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The NRA could stick to their guns (pun intended) and decide that nothing is worth the collective disarmament of their entire membership in attendance and tell Pence he can’t speak in person and to speak via video relay instead.

Instead they create heir own gun-free zone, however temporary it might be, for political convenience.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Guess what...those 'donations' ARE kickbacks. Plus the NRA are hypocrits. Anyone else who no one be armed in an area gets shouted down. But they're more than willing to do it for Pence.

Donations aren’t kickbacks.

The NRA is acquiescing to the security protocols of the Secret Service. This does not mean that the NRA believes in gun free zones, this is not a security protocol that the NRA endorses it is one that is being imposed on them. Pence is still going to be surrounded by armed people they’ll just be Secret Service members. Since we value the office of the Vice President we protect the Vice President with armed guards. We also value the lives of our children so the NRA supports the policy of protecting them with armed guards.

Here is the deal, they shouldn't bend to the protocols of the Secret Service. Instead, they should politely decline to have Pence as a guest, as that violates the rights of their members to carry a firearm. It also disrupts the narrative that people are safer with more guns around. The one they are attempting to push. By doing this and bending to the protocols of the Secret Service, they are openly admitting that having fewer guns in an area is safer for people.

But hey, its their boat to sink.

Edit: d-usa beat me to it :(

Same as every year, the media and the political pundits devolve in to their own inside baseball nonsense, arguing whether the comedian they hired for the White House Correspondents Dinner was too mean. It's a silly exercise, one group claims anything goes and it's just comedy, another group clutches at their pearls and claims some targets on their side were unfairly attacked, and a third group attempts to prove their centrist credentials by claiming jokes are great but just not some of these particular jokes.

The only reason its worth any comment at all is the insight it gives in to how the theater of politics and media actually works. For instance, Matt Schlapp made a big show of walking out of the dinner with his wife. He then went to twitter and feigned outrage at how 'all of us' are mocked by the elites. Schlapp was a political adviser to a president, his wife is an adviser to the current president. He regularly goes on cable news to give his opinion. If there is such a thing as an elite he is it, but it is important to put on a public show of victimhood at the hands of the 'elite' because that's the cornerstone of modern conservatism. After his big show of walking out, Schlapp and his wife went to the NBC and MSNBC after party and spent the night talking and dancing with those 'elites', of which he totally isn't one. Transparent nonsense.

Another example is Maggie Haberman, probably the highest profile Whitehouse reporter, she gets a lot of leaks from inside, and has even managed to the president angry enough to tweet about her (though he couldn't get her name right). While Wolf went after a whole range of people inside and outside the Whitehouse with off colour stuff, like saying Ivanka Trump is as useful as a used box of tampons, the only one Haberman wanted to defend was Sarah Huckabee Sanders, over a really awkward joke that Sanders used the ash from all her burned facts for eyeshadow. Haberman needed to make a show of solidarity with Sanders, because Sanders is one of Haberman's best sources. It kicked off a big debate about whether the attack on Sanders was against her appearance (it wasn't) and whether this administration has a right to be upset other people saying mean things, but that was all nothing about nothing. The whole point was Haberman making a show to keep a key source on-side, and everything around it was just theatre.

All that nonsense got me thinking about possibly the one thing I've learned from all the nonsense on twitter, since I joined. See, after the recent highschool shooting there was a call to ban semi-auto rifles, such as the AR-15. Some anti-gun people started claiming it was an assault rifle, and it was right there in the name, AR. Anti-gun people getting facts about guns wrong is nothing new. However, in response the right attacked back, pointing out this was wrong, it isn't an assault rifle and that isn't what it stands for. Fine, except a lot of really high profile conservatives went a step further, claiming there was no such thing as an assault rifle, that it was a made up term. Perhaps they were confused with 'assault weapon', which was made up for the last gun control bill. It's a mistake that can be made, but not by people who actually love guns, who spend time on the range, those people know that assault rifles are real and are the main rifle of every military force on earth. But here were dozens of conservative pundits making big claims about the importance of guns, while its clear they have no personal interest in guns at all. You could claim they were just arguing for people to have that right, even if they personally weren't interested, which would work except that wasn't the arguments they were making at all. They present as active gun users steeped in gun history, then when they speak they betray sheer ignorance of guns.

There was a recent Vox article about a young girl who after some time on reality tv was approached by some agents to become a conservative spokesperson. She explained her politics weren't actually all that conservative, certainly not conservative like they wanted, and she was told that doesn't matter, she just has to play the part. She turned it down, but you're kidding yourself if you think a really large share of these random kids dropped in to the role of spouting out the standard conservative lines are all true believers, and none of them are just doing it for the money.

This is a major dynamic in modern news coverage. Pundits making arguments just because it's their job to pretend to be the person who makes that argument, with zero interest in whether its actually true. They do this on news services that don't care that their statements are not only wrong, but not even what the pundit even actually believes. Opinion giver Jeffrey Lord got fired from CNN a while back, apparently for saying Heil Hitler in a tweet. It was a stupid, transparent firing, because the tweet was obviously sarcastic. But before being fired, Lord would routinely get on CNN and claim the most ridiculous nonsense in defense of Trump, and that never got him in trouble. No, Lord's problem was his lies were obvious and boring, and Lord himself was dull, he didn't make for good tv, interest in him was declining, and the Hitler tweet was just the excuse.

FOX News is terrible, but they rate 2 million viewers on a good night. Breitbart daily views have dropped by half since Trump won and it wasn't that large even at peak deplorable. If the weird little cult of conservative media was the only problem then there'd be no problem. But instead there's a much bigger problem, that in a world with so much media and news commentary there's hardly any actual media commentary that's genuine, let alone researched.

Michelle Wolf had one line that actually made me laugh. I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like 'CNN loves breaking news, well you guys sure did break news'. Funnily enough that's not the line anyone in the media was talking about the next day.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Thing is, Seb, there's a difference between the US leading the world and the US simply telling the world what to do. A boss isn't the same as being a leader, and far too often our politicians today just want to be the boss.

That's a really good way of putting it, I'll happily concede the point. I was caught up on a side issue of other nation's capabilities, and distracting from the main point, which you just expressed quite nicely.

 Wolfblade wrote:
I'm shocked that the party that puts themselves before anything else would clear their own party of any wrongdoing!

I haven't read the whole of the House Intel Committee majority report because I play miniature wargamings so I already get my full quota of self-referential, fantasy nonsense. But there's some amazing stuff in their report. For instance, these guys concluded that the attempt to build a secret line of communication to the Kremlin after the election proves that there was no collusion beforehand. That's like a mobster being caught giving an envelope full of cash to a cop, and the investigator concluding all that really proves is there wasn't any attempt at a bribe before this.

It's such obvious crap that it becomes clear that not only is it something that Republican majority can't possibly believe, it is lie that the majority doesn't expect anyone reading it to believe. These are the silliest of lies, because the liars know that anyone who is still on their side just doesn't care about truth, they just worry about allegiance to the tribe. In that dynamic, the more ridiculous lies are kind of more effective, in a funny kind of way.

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, its frontpage central news on several outlets right now. I think thay will come back to bite Ryan, and there appears to be bipartisan anger about it.

True, that one actually ended up getting quite a bit of coverage, it's still going now. And even more impressively, a lot of the takes on the issue have been really perceptive. Instead of the simple 'Republican hypocrisy over religious freedom' thing I took from it, a few pieces had much more meaningful takes on the state of Republican politics when a call to include all people in the economic gain is seen as a political attack.

I was really happy to be wrong about my prediction there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
I see a lot of people using the phrase "Leader of the Free World" on this thread. I've always found it obnoxious, but right now, after watching that "interview" (if that's what we're calling a self aggrandizing and barely coherent rant) it's outright laughable.

I use the phrase a bit, and that's precisely why. For me, saying Trump is the leader of the free world isn't deferential, it's a way of contrasting how we understand someone with that level of responsility should act, and the current leader does act.

“Leader of the free world” is also a title that doesn’t just mean “person that bosses the rest of the world around”. There is the age old management discussion about what it means to be a leader rather than just being a boss.

More than that though, it is also a title for the type of leader the other countries should aspire to have. The personification of our “free and democratic” country standing in contrast to dictators and leaders of corrupt and evil governments. The leader with the values that should guide all leaders of every nation, who upholds the ideals and freedoms which sets the western world apart from others where people are repressed and suffer for things we take for granted.

 sebster wrote:


It's such obvious crap that it becomes clear that not only is it something that Republican majority can't possibly believe, it is lie that the majority doesn't expect anyone reading it to believe. These are the silliest of lies, because the liars know that anyone who is still on their side just doesn't care about truth, they just worry about allegiance to the tribe. In that dynamic, the more ridiculous lies are kind of more effective, in a funny kind of way.

It reminds me of the Nunes memo.
The memo produced and released by Devin Nunes, the Chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, that was promoted and presented as the proof of wide-spread organisation-wide corruption in the FBI and the Justice Department.

I was of the conviction that the Republicans actually had zero interest in releasing it, as it had so much more value as a propaganda tool as opposed to actually being released and subsequently fact-checked.

When released it turned out to be very long on accusations and assertions, and suspiciously short on evidence.

Yet........I regularly run into people that refer to the Nunes memo as having proven the supposed corruption in the FBI and the Justice Department.

Facts simply doesn't seem to matter.

