Month: December 2012

Categories
fails House of Representatives Politics

John Boehner – A Useless Leader Without Followers

Well that was quick. It was over before it even started. Just a few short moments ago, House Republicans defeated their leader, John Boehner, with a resounding NO to his alleged “Plan B.” The vote was supposed to happen tonight didn’t even make the floor for a vote. Boehner’s office released a statement saying;

“The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass. Now it is up to the President to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff. The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the January 1st tax increases, and replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation’s crippling debt. The Senate must now act.”

In other words, Boehner could not convince members of his own party to support his own bill.

Moments after that statement was released, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s was seen leaving the chambers and surrounded by the media. And for once in his life, Cantor did his best to stay out of camera view.

Media: “Is there going to be a vote tonight?”

Cantor: “Nope.”

Media: “Is there going to be a vote tomorrow?”

Cantor: “Nope.”

Media: “Are you ditching Plan B?”

Cantor: no answer.

Cantor’s office then released this statement:

The House has concluded legislative business for the week. Members are advised that the House will return for legislative business after the Christmas holiday, when needed.

Boehner’s Plan B was his feeble attempt to show the nation that Republicans were trying to do something to avoid going over the so-called “fiscal cliff” come January 1st. Plan B asked those making more than $1 million to pay a little more in taxes. It differed from the President’s proposal which asked earners making more than $400,000 to pay more in taxes.

“Certainly a fiasco for the Speaker,” said Steve Benen, in an appearance on MSNBC’s The Ed Show. “We’re reminded right now that he is a leader without followers and a leader without followers is pretty much useless.” Steve went on to point out that Boehner has about two weeks left until his reelection as House Speaker, and he concluded that Boehner’s “future as Speaker is very much in doubt.”

Eric Cantor can’t wait!

Categories
Politics taxes

White House: The President Would Veto Boehner’s Plan B

In a statement released by the White House, Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer says President Obama would veto John Boehner’s “Plan B” proposal to extend Bush tax cuts for everyone making up to $1 million:

This approach does not meet the test of balance, and the President would veto the legislation in the unlikely event of its passage.

The president’s position has been that middle-class tax cuts on income up to $250,000 should be extended, although on Monday he offered a concession to Republicans, saying he would accept extending tax cuts on the first $400,000 of income. Republicans rejected that offer, however, responding with Boehner’s “Plan B” to set the threshold at $1 million.

Boehner first offered the $1 million proposal on Friday, so in countering with $400,000, the White House appeared to be saying that $1 million was too high a threshold, but that it was willing to negotiate on a threshold in order to get a deal on the fiscal cliff. But with Republicans rejecting that offer (which also included Social Security cuts), and the White House now rejecting “Plan B” the publicly-stated positions are far apart.

h/t Daily Kos

Categories
Featured mass killings shooting

Study: Mass Killings Occur Every Two Weeks In The U.S

Mass killers target Americans once every two weeks on average, in attacks that range from robberies to horrific public shooting sprees like the massacre Friday of 27 people in Newtown, Conn., a USA TODAY examination found.

Using news accounts and FBI records from 2006 through 2010, the most recent years for which complete records were available, USA TODAY identified 156 murders that met the FBI definitions of mass killings, where four or more people were killed.

All told, the attacks killed 774 people, including at least 161 young children.

The review offers perhaps the most current, complete picture yet of a crime that is both frighteningly common and not widely understood.

h/t USA Today

Categories
Politics

Parents Encouraged Their 6th Grader To Bring Handgun To School

KEARNS, Utah – A 6th grade student brought an unloaded handgun to West Kearns Elementary School Monday.

The 11-year-old boy allegedly told other students his parents encouraged him to bring a gun to school for protection following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday.

The boy reportedly pulled the gun, a .22-caliber pistol, out of his backpack during recess Monday morning.

“At recess, he pointed a gun to my head and said he was going to kill me,” said Isabel Rios, one of the boy’s fellow 6th grade students.

Granite School District officials say students didn’t notify teachers about the weapon until 3 p.m.

