Today, Mother Jones is reporting on the status of recall campaigns backed by the NRA after Colorado Democrats dared to pass stronger gun laws in their state.
This sort of fight is to be expected, if laws to curb gun violence are passed anywhere -- after all, the NRA and its gunmaker masters profit from gun violence coming and going. They need gun violence to encourage sales, both from the violent and those afraid enough to get their own guns.
And while I don't mean to make light of the recall campaigns in Colorado, it's good to see that they haven't worked out very well so far.
state Senate president John Morse (D-CO)
So, Colorado Senate President
John Morse and state Senator
Angela Giron are facing recall elections this fall thanks to the NRA. Interestingly, I could not find a special Act Blue entry for Giron, although according to
Mother Jones, both of them have a significant advantage in money raised compared to their opponents.
And in expectation of the usual whinge about the NRA's hand in this, have a look at what they don't want you to see -- this NRA mailer about it was discovered back in May.
In a mailer obtained by CNN, the NRA Political Victory fund wrote to a “Second Amendment Supporter” in Colorado that “your NRA is coordinating a recall effort with the Basic Freedom Defense Fund to put Senator Morse on the ballot for a special election and vote him out of office.” (Emphasis theirs.)
Sadly I was on vacation when
this little gem was posted a couple weeks back: the Republican challenger for John Morse, endorsed by one group of gun owners, was outed by a rival as a writer of erotica under a weak pseudonym. Damn, the stuff I miss sometimes.
Mother Jones dug into the background of now ex-candidate Jaxine Bubis, and it's nearly as amusing to see what Republicans were willing to overlook. None of this raised any red flags, but steamy fiction, can't have that...
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, the state’s largest anti-gun control network, endorsed Jaxine Bubis, a political novice and natural healer who moonlights as a saleswoman for the multi-level-marketing firm Lifewave. ("I have been in MLM for years and feel like LifeWave is the company I've waited for all my life.") According to its website, the company specializes in anti-aging patches, "theta nutrition" weight loss treatment, and something called Matrix 2, which "provides an easy, affordable way to instantly reduce your exposure to cell phone radiation by up to 98%*!"
Sure, it just happens that the fellow who outed Bubis' erotica supports another candidate, Colorado Springs city councilman Bernie Herpin. But according to
Hunter's diary it's more about the god-bothering in Colorado Springs, and I can believe that.
Anyway, Jaxine Bubis withdrew from the race and is apparently revising her remarks -- and her erotica. Which sounds terrible; the revision, I mean, I haven't read her work. But she might not have had that problem if she were running in a Democratic race. Food for thought, Jaxine.
I no longer believe that pre-marital sex is heroic.
I do believe that there’s a market for wholesome love stories. (Just ask Debbie Macomber)
Promise to Believe is the first of my former mainstream romances to have an Upgrade.
The Military Romances will be Upgraded as well and re-released in their G-Rated formats.
Heroic pre-marital sex, isn't that a
Newt Gingrich innovation? I suppose it's more a matter of heroic infidelity in his case. But I digress. And don't ask me for excerpts of the saucy fiction. Comments in
Hunter's diary will satisfy the ... curious.
In another case of rhetorical GunFail, there's the Basic Freedom Defense Fund, the organization that collected recall signatures on behalf of the NRA. The Basic Freedom Defense Fund apparently had to replace their spokesman, Nick Andrasik, after some of his, ahem, speech was discovered and put on display.
Nick Andrasik, in a moment of worship
Some of gun rights activists' wounds have been self-inflicted, though. Basic Freedom Defense Fund, a new 501(c)4 non-profit group the NRA teamed up with to collect signatures for the recalls, has run into trouble, too. In April, Basic Freedom Defense Fund replaced its spokesman, Nick Andrasik, after the Colorado Springs Independent caught him referring to two female Democratic state Reps. as a "vacuous cunt" and a "stunning cunt," and a male Democratic Rep. as a "fucking retard" on a message board for AR-15 owners. And on its Facebook page, BFDF trumpets a quote from Morse in which he warns that "People who own guns are essentially a sickness on our soul." That quote is fabricated. Morse never said anything like that—although he did cite Martin Luther King to argue that violence is a "sickness."
On a message board for AR-15 owners, how about that! Who else might be posing as Yet Another Reasonable Gun Owner (YARGO) in public, and spewing filth at their enemies in a more private setting?
So, after trying to recall four Democrats and failing with two of them, two recall campaigns are in court as the Democrats in question are challenging their validity.
Legal council representing the senators' support groups contested the validity of the petitions. The petitions did not state that there would be a recall election to appoint a new lawmaker. The language is a requirement laid out in Colorado's constitution.
The attorneys argue since that language was absent from the petition, it misled people who signed the petition. The cost of recall election for Morse is $150,000. The cost of a recall election for Giron is $250,000.
It's the same argument the legal council opposing the petitions used in a hearing before Colorado's Secretary of State's Office. The ruling handed down in the hearing said the petitions were still valid despite the missing language.
State Sen. Angela Giron (D-CO)
So, those two recalls may still go ahead. But
Mother Jones reports that the court challenge may push the election day past Labor Day, and that Republicans are fighting this, perhaps worried that college students returning to Colorado College in Morse's district will improve his chances.
This isn't over by any stretch of the imagination. The NRA is behind this attack on stronger gun laws and anyone willing to do something to reduce gun violence. As long as they have gun manufacturers to prop them up, the NRA will continue to target Democrats and stronger gun laws at every opportunity. This is one outlet for action to curb gun violence. Those who support such laws need to back up these two Democrats, John Morse and Angela Giron.
1:30 PM PT: Resident YARGO FrankRose supplies this link; the recall elections are not yet guaranteed, but again, I expect they will be in time. A Denver judge has ruled today that the recalls must proceed in spite of the legal challenge, but said legal challenge continues, so no date set for now.
http://denver.cbslocal.com/...