Begich Admits What His Voting Record Proves: At Heart He's A Republican

Yesterday on CNBC Mark Begich (D-AK) admitted what people who watch Senate votes closely have already figured out: he's really a Republican calling himself a Democrat. Tied with the wretched Heidi Heitkamp, Begich has been voting more frequently with the GOP this year than any Democrats other than arch-conservatives Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Begich is constantly pulling the Democratic Senate caucus away from progressive policies and advocating against working families and for predatory corporations. But yesterday was the first time he publicly admitted that he's really nothing but a Republican.

"Probably a Rockefeller Republican," the Alaska senator told CNBC Monday morning when asked whether he was closer to identifying as that or as a Pelosi Democrat.

The comment signifies Begich's efforts to put some distance between himself and national Democrats in the libertarian-leaning state.

I recall that Rockefeller was governor of New York, then Vice President, for the entire time I was growing up. There's nothing I remember about him that could even vaguely be called "libertarian." Rockefeller was an icon of the corporate elite and represented the interests of the very wealthy against working families... just like Begich does. Most recently, though, Begich was one of the small handful of Democrats who voted with the Republicans against background checks for terrorists and criminals. He's since dug in on the issue and says he's not changing his mind. Big mistake-- unless he plans to run without any campaign contributions from Democratic donors. Will the NRA finance his shaky reelection effort?

Begich, a pathetic political coward, was actually doing well among Alaska voters before he jumped on the NRA bandwagon. A poll in February showed him as a nearly sure bet for reelection.

Voters approve of Begich’s job performance by a wider margin, 49% to 39%, and independents approve of Begich 54% to 32%. Begich also gets approval from 24% of Republican voters. If Parnell ran for Senate against Begich, the two would be tied at 48% each. Otherwise Begich leads Dan Sullivan by 6 points (47/41), Mead Treadwell by 8 points (47/39) and Sarah Palin by 16 points (54/38).

“Despite Alaska’s Republican tilt, Begich remains surprisingly popular going into his reelection campaign,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Begich and Parnell both have solid independent and crossover appeal with voters.”

Then came his cowardly vote for the NRA and against background checks and now he looks like he will probably lose his seat in the Senate. Just two months after the February poll, voters had soured on Begich because of his vote against background checks.

When we polled Alaska in February Lisa Murkowski was one of the most popular Senators in the country with a 54% approval rating and only 33% of voters disapproving of her. She's seen a precipitous decline in the wake of her background checks vote though. Her approval is down a net 16 points from that +21 standing to +5 with 46% of voters approving and 41% now disapproving of her. Murkowski has lost most of her appeal to Democrats in the wake of her vote, with her numbers with them going from 59/25 to 44/44. And the vote hasn't increased her credibility with Republican either-- she was at 51/38 with them in February and she's at 50/39 now.

Mark Begich is down following his no vote as well. He was at 49/39 in February and now he's at 41/37. His popularity has declined with Democrats (from 76/17 to 59/24) and with independents (from 54/32 to 43/35), and there has been no corresponding improvement with Republicans. He had a 24% approval rating with them two months ago and he has a 24% approval rating with them now.

60% of Alaska voters support background checks to just 35% opposed, including a 62/33 spread with independents. 39% of voters say they're less likely to vote for each of Begich and Murkowski in their next elections based on this vote, while only 22% and 26% say they're more likely to vote for Begich and Murkowski respectively because of this.

At this point almost any mainstream conservative Republican can beat Begich-- like Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell. His only hope for reelection would be if the Republicans nominate someone certifiably insane... like Joe Miller... which is likely. It's just another example of the Republicans moving out towards outright fascism and the Democrats moving right into the conservative space. And then we wind up with crap on two legs like Patrick Murphy and Charlie Crist in Florida, migrating over to the Democratic Party because it's now becoming as conservative as they are.

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Gun Safety Is Likely To Play A Part In The Florida Gubernatorial Primary

Nan Rich and Good Time Charlie

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose roots are on Long Island, is like South Florida's Tammy Boss. She inserts herself into every detail of the Florida Democratic Party, which goes a long way towards explaining what a pathetically failed organization it is. One of the most corrupt politicians in America, Wasserman Schultz recently steamrolled a worthless hack, Allison Tant, into the state party chairmanship. And when Tant pukes out a controversial decision, she's simply annunciating what Wasserman Schultz wants her to say. They're blocking former state Senate Democratic leader Nan Rich, a gubernatorial candidate, from speaking at the party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on June 15. Wasserman Schultz, always more comfortable with Republicans than with actual Democrats, has promised to deliver the Democratic gubernatorial nomination to Charlie Crist, probably the only way Gov. Rick Scott can be re-elected.

The Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida issued a report Friday that compares the gun safety records of Nan Rich, Charlie Crist and Alex Sink. It's the first in a series of reports on where the candidates stand on key issues.

Senator Rich served in the state House of Representatives from 2000-2004 and the state Senate from 2005-2012, serving as minority leader from 2010-2012. She has opposed the gun lobby and as a result has consistently received “F” ratings from the NRA during her legislative tenure. Senator Rich announced her candidacy for governor in April 2012.

“America is the world’s greatest democracy-- a representative democracy. We, the people, elect men and women to represent our interests-- to serve our needs-- to stand up for what’s right. But…the United States Senate failed to do any of these things... Let me be crystal clear-- I support expanding background checks on firearms sales. In fact, I sponsored such legislation when I was in the State House of Representatives. But then, as now, the specter of political reprisals from the NRA was enough to derail that bill.

As your governor, I will make the passage of common sense gun control laws a priority. It will save lives-- and we all know it will.  – Nan Rich, Facebook post, April 19, 2013 in response to Senate vote on Manchin-Toomey background check amendment

Crist, who claims he's suddenly a "Democrat" is an opportunist with no principles. He's been an NRA shill his entire political career and now claims he's "evolving." The NRA has always graded him an "A."

