With the possibility of Hillary Clinton winning the White House and Democrats taking back the Senate, it would be great to see more discussion on liberal websites about a progressive agenda.
In 2008 Democrats swept to power, but they didn’t seem to realize it. They dawdled for many months on Obamacare, and never addressed climate change, union election rules, immigration and most importantly, the Bush tax cuts that were set to expire.
It will be tough to get much done if the Republicans continue their hold on the House, but Democrats should come with a comprehensive program and make Republicans vote against it.
Hillary’s estate tax proposal, a progressive corporate tax reform proposal, Obamacare fixes, carbon tax, and immigration reform should be put on the table in the first week after Congress starts up in January.
Democrats need more intellectual infrastructure. The conservatives have lots of think tanks, AEI, Club for Growth, Peterson Institute. Democrats have the Center on American Progress, what else?
Republicans have radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and many local conservatives in every county in America. Democrats have nothing. Amy Goodman has a show, but she is a Green Party advocate and does nothing to push a Democratic party agenda.
In order to get a progressive agenda in play, it is necessary to elect progressive legislators. That did not happen with the Democratic majority in 2008. The dawdling over Obamacare was caused by conservative, centrist, or blue dog, whatever one wants to call them, legislators who were unwilling to allow a “progressive” healthcare proposal to advance. Let’s see who ends up in the legislature this time.
I’m hoping that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren from the Senate work with the House Progressive Caucus to bring forward a program. In 1994 the Republicans under Newt Gingrich had the Contract for America, which was horrible policy but good optics. Democrats could have five top issues, write the bills and drop them on the first day of Congress.
My top five would include Hillary’s tiered estate tax proposal, her new tax credit proposal, college tuition affordability, Social Security revenue enhancement and closing the gun show loophole.
Jack D,
I think you start with an agenda. Right now in the Democratic party, it’s every man and woman for themselves. They come into office with some campaign promises, but then they run into all the other stuff.
If Democrats could coalesce around a few top priorities, they could start doing some marketing. Look at most Democratic party websites, they are almost content free.
Warren,
You can go to a gun show and buy a gun from a non licensed dealer and not go through the background check process that is required when one buys from a store or dealer.
I wish Bernie Sanders had stayed a Democrat after his run for the presidency. I think he would be more effective in pushing his ideas in the Senate caucus if he was a Democrat. If Democrats take back the Senate, he may be the next Budget chair. That gives him a lot of power to push a progressive agenda in terms of budget priorities.
Warren if I get a table at Comic-Con and sell comic books would it be fair to call me a “comic book dealer”? Even if that was not my full-time profession? Some people might say “well hell no, that makes you a ‘comic book seller’ and not a ‘comic school dealer'”. But they would sound like pedantic idiots.
Can private citizens get tables at a sporting goods/gun show and sell their private guns without having a license AND without having to have the customer be run through the national database? Well yes they can. Is this popularly called the “Gun Show Loophole”. Well yes it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_show_loophole
And do people argue that this is just nonsense because under one specific and limited definition of “dealer” that excludes the broader definition of “seller” this isn’t a “loophole” at all. Because “dealers” are subject to it and who gives a shit that people “sell” “guns” to “private citizens” at “gun shows” without “background checks” because pursuant to the Webster’s Dictionary as annotated by the NRA the only important piece is the circular argument that you can’t have a “loophole” if the law only regulates “dealers” and exempts “private sellers”. Even where those sales are done in public at a gun show where the table is rented by a “private seller” looking to make a profit.
This is as much as saying that anyone who finds and exploits a flaw in the law is not exploiting a loophole by definition. I guess under the logic that ‘loophole’ can only apply to an fully intended flaw. This is nonsense of the highest order, simply playing with semantics.
“Contrarily, gun rights advocates have stated that there is no loophole, that current laws provide a single, uniform set of rules for commercial gun sellers regardless of the place of sale, and that no part of the United States Constitution empowers the federal government to regulate non-commercial, intrastate transfers of legal firearms types between private citizens.”
What this is saying is that active avoidance of the requirement to get such a license bypasses the purpose of the licensing requirement. Yes there is a logic there. It is the twisted logic of the ‘sovereign citizen’ who is subject only to laws he perceives as Constitutional.
“Non licensed dealer” is a contradiction in terms. So the whole argument is crap. But what if I reword it as follows:
“You can go to a gun show and buy a gun from a non licensed seller….”
The contradiction vanishes and the argument is valid. That is a lot of damn weight to put on “dealer” vs “seller”. It is just like the fucking idiots that ignore 80 years of gun people talking about the Colt 1911 pistol as being an “automatic” to claim that only morons don’t know it is actually only a “semi-automatic”. Similar arguments revolve around the term “assault rifle” which was freely used by gun people until a time that it became inconvenient when all of a sudden it became the mark of ignorami who knew nothing about guns.
Where the title of the 1922 field manual describes it as the “Description of the Automatic Pistol, Caliber 45 Model of 1911”
Cut the semantic bullshit between “dealer” and “seller”.
“The FN FNC (French: Fabrique Nationale Carabine) is a 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle developed by the Belgian arms manufacturer FN Herstal and introduced in the late 1970s.”
So called ‘sporting weapons’ that are modified to look like the FN-FNC and other carbines of its type were called by nearly everyone ‘assault rifles’. Even though they were not fully automatic. Which led people who were THEN perfectly happy to call a Model 1911 an “automatic” to mock and laugh at people who called an modified AR-15 with features looking EXACTLY like those of the FN-FNC an “assault rifle” because they lacked one particular operating feature of the FN-FNC.
This is crap logic chopping and word salad intended by self-proclaimed know-it-alls to become some sort of NRA Alpha. “Err, err real men know the difference”. Yeah if you agree to limit the definitions in a specific way that aids your cause even if it does damage to decades of common usage.
With the possibility of Hillary Clinton winning the White House and Democrats taking back the Senate, it would be great to see more discussion on liberal websites about a progressive agenda.
In 2008 Democrats swept to power, but they didn’t seem to realize it. They dawdled for many months on Obamacare, and never addressed climate change, union election rules, immigration and most importantly, the Bush tax cuts that were set to expire.
It will be tough to get much done if the Republicans continue their hold on the House, but Democrats should come with a comprehensive program and make Republicans vote against it.
Hillary’s estate tax proposal, a progressive corporate tax reform proposal, Obamacare fixes, carbon tax, and immigration reform should be put on the table in the first week after Congress starts up in January.
Democrats need more intellectual infrastructure. The conservatives have lots of think tanks, AEI, Club for Growth, Peterson Institute. Democrats have the Center on American Progress, what else?
Republicans have radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and many local conservatives in every county in America. Democrats have nothing. Amy Goodman has a show, but she is a Green Party advocate and does nothing to push a Democratic party agenda.
In order to get a progressive agenda in play, it is necessary to elect progressive legislators. That did not happen with the Democratic majority in 2008. The dawdling over Obamacare was caused by conservative, centrist, or blue dog, whatever one wants to call them, legislators who were unwilling to allow a “progressive” healthcare proposal to advance. Let’s see who ends up in the legislature this time.
I’m hoping that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren from the Senate work with the House Progressive Caucus to bring forward a program. In 1994 the Republicans under Newt Gingrich had the Contract for America, which was horrible policy but good optics. Democrats could have five top issues, write the bills and drop them on the first day of Congress.
My top five would include Hillary’s tiered estate tax proposal, her new tax credit proposal, college tuition affordability, Social Security revenue enhancement and closing the gun show loophole.
Of course they need majorities to do that.
What “gun show loophole”?
Jack D,
I think you start with an agenda. Right now in the Democratic party, it’s every man and woman for themselves. They come into office with some campaign promises, but then they run into all the other stuff.
If Democrats could coalesce around a few top priorities, they could start doing some marketing. Look at most Democratic party websites, they are almost content free.
Warren,
You can go to a gun show and buy a gun from a non licensed dealer and not go through the background check process that is required when one buys from a store or dealer.
