As we reported, the Senate yesterday voted down various gun control proposals. Needless to say, anti-gun liberals were not amused…
Hope for America compiled some of the “finest examples of left-wing frustration.” Here are a couple of the best:
Howard Finemann:
This wasn’t merely the Senate being what the Founding Fathers envisioned: the “cooling saucer” for the hot coffee of legislative emotion. This was the Senate, constricted by its own rules and the laser-focused fire of the National Rifle Association, being the slaughterhouse of public will.
Michael Tomasky:
Every strong political movement, besotted with the fragrance of its own power, hits the point of overreach, and the pro-gun movement hit that point yesterday in the morally repulsive Senate vote on the background-checks bill. We all know the old cliché that the NRA has power because its members vote on the guns issue, while gun-control people aren’t zealots. Well, Wayne LaPierre and 46 craven senators, that “majority” of the Senate, have just created millions of zealots, and as furious as I am, I’m also strangely at peace, because I’m more confident than ever that the NRA will never, ever be stronger in Washington than it was yesterday.
And, of course, the New York Times:
The National Rifle Association once supported the expansion of background checks, but it decided this time that President Obama and gun-control advocates could not be allowed even a scintilla of a victory, no matter how sensible. That group, and others even more militant, wanted to make sure not one bill emerged from the Newtown shooting, and they got their way. A vast majority of Republicans meekly followed along, joined by a few nervous red-state Democrats, giving far more weight to a small, shrill and largely rural faction than to the country’s overwhelming need for safety and sanity.
Click here to see more.
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Filed under News | Comment (0)When the President expresses anger at another branch like he did with the Supreme Court at the State of the Union a couple years ago and yesterday at the Senate, it is not impressive. It is another example of how small he is and how out of touch he is with the vast majority of Americans.
Obama Irate as Senate Votes Down Background Checks
An angry President Barack Obama denounced Senate Republicans on Wednesday for failing to pass stricter background checks on gun purchases, calling it a “pretty shameful day” for Washington.
Speaking in the Rose Garden as the families of some of the victims of the Newtown, Conn., shootings looked on, Obama vowed to press on in the fight for tougher gun laws.
“Families that know unspeakable grief summoned the courage to petition their elected leaders,” he said, standing alongside former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who left Congress after suffering a life-threatening gunshot wound to the head. “A few minutes ago a minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn’t worth it. They blocked common-sense gun reforms even when these families looked on from the gallery.”
Earlier, Senate Republicans, backed by rural-state Democrats, blocked legislation to tighten restrictions on the sale of firearms.
In recent weeks, the families of some of the victims of the December shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School pressed lawmakers with stories of personal loss, as Second Amendment advocates countered that none of the proposed changes would have stopped the grisly tragedy.
Attempts to ban assault-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines also faced certain defeat in a series of showdown votes.
The background check measure commanded a majority of senators, 54-46, but that was well short of the 60 votes needed to advance. A total of 41 Republicans and five Democrats pulled together to scuttle the plan.
“The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill,” Obama said, referring to fears by some that the law would allow for creation of a federal gun registry.
The president alluded to polls that peaked at 90 percent of Americans supporting expanded background checks for convicted criminals and the severely mentally ill. He said “90 percent” of Democrats supported the bill, but “90 percent” of Republicans opposed it.
“There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn’t do this,” Obama said. “It came down to politics.”
The National Rifle Association issued a statement shortly after Wednesday’s vote calling the Manchin-Toomey-Schumer proposal “misguided” and saying that the measure would have criminalized “certain private transfers” of guns between honest citizens.
“As we have noted previously, expanding background checks, at gun shows or elsewhere, will not reduce violent crime or keep our kids safe in their schools,” said the statement issued by Chris W. Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist.
“The NRA will continue to work with Republicans and Democrats who are committed to protecting our children in schools, prosecuting violent criminals to the fullest extent of the law, and fixing our broken mental health system,” according to the statement. “We are grateful for the hard work and leadership of those senators who chose to pursue meaningful solutions to our nation’s most pressing problems.”
Obama said that most Americans think that the tougher background checks are already required by law.
While Wednesday’s bill would not have prevented the Sandy Hook tragedy, and would not prevent all future gun deaths, he said it should have been passed to save lives.
“This legislation met that test. And too many senators failed theirs,” Obama said.
The president vowed to work without Congress if necessary to do more in his effort to cut gun violence. He said the White House will address barriers to states participating in the existing background check system, give law enforcement more information about lost and stolen guns, and help put emergency plans for schools in place.
“What happened in Newtown can happen anywhere,” Mark Barden, the father of murdered 7-year-old Daniel, said before the president’s remarks. “Any dad in America can be in my shoes.”
Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid also blasted Republicans for the vote.