“The Second Amendment is very important, I understand there are competing interests … but people being protected is most important to me.”-- Crist on signing the bill to allow weapons in vehicles-- Sun Sentinel, April 10, 2008

“Gov. Crist has never wavered in his support of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.”-- Crist for U.S. Senate campaign website (2010)

“[Crist] has…never voted against us, always voted with us as governor. He signed every piece of legislation gun owners asked him to sign and vetoed every piece of legislation negatively impacting gun owners and sportsmen that gun owners asked him to veto. He has an outstanding record of support.” – Former NRA president and lobbyist Marion Hammer – St. Petersburg Times (2010)

“We need to have some restrictions, that’s pretty obvious to most people.”-- Crist, in the weeks after the December 2012 Sandy Hook massacre

One of Crist’s first high-profile gun battles came in 1998 when, according to Politifact Florida (July 14, 2010), “Crist blasted then Gov. Lawton Chiles’ last-minute effort to require criminal background checks and a waiting period for purchases made at gun shows in 1998.”

...In 2010, Crist was clear in his views on his Senate campaign website: “Governor Crist has never wavered in his support of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.”

In September 2012, when MSNBC correspondent Chuck Todd asked Crist if he still characterized himself a “pro-life, pro-gun conservative,” he responded, “Yes, I would.”

"Crist’s record contrasts starkly with those of Rich and Sink. It’s alarming that Governor Crist walked in lockstep with the NRA, even as their positions became more and more extreme," said Susan Smith, president of the Progressive Caucus. "He routinely picked up an A rating from the NRA and accused political rivals of being soft on Second Amendment gun rights... It’s not enough for him to say he’s in favor of some restrictions, as he told the Tampa Bay Times in December. We need to know what he thinks about assault weapons and Stand Your Ground laws. We need a full rundown from A to Z." Crist is trying to talk as little as possible about controversial issues-- and counting on Wasserman Schultz to shiv any actual Democrat who tries to run for the nomination.

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Will Immigration Reform Go The Same Way As Gun Safety Reform?

Have you noticed that Congress isn't going along with some of the broad preferences of the American people lately. Something between 86 and 91% of Americans-- depending on which poll you prefer-- support background checks on arms purchases in order to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, criminals, wife beaters and the mentally ill. Perhaps because most Republican legislators are terrorists, criminals, wife beaters and/or the mentally ill, they were able to filibuster the law to death. The House was able to duck voting on it altogether but 46 NRA shills were able to use a procedural tactic to thwart the majority in the Senate and thwart the will of the American people-- for now. The very right-wing co-sponsor of the amendment, Pat Toomey (R-PA) made a startling admission one week ago during an interview at the Times Herald in Norristown, PA: "In the end it didn’t pass because we're so politicized. There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it." [When's the last time you heard a TV anchor use the word "obstructionist?"]

A similar scenario could be playing out again in the battle over comprehensive immigration reform. First off, in another bipartisan poll, this one published yesterday-- while the GOP refuses to discuss anything, just shout nonsense about "Benghazi"-- an overwhelming majority of Americans, right across the partisan spectrum, voiced support for the Senate's Gang of 8 proposal, which includes a pathway to citizenship, increased border security, and employer verification requirements. 78% of liberal Democrats and 74% of conservative Republican respondents back the plan, as do 68% of "swing voters."

Pollster Jeff Pollock points out, perhaps ominously for some, that "supporting the proposal is a net positive for Congressional candidates. "Four in ten voters (42%) are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports comprehensive immigration reform, while just 12% say they are less likely to support a candidate who supports it. Among swing voters, a candidate’s support for the measure produces a similarly positive effect."

And yet right-wing extremists in Congress, primarily neo-Know Nothings from the ultra-gerrymandered ex-Confederate states, are determined to block comprehensive immigration reform, whatever it takes. Reactionaries in the Senate-- led by KKK Senator Jeff Sessions (AL) and Ted Cruz (TX) will attempt to load the bill up with poison pill amendments. But the real hope for killing the bill rests in the House, where sociopaths and fringy crackpots Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Lou Barletta (R-PA), Steve King (R-IA), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), domestic terrorist Steve Stockman (R-TX), and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) are working full time spreading their poison. King: “The meetings of the Gang of Eight and the secret meetings in the House of Representatives-- the people who have been standing up for the Constitution and the rule of law haven’t been invited to those meetings." Paranoid and off-balance, former drug addict Dana Rohrabacher added, "We’ve got all the rich guys and the elitists talking to each other. Unfortunately us regular folks don’t have that kind of coordination."

Republicans are caught between a rock and a hard place on this. Their racist, xenophobic Tea Party base hates immigrants and people of color and fears the sound of a foreign language-- conservatives fear that when they hear a foreign language, the speaker is talking about them or plotting against them-- but the Big Business interests that finance the careers of Republican politicians, insist on immigration reform and access to cheap labor.

Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) got badly burned in the fight over background checks. He doesn't want to see that happen to himself again and he was one of the first Republican electeds to call out the crazy Heritage Foundation report yesterday. Even the Cato Institute is laughing in DeMint's face over this.

What’s remarkable about this whole spectacle is that no one is even bothering to pretend that the Heritage study isn’t simply a last ditch effort to kill the bill. That’s widely, publicly, explicitly acknowledged to be the case. Indeed, a Heritage study back during the last immigration reform battle is widely credited with giving the right the ammo they needed to scuttle that proposal, and opponents are openly discussing today’s study as providing the chance of a rerun of that glorious moment.

In this case, though, the response from Republicans to the study has been swift and aggressive. Reporters were sent a whole list of Republican Congressional aides and conservative think tank types who are prepared to push back on the study-- a measure of just how much the GOP establishment wants reform to pass this time.

Ultimately, the prospects for immigration reform have always turned on whether enough Republicans are willing to swallow hard, cross the citizenship Rubicon, and accept the consequences for the right. This report doesn’t change that basic dynamic. It will give an army of talk show hosts and bloggers opposed to reform plenty of ammunition to kick up a whole lot of noise against the proposal, to be sure.

