re emailing, they’re contacting Senator Blunt and that’s, that’s all we can do.

Show Me Progress: How would you characterize, those, they people you know, as you’ve communicated with, their reaction to this?

Wendy Baird: It’s wrong.

Show Me Progress: It’s pretty universal?

Wendy Baird: I, I think so. I think it is pretty universal. Um, like two thirds of the country are against separating families. I don’t think it matters if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, it’s not who we are. We can do better. We don’t need to separate children from their families.

Building security and Police inside the building entrance.

Prompted by one hundred or so moms and their kids (and a few grandparents, too, probably)?

Since they couldn’t go up to Senator Blunt’s (r) office they spoke to two of his staff members who came down to listen to them. People were insistent, refused to accept bland assurances, and didn’t back down.

Speaking to Senator Roy Blunt’s (r) staff outside his office.

In Missouri we’re used to plain speaking people from Independence. You’d think Roy Blunt (r) would get that.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D): And…

18 Monday Jun 2018

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Where’s Roy?

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) [2018 file photo].

This morning, from Senator Claire McCaskill

Claire McCaskill @clairecmc
What she said.

Laura Bush @laurawbush
I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.

10:31 AM – 18 Jun 2018

Previously:

At this point even a Truth and Reconciliation Commission can’t save the American experiment (June 17, 2018)

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D): Keep those calls coming… (June 17, 2018)

The price of all our souls was a tax cut for billionaires (June 17, 2018)

At least he made the trains run on time …

20 Sunday May 2018

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Wish I had a nickel, dime or whatever for every time I’ve heard somebody excusing Mussolini’s fascist coup by referring to those timely trains. Which may be why I was so gob-smacked by Republican Senator Roy Blunt’s comments when asked to react to the fact that the current occupant of the White House lies consistently. Blunt refused to engage with the substance, declaring that :

It would [be a problem] “if we weren’t getting things done,” Blunt responded. “What the regulators are doing. … The tax package, better than I would have expected. I think the foreign policy, the president was left with lots of problems. We had about eight years where we acted like the United States of America was basically any other country in the world. And a lot of things got off track during that eight years.”

So, as far as Blunt is concerned, Trump can do no wrong, he can lie, collude with Russians and curry favor from Vladimir Putin, and enrich himself with taxpayer money as long as he delivers on goodies that Blunt has been trying to get for his rich cronies. Because that’s what “getting things done” means.

Stop and think about that list of achievements: The justly unpopular and deficit-busting tax cut for the wealthy? Deregulation? Tell me in a few years how you like living in a country where basic health, consumer and social protections – air and water pollution and our food supply,  for instance – are left to the tender mercies of corporate America. Foreign policy? You gotta be joking. – and don’t give me any backchat about Korea now that it seems more and more likely that the naive and egoistic Trump  is getting played two ways to Sunday.

Funny thing is, the claim that Italian fascists managed to make the trains run on time is equally spurious.  As Brian Cathcart put it in The Independent, “like almost all the supposed achievements of Fascism, the timely trains are a myth, nurtured and propagated by a leader with a journalist’s flair for symbolism, verbal trickery and illusion.”

Sounds a bit like that prominent liar that Blunt is so eager to defend, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, folks like Madeleine Albright* are warning us that if the tendencies that Trump embodies are left unchecked, the U.S., like Italy, could also go the fascist route:

“The possibility that fascism will be accorded a fresh chance to strut around the world stage is enhanced by the volatile presidency of Donald Trump,” Albright warns.  “Instead of standing up for the values of a free society, Mr. Trump’s oft-vented scorn for democracy’s building blocks has strengthened the hands of dictators. No longer need they fear United States criticism regarding human rights or civil liberties. On the contrary, they can and do point to Mr. Trump’s own words to justify their repressive actions,” she adds.

In order to save our democracy Albright recommends  “defending the truth in the press, [and] recognizing that no one is above the law, ” both efforts that Blunt eschews because, under Trump, “we” are “getting things done.” I can hear that fascist choo-choo train pulling into the station right on time.

As Snopes observes about Mussolini and the ubiquitous trains trope, if you can’t –  or won’t – govern to benefit the majority of the people, “the next best thing is to convince them that you have done something of benefit to them, even though you really haven’t.” Trumpism – and today’s GOP – in a  nutshell.

*Typo corrected; Albrecht changed to Albright 5/20/18, 11:19.

Until this changes…

25 Sunday Mar 2018

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…nothing will get done.

Yesterday at the March for Our Lives in Kansas City:

“The only thing easier to buy than a gun is a republican senator.”

Register to vote. Get out the vote. Vote in November. If you don’t, you’re the problem.

Previously:

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – in Theis Park on Saturday, March 24, 2018 (March 20, 2018)

Another sign for the times (March 23, 2018)

March for Our Lives – Warrensburg, Missouri – March 24, 2018 (March 24, 2017)

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – Theis Park – March 24, 2018 – signs (March 24, 2018)

Are we tired of 2nd Amendment overkill (and I do mean kill) yet?

24 Saturday Mar 2018

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I wasn’t able to attend the St. Louis version March for our Lives in which thousands participated in at least 800 cities over the entire country. An estimated 500,000 showed up for the “mother” march in D.C., there were 20 blocks of marching people in New York – you get the idea; the marches were a big deal. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the downtown St. Louis event (there are other local marches as well) drew at least 10,000 participants, including Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill. No Roy Blunt though; he seems to be okay with turning our schools into killing grounds as long as he gets those NRA checks.

