![Alex Jones thinks the government might be behind Oklahoma tornado.
Because that’s not insane at all…
[photo by DVIDSHUB]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/6256e250d61a4c404be1b3cac3238740/tumblr_mn653lSTHR1qfengno1_1280.jpg)
Alex Jones thinks the government might be behind Oklahoma tornado.
Because that’s not insane at all…
![North Miami mayoral candidate claims endorsement by Jesus Christ.
[image via Democratic Underground]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/72b4689d9b02fccc47e9329e4c545d9b/tumblr_mmsyy2eHyA1qfengno1_1280.jpg)
![Bachmann: IRS story a White House conspiracy to distract from Benghazi.
[photo by Gage Skidmore]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/6dc449d25d32d00ad910a91e6dfe8e39/tumblr_mmsu5v4qRF1qfengno1_1280.jpg)
Boehner’s not the leader of House Republicans, he’s the spokesperson.
Talking Points Memo: If you feel like the inmates have taken over the asylum in the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) wants you to know that your suspicions are totally correct.
At his weekly Capitol briefing Thursday, Boehner faced questions about two aging and increasingly questionable elements of the GOP’s legislative strategy: repeated votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act and continued efforts to extract partisan concessions from Democrats in exchange for increasing the debt ceiling.
In both cases, Boehner acknowledged that the conservative wing of the House is driving the agenda.
“We’ve got 17 new members that have not had the opportunity to vote on the President’s health care law,” Boehner said, referring to next week’s ACA repeal vote. “Frankly they’ve been asking for an opportunity to vote on it, and we’re going to give it to them.”
And the debt ceiling? Same basic story.
“Our conversations have begun,” he said. “We’re going to have a big conversation with our members next week to talk about a way forward — what do our members believe is necessary to allow them to vote yes on increasing the debt limit?”
It’s yet more evidence that the party’s national and legislative strategies are driven by rank and file conservatives, not party leadership.
Just yesterday I brought up a trend in punditry that held that Pres. Obama was supposedly the problem in Washington, because he isn’t “leading” Republicans. The idea is that Obama needs to grab up the secret White House Magic Wand and make extremist Republicans into reasonable moderates.
Something like that anyway. It’s not really clear on what he’s supposed to do specifically, because they never actually explain it. They just say “leadership” because they’re lazy and dumb and saying Republicans are the problem would just be “media bias” (which has come to be a synonym for “reality” these days).
Anyway, none of these deep thinkers ever accuses John Boehner of not practicing leadership, even though the case is much better in his case. Like Obama, Boehner can’t just wave a magic wand and suddenly get people to do everything he says. But unlike Obama, Boehner rarely even tries to get people to follow him. Where the President actually proposes legislation, the Speaker mostly reacts. When he holds a press conference, it’s like he gathers the other House Republicans around and asks, “So what do you want me to tell these guys?”
If there’s any lack of leadership in Washington, it’s coming from the Speaker’s office, not the White House.
We’re getting to the point where the media habit of ‘false equivalency’ is inadequate to describe or explain the wilful blindness of so much of the paid political commentariat to the historically unusual (if not unique) extremism of the contemporary Right… [M]any journalists are suffering from a version of the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ whereby they have become so traumatized by conservative extremism that they will lift heaven and earth to deny its existence and assign responsibility for polarization elsewhere (e.g., to Obama’s ‘leadership failure’).
Ed Kilgore, on the media’s virtual blackout of a poll showing that 44% of Republican voters believe that “in the next few years, an armed revolution may be necessary to protect our liberties.”
Keep in mind, 44% — nearly half — of all Republican voters believe it very well may become “necessary” to murder their fellow Americans and the mainstream media doesn’t think that’s worth more than a mention.
The math is simple: our media is about twice as broken as the Republican Party is insane.
Just in time for its wingnut-filled annual meeting tomorrow, the National Rifle Association is set to install a new president: an Alabama lawyer who laments ‘the war of Northern Aggression,’ calls Barack Obama ‘this fake president,’ and fantasizes about ‘whipping’ opponents of the gun lobby’s agenda.
Irwin Mainway, #Gunblr’s Marketer of the Year.
The people defending Crickett, a firearms manufacturer that markets a working rifle for children as young as four, brought this old SNL sketch to mind.
Responsible gun owners? Hell, they aren’t even responsible adults.
5 year-old kills 2 year-old sister with gun ‘ideally sized for children four to ten years old.’
ThinkProgress: On Wednesday, a five-year-old Kentucky boy accidentally shot and killed his two-year-old sister with a gun he’d been given as a birthday present. The weapon, a small rifle, was manufactured specifically for children’s use.
The boy’s weapon was a “My First Rifle” .22-caliber gun from Keystone Sporting Arms’ youth branch, Crickett. Crickett’s website markets itself “especially for youth shooters.” The firearms come in several neon colors, and the website even has a “kids corner” featuring pictures of small children with guns…Crickett does not manufacture bullets. The company offers books for “Grades 2-3 and up,” and says their guns are “ideally sized for children four to ten years old.”
