Friday News Roundup - Domestic
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-12-21/friday-news-roundup-domestic
President Barack Obama taps Vice President Joe Biden to lead a gun violence task force. House Republicans vow to push a "Plan B" to avert the fiscal cliff. And four State Department officials leave after a damaging report on Benghazi, Libya. A panel of journalists joins Diane for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
Guests
Steve Roberts
syndicated columnist and journalism professor at The George Washington University.
Susan Davis
chief congressional reporter for USA Today.
John Dickerson
chief political correspondent for Slate.com and CBS political analyst and contributor. Author of "On Her Trail: My Mother, Nancy Dickerson, TV News' First Woman Star."
Friday News Roundup Video
The panel remembered the life and legacy of Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who died Dec. 17 at age 88. Susan Davis, chief congressional reporter at USA Today, said his role in the U.S. Senate represented a fading era. "Senator Inouye was someone who was probably one of the most powerful people in Washington that you never heard of," Davis said. George Washington University professor Steve Roberts described Inouye as a man of quiet integrity and decency who was trusted by politicians from both sides of the aisle.
Comments
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The NRA will never yield to keeping our children safe. There are bullet proof child back packs available on line,at both Amazon and Ebay starting at $249....
Jake Tapper of ABC and This Week,asked President Obama,'Where You Been'? Where you been Jake? You interview T-Party/Republicans and never ask them,WHY HAS MORE GUNS ALWAYS FAILED? Where is your head when T-Party/Republicans go on the show and lie?
How about tax cuts pay for themselves?
How about where are the WMD`s?
How about torture isn`t torture ?
How about Iraqi oil will pay for the wars?
How about Bush kept us safe from terror attack on his watch? (the one that makes me throw shoes at my TV)
Where you beenJake? Every Federal Government agency was broken by George W.Bush. Day 1,the "Great Bush Recession". and the H1N1 scare with a broken CDC.Where were you Jake when Bush broke everything?
Tapper to CNN,another CNN misstep.
I believe in well trained armed officers in the schools along with security cameras and no windows on the main floor in new schools. I live in Canada near Detroit there are more homicides in the Detroit area in 2 months then there is in Canada in a year. There should be thorough background checks for every single firearm sold in the country. Weapons made for the military along with high volume magazine clips should never be sold to the public. Because the U.S. is awash with weapons that can cause mass destruction to large groups of people the U.S. should limit these killing machines to self defense, hunting and target shooting. I have no problem with rifles such as the A R 15 being kept locked up at a shooting range. We in Canada are fortunate that we have kept the wrong money out of our political system and therefore do not allow groups such as the NRA, ALEC and Rupert Murdoch's propaganda machine to get a foothold in our country. Too much money has corrupted U.S. politics.
How many cowards can you get under one roof? Well, Congress decided to go home last night before I could get a head count. LOL
They are so commited to their "minders" that they have made themselves irrelevant.
America--the march to oblivion continues.
PS: I'm assuming Congress went home for Christmas last night; supposedly Boehner dismissed them for Christmas after his little debacle. Maybe some are still asleep in their seats??? Seems it would be difficult to sleep while sitting on one's head. LOL
IMhumbleO, anyone who feels the need to own rocket grenade launchers, missile launchers, nuclear material, or guns capable of killing scores of people in a few seconds- likely has some mental "issues" and should seek help- SOON!
Terrorism?- “We has met the enemy and he is us”
The government needs to have total control over every aspect of our lives. We as a people should not appear as a threat to the expansion of government as it sees fit. No one should have the right for self defense or defense of personal freedom if there is a risk that innocents might get hurt. We have plenty of television and gadgets for entertainment at our disposal and the news media tells us what to think. I applaud "the" Obama and the democratic party for not waiting to pounce on the gun debate, a quick government power grab in emotional times is necessary to dismantle the U.S. Constitution.
You will be assimilated, resistance is futile.
Thank You
Dan D.
As I'm sure you will get to the 'fiscal cliff' topic and all I can say about Boehner's 'Plan B' is sounds like a 'Kick the Can down the Road' Plan. How irresponsible! The whole point of the 'fiscal cliff' plan was to make a fix not push it along...If I had any faith left in congress its gone now...
