Powerful moment at today's Senate hearing on gun violence:

In remarks kicking off today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., made a defiant call for Congress to "be bold" and "act" on gun violence.

"Too many children are dying," she said. "We must do something."

Giffords, who survived a gunshot to the head two years ago during an assassination attempt that left six people dead, read slowly but forcefully from prepared remarks, and acknowledged that "speaking is difficult."

"But I need to say something important. Violence is a big problem," she said. "It will be hard. But the time is now. You must act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you."

Meanwhile, while the Senate listened to testimony, there was another mass shooting at a Phoenix, Arizona office complex. One person was killed.

It's fitting, I suppose, that we're waiting to see how this hostage situation plays out on the morning Wacky Wayne LaPierre is testifying before Congress. I'm guessing this bizarre tragedy is another custody dispute, but we'll see.

And this is the thing: It's not only the mass shootings that are the gun problem, or drug gangs in the city. It's also that average citizen, pushed to a sudden edge, feeling like his life is spiralling out of control, sees a gun as the way to get that control back. I'll show that S.O.B.!

It's the constant drip drip drip of one life lost at a time -- which is why it was easier to ignore before a classroom of children were taken out with an assault weapon. Yes, Mr. LaPierre, I can't wait to hear what you have to say!

(Reuters) - A standoff continued early on Wednesday with a gunman who boarded an Alabama school bus and fatally shot the driver before fleeing with a young child and holing up in an underground bunker, authorities said.

Dale County Coroner Woodrow Hilboldt confirmed the bus driver had been killed in the shooting Tuesday afternoon as children were being ferried home from school.

The gunman fled to a bunker on his property after the shooting, Alabama media reported. Hilboldt said it was his understanding that the child, variously identified by local media as 5 or 6 years old, was barricaded with the gunman in "some kind of a tornado bunker."

Local law enforcement gave scant details about the incident, but confirmed that one person had been killed and a child was present at the scene in Midland City.

Hilboldt said both the gunman and bus driver were in their 60s.

Law enforcement officials from multiple agencies were convened near the bunker on Wednesday as the standoff with the shooter continued overnight, said Dothan Police Sergeant Rachel David.

The shooting comes as national debate rages over gun violence, especially in schools, after a gunman shot dead 20 students and six staff members at a Connecticut elementary school last month.

Alabama media reported that the incident on Tuesday happened at approximately 4 p.m. local time when the suspect demanded the driver let a student off the bus.

Here's Makin speaking much of the anti-Keynesian party line back in 2010.

Seriously, I think hell just froze over. An American Enterprise Institute "stink tanker" publicly contradicts the party line and tells conservatives the debt is no big deal -- based on actual facts n' stuff? The AEI, home to Lynne Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Newt Gingrich and John Bolton?

There's always the possibility this is merely a public relations move in reaction to the sound drubbing conservatives took in the November election, but even if it is, so what? A chink in the armor is going to make our job of stopping austerity measures a lot easier:

You know the deficit argument is all but over when one conservative tells other conservatives to shut up about it, already.

American Enterprise Institute's John H. Makin has a long new argument today, in which he said that worrying about national debt is a nonsensical idea because Japan's national debt isn't hurting them any, and really, the U.S. has other stuff to worry about. Like fixing the tax code, or reforming entitlement programs.

The debt-to-GDP ratio, which is what many conservatives tout as a metric of how "unsustainable" U.S. debt is, means absolutely nothing, he said. Japan, for instance, has a debt-to-GDP ration of 140, which is way above the U.S. number, and it really hasn't had any effect whatsoever on their economy. In fact, the interest rate for 10-year Japanese bonds are half that of the American equivalent, in part because of Japanese deflation.

From his notes:

Congress, take note. Although American deficits do need to be reduced and debt accumulation does need to be slowed and eventually reversed, cries of imminent disaster from “unsustainable” deficits and a supposed bond market collapse will not accomplish this goal. Persistently rising bond prices in Japan and the United States have undercut the “sky-is-falling” rationale for deficit reduction.

In fact, austerity could just about be the silliest thing to do, if Congress wants the debt-to-GDP ratio to fall:

If fiscal austerity is applied too rapidly, US growth will drop and the debt-to-GDP ratio will rise, boosting the nation’s debt burden. If the Fed tries to stem the rise with too much money printing, inflation could rise and drive up interest rates, exacerbating the US debt burden.Congress and the president need to avoid excessive austerity with respect to changes in fiscal policy this year. Over the past four years, on average, the fiscal boost applied to the American economy has been worth about 3 percent of GDP. This year, with tax increases and sequestration, fiscal drag will be about 1.5 percent of GDP.