"Feelings are more important than facts."
--Newt Gingrich

Steelmage99 wrote:
It reminds me of the Nunes memo.
The memo produced and released by Devin Nunes, the Chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, that was promoted and presented as the proof of wide-spread organisation-wide corruption in the FBI and the Justice Department.

I was of the conviction that the Republicans actually had zero interest in releasing it, as it had so much more value as a propaganda tool as opposed to actually being released and subsequently fact-checked.

When released it turned out to be very long on accusations and assertions, and suspiciously short on evidence.

Yet........I regularly run into people that refer to the Nunes memo as having proven the supposed corruption in the FBI and the Justice Department.

Facts simply doesn't seem to matter.

They ran a similar con with Benghazi. They would have closed testimony, then Republicans would run to the media and wildly mischaracterise the actual testimony. The transcripts would be withheld, making it difficult to show what was actually stated was very different. If those transcripts were ever released, or when the finding of that committee found no wrong-doing, by then it was old news and there was a whole batch of new made up claims to work with.

Something went a little wrong with the Nunes memo, though. I'm not sure if they wrongly judged that Trump would refuse to release the memo, or they'd get more pushback from the FBI, I don't know, but as you say the memo wasn't actually supposed to be released. When it was, the lie that they'd be running before then, that the investigation was started by the Steele dossier and this fact was concealed from the FISA court, was immediately undone. Because by their own memo, forced to be at least somewhat connected to reality, had to admit that actually the intel in the Steele dossier was only added to one of the latter FISA re-applications as supporting evidence, and the source of the dossier was revealed, and actually the only complaint Nunes had was that the source of the data was in a footnote, not the main body.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
"Feelings are more important than facts."
--Newt Gingrich

Politically, he's totally right though - 100% right.

 Ouze wrote:
Politically, he's totally right though - 100% right.

But in terms of governance, well Gingrich took control of a party who's last president was GHW Bush. The direction Gingrich took the party, aided by a lot of other people and factions, has since produced GW Bush and then Trump.

I think a lot of people like to believe that you can campaign on a pile of nonsense, but have sensible, decent policy ready to go. The Republican party of the mid-90s until now shows that how you campaign eventually becomes what you are.

 sebster wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Politically, he's totally right though - 100% right.

But in terms of governance, well Gingrich took control of a party who's last president was GHW Bush. The direction Gingrich took the party, aided by a lot of other people and factions, has since produced GW Bush and then Trump.

I think a lot of people like to believe that you can campaign on a pile of nonsense, but have sensible, decent policy ready to go. The Republican party of the mid-90s until now shows that how you campaign eventually becomes what you are.

It makes me feel really bad for (US) conservatives. They don't have a party, barely have candidates anywhere, and are given a bad name by Republicans. I draw the distinction here because we are well past the point where supporting the GOP and supporting conservative values are mutually exclusive. Quite frankly I go out of my way these days to separate those because I don't want to insult a perfectly reasonable political platform by calling them Republicans.

So there are reports coming in of multiple missiles hitting government bases in Syria:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43947019

Missiles hit a number of military sites in northern Syria on Sunday night, state media say, with unconfirmed reports of dozens of fatalities.

The Syrian military said facilities in Hama and Aleppo provinces were struck.

It did not immediately report any casualties. But a UK-based monitoring group said 26 pro-government fighters were killed, most of them Iranians.

If this is true I wonder who is behind it, no tweet to warn anyone though, so it seems unlikely to be the US? Very strange, maybe the Israelis.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
So there are reports coming in of multiple missiles hitting government bases in Syria:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43947019

Missiles hit a number of military sites in northern Syria on Sunday night, state media say, with unconfirmed reports of dozens of fatalities.

The Syrian military said facilities in Hama and Aleppo provinces were struck.

It did not immediately report any casualties. But a UK-based monitoring group said 26 pro-government fighters were killed, most of them Iranians.

If this is true I wonder who is behind it, no tweet to warn anyone though, so it seems unlikely to be the US? Very strange, maybe the Israelis.

Syria said it was a lot of Iranians that were killed, so probably Israelis

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/04/29/politics/white-house-correspondents-association-michelle-wolf-statement/index.html

Those darn sensitive liberal snowflakes! Oh, wait.

The fake outrage machine is so blatant now.

 Frazzled wrote:
The fake outrage machine is so blatant now.

Pretty much, this exaggerate from both sides has gotten really stale. And out President's habit of seemingly taking anything said against him as treason does not help the issue.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
That's deliberately obtuse.

So is banging on NRA for doing this...

The Secret Service is making them do this... *not* the NRA.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Politically, he's totally right though - 100% right.

But in terms of governance, well Gingrich took control of a party who's last president was GHW Bush. The direction Gingrich took the party, aided by a lot of other people and factions, has since produced GW Bush and then Trump.

