Tomor 26 riders will bike from Newtown2DC to raise awareness for common sense gun reform. Tweet your support using #Newtown2DC
— @ChrisMurphyCT via web
Dan Rodricks:
Deaths at Virginia Tech and Aurora, Colo., thousands upon thousands of homicides and suicides, and even the shooting of one of their own, then-Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, could not get Congress to act in a way that would make a difference.
Sandy Hook moved the national conversation to where it needs to be.
In case anyone has forgotten why we are engaged in this, a team of 26 bicyclists heads out of Newtown, Conn., on Saturday for the nation's capital, with a stop in Baltimore scheduled for Monday night. The 400-mile ride is meant to serve as a reminder about what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School — and how so many of us felt when we heard the news. We felt shock and sadness, anger and resolve.
A Newtown resident, Monte Frank, resolved to do something.
Diarist
peterolson has put together the following diaries about the Sandy Hook ride that starts today from Newtown, goes through NJ and Baltimore and winds up with a press conference in DC:
• Sandy Hook Ride on Washington - March 9-12
• Sandy Hook Ride on Washington - March 9-12 - Day 2 Schedule Update
• Sandy Hook Ride on Washington - March 9-12 - Day 3 Schedule update
Follow them on twitter with #Team26
USA Today has something as well:
The riders will stop for several rallies along the route, according to the event's organizer, Monte Frank. They will join members of the Virginia Tech Victims Cycling team Tuesday in College Park, Md.
More politics to come below the fold.
Gail Collins:
“I have an AR-15,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, referring to the nation’s best-known assault weapon.
“I’m not going to do anything illegally with it,” Graham added. There were no audible sighs of relief from the audience, but I am sure everybody was glad to have the reassurance.
People, do you think Congress is actually going to do anything about gun violence in the wake of the Newtown shootings? Judiciary is going to vote on two big proposals next week: a ban on assault weapons and an expansion of gun purchase background checks. If the Democrats stick together, the bills can pass on a party-line vote. But to go any further, they need Republican support, and there wasn’t a whole lot of it in evidence this week.
Everything won't pass, but some things will. That's why they ride.
Greg Sargent:
The Huffington Post has put together a terrific collection of local news coverage of the sequester’s impact around the country — and contrasted it with Washington press coverage that treats the sequester mostly as political theatrics.
Definitely go watch the first video, a montage that creates a useful contrast: As Republican officials and D.C. commentators mock the White House for canceling tours, local TV stations are talking about lost jobs, local airport closings, and eliminated funding for public health, natural disaster relief, and hunger programs. The worst offender is probably Larry Kudlow, who smugly claims that the White House tour cancellation is “bush league” — a moment that is then followed by a local newscast about the possibility of rising unemployment causing rising need for food assistance.
HuffPo concludes: “The coverage was pretty consistent at the local level, revealing that viewers of these channels are getting a different story about the ramifications of the budget cuts than those simply consuming their news from cable television.”
Jennifer Rubin makes sense about gay marriage:
I’ve been saying for some time now that Republicans are out of step with their fellow citizen and even the younger generation in their party. Now there is some powerful polling evidence to back that up...
It is noteworthy that even among those who oppose gay marriage seem to understand that they have lost the argument. The “problem,” if you will, is that the pocket of concentrated opposition to gay marriage — older white evangelicals — vote in strong numbers in GOP primaries. Now, to be blunt, I don’t think these people must pass away before the GOP can shift position on gay marriage. There are several better alternatives.
Neil Irwin:
The Dow Jones industrial average is back, and so is James K. Glassman.
Glassman, of course, was the author of perhaps the most spectacularly wrong investing book ever: “Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market.” The book, which he wrote with Kevin Hassett, came out in 1999, when the Dow was around 11,000. The Glassman thesis was that investors had somehow, for all of history, misunderstood how truly risk-free investing in stocks was, and that they would within a few years come to this realization. This in turn, they theorized, would soon drive the Dow to more than three times its then-current levels.