“Once the teacher knew there was a weapon in the classroom, the student was apprehended in 30 to 45 seconds and immediately brought down to the office and the police were on site within five to 10 minutes,” said Granite School District Spokesman Ben Horsley.

Granite School District sent a pre-recorded message via telephone to the parents of West Kearns Elementary students at 5:30 p.m. By then, some of those parents had already heard about the incident from their children.

“There was no lockdown. No one was called. Nothing was done. And then we had to hear it from our kids,” said John Klaus, the father of a student at West Kearns Elementary.

School administrators said they didn’t lock the school down because the gun was taken into possession quickly and they felt a lockdown would have scared the students.

Categories
Movie Politics shooting

Shooting At A San Antonio Movie Theater

Gunfire broke out at a San Antonio movie theater late Sunday, leaving two people wounded and sending panicked moviegoers rushing for the exits and ducking for cover, according to CBS San Antonio affiliate KENS, which cites police and witnesses.

Witnesses tell kens numerous shots were fired inside and outside the Santikos Mayan Palace 14 theater complex around 9:25 p.m., setting off the scramble to safety before police and EMS arrived. The complex was evacuated and sealed off for several hours.

Bexar Xounty Sheriff’s spokesman Louis Antu says the incident started when the man fired shots inside a nearby restaurant “and carried on into the theater.” It’s not clear what led to the shooting.

Antu says the man headed toward the theater and shot a male in the lot. The age and condition of the victim wasn’t immediately known, but Antu says his injuries did not appear life-threatening.

The gunman entered the theater, Antu says, where he fired a shot but did not hit anyone. An off-duty sheriff’s deputy working security then shot the gunman.

At one point, the suspect also fired at a San Antonio Police Department patrol car, Antu said.

“He was shooting at a marked unit,” Antu said. “He knows he was shooting at an officer, so that’s (an) automatic (charge of) attempted capital murder.”

The suspect was taken to a hospital but was not immediately charged.

Categories
Featured

Breaking News: Mitt Romney Robs A Wells Fargo Bank! Well… Maybe…

If Mitt Romney didn’t do it, then someone looking like Mitt Romney did. Or maybe the person did not look like the Republican presidential candidate at all. But whoever he was, he wore a Mitt Romney mask to the local Wells Fargo bank in Sterling Virginia and took more… much more than his share.

Just another example of the rich wanting more I guess.

News 4 Washington has the story, and here’s the video.

Categories
Domestic Policies sandy hook shooting violence

The Gun Conversation

Why are we still having this conversation? Why are we still debating whether we should regulate assault and military style (whatever that is) weapons and limit large purchases of ammunition? Why are we still beholden to an organization that believes that the United States Constitution guarantees an unlimited, unfettered, absolute right to a gun, despite a giant clause at the beginning of the Second Amendment that clearly refers to  militias? Do we have absolute free speech rights? Religious rights? Rights to assembly? No. These are all regulated activities. We need to regulate guns.

I’ve read the arguments about how a weapons ban or more regulation would not have stopped this horrific shooting. I’ve listened and watched as talking head after talking head drones on about how politically difficult it is for a Democratic president to pursue controls on weapons because it would be political death.

I’ve had conversations in person and on social media with people for whom their weapon seems to be their most cherished possession.

“If they come for my gun I’ll give them the bullets first!”
“Over my dead body!”
“From my cold dead hands!”
“First it’s my gun, then they’ll come for my house and my family!”
“What we need is for every teacher and principal to be trained in how to use a gun and to be issued one for their classroom.”

Clearly I don’t understand the mania, the attachment, the fear, the anger, and the entitlement that many people have with their guns. I’m not advocating taking anyone’s gun away who can’t prove that they’re responsible enough to carry one. I’m questioning the idea that we don’t have to ask more questions, or do more background checks or limit what kind of gun people can buy and how much ammunition they can get at one time. There are responsible ways to do this. We regulate so many things in our society from marriage to driver’s to pet licenses, from who can be a teacher and a police officer to how fresh the meat and dairy has to be in our food stores.

