Tag Archives: Gun Control

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Less Popular Than Pond Scum

05/01/2013 Nativegrl77

Senators Face Backlash After Siding with the NRA

Two weeks ago, a minority in the Senate filibustered a commonsense, bipartisan compromise that would expanded background checks so that most gun purchases would be covered.

If you thought that opposing a policy that more than 90 percent of Americans, including more than 80 percent of gun owners, support was both bad policy and bad politics, you’d be right. Polls out in the past few days show that support for senators who filibustered is plummeting.

Freshman Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who is the most unpopular senator in America following his vote, acknowledged today that he is “somewhere just below pond scum” in terms of popularity. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) saw her popularity drop by a whopping 15 points. Meanwhile, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), the lead co-sponsor of the legislation, saw his approval rating hit a record high after he bucked the NRA.

Things got even more intense for Ayotte today. She was confronted by the daughter of a Newtown victim and things did not go well for Ayotte:

“You had mentioned that the burden to owners of gun stores that these expanded background checks would cause,” [Erica Lafferty, daughter of Sandy Hook Elementary principal Dawn Hochsprung] said. “I’m just wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the hall of her elementary school isn’t as important as that?” […]

Lafferty abruptly walked out of the meeting after Ayotte responded to her question, and accused Ayotte of not being forthright after the Republican initially based her opposition on the burden new background checks would cause.

“It’s disappointing and disgusting that she can pretty much look me in the eye and try to justify my mother’s murder and the murder of five other educators and the mothers of six and seven year olds,” Lafferty said in an interview. “It’s disgusting.”

You can watch Erica Lafferty challenge Ayotte HERE.

As we’ve said before, this is just the beginning of the fight for commonsense gun violence prevention measures. We all need to redouble our efforts to persuade more senators to side with the overwhelming majority of their constituents and the victims of gun violence instead of the NRA. And we need to hold those that refuse to do so accountable.

BOTTOM LINE: There’s a political price to be paid for opposing commonsense gun violence prevention measures that almost all Americans support and some senators are just starting to get a sense of the cost.

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

Paul Ryan regrets voting against same-sex adoption.

Facebook rejects ad highlighting Zuckerberg group’s support for Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Tea Party congressman: attorney general is on the side of the Boston bombers.

Chris Broussard and ESPN decline to apologize for attack on first openly gay NBA player.

Unpopular governor says his poor job creation numbers are because most unemployed are on drugs.

GOP’s launches war on women’s paychecks (and men’s too).

The FBI is investigating the GOP governor of Virginia.

Thousands of chemical facilities pose risks to cities with larger populations than West, Texas.

President Obama: LGBT Americans “deserve full equality,” “not just tolerance.”

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

mondaish Monday

04/15/2013 Nativegrl77

079 Capitol Hill United States Congress 1993 (Photo credit: David Holt London)

just another rant …

It’s the middle of April , technically spring, the last day to file taxes, but some Americans are still battling snow or summer like temperature while others hear birds chirping and it feels like spring , though if you live on the left coast …. It still feels like fall.

The weather is like politics …right, seemingly straight forward with designated seasons only to find as the years progress, little bumps appear that turn into malicious masses and in spite of it those who happen to be addicted to politics like so many wait to see when and where the sequester hammer will fall. Though the sequester is only about a month old the media seems to have moved on to sizing up how Hillary will do against the various Republicans wanting to be King; I mean President.

If you did not know better and took what the media spews as the truth, it seemed as if we were closer to 2016 than the beginning of President Obama’s 2^nd term. Telling viewers that gun safety legislation was more than impossible and a filibuster was imminent; then President Obama gave a fabulous speech with families of victims of gun violence standing with President Obama in support of better gun safety laws. This led Newtown families to be advocates for their and our futures asking that members of Congress to do their jobs and let the debate on gun reform happen on the floor of the Senate and the first test vote to move forward and debate Gun Reform was taken on the Senate floor and passed 68 -31. Unfortunately, two Democratic Senators decided to side with Republicans and while gun reform seems like a no brainer to me we should give props to anyone for their bipartisan efforts to move gun laws into the 21^st Century.

Now, the media focus still seems to want viewers to accept that nothing positive can be done in Congress and we hear all their skepticism they have leaped frogged from 2016 elections to the pushing public cynicism on all that is on the Congressional calendar. Yet, this is the time that voters, people who have friend’s family or co-workers fallen victim to gun violence make calls to a Republican member of the House

This week, in Congress the political games are just about to begin; the so-called debates heated and the word filibuster will probably make its way into even the youngest members of our society’s vocabulary, but as Margaret’s Mead said fits …

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead