Politics – Page 274 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Does Obama Have the Votes?

Not even looking at the house, I’m not honestly sure that Obama has the votes in the Senate to pass an assault weapons ban.Â I mostly agree with Countertop’s list, so we’ll use that.Â Here’s some likely no votes from the Democrats, italics mean they are up in 2010:

Baucus, Max (D – MT)
Bayh, Evan (D – IN)
Begich, Mark (D – AK)
Casey, Robert P., Jr. (D – PA)
Landrieu, Mary L. (D – LA)
Reid, Harry (D – NV)
Tester, Jon (D – MT)
Warner, Mark R. (D – VA)
Webb, Jim (D – VA)
Feingold, Russel (D-WI)

I will make one change from Countertop’s list.Â I think Feingold is a maybe.Â He’s not been a great supporter lately, but he did vote against the ban in 1994. SayUncle notes that Feingold voted against the renewal in 2004, so he’s a likely no.Â Countertop’s original judgment has been reinstated.Â The following Democrats are maybes:

Dorgan, Byron L. – (D – ND)
Johnson, Tim – (D – SD)
Gillibrand, Kirsten E. – (D – NY)
Lincoln, Blanche L. – (D – AR)
Nelson, Ben – (D – NE)
Pryor, Mark L. – (D – AR)
Udall, Mark – (D – CO)
Udall, Tom – (D – NM)

Even if a lot of those maybes would be nos, many of them will not want to have to cast a vote on this issue, and will probably apply pressure to the leadership to not bring up a bill so they don’t have to.Â Even if you lose a few Republicans, and I think Snowe and Collins are possible defectors (Specter I think we keep.Â The politics don’t work for him voting yes.), you still have a strong possibility of defeating this in the Senate.Â Remember, that in 1994, this started in the Senate.Â Despite the fact that we have more Democrats this time, the makeup looks different from a gun rights point of view.Â Obama will have to burn considerable political capital to get his assault weapons ban.Â If your Senator is on that maybe list, contact them about Holder’s remarks, and make sure they understand you expect them to vote no on any assault weapons bill before the Senate.

Losing the Internet Generation

Texas Republicans need to stop this crap:

“While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday. “Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level.”

Joining Cornyn was Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said such a measure would let “law enforcement stay ahead of the criminals.”

Two bills have been introduced so far–S.436 in the Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills is titled “Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth Act,” or Internet Safety Act.

Each contains the same language: “A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user.”

Technologically, that’s next to impossible to enforce, since user information is not currently built into any of the technologies.Â It would require businesses and providers to add an extra layer of authentication onto their networks.Â In other words, this is an IT nightmare of epic proportions, not even mentioning the civil liberties implications.Â Republicans have been driving educated voters from their party in hoards, and it’s especially true in the Philadelphia Suburbs, which even a decade ago was considered a Republican stronghold.Â Measures like this is part of the reason why.Â I believe the Texas delegation ought to seriously rethink the implications of this bill on the party as a whole.

Kiddie Porn is becoming the new drug war.Â There’s no civil liberty or aspect of commerce that where federal meddling can’t be justified in order to stamp it out.Â Next time Steele comes soliciting for funds, I might have to send a copy of this bill back in the envelope with “no thanks” written on it.

Hat Tip to War on Guns for the link.

Specter Responds on Stimulus

Senator Specter responsded to my letter on his stimulus package vote.Â Here’s a section I want to highlight:

I was impressed with the position of the United States Chamber of Commerce which was for the bill very solidly.Â The Chamber is for the bill because it supports pro-growth tax initiatives.Â The Chamber is for the bill because it applauds the inclusion of tax relief.Â The Chamber is for the bill because many of the spending-side provisions in the legislation will also provide stimulus to get Americans back to work, focusing on infrastructure spending for roads, rails, public transportation, aviation, inland waterways and ports.

