The violence lobby

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Saturday July 21, 2012 · 7:51 PM PDT

2012/07/21 · 19:51

I spent several years in the 90s working on gun control. Almost made it a profession. Along the way, I had some successes and learned a lot: for example, the campaign (unsuccessful) to fend off the Connecticut assault weapons ban was coordinated from Dade County, Florida--at the time the main U.S. entry point for cocaine. The gun lobby is the professional criminals' lobby--and they carry the amateurs like the Aurora killer along with them.

For decades--from the 1880s through the 1940s--Congress failed to pass a bill against lynching. Lynching is plain and simple murder. It set law and order at naught and brutalized and debased an entire region, the American South. It should hardly be necessary to outlaw murder, but the extrajudicial murder of black people had the sanction of society--or rather, the sanction of those who were prepared to use lethal violence.

Thus it was not just "politics" that prevented passage of an anti-lynching law. It's never just politics when lethal violence and the threat of violence is employed.

More after the jump.

cwhig

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Tuesday May 18, 2010 · 3:22 PM PDT

2010/05/18 · 15:22

Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut kept a low profile during the Constitutional Convention, but had a big impact--it was evidently he who came up with "We the People." He understood the opponents of a strong government very well:

It is not strange that the licentious should tell us a government of energy is inconsistent with liberty, for being inconsistent with their wishes and their vices, they would have us think it contrary to human happiness.

The whole letter is relevant today; for more, see below.

cwhig

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Wednesday September 23, 2009 · 9:05 AM PDT

2009/09/23 · 09:05

That's right, folks. You can get 60 votes, with a public option, if you include a trigger.

Poll

48 votes Show Results

Can a "trigger mechanism" preserve the public option?

48 votes Vote Now!

Can a "trigger mechanism" preserve the public option?

Yes. Trigger is a terrific Trojan horse.

3 votes

No--it's a sure way to kill it.

24 votes

Maybe--if Congess can pass a mechanism that actually works.

6 votes

Who needs Snowe anyway? Reconciliation, baby!

15 votes

Bush's affirmative action

cwhig

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Monday March 16, 2009 · 9:50 AM PDT

2009/03/16 · 09:50

The current and immediately past administrations make an extraordinarily powerful case against affirmative action. Disagree? Read on.

Poll

27 votes Show Results

Who received the most "affirmative action"?

27 votes Vote Now!

Who received the most "affirmative action"?

George W. Bush

15 votes

Barack H. Obama

6 votes

Douglas Feith

0 votes

Monica Goodling

6 votes

Ike: a Category-3 two-by-four

cwhig

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Friday September 12, 2008 · 12:53 PM PDT

2008/09/12 · 12:53

It is very hard, even for a progressive Kossack like myself, to avoid the feeling that God is trying very hard to send a message to the American people, and that the means He has chosen to send it is hurricanes.

cwhig

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Saturday May 17, 2008 · 2:21 PM PDT

2008/05/17 · 14:21

It's official, folks: the Reagan Revolution has come to an end. kowalski on RedState has a comprehensive, cataclysmic lament for the coming evisceration of the Republican Party and the ensuing permanent Democratic, Kossackian, majority

It's a vision way beyond our fondest imaginings. Actually, it's a blueprint for action. And most of the commenters tend to agree with his overall picture:

Poll

329 votes Show Results

How long will the coming Democratic majority last?

329 votes Vote Now!

How long will the coming Democratic majority last?

For a thousand years

17 votes

At least until after the presidencies of Chelsea, Malia Ann, and Sasha

15 votes

Until the "amalgamation of parties" at the end of President Obama's first term

10 votes

Until the former insurgents become the fat and happy establishment

106 votes

Hey, let's not count our chickens until they're hatched!

