Still more on the Sentate gun control debate

From Crooks and Liars

Richard Daley Wants His Contribution Back From Sen. Heitkamp
[View a related video by clicking on the link.]

Bill Daley was not only Obama's chief of staff and a former secretary of commerce, he's a major Democratic bundler. He's really ticked off that Heidi Heitkamp, who ran for the Senate as a progressive, punked out when it came to voting for gun control. He's urging contributors to cut off the Democrats who helped the Republicans filibuster the bill:

    I want my money back.

    Last October, I gave $2,500 to support Heidi Heitkamp's campaign to become North Dakota's junior senator. A few weeks later, she won a surprise victory.

    I have had a long career in government and politics, but I don't donate heavily to political campaigns. When I contribute, it's because I know the candidate well or am really impressed with the person. Heidi Heitkamp was one of the latter: She struck me as strong-willed, principled and an independent thinker.

    But this week, Heitkamp betrayed those hopes.

    She voted to block legislation to make gun background checks more comprehensive. Her vote - along with those of 41 Republicans and three other Democrats - was a key reason the measure fell short of the 60 votes needed for passage.

    Polling has shown that nine in 10 Americans and eight in 10 gun owners support a law to require every buyer to go through a background check on every gun sale. In North Dakota, the support was even higher: 94 percent. Yet in explaining her vote, Heitkamp had the gall to say that she "heard overwhelmingly from the people of North Dakota" and had to listen to them and vote no. It seems more likely that she heard from the gun lobby and chose to listen to it instead.

    Here in Chicago, we know how serious a problem gun violence is. Over Easter weekend, 25 people were shot in Chicago. Last year, more than 400 young people were shot in our city. Our mayor and police are working tirelessly to fight gun crime; over the past decade, the Chicago Police Department has taken 50,000 guns off the streets. But illegal gun traffickers don't respect state lines, and easy access to firearms in other states helps fuel gun violence in Chicago.

    Instead of getting help from Washington, 45 senators seem determined to make it easy for criminals to get guns, no questions asked.

    And the truth is that gun violence is not just some big-city, blue-state problem. Which state has the country's highest rate of death by gun? Alaska.

    Yet both Alaska senators - Democrat Mark Begich and Republican Lisa Murkowski - voted against expanding background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and those so mentally ill that they are a danger to themselves or others.

    The other two Democrats who voted against background checks are Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana. Like Begich, they will be running for reelection next year. And no doubt they'll come to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and other cities looking for money to fuel their campaigns. These cities, of course, are also too often the destination for illegal guns flowing in from out of state.

    So I'll have some advice for my friends in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles: Just say no to the Democrats who said no on background checks.

The Nameless Cynic

He calls himself The Nameless Cynic, but he does give his name and background as he launches into a great monologue about the "believers." Fun read for atheists.

Jesus Christ, they're idiots!

Kind of a fun read for Democrats needing some reassurance...

From Russ Douthat in The New York Times. Click the link to read more.

Daniel Larison has been writing a a series of withering posts on Republican self-delusions about this November, and beyond. Here’s a passage from the latest one:

Consider what we have been seeing in just the last week. One of the few House Republicans with any coherent policy views, Paul Ryan, made an impressive budget proposal that his own leadership cannot run away from fast enough. In his first Q&A, Scott Brown simply ignored questions that pointed out the contradiction of supporting across-the-board tax cuts and demanding debt reduction, and it is this position of no taxes/no debt/no cuts that Republican leaders have been adopting. [Richard] Shelby’s blanket hold may be something that only insiders and activists notice, but it contributes to the overall picture that the minority party is unreasonable, petty and not fit to govern. This is not a party on the verge of a dramatic return to power.

Is Obama a top-notch executive?

Susie Madrak posted a great editorial over at Crooks and liars - I've re posted the first part of it here - click the link to finish it...

I said back during the primaries that, as a former executive recruiter, I just didn't see enough executive ability in Obama to make him an effective president. (People retorted that his well-run campaign proved me wrong. I didn't even try to explain that candidates don't run the campaigns - and if they do, it's the sign of a poorly-run campaign). But whatever.

When I used to recruit for C-level jobs (CEO, COO, CTO, etc.), I was often flooded with resumes from people who'd had similar titles, but no strategic experience -- and you could tell after a short conversation. They hadn't been in leadership positions, hadn't redesigned their organizations, designed any new initiatives, hadn't really moved the ball down the field at all. They thought that simply having and keeping a job with a high-level title was enough, and couldn't even conceive there was more to being a strategist. They were process people -- caretakers.

But they just wanted it so much. At first, I'd talk to my manager: "Couldn't we give this guy a shot?" But he finally drummed it into me: Putting someone in a high-level job for which he or she's not suited doesn't help anyone, least of all that new hire.

You can't will yourself into a strategic mindset. Either you have that kind of executive personality and thinking ability, or you don't. And I think it's pretty clear at this point that Obama doesn't:

WASHINGTON — President Obama signaled on Wednesday that he might be willing to scale back his proposed health care overhaul to a version that could attract bipartisan support, as the White House and Congressional Democrats grappled with a political landscape transformed by the Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race.

Eric Zorn - "He Kept Us Safe"

A few quotes from Eric Zorn's Editorial in the Chicago Tribune - taken out of order.

I grew very tired during last year's campaign season of defenders of George W. Bush insisting that we all give the outgoing adminsitration "credit for keeping us safe from terrorist attacks in the U.S. for more than seven years."

The insistence that Bush kept us safe depends on giving him a mulligan for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States on the morning of Sept. 11 in his first year in office.

If we say yes, though, are we prepared, tomorrow at 7:46 a.m. Chicago time, if the moment passes without a domestic attack, to say that President Obama kept us safer longer than George W. Bush?

He's President - And He's Black.

He's president, he's black — get over it

By Merlene Davis - Herald-Leader columnist

Barack Hussein Obama is president of the United States of America.

As such, he is due the respect that the highest office of the land commands.

................

Obama has been a magnet for these unfounded fears, these innuendos, these lies because he is black.

He has not done anything that would justify the outrage we are seeing in factions across this nation. Nothing. He hasn't had time. He has been in office less than eight months.

What this is about is that there are too many people who are afraid of what a black man might do because they have no idea what a black man is all about. The fear is unfounded and insane, fueled by our inability or lack of desire to interact with folks who are different.

There's a lot more to this editorial, and it's good - and it's published in a newspaper in Kentucky. Click HERE to read more.

Did You Know - Soldiers Tell It Like They See It

As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)...

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a "time-sensitive target acquisition mission" on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.)

While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force....

From Daily Kos reporting on Joe Klein reporting on an op-ed by some American troops.