But guns? Weapons that can destroy lives? Kill children? Apparently not more than the way we regulate them now, despite the fact that the system doesn’t work. When a system doesn’t work and results in people’s deaths, you fix it. That’s what we need now.

Are there ways around these proposals? You bet. And people will find them. But the point is to put them in place and see how they work because what we have now has led to one of the bloodiest, tragic, heartbreaking years this country has seen in quite a while. Gun deaths are preventable. Let’s prevent them.

Register your comments at www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

Categories
Featured sandy hook sandy hook elementary school violence

President Obama Speaks At Sandy Hook – Promises Change To Prevent More Tradedies – Video

President Obama met with the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting today, and broke some news during his speech telling the audience that it was time for the nation to come together and do what was necessary to protect our children.

The President hinted that there will be new legislation in the coming months geared towards guns. “This is our first task,” Mr. Obama said, “caring for our children. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how as a society we would be judge.”

The President goes on to say that “we’re not doing enough” to stop gun violence, “and we would have to change.”

And in his most direct sentence signaling change, the president said, “in the coming weeks I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators  in an effort to prevent more tragedies like this. Because what choice do we have?”

Watch the President’s full speech below.

Categories
Featured sandy hook elementary school shooting

Six Year Old Survivor – “Mommy I’m Okay, But All My Friends Are Dead!”

A heartbreaking story of a 6 year old girl. She was in one of the classrooms when the shooter Adam Lanza, entered and began shooting. The little girl laid among her classmates as they were being killed. She pretended to be dead herself and after it was all over, she ran out of the building covered in her classmates blood.

When she got to her waiting mother she said, “Mommy, I’m okay, but all my friends are dead.”

Her story was retold by a pastor, who offered grief counseling the little girl’s mother after the incident. The other 15 students in her class were all killed.

ABC News reports;

Categories
Featured Indiana shooting

Indiana Man Arrested For Threatening To Kill More Kids At Another Elementary School

CEDAR LAKE, Ind. — A northern Indiana man who allegedly threatened to “kill as many people as he could” at an elementary school near his home was arrested by officers who later found 47 guns and ammunition hidden throughout his home.

Von. I. Meyer, 60, of Cedar Lake, was arrested Saturday after prosecutors filed formal charges of felony intimidation, domestic battery and resisting law enforcement against him. He was being held Sunday without bond at the Lake County Jail, pending an initial hearing on the charges, police said in a statement.

Cedar Lake Police officers were called to Meyer’s home early Friday after he allegedly threatened to set his wife on fire once she fell asleep, the statement said.

Meyer also threatened to enter nearby Jane Ball Elementary School “and kill as many people as he could before police could stop him,” the statement said. Meyer’s home is less than 1,000 feet from the school and linked to it by trails and paths through a wooded area, police said.

Police said in the statement that they notified school officials and boosted security at all area schools Friday – the same day 26 people, including 20 students, were shot and killed at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

h/t Huffington Post

Categories
Featured sandyhook shooting

Gone Too Soon – Names And Pictures of Connecticut Shooting Victims Revealed

They went to school that fateful day, but they never returned home. The names and pictures of the victims in the Newtown Elementary school shooting can be seen below – 20 children, 6 adults. A seventh adult identified as the shooter’s mother was also discovered at the shooter’s home.

The pictures of the children released to far are;


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                                      Caroline Provide – 6 years old
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The names and pictures of the adults revealed so far are;

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The shooter and his first victim, his mother.

Categories
Politics sandy hook shooting weekly address

President’s Weekly Address – Coming Together After The Tragedy In Connecticut

In this week’s presidential address, President Obama spoke about the tragedy in Newtown Connecticut and insist that politicians and the nation must come together to take “meaningful action to prevent more tragedies” in the future.

We have endured far too many of these tragedies in the last few years. An elementary school in Newtown. A shopping mall in Oregon. A house of worship in Wisconsin. A movie theater in Colorado. Countless street corners in places like Chicago and Philadelphia.

Any of these neighborhoods could be our own. So we have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this. Regardless of the politics.

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