Showing posts with label Mark Kelly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Kelly. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Democrat Mark Kelly 7 points over Martha McSally in Arizona Senate race


Good for Progressives, good for the country, Senate challenger Mark Kelly over Martha McSally by twelve points...

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Senate candidate Mark Kelly
As a zoni, I welcome astronaut and husband of former representative Gabby Giffords to a Republican controlled state (so far) and hopefully a Senate seat that will help the chamber go Democratic in November. Give what's his name? Moscow Mitch McConnell the boot...READ MORE...

Monday, February 24, 2020




HEADLINE:
Republicans are flooding this red state with cash over panic state may flip on Trump: report"

This is Arizona they are talking about where Democrat Mark Kelly leads Republican Martha McSally by 2.6 points. The state has been heavily for the GOP since I moved here 25 years ago, but appears to be turning at least purple, perhaps, fully blue. Also hopes that the Progressives here will help defeat Donald Trump in November.   READ MORE...

Saturday, February 1, 2020


If Mike Pompeo is considered a "disgrace," why is he still in the cabinet?



Mike Pompeo railed against NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly in a "mean-spirited outburst" that has resulted in widespread criticism, especially among liberals. "Journalist Shay Khatiri calls Pompeo out in a blistering article for the conservative Never Trump website The Bulwark." Here is her opinion of one of T-rump's highest Cabinet members...
“Mike Pompeo is a disgrace to the office he holds and the department he leads, And he goes on to explain why Pompeo’s ranting against an NPR reporter speaks so poorly of him."
 Khatiri continued...
"the secretary of state 'began cursing' at Kelly when she brought up the “Ukraine scandal” — and on Saturday, Pompeo pulled a 'McSally maneuver' and “attacked the media.”
The “McSally maneuver” Khatiri is talking about is...
"Sen. Martha McSally’s recent attack on CNN’s Manu Raju, who she insulted as a “liberal hack” when he asked the Arizona Republican whether or not witnesses should be featured in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial — which was a perfectly reasonable question."
 Khatiri calls it a Trumpian political stunt, which, knowing McSally from Arizona, is another ploy to get attention. She is desperate since former astronaut Mark Kelly is beating her in the polls, 46.3% to 43.7%. It is all moot because it has become clear that Mike Pompeo has become another clone of Donald Trump and this is just in the DNA.   READ MORE...


Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Hard to understand how anyone could believe the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre


But they do.  These die-hard gun bubbas who strut around with their weapons either at their side or concealed completely from the public, are the real believers who do it because they have to have some way to prove their manhood.  And they would follow the head fanatic, wacky Wayne, to the end of the world if he said so.  It is amazing to me just how easily he can arouse these double-digit IQs to do his bidding and then force them to come back again and again to feed from the same fount spewing this propaganda.  But such is the mentality of these wackos.

Wayne LaPierre is head of the NRA and since assuming this post in 1991 the organization has prospered dramatically in increased membership and donations flowing in.  This is all due to one single factor; LaPierre zeroed in on the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms exclaiming it is an “absolutist” right of the people and the gun control advocates want to take it away.  And then along came a Democratic President, Barack Obama, and the screed switched to “Obama wants to take away your guns.”  Same crusade, just a different target.

Wacky Wayne laPierre


In each national incidence of guns killing innocent Americans, wacky Wayne used the situation to fire up his fellow gun worshippers by saying, as an example, they want to take away assault weapons today but tomorrow they will come for your handguns, then your hunting rifles.  The latest was delivered in a tirade from Salt Lake City during a speech at the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo.  He once again picked up on President Obama and other Democrats re. the drive for universal background checks.  This is what he saidon CNN:

"This so-called universal background check that you're hearing about all over the media ... is aimed at one thing: It's aimed at registering your guns.  And when another tragic opportunity presents itself, that registry will be used to confiscate your guns."

Actually, this registry of guns is a great idea for everyone but gun owners, and that raises a question within itself.  Why are you afraid to have your gun registered; got something to hide?  And it is absurd to think the feds would use any registry of firearms to confiscate legal guns.  It is the bad guys that they are after and if you gun huggers are a little bit inconvenienced, blame it on your head wacko LaPierre who has suppressed reasonable gun control legislation for years, putting 300 million guns on the streets of America, a record throughout the world.

Mark Kelly with wife Gabby Giffords
Astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of former Arizona U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, who was seriously injured by Jared Loughner in the Tucson gun massacre, where 6 died, sort of whacked wacky Wayne up-side the head at the recent Senate Judiciary hearings on guns when the gun nut “LaPierre repeatedly voiced the talking point that there’s no need to expand the background check system because criminals don’t cooperate with background checks,” from the Washington Post.  Kelly’s retort was:

“The Tucson shooter was an admitted drug user. He was rejected from the U.S. Army because of his drug use. He was clearly mentally ill. And when he purchased that gun in November, his plan was to assassinate my wife and commit mass murder at that Safeway in Tucson. He was a criminal. Because of his drug use, and because of what he was planning on doing. But because of these gaps in the mental health system, in this case, those 121,000 records, I admit did not include a record on him. But it could have.

