Gimme Money
Not a few observers have noted the Democratic silence on gun control issues in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. I saw Montana’s Dem Governor Brian Schweitzer on Bill Maher’s show over the weekend and he frankly made an ass of himself on the subject. All he could do was stammer about the glory of the Second Amendment.
Perhaps a more significant issue that Democrats have mostly given up on, however, is serious campaign finance reform. That’s about as dead an issue as you can name, nowhere to be found on Speaker Pelosi’s agenda.
And there’s some really good reasons as to why the new Dem majority doesn’t want to tamper with the current system of legalized bribery. Investigative reporter Ken Silverstein totals up all those reasons, finding that corporate cash once earmarked for the GOP is now flowing in the other direction.
Moneyed special interests also read the newspaper and can easily figure out which side of the toast is now better to butter. Congressional Democrats are now starting to out -fundraise their Republicans rivals. Among those raking in big, even record, bundles of cash are Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and seasoned porkster Jack Murtha.
As Sliverstein notes: “Hoyer’s donors aren’t giving him money for his re-election campaign; they’re making tribute payments in recognition of his enhanced status in Congress, and down payments on favors they’ll be looking for down the road.”
Also listed among the favored new recipients of corporate largesse are members of the powerful appropriations committees, the finance committees and the armed services committees i.e. where the most lucrative contracting power resides.
This is absolutely nothing of which the Democrats should be proud. Only one more symptom of system increasingly closed to ordinary voters.
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I don’t get why so many on the left complain of corporate influence in politics, and thus over the state; of unjust law enforcement; and at the same time want to disarm the populace, even if (granted) a Glock on every bedstead won’t bring on the Revolution.
I admire the Spaniard who landed on a desert island, and asked one of the locals if they had a government. When told they did, he puffed out his chest and proclaimed, “Then I’m against it!” He didn’t support gun control.
Neither do I.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:29 pm
“Puffed out his chest” being the operative phrase.
Can’t argue with much of anything here. I’d like to say the Dems lack of action on these issues takes place in spite of the heathy, fearless, damn the torpedoes arguements you are constantly seeing in the alturnative press (“show us the way,
wise punduts!”) but…..ah… sorry.
In fact, Counterpunch followed the day after Virgina Tech with
the most juvenile pro Gun piece imaginable by Reagan bimbo
Paul Craig Roberts, and the site went downhill from there. Alex wants armed teachers. Frankly, if any progress steming from the disaster is to made ( more restrictions on handguns of mass distruction) it is more likely to be made after the media feeding frenzy has died down.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
“…seasoned porkster…”
That made me laugh out loud as I agreed , Marc.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Special interesting fundraising. That’s new.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:57 pm
One reason for the Democratic silence on new gun controls in the wake of Virginia Tech is the voters aren’t for new gun controls.
Actually, the existing laws should have worked. But government failed.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Nice primer for the chat with Ralph on the 29th.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Also failing was the university itself, well below its failure to warn its students of the first murders of the day.
That creepy kid terrorized students in his classes by his behavior and should have been expelled.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:11 pm
… That should read well BEFORE its failure to warn its students of the first murders of the day.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Okay, Grumps, let’s get the ball rolling here with some good discussion on the money in politics issue. I’ve heard you chime in on occasion regarding campaign finance reform and its unconstitutionality (or leaning in that direction, at least). Since you’re the most rational conservative who shows up on this site, I’m curious to hear your take on the matter.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
I watched Maher and the person who made an ass of himself on the gun control issue wasn’t Brian Schweitzer but the Right-Wing stooge John O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan claimed that the problem at VTech was simply that the killer broke the law in obtaining guns. Actually, the state of Virginia broke the law.
Under federal law this guy should not have been allowed to purchase guns based on his documented history of mental instability. I’m for a reasonable degree of gun control, but I agree with Howard Dean that this is an issue that has a regional component and it’s idiotic for urban liberals to impose their views as some sort of litmus test for Democrats. I think most urban liberals (like my wife) are totally clueless when it comes to the gun issue. Gun control is remarkably ineffective – the NRA is mostly right about the fact that criminal elements aren’t deterred by gun laws, as is obvious from statistics on crime involving guns in the areas where the sensibilities and legal schemes of urban liberals predominate (ref – Wash DC).
Before we start passing extensive new laws out of hysteria that freak out folks in Montana – who have far fewer problems with their guns than places like San Francisco that have near-total bans – let’s mandate firmer enforcement of the federal laws that already exist and end the exclusion on private and gun show sales. This is an issue in which reams of self-righteous bullshit that’s unrelated to either empirical data or common sense are steadily unleashed on both sides.
Also, the gun issue as regards Democrats like Schweitzer has virtually nothing to do with Marc’s larger and valid point about campaign finance and everything to do with regional variations in voters’ opinions and experiences as regards the issue.
