It’s no surprise that Pat Toomey is still getting attacked by the Democratic Party for being too pro-gun. You’re seeing all the groups that no doubt promised him cover doing their level best to pull his ass from the fire. So does this mean the Democratic Party is now to the left of Bloomberg and Giffords on guns? It would seem so. What Bloomberg and his ilk are doing is trying to show they can help Republicans in a tough election fight. I think that’s doubtful, but all that matters is whether Pat Toomey believes it.
I’ve been torn between wanting to see Toomey go down in flames this year and the utter terror of Hillary getting to pick Scalia’s replacement with a Democratic Senate. I also worry that if we have a Dem in the White House and a Dem Senate, we might see several more justices retire, which would cement the Court as outright hostile to the Second Amendment for a generation. If that happens, I doubt I will live long enough to see a pro-2A court, and most of the folks reading this probably won’t either.
Grand opportunities have been are are actively being flushed down the crapper when it comes to the Second Amendment because, based on the memes I see going around Facebook, GOP voters are completely ignorant and it’s only getting worse. If we had won in 2008 or 2012, we never would have gotten to this point.
It’s going well for him. Bloomberg is opening his wallet.
The thing that will be unfortunate is, if Toomey loses the anti-gun crowd will say it was because he was pro-gun and had NRA support.
Toomey is the kind of squish who deserves to be spanked in public, as a lesson to others of his ilk, but chances are the lesson is going to be obfuscated.
Like you’ve said before, he needs to get punished for his anti-gun shenanigans. The few percentage points he could lose by would represent the “2A” write-in crowd in the primary.
The only thing I would quibble about there is, not everyone who is pro-gun is a Republican, so the 2A write in vote in the Republican primary would be only a partial representation of the people he pissed off.
Does anyone have any stats on how successful the effort to get people to write in “2A” on the primary actually was?
It got a mention in the Philadelphia media. They don’t bother counting write ins, which is why I thought it was poor tactic.
I hope he goes down. Then other Republicans can see selling out to the anti-gunners comes at a cost. It’ll be especially tasty because Bloomberg and Giffords are supporting him.
And you will be able to wash that tasty sandwich down with a big bite of Clinton’s appointments cancelling the 2nd amendment.
Actually, it will be worse. She will build on Obama’s use of executive orders to bypass Congress, and she will appoint justices who will rubber stamp those executive orders. Not merely because she shares the same philosophy, but because she knows where the dirt is.
Just as Obama found $1.7 billion of money (not properly appropriated by Congress) to magically give Iran for hostages, in violation of the law, she will magically find the power to raise taxes and start her Australian style gun confiscation program. Naturally she will start by rounding up guns from prohibited people, consulting the firearms database the govt is not supposed to have.
You can sit back for 8 years watching it happen, thankful that you ousted Toomey in favor of a Democrat. Give yourself a big pat on the back for me.
Your premise presumes Toomey will be better than a Democrat. I disagree.
Regardless, either we make a statement that bailing on gun owners (and being endorsed by Bloomberg and Giffords) loses you elections, even a Dem gets in, or we make a statement that it gun owners will bend over and take it because he’s has an R against his name.
So you can either sit back as gun owners are discredited as Toomey approves Clinton’s appointments anyway and works to remove gun rights, or you can help oust someone who betrayed us so that other Republicans will stand firm.
Up to you.
“you can help oust someone who betrayed us so that other Republicans will stand firm.”
Sorry to use pop culture as the source for a philosophy, but, I have always agreed with Don Corleone’s aphorism that “treachery must never be forgiven.”
Revenge is only effective as a tactic if it is a certainty to be carried out. The gun rights movement has always been very, very bad at that.
I feel you. The choice in PA is either the 6th level of hell or the 27th level of hell.
The time to oust Toomey is during an off year when the GOP can mount an effective challenge. Not this year.
That may be the ideal, but given his particular brand of anti-gun squish, I cannot hold my nose and vote to send him to Washington for another six years.
If he’s willing to bow before Bloomberg when it comes to legislation like Manchin-Toomey, how can I be sure he wouldn’t bow to Bloomberg if the demand was for another federal AWB, or for another far-left anti-gun SCOTUS justice?
In other words, if I can’t trust him on the 2A, then I’m not convinced that I can trust him at all.
