If buying a gun in Texas were as easy as getting an abortion

Imagine the legislation…

The buyer would have to go to an approved gun dispensary.  The dimensions of the dispensary would be strictly regulated and the dispensary might end up in a seedy part of town in an unmarked building.  The gun dispensary owner would not be allowed to advertise. Because the regulations would be difficult to meet, there would be less than a handful of dispensaries legally licensed to sell firearms.  A person from Amarillo might have to drive to Galveston to get one.

The free speech rights of anti-gun protestors would be protected.  Prospective gun buyers would not be shielded from protestors petitioning or discouraging the buyer from purchasing a gun as long as the protestors do not approach within a certain number of feet from the buyer and refrain from touching the buyer.

It would be illegal for anyone to refer the buyer to a gun dispensary. However, it would not be illegal for an anti-gun organization to masquerade as a gun dispensary for the purposes of shaming the prospective buyer or talking him or her out of buying a gun.  No exceptions to this advice rule would be made for hunters or other people who may have a specific use for guns that does not include the potential for shooting people.

The gun dispensary owner would need to provide proof of education in the types and uses of firearms.  A degree from an accredited university would be the only proof accepted.  He or she would need to be licensed for each type of firearm.  An assault weapons ban might mean that the buyer would have to travel to one of the few places in the country that sells them to get one.

Prospective buyers would be required to undergo mandatory counseling on the use and effect of firearms.  The buyer would not be able to opt out of this counseling.  If the buyer still wants to buy a gun after the counseling, he or she would need to sign a form certifying that they are aware of the dangers of the use of firearms and that using them may cause lifelong emotional damage and sexual impotence to the user.

During the counseling session, the seller will show the buyer photographs of gun shot victims.  The victims will be shown with their heads blown off and their bellies eviscerated.  The emotional anguish of gunshot victims’ families will also be shown in visual and auditory form.  No compensatory images of poor hunters feeding their families will be permitted.  The audio and video portion of the presentation must be intrusive enough to be unavoidable to the prospective buyer.

After the presentation, the gun seller will read the consent form to the buyer again and ask the buyer to affirm that they are aware of all of the dangers associated with the purchase of a gun.  The seller will also be required to discuss alternatives to firearms, such as compound bows, boomerangs, snares and vegetarianism.  There will be an emphasis on vegetarianism to ensure that the teachings of certain religions are promoted with the acquiescence of the state.  Adherence to Hindu or other plant based religions would not be necessary for the buyer, only recognition and understanding of the deep ethical philosophy behind religious vegetarianism.

No exceptions would be made to save the health or life of the buyer.  Medical reasons for hunting, such as a prescribed Caveman Diet to prevent intestinal inflammation of a debilitating nature due to celiac disease, or the existence of a restraining order from a abusive spouse, would not be acceptable excuses for failing to attend the mandatory counseling session or meeting all of the other requirements before obtaining the gun.

There will be a mandatory 72 hour waiting period to give the buyer an opportunity to change his or her mind.

It would be illegal for the counseling to take place over the phone or the internet.

After the waiting period is complete, the buyer would be required to return to the gun dispensary for the mandatory rectal examination of the prostate with an ultrasound device.  The purpose of this examination is to determine the state of the prostate prior to gun purchase and to assure that the buyer understands the risk to his sexual health.  A similar examination will be made of a woman’s rectum for no good reason but if she is engaged in buying a gun, she has already given her consent to an anal probe.

After this examination, the gun buyer would be allowed to purchase the gun and go on his or her merry way, provided walking is still possible.

The above regulations would not be considered intrusive or burdensome to your 2nd amendment right to bear arms.

So, did anything happen last night?

Oh, yeah. Neener-Neener-Neeeeeeeennnnerrr!

I would personally like to thank all of the Republicans who overcame partisanship and voted FOR Hillary because of who she is and what she stands for.

Now, the delegate math might not have shifted much but the mental math certainly has. I’m going to work my ass off for Hillary in PA and so are my mother, my aunts and my sister. We are going to make history because we have the best candidate.