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:40 pm
For once I agree with Reg.
I think Alex Cockburn’s piece is on a little bit more than just arming teachers…
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:09 am
Marc, I’ve been a near-hysterical gun control advocate for most of my life. I’ve written about it, gotten loads of evil e-mails from NRA types because of it, and have very personal reasons for hating the ready availability of handguns—even beyond the irreparable grief I’ve seen in my years of gang reporting, all the result of the use of firearms.
That said, of late, I’ve come to feel as reg has said above. You pick your battles.
Yes, of course, the Virginia state legislature ought to look long and hard at its gun laws. They’re absurdly loose.
But on a national level, I can think of a good thirty issues I’d prefer to see addressed way ahead of gun control.
As for Schweitzer, I have zero criticism of him or Jon Tester, both of whom have been entirely consistent in their respective stands on the issue. And, like it or not, neither would be in office if they took a harder stance on gun control. As it was, the NRA threw a fortune behind defeating Tester, one of two people on whom the dem majority in the senate hung. Yet they’re both intelligent, decent officeholders who have a great deal to offer. Gun control, to paraphrase reg quoting Howard Dean, can’t be a litmus test for progressive sincerity.
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:09 am
“Also, the gun issue as regards Democrats like Schweitzer has virtually nothing to do with Marc’s larger and valid point about campaign finance and everything to do with regional variations in voters’ opinions and experiences as regards the issue.”
Amen. In my experience, there are some desolute areas of New Mexico, Oklahoma, and even Kansas where you want to have a firearm in your car and home. This is where big city liberals should not be allowed to impose a one size fits all approach on the entire country. Campaign finance and gun control are two separate areas.
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:40 am
Who was it that said, all politics are local? For our honeymoon in the late 70s, spouse and I quit our jobs and took a three month cross country camping trip. We started in New York, went down the eastern seaboard, west through the heartland, then north and west through the Rockies, down the west coast to SF, and east to Boulder, CO where we decided to stay. If I got nothing else out of that trek, it was the whack-between-the-eyes wonder that this country actually elects one president. Regional issues, indeed. There were lots of ways we could have done that trip, but hitting campsites coast to coast gave us ample opportunity, to take our time, talk with people, and get a sense of ‘place.’ We may be one country, but what worries we have are very much tied to the geography of where we live. While that was over 30 years ago, I suspect if we took that same trip again today, we’d be just as amazed. The one truly frightening moment of the trip happened when spouse parked the Ford Econoline van we’d outfitted for camping between a bull buffalo and his cows on one of the Indian reservations (I think that was in Montana, maybe Wyoming). That was the only occasion we experienced outright hostility over our origins from one of the ‘locals.’ We didn’t know jack about buffalo herd etiquette.
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:52 am
The regional issues are definitely complicated. Apart from the obviously different cases such as gun control in San Francisco vs. gun control in Kansas, there are cases which vary within regions. Within northern urban cities, which many people would agree are good cases for strict gun control, there are important differences. In Chicago for instance, there are two totally separate worlds that exist within a 30 mile radius. There are old ladies living on their own on the south side who NEED to keep a loaded gun in their homes. It is that bad in some areas. How strict should gun regulations be for them? I would say certainly less strict than for someone living in a more affluent and safer area just 10 miles to the north.
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:52 am
Marc’s larger point remains small, because he’s only willing to be critical of one party, on an issue that requires the ultimate in bipartisan thinking. Grumpy has floated his Gingritchesque “money is free speech” nonsense round these parts plenty of times, I never remember him being called out it. But when we are talking about the libreals it’s “legalized bribery.” But, thanks to Republican rule abortion rights are being seriously questioned for the first time in a generation, which may have been what Marc wanted in the first place. Thanks Ralph!
Reg, let me defend your wife’s honor. I know that serious, full time crooks are going to be able to get their guns in this country for the forseeable future. But I’ve known a few small time crooks. They tend to be aimless, lazy, unimaginative types; throw a few roadblocks in their way and they’ll shoplift for their drug money unarmed (the less dangerous way).
Isn’t it also true that even IF they had stopped the shooter from getting his gun with the loose laws in place, he could have easily gotten around them by going to a gun show? Doesn’t the element of the these small guns that can do machine gun style damage call into question the NRA’s whole “never give an inch”
policy? Do you really believe statistics suggest “gun control is remarkably ineffective?” Isn’t gun violence in big cities generally down since tighter restrictions have come in?
I think, across the board, we should have stopped worrying about freaking out poor Montana a long time ago. Such over represted hicks have done enough damage to the world in general.
Armed gaurds and students is definatly Cockburn’s solution. Any idiot who wants to drown on pro Gun, for whatever absurd reason, is pretty much welcome at “Counterpunch.”
He also says some possibly valid things about the casual prescribing of perscription drugs.
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 am
ment to say “anti-depressants.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:32 am
Over at AMERICABLOG last week Joe Sudbury – a spokesman for Handgun Control Inc. went into the conventional wisdom that gun control laws were a loser for Al Gore in 2000. Joe worked on that campaign and showed data that the candidate in a bind was George
Bush who, in 2000, supported both the assualt weapons ban and the Brady Bill – to the chagrin of his base and the NRA. Joe’s data showed that Gore could use the issue as a wedge with thatyear’s favorite target group: “Soccer Moms”. But, and this is SO Surprising, Gore’s high powered DC Advisors (paging mr Schrum, paging mr Penn) told him that he should steer clear of guns since it would hurt his chances going after the hunter vote in Tennessee, Arkansas, and other rural states and Gore listened. Just as he listened to them that he should distance himself from Bill Clinton because of the country’s “Clinton Fatigue” and that the Environment (particularly Global Warming) was a lose.
The real culprit here is the inbreeding that goes on in DC between high powered consultants – with their built-in conflict of interest over comissions for TV Ads – and the Great and the Good in the Punditocracy who know it all. Like MoDo and her fixation with haircuts or David Broder who just knows that Bush will get a bounce!
That’s why those much despised – by many here – “NetRoots” draw so much ire here. They say its bullshit and they’ve been proven right. Like Stu Rothenberg chiding certain bloggers for wanting to “Waste” money by running candidates in every Congressional District or Dean for throwing away bucks with a “50 State Strategy”. Then these bloggers committed the supreme sin of being right in the lasat election and that is what galls.
Isn’t it interesting that the two candidates that have risen in the polls steadily are Bill Richardson and John Edwards – both of who have eschewed this “valuable” advice from the Mavens in Washington.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:42 am
I’ve changed my position on campaign finance reform. As long as BUCKLY v. VALEO is controlling the basic equation is “Money = Speech” and until that is reversed or there is a constitutional amendment – which means messing with the 1st amdt – we’re stuck and get wildly repressive laws like McCain-Feingold that ban “Issue Ads” for a period before an election if thaty ad is sponsored by some group that mentions a candidate. That’s ridiculous and will be thrown out by this court unless they’re dumber than I think they are!
Well maybe they are but Scalia seems to have a soft spot for Speech of a political nature. Maybe he was bitten by Alexander Meikeljohn while at Chicago.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:43 am
marc- right on the mark with this corrption screed.
Today, we would not qualify for membership of the UN because our politics are objectively and demostrably for sale…we do not make the threshold for membership on the issue of corruption…and we have the nerve to criticize Latin and African Countries!
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:45 am
>criminal elements aren’t deterred by gun laws
While true, this is a much weaker argument than anti-gun-control people seem to think. The widely-known fact is that most gun deaths are not caused by “criminal elements.” Most are the result of ordinary people enraged by marital problems, having psychotic episodes, or in periods of suicidal depression. These things usually pass, and further slowing down access to guns (say, with a ten day national waiting period like the one required to buy a long gun in California) might meaningfully reduce impulsive or psychotic murders and suicides.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:47 am
Cho only broke two laws in VA. Having a gun on campus and killing the students. I’m doubtful that this will be a watershed moment for gun control. Last year it was the shootings of the school girls in PA and CO.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070422/30guns.htm
VA will never give up their guns. Let’s not forget that Webb got caught trying to sneak his own handgun into his Congressional office. They’ll work harder to loosen them. I think the real fight is with the feds as Reg, outlined above, and Bloomberg’s lawsuit
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 am
For the money=speech crowd (the prevailing law), why aren’t bank robbers arrested for plagiarising instead of theft? Is a bounced check merely speech for “fuck you”. Then it should be protected…
The fiction tying money to speech is not based upon good jurisprudence, rational thought or sound law. The Supreme Court is in a constant state of panic over this issue because it goes to the very heart of the ruling classes. It’s also why Congress won’t require that national elections take place on Saturdays.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:02 pm
“The real culprit here is the inbreeding that goes on in DC between high powered consultants – with their built-in conflict of interest over comissions for TV Ads – and the Great and the Good in the Punditocracy who know it all. Like MoDo and her fixation with haircuts or David Broder who just knows that Bush will get a bounce!”
You got that, right!
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I agree with everyone who has argued that the Democrats’ failure to enact stronger anti-gun laws is not because corporations are buying them off. It is for two closely-related reasons: (1) a lot of Democrats represent constituents that oppose gun control, as they understand it; and (2) if the leadership did squeeze enough border/western Dems to support stronger gun control, it might be setting the party up to lose one or both houses in 2008 or 2010.
