American politics 2016: Lawyers, Guns, and D-Money

Chuck Todd yesterday that McCain has never quite recovered from losing in 2008; he's still amazed people chose Obama over him.

i kind of forgot that he ran even, i realize that the current D cycle has somehow left me with the impression that hillary is who obama beat in 2008. like poor mccain was an afterthought

http://www.theonion.com/article/biden-lines-sweet-summer-gig-installing-above-grou-53112 gonna miss these

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/283637-gop-obamacare-plan-will-leave-out-key-dollar-figures

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) office declined to comment on the plan ahead of its release next week, and noted it is still being finalized.

Republicans have said previously they will not be introducing their ObamaCare replacement plan in the form of a bill, but will instead release a white paper that is less detailed than legislation would be.

Keeping the plan in the form of a broad outline puts off some of the difficult tradeoffs and preempts lines of attack that would be raised with a specific and detailed plan.

No surprise here

"We think prices are going up because people have too few choices, not because they have too many," Ryan said in a speech in December at the Library of Congress laying out his ideas. "And we think this problem is so urgent that, next year, we are going to unveil a plan to replace every word of ObamaCare."

Well fair enough, they've not had long to think about it.

Senate rejects Dem all inclusive background gun check bill and Republican weak one; plus they rejected bills re terrorists and guns

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/284182-senate-rejects-first-background-check-bill

But Democrats resoundingly rejected the GOP background check measure, arguing it would do little to make sure potential criminals or terrorists couldn’t buy a gun.

“It’s a shield for members who don’t want to do the right thing,” said Sen. Chris Murphy,
(D-Conn.), who led a recent unofficial filibuster on gun control. Grassley and Sen. Ted Cruz
(R-Texas) offered a similar proposal during the Senate’s 2013 gun control debate, but it also largely fell along party lines.

Instead Democrats largely backed a measure from Sens. Charles Schumer
(D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Richard Blumenthal
(D-Conn.) and Murphy, that would require a background check for most sales or transfers of guns.

But that measure, which also needed 60 votes, failed in a 44-56 vote.

Democrats have pledged for months to push for expanding background checks in the wake of a string of recent high-profile shootings, but their effort faces an uphill battle in a GOP-controlled Congress.

“The Murphy legislation is very broad...and I think that there are concerns about it,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) told reporters Monday, asked about the proposal. “I’ve previously said that I think it’s important to fix the current system.”

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) noting that the Democrats’ proposal went further than legislation he authored with Sen. Joe Manchin
(D-W.Va.) in 2013, blasted his colleagues for “talking past each other.”

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Jon Tester
(Mont.) voted against moving forward with the proposal. Sen. Mark Kirk (Ill.), the most vulnerable GOP incumbent up in November, supported it.

Both of the measures were widely expected to fall short Monday. Senators also voted on two proposals to block suspected terrorists from buying guns, which both also failed.

I figured we had all just chosen to silently mourn the most recent example of the senate's continued and unsurprising failure as a governing body.

If senators followed the example of Elizabeth Warren on Twitter, some of that legislation deserved to die.

Elizabeth Warren ‏@SenWarren 15h15 hours ago
.@ChrisMurphyCT said it right: The @SenateGOP have decided to sell weapons to ISIS.

Republicans argued that Feinstein’s proposal doesn’t do enough to protect against situations where someone mistakenly on a terror watch list, or mistakenly suspected of links to terror groups, would be denied their Second Amendment rights.

Democrats countered that the time limitations in Cornyn’s alternative would make it functionally impossible to actually prevent suspicious individuals from purchasing firearms.

http://www.pressherald.com/2016/06/20/senate-blocks-democratic-measure-to-close-gun-show-loophole-and-expand-background-checks/

Could some sort of compromise bill between these 2 options possibly pass? Probably not (NRA types will oppose everything), but I kinda wish Dems would come up with a bill with enhanced due process rights

Wasserman Stain effectively out (but may stay as a figurehead -- thru the election?), and acc to Howard Dean hey guess who will handpick her successor?

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a46022/dnc-chair-replaced/

Lol I always assume DWS was handpicked by HRC

my congressman. so proud:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/philadelphia-congressman-and-associates-convicted-rico-conspiracy-public-corruption

lol Lil Marco wants to go back to the Senate after all

John Lewis leading some kind of House sit-in re: gun control legislation...?

Rep. John Yarmuth‏ @RepJohnYarmuth

I'm on the House floor with @repjohnlewis & Dems staging a sit-in to demand action on commonsense gun legislation
Embedded
Jun 22, 2016, 10:34 AM

Denny Hastert goes to jail

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClkqUgsVAAET6xK.jpg

John Lewis rockin the rainbow ribbon
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClkpTvAUkAI_EWF.jpg

@dick_nixon
There are plenty of guys in the House dumb enough to have John Lewis dragged out the door. Plenty of them.

http://gawker.com/house-democrats-hold-sit-in-to-demand-gun-control-vote-1782432366

https://www.periscope.tv/w/1OyKAlbWydexb

#holdthefloor trending

cspan is broadcasting a periscope feed

Modernity can be strange

The C-SPAN cameras, which are controlled by the House, were turned off and so were the microphones — leading some members to jokingly argue about who should take the next turn to speak based on who had the loudest voice. While it’s against House rules to take photos or video on the floor, at one point C-SPAN carried live footage of the sit-in via the Periscope feed of Rep. Scott Peters (Calif.).

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pledged that Democrats would stay on the floor until they get a vote.

“We’ll be here as long as it takes, every day,” she said during a news conference on the steps of the Capitol. “This is the moment of truth.”