...If far right Republicans in the House kill reform, that would be the worst possible political outcome for the GOP. The noise from the far right may have just gotten a bit louder, but the consequences for Republicans of allowing the noise to kill reform haven’t changed at all.

Meanwhile, President Obama has stayed in the background-- more or less-- so as to not give Republican racists and hate-mongers another gratuitous excuse-- "Obama wants it"-- to vote no. The only Senate Republicans up for reelection in 2014 whop are considered vulnerable are Susan Collins (ME) and the two closet cases, Lindsey Graham (SC) and Miss McConnell (KY). Collins is likely to support comprehensive reform, McConnell will count on a strong Know Nothing base in his state to have his anti-immigrant back, and Graham... well, he'll just twist in the wind, wanting to be on the right side of history but fearful that haters and Know Nothings who dominate his state's GOP will defeat him. In the House, most Republicans will count on gerrymandered districts to keep them safe if they vote NO. The two dozen House Republicans who could most easily be defeated if they vote against immigration reform are:

• Mike Rogers (MI)
• Charlie Dent (PA)
• Pat Meehan (PA)
• Mike Turner (OH)
• John Kline (MN)
• Buck McKeon (CA)
• Richard Hanna (NY)
• Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (NY)
• Erik Paulsen (MN)
• Paul Ryan (WI)
• Frank Wolf (VA)
• Tom Reed (NY)
• Fred Upton (MI)
• Scott Rigell (VA)
• Michael Fitzpatrick (PA)
• Rodney Davis (IL)
• Joe Heck (NV)
• Jeff Denham (CA)
• Tom Latham (IA)
• Mike Coffman (CO)
• Chris Gibson (NY)
• Frank LoBiondo (NJ)
• David Valadao (CA)
• Gary Miller (CA)

Even though Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is in a Florida district that Obama won by 7 points, I didn't mention her because Debbie Wasserman Schultz has persuaded Steve Israel to help protect her vulnerable seat and to prevent a viable Democratic candidate from challenging her.

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NRA Shills In The Senate In Trouble-- At Least On Paper

Mark Begich will probably only win reelection if Alaska Republicans nominate Joe Miller

The Republican case for why the unpopular vote against background checks-- basically no one agrees with their position except hard-core Republican primary voters-- won't hurt them in 2014 is twofold: the House didn't vote on it at all, and in the Senate the GOP has only two vulnerable incumbents (the two closet cases, Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and Miss McConnell in Kentucky) and taking the NRA position won't hurt either of them in those states. So, yes, senators who voted no on Manchin-Toomey are taking a beating in polling, but most of them aren't up for reelection in 2014. Ironically, the most damage from the fallout over the Senate vote is likely to be among conservative Democrats who shamelessly shill for the NRA!

Jeff Flake (R-AZ) would get killed if he had to run in 2014... but he doesn't have to face the voters again 'til 2018. None of the Republicans who are losing ground with voters according to the PPP survey have to face voters while the vote is fresh in anyone's mind. Mark Begich (D-AK), on the other hand, may be in trouble.

New PPP polls in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, and Ohio find serious backlash against the 5 Senators who voted against background checks in those states. Each of them has seen their approval numbers decline, and voters say they're less likely to support them the next time they're up for reelection. That's no surprise given that we continue to find overwhelming, bipartisan support for background checks in these states.

Here's the state by state rundown:

• After just 3 months in office Jeff Flake has already become one of the most unpopular Senators in the country. Just 32% of voters approve of him to 51% who disapprove and that -19 net approval rating makes him the most unpopular sitting Senator we've polled on, taking that label from Mitch McConnell.

70% of Arizona voters support background checks to only 26% who are opposed to them. That includes 92/6 favor from Democrats, 71/24 from independents, and 50/44 from Republicans. 52% of voters say they're less likely to support Flake in a future election because of this vote, compared to only 19% who say they're more likely to. Additionally voters say by a 21 point margin, 45/24, that they trust senior colleague John McCain more than Flake when it comes to gun issues.

• When we polled Alaska in February Lisa Murkowski was one of the most popular Senators in the country with a 54% approval rating and only 33% of voters disapproving of her. She's seen a precipitous decline in the wake of her background checks vote though. Her approval is down a net 16 points from that +21 standing to +5 with 46% of voters approving and 41% now disapproving of her. Murkowski has lost most of her appeal to Democrats in the wake of her vote, with her numbers with them going from 59/25 to 44/44. And the vote hasn't increased her credibility with Republican either- she was at 51/38 with them in February and she's at 50/39 now.

Mark Begich is down following his no vote as well. He was at 49/39 in February and now he's at 41/37. His popularity has declined with Democrats (from 76/17 to 59/24) and with independents (from 54/32 to 43/35), and there has been no corresponding improvement with Republicans. He had a 24% approval rating with them two months ago and he has a 24% approval rating with them now.

60% of Alaska voters support background checks to just 35% opposed, including a 62/33 spread with independents. 39% of voters say they're less likely to vote for each of Begich and Murkowski in their next elections based on this vote, while only 22% and 26% say they're more likely to vote for Begich and Murkowski respectively because of this.

• We saw serious improvement in Rob Portman's poll numbers in the second half of 2012 following his consideration as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, but he's taken a nose dive in 2013. Portman's approval has dropped a net 18 points over the last 6 months from +10 (35/25) in October to now -8 (26/34) in April. Portman's popularity decline has come across the board with Democrats (from 15/39 to 8/50), Republicans (62/11 to 46/19), and independents (28/23 to 24/32) alike.

72% of Ohio voters support background checks, including 87% of Democrats, 73% of independents, and 56% of Republicans. 36% of voters in the state say they're less likely to support Portman in a future election because of this vote to only 19% who consider it to be a reason to support him.

• And in Nevada Dean Heller has seen a more modest decline in his approval numbers, from 47/42 right before the election to 44/41 now. However with the independent voters who were critical to his narrow victory in November, his approval has dropped from 52/37 then to now 42/42.

70% of voters in the state support background checks compared to just 24% who are opposed to them. That includes 87% of Democrats, 65% of independents, and 54% of Republicans. 46% say they're less likely to support Heller the next time he's up for reelection compared to only 25% who are more likely to because of this vote, and as we saw last fall Heller has very little margin for error.

Taken together these results make it pretty clear that this issue could be a serious liability for the Senators who opposed overwhelmingly popular background checks in the Senate vote earlier this month.

Begich could lose his seat-- especially if a remotely mainstream Republican (i.e., not Joe Miller)-- runs against him. It's a classic example of a Democrat abandoning his own base's values to curry favor with his enemies... only to have his enemies laugh in his face. Democrats and independents are looking at Begich as a spineless coward and Republicans may like that one vote he took out of fear but they'll vote against him anyway. He deserves to lose his seat and, unless Miller gets the nomination, he probably will. Mark Pryor (D-AR)-- the talking snake guy with the IQ problem-- probably faces the same problem, although I haven't seen any polling yet to back that up.

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Will Her Fealty To The NRA Cost Kelly Ayotte A New Hampshire Senate Seat?

Will McCain & Lindsey be able to find a third Stooge in 2016?

Half the voters in New Hampshire are telling pollsters they are less likely to vote to reelect Kelly Ayotte because she voted against the bipartisan background check amendment last week. And her approval rating is underwater, down 15 points since her blatant NRA asskissing. An editorial from Sunday's Portsmouth Herald" If you want gun control, vote Ayotte out of office:

New Hampshire voters who care passionately about sensible gun legislation can contribute to the effort by defeating U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the only senator in New England to vote against the Toomey-Manchin bill. Ayotte justified her vote by parroting the NRA, saying the measure would "place unnecessary burdens on law-abiding gun owners and allow for potential overreach by the federal government into private gun sales."

In a January poll, New England College found 88 percent of Granite Staters support background checks, so it would seem Ayotte is far out of step with voters on this issue. She's up for re-election in 2016, a presidential election year that draws large numbers of independent voters who tend to support gun control. And the state has leaned Democratic in the last two presidential elections, so it's hard to see this as a political move.

Perhaps she believes that by 2016 people will have forgotten how she voted. Or perhaps she's counting on the historic lack of intensity from voters who favor gun control. If we don't like how she voted Wednesday it's up to all of us who care about this issue to show Sen. Ayotte she was mistaken by voting her out of office.

Yesterday, the Concord Monitor had a story reporting on a "blizzard of mail," mostly attacking Ayotte for her vote against background checks that were meant to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorists and the clinically insane.

A tweet by domestic terrorist and Texas congressman, NRA shill Steve Stockman, caused me to look into Ayotte's standing with New Hampshire voters. Stockman, the violent militia movement's biggest advocate in Congress, was claiming not one Republican would be hurt politically for opposing background checks. He based his assertion on this crackpot post by David Freddoso. Both would rather just ignore a far more trafficked poll from Fox News and just hope no one remembers anything beyond next week or next year:

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American Political Elites Are Really Bad-- Roundup

Painting by Attila Richard Lukacs

Ken's back in action and he'll be taking back this slot starting tomorrow. If you think you're happy, imagine how I feel!

Heidi Heitkamp-- Cowardly And Disappointing

You probably heard about the tremendous disappointment that 4 Democratic senators-- Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Mark Pryor (AR), Max Baucus (MT) and Mark Begich (AK)-- made common cause with the Republicans against the bipartisan background check amendment offered by Second Amendment fanatics Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA). Former Obama Chief of Staff, Bill Daley wrote a blistering OpEd this past weekend for the Washington Post about how Heitkamp betrayed him. She didn't only betray a wealthy and powerful contributor like Daley; she betrayed the Democratic values and principles that have propelled her into the Senate.

She voted to block legislation to make gun background checks more comprehensive. Her vote-- along with those of 41 Republicans and three other Democrats-- was a key reason the measure fell short of the 60 votes needed for passage.

Polling has shown that nine in 10 Americans and eight in 10 gun owners support a law to require every buyer to go through a background check on every gun sale. In North Dakota, the support was even higher: 94 percent. Yet in explaining her vote, Heitkamp had the gall to say that she “heard overwhelmingly from the people of North Dakota” and had to listen to them and vote no. It seems more likely that she heard from the gun lobby and chose to listen to it instead.

...The other two Democrats who voted against background checks are Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana [who announced today that he's throwing in the towel; more on that tomorrow]. Like Begich, they will be running for reelection next year. And no doubt they’ll come to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and other cities looking for money to fuel their campaigns. These cities, of course, are also too often the destination for illegal guns flowing in from out of state.

So I’ll have some advice for my friends in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles: Just say no to the Democrats who said no on background checks.

Far more progressive elements in the Democratic Party released this video about Heitkamp's betrayal yesterday:



GOP Fears Another Todd Akin Catastrophe In Georgia

Right-wing crackpots cheered when conservative Senator Saxby Chambliss announced he was retiring. After all, his lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is 1.95-- tied for the 17th most right-wing Member of the Senate with neo-fascist crackpot Jim Inhofe (R-OK)-- and his score for this session is zero. But that wasn't good enough for the extremists... so now they're liable to get stuck with one of two congressmen who make Todd Akin seem almost mainstream, Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey.

In a recent fundraising letter, [Broun] boasted that he was the first member of Congress to call Obama "a socialist who embraces Marxist-Leninist policies."

That makes Broun a tea party and evangelical favorite. To other Republicans, however, such comments stir memories of 2012 losses in Senate races in Missouri and Indiana where the GOP nominees, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, made controversial comments about women, rape and abortion.

"There's no question that the Republican Party in Georgia and the nation are concerned that we could have another Todd Akin-type scenario here," said Heath Garrett, a Republican campaign consultant and former top aide to U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson.