“And if it did, he would have failed that background check. He would have likely gone to a gun show, or a private seller, and avoided that background check. But if we close that gun show loophole, if we require private sellers to complete a background check, and we get those 121,000 records and others into the systems, we will prevent gun crime. That is an absolute truth. It would have happened in Tucson. My wife would not have been sitting here today if we had stronger background checks.”

LaPierre’s claims that background checks don’t work is obviously just another of his false statements since 1.5 million guns were prevented from going to those prohibited from having them in 2010.  In the hearing, after gun rights grunts pointed to Chicago’s tough gun laws, yet high volume of gun violence, Sen. Dick Durbin from Illinois commented:

When you take a look at where these guns come from, 25 percent plus are sold in the surrounding towns around the city of Chicago, not in the city. Look over the last 10 or 12 years. Of the 50,000 guns confiscated in crimes, almost one out of 10 crime guns in Chicago came to that city from Mississippi. Why? Because the background checks there, the gun dealers there, are a lot easier than in other places. And they end up selling these guns in volume.

It is easy enough to shoot holes in most claims made by Wayne LaPierre and his NRA minions, but what isn’t easy is having the equal time to advertise the gun control side of the issue.  Organizations like the Brady Campaign and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence try but have limited budgets.  Just the opposite of the NRA, which is well funded in its advertising campaigns with the support of U.S. gun manufacturers.  The gun nuts are preparing to launch a new onslaught of major propaganda that will cause many more innocent people to be killed by guns.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

We have a new standard bearer for gun control…Gabrielle Giffords

Gabby Giffords is the former Arizona U.S. Representative who was shot by Jared Loughner along with 18 others, 6 of which died, at a public meeting in a Tucson supermarket parking lot in January of 2011.  Giffords has been going through a very slow recuperation process with the help of her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly.  She and Kelly decided to announce a new gun control movement on the second anniversary of the shooting.


Gabby Giffords/Mark Kelly

Their new organization, Americans for Responsible Solutions, hopes to launch “a new era in the battle over gun rights in America.”  In a USA op-ed, the two were very clear about their goal: “to counter the influence of the gun lobby.”  I interpret this as saying that Giffords and Kelly will spell out just how bad Wayne LaPierre and the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) have been misrepresenting the gun rights issue for years.  It’s time to shove it down their throats.

Giffords and Kelly’s efforts will add further support to organizations like the Brady Campaign and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.  It was reported that the NRA spent over $24 million in the 2012 election to elect gun rights candidates and defeat gun control candidates.  In comparison, the Brady campaign spent $5,800.  ARS hopes to balance this with financial support that will take the fear out of politicians who have been intimidated by the NRA.

Here’s a quote from Giffords and Kelly:

"Rather than working to find the balance between our rights and the regulation of a dangerous product, these groups have cast simple protections for our communities as existential threats to individual liberties. Rather than conducting a dialogue, they threaten those who divert from their orthodoxy with political extinction."

This is a clear signal aimed at the gun rights groups, particularly LaPierre’s NRA, that they can no longer hide behind the 2nd Amendment and the absolutist position they claim for guns by the Constitution.  It ain’t valid so quit insulting the gun control advocacy with this ridiculous argument and start negotiating like most rational human beings do.  LaPierre can start by ceasing the threats regularly hurled at Congress if they don’t vote the NRA way.

Wacky Wayne has made it clear that to solve the gun violence problem he wants more guns, not less.  He said, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."  Kelly sees this different.  When Giffords was shot, a “good guy” came out of a store next door to the Safeway and almost shot the man who took down Jared Loughner.  In Arizona, gun owners are not required to have any training to own and use firearms.

To illustrate the extremism of the gun rights movement, Councilman Steve Kozachik held a “Cash for Guns” buy-back outside a Tucson police station.  Nearby, Arizona Republican State Sen. Frank Antenori held an unregulated and legal marketplace to buy guns.  Kozachik said, "We have a fundamental hole in the private sales of guns. You can walk up right in front of a cop and buy a gun, no background check, nothing."  Only in Arizona.

Kozachik said that he had been receiving threats by phone and emails trying to shut the gun buy-back down.  Antenori’s concern was that the $50 offered per gun was too small, “it amounted to theft.”  And then Todd Rathner, an Arizona lobbyist and national NRA board member threatened to sue because he thought it was illegal for police to destroy the guns.  Both Antenori and Todd are but two of a gang of Arizona gun nuts that have made the state a national laughing stock.

And now Vice President Joe Biden, placed in charge by the President of getting gun control legislation passed, is saying that Obama is exploring executive privilege to stop the gun violence.  More on this later.  But the Giffords/Kelly movement couldn’t come at a better time and will certainly be welcomed by all gun control advocates.  It’s about time.

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