House Democrats appealed to rank-and-file Republicans to buck their leadership and join them — although by about 1 p.m., none had taken them up on the invitation. They also asked Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to come to the floor.

“The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed subject to the call of the chair,” said Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong. She did not say if Republicans had a plan to resolve the impasse with Democrats.

Pelosi said members were committed to holding the floor because after a series of mass shootings marked by prejudice — the recent attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando and the shooting last year at South Carolina’s predominantly African American Emanuel AME church – and homeland security concerns, members had reached a breaking point.

House Democrats are trying to stay “in sync” with the Senate in making their demands, Pelosi explained. That’s why the only two measures they are specifically demanding votes on would prevent suspected terrorists on the government’s watch lists from purchasing firearms and expand background checks. The Senate considered proposals on these two issues earlier this week.

“The others, we can’t say 85 to 90 percent of the public support,” Pelosi explained, adding that the chances of passing an assault weapons ban in this Congress are “hopeless.”

“But the other two shouldn’t be, because they are bipartisan,” Pelosi said.

Several Democratic senators, including Bill Nelson of Florida, Chris Coons of Delaware, Barbara Boxer of California, Patty Murray of Washington, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, came to the House to join the sit-in. Some snapped photos of the gathering as it entered its third hour.

The gathering turned somber at times. At one point, Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.) offered a prayer. At another, members broke into singing the spiritual “We Shall Not Be Moved,” a song associated with the civil rights movement.

About 20 of the members involved in the sit-in left the floor to join Pelosi’s news conference. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) spoke about his son who was fatally shot in 1999. “It’s time to end this chorus of primal screams” from mothers finding out their children have been killed by guns, he said.

One such mother, Nardyne Jefferies of Washington, D.C., spoke at the end of the news conference, addressing Ryan and demanding a vote. She held up a graphic picture of her wounded daughter, Brishell Jones, who was killed at age sixteen during a 2010 shooting on South Capitol Street.

It may have been a while since their last really solid album, but Primal Scream isn't that bad.

periscope feed still going... I assume there will be criminal charges against Peters for that but whatever good for him

I take that back, looks like it ended an hour ago?

still going; C-Span is broadcasting via periscope
http://www.c-span.org/video/?411624-1/watch-democrats-continue-house-sitin-gun-violence&live

haha wait that says "facebook video" now

it's whatever those guys have on hand i guess. not tech wizzes.
Bernie is talking now.

p much how i feel

http://gawker.com/the-democrats-are-boldly-fighting-for-a-bad-stupid-bil-1782449026

the house gop cutting the c-span feed is the cheapest of shit tho

by and large, yes

xpost

it's not just the no-fly/no-buy amendment that's at stake here - the other things in the bills were to require background checks for online + gun show gun sales, which is huge.

xp

like jesus christ just pass *something* to break the logjam, obviously there's more going on here than getting the specific bills to the floor, they're trying to wrest the political leverage away from the NRA

it's political theater first and foremost no doubt.

caro's examination of lyndon johnson's work to pass the civil rights act of 1957 has been pretty influential on my thoughts of late. it takes up most of the 1,167 page volume 3 of his lbj biography. if you start reading it now congress congress probably still won't have passed anything by the time you finish.

Some rightsters were saying precisely that - that Democrats are deliberately both grandstanding on the issue, while subtly undermining the cause because they feel it will improve their reelection chances to continue having the gun bogeyman:

Here, from the Federalist: http://thefederalist.com/2016/06/21/democrats-tanked-gun-control-to-up-their-election-chances/

caro's examination of lyndon johnson's work to pass the civil rights act of 1957 has been pretty influential on my thoughts of late. it takes up most of the 1,167 page volume 3 of his lbj biography. if you start reading it now congress congress probably still won't have passed anything by the time you finish.

― hypnic jerk (rushomancy),

I made that analogy last week; the difference is that the '57 bill, from what I can recall, had nothing potentially dangerous in it. At worst it was toothless.

I haven't gotten to that LBJ volume yet! (currently on Means of Ascent)

xxp

http://thefederalist.com/2016/06/21/democrats-tanked-gun-control-to-up-their-election-chances/

lol @ the implicit argument here that the majority party in the Senate can't pass bills w out the minority

if the GOP were all for these sensible gun control measures how come McConnell didn't have the votes

frankly i don't think congress is capable of writing good laws right now. the long-term non-participation of the republican party in the democratic process (specifically compromise for the common good) has severely damaged the competency of the institution. so, you know, either you start passing bad laws or you go home and don't come back, y'know? and i'm wondering if that's what's driving the democratic sit-in, the growing fear that if they go home we won't let them come back.

Correction: Expanded background checks are indeed a measure Democrats are currently demanding a vote on.

assault weapons ban too!

I think the focus on the no-fly/no-buy measure is unfortunate - it's clearly the *least* effective of the proposals on the table, as well as the most constitutionally questionable, but because it's the most attention-getting *and* the one GOP lawmakers marginally support it's becoming the rhetorical focus.

I would be super-happy w the expanded background checks + assault weapons ban, but there won't be any GOP votes supporting those.

weird how there's zero coverage of this on NYT

because it's the most attention-getting *and* the one GOP lawmakers marginally support it's becoming the rhetorical focus

cf. that old thing about politics being the art of the possible

no politician is seriously challenging the no-fly list, right? so what's the point :(

Patrick Murphy's credentials:

A CBS4 News investigation into Murphy’s history as both a CPA and a self-described small business owner, however, shows Murphy has in some cases exaggerated his experience and in other instances made claims that were misleading or outright false.

For instance, he has never worked a day in his life as a Certified Public Accountant.

And he was never a small business owner