Not Sure If Fred Malek Is Still A Jew Hater, But If He Is, He's Now A Pro-Gay Jew Hater

Malek is a rich GOP fundraiser for extreme right-wing candidates and causes now but he's best known as Nixon's "Jew counter," who worked to make sure there weren't "too many" Jews working for the government. He told Think Progress yesterday that he's in favor of marriage equality. "I feel it’s overdue and I support gay marriage... It’s a free country. They ought to be able to get married and they ought to have legalization of that." The candidates he finances through the shady PAC he operates, the American Action Network, do not favor marriage equality. In the 2012 cycle Malek spent $11,689,399 on independent expenditures trying to elect vehemently anti-gay candidates like Daniel "Taliban Dan" Webster (R-FL), Jeff Denham (R-CA), Richard Mourdock (R-IN), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), Chip Cravaack (R-MN), and Jesse Kelly (R-AZ). But he supports gay marriage. And he likes the Jews too.

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Lindsey Graham... Not Courageous

Lindsey Graham was the first of the Republican panderers to declare 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev an enemy combatant, unworthy of the trial that this country guarantees people accused of crimes. I'm sure he thought that kind of unconstitutional raving would play well in the upcountry where he's so very, very unpopular. And he certainly knows South Carolina better than I do. I mean the fact that a flamboyant, superficially closeted homosexual like Lindsey Graham can cultivate a political career in a stridently anti-gay state like South Carolina, certainly shows ole Lindsey has some political skills and a knack for effectively deceiving the rubes. So... shred the Constitution (except the Second Amendment, of course).

Not everyone agrees with Graham. Even a hawkish conservative like Adam Schiff D-CA) understands the importance of not throwing out the Constitution in a fit of fearfulness and politics.

Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, reiterated the importance of upholding due process for Tsarnaev. “This is not a foreign national caught on an enemy battlefield, but an American citizen arrested on American soil,” he said in a statement Saturday. “The Justice Department has demonstrated a far greater ability to successfully prosecute suspected terrorists in federal courts than the military commissions have thus far been able to show.  Nothing must be done to compromise the public safety, the ability of prosecutors to seek justice for the victims or our constitutional  principles.”

There were 7 amendments the Senate voted on last week, amendments to a gun safety bill since withdrawn. Graham, whose approval ratings back home are plummeting and who faces both primary challenges and a serious Democratic challenger, knew perfectly that none of those amendments were in any way related to the Second Amendment. By NRA propaganda on behalf of the weapons and ammo manufacturers has been so effective in permeating the politics of South Carolina that Graham dared not even join his normally joined at the hip compadre, John McCain, in supporting the bipartisan background check amendment (Manchin-Toomey) backed by 91% of Americans and healthy majorities of South Carolinians, NRA members and Republicans. Graham was one of the 42 Republicans and 4 ConservaDems who refused to even allow it to come up for a vote, joining the right-wing extremists in a filibuster. If you didn't watch the Maddow video clip up top, now would be a good time to do so.

As Rachel says, "Federal law says that if you are a felon you are not supposed to be able to buy a gun. If you have a severe mental illness... if a judge has declared you to be 'mentally defective,' you are not supposed to be able to buy a gun in the United States of America. That's the law. Of course you can't tell by looking at someone if a judge has declared that person to be mentally defective. You cannot tell by looking at a person if that person is a convicted felon. But if you are either of those things, the law says you cannot buy a gun." After that... you have to watch the clip to see what she's getting at.

What she was getting at, though, would come as no surprise to Lindsey Graham. He's not a stupid man. He knows the need for background checks and he knows the need for background checks is not any kind of impingement on the Second Amendment.

But what Lindsey Graham-- and many of his Republican colleagues-- are counting on is that Republican voters won't allow a vote like that stand in the way of reelection. Being tough on-- well, tough on... liberals, I guess... certainly not tough on crime, since every crime fighting organization in America backed the background checks amendment-- never hurts a conservative sniffing around for votes, especially not upcountry. Obama won Charleston last November. He beat Romney 81,027 to 77,248. People in Charleston overwhelmingly favor background checks. They may even favor background checks up in Anderson, where Romney beat Obama 48,493 to 22,315 and in Aiken, where Romney beat Obama 41,157 to 23,953. But it's in places like Anderson and Aiken counties where Graham is most vulnerable, where people don't like him, don't trust him and sense he "isn't one of us." Having the NRA seal of approval destroyed the political career of ConservaDem Debbie Halvorson on the southside of Chicago; that's not how it works in South Carolina.

Jay Stamper, the Democrat running for the Senate seat Lindsey Graham is occupyig, said he was "stunned" that Graham voted against Manchin-Toomey's background check amendment, "He can't possibly have opposed it on grounds of unconstitutionality; the amendment simply expanded background checks to private sales at gun shows and on the internet-- a common sense measure to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. In any event, having just called for the suspension of the Constitution itself, Senator Graham makes an unlikely constitutionalist."

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Nuggets-- Mostly Gun Control

Good news: Ken is out of the hospital and his operation was a complete success. Hopefully, he'll be back in this slot soon. Meanwhile: bit and pieces I missed the last couple of days

Arkansas ConservaDem Mike Ross Is Back

Corrupt Blue Dog Mike Ross is throwing his hat into the ring in Arkansas' gubernatorial race. The Republican in the race is right-wing fanatic Asa Hutchinson and the Democrat running is former Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Ross hopes to position himself in between, just like his entire sordid career in Congress was, where he had the distinction of voting more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats-- and doing that more often than almost any other Democrat in history. Why doesn't he run as an independent?

