White House denounces senators as cowards on gun control

[bemildred]

Source: Reuters

The White House accused U.S. senators of sacrificing national security for their political ambitions on Tuesday, a day after four gun control measures failed to advance after the nation's largest mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, last week.

"What we saw last night on the floor of the United States Senate was a shameful display of cowardice," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on MSNBC.

Earnest said the bills put forth for votes on Monday evening should have drawn strong bipartisan support aimed at shoring up the country's defenses by keeping firearms away from people on terrorism watch lists.

He said U.S. law enforcement officials are concerned that there are individuals in the United States who could have ties to terrorism or are susceptible to online recruitment efforts of the militant group Islamic State.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-guns-idUSKCN0Z71UZ

[47of74]

1. About damn time the President calls these no good cowards out.

[bemildred]

3. That's my President. nt

[Javaman]

2. Upton Sinclair said it best...

"it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it".

this is the basic problem when trying to persuade senators to vote for gun control when they get huge amounts of contributions from the NRA.

[bemildred]

4. No disrespect to Lewis intended, but I like Henry Miller's version:

For the man in the paddock, whose duty it is to sweep up manure, the supreme terror is the possibility of a world without horses.
-- Henry Miller in Tropic of Cancer"

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

24. I don't think there is any foreseeable shortage ...

... of horse-shit in the Senate or House.

But thanks for that quote, very nice.

[3catwoman3]

29. No foreseeable shortage...

...whatsoever.

[elleng]

7. Right, and this includes Democrats,

Manchin, Tester and Heitkamp.

[Javaman]

8. it includes all of congress.

they are all beholden to one lobbyist or another.

[demmayhem]

18. Damn right...

...what is their justification?

[elleng]

23. They want NRA $,

clearly nothing rational. I doubt their constituents depend on such for their lives.

[bjobotts]

13. Republican senators..."Republican" senators. If dems controlled the senate it would have passed

[Javaman]

22. they all take lobby money.

it's just a matter of "what's your poison?"

[Agnosticsherbet]

5. The House is also people by cowards. They won't have to refuse to vote on the bills

because they failed in the Senate.

[asiliveandbreathe]

6. There you have it - the Senate wants terrorist to buy guns -

- support background checks..nope - ban assault weapons - nope - worry about someone on the nofly list in error - who is unable to have due process - nope -

If you or I were on the nofly list, don't you think we would already be requesting a review???? Due process??? -

What a bunch of cowards..that we can agree!!!

[bucolic_frolic]

9. National Security has been an AWOL issue

Citizens want to be safe, not all want to feel safe because they own
more firepower than they need, and not all do feel safe that way

Politicians who can't provide some kind of effort to make citizens
feel safe are not doing their job

[askeptic]

10. Democrats’ War on Due Process and Terrorist Fearmongering Long Predate Orlando

I know there's a lot of groupthink on this topic so I'm sure I'll take heat. No matter - the Constitution is still important.

Glenn Greenwald

BEFORE THE BODIES were removed from the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last week, Democrats began eagerly exploiting that atrocity to demand a new, secret “terrorist watchlist”: something that was once the domestic centerpiece of the Bush/Cheney war-on-terror mentality. Led by their propaganda outlet, Center for American Progress (CAP), Democrats now want to empower the Justice Department — without any judicial adjudication — to unilaterally bar citizens who have not been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime from purchasing guns.

Worse than the measure itself is the rancid rhetoric they are using. To justify this new list, Democrats, in unison, are actually arguing that the U.S. government must constrain people whom they are now calling “potential terrorists.” Just spend a moment pondering how creepy and Orwellian that phrase is in the context of government designations.

What is a “potential terrorist”? Isn’t everyone that? And who wants the U.S. government empowered to unilaterally restrict what citizens can do based on predictions or guesses about what they might become or do in the future? Does anyone have any doubt that this will fall disproportionately on certain groups and types of people?

The Democrats’ most extreme attack on due process comes, unsurprisingly, from that party’s supremely authoritarian Terror Warrior, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose bill would “give the attorney general the discretion to block a sale to a given individual suspected of involvement of some kind in terrorism.” In their effort to exploit Orlando and other recent mass shootings, Feinstein and the Democrats encountered a serious problem: Neither Omar Mateen, nor the racist Charleston killer Dylann Roof, nor numerous other mass shooters, were on any terrorist watchlist (Mateen was investigated by the FBI, which — rightly — closed its file on him in 2014 after it found no evidence of wrongdoing). So Feinstein wrote a special provision in her bill to obviate this objection, one empowering the attorney general to put anyone on the banned list “who has been investigated in the last five years for ‘conduct related to a Federal crime of terrorism’” — even if they were ultimately found to have done nothing wrong.

https://theintercept.com/2016/06/21/democrats-war-on-due-process-and-terrorist-fear-mongering-long-pre-dates-orlando/

.............
So they want to use an unConstitutional list to deny Constitutional rights, even if you are found to have done nothing wrong? This is why the list needs to be transparent and there needs to be court involvement. Are liberal Americans really authoritarians in disguise?

