In other news, the revised gun safety bill is being debated in the Senate today.The Manchin-Toomey compromiseis watered down but still worthwhile. I am not usually one to look favorably on symbolic votes or actions, but not on gun violence related issues. The most important thing is to beat the NRA once even if the measure isn’t everything that we were hoping for. It is imperative to break their aura of invincibility; once that happens we can really get to work.
If nothing else, passing any gun control measure will prove those fuckers atPoliticowrong yet again. That is another reason I wrote Senator Landrieu urging her to support the bill. They’ve written off her re-election chances so why not shove this up their ass? I am constantly frustrated with Senator Landrieu but every 6 years, I look around and decide to vote for her again since the alternatives are so unspeakable. She *did* vote for the ACA and may well support the gun compromise. I wish I were more optimistic about her and marriage equality-which she has signalled support for as a human being-but there’s no way she can change that position and win in 2014, alas. We have a heavy concentration of hardcore pre-Vatican council Catholics in Southeast Louisiana and Protestant bible bangers in the rest of the state. Being pro-choice and pro-civil union are among the reasons that she’s never gotten more than 52% of the vote even when her opponent is a joke. Of course, we re-elected Bitter Vitter, so our voters clearly have a lively sense of humor…
Where was I? Oh yeah, I hope the pressure from the awesome Newtown families continues to help progress towards handing the NRA its first Congressional defeat in nearly 20 years. They have had a powerful impact on the debate as anyone who saw the clip of big, tough Joe Manchin tongue-tied in their presence last week can attest. Perhaps they’ll have the same effect in the House. Boner is a weeper, after all. But that will be a much tougher nut house to crack and I say that point blank:
