Nominations lose steam or gain steam. Campaigns against nominations lose steam or gain steam. And at the moment, the campaign against Chuck Hagel’s nomination is losing steam. AIPAC and the ADL have both signaled they do not plan to make a fight of it. Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister is giving Hagel the thumbs up. Now even the Washington Post editorial page has signaled it’s backing off its opposition. Read More
Last week Rep. Steve Palazzo (R) made news but voting against Sandy Relief despite representing one of the districts most hard hit by Hurricane Katrina and actually personally pleading for more disaster relief for his home town at the time. Now he’s toured the Sandy-affected region and says he’s on board for the next vote.
We know what people mean in a political context when they talk about ‘gun rights.’ And the Supreme Court has now said that there is an individual right, though not an absolute one, to own guns. But now an NRA boardmember in Arizona is taking it to a whole new level — claiming the guns themselves have rights.
Todd Rathner is threatening to sue Tucson police over yesterday’s gun buyback program, saying they have no right to destroy the guns themselves, despite the fact that the owners sold them ($50 gift certificate per gun) to the police to destroy them. In other words, the guns — not the people who have a right to own them — but the guns themselves, i.e., the metal and miscellaneous composites that make up the firearm, now have rights.
From TPM Reader BC …
Thanks for airing PM’s critique of Bloomberg, which is in many ways spot-on. But to try connect the dots between those sentiments and your sense that city politics has been notably subdued during the mayor’s tenure: I think you’re right about that calm, but I also think it’s due in no small part to Bloomberg’s “dark side.”
Whose face should be on the $1 Trillion dollar platinum coin? We’ve now updated our list to honor the NRCC’s derply complaint that the idea is not feasible because a $1 trillion coin would have to weigh too much. Click here and scroll to bottom.