[bjobotts]

12. Absolutely no justification for this measure, Not helpful in keeping war weapons off the streets

Proofs replaced by rumor and innuendo instead of evidence. You cannot prevent insane people from doing insane things but we can make it difficult for them to get weapons of war with magazines holding 50 bullets. Ban assault weapons, close gun show loopholes and coordinate background checks.

[askeptic]

14. I'm OK with any measures that are Constitutional

Since most of the targeted weapons bans are actually look-alikes, and don't contain the military barrel or automatic mode, it seems to me that with a smaller clip it is not appreciably different from any other semi-auto weapon. But who knows. Even if a ban succeeds, what about the millions already in existence?

What bothers me most is the method of disenfranchisement - we've already thrown away the 4th Amendment and the 5th to TSA, restricting the right to travel, where the no-fly and similar lists have never gotten an upper court decision as to Constitutionality. And the lower court decision has declared no-fly unConstitutional precisely because there are no 5th Amendment protections in its use. I really hate it when the Constitution get's used selectively - we're for equal rights as Constitutionally guaranteed, but are willing to ignore other Constitutional guarantees whenever they're inconvenient.

[Ikonoklast]

21. People here just don't get it. They are fine with having secret government lists.

Lists they believe only "Bad Guys" get put on.

They think that no way will the power to secretly control the movement of perceived "enemies" will ever apply to them.

They are wrong.

Those lists will expand to include political enemies of whatever administration is current, critics, "undesirables", people with unpopular opinions...they think it's OK as it will never touch them.

When George Bush and Dick Cheney did it, Democrats were up in arms over it. Now that Obama is doing it, well, it must be all right. No way would a secret list ever get abused by the government.

Wrong. Horribly wrong.

The PTB are hell-bent on destroying Due Process, and once that happens, the rest of the Constitution is toast.


If someone is suspected of wrongdoing, CHARGE THEM.

Otherwise, this is a travesty and any American with half a brain should realize their rights are rapidly being taken from them.

[Duckhunter935]

27. War weapons?

No army uses an AR-15 as a military weapon. My bolt action rifles on the other hand are actually military weapons. Just because they look like the military weapons dies not mean they function the same.

[bjobotts]

11. Should be denounced "republican" senators calling "republican" senators cowards.

[packman]

15. Good - Give 'em hell, Obama

Needs , and should have been done many times earlier, to be done and done again. Fuckin' NRA whores.

[rockfordfile]

31. yeah I agree

[jtuck004]

16. This coming from a millionaire who took $8.7 billion in food assistance away from hungry

children and families, and said," The Farm Bill, he said, would “give more Americans a shot at opportunity.”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-signs-food-stamp-cut

Opportunity for his kids, however, is sending them to Harvard.

So if anyone knows what a coward is, he ought to.

[NoMoreRepugs]

17. The Reuters piece did not mention the plurality of Republicans who voted to defeat the bills..

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[saidsimplesimon]

19. +1

Thank you, bemildred

"We the People", not the politicians or money people who profit from more war, will be watching the war mongers messaging.

[Hiraeth]

20. bought and paid for cowards. good and loyal employees of the NRA.

[Skittles]

25. specifically, they are gun humping cowards

fuck them all

[scscholar]

26. This. Too cowardly to stand-up to due process

The Constitution, as the SCOTUS has ruled, is not a suicide pact.

[Duckhunter935]

28. Why did not the Democrats

Vote for the Republican bills? Is perfection better than any action?

[Kang Colby]

30. I respectfully disagree with President Obama.

I do not agree with politically legitimizing secretive lists used to deny rights - protected or otherwise. If someone is associated with terrorism, build a case and take them to court. Due process is of the utmost importance.

[Hekate]

32. I think this must be part of his "Buck-it!" List. The man has no more fucks to give...

...and the year is only half over.

[ileus]

33. Cowards, or do they hear the voices of their constituents.

Just because the president and press want you to vote one way doesn't mean you disregard the will of the people that put you there.

[One_Life_To_Give]

34. Comment for Public Consumption nt