Bipartisan Background Checks Defeated

Maybe if 92% of Americans supported the bill, instead of a mere 91%, it would have passed. But the NRA triumphed over the American people in the Senate yesterday. Democrats Mark Begich AK), Mark Pryor (AR), Heidi Heitkamp (ND) and Max Baucus (MT) joined the NRA voters and abandoned their own constituents. Voters in Arkansas, Alaska and Montana will have a chance to react in 2014. The amendment, which needed 60 to get through the GOP filibuster, only wound up with 54 votes (55 if you include Reid). I might add, that in 2008 Blue America endorsed Mark Begich and helped him raise money. Blue America won't be endorsing him for reelection and will leave him to the corporations and right wing interest groups he's been sucking up to to help him raise money. We'll look closely at any Democrat who decides to primary him (and Pryor and Baucus). The Blue America-backed Senate candidates for 2014 all favor serious gun control.

And Speaking Of Obstructionist Filibusters...

This was 2009 gem dug up by Ed Kilgore a couple days ago: "My personal feeling is that supporting a filibuster against your own party and your own party’s president should be treated as a serious and rare measure on major issues of conscience where the sacrifice of some of the prerogatives of seniority are a small price to pay. So maybe that price really should be paid. But at a minimum, the practice of thinking of cloture votes as identical to substantive votes, and tolerating defections on the former as just the same as the latter, needs to come to an end. There is no sixty-Senate-vote requirement for the enactment of regular legislation in the Constitution or in the Senate rules. We don’t need lockstep Democratic unity on policy initiatives. We just need unity on the simple matter of allowing the Senate to vote." Will there be any consequences? From Senate Majority Leader Reid? From the DSCC? From Obama? No, no, no. But from voters? We'll see, won't we?

DCCC Perfidy... Again

Moments after the 4 Democrats voted with most of the Republicans to kill background checks, the DCCC tweeted "GOP just blocked background checks. Disgusting. We can't let this stand. Stand with us now." They are hoping to make money on the vote-- money they will use to help reelect devoted NRA allies and gun control opponents on their Front Line list, particularly Blue Dogs Jim Matheson and Mike McIntyre, each of whom is expecting $2 million from the DCCC this cycle. If you contribute a dollar to the DCCC most of it will be skimmed off the top for the corrupt hacks who run it the operation from year to year. Most of the rest will go to support Democrats who voted with the GOP on issues like gun control, women's Choice, marriage equality, war, and economic justice.

Last Words On Senate Gun Votes

Gabby Giffords wrote a powerful OpEd for the NY Times immediately after the vote yesterday. She started like this:

Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms-- a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents-- who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

And she ends ominously: "Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way."


The most serious bill was Dianne Feinstein's amendment to get military-style assault weapons off the streets. It failed 40-60; the GOP didn't even have to filibuster that one because the NRA controls enough Democrats so it had no chance. Every Republican except Mark Kirk (IL) opposed it; the Democrats who crossed the aisle into NRA-land on that one:

• Max Baucus (MT)
• Mark Begich (AK)
• Michael Bennet (CO)
• Joe Donnelly (IN)
• Kay Hagan (NC)
• Martin Heinrich (NM)
• Heidi Heitkamp (ND)
• Tim Johnson (SD)
• Angus King (I-ME)
• Mary Landrieu (LA)
• Joe Manchin (WV)
• Mark Pryor (AR)
• John Tester (MT)
• Mark Udall (CO)
• Tom Udall (NM)
• Mark Warner (VA)

Kind of takes your breath away, huh? The anti-democratic, anachronistic Senate should be abolished or turned into an advisory body like the House of Lords. Members should wear powdered wigs.

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Whose Fault Was The Gun Control Vote In The Senate?

I don't know anything about Andrew Kaczynski or his politics. He writes for a website called BuzzFeed and he tweeted the above just after every Republican but 3 voted against a moderate, bipartisan background check amendment and after every Democrat except 4 voted for it... some of those Democrats voting against it being very much red state Dems, including Red state Dems facing difficult reelection battles. Many observers were shocked that Arizona freshman Jeff Flake voted NO and some say that had he or Portman signaled they would be YES votes, the 4 Democratic cowards would have steeled themselves to vote YES as well.

The fact remains, though, that depending on what polling data you look at, between 86 and 91% of Americans favored that bill 45% of senators, all but 4 of them Republicans voted down. And, as Jesse LaGreca responded to Kaczynski's tweet, even if every single Democrat voted yes, along with the 3 Republican cross-aisle voters, it would have still failed to get through the Republican Party filibuster, announced in advance and organized by Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Miss McConnell (R-KY).

But even with all that evidence, I want to go beyond just blaming the Republican Party. The real culprits were not the red state Democrats or the GOP. The real culprits in this-- as in everything that has always been wrong throughout American history (we'll leave the world for another discussion)-- are conservatives. The nature of conservatism is where the problem lies. Keep in mind, by it's evolution and ideology, it is patently impossible to separate conservatism and corruption and that comes into play as well, but let's take a look at the history of the role of conservatism in this country-- right from the beginning.

Guess who was aghast at the idea of breaking away from the British monarchy and declaring independence. Guess who fought on the side of the British during the American War of Independence. Hint: it wasn't liberals or progressives. I wish every DWT visitor would read Mike Lux's classic American history book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be. Here's a little summary by Mike:

The two parties which divide the state, the party of conservatism and that of innovation are very old, and have disputed the world ever since it was made. Now one, now the other gets the day, and still the fight renews itself as if for the first time, under new names and hot personalities.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is the contention of this book that American history consists of one long battle between the forces of reaction and the defense of wealth and power, on the one hand, and the forces of progressivism and community, on the other.

If you look at our country’s long history, from the days of the first stirrings of our revolutionary impulses against Britain to today, progressive leaders and progressive movements have moved this country forward in the face of bitter-- and frequently violent-- opposition from reactionaries and defenders of the status quo. Consider the major advances in American history:

• The American Revolution
• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• The Homestead Act
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• Women’s suffrage
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid

Every single one of those reforms, which are literally the reforms that made this country what it is today, was accomplished by the progressive movement standing up to the fierce opposition of conservative reactionaries who were trying to preserve their own power. American history is one long argument between progressivism and conservatism.