The debate on gun control this week has been understandably emotional. But, I wish we could have a REAL FACT-Based discussion on how to address the issues of gun violence.
According to the FBI’s own statistics (available on their own website) on murders for 2011, murders by ALL types of rifles (including the kind used in the school shooting last week) made up only a tiny fraction - 2.5% of all types of murders. By other estimates in studies done for the Dept. of Justice, assault rifles are used in less than 40% of all murders by rifle. Last year, you were more than 2X likely to be murdered by someone with no weapons, using only their hands, than by all kinds of rifles combined. You were also more than 5X likely to be murdered by a knife or other cutting implement than by all types of rifles.
Furthermore, the completely unbalanced and misleading (by both sides of the gun control issue) and full-time news coverage of the impending assault weapons ban and the type of rifle used in Sandy Hook tragedy, has actually caused a dramatic increase of sales of these types of rifles. Gun stores across the country are now sold out of them, and they will continue to sell at 2 to 3 times the rate they otherwise would have until they become illegal. And you are much, much, much, more likely to be killed in a car accident than murdered by any type of gun.
Furthermore, assault rifles are already banned in CA, IL, and NY, yet they have some of the highest rates of murder in the country.
Can someone please explain how the focus on a reinstatement of the assault weapons ban will make us all safer? It is a politically motivated movement that will target the statistically least significant category of all murders, and will do nothing to address other crimes, of the root of the cause of people like Adam Lanza to “snap” and want to cause mass harm to others.
Topic: Standards for WMD Guns
Almost all Republicans were mum on the mass murder of children in Newtown. One notable exception was Congressman Murphy, a psychologist who clearly articulated on CS-Span Journal the dangers of the toxic elixirs (my term) of (1) drugs/alcohol and guns, (2) unstable and agitated mental health state and guns and (3) the combination of all three. Unfortunately, drugs and alcohol are rampant, those in an agitated mental health state are in the tens of thousands, not to mention those millions not in that state but still severely depressed and psychotic. Yet, those promoting easy access and circulation of those assault weapon guns and large clips, that, by any standard, are very clearly weapons of mass destruction, want to stop law enforcement's and other professionals' reasonable insistence that strict limitations be implemented on access and circulation of these weapons of mass destruction. Would these promoters of easy access limit access to M-60 machine guns or TOW missiles? Shouldn't a critical standard for legal weapons be the reasonable potential of mass destruction?
Just in case a discussion comes up on the need to cut social security to balance the budget.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/19/1171926/-Ronald-Reagan-Social-S...
"Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. Social Security is totally funded by the payroll tax levied on employer and employee. If you reduce the outgo of Social Security, that money would not go into the general fund to reduce the deficit. It would go into the Social Security Trust Fund. So Social Security has nothing to do with balancing a budget or erasing or growing the deficit."
Ronald Reagan.
Your idol-in-chief told the nation 'that won't happen' in reference to going over the fiscal cliff. Why aren't you highlighting his lack of leadership to prevent it and hold true to his word?
Certain republicans are "problematic" because they know spending is the problem. Tax increases that amount to nothing more than paying for government spending for a few days in trade for the illusion of spending cuts is PROBLEMATIC. This "fiscal cliff" is nothing when compared to what is coming in regards to personal savings and the economy if the present level of government spending continues.
Its amazing to me that congress is headed home with unfinished business. They send troops into harms way who will not be home for Christmas because they have a job to do. People work on Christmas eve and Christmas day because they are trying to make ends meet. But it seems it wasn't even a consideration that our politicians would stay through Christmas to make sure they did what was best for our country. I don’t get it.
Just wondering. What would happen if the Rethuglicans went home, the Demicrats didn't, and an emergency session was called with Democrats shoeing up to vote and passed the President's budget? It goes to the Senate and passed that night.
Some issues that are not likely to be brought up on the show:
First, all state governments, like the federal government, run deficits. Because state governments keep the capital budget separate from the operating, the deficits only show up as bond offerings. The federal government also has bonds for sale. If the federal government got rid of its total debt, it would probably be the only government in the US to do so.