181 votes

The Audacity of E Pluribus Unum

cwhig

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Thursday March 20, 2008 · 7:29 AM PDT

2008/03/20 · 07:29

It’s interesting that so few discussions in the media of Obama's Eighteenth of March Speech have focused on its core theme: "how hungry the American people [are] for this message of unity." This story seems significant to me, because for many reasons, Obama is the first presidential candidate who could actually deliver on it.

cwhig

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Sunday January 06, 2008 · 3:54 PM PST

2008/01/06 · 15:54

The summer after college, I worked as a temp in DC. My most interesting and informative gig was at Burson-Marsteller, the PR firm currently headed by Hillary's chief political strategist, Mark Penn. It's hard to conceive of a a corporation--indeed, an industry--more destructive to democracy.

Many Kossacks have drawn attention to some of B-M's roster of unsavory clients, such as the union-busting uniform company, Cintas. I think that's missing the forest for the trees. Let me tell you something about my adventures in the forest.

cwhig

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Wednesday January 03, 2007 · 12:37 PM PST

2007/01/03 · 12:37

Setting aside how we got here, it’s time to wake up to a sobering fact: The greatest beneficiary of the war in Iraq is Iran.

Bush administration policy makers are starting to grasp this frightening fact. It should have been clear for a while—when Maliki ordered the hunt for the kidnappers of an American soldier in a Shi'ite neighborhood in Baghdad called off, when he stood up the President at a dinner meeting in Jordan, when his vice-president denounced Israel and the Jews—that the government the Iraqis have put in place, with our help, is not "a stable democracy" and "an ally in the war on terror."

cwhig

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Sunday October 22, 2006 · 8:19 AM PDT

2006/10/22 · 08:19

Something very Rovian is going on in Connecticut, and Kossacks should be paying close attention.

As the chorus to scapegoat Rumsfeld swells (now including new endangered GOP candidates every day), we should remember that all decisions in the Bush White House are political. The betting here in the Nutmeg State is that the senatorial candidate of the Liebertarian Party has the best shot at getting the nod.

Win or lose in November--but especially win--Joe Lieberman is looking to be the new SecDef. Read More

Iran Attack = Impeachment

cwhig

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Tuesday September 26, 2006 · 1:00 PM PDT

2006/09/26 · 13:00

"Nobody could be crazy enough to attack Iran, especially while bogged down in Iraq."

That would be nice. But a whole raft of information and warnings from inside the White House are telling us, yes, they're crazy enough--and they're planning to do it.

A few months ago, Sy Hersh laid out the plans, and told us that the nuclear option was off the table, thanks to resignation threats of the Joint Chiefs. Now the best information is that it's back on the table.
Read More

Israel: Chosen for What?

cwhig

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Monday September 25, 2006 · 9:02 AM PDT

2006/09/25 · 09:02

This one is chiefly addressed to people like myself who are Jewish and supporters of Israel, and who don't want to have to choose between the two identities. It's about three years old, but doesn't seem--sadly--to be out of date.

How can we best act to defend the Jewish state? In the midst of the carnage and tragedy of recent months, the current government of Israel has adopted a policy of relying on military force alone--let the diplomatic and humanitarian chips fall where they may. We assert, correctly, that the actions that Israel is taking are no different from those that other states would take in the same situation; that Hez ballah and Hamas have violated the rules of war; that Iraq, Syria, and other Arab states have engaged in more brutal operations, even against their own people. We resent, understandably, the perennial habit of the international community to hold Israel to a different standard. Yet our tradition, our history, our religious heritage, our Torah, are all premised on the idea that Israel is unique, and that we are indeed held to a different standard--not by the nations, but by God.

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The violence lobby

A Founding Father nails the teabaggers

How we can pass the Public Option!

Bush's affirmative action

Ike: a Category-3 two-by-four

A RedState nightmare--looks pretty good to me!

The Audacity of E Pluribus Unum

My educational experiences at Mark Penn's shop

Revisiting Iran

Lieberman to replace Rummy--and keep senate R

Iran Attack = Impeachment

Israel: Chosen for What?