MAIG Coalition: Gabrielle Giffords Calls On Congress

Uploaded on Jan 30, 2013 by maigcoalition
"Gabby Giffords made deeply moving opening remarks at today's Senate hearing on gun violence. This was the first hearing on guns since President Obama stepped forward with his recommendations, and Former Congresswoman Giffords made the most of the opportunity to call on members of Congress to take action now."

"[M]aigcoalition" is the YouTube arm of the very focused, intense, laudable group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.  Perhaps you've received a hundred emails or so from them as they "Demand A Plan" -- MAIG's grassroots initiative, a bipartisan coalition of more than 800 mayors desirous of keeping weaponry out of dangerous hands.

Lest we think these are just folks jumping on a bandwagon driven by the "sensationalism" of recent headlines, here are the 40 Action Items they posited in a blueprint published in 2009:


Recommendations from Mayors Against Illegal Guns:  A Blueprint for Implementation

1. The FBI should inform state and 
local law enforcement every time 
NICS reports that a prohibited 
person has attempted to purchase 
a firearm and, when appropriate, 
inform state mental health 
agencies when NICS rejects a 
buyer due to mental health.
The Federal Bureau 
of Investigations 
(FBI), Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco 
& Firearms (ATF)


2.  The Justice Department should 
identify which NICS rejections 
should be investigated and 
prosecuted. 
DOJ, FBI, ATF 

3. The Department of Homeland 
Security (DHS) should require 
REAL ID-compliant identification 
for all gun purchases after 
December 1, 2014.
The Department of 
Homeland Security 
(DHS), White 
House Office of 
Management and 
Budget (OMB)

4. NICS should electronically verify 
the validity of and the name 
associated with any state-issued 
identification number provided on 
a background check Form 4473.
FBI 

5.  ATF should perform background 
checks on employees of federal 
firearms licensees at the licensees’ 
request.
ATF, FBI 

6.  ATF should perform background 
checks on gun dealer employees 
during audit inspections.
ATF, FBI 

7.  The Justice Department should 
notify dealers stripped of their 
licenses that they will continue 
to be “engaged in the business” 
if they dispose of inventory in 
significant quantities for profit.
DOJ, ATF

8.  ATF should fully enforce the 
requirement that dealers notify 
ATF within five business days 
whenever they transfer more than 
one handgun to an unlicensed 
person, including when dealers 
transfer more than one handgun to 
their own personal collections.  
ATF 

9.  ATF should maintain NICS 
records of default proceed sales to 
persons on the terrorist watch list 
for 20 years and all other records 
of default proceed sales for six 
months.  
ATF, FBI

10.  When tracing guns, ATF National 
Tracing Center (NTC) personnel 
should be trained to routinely ask 
the FFL who sold the gun whether 
the recovered gun was purchased 
at a gun show and the location of 
that gun show, and then use the 
data to identify problematic gun 
shows.
ATF 

11.  ATF field agents should have the 
discretion to conduct criminal 
enforcement operations at 
gun shows when trace data, 
prosecutions, and witness 
statements suggest a particular 
show is a source of crime guns.
ATF 

12.  ATF should increase enforcement 
activities to deter sales to 
prohibited purchasers by 
unlicensed gun sellers.
ATF

13.  ATF should investigate private 
sellers at gun shows who appear to 
be engaged in the business without 
a license.
ATF 

14.  At gun shows known for criminal 
activity, agents should have 
discretion to compare purchasers’ 
addresses reported on Form 4473 
to their state driving records. 
ATF 

15.  ATF should expand Project 
Gunrunner by increasing the ATF 
personnel assigned to interdict gun 
trafficking from the United States 
to Mexico.
DOJ, ATF, DHS, 
OMB, State 
Department, 
Congress

16.  ATF should establish an Interstate 
Firearms Trafficking Unit 
(IFTU) run by an ATF Deputy 
Chief to coordinate interstate 
investigations.
ATF, DOJ, OMB, 
Congress