That said, the failure to enact stronger gun control legislation is a failure that has drastic impact on city-dwellers. We have failed to persuade small town and rural folks that lives and families’ futures depend on the elimination of assault weapons and anti-personnel ammunition. The NRA appears actually to have persuaded hunters and fishermen that semi-automatic weapons and hollow-point bullets, 19 shell magazines and the like are absolutely necessary for sport.
I have to some extent lived with the tension between the two factions all my life. My father was an urban “street kid.” My mother was country, and her father and all her family were hunters. We lived off their kill for substantial parts of the year. Nevertheless, when my grandfather would roll in with squirrel or rabbit wrapped, always, in bloody newspaper, my Dad would say, “Hey, Mose, did the bunnies put up a good fight this time? You come out unscathed again?” And so on. My father swore he would hunt only when the bunnies could put up a square fight. In the end, my mother and the rest of us became aggressively pro gun control. However, I have spent a lot of time with guns, shooting guns, and think we can live with small arms for hunting and I guess personal protection.
It is sad, but affection for guns seems to be one of the primary characteristics of Americans.
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:13 pm
When police arrived on the scen of the University of Texas during the 1965 incident, they had no way of shooting back. They had only sidearms and shotguns, which had no where near the needed range.
So they borrowed the rifles of students living in nearby dorms and apartments. The sniper could no longer take lesurly aim from the tower parapet.
UT was not a “gun-free zone”.
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Nardy – I’m not against gun control. And I thought I said I was for eliminating the background check exemption for gun shows. But part of the “regional” deal is that some regions can put stronger gun laws in place if they choose. I’m not at all sure that I’m for putting laws in place that disarm the citizens of high crime areas – not that they need assault rifles. And while gun laws may be marginally effective, it’s pretty obvious that they don’t go much to halt access to guns in places like L.A., Chicago, DC, etc. As for the fact that a cow in Montana or Wyoming has more representation in the Beltway than a human in a high-density city, it pisses me off but it also doesn’t look like there’s anything we can do about it. Ceding those seats to the GOP over trying to impose stricter gun control in Boseman strikes me as shortsighted and counterproductive.
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Don’t let me interrupt. I’m just testing something.
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Senator Schumer is introducing a bill that would add anyone declared to be a danger to themselves or others, by a legal authority to the list of those not allowed to buy a gun. He says it has wide support from both sides.
I hope it passes. But I am afraid it is just a feel good effort. More time should be taken to investigate and analyze how the next Mr. Cho would get around any Gun Store restrictions. I hear he bought ammo and clips on ebay for example, and what prevents one from buying from a private party?
Restriction to Schools and University for anyone declared to be danger to themselves should also be added to this bill, at the descretion of the University, eliminating the current threat of expensive law suits that I am sure acts as a deterent to common sense safety and security decisions of Administrators.
Both sides of the isle must work together to restrict the rights of certain people to not only own firearms, but restrict their right to remain amoungst vernable children and young adults at educational institutions.
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Yes Bob, and Bonnie and Clyde stole or bought black market military machine guns that allowed them to badly out blast the cops… thought we might move on to 2007.
Reg, I think your dismisal of inner city gun restrictions may be too cavilier, or why would N.Y. care about about the lax laws of Virgina?
Again, it seems to me the issues involving the extra fire power of these rapid repeating fire arms might be something the press might want to educate the public about; in their quest to let the public make up it’s mind about the price of a highly narrow (or nonsensical) reading of the second amendment. Otherwise, golly, it might seem like their hand wringing over the Dems might be construte as, well, selective targets.
April 24th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I have stopped watching Bill Maher for some time. He always has this image – reinforced by the mainstream, who love the guy – of being knowledgable and cutting edge. Actually, I realized when he defended the coverup of the Pat Tillman death some weeks ago (“They wanted him to be seen as a hero, that’s all”) and criticized the Tillman family for calling the Bush Admin. over it. Maher never once mentioned that evidence exists that Tillman was despised before his death by fellow troops for calling the Iraq mission “a war crime.”
Now, because of the coverup, combined with the lapse of time, any evidence collection of the alleged “friendly fire” is gone. Witnesses were not interviewed, forensic evidence was not collected and therefore lost….so the Tillman family may have lost, but George W. Bush certainly got something out of it…a propaganda tool who in fact was AGAINST the war and George W. Bush. But exploiting the dead, who cannot speak up for themselves, has always been a right wing specialty. Too bad Maher didn’t have the brains to call Bush on this crap on his show a few weeks ago.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Bill Maher consorts (I used that word broadly) with the enemy-defending Imus and the US on Tillman:
He has no credibility outside of the “Animal House” toga-geriatrics. He and “precious” Arianna are empty vessels, spent ammo and old news.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Maher says some very funny things, but he is clearly an eccentric on geopolitics. He claims to have supported the invasion of Vietnam, because the domino theory was correct, and says the U.S. should simply accept that because the Palestinians have been defeated militarily, they have no claim to a state or national rights.
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