What a bunch of complete tools and cowards.
Somebody call the waaaaaah!mbulance
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The trick where the Democrats were all heavily armed and said to send bachelors because they weren’t going to be political prisoners? And then they got some support from military cosplayers?
Funny, I don’t remember that part of the gambit.
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They gave up the feigned neutrality on other issues a while ago with the creation of NRA TV. They needed more topics to fill the void and went hard on right wing social issues. They rant about socialists, the Women’s March and BLM. They have been an open right wing grievance machine calling for armed battle against the left for a while. https://www.good.is/articles/nra-tv-analysis
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Democrats have fled to deny quorum. The technique goes back to at least ancient Rome and is richly bipartisan in the US, but the Democrats haven’t done “the same”. Once you start invoking the idea of killing people to get your way on a vote, you have left the stupid parliamentary tricks behind and entered very different territory.
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I definitely don’t remember the neat Democratic trick of getting up to 600 militia losers to mobilize to “protect” them, either. What’s up with that?
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It must be noted that the Texas Democrats’ ploy failed, even though they held the moral high ground in that case. One would hope that the Oregon Republicans’ ploy will similarly fail, especially since they do not hold the moral high ground in this case. One might also be forgiven for being pessimistic about the practical utility of moral high grounds in today’s political landscape.
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The NRA has been hippie bashing since the 1960’s, and they haven’t stopped yet.
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Not that new. It’s been coming for a while - starting at least with Wayne LaPierre’s assumption of leadership in '91, though, as mentioned, the creation of “NRA TV” switched them fully over to being a reactionary culture group.
Outside of an “NRA TV” show, it still isn’t. But they’re not throwing their support behind the group because of that, but because the group is challenging the (Democrat-run) government and threatening to kill police officers. The NRA has long had a complicated relationship with law enforcement. During the Clinton era, LaPierre used talk of government “jackbooted thugs” (and the possible need for armed resistance against them) as part of his fundraising appeals. LaPierre’s other frequent talking point was the need for gun owners to protect themselves against scary brown people. (So when police enact that function, they’re all for it. The NRA’s former top lawyer, who shaped modern US gun policy, spent his time in the NRA decades before LaPierre also writing racist screeds about how guns were necessary for protection against dangerous black people, who shouldn’t be allowed access to guns themselves. Ironically, he had spent his youth committing gun crimes, including a confessed, cold-blooded murder for which he was convicted but which was overturned on a technicality.)
These days, the NRA’s, and in particular the NRA TV’s, target audience is essentially violent white supremacists. So they’re following the lead of the far-right “militia” groups involved here.
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They want to sell guns to cops and also to people who want to shoot cops. Not so complicated.
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Evidently, the nazi’s won. (for now)
ETA: in almost every workplace in the US, 3 days of “no call, no show” is cause for termination. Job abandonment is cause.
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So the lack of 12 senators is enough to not have a vote? It must be different in others states. I remember watching something, and I forget the state name, but they would hold votes and vote for absent legislators. Some of them had stocks so they could press neighbor’s vote buttons and not get up from their chair.
The terrorists destroyed public lands, pointed guns at cops and threatened to shoot them, and were involved in high-speed chases, and were not convicted because they are white.
Well actually they didn’t all get off scott free; there were 12 guilty pleas, 4 were convicted, and they killed one of them. Oh and they tased and tackled their lawyer at one point, so that was fun. Two of them stood trial for their actions in the Nevada standoff - but the gov screwed that up and it was declared a mistrial 
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(In real life, the moral would be Dead Men Eat No Rice.)
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Had Obama & Holder played real hardball with Cliven Bundy’s insurrection in support of tax evasion or Amon Bundy’s armed occupation of public properties the mucho-loco right would not be as emboldened to open violent action as they are today.
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I see that you have managed to blame this on two African American men.
Well played.
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Hmm. They’d probably see it as an excuse to buy more guns.
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I’m going to call bullshit on this. 'member the 90s? Does Waco and Ruby Ridge ring a bell? How about Elián González?
The government actually seemed to have learned a lesson on these events with how bad the optics are when the FBI starts shooting civilians during stand offs (in Elian’s case, removed with an MP5 submachine gun “in” his face). Playing hard ball simply hardens the anti-government extremists, and makes their causes more sympathetic to more moderate people who still have a distrust of government.
We are actively condemning Trump on a daily basis for his authoritarian moves. It should be another lesson where “We should have been even more aggressive and authoritarian!” isn’t seen as the answer.
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Literally the same tactic as kicking over the chess table in order to declare that you weren’t beaten.
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Oregon’s Republican lawmkers went into hiding in May for four days to avoid a vote on a school funding bill. Oregon Senate Republican leader Herman Baertschiger Jr bemoaned the fact that the minority Republicans are being “bullied by the majority party.”
Republicans are remarkably consistent.
When they win an election, they expect all the perks of their victory.
When they lose an election, they expect all the perks of their victory.
I just don’t remember it ever being this bad. What seems to be happening in Oregon. What Scott Walker and the GOP are going in Wisconsin (a lame duck GOP-led legislative session to eviscerate the executive power of the incoming Democratic governor). What McConnell did to steal a SCOTUS nominee. Etc, etc. It’s like the foul ghost of Lee Atwater permeates all levels of GOP leadership. They do things that are literally inconceivable to a true American. The GOP is turning us into a banana republic.
EDIT: And point taken, FistfulOfDave, Democrats have denied quorum also. But look at what they do it for. Democrats did it to defend unions. Republicans do it to defend oil companies (or to justify their climate denial?) And receive the warm support of neo-fascists when they do so.
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“… real hardball…”
Could you define that specifically?
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Not only that but cap and trade was a market based plan devised by Republicans to address acid rain. It’s their own damn plan just modified to address climate change in general.
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