17.  ATF should receive an additional 
$53 million annually to hire more 
inspectors to meet its target of 
triennial dealer audits.
DOJ, ATF, OMB, 
Congress

18.  ATF should enforce a dealer’s 
license revocation when the 
dealer’s administrative appeals are 
exhausted.
ATF

19.  ATF inspectors should conduct 
undercover investigations to 
assess gun dealer compliance with 
federal laws and regulations.  
ATF

20.  ATF should investigate all 
incidents involving thefts of five 
or more guns from dealers or 
individuals.  
ATF 

21.  ATF should require FFLs to report 
to the National Crime Information 
Center (NCIC) thefts of firearms 
from common carriers and bonded 
warehouses. 
ATF 

22.  The federal government should 
report annually on lost and stolen 
guns.
DOJ, ATF 

23.  DOJ should support an 
additional 250 state and local 
law enforcement officers to be 
assigned to ATF Task Forces. 
DOJ, ATF, OMB, 
Congress

24.  ATF should create an Office 
of Tactical Trace Analysis at 
the National Tracing Center to 
proactively analyze trace data 
and to identify gun traffickers and 
problematic dealers.
ATF, DOJ, OMB, 
Congress

25.  The Office of Tactical Trace 
Analysis should use a trace-toNICS-check ratio to determine 
which dealers have a high volume 
of crime-gun traces compared to 
their approximate sales volume.
ATF 

26.  When dealers fail to respond to 
trace requests, ATF should send 
demand letters, search FFLs’ 
sales records, and/or require 
them to provide sworn statements 
describing when and to whom the 
gun was transferred. 
ATF 

27.  The Justice Department should 
require FFLs to keep logs of gun 
trace requests. 
ATF, OMB 

28.  ATF should require a second, 
hidden serial number on every 
newly manufactured gun.   
ATF, OMB 

29.  In the alternative, ATF should 
require that serial numbers be 
placed on steel and not soft metal, 
require stamped rather than etched 
marks on the gun surface, and 
require marks to be 0.0005 deep 
and 1/8 inch tall.
ATF, OMB

30.  ATF should require domestic 
manufacturers to use a 
standardized system for 
numbering firearms.  
ATF, OMB 

31.  The federal government should 
invest in local efforts to reduce 
recidivism among gun offenders.  
DOJ, OMB, 
Congress

32.  The federal government should 
increase support for community 
programs that generate tips on 
illegal firearms trafficking. 
DOJ, OMB

33.  ATF should promote the 
Responsible Firearms Retailer 
Partnership (RFRP), pioneered by 
Wal-Mart, as a voluntary program 
for gun dealers to deter the 
movement of guns into the illegal 
market.
ATF 

34.  DOJ and ATF should 
produce updated versions of 
groundbreaking reports on illegal 
firearms trafficking.
DOJ, ATF 

35.  ATF should expand the scope of 
its trace reports. 
DOJ, ATF 

36.  DOJ should fund external research 
of emerging problems in illegal 
gun trafficking and the results of 
enforcement efforts.
DOJ, ATF 

37.  Consumer Products Safety 
Commission (CPSC) should 
evaluate and develop industry 
standards for locks that meet legal 
requirements.
CPSC 

38.  The federal government should 
resume enforcement of federal 
law that bans importing “nonsporting purpose” firearms and 
ammunition. 
DHS, ATF, DOJ

39.  ATF should identify the long guns 
most linked to crime and require 
dealers to report multiple sales of 
such guns.
ATF 

40.  ATF should reclassify the Stinger 
pen gun, as well as any other 
pen guns introduced since 2002, 
as “Any Other Weapons” under 
the National Firearms Act, 
thereby subjecting them to strict 
background check, licensing, and 
registration requirements.
ATF

President Barack Obama & U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

From Road to Election Day 2012

George Packer's Interesting Times

Interesting Times:
Semi-regular thoughts on foreign affairs, politics, and books, from George Packer.

