President Obama at the COP 21 climate conference in France
President Barack Obama this week signaled that he would have a robust final year in office as he announced executive actions on the registration of gun purchases, especially narrowing the “gun show loophole.” Obama also held a town hall meeting aired by CNN on Thursday to talk about his anti-gun violence actions. Moreover, just a week ago, President Obama appeared on an epic, hilarious episode of Jerry Seinfeld‘s web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.” Obama was not only very funny and relaxed, he also managed to plug his Affordable Care Act, which has covered an estimated 17.6 million more people in the past two years, causing the percentage of Americans without health insurance to drop to the lowest level ever measured. In short, President Obama is exploding the stereotype of the lame duck president.
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Leave a comment! Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, climate change, CNN, economy, EPA, gun control, gun violence, guns, ISIS, jobs, Keystone XL, Obamacare, Second Amendment, State of the Union, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Statue of Liberty with gun
In the ongoing war between the political right and left to control the national dialogue, the latest battle involves conservatives talking about terror and liberals talking about guns. We saw this on display during last Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, as the news headlines reported that “Terror takes center stage during Republican debate.” Likewise, terrorism but also gun safety law solutions took center stage at last Saturday night’s Democratic presidential debate, as the ABC News moderators asked questions seemingly ripped from the Republican book of talking points.
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America’s intersection of children and guns
After yet another mass shooting in America, this time in San Bernardino, California, the debate over what to do about gun violence has been rekindled. However, when both sides simply fall back into their standard arguments, there’s no reason to believe that a different result will occur. To achieve a different outcome, we need some new thinking and new language. Here’s how the majority of Americans can win the argument to reduce gun violence:
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Anti-NRA protest
We have a terrorism problem in America, and it isn’t Syrian refugees. The FBI defines “domestic terrorism” as actions that:
- Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
- Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping; and
- Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.
Right wing domestic terrorist acts, such as the recent shootings at the Colorado Springs, Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic, as well as four arsons in 74 days at other Planned Parenthood clinics, meet the definition. The same can be said about previous politically-motivated killings and attacks, such as the shooting of peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis, bombings, arson and attacks on abortion clinics, the attacks on black churches and their members, the shootings at the Sikkh temple in Wisconsin, attacks on mosques and Islamic centers, and attacks on LBGT Americans.
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Kenyan ambassador Amina Mohamed, July 24, 2015
Fresh off its “dildo flag” fiasco, CNN once again has lost its journalistic marbles. Once again, the subject is terrorism, and once again CNN has made a wild, unfounded claim on air, this time regarding President Barack Obama‘s trip to Kenya. And once again, CNN’s terrorism frenzy involves anchor Suzanne (pronounced SuzONNE) Malveaux.
This time, as President Obama was embarking on his historical trip to Kenya, CNN went with hysterical rather than historical, calling Kenya “a hotbed of terror.” CNN even had former Obama Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow on to state:
People have been anticipating this trip since the day that he [Obama] was first elected. So the people that want to hurt the president, you know, have been planning for the last seven years for this trip.
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Leave a comment! Tags: Barack Obama, cable news, CNN, Fox News, guns, Kenya, media, social media, television, terrorism, TV, Twitter
The politics of plastic straws
Last week in Nevada, we asked the waitress not to give us straws in our soft drinks. The drinks didn’t need to be stirred, and we didn’t need to waste more plastic that ends up in a landfill or a floating trash archipelago in the ocean. “Oh, you’re one of them,” said the waitress. We could only conclude that “one of them” meant a hippie liberal environmentalist who should be mocked for wanting to conserve our resources. We concluded that our waitress is a conservative who might be brainwashed by Republican talking points from Fox News and other sources that sheath their pro-corporate messages behind a veil of “individual freedom” and an “us versus them” mentality.
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Mayors against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America have joined forces to form Everytown for Gun Safety, a new group dedicated to fighting the National Rifle Association to campaign for sensible gun laws. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is putting his name, and at least $50 million of his money, into Everytown’s campaign.
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Empty stage for empty suits at CPAC 2014
Dispatches from the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) are coming in, and they’re not pretty. The CPAC conference is being held at the Gaylord Hotel (oh, the irony) in Maryland, and thus far has been a showcase for the Republican Party’s cultural symbols of God (love ‘im), Guns (love ’em) and Gays (hate ’em).
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In the current gun violence debate, the National Rifle Association and its supporters often cite the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for their opposition to sensible gun safety laws. However, as a guest poster recently wrote here, such a view falsely turns the Second Amendment into a “super right.” In fact, most individual rights under the U.S. Constitution, including the Second Amendment and other amendments in the Bill of Rights, are not so absolute; rather, they are subject to reasonable limits. Here is a brief and partial list of examples:
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Messaging Matters is pleased to present this guest post from Kenny Pick, creator and host of the “Turn Up the Night with Kenny Pick” political talk show. Kenny writes here about the conservatives’ erroneous treatment of the Second Amendment:
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Like many Americans, I’ve been thinking long and hard about the epidemic of mass shootings in our country – Desperately trying to grasp the reasoning behind the hyper reaction of 2nd Amendment purists regarding gun control. It seems that the NRA, Conservatives, some gun owners and manufacturers believe the 2nd Amendment guarantees what I’ve started referring to as a ’Super Right.’ A right that supersedes all others out of a selfish belief that there should be no limitations on the ownership of any type of weapon. It strikes me that every reasonable American should be comfortable finding a happy medium restricting what arms we all have the right to bear; Somewhere between a pocket knife and a doomsday device.
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