All the Big Blog Stores and the pundits can spew whatever crap they want. They are not seeing what the rest of the country is seeing. The media has lost credibility and people are paying attention to what the candidates say and their resiliency in the face of adversity. And what can we expect at the convention? Here are some possibilities:

• The superdelegates will have the final word and they’re going to be looking at who won the most Democratic votes, who won the popular vote and most importantly, who won the most crucial states. The electoral college map will become very important. And that leads to…
• Florida and Michigan. Now, the DNC and the Obama campaign want do-overs (hmmm, a common interest?). I’m all for a do-over in Michigan. Hillary’s name was the only one on the ballot and voters felt a little cheated so, fine, have a mail-in primary. She’s got her footing back, she can win MI or at least come close. But Florida? I see no reason to redo Florida. Neither candidate was *supposed* to campaign there, but in fact Obama spent $1.4 M on cable TV ads and who knows what else. Clinton had a couple of fundraisers. In any case, she won a solid victory and that isn’t going to change. The Obamaphiles can scream do-over all they want but the reality is this: making Florida do a primary again is very expensive for a state this size. The money wasted on one would impact other races in congressional districts and would take away funds for the general. The voters have spoken, decisively. They want their votes counted as they stand without having to go through the motions. For the Obamaphiles to insist on a do-over in Florida is something they have not asked of any other state that has run a contested primary. The only reason to ask for it is if there is some expectation that the vote will change, assuming the voters didn’t know what they were doing because they didn’t have the benefit of obnoxious campaigning. I think that will backfire badly on Obama. It would be like saying, “I’m going to make you spend money to vote again. Did you REALLY want Hillary to win?” And insisting upon a pointless primary because “they violated the RULZ!”, looks petty and spiteful, considering that NH, IA and SC broke them too and didn’t suffer. It smacks of voter suppression and when it comes to Florida, you don’t want to go there. Florida adds a critical mass to Clinton’s column and leaving it out diminishes the voters of NY, CA, NJ, MA, AZ, TX, OH. That’s one set of constituents that no one can afford to diss going into the fall campaign. The Florida dilemma is a no win for Obama but it could be worse if Floridians vote to blame him for it. The only outcome I can see from a do-over is that Obama will have proven conclusively that he alone of all primary candidates is capable of losing in Florida- twice. Bite the bullet, Barry. Urge the DNC to seat Florida without any pre-conditions. It’s the only way to keep Floridians from turning their backs on the Democratic party in disgust this fall.

Now, I am not going to make any predictions about who will win the convention in August but Hillary has a much better case for taking it than Obama at this point, delegate math or not. And I think as her campaign further adjusts to its new environment, freeing itself from the past election strategies to take advantage of new technologies and outwitting the opponent in clever ways, she will do better in the remaining states.

It is not inevitable. It never was. But by August, no one will be able to say she didn’t earn it.

One more thing: I found this disturbing yesterday but merely amusing this morning. (Ok, it’s *still* disturbing) I find this line particularly funny:

But if she leaves after winning a couple states, she leaves on a high note, magnanimously ceding the race to the better candidate running the far better campaign.

So.lemme get this straight, if she *wins*, she should concede defeat and gracefully exit because she would have been beaten by the “far better campaign”. My, my, I guess Kos and I have different definitions of the characteristics of a “far better campaign”. Like winning big primary states, for example. Well, that was a good morning chuckle.

I think Kos even predicted that Clinton would lose Ohio or Texas by 15 points. It must have been my imagination though or one of those newfangled editors. They’re so tricksy and everything. Things just disappear from the posts. It’s like magic!

Clinton Cocktail Party- Tequila Sunrise

Hi, all. Well, tonight is the night before the last round-up in Texas. I’m pulling for Hillary to pull this one out. She seems to be adapting. Maybe she didn’t know she even *had* a grassroots before. Let’s hope she discovers our power on the plains of Texas.

Welcome to the Clinton Cocktail Party. Sorry I’m late with this post. The BFF and I went on a fruitless search for a new MacBook Pro in NJ. The one we wanted was sold out in 3 locations. It sucked up most of my Saturday. But here we are now. Say hello to Rico, our bartender with flair! Tonight’s featured drink is a Tequila Sunrise. You probably don’t even need the recipe for that one. But if you’re not into that, order anything you like. We’re easy (but not cheap).

Tonight’s entertainment consists of a compilation of Texans and their music. We have a little bit of everything from Leadbelly to Bessie Smith, Lyle Lovett to Stevie Ray Vaughn, Don Henley to Willie Nelson. I’m going to start us off with a Texas Playboys number that is actually sung by a lady from OKlahoma, Carrie Underwood. San Antonio Rose. (Bear with the intro.)

