I'm not so sure about former Education Secretary Arne Duncan idea about parents pulling their children out of school until elected officials pass stricter gun control laws. That would be alike a dream come true for conservatives who don't want kids from poor homes going to school anyway and who believe only kids from wealthy families need to be educated. I prefer a different approach.
Ready for more gun mayhem-- even if you live in a state with rational gun laws? Yesterday afternoon, Congress took a procedural vote providing for consideration of H.R. 38, Richard Hudson's Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, which happens to be the NRA's #1 priority for the current session of Congress.
It takes me hours, most of it in research, to write most DWT posts. Early in January, 2011 I was writing a post about a Blue Dog who had been in office for 5 years. She had joined both Democratic congressional reactionary factions, the Blue Dogs and the Wall Street-owned New Dems. She wasn't bad on gay issues and she was perfect on women's issues but sided with the bad guys on most economic inequality-relkated stuff. Her last rating from the AFL-CIO (2011) was a zero.
So far this cycle, the NRA has handed out direct checks to congressional campaigns to the tune of $540,612. $20,450 went to Democrats and $520,162 went to Republicans. Virtually every Republican gets a piece— and the only Democrats who get anything from them are a handful of the worst of the reactionary Democratic gun shills— John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV), Kurt Shrader (Blue Dog-OR), Tim Walz (MN), Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN).
So far this cycle the NRA's PAC, the Political Victory Fund, has contributed $399,350 to Republicans running for House seats and $18,950 to Democrats. The Democrats are all from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party:
It was very close-- and dramatic, with at least one senator, Lisa Murkowski, changing her vote at the last second, and another, Heidi Heitkamp, flying in from a North Dakota sickbed while Harry Reid held the vote open-- but the Senate shut down the Republican/NRA filibuster of Todd Jones to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). The GOP and NRA have managed to prevent the appointment of a director for 7 years!