I think a lot of people like to believe that you can campaign on a pile of nonsense, but have sensible, decent policy ready to go. The Republican party of the mid-90s until now shows that how you campaign eventually becomes what you are.

It makes me feel really bad for (US) conservatives. They don't have a party, barely have candidates anywhere, and are given a bad name by Republicans. I draw the distinction here because we are well past the point where supporting the GOP and supporting conservative values are mutually exclusive. Quite frankly I go out of my way these days to separate those because I don't want to insult a perfectly reasonable political platform by calling them Republicans.

Is the Secret Service forcing the NRA to let Pence speak? Is Pence forcing the NRA to let him attent?

The NRA is forcing their members to disarm and creating a gun-free zone by deciding to have Pence attent in-person. The NRA made a decision that having a politician attent is more important than the ability of their membership to carry their weapons for their own protection. This is 100% on the NRA, and they can’t hide from that.

Is the NRA forcing the attendent to... attend?

Well I hope Pence isn't forcing the NRA so he can attend, that sounds almost tyrannical

As for the WH dinner. What an overreaction. People going this is why Trump wins you guys just for pointing out Sanders lies? I guess the people watching Obama thought "that poor Trump, if he ever runs again we will elect him, that will show the meanies!" Meanwhile much more horrific things have been said that weren't even jokes by the current admin but that's yesterday's news.

 whembly wrote:
Is the NRA forcing the attendent to... attend?

Is the NRA choosing to create a gun-free zone, however temporary, due to their own choice as an organization?

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Is the NRA forcing the attendent to... attend?

Is the NRA choosing to create a gun-free zone, however temporary, due to their own choice as an organization?

It's not a gun-free zone... armed Secret Service personnel will be there.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Is the NRA choosing to create a gun-free zone, however temporary, due to their own choice as an organization?

It's not a gun-free zone... armed Secret Service personnel will be there.

But they're basically cops. You can't trust cops with guns among unarmed civilians.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Is the NRA forcing the attendent to... attend?

Is the NRA choosing to create a gun-free zone, however temporary, due to their own choice as an organization?

It's not a gun-free zone... armed Secret Service personnel will be there.

Is the NRA creating a zone where people are not allowed to enjoy their 2nd Amendment right to carry a weapon on their person?

Spetulhu wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Is the NRA choosing to create a gun-free zone, however temporary, due to their own choice as an organization?

It's not a gun-free zone... armed Secret Service personnel will be there.

But they're basically cops. You can't trust cops with guns among unarmed civilians.

I dunno - I'm pretty sure most of the NRA people are white....

The Auld Grump

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Is the NRA forcing the attendent to... attend?

Is the NRA choosing to create a gun-free zone, however temporary, due to their own choice as an organization?

It's not a gun-free zone... armed Secret Service personnel will be there.

Is the NRA creating a zone where people are not allowed to enjoy their 2nd Amendment right to carry a weapon on their person?

Yes... and?

You're making a silly argument. If the Secret Service is providing the security, the NRA would be fine with no one inside the being allowed to have a gun.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Is the NRA forcing the attendent to... attend?

Is the NRA choosing to create a gun-free zone, however temporary, due to their own choice as an organization?

It's not a gun-free zone... armed Secret Service personnel will be there.

Is the NRA creating a zone where people are not allowed to enjoy their 2nd Amendment right to carry a weapon on their person?

Yes... and?

So your argument over the past hour evolved from:

1) The NRA isn't creating a gun-free zone, the Secret Service is.
2) The NRA isn't creating a gun-free zone because people aren't forced to attend.
3) The NRA isn't creating a gun-free zone because there will be police there with guns.
4) The NRA is creating a gun-free zone, but it doesn't matter.
4.5) The NRA is pro-gun free zone as long as there are cops there.

You're making a silly argument. If the Secret Service is providing the security, the NRA would be fine with no one inside the being allowed to have a gun.

Feel free to find me any kind of official statement by the NRA that they are in favor of replacing private carrying of guns with increased police presence. I will be patiently waiting over here.

 whembly wrote:
If the Secret Service is providing the security, the NRA would be fine with no one inside the being allowed to have a gun.

Since when did one have to be providing security to practice 2nd amendment rights?

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Is the NRA forcing the attendent to... attend?

Is the NRA choosing to create a gun-free zone, however temporary, due to their own choice as an organization?

It's not a gun-free zone... armed Secret Service personnel will be there.

So gun-free zones don't exist? After all armed police officers could be there.

Schools with resource officers are not gun-free zones after all.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Is the NRA choosing to create a gun-free zone, however temporary, due to their own choice as an organization?

It's not a gun-free zone... armed Secret Service personnel will be there.

But they're basically cops. You can't trust cops with guns among unarmed civilians.

I dunno - I'm pretty sure most of the NRA people are white....

The Auld Grump

Plus members that aren't white the NRA doesn't care when they get killed