The rest of the compilation is in a playlist you can find here. (I tried to embed a custom player but it wasn’t working out. If anyone knows how to get the suckers to work in WordPress, let me know)

When everybody is having a good time, it would be a shame to get trigger happy with your words. So feel free to leave them with Florence, our lovely check room attendent. The waiters will be circulating with some guacamole, piggy back dates and assorted munchies. Please drink responsibly and tip your wait staff generously.

Tomorrow’s Vote is a Referendum on the Press

Walter Shorenstein, founder of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University and Hillary Clinton supporter, has penned a memo about the unprofessional and biased coverage of the Democratic party primary race between Clinton and Obama. I can already hear the Kossacks howling with rage because he is a friend of Hillary’s, as if that negates all of the outrageous behavior of the press. But it’s hard to argue with the facts and Shorenstein’s got’em. And when SNL starts to point it out, then it has reached a threshold of absurdity that merits some serious discussion of what we should do about it. One thing we *can* do about it is urge Ohio and Texas voters to send a message to the press that we will pick our own presidents without all the emotional frenzy they have generated.

They tormented Bill Clinton, they snickered at Gore, giving us Bush, they destroyed Kerry’s career giving us even MORE Bush and now they are on the verge of doing something much more serious- allowing the first viable female candidate for president to get slimed by overtly negative and in some cases, misogynistic press. This time, not only are they helping to nominate the weaker candidate but they are setting back women’s accomplishments by 40 years. Don’t let them do it, Texas and Ohio. We need you to fight back and tell the media to cover the primaries professionally. Your vote is more than just a vote for Hillary or Obama. It’s a referendum on the press. Help us take our country back. Vote for the best candidate, not the one with the media halo.

Here is Shorenstein’s memo with supporting document

Hillary says: Take Responsibility for Your Actions

Here is her response to Obama and his minions who are freaking out about the 3am ad:

Isn’t it nice to be able to go second for a change?

One more thing: Tucsonlynn is on her way to Texas this weekend to lend a hand to Hillary’s campaign.  Send her positive thoughts and maybe she will be nice enough to update us on what she is seeing.

We are at the mercy of frozen pizza and babysitters

That is what this race will come down to. Will the women of Texas be able to rush home from work, get the kids out of day care and arrange for someone else to take Tammy to her dance class and Ryan to karate? Will she have the 25 minutes it takes to heat the oven and throw in the frozen pizza? Are her kids old enough to stay home by themselves for a couple of hours and can they remember to turn off the oven when the pizza is done, or will she have to arrange to find a babysitter of that magical age that is not too young to require a sitter herself in these overly protective times but isn’t too old so that she has better things to do on Tuesday night?

If she’s really desperate, she might have to take the kids with her. They will whine and complain about being (check all that apply) bored, hungry, tired, too cold, too warm, in pain, subject to their siblings’ irritations or endlessly fascinated by something they shouldn’t touch, go near, sniff, smell or taste. In other words, the little darlings will be a complete distraction during the caucus.

These one of a million women with their 2 million children will have to fit yet another hoop-jumping event, on top of voting in the primary, in order to shout down the maniacal Obamaphiles and put an end to the media’s determination to pick our next president.

Ladies, I know you can do this. But I am sooooo sorry we put all of this “fate of the world” stuff on you on a Tuesday night.

Busy day for me today. Non-stop craziness. I might check in at lunch. But I see that ronk has a lot of tasty morsels in his draft box (I swear, I didn’t peek), so I am sure we are all in very good hands.

Hillary needs a Haka in Texas

So, the Texas primary system is screwed up and stupid because of the idiotic caucus system. And it is true that Hillary loses caucuses. Before we tackle the issue of how we can never let this happen again and how Howard Dean needs to be strapped down and have his armpit hairs pulled out with tweezers (I’m not into torture but Dean can’t go unpunished for this), we have to figure out how Clinton can win the Texas caucus.

Now, what is the Obama camp has been doing to win their caucuses? Well, from what I’ve read, they flood the damn things with thousands of rowdy, intimidating Obamaphiles while the Clintonistas watch in stunned disbelief. What we have here is a Haka. A Haka is a Maori wardance, usually performed by men (figures) to scare and intimidate the enemy. The dancers do a lot of chest pounding and screaming and making truly scary faces complete with bulging eyes and sticking out their tongues. But just like the online world, they aren’t going to hurt you. It’s just to make you feel like they are the most dangerous people on the planet. So what if they scream at you, jostle you or make nasty faces?