There have also been a small sprinkling of pro-gun counter-protests as well, at least fifteen according to one accounting. Counter marches weren’t necessarily that impressive though. The one in Phoenix Arizona only managed to attract about two dozen participants while the Phoenix iteration of the March for our Lives brought out 15,000 marchers. Politicians, take note.

What was impressive about the pro-NRA gun-love demonstrators , though, is how tired and stale their rhetoric has become. It has always been dishonest; what I’m talking about is the fact that it seems at this point to be no more than a parody – and a dull-witted parody at that.

In Montana, which, along with the highest gun ownership rates, has the most gun deaths in the U.S.,  a local politician proclaimed apropos of the student-inspired rallies that:

I have a basic right that’s not granted by society — it’s granted by God — to self-defense, […] I don’t see how people in society can make the argument that they have the right to take a right from me because one person did something bad.

I have to admit that the gentleman’s narrative did differ from the same ol’, same ol’  reliance on an unsupported belief in an alll-permissive 2nd Amendment. This old boy infers that the right to carry guns is, by virtue of a gargantuan leap of logic, God-given. But by the same logic, don’t I and millions of other Americans have a right to defend ourselves from the legion of often hair-trigger fools who think they need guns to stay safe? As a student attending the Helena March for our Lives put it, “We don’t want anybody’s constitutional rights taken away, [… ] but we don’t want those rights to infringe on others’ rights to be able to exist safely in public spaces.”

Mr. Montana Pro-gun Pol himself bolsters my argument when he insists that  his rights might be abrogated “because one person did something bad.” Sorry, but the reason we’re considering regulating guns (as in well-regulated militia, per the Constitution) is that thousands of persons did and continue to do “something bad” with their guns, putting thousands more at risk. The catch-phrase favored by him and his is right. People kill people. Far too often people with guns. It’s just so easy to point and pull a trigger. And when that trigger is on a military-style assault gun – whooee – shooter’s going to town! Consider the fact that since the Parkland, Fla. murder of 17 high school students – a period of 37 days – 73 teenagers have been killed by guns.

Well-indoctrinated gun nuts do usually invoke the Constitution to justify their fury at any suggestion that gun ownership might be regulated in any way, and there were numerous quotes to that effects from folks at the counter-protests who were all hot and bothered because, they contended, the pro-gun control marchers were using their 1st Amendment rights to oppose the 2nd Amendment rights that the pro-gun demonstrators believe they have. Unfortunately, even the Supreme Court decision, District of Columbia v. Heller, that codified the idea of a 2nd Amendment right to private ownership of guns, also seems to have green-lighted common sense regulations of the sort that are currently being promulgated by those folks exercising their 1st Amendment rights:

 On pp. 54 and 55, the majority opinion, written by conservative bastion Justice Antonin Scalia, states:  “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…”. It is “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

“Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

 “We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller (an earlier case) said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time”. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ ” 

The court even recognizes a long-standing judicial precedent “…to consider… prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons.”

Won’t somebody educate the 2nd Amendment crazies about the Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court in interpreting it?

One attendee at an Indiana counter protest declared with a straight face that, “as a parent I feel horrible for the kids that were killed [… .] But you don’t say, ‘Hey there’s 200 deaths from drinking and driving and now we take all the cars away from people.’”

Newsflash, Dad. Regulating guns doesn’t require confiscation of legal firearms. Nor is the automotive comparison viable. We do regulate (i.e., license) drivers of cars – I personally lack a license because of a physical impairment that makes me a risky driver. You should be glad that I can’t get that license. But plenty of people continue to own and drive cars. There are also age requirements to buy alcohol. These measures may not always be effective or prevent all drinking and driving accidents, but I – and the individual quoted above – are lots safer than we would be because they exist.

When it comes to guns, we know that states with extended background checks, for instance, have had “35 percent fewer gun deaths per capita than those without the requirement. ” And guess what? There are folks in those states, those upstanding gun owners that the NRA likes to pretend that it represents,  who continue to own guns in spite of the stronger gun laws. Nobody took away their guns.

Finally, the  most stupid stance taken by the pro-gun crowd? Over and over they either called the gun-control marchers leftists, socialists, communists, or naive folks manipulated by leftists, socialists or communists.* Big Whoop. First, it’s not true;  polls  suggest that even a fair number of Republicans believe guns should be better regulated and there was Republican support for the March for our Lives. Those tired political labels are losing their power to scare anyone born later than 1960. Armed right-wing militias are lots scarier to many of us.

To borrow a slogan from a sign photographed at one of gun control rallies today, “Guns don’t kill people …. er, yes, they do.”

*ADDENDUM (3/25/18, 2:48): In addition the NRA is claiming the high schoolers are puppets of “Hollywood elites” and “gun-hating millionaires” – which is rich coming from an organization that, along with the  the Kochs and the rest of the dark money cabal, now owns most GOP politicians who are, once again, toeing the NRA line.

 

Sen. Roy Blunt (r): “data services”

20 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in campaign finance, Roy Blunt, social media, US Senate

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“He knows when you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake…”

Roy Blunt (r) [2016 file photo].

From the Federal Election Commission:

Spender Recipient State Description Disbursement date Amount

FRIENDS OF ROY BLUNT CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA NY DATA SERVICES 10/09/2015 $12,000.00

Anyone think we’ll get an explanation?