Yeah, this is real and there’s no shortage of morons who think this is “responsible gun ownership.” Teach the kids about guns early, the reasoning goes, and they’ll be safer gun owners. This same reasoning would put a five year-old behind the wheel of an SUV or in the cockpit of a plane.
Unfortunately, companies like Crickett can get away with selling these things to extremely stupid people because gun manufacturers are immune from liability lawsuits and no consumer safety laws apply to them. Why? Because the NRA, that’s why. They don’t give a fuck if some kid shoots his baby sister with a dayglo kid-gun. They’re just happy someone was stupid enough to buy the bullet.
Again, this is what the NRA and all the gun freaks out there believe is the very best America can do when it comes to firearm regulations. This is the very best way to deal with guns — to not deal with them at all. Look at those photos; some of those kids are basically babies and mom and dad stuck a gun in their hand because they’re that fucking stupid and because the gun culture promoted by the NRA and the Republican Party led them to believe that it was OK.
Do we need laws to protect people from themselves? Yes. And even more importantly, we need to protect children from their braindead, gun-happy parents. This is not the best we can do.
And fuck you if you think it is.
No this is not responsible gun ownership. This is Irresponsible gun ownership. Ironic to your argument that the NRA is one of the biggest advocacy groups fighting against it.
That reasoning is applied to many children. On farms children are taught to drivet trucks and tractors. Many families of pilots start their children off at extremely young ages. I met an eleven year old girl that told me she co-piloted her first plane at six. She had been flying under supervision ever since as was waiting for her sixteenth birthday to get her actual pilot’s license.
What is someone going to sue Crickett for? Tell me. What charge? Crickett makes firearms that are sized to a child’s frame, are manually operated, feature a multitude of safety devices, fire a minuscule round, and must be manually fed by hand. What would you prefer a child be taught with? A large heavy recoiling hunting rifle that doesn’t fit them? An adult sized semi automatic? By making child specific firearm’s they’re actually helping make shooting safer by controlling the environment and helping reduce the chance that the child could loose control of the firearm.
“Do we need laws to protect people from themselves? Yes. And even more importantly, we need to protect children from their braindead, gun-happy parents. This is not the best we can do.”
This situation could be had with a multitude of other dangerous objects all with the same outcome. Why is it that a firearm subjected one is any different?
Child is given a knife. Child accidentally stabs someone and they die. Parent’s are to blame for not teaching them how to use it and should be charged with manslaughter.
Child is given permission to drive a tractor. Child gets in a wreck and dies. Parent’s are to blame for not teaching them how to use it and should be charged with manslaughter.
Child is given an axe. Child accidentally impales someone due to misuse. Parent’s are to blame for not teaching them how to use it and should be charged with manslaughter.
Child is given a firearm. Child accidentally shoots someone and they die. The NRA, Republican’s, and Gun Culture are to blame and should be crucified?
I agree with the NRA on this issue:
If you’ll excuse me, as per your order; I’m going to go lay on my bed and fuck myself now.
Wow, this is all just astonishingly stupid. Given your nick, that’s hardly a surprise. “Bigot” and “moron” are practically synonyms, after all.
What would Crickett be sued for? Wow, that sure is a stumper, huh? (And “charge” is meaningless here, since it wouldn’t be a criminal case). Maybe they’d be sued for marketing a dangerous product to children. It’s the same reason you’d sue a company for putting marbles in cereal or making exploding Barbie Dolls. Do you really find this impossible to understand?
And for fuck’s sake, no one is out there arguing that people have to drive tractors or use axes (btw, how do you “impale” someone with an ax? That’d take real talent). People on the right are arguing that you NEED a gun to protect yourself from the gummint, like you’re Snuffy Fucking Smiff protecting his still from revenuers. Some towns are talking about passing laws requiring gun ownership, to the loud applause of rightwing deepthinkers and people who need to imagine guns in order to get a woody. .
When the argument calls for it, then guns are perfectly safe, they’re just a tool, don’t worry your commie little head over them.
When it doesn’t, then it’s” WTF are people giving guns to kids for?” You can’t have it both ways. Pcik an argument and stick with it: either firearms are a danger to life and limb or they’re nothing anyone should ever worry about. They can’t be both.
We now have five year-olds shooting and killing two year-olds with guns the five year-olds own. Five fucking years old. FIVE FUCKING YEARS OLD! And you’re cool with that. You think that’s fine. You answer to me for thinking that’s insane? “Well, what kind of gun do you expect a five year-old to use?”
I expect a five year-old NOT to use a gun. And anyone who thinks they can possibly use one responsibly is the biggest fucking moron I’ve ever come across in my life. Again, I’m not expecting a lot of intelligence from a dickwad who calls himself “556operateitfagget” and you’re still falling short of my expectations.
And it doesn’t surprise me that you’d have to go fuck yourself. I can’t imagine anyone else would ever want to.