Here’s a recent press release by The Chamber.Â Tell me if you think this is “for the bill very solidly”:

Ever since the election, the Chamber promised to work with the Obama team to develop and then pass a stimulus bill that would apply a defibrillator to our economy and shock it back to life â€¦ a bill that was timely, targeted, and temporary â€¦ a bill whose most important objective would be to create and save American jobs.

Unfortunately, thatâ€™s not what the House of Representatives delivered.

Its bill contained massive amounts of wasteful spending â€¦ infrastructure projects that would come on line too slowly â€¦ an insufficient level of tax cuts â€¦ and billions of transfer payments, rather than incentives to create new business and jobs.

House leaders prevented anyone other than themselvesâ€”including, apparently, the presidentâ€”from shaping the bill. As a result, it was a prescription for bigger government, more debt, and ballooning deficits as far as the eye can see.

The Chamber worked hard to win improvements in the Senate version. Itâ€™s betterâ€”it contains more tax cuts and curtails some of the wasteful spending, but we would have liked to have seen more improvements.

In the end, they supported the Senate version, but that sounds rather tepid to me.Â If Arlen is looking for cover for his vote, he’s going to have to try harder than this.

Inquirer Story on NJ Gun Rationing

The Inquirer is naming names on the One-Gun-A-Month bill being pulled in the New Jersey Senate:

But the plan received only 20 of the 21 “yes” votes yesterday needed for approval. Every Democrat supported the plan except for Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney and State Sen. Fred Madden, both of Gloucester County, and State Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D., Cape May). Every Republican voted no, except for State Sens. Phil Haines (R., Burlington) and Jennifer Beck (R., Monmouth), who abstained.

It’s critical that New Jersey gun owners call the offices of the representatives listed who voted no on this and thank them.Â New Jersey Republicans are showing an unusual discipline on this issue, and they deserve some praise for it as well.Â Call the two abstainers too, and tell them you would like them to vote no.

Oh, and be sure to tell them you saw the article in the Inquirer that said they voted no.Â No doubt Bryan Miller’s friends at the bankrupt Philadelphia Inquirer are hoping to generate the opposite response.Â Let us stick it to them!

One-Gun-a-Month Pulled in New Jersey

Gun rationing was up in New Jersey today, as we mentioned last week.Â The bill was pulled by its supporters at the last minute in order to, once again, avert defeat.Â See, if the legislature has a floor vote, and the measure is defeated, that bill is dead.Â It has to be reintroduced, and the process started anew.Â Â By pulling it from the agenda, it’s still alive, and can come back another day.Â In the mean time, Cody and Corzine will have time to twist arms, and try to come up with the votes they need.

So those of you in New Jersey: don’t stop calling.Â It’s working.Â We may actually defeat this.

Rendell on Stimulus

He thinks it won’t fix the economy, but that didn’t stop him from supporting it.Â Thanks Ed!Â Our children will love you when the bill comes due.

Thinking About Conspiracies

Back to the Iowa National Guard issue for a bit.Â My skepticism here of any broad plan to confiscate guns isn’t related to any general trust in government, or in Obama.Â I think Obama would ban all firearms if he thought he could get away with it politically, and there are certainly a lot of folks in government who share that view.Â But our government is not a secret cabal.Â It’s made up of a lot of ordinary Americans who believe in a lot of the same things you’ll find among other ordinary Americans. In order to believe that the exercise in Iowa is intended as a test run for gun confiscation, you need to believe the following, all of which I find highly implausible:

The President and the Democrats have made plans for a widespread confiscation of firearms using the National Guard.Â There are several problems with this.Â For one, where’s the bill?Â I can’t remember ever seeing a bill in Congress that goes this far.Â So far the worst we have in this Congress is Congressman Rush’s licensing and registration bill. There’s lot of chatter about renewing assault weapons bans, gun show loophole, and various other stupid measures on The Hill, but no chatter about gun confiscations that I’ve heard of.Â This must be a pretty tight conspiracy, considering all the staffers who would have to know, and who haven’t said anything about the Dems secret plans.
Why only the Iowa National Guard?Â Where’s the training for the rest of the guard units that would need to be used for such a massive confiscation measure?Â Â Where’s the bill authorizing the use of the guard in this manner?Â Because under current law, it would be unlawful.
That the Adjudant General of the State of Iowa, and probably the NRA A-rated Governor that appointed him, is in on the conspiracy.Â As best I can tell, this particular National Guard unit is not been activated into federal service.Â If the unit has not been activated, they are under the command authority of the Governor of Iowa, through the Adjutant General’s office.Â Now, the various state National Guards are administered through the National Guard Bureau at the Department of Defense, but they basically set standards, pay for the training and equipping of the various state National Guard units, and periodically review Guard units to assess their readiness to be called into federal service.
Obama has ordered the National Guard Bureau to start conducting exercises for weapons seizures.Â In which case many people in that office would have to know.Â The various people in that office would also have to apply pressure various state Adjudant General’s offices to conduct the training of their units for this measure.Â All this without anyone leaking anything to the media.Â I suppose it could be conducted under the guise of training for Iraq, but to be honest, if that’s the guise, that ends up being, in effect, what it will be for.Â The military trains to do terrible things all the time, but mostly to people who deserve it.Â I don’t doubt there are people who wish to turn the military to do terrible things to us, but would the military obey such orders?Â The military made up of millions of individual ordinary Americans who take an oath to the constitution.

In order to really believe that this Guard Unit is training with the specific idea of confiscating arms from Americans, you’d essentially have to buy the notion that Obama is going to seize power and become a dictator.Â Our system set up to distribute power among a large number of entities, thus making it harder for one person to demand control, or to secretly manipulate the system without someone talking.Â If Obama wanted to confiscate guns through our current system of government, he’d have to put his cards on the table first, and so far, those cards haven’t appeared.

I find the prospect of Obama seizing dictatorial power highly improbable, and I doubt Obama would find enough willing to enforce his decrees.Â I spent the past eight years listening to this from the left in regards to Bush becoming a dictator.Â Well, Bush served out two terms and we had a peaceful transition of power as described by our Constitution.Â Now it appears I’ll have to spend the next four to eight years (let’s hope four) listening to this crap from the right.Â I have little faith in government as an entity, but I have strong faith that the system that defines our Federal Republic is one that makes it extraordinarily difficult for any one person to rule.

You Got That Right Arlen

Arlen Specter encountered some unhappy people over his stimulus vote, and says:

Specter, 79, acknowledges his run for re-election will be tough. […] Specter acknowledges the Republican Party’s conservative wing will attempt to unseat him in next year’s primary race.

I’m absolutely counting on it.Â This time, he won’t have Santorum and Bush to pull his ass out of the fire.Â There’s on issue he can make this up to me on, and the vote is likely coming.

More Media Coverage of Gillibrand’s Rifles

I like this article by Fred Lebrun on Gillibrand’s supposed gaffe telling most of Long Island about how she defends her home:

Then again, this little flap has nothing to do with home protection and everything to do with perception politics, tarnishing the rash upstater. Gillibrand has been targeted by a number of individuals and institutions offended she got the job, and determined to take it away from her. Gillibrand has to bob and weave if she hopes to keep it, and not set herself up as a sitting duck.

For contrast, here’s Newsday’s latest jab at her.Â I really think the opposition to her boils down to not wanting to have some upstate rube representing urbane and sophisticated downstaters.Â That is certainly the image media outlets like Newsday are promoting.

They Won’t Stop: Gun Rationing in New Jersey

As if their whacky permit-to-purchase scheme doesn’t ration enough, one-gun-a-month is back on the table in New Jersey, and it scheduled for a vote on Monday.Â Call your state senator now.Â Last time this came to a floor vote, action from gun owners in New Jersey managed to get it pulled from the agenda at the last minute.Â They did not have a majority to pass this.

It’s time to repeat what we did before.