“I want everyone to understand this is just the beginning. This is not the end,” he told reporters after the vote. “Ninety percent of Democrats here on the floor stood with 90 percent of the American people for expanding background checks. I appreciate very much a handful of Republicans that crossed the aisle to stand with us on this common-sense issue.”
He promised to keep up the fight for background checks. “The fight has just begun. It’s not going away,” said Reid.
“We will win this fight,” added Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. “We will not rest until we win.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Sen. Chuck Hagel as the newest Secretary of Defense, replacing outgoing Secretary Leon Panetta. The vote ultimately came down to the affirmative votes of four key Republican senators: Thad Cochran (Miss.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Richard Shelby (Ala.), and Rand Paul (Ky.).
Although Paul had previously been an outspoken critic of Hagel, he earlier explained his vote for confirmation, and reminded critics that presidential appointees are Obama’s “prerogative”:
“I voted for John Kerry and I agree with nothing he represents,” he said, “but I voted for him because I thought there was a level of at least basic human decency and honesty that exists there … and that the president has the prerogative to determine political appointees.” …
He went on, “I would never vote for him in an election so I saw it a little bit differently. I see Hagel and [CIA nominee John] Brennan and [Treasury nominee Jack] Lew kind of the same way. I don’t agree with much of their policies with any of them … They’re going to be Obama appointees … On Hagel, there’s criticims of both on the conservative right there’s also criticism on the libertarian right.”
Paul said Hagel is “not a small government libertarian” and added, “There are reasons to vote against him … and I did vote against cloture … [but] I haven’t yet decided on final passage. To me right now, and I know people are hot and heavy on the Hagel thing — I’m more hot and heavy on the Brennan thing.”
Many conservatives were upset with Paul’s change-of-heart and Twitchy captured some of their reactions to the vote on Twitter:
For more reaction, tune in Thursday when Sen. Paul talks with Glenn on radio.
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Filed under News | Comment (0)Washington, D.C.– At the National Review Institute summit Friday night, columnist Charles Krauthammer touched on his “disappointment” with President Obama, the “conservatism as a second language” espoused by Mitt Romney and what’s it was like changing careers from psychiatry to political commentary.
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Filed under News | Comment (0)Political scientist Larry Sabato analyzed the final vote tallies for last night’s House vote on a fiscal cliff compromise and noticed some interesting trends.
In addition to a growing ideological divide between conservatives and establishment-types, there’s a big regional divide within the Republican Party: 88% of Republicans representing southern constituencies voted no, while 86% of Republicans from the northeast voted yes. Or, put another way, “almost 9 of 10 South/Border Rs said no but outside South it was dead even split,” Sabato tweeted this morning.
To see how your representative in the House voted, click here.
To see how your Senators voted, click here.
And in case you missed it, Mike Opelka posted a startling graphic which may explain why so many Republicans in the House bulked at the Senate compromise. We have a real spending problem in America. In addition to that graphic, consider this for some perspective on the so-called fiscal cliff deal: The new $ 600 billion of tax revenues will almost — but not quite — pay for our current rate of spending on food stamps.
Swell.
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Filed under News | Comment (0)In a new interview with National Journal, retiring Sen. Joe Liebermann (I-Conn.) said that comments U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice made on Sunday news shows in September wouldn’t factor into his vote if she were nominated for secretary of state.
NJ Could Rice be confirmed by the Senate as secretary of State?
Lieberman I don’t think Ambassador Rice should be criticized or punished in any way for what she said. Whether she’s nominated for something or not, that’s the president’s decision, and I won’t be here to vote for her or against her. But if I were here, I wouldn’t vote against her because of those Sunday-morning TV appearances. I think that would be unfair.
After Sep. 11 attacks on a U.S. embassy in Libya, Rice received intense criticism, mostly from Republicans, for saying on several Sunday news programs that the attacks were the result of a YouTube video.
The Obama administration has defended rice on the grounds that she was simply repeating what she was instructed to say.
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Filed under News | Comment (0)Via ABC News: Republicans are seriously considering a Doomsday Plan if fiscal cliff talks collapse entirely. It’s quite simple: House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the President nothing more: no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on [...]
Weasel Zippers
Of all the self-identified “religious” voters in America, President Obama won the majority on Tuesday. Here’s the breakdown, via HuffPo:
Despite Obama’s “War on Religion” with mandated contraception coverage which runs contrary to the Catholic Church and lack of support for our Israeli allies, Catholics and Jews both turned out in pretty big numbers for the president.
Then again, so did the “religiously unaffiliated.”
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Filed under News | Comment (0)I’m signing out for a bit before I have to superglue my eyeballs to my computer screen for the night. I’ll be back at 5:00 p.m. to kick off TheBlaze LIVE chat.
In the meantime, there’s still time to vote — so get out there!
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