According to Makin, instead of yelling about how the world is going end and whatnot, which would only serve to sap the momentum to sound fiscal policy, Congress should be cutting deficits gradually, through tax reform and by rethinking how entitlement programs work.

When an AEI scholar and Paul Krugman are telling you the same thing, these are strange days indeed!

New Sugarboy, folks! Note: this video has comic disembodyment in it. Not for those squeamish at the sight of fake blood.

Open thread below...

Mother Goose says that Wednesday's child is full of woe, so perhaps knowing that E-Squared being shown the door at CNN will cheer these kids up? What's that? The door opened at Fox? Maybe Mother Goose was onto something?

Driftglass plays in David Brooks' Super Awesome Tree Fort.

Big Bad Bald Bastard discusses General Jerry Boykin's latest excuse for denying women the opportunity to serve on the front lines. Hint: it begins with a pee.

Urantian Sojourn says "Good luck with that" to Bobby Jindal wanting to change the GOP from the stupid party.

Bonus track: Beggarscanbechoosers plays some progressive oldies for us.

Round-up by Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors who also blogs at Dependable Renegade. Send tips to: mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com

The central philosophical essence of modern conservatism is: "eff you, I got mine." Here's Lou Barletta (R-PA), talking about immigration, and illustrating this nicely:

“I hope politics is not at the root of why we’re rushing to pass a bill. Anyone who believes that they’re going to win over the Latino vote is grossly mistaken,” Barletta said. “The majority that are here illegally are low-skilled or may not even have a high school diploma. The Republican Party is not going to compete over who can give more social programs out. They will become Democrats because of the social programs they’ll depend on.”

As someone of Italian heritage myself, I find this "we only should accept skilled, educated immigrants" coming from another Italian American hilarious. The fact is, the vast majority of the millions of Italians who immigrated to the US from the late-nineteenth century through the 1920s didn't have the equivalent of a high school diploma. (My own grandmother never achieved higher than a 3rd grade education, and I believe she had more education than my grandfather.) Many Italians were illiterate. Many were unskilled peasants or low-skilled laborers. And if the United States had barred "low-skilled" non-high school graduates when Italians were pouring wave after wave into Ellis Island, it's likely that neither Barletta, Antonin Scalia or Rick Santorum would call themselves Americans today.

But apparently, none of this bothers Barletta in the least.

Hey, eff you, Mexicans. He got his.

Wrong again, David Brooks!

I'm thinking about starting a weekly post on the stupid writing of David Brooks. We talk about how Conservatives love rewriting history, but I think Brooks even tops that with his latest screed, titled "A Second G.O.P.".

Basically, he misses the moderate Republican wing of the G.O.P. and longs for their return:

It’s probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It’s smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It’s smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton. The second G.O.P. wouldn’t be based on the Encroachment Story. It would be based on the idea that America is being hit simultaneously by two crises, which you might call the Mancur Olson crisis and the Charles Murray crisis.

Olson argued that nations decline because their aging institutions get bloated and sclerotic and retard national dynamism. Murray argues that America is coming apart, dividing into two nations — one with high education levels, stable families and good opportunities and the other with low education levels, unstable families and bad opportunities.

The second G.O.P. would tackle both problems at once. It would be filled with people who recoiled at President Obama’s second Inaugural Address because of its excessive faith in centralized power, but who don’t share the absolute antigovernment story of the current G.O.P. Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Who’s going to build a second G.O.P.?

He promote the theories of the "Bell Curve's" insane Charles Murray, who he has fawned over for a long time. But aside from that, isn't Brooks missing something that is kind of important?

His conservative allies purged the G.O.P. of any moderates that were still lingering in the party during the 2010 House bloodletting by the Tea Party. They're gone, David, and you know it. And the anti-government message is never going away from the GOP.

It appears there's a new reality show taking form: "Who Will Write The Stupidest F*&king Op-Ed of the Year?" Every week, conservative columnists compete to capture the judges' glee and the liberals' ire.

I told Ryan Seacrest today that Brooks was a shoo-in to win.

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Fox & Friends welcomed author Howard Wasdin as the latest in their series of pre-emptive strikes against a Hillary Clinton candidacy – in this case, to argue that Benghazi is Clinton's “Black Hawk Down.” Of course, the attack on an American outpost in Benghazi was nothing like the mission in Somalia that led to the Black Hawk Down incident. Still, it made for a neat way of tying Hillary to Bill and tarring them both in one segment. But the Curvy Couch Crew got more than it bargained for when Wasdin began preaching the benefits of "two to the body, one to the head."

Wasdin said it looked like Hillary Clinton “took a page from her husband's playbook, which is not to give what's asked for.” Nobody pointed out that Hillary Clinton has recently testified before Congress that she never saw the request for increased security in Benghazi, nor that she said, “Obviously, it's something we're fixing.”