Second, Bush administration was worried about the end of the US Treasury Bond market and reversed the course of paying back the whole debt.
Third, the bond market is a major subsidy for the wealthy. Since the US govt must borrow money to pay for tax cuts during deficits and debt, it is the investors, especially the wealthy that lend the government to pay for the tax cuts. Any tax cuts for the wealthy during deficits is really just a transfer of wealth from the middle and working class to the wealthy. (note foreign buying of the debt is dwarfed by US holders of the US govt debt).
Fourth, the real shame of income inequality is not in the taxes as much as the work to diminish the wages of the middle class by the Republican leadership. Businesses depend on government regulation for limited liability, intellectual property valuation, courts to enforce contracts. By making the government to only be of value of corporations and the wealthy is an economic problem. By borrowing money from the wealthy instead of getting it in taxes is economic mistake. By having a public that does not understand the way that the government is funded is at the root of the problem.
I don't understand why your commentators say that the liberals in congress have to compromise. They rolled over under Bush 2 for tax cuts and all other cuts, while the Tea Partiers and Norquist's pressures have made it that the GOP never would compromise. Hold firm liberals.
Regarding the oft-heard assertion that only America has such horrific mass murders, I'd just like to hark back to the last big American shooting story before Aurora. At that time, the country was talking about how one man in Florida had shot and killed one kid. (It is true that that kind of thing actually does happen extremely often, and it was only news because everybody knew who the murderer was and it looked like he was going to get away with it.)
Meanwhile, over in France, a man had shot (I believe) three children and one teacher at one school, and had also killed three others earlier.
And in Norway--! Remember Norway? A nut killed, what, eighty people when he invaded a children's camp? We actually don't have that kind of problem around here. Though I do not presume to speculate why.
4 against 0 for second amendment rights. A fair hearing in liberal circles.
Why do you and your panel talk as if the notion of chained CPI is both a necessary idea and a good one -- especially since Social Security has no relation to the so-called debt crisis. Am I living in a fantasy economic world or are you all too steeped in the Beltway Kool Aid? Chained CPI IS a real reduction of benefits; don't buy Pelosi et al voodoo vocabulary.that it's not. What a joke. When it becomes a 'merely' liberal notion that protecting Social Security is a priority, this country is in a sad position with respect to caring for it's average and not-well-off citizens.
One can only assume that the host and panelist will not be relying on Social Security benefits for the majority of their retirement income; though that might inject a degree of reality and compassion into their thinking.
Clifford wrote:
"The NRA will never yield to keeping our children safe....Where were you Jake when Bush broke everything?"
Read: NRA wants as many dead children as possible.
Everything else is STILL Bush's fault!
Clifford, I love it that you're here. You make liberals look moronic - and I mean that in a clinical way.
I've listened all week and had I not been at work would have called in.
Much hay has been made of the number of gun related deaths. The majority of deaths reported are officer-involved or gang members shooting gang members and suicides.
Criminals will have guns unless they are incarcerated. This will not change no matter what further gun restrictions are put in place. Removing the access to plea deals for those who use illegally obtained or federally 'damaged' firearms will be the way to reduce this.
I am legally allowed access to my right to keep and bear arms. I am not the problem nor are the vast majority of my fellow gun owners. We have a better safety record when compared to all other individual or team sports enthusiasts.
Topic: Fiscal Cliff: An Economic WMD
Americans' financial security is continually being attacked. There was Wall Street's criminality where Junk Bonds were given AAA ratings. These junk bonds were used as securities for rigged security exchanges by brokers (1/100 chance broker wins, 99/100 chance they lose, they cap their losses , so they win.) Local bookies are kept more honest by their “employers.” Honest Americans were given the bill to pay up for this free-wheeling dealing, while at the same time, the same honest Americans lost their jobs in the millions, the value of their houses plummeted in the billions and the financial security of our Ship of State, America, teetered because of an apocalyptic loss of revenues with a corresponding call for help by those same honest Americans in their dire straits. The country is recovering, but now Tea Party Republican with their Norquist god refuse to work out a plan that will help continue the recovery. Their plan is to throw Americans overboard, forget providing support when they're hurting, give everyone tax breaks and everything will turn out right. Do they present any reasonable economic model that supports their recipe for a strong America? No. They're beholden to one recipe of financial security, and if no one else agrees with their radicalism, their answer is, let the markets shake, let people who've found jobs, lose them again, and return America back to its precipice state. As Lincoln aptly said regarding the South's secession, which led to the Civil War, a house divided in half cannot stand. If Tea Partyers and their gods want to maintain the divide and refuse a common plan to unite all parties in this country, then they are guilty of creating the chaos and hurt that will happen without a united deal for these United States.