Photo from King of World,
Tucson Lightening Strike

Arguing Tucson

Over a hundred comments and counting! Many are well-argued, including a lot of the dissents, and make me want to argue back. Some are nasty enough to give my original post a sort of roundabout boost. But who knew that so many conservatives read The New Yorker? I hope they stay subscribers.

I’ll group my answers and after-thoughts under several topics that come up frequently in the thread.

Marx wasn’t Hitler! I paired them, in the shorthand of blogging, as influences on Loughner (he cited “The Communist Manifesto” and “Mein Kampf”) whose destructive legacies do not include the shootings in Tucson. Obviously, a philosopher of political economy and a genocidal totalitarian dictator are not remotely commensurate—I should have made that clear. But when tens of millions of people are killed under the banner of an ism that bears your name within a century of your life, you don’t get the philosopher’s free pass. Were those murders the result of a tragic distortion of Marx? Yes—and yet, at the same time, one can’t read Marx’s writings without being aware of his brutal inflexibility, his hatred of what he considered humanistic moral cant. Marx heralded the remorseless wheel of history, whatever victims it might claim.

You started it! It’s undeniable that some Americans on the left never accepted the Bush Presidency as legitimate after the Florida recount. It’s also undeniable that the left’s rhetoric over the Iraq War was often hostile, simplistic, and unfair. For commenters who don’t know my work and assume I’m a partisan hack, take a look at Chapter 11 of “The Assassins’ Gate,” my book about Iraq, for detailed criticism of just that tendency, which flourished on both sides of the war. I try to call them as I see them, and I get in trouble with both sides along the way.

But it won’t do to dig up stray comments by Obama, Allen Grayson, or any other Democrat who used metaphors of combat over the past few years, and then try to claim some balance of responsibility in the implied violence of current American politics. (Most of the Obama quotes that appear in the comments were lame attempts to reassure his base that he can get mad and fight back, i.e., signs that he’s practically incapable of personal aggression in politics.) In fact, there is no balance—none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.

Read the rest of this blog entry HERE.

George Packer is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and the author of three nonfiction books, two novels, and a play.

More from George Packer.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik -- A Voice of Reason -- But The Dolphins Of Taiji Still Drive This Blog's Traffic

After Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head and number of others were wounded or killed in a shooting in Tucson, Ariz. on Saturday, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said that the state has "become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."


Addressing the tragedy at a news conference, the sheriff said that law enforcement had reason to believe that Giffords was specifically targeted in the attack. He added that evidence suggests one suspect -- 22-year-old Jared Loughner, who is already in custody -- likely did not act alone.


"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," said the sheriff. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."


When asked by a reporter if Giffords being shot could have been motivated by "prejudice and bigotry," Dupnik responded, "All I can tell you is that there's reason to believe is that this individual may have a mental issue. And I think that people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol."


While speaking, the sheriff said that himself it included, "it's not unusual for all public officials to get threats." However, he said the sentiment doesn't come without consequences.


"And that's the sad thing of what's going on in America," he explained. "Pretty soon, we're not going to be able to find reasonable, decent people who are willing to subject themselves to serve in public office."


(Click HERE for the latest developments unfolding following the incident.)

The dead and wounded from yesterday's shooting in Tucson have all been identified, as well as the gunman, Jared Loughner, who according to reports, is not cooperating with police and has invoked his constitutional right to silence.

Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head and is in critical condition at Tucson's University Medical Center after undergoing surgery, after which it was reported that she was successfully following commands, leaving doctors to be "cautiously optimistic."

The following people lost their lives:

- U.S. District Judge John Roll, 63.

- Gabe Zimmerman, 30, Giffords' director of community outreach.

- Dorwin Stoddard, 76, a pastor at Mountain Ave. Church of Christ.

- Christina Greene, 9, a student at Mesa Verde Elementary.

- Dorthy Murray, 76.

- Phyllis Scheck, 79.

At least 18 people were shot, but I cannot find everyone's names, which I imagine is something they may appreciate.

I know you don't visit elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle to bring yourself up-to-date on breaking news stories and it's probable that you don't share many of my opinions.  Right now, the number one search term bringing new readers to this site remains "Taiji," and that is often the result of an image search, not text. 