I wish Bernie Sanders had stayed a Democrat after his run for the presidency. I think he would be more effective in pushing his ideas in the Senate caucus if he was a Democrat. If Democrats take back the Senate, he may be the next Budget chair. That gives him a lot of power to push a progressive agenda in terms of budget priorities.
“You can go to a gun show and buy a gun from a non licensed dealer….”
NON-LICENSED dealer? That is a contradiction in terms. It is illegal to be a non-licensed dealer.
Warren if I get a table at Comic-Con and sell comic books would it be fair to call me a “comic book dealer”? Even if that was not my full-time profession? Some people might say “well hell no, that makes you a ‘comic book seller’ and not a ‘comic school dealer'”. But they would sound like pedantic idiots.
Can private citizens get tables at a sporting goods/gun show and sell their private guns without having a license AND without having to have the customer be run through the national database? Well yes they can. Is this popularly called the “Gun Show Loophole”. Well yes it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_show_loophole
And do people argue that this is just nonsense because under one specific and limited definition of “dealer” that excludes the broader definition of “seller” this isn’t a “loophole” at all. Because “dealers” are subject to it and who gives a shit that people “sell” “guns” to “private citizens” at “gun shows” without “background checks” because pursuant to the Webster’s Dictionary as annotated by the NRA the only important piece is the circular argument that you can’t have a “loophole” if the law only regulates “dealers” and exempts “private sellers”. Even where those sales are done in public at a gun show where the table is rented by a “private seller” looking to make a profit.
This is as much as saying that anyone who finds and exploits a flaw in the law is not exploiting a loophole by definition. I guess under the logic that ‘loophole’ can only apply to an fully intended flaw. This is nonsense of the highest order, simply playing with semantics.
“Contrarily, gun rights advocates have stated that there is no loophole, that current laws provide a single, uniform set of rules for commercial gun sellers regardless of the place of sale, and that no part of the United States Constitution empowers the federal government to regulate non-commercial, intrastate transfers of legal firearms types between private citizens.”
What this is saying is that active avoidance of the requirement to get such a license bypasses the purpose of the licensing requirement. Yes there is a logic there. It is the twisted logic of the ‘sovereign citizen’ who is subject only to laws he perceives as Constitutional.
Short version. Warren argues:
“Non licensed dealer” is a contradiction in terms. So the whole argument is crap. But what if I reword it as follows:
“You can go to a gun show and buy a gun from a non licensed seller….”
The contradiction vanishes and the argument is valid. That is a lot of damn weight to put on “dealer” vs “seller”. It is just like the fucking idiots that ignore 80 years of gun people talking about the Colt 1911 pistol as being an “automatic” to claim that only morons don’t know it is actually only a “semi-automatic”. Similar arguments revolve around the term “assault rifle” which was freely used by gun people until a time that it became inconvenient when all of a sudden it became the mark of ignorami who knew nothing about guns.
Where the title of the 1922 field manual describes it as the “Description of the Automatic Pistol, Caliber 45 Model of 1911”
Cut the semantic bullshit between “dealer” and “seller”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_FNC
“The FN FNC (French: Fabrique Nationale Carabine) is a 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle developed by the Belgian arms manufacturer FN Herstal and introduced in the late 1970s.”
So called ‘sporting weapons’ that are modified to look like the FN-FNC and other carbines of its type were called by nearly everyone ‘assault rifles’. Even though they were not fully automatic. Which led people who were THEN perfectly happy to call a Model 1911 an “automatic” to mock and laugh at people who called an modified AR-15 with features looking EXACTLY like those of the FN-FNC an “assault rifle” because they lacked one particular operating feature of the FN-FNC.
This is crap logic chopping and word salad intended by self-proclaimed know-it-alls to become some sort of NRA Alpha. “Err, err real men know the difference”. Yeah if you agree to limit the definitions in a specific way that aids your cause even if it does damage to decades of common usage.
So, how many crimes have been committed with a gun the perpetrator bought at a gun show from an “unlicensed dealer” without a background check?