You can listen to it, or you can read it at this link:

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/21/nx-s1-50 ... un-control

I heard it on the radio the other day, so I looked for and found it.

We have to recall that NPR has become more corporate and less of a sure thing to get liberal views after their management change. Yet this piece seems to be honest reporting.

CDF

Interesting but one sided with two Bloomie organizations, Everytown and Moms. Fewer Democrats with NRA A ratings because there are fewer purple Congressional districts. Red and Blue state legislatures have gerrymandered districts to benefit their political parties. Tim Walz represented a purple district in Congress.

Reads and sounds more like the typical propaganda I have been reading from most sources. I'm getting the point i don;t need to hear anymore. It's all seemingly BS anyway.

GRETCHEN WHITMER: We're not talking about taking away every person's gun in this country. We're talking about making our communities, our schools, our places of worship and education safer places.

....."by taking away as many guns from as many people as we can." If we as a Nation want reproductive rights we'll have to accept that the Democrats have tied this to infringement leading to disarmament. They can spin it any way they think will sell but telling people they are not talking about taking away every person's gun is a lie,

VooDoo

Yup it's all BS. They talk safety instead of gun grabbing, but it's all the same. And don't forget their "common sense" gun laws, which justifies all their gun control laws.

"Bloomie" is corporate. He cares about profit more than anything else. He wants the market to continue to improve, so he'll go with the team who will deliver those gains. The red team is no longer entertaining enough to deliver clicks, and the blue team has a record of gains to run on. It comes down to messaging--which Bloomie will both finance and profit from.

CDF

highdesert wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2024 10:38 am Yup it's all BS. They talk safety instead of gun grabbing, but it's all the same. And don't forget their "common sense" gun laws, which justifies all their gun control laws.

Exactly.

CDFingers wrote: "Bloomie" is corporate. He cares about profit more than anything else. He wants the market to continue to improve, so he'll go with the team who will deliver those gains. The red team is no longer entertaining enough to deliver clicks, and the blue team has a record of gains to run on. It comes down to messaging--which Bloomie will both finance and profit from.

CDF

And a good enough reason to not support dems. My life is more important to me than their asinine bloomie backed agenda. Arms ensure I have a chance to remain breathing even with fascists around and fascists are not going away regardless of who wins this election. So I prefer not to have an agenda driven president disarm for feel good reasons.

sikacz wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2024 12:09 pm
And a good enough reason to not support dems. My life is more important to me than their asinine bloomie backed agenda. Arms ensure I have a chance to remain breathing even with fascists around and fascists are not going away regardless of who wins this election. So I prefer not to have an agenda driven president disarm for feel good reasons.

Yes. But joy...

featureless wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2024 12:21 pm

sikacz wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2024 12:09 pm
And a good enough reason to not support dems. My life is more important to me than their asinine bloomie backed agenda. Arms ensure I have a chance to remain breathing even with fascists around and fascists are not going away regardless of who wins this election. So I prefer not to have an agenda driven president disarm for feel good reasons.

Yes. But joy...

Yeah, the joy of oligarchs..

As long a zero orange votes precipitate, I'm good.

CDF

sikacz wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2024 12:34 pm

featureless wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2024 12:21 pm

sikacz wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2024 12:09 pm
And a good enough reason to not support dems. My life is more important to me than their asinine bloomie backed agenda. Arms ensure I have a chance to remain breathing even with fascists around and fascists are not going away regardless of who wins this election. So I prefer not to have an agenda driven president disarm for feel good reasons.

Yes. But joy...

Yeah, the joy of oligarchs..

Yup, Bloomberg gave $20 million to the Biden-Harris campaign and he expects a return on his donations.

highdesert wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2024 8:53 am Yup, Bloomberg gave $20 million to the Biden-Harris campaign and he expects a return on his donations.

I see Bloomberg's "donations" in the same light as I see Clarence Thomas' "gifts" and the governor of Illinois "donations" of $2 million to Illinois supreme court justices as "bribes" and nothing else. But we as a nation have, for some reason, condoned bribery now so long as our perceived interests are being pushed ahead.

VooDoo

Everyone here should work to overturn Citizens United.

CDF

Democrats see "donations" from their billionaires as good, it's donations by Republican billionaires that are bad. Republicans see it as just reverse. Democrats can't play the poor mouth game any longer, they're not the poor political party dependent on working class donations and labor unions for funds, they have as many maybe even more millionaires and billionaires than the Republican Party. The Republicans are the working class party, most working class aren't unionized. Both parties have their elites that actually run the parties.

It's not the Party of the People vs the Party of the Rich, that was the case 40 years ago, but not now.

It’s the conservative corporation party versus the neoliberal corporation party. Not really a choice.

sikacz wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2024 10:29 am It’s the conservative corporation party versus the neoliberal corporation party. Not really a choice.

I see it as the conservative corporation party and the neoliberal corporation party versus We the People. Big Money wants more and they want it from US by controlling both parties.

VooDoo

VodoundaVinci wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2024 10:57 am

sikacz wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2024 10:29 am It’s the conservative corporation party versus the neoliberal corporation party. Not really a choice.

I see it as the conservative corporation party and the neoliberal corporation party versus We the People. Big Money wants more and they want it from US by controlling both parties.

VooDoo

Sure, but in any case people are not represented unless they buy into those two choices.