So, what Hillary needs is a haka. Someone, I HOPE someone, is coordinating efforts to turn out the caucus haka for Clinton. If Obama can do it, Clinton can do it. Some suggestions:

• Create Clinton Haka parties for the caucus using the DFA-Link tools.
• Make T-shirts. Nothing says solidarity better than warrior colors.
• Create a chant. Learn some polynesian and some chest pounding, spear shaking hand movements.
• Use the blogosphere to whip up a frenzy.
• Comb the universities and other places for women to learn the haka and go up against the Obamaphiles.

I’m perfectly serious about this. Most of this caucus crap has been a psychological game. Now it’s down to “Obama is going to win the causcuses, woe is me, Clinton will lose Texas” This is bull. The maoris didn’t train their warriors in the haka for nothing. It’s a mindset and anyone can be taught to be fierce. Make it an event that people will remember for years to come.

Let’s turn *this*:

into *this*:

Texas: “White Males are Breaking for Obama” (‘gits)

That was heard on Hardball last Thursday.Now, why would “white males” break for Obama? What is it about Obama that is so appealing to “white males”? Weren’t these the same damn “white males” who gave us George W. Bush? Why is it these same guys would consider switching to McCain if Obama doesn’t win? McCain isn’t even in the same party. All those votes in CA, NJ, NY, FL, MI, AZ, MA mean nothing because the party is being held hostage to a bunch of testosterone poisoned “white men” in western states and finally Texas. That’s what this has come down to. They seem comfortable with the ideas that Hillary Clinton represents but they will switch to a dude who doesn’t because she doesn’t have a penis? I thought guys were supposed to be logical so what is driving this overtly emotional desire to vote for a guy- ANY guy- over Hillary Clinton?And I don’t buy this argument that “it’s not all women, just this particular one”. We’ve gone over this before: she’s the one who wins the experience argument, she can run circles around Obama in debates (watch it tonight, she’ll do it again), she is tied to one of the best presidents we’ve had in recent history, there’s literally nothing in her past of any major consequence to trip her up and her policies are the ones that most people say they want.We don’t know much about Obama except that he has been packaged very well. When it comes to authenticity, he ain’t it. His policies are not representative of core Democratic principles and any Change! he brings is likely to be minimal. We don’t know who is really pulling his strings (tho‘ we have some clues). And the media, along with the $250M GOP attack machine, is going to flay him if he wins the nomination.

All the media nipple massaging is a trap to lure Democrats into voting forthe weaker candidate, All those white males are going to abandon him for McCain the instant the GOP creates the right narrative. We all know this is coming. And yet, they can’t vote for her because they think no one will vote for her?Isn’t that a self-fulfilling prophecy and what does it have to do with the good of the country? We know the scenario that is laid out before us and the “white males” of Texas are going to follow their hearts and not their heads and fall madly in love with the one with the Y-chromosome.

What is it about THIS woman that makes men think this way, because I guarantee you that there won’t be another woman like her for a long time. Let’s try to solve this problem before next Tuesday, shall we? Because if “white males” of Texas can’t get past their man-crushes, we’re going to get stuck with a weak and vulnerable dude whose only advantage is that he can pee higher on the wall than she can.

Challenge: I want to hear from the white males from Texas today. Put your cold, hard logic in the comments and tell me why you won’t vote for her. I want to hear a really good argument with all of the deductive reasoning you can muster. And it better be good. Because running a campaign is the easy part. Governing is very difficult.

Polling in Texas- ARG

From gqmartinez:

Quick update on Texas:

ARG has a new poll out showing Obama up by 8 points. There aren’t many useful internals. SurveyUSA will have a poll out tonight and I’ll give my take on that later. One thing to note, the last SurveyUSA poll had Hispanics making up 32% of the electorate and Black voters at 18%. ARG has 24-23 split. The other thing is that the SurveyUSA poll has Hillary winning Dems 55-41 and making up 78% of the electorate. SurveyUSA was dead on in CA because they nailed down the demographics. It will be useful to compare the new SurveyUSA numbers to the previous and to see if that reinforces the ARG numbers.

More later…

Live Blogging the Debate

To be honest, guys, I’m not a very good debate watcher. It makes me too nervous. I usually schedule the DVR to record it and then I watch it very slowly, reading the live blogging and when I hear something good, I fast forward to it. Yes, I know this makes me a chicken.

This is an open thread for live blogging (if you can bear to watch).