The waters roiling with the blood of massacred dolphins were captured in a powerful photo that I used to illustrate a post on that annual brutality.  I am glad that some of these searchers choose to remain dedicated readers -- I feel very humble and honored by such occurrences. 

If you are interested in a terrific presentation on the dolphin slaughter, consider renting The Cove, a superb documentary.

But in terms of the last 24 hours, there have been a good number of folks hanging out here in order to view the video of Congresswoman Giffords reading the First Amendment on the floor of the House last week.  I've no clue why anyone comes here to watch it, but who am I to decipher the intricacies of search? Anyway, we are thinking of trying to get people outside The Manor proper by showing the video on a continual loop out in the roomy boathouse, the only new facility we have as an outbuilding.  It is cold enough that most viewers will feel encouraged to head on home.  Abbot Truffatore has lent us a host of Cistercian monks from The-Monastery-Down-the-Road, these good brothers having been diverted from the protection detail over there that guards The Holy Foreskin, their best Holy Relic, and they are doing a masterful job of directing all the blog traffic.

So, while the Denizens of The Manor are bleary-eyed this morning from our night spent over at my brother TW's place -- sleeping in our magic tent -- or *not* sleeping, as is more likely -- ensconced in deep snow, overlooking the land around one of his beloved buttes -- we are gearing up to host visitors as proscribed by Haddock tradition.

Luckily, the flight from The Grand Canyon made excellent time getting us back to The Lone Alp Regional Airport, and our pilot even made the normally nauseating sudden-drop landing seem easy.


N.B.  Clearly, I am not a regular watcher of CNN or any predominantly news station, the constant iteration of the same information, and sometimes, like yesterday, the wrong information, causes my eyes to glaze over.  So can someone explain to me how (and when) Eliot Spitzer got his smarmy self rehabilitated?

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Reads the First Amendment

In an eerie coincidence, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot today at a meet-and-greet with constituents in Tucson, participated in this past week's reading of the Constitution from the House floor specifically reading the First Amendment, which protects among other things the right of citizens to peacefully assemble and petition the government.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

REPOST in the wake of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' Shooting: Pollyanna's Glad Game

When a Congressperson is shot at point blank range in the head, it is time to examine the atmosphere that is informing our political and social makeup.


It is time to talk about these things, it is time to put up our "Polyanna Glad Games," and to pull our collective head out of the sand. Discourse, and its level of civility, matters.


Words matter.


There are desperately angry people who are desperately searching for leadership. The desperation has been increasingly palpable since President Obama took office -- his election having tapped into the barely suppressed rage of racists whose racism has heretofore managed to adequately explain their racist world. They feel intimately violated by the sweeping changes in the United States, no matter how intelligent or necessary that change has been.


It's been all "Don't tread on me" with neverending references to some abstract "Truth" and fantastical "Liberties" that our "Forefathers" apparently secreted from their very pores. 

Already I am reading things like "[t]here aren't many details yet, but whatever they turn out to be, they will be spun hard, and not in favor of liberty," that from Moonbattery on today's shooting. 


It's been nothing but racist, ignorant bullshit for way too long. And there has grown alongside of it a fluorishing political economy of wagging radio tongues and malevolent talking heads.


The sad thing is that those with real points to make on the conservative side of politics and governing have been drowned out, their thoughts and considered points trammeled by demagoguery.


There is a place for the right, the left, and the moderate.


There is no place, or, at least, there ought not be a place, for mindless followers spurred on by meanspirited Machiavellis.


Anyway, I lay the blame for Congress Woman Giffords death squarely on the shoulders of FOX News and those who put gun targets on the backs of public servants.


It will be a while before I play The Glad Game. How about you?

***************************************************************

The editorial below is one of the best, most thought-and-discussion provoking pieces I've come across in a good while. It's reproduced here in its entirety -- please forgive me for that and be sure to follow the link, because the comments are also well worth a read.