Citizens United makes bribery legal, so very Tom, Dick, and Judas will bribe to get their way. Of course, this must be reversed, along with a ban on the "bottomless beer glass" at the Sierra Nevada Brewery. Like that's going to happen. :-0

CDF

Exactly. How do we get legislators to vote to repeal Citizens United when they are the beneficiaries of the ill gotten gains? We have painted ourselves into a corner and Citizens United, it's existence and the unlikely event that we can get it repealed/reversed, is one of the reasons for my negativity and belief that we are a failing/failed Republic. We cannot stop corruption, bribing and big money corrupting every issue if we can't stop The Oligarchy/Big Money interests from using virtually unlimited numbers of $ to bribe our legislators and elect officials that cheat, lie, and steal for their benefactors. We are chasing our tails - painted into a corner and I just don't see any credible "Plan" or events that can solve this.

To me it's like being aboard a sinking ship in shark infested waters and wondering how this gets fixed - Citizens United is not going to go away nor can We the People make it go away via the ballot box. Somebody show me a Plan.

VooDoo

VodoundaVinci wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2024 2:09 pm Exactly. How do we get legislators to vote to repeal Citizens United when they are the beneficiaries of the ill gotten gains? We have painted ourselves into a corner and Citizens United, it's existence and the unlikely event that we can get it repealed/reversed, is one of the reasons for my negativity and belief that we are a failing/failed Republic. We cannot stop corruption, bribing and big money corrupting every issue if we can't stop The Oligarchy/Big Money interests from using virtually unlimited numbers of $ to bribe our legislators and elect officials that cheat, lie, and steal for their benefactors. We are chasing our tails - painted into a corner and I just don't see any credible "Plan" or events that can solve this.

To me it's like being aboard a sinking ship in shark infested waters and wondering how this gets fixed - Citizens United is not going to go away nor can We the People make it go away via the ballot box. Somebody show me a Plan.

VooDoo

The original method for correcting government corruption was revolution. You can see why the bloomies want us disarmed.

No one seeks "disarmament." That is a false claim.

In the Chinese book of wisdom, the I-Ching, there is Hexagram 49, "Revolution". But it has another meaning, "Molting," as in birds losing their feathers every year. So, yes, we need to molt. That is, in order to overturn Citizens United, we need to shed the old ways and replace them with new ways. The Constitution was designed to allow molting.

Every society everywhere since the beginning of time has faced the option of violent revolution, regardless of code, or laws, or what not. Our Constitution provides for the peaceful molting of old feathers, unless the voters are too lazy or too stupid to take the control ourselves. That's why it starts "We the People", not we the violent revolutionaries. Of course our nation was founded upon a violent revolution, and we suffered an attempted violent revolution during The American War of 1861. That was much too messy and much too unpredictable. Those of us who have read copious amounts of history have seen many, many battles that, if they had gone "the other way," would have changed what we are now. Democracy is messy and requires voter participation.

It is better first to vigorously pursue peaceful molting. Only as a last resort should we even consider violent revolution, which is the lazy path. It is much more permanent to pursue molting.

CDF

Oh, baloney. Any time your government requires a permission slip to even possess a gun, like in New York, but exempt, say, the police, that's disarmament. Apply that to the First Amendment and see how well that goes. "Hey, the 1A only gives you the right to express your views with a Gutenberg press, 'cuz the Founding Fathers didn't imagine the Internet or TV!" Just like those who say, "the 2A only gives you the right to a musket, not a semi-automatic pistol or rifle with 17 or 30 round capacity!" Nope, rejection on both counts, because in both cases, the very notion is bullcrap.

And as for "revolutions"....

Here's one for all of us here. How about We, The People actually vote our conscience, meaning not necessarily Democrats or Republicans, but whichever candidate actually is working for us instead of just the big-money-donor class? That's our fault that we don't do that, and if we do, a lot of things would change drastically.

Remember this, folks:

Woman: "What kind of government did you give us, a democracy or a monarchy?"
Franklin: "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

That last part is up to us. Ultimately, we are the ones who make the choice how to vote. We can let ourselves be influenced, if we choose, by flashy ads and other such nonsense. But ultimately, the choice is still ours.

I simply stated a historical fact, not a call for revolution. Hmmm, some of you need to learn how to read.

A republic can also give us a religious minority bent on subjugating women and other minorities. >tap, tap< Is this this thing on? This is why we must vote out that religious minority--unless one enjoys subjugation. We need a minority in there who appreciates and supports all citizens.

Molting is the better choice. When birds lose a few flight feathers in a molt, they can still fly. Countries now engaged in violent revolution cannot feed their people, cannot build infrastructure, cannot provide health care or education, enjoy neither large-scale import nor export, and themselves are open to being invaded by a better organized country.

on edit: to explain the metaphor, each feather is a law overturned, an agency improved, a system optimized, a rat-fink politician adjudicated and jailed, and so on.

Last edit: Had the Mulford Act not been written, it would not have been signed. Had it not been signed, I could wear in public my neat custom rig for my old model Ruger Vaquero. But alas, it was, and it was, so I can't.

CDF

Continued defense of "our tribe" by the Democrats, even when they did something wrong Even when they were not just a contributor, but a *major* contributor, in both situations. "Nope, we had nothin' to do with it, nope, nope, nope...."

Yeah, sure....LOL

Solid rebuttal, dude. ;-)

CDF