The striking thing about this long debate is how much the arguments that have occurred are repetitive over time, in terms of their rhetoric, constituencies, philosophy, and the values they represent. From generation to generation, the conservatives who oppose reform and progress have used the same kinds of arguments over and over again. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. described the division as one between “public purpose and private interest.”

...The arguments by conservatives all too frequently invoke fear-- of change, of one another, of foreigners and foreign enemies, or of certain people. They proclaim a loud and fervent patriotism and a love of traditional values, quite often quoting the Bible to justify their point of view, while ignoring those patriots and Bible quotes that don’t fit their agenda.

Progressives, on the other hand, have called for hope, rather than fear, and for changing things for the better, rather than just leaving things the way they have always been. We have been for more power for regular folks and less power for elites. And we have been for a stronger sense of community, rather than the sense that each of us is on his or her own.

The central theme of this book is to show how these political arguments have been repeated over time and time again since the American Revolution, how the same alternative visions of America keep being argued over and over, and how when progressives have won the day politically, the country has moved forward.

The good news is that a more progressive vision of what America can aspire to has prevailed enough times over the years to make us a far better country. While it is certainly true that the United States is more conservative by many measures than the industrialized countries in Europe, and that progress has been uneven and painfully slow, we are also the country that invented the modern notions of democracy and equality, and that legacy has echoed down through the generations and inspired new movements to make their claims on the American dream.

American history has always been a mixed bag, with vision and courage and progress mixed together with slavery, the brutal killing of many millions of American Indians, wars shouldn’t have fought, and altogether too much greed. There have been plenty of times when the progressive movement was too weak and small to stop bad things from happening, or when it settled for compromises on fundamental issues, such as slavery and women’s suffrage.

Even leaders who pushed for progressive policy in some areas failed us in others... [T]his is especially true in terms of the way otherwise progressive leaders, such as Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson, and FDR, have failed us on racial justice issues. But it applies to other leaders as well. For example, Teddy Roosevelt created the national park system, partially broke apart the big trusts, and brought us some measure of food safety, but he had no use for unions or women’s suffrage, allowed some of the worst lynchings in the nation’s history to occur in the south, and was a military adventurer. Woodrow Wilson brought us the single most important economic reform in the country’s history-- a progressive income tax-- and his ideas set the stage for many New Deal-era reforms and the United Nation, but he got us into a stupid, wasteful war that we had no business being in. Kennedy and Johnson helped push through civil rights laws, Medicare, and Medicaid, but got us into the Vietnam War.

Yet even with all of the disappointments that are part of America’s history, we also know that the progressive arguments and movements have prevailed again and again and have created democracy where progress is always possible. Movement leaders such as Tom Paine, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, John L. Lewis, Walter Reuther, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and Rachel Carson have always been ahead of the politicians and have pushed our country to become better. Our history is full of progressive leaders fighting the good fight, and winning much of the time, to create a better nation. The battle between conservatism and progress will continue to be fought as long as there is a United States of America.

Wednesday the conservatives won a battle. Ultimately, of course, they will lose the war. Because, by their nature, they are losers and always lose. I might add, the Senate candidates on this page all support strong gun control measures. If you give money to the DSCC-- which is chaired by cowardly NRA shill Michael Bennet who himself voted against Feinstein's assault weapons ban Wednesday-- much of it will wind up going to elect conservatives. Money invested on this page, only goes to progressives-- and you pick the ones yourself you want it to go to.

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Bits'n'Pieces-- Guns And Religion

How Far Will McConnell Step Over The Line?

You know with all the hubbub over the surreptitiously taped McConnell staff meeting where they were planning a strategy for smearing Ashley Judd and other potential opponents, one thing that seems to have gotten by our watchdog media is the transcript itself. The McConnell camp used "3rd party" to submit an open records request for Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. So who, exactly, was that "3rd party" referred to by the McConnell mob? Was it a shady right-wing SuperPac McConnell was illegally coordinating with? Or was it a certain journalist who is a secret McConnell surrogate? Curious minds need to know.

Which Religious Beliefs Are Too Crazy For Gun Ownership?

Human sacrifice... in fact animal sacrifice is probably enough so that practitioners should get a pretty thorough psychological examination before buying any weapons. Republican propagandist Erick Erickson is winding up his crazed followers with tweets like the one above and another one claiming they should thank Pat Toomey "in 5 years when you can't buy a gun b/c a doctor says ur crazy for believing in a resurrected Jesus." I don't detect any anti-Christian sentiment in America, at least not in the hands of anywhere remotely close to wielding any kind of power. This is more right-wing exploitation of their cult of victimology. In this case, using it in an attempt to rile up the rabble against a pretty tepid bill requiring background checks, one tepid-- and sensible-- enough that the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms endorsed it. As far as Christians... well, I might worry about the ones who focus on snake handling and who get hung up on the ranting and raving of John of Patmos... but that's just me.

Drugged Up Religionist Nuts

And while we're on the subject of crackpot religionists, I'm sure we don't have to tell you where most of them live, right? The most religious regions of the country are located in southern states, and a recent poll revealed that, indeed, except for Utah (56%), well over 50% of the population in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Oklahoma consider themselves to be very religious, and they are very depressed.

In a study conducted between 2000 and 2006 by a large pharmaceutical manufacturer, they discovered that the most religious states have the highest percentage of the population using some kind of anti-depressant drug. The comprehensive study focused on the implications and numerous challenges of managing prescription drug costs, and they focused on the “sociodemographic forces influencing the use of prescription drugs,” but they did not examine the role religion plays in the higher-than-average use of anti-depressants. It is quite possible, and likely, that “very religious” Christians are having difficulty reconciling their Christ-centered beliefs with the direction American Christianity is going, and the conflicts inherent with adhering to archaic knowledge and understanding of the world while living in the 21st century where science and empirical data contradicts the superstitious and antiquated “facts” contained in the Christian bible.