I am a Frank Rich fan. He is meticulous. He is candid.

And I usually agree with him -- there's that!

I haven't yet scoped out the responses to this editorial -- I am sure they're mounting -- but will post links to them. Maybe tomorrow! I am having a few days of... I don't know exactly how to characterize it... carefully crafted peace? It took me a week but I managed to trace the source of my acid stomach to all this mess.

We've been laid bare. I've been laid bare. Flailed, thrashed. My mind is bleeding.

And in other, more important news? Fred installed a birdhouse in the huge oak sheltering our suite in the northeast wing of Marlinspike Hall, where we have been living for a decade or so, rent-free but burdened by incredible maintenance cares -- all courtesy of Captain Haddock. Five minutes after hanging the For Rent sign, a robin moved in and began building!

Yes, I am playing the Pollyanna Glad Game, however did you know?

For a moment there was silence. The sky was darkening fast. Pollyanna took a firmer hold of her friend's arm.

"I reckon I'm glad, after all, that you did get scared -- a little, 'cause then you came after me," she shivered.

"Poor little lamb! And you must be hungry, too. I -- I'm afraid you'll have ter have bread and milk in the kitchen with me. Yer aunt didn't like it -- because you didn't come down ter supper, ye know."

"But I couldn't. I was up here."

"Yes; but -- she didn't know that, you see!" observed Nancy, dryly, stifling a chuckle. "I'm sorry about the bread and milk; I am, I am."

"Oh, I'm not. I'm glad."

"Glad! Why?"

"Why, I like bread and milk, and I'd like to eat with you. I don't see any trouble about being glad about that."

"You don't seem ter see any trouble bein' glad about everythin'," retorted Nancy, choking a little over her remembrance of Pollyanna's brave attempts to like the bare little attic room.

Pollyanna laughed softly.

"Well, that's the game, you know, anyway."

"The -- game?"

"Yes; the 'just being glad' game."

"Whatever in the world are you talkin' about?"

"Why, it's a game. Father told it to me, and it's lovely," rejoined Pollyanna. "We've played it always, ever since I was a little, little girl. I told the Ladies' Aid, and they played it -- some of them."

"What is it? I ain't much on games, though."

Pollyanna laughed again, but she sighed, too; and in the gathering twilight her face looked thin and wistful.

"Why, we began it on some crutches that came in a missionary barrel."

"Crutches!"

"Yes. You see I'd wanted a doll, and father had written them so; but when the barrel came the lady wrote that there hadn't any dolls come in, but the little crutches had. So she sent 'em along as they might come in handy for some child, sometime. And that's when we began it."

"Well, I must say I can't see any game about that, about that," declared Nancy, almost irritably.

"Oh, yes; the game was to just find something about everything to be glad about -- no matter what 'twas," rejoined Pollyanna, earnestly. "And we began right then -- on the crutches."

"Well, goodness me! I can't see anythin' ter be glad about -- gettin' a pair of crutches when you wanted a doll!"

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

"There is -- there is," she crowed. "But I couldn't see it, either, Nancy, at first," she added, with quick honesty. "Father had to tell it to me."

"Well, then, suppose you tell me," almost snapped Nancy.

"Goosey! Why, just be glad because you don't - need -- 'em!" exulted Pollyanna, triumphantly. "You see it's just as easy -- when you know how!"

"Well, of all the queer doin's!" breathed Nancy, regarding Pollyanna with almost fearful eyes.

"Oh, but it isn't queer -- it's lovely," maintained Pollyanna enthusiastically. "And we've played it ever since. And the harder 'tis, the more fun 'tis to get 'em out; only -- only sometimes it's almost too hard -- like when your father goes to Heaven, and there isn't anybody but a Ladies' Aid left."

The Rage Is Not About Health Care

By FRANK RICH
Published: March 27, 2010

THERE were times when last Sunday’s great G.O.P. health care implosion threatened to bring the thrill back to reality television. On ABC’s “This Week,” a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe. A few hours later, the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his “Hell no, you can’t!” incantation in the House chamber — instant fodder for a new viral video remixing his rap with will.i.am’s “Yes, we can!” classic from the campaign. Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.