Video games, movies, etc are not the issue. The issue is that the mental health initiatives from the early 80's have been under or non-funded. We have more psychoactive drugs being released without proper trials due to Big Pharma's relationship to the FDA.
Statistically, tobacco kills more people than firearms. If a loaded and ready to be fired firearm was placed on a table and poked with a stick, nothing will happen and nobody will die from a bullet. Gun violence is not a problem with the tool, it's a problem with the tool's user. Case in point, both the CT and OR shooters used firearms that they did not legally acquire and the gunmen that did buy their firearms legally would have been barred from the sales had their NICS background held all their mental health information.
I respect others' choices to not own firearms. I do not respect others telling me that I can not own any firearm I wish since I am not precluded from firearms ownership due to having broken any rules or laws that would keep that from being accessible to me.
One final point. Bowers v. Devito is an appellate court decision that stated that we have no legal right to be protected by the state from being murdered by criminals or the mentally ill. Restricting tools that are effective in self defense - whether non-gun owners agree that they are or not - by the State means that we should expect no ability to withstand being murdered. This can not stand.
pederson wrote:
Its amazing to me that congress is headed home with unfinished business. They send troops into harms way who will not be home for Christmas because they have a job to do. People work on Christmas eve and Christmas day because they are trying to make ends meet. But it seems it wasn't even a consideration that our politicians would stay through Christmas to make sure they did what was best for our country. I don’t get it.
Well, you see, pederson, our good senators and representatives need the time off because they have to raise money. Even when they're supposed to be on the job, they still spend twice as much time begging rich people to give them money as they do actually doing anything like what they're elected to do (e.g., passing laws, let alone voting on them, let alone discussing them seriously on the House or Senate floor, let alone even going to the House and Senate floor.)
Hope that clears things up for you.
ArmedLiberalinMO wrote:
Criminals will have guns unless they are incarcerated. This will not change no matter what further gun restrictions are put in place. Removing the access to plea deals for those who use illegally obtained or federally 'damaged' firearms will be the way to reduce this.
The Sandy Hook shooter wasn't a criminal. Neither was his mother. But they had guns in the house, and when you have guns in the house you have to know what kind of risks you're taking.
If Nancy Lanza had NOT been able to LEGALLY acquire her automatic weapon due to tighter gun laws, she most likely would NOT have gone to the black market to purchase it.
Therefore her son would NOT have had access to...HIS MOTHER'S GUN!
Am I wrong to expect the journalists who appear on your program can conjugate verbs properly?
It is "He was lying in state" and "yesterday he lay in state." Oy vey.
CP
parrotfiddler wrote:
Am I wrong to expect the journalists who appear on your program can conjugate verbs properly?
It is "He was lying in state" and "yesterday he lay in state." Oy vey.
Hahahahaha! Seriously, parrotfiddler, don't you notice your own weird sentence construction? Anyway, it's hard to say that somebody can "appear" on a radio show.
At some point in the future, would you please take a moment to examine the Republican money and political power (Snow and Quayle)behind Cerberus Capital/The Freedom Group? I think it is an essential part of the conversation about the big money behind the NRA and the proliferation of guns in this country and why it may be very difficult to change the equation. Thank you.
AF64, if you can't even understand the difference between semi-automatic and automatic then I don't think you can comment on this topic.
Sadly she did not secure her weapons appropriately and paid for that mistake with her life, and those of 26 others.
Hey ecgberht! A moral victory! Clifford's disgusting "NeoNutzi" comment has been removed.