Meanwhile, a banner reading "A CASE OF DEJA VU: IS BENGHAZI THIS PRESIDENT'S BLACK HAWK DOWN?" hit the screen.

But Wasdin wasn't about to let his 15 minutes go by without holding forth on the evils of the liberal media and President Obama, too.

Continue reading »

We've all heard the whining. From Louis Giglio to contraception, no issue is too small to gin up the whine that white evangelicals are persecuted at the hands of "culture" or alternatively, gay people. Yes, to listen to white evangelicals mule about things is to hear about how gays and lesbians are driving this country into a degenerate downward spiral while the black guy in the White House facilitates.

All of which makes this Barna Group study fascinating:

The findings of a poll published Wednesday (Jan. 23), reveal a “double standard” among a significant portion of evangelicals on the question of religious liberty, said David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, a California think tank that studies American religion and culture.

While these Christians are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, “they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture,” said Kinnamon.

“They cannot have it both ways,” he said. “This does not mean putting Judeo-Christian values aside, but it will require a renegotiation of those values in the public square as America increasingly becomes a multi-faith nation.”

Patheos notes the particular disconnect on what these folks define as religious freedom:

Well, they say there are numerous examples [of persecution], and then pick three:

1. The brouhaha over Louie Giglio and the Inauguration.
2. The contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act.
3. The demise of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.

Of these three, exactly none are “religious freedom” issues.

None.

They are, without exception, religious primacy issues.

None of these impact, in any measurable way, the ability of the Conservative Christian community to practice their faith openly and without fear of persecution in the United States.

Bingo. White evangelical Christians have confused their desire to use their religion as a bludgeon against everyone else in society as "persecution." Because they have been accorded power by the cynical right wing of the country (who doesn't really give a damn about their values but needs their votes), they translate that into a giant national whine about how Christians are persecuted, largely at the hands of gay people.

Yet when they're asked whether other religions such as Islam and Judaism should have the right to exist and practice their faiths, they answer "no" with a resounding majority, serving up a large portion of evangelical hypocrisy with their whine.

No other debate causes me to cringe as deeply as the one over gun control, because there is no other debate in this country that is as deeply irrational as this one. Gun manufacturers in the name of the NRA have completely co-opted the discussion and turned it into one so emotionally laden, it's impossible to have a rational discussion.

Rational people know that military-style assault weapons aren't used for hunting anything but humans. In this country, it used to be accepted wisdom that we don't hunt our fellow humans. Now, not so much.

As lawmakers were taking testimony at the Connecticut capitol yesterday, the gun manufacturers were ready to fight for their right to continue the mayhem, even if it meant heckling the father of a victim of the Sandy Hook massacre:

"The Second Amendment!" was shouted a couple of times by as many as a dozen gun enthusiasts in the meeting room as Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his slain 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are allowed to be sold in the state.

"There are a lot of things that should be changed to prevent what happened," said Heslin, who said he grew up using guns and was undisturbed by the interruption of his testimony.

"That wasn't just a killing, it was a massacre," said Heslin, who recalled dropping off his son at Sandy Hook Elementary school shortly before Lanza opened fire. "I just hope some good can come out of this."

There is no low too low for these wingnuts, and no position too irrational. I really think they'd push for personal ownership of tanks and RPGs if they could, under the guise of the right to bear arms.

Screw them. I've had it with their supposition that they own all the emotion and "right thought" on this argument. As an adolescent, my family was ripped apart by two bullets from a gun. It wasn't an AR-15, and it wouldn't fall under the gun ban today, but my family member is just as dead and for no good reason other than being available for a whacko to execute.

Until these "gun enthusiasts" have had the singular pleasure of cleaning dried, congealed blood and brains out of the trunk of a car, or until they've gone and gathered the bodies of someone's loved ones from a public crime scene where some idiot exercising his "rights" decided to exercise them on the heads of the innocent, they can shut up about their emotion-laden fantasies of revolution and sit the hell down.

I did those things. I cleaned that car with my dad after his father was executed and the police gave it back, post evidence collection. I waited those three days with my grandmother until the horrid news came that yes, they had found his car with a body in the trunk. I went back twenty years later and tried to understand why these things had happened, only to discover that the evidence had been destroyed and the police didn't really care that much why a 70-year old railroad worker had been executed at the hands of someone who got a gun by wrestling it away from a security guard.

Screw them for belittling that father's grief and loss so they can hold onto their precious guns. Nothing proposed today would change the outcome of my own experience. Nothing. No one will lose their damned handguns and rifles. But at the very least, I should be able to think about my kids going out to a movie theater or shopping in the mall without worrying that they're going to find themselves on the business end of an AR-15 in the hands of a murderer.

Is that too damn much to ask?