The DCCC supports Democrats who take bribes from the NRAThe Beltway media covered last week's congressional sit in as a Democrats vs Republicans kind of confrontation, even including a widely reported scene featuring Texas crackpot Louie Gohmert storming the sit in and screaming about radical Islam. (Gun lobbyist bribes to Gohmert: $35,111.)
House Democrats, as a historically small minority opposition party, surprised nearly everyone with their seemingly unplanned protest of Republican intransigency on gun control measures in the wake of the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Their occupation of the House floor to demand a vote on a host of gun curbing efforts on Wednesday, including the barring of gun sales to suspected terrorists on the “no-fly-list,” was met with fierce Republican disdain.Hours into the sit-in lead by over 50 House (and a few Senate) Democrats, the chamber finished up several votes forced by Republicans as Democrats continued to yell and demand a gun vote when one Republican became so fed-up with the disobedience and breakdown of order that he angrily confronted his colleagues.As California Democrat Brad Sherman was delivering his speech advocating for reform, Texas Republican Louie Gohmert stormed onto the floor, pointing and yelling, “Radical Islam killed these people!”“We are talking about radical Islam!” Gohmert yelled, waving his finger at posters featuring photos of the victims of the recent mass shooting at an Orlando, Florida gay club. “Radical Islam killed these people!”“It appears the gentleman is afraid to vote and afraid to debate,” Sherman hollered from the podium as his fellow Democrats cheered and chanted, “No bill, no break!” “And given the weakness of his arguments and his position, his fear is well founded,” Sherman continued, speaking of Gohmert.Afterward, Orlando-area Congresswoman Corrine Brown and Gohmert nearly came to blows before being quickly pulled away from one another.
Everyone was betting on Corrine to wipe the floor with Gohmert. But not all Democrats were supportive of the sit-in. In fact, there are Democrats-- particularly in Texas-- who would have liked to have helped Gohmert beat up Corrine Brown. The Hill's coverage mentioned that there were Democrats who sat out the sit-in, without once mentioning the coincidence that the sit-in boycotters are all on the NRA/gun lobbyist payroll and all are soaked in their blood money.Most of the NRA Democrats have been defeated in the last few years. Democratic voters just stopped supporting them and their careers ended one by one. But there are still a handful of Democratic NRA shills left. They did not back the sit-in that 179 of their colleagues participated in. Over the weekend, a gun group contacted me and asked if Blue America would participate in an effort to defeat some of these types in the Senate in 2018, particularly Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester. Of course, I said YES with great enthusiasm but I hope to persuade them to go after some NRA Dems in the House as well.The Hill's lame coverage mentioned that "the no-shows were absent for a range of reasons, only a handful of which were related to either the protest itself or the legislation it was designed to move. They included illness, family tragedy, travel and legal trouble." And yes, Mark Takai is battling cancer and Chaka Fattah is on his way to prison, but no where in The Hill's piece does it mention anything about gun lobbyist bribes.
Rep. Sanford Bishop (Ga.), a gun-owning Blue Dog Democrat, said that while he thinks firearms should be subject to "reasonable regulation" for sake of public safety, the proposals championed by his fellow Democrats went too far. "[R]egulation of firearms and individual gun ownership or use must be consistent with civil liberties such as due process, equal protection, freedom from unlawful searches, and privacy," Bishop said in a statement. "Unfortunately, none of the measures [House Democrats were pushing] … would adequately do that."
With fellow Georgian John Barrow defeated, Bishop is now one of the NRA's top Democratic moles in the House. He's taken $50,315 from the gun manufacturers, quite a bit more than Gohmert, although The Hill didn't feel that was germane to their story. Even more bizarre was their assertion that "Rep. Tim Walz (Minn.), another Democrat who almost certainly would have participated, is back in his district tending a family tragedy. Walz's brother, Craig, was killed Sunday by a tree toppled by violent storms that hit the northern Minnesota wilderness area where he was camping with his son." If Walz had participated he would have been hissing the Democrats from the Republican side of the aisle. Apparently no one at The Hill bothered to look up his gun-nut record in Congress or bothered to note that the gun nut groups have given him $20,950 in bribes.The Hill also made excuses for Blue Dog Loretta Sanchez (CA) without mentioning that she;s taken $1,500 from the gun manufacturers. The closest they got to reporting that there were Democrats on the GOP side of the argument was in discussing 2 of the NRA Democrats from Texas, Filemon Vela and Gene Green, not even mentioning Henry Cuellar, an NRA stalwart. Gun lobbyist bribes to Green have amounted to $49,750, while Cuellar has sucked up $26,450 in blood money. There's no mention in the piece at all of NRA Dem Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) who the NRA has rewarded with $84,500 in bribes for his pro-gun voting record. That's the most they've given to any Democrat still serving in the House.
Rep. Filemon Vela said he backs both of "the Republican-authored bipartisan bills that inspired the sit-in." But the Texas Blue Dog didn't participate, he said, out of concern that unnamed other Democrats were preparing to expand their protest beyond the gun reforms that were the central focus."I understand and respect the passion of other members of Congress who did participate in the sit-in, but I wasn't sure that the sit-in was going to be confined to the no fly bill," Vela said in an email.His office declined to specify what other issues he feared would be broached. Rep. Gene Green, another Texas Democrat who declined to join the protest, was similarly cryptic. Green said he also supports both the gun reforms and "the members right to sit in," and a spokesman sent a list of reforms Green has championed. But he didn't clarify why Green steered clear of the sit-in.
Sunday we mentioned a very different kind of Texas Democrat, populist and progressive Tom Wakely who is running an overtly anti-gun violence campaign against Republican crackpot and NRA darling Lamar Smith ($59,650). Wakely: "As Gandhi so eloquently wrote: 'Nonviolence is the weapon of the strong.' What we are confronted with now is an epidemic of violence that is perpetuated by ignorance and fear. It's time to reverse the cycle. I'm ready to fight for the change that our country needs-- are you?"The really big gun lobbyist money to House members goes to bribe top Republicans like Speaker Paul Ryan ($167,355) and sell-outs with committee positions willing to carry their agenda like Ken Calvert ($127,150), Steve Pearce ($121,081) and Dean Heller ($104,265) but that $84,500 in bribes to Collin Peterson certainly sends a message to rat-fucking Democrats that the NRA is willing to play across the aisle in return for "friendly" behavior.