But the laughs evaporated soon enough. There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their families.

How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.

No less curious is how disproportionate this red-hot anger is to its proximate cause. The historic Obama-Pelosi health care victory is a big deal, all right, so much so it doesn’t need Joe Biden’s adjective to hype it. But the bill does not erect a huge New Deal-Great Society-style government program. In lieu of a public option, it delivers 32 million newly insured Americans to private insurers. As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.

Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.

When Social Security was passed by Congress in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, there was indeed heated opposition. As Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post, Alf Landon built his catastrophic 1936 presidential campaign on a call for repealing Social Security. (Democrats can only pray that the G.O.P. will “go for it” again in 2010, as Obama goaded them on Thursday, and keep demanding repeal of a bill that by September will shower benefits on the elderly and children alike.) When L.B.J. scored his Medicare coup, there were the inevitable cries of “socialism” along with ultimately empty rumblings of a boycott from the American Medical Association.

But there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.

The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.

If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.

If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that’s their right. If they want to replay the petulant Gingrich government shutdown of 1995 by boycotting hearings and, as John McCain has vowed, refusing to cooperate on any legislation, that’s their right too (and a political gift to the Democrats). But they can’t emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts. We know the end of that story. And they can’t pretend that we’re talking about “isolated incidents” or a “fringe” utterly divorced from the G.O.P. A Quinnipiac poll last week found that 74 percent of Tea Party members identify themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while only 16 percent are aligned with Democrats.

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.

Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.

Gabrielle Giffords

The implications actually made me throw up. 

Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head, at point blank range, while hosting a community event this morning in Tucson.

She is one of ten members to have been targetted for harrassment last year during the health care reform debate.

Twelve people were reported shot and the gunman is in custody.

There is a serious discussion to be had, and some serious blame to be assigned that go beyond the actual gunman to those whose "leadership" incited this crime.

NPR and CNN confirm that she is dead, as are six other people. 
[AND THEY WERE WRONG!  Hooray!  According to a hospital spokesperson, she has just come out of surgery for a wound that went "through and through" the brain, is alive, in critical condition, but will likely survive!  Sadly, a child was also shot, and is dead.  The total of those shot now stands at an incredible 18, 6 of whom are reported dead.  If we can trust reports...]

Sarah Palin and her fellow demagogues best hold their tongues today.

From WSJ:

The shooting was not the first time the congresswoman has had brushes with violence. Following the health care overhaul vote this year, her district office was vandalized.


"The rhetoric has gotten incredibly heated," she told MSNBC in March. "Not just the calls, the emails, the slurs. Things have really gotten spun up."


She also specifically called out on a "targets" website created by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the 2010 midterm elections that featured a crosshair over hers and other districts. Republicans campaigned heavily against Ms. Giffords, a moderate Democrat in a Republican-leaning district, this year.


"We can't' stand for this, we do really need to realize that the rhetoric and firing people up, and you know things for example we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, the thing is the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district," she told MSNBC.


Rep. Giffords earned a reputation as a strong fundraiser and campaigner who was deeply engaged in Arizona's bitter immigration debate.

If somehow the demagoguery of the last few years has escaped you, and you feel the need, as you doubtless do, to lighten your mood, here are some rapidly assembled palinesque moments from this blog:

Palin Pales
Polyanna's Glad Game
A Thousand Little Wacos:::Apples and Cabbage
The Philpot Shoots the Schlessinger and I Need Yogurt
Barack Obama and William Ayers = John McCain and Charles H. Keating, Jr.


*i rarely blog about real time events, but tennis and politics are my usual exceptions.  given that, i don't go back and change anything about such posts beyond grammar, spelling, and factual corrections.  if i piss you off by blaming right wing extremist politicos (and, okay, an occasional wayward idiot on the extreme left, not to mention the odd annoyingly tepid numbnut from the middle realm), i will offer you my ear, but not my apology.