Faith in Christ is supposed to be succor to the afflicted, and give hope to his followers that living a life of charity and love for all human kind is the path to happiness now and earns the reward of life eternal in Christ’s presence in Heaven. However, the trend among many Christians is rejecting the tenets of Christ’s message for harsh Old Testament edicts meant to instill fear and guilt endemic to disobeying god’s laws instead of love of neighbor, and it must affect the mental state of adherents struggling to reconcile Christ’s love with the Old Testament message of an angry and wrathful “god of love.” It is no wonder the “very religious” are depressed when they read in their bible that Christ commanded the rich to give away all their belongings to the poor to enter into Heaven, and yet their clergy preach support of politicians who take from the poor to give to the rich. Are they compensating for their religious dilemma by resorting to chemicals to assuage the misery of disobeying their lord and savior, Jesus Christ, or dulling the guilt from causing suffering on their fellow Americans?

Most of the political and cultural positions of highly religious states give the appearance that unless Christians force their Old Testament sensibilities featuring intolerance, hatred, and retribution for non-compliance with god’s laws on the rest of America, they are doomed to burn in everlasting fire.  And yet, they read in scripture that Jesus commanded them to treat their enemies and non-believers with peace and love, and lacking fortitude to challenge the clergy’s contradictions, it is just as easy to stay sedate to mask their internal conflict as they support the proliferation of guns, treating women as slaves, and punishing gays; many of them fellow Christians.

I'd rather we keep people who are on anti-depressants and other heavy drugs away from guns than people who believe in Jesus' resurrection.

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Ted Cruz's NRA Filibuster Crushed

The failed filibusterers

With only two conservative Democrats caving to NRA pressure-- Mark Pryor (AR) and Mark Begich (AK)-- but with 16 Republicans agreeing that there should at least be a debate on gun safety, the Senate ended the filibuster led by Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Miss McConnell. The filibuster was shut down 68-31.

When Mark Begich first ran for the Senate in 2008, Blue America endorsed him and helped him raise some money. He's been a disappointment ever since, the polar opposite of courageous, seemingly only interested in extending his own career. His overall ProgressivePunch crucial vote score, 78.96, is putrid enough, but, with his reelection campaign gearing up, he's made a conscious effort to move further to the right. His score for the 113th Congress is a shocking 57.14. The only Democratic senators voting more frequently with Miss McConnell are Mark Pryor (his fellow filibuster), Joe Manchin (WV), Claire McCaskill (MO) and Kay Hagan (NC). Needless to say, if there was any chance Blue America would have re-endorsed Begich-- and, realistically, there wasn't-- he blew it today by attempting to deny the right of the Senate to even debate gun safety regulations. Good luck getting those Republicans in Alaska to vote for you, Mark.

These are the Republicans-- several willing to court primaries for the neo-fascist right and the deep-pocketed gun manufacturers lobby-- who voted against the filibuster yesterday:

• Lamar Alexander (TN)
• Kelly Ayotte (NH)
• Richard Burr (NC)
• Saxby Chambliss (GA)
• Tom Coburn (OK)
• Susan Collins (ME)
• Bob Corker (TN)
• Jeff Flake (AZ)
• Lindsey Graham (SC)
• Dean Heller (NV)
• John Hoeven (ND)
• Johnny Isakson (GA)
• Mark Kirk (IL)
• John McCain (AZ)
• Pat Toomey (PA)
• Roger Wicker (MS)

Now the debate begins. It's expected to last a couple weeks before the Senate finally votes on the weak and watered down gun safety proposals.

“With the vote we take today, we are turning the page. Against the NRA’s dominance, we are turning the page to do what is right by these families and by the American people,”  Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a news conference with the family members.

Turning to the families, Schumer said Newtown was the reason the Senate acted. “The only reason we are turning the page is because of you. You spoke to Congress. You spoke to the American people. We looked in your eyes, we saw your loss. We saw the hole where your child, your sibling, your parent used to be.”

Despite the vote to proceed, several Republicans said they would continue to oppose the legislation.

“The government should not punish or harass law-abiding citizens in the exercise of their Second Amendment rights,” Senate Minority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.

Miss McConnell can lisp all the misleading NRA talking points he wants, but he very well aware that nothing in the legislation punishes or harasses any law-abiding citizens and is completely unrelated to the Second Amendment.

But Reid said Thursday that the first amendment to be debated is a bipartisan agreement to expand the gun background-check program that was announced Wednesday by Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Schumer. The agreement would extend the current background-check requirement from covering only sales at licensed dealerships to any sale that takes place at a gun show or that is advertised in print or online. However, checks would not be required for many sales between private individuals-- a key concession by Democrats that gun-control advocates eagerly sought.

The proposal also would permit gun dealers to sell firearms across state lines, and gun owners with state-issued permits to carry concealed weapons would be allowed to take their firearms through states that don’t allow concealed weapons. The bipartisan agreement also calls for establishing a national commission to evaluate causes of mass violence.

Other proposed changes to the bill will come from members of both parties.

Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) plan to introduce changes to the gun-trafficking provisions that would bolster legal protections for lawful gun owners who purchase weapons to give as gifts or raffle and contest prizes and are later used in a crime.

In a nod to groups seeking tighter gun restrictions, several Democratic senators plan to support amendments to ban military-style assault weapons and to limit the size of ammunition clips, but those measures are expected to fail. Another bipartisan group of senators plans to propose expanding programs that provide mental health assistance to military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

By yesterday afternoon, Boehner was pushing back against NRA operatives inside his House caucus who are demanding he kill the legislation-- if it passes the Senate-- when it comes to the House. He said the Hastert Rule was "never a rule anyway," opening up the possibility of him working with Obama to put together GOP-Democratic majorities to pass gun legislation, immigration and, of course, a budget, all of which are opposed by most Republican House members. It would be hilarious to see him thrown out by his own caucus and watch Cantor become the first Jewish Speaker before the loathsome Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who inherited that dream from her mentor, Rahm Emanuel.

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