RON PAUL'S VISION OF A SAFER AMERICA: SHOOT-OUTS ON EVERY STREET, IN SCHOOLS, IN CHURCHES, STORES, EVERYWHERE... THAT'LL SHOW 'EM

Every time I mention Loonitarian Rep. Ron Paul, one of the zombies from his campaign jumps online and starts squawking about how he has the most anti-Iraq voting record of anyone in Congress. That's not only patently false, it belies the fact that he has a pretty abysmal Iraq voting record, voting with the rubber stamp team behind the Bush and Cheney agenda 18 times-- and having voted "present" or absenting himself several other times-- out of the 50 roll calls related to Iraq. He may be the "best" of the Republicans but all but 10 Democrats have better Iraq voting records than Ron Paul.

So don't even think about voting for this guy based on Iraq. And as far as the rest-- yecchhh. He's been almost a complete hack and right-wing rubber stamp. Look at this repulsive voting record, far, far worse than even the most reactionary Democrats. The 3 most reactionary Democrats score a 49 (Gene Taylor of Mississippi), 56 (Dan Boren of Oklahoma) and a 57 (Bud Cramer of Alabama). Ron Paul scores a 25. But he's running for president and his cheering squad thinks he's enlightened and progressive.

His vanity campaign isn't in the news much-- but it was today. He has a "simple solution to future shooting massacres": "more guns... People are a little more cautious if somebody might have a gun there. A concealed gun carried by a responsible person-- that might have ended the problem that they had at Virginia Tech with one person being killed or two people being killed."

Like other extremist wingnuts and Loonitarians, Paul sees gun control as "an affront to freedom." Mad as a hatter, the flat earth primitive claims that "It's the lack of access to law-abiding citizens to have guns in many places that increases our crime rate."

And Paul is petrified that the UN is coming to take our guns away too-- no doubt in black helicopters. Yep... that kind of "candidate."


POSTSCRIPT (FROM KEN): HOW SHAMEFULLY
WE'VE DISHONORED THE SACRIFICE OF JIM BRADY

When some well-meaning crackpot posted a comment on DWT the other day saying he didn't see how gun control might have mitigated the horror of the Virginia Tech shootings, I thought of those authentic American heroes Jim and Sarah Brady.

When White House Press Secretary Jim Brady became a "collateral damage" victim of John Hinckley's 1981 assassination attempt on Jim's boss, President Ronald Reagan, the Brady family launched a personal campaign to bring at least a modicum of sense and responsibility to gun sales. Despite the predictably implacable and ruthlessly well-funded opposition of the gun lobby (I believe the National Rifle Association's official policy is that even the tiniest hint that gun ownership involve either sense or responsibility should be dealt with by blowing the Commie sumbitch's head off), the Bradys were on hand when President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Bill into law in November 1993.

That should have been the start of a process of working toward a situation where responsible people could own guns under a system of reasonable controls such as any sane society would apply to potentially lethal objects--the way we require registration of car ownership, for example.

Instead, with the sense-extinguishing rise of the Extreme Right, momentum was not only lost but reversed. And so, instead of honoring Jim and Sarah and Scott and Melissa Brady, we've shamed them, turning our backs on their personal sacrifice and the lesson they worked so hard to teach us.


THE NRA IS SUCH AN EFFECTIVE PROGAPANDA OUTLET THAT THEY'VE BEEN ABLE TO CONVINCE THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA THAT GUN CONTROL POSITIONS SUPPORTED BY 80% OR MORE AMERICANS ARE "EXTREME"

Media Matters shows how Bill Schneider of CNN and Time's Karen Tumulty, as well as media wingnuts, have substituted N.R.A./GOP talking points for real reporting.