Further, if HE stays in office after all his anti-gun bullshit, he will give massive amounts of cover to other RINOs who may feel the push to get squishy on the RKBA: If someone as squishy as Toomey remains in the senate to make gun control a bipartisan issue, he will give cover to other squishy people. Then they won’t be voting for a “democrat’s anti-gun Bill” they’ll be voting for a piece of “bipartisan gun safety” legislation…
See my post above. We all have a terrible choice to make. Anyone who allows Clinton or a Democrat to win, actively or passively by staying home, loses their right to complain about gun rights for the rest of their lives**. Or taxes. Or unconstitutional executive orders. Or corruption.
Toomey may indeed be bad, the Democrat will be far worse and rubber stamp everything Clinton does.
** because the Supreme Court will read it out of the constitution thanks to Clinton and her appointments helped by Democrats.
Actually, anyone supporting an anti-gun Senator, with an R or D next to his name, loses their justification to complain about gun rights for the rest of their lives. **
Time to man up and stand for your principles.
** because those Senators will approve anti-gun justices regardless, and work to push anti-gun legislation, from UBCs, to AWBs, to TWLBs.
Just remember that when you support Trump, you are supporting people who are willing to wink at then look away from fascism — tacitly supporting it. And then, you are willing to believe that supporters of fascism are supporters of gun rights on principle, and not because gun rights are a short term decoy issue to get themselves votes.
Imagine what Trumpites might propose if, say, the “Huey Newton Gun Clubs” got too uppity. It was Trump’s predecessors who brought us GCA ’68, as a response to the Black Panthers practicing legal (in those days) Open Carry in California.
(Yeah, I know GCA ’68 was supposed to be a response to the 1960s assassinations, but really. . . everyone got nervous over “Army .45 will stop all jive. . .”)
Also reflect on, that on a variety of issues Trump has demonstrated neither knowledge of nor respect for the constitution — and yet you believe the people who support him will respect it. Man, is that gullibility!
facsism!!! puh-leeze.
Reality check: Hillary will expand Obama’s use of executive authority, and congress, the supreme court, and the media will go along and rubber stamp it without even a blink at whatever she cooks up. justice Ginsberg already gave away the game, the court is in the bag. Who is next to retire? Probably Kennedy.
Trump is so hated that congress, the media, and the supreme court will scrutinize his every move. His saving grace is that he will outsource supreme court picks to Pence or establishment Republicans.
We have a system of checks and balances. If you think our institutions are so weak, they cannot handle Trump, they most definitely cannot handle Hillary’s corruption. Especially when all the institutions are pulling for her.
The *real* checks and balances vote is for Trump. He will be lucky to get 1/3 of his platform done. Hillary will get 150% of it done, mostly through executive orders written by her donors and rubber stamped by the court. Congress will be an irrelevant rump.
“facsism!!! puh-leeze.”
I agree. Too many people seem to be begging for it.
It can hardly be a coincidence that Trump has pushed every single button the Nazis pushed in the early 1930s to get their foot in the door of the Reichstag. But once they did, they used coalitions to gain enough power to pass the Enabling Act, making Hitler an absolute dictator; and it all was accomplished democratically, starting from a minority position.
I would be encouraged if any Republican leader in congress had shown himself to be something more than a pussy, afraid to criticize their party’s standard bearer. So far, they’re all bending over and taking it, and asking for more. I say, anything bad is possible, and nothing much that is good.
Here it is: “Everyone I don’t like is literally Hitler.”
find something else to compare people to.
Regarding supreme court selections, if all you anti-Trumpers who were are so busy crapping all over him had given any thought to what might really happen by your actions, I MIGHT have a little sympathy for you. Sorry – NOT.
Watch out with that broad brush, there!
From where I sit, Trump’s potential* SCOTUS nominations are one of his very few saving graces. Hillary will certainly pack the courts with anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-American judges; Trump merely might do so.
It’s the other crap he says and does that make me have a hard time supporting him. Granted, his arrival in Louisiana with a truckload of emergency supplies was a welcome sight, as is his toned-down rhetoric in recent days. His Presidential campaign image is getting better, but I still believe that the most important thing in his mind is himself and that he has only a passing familiarity (if that) with the U.S. Constitution and our republican system of government.
Those are YUUUUGE stumbling blocks, and it’ll take some time for him to overcome them.
That’s my opinion, and a small portion of the reasoning behind it. YMMV.
——
* – “Potential”, as in, “not set in stone”. He could nominate anyone he wants as President — including his moonbat-liberal sister Amy — utterly regardless of who he says is on his short list now.
“I still believe that the most important thing in his mind is himself and that he has only a passing familiarity (if that) with the U.S. Constitution and our republican system of government.”
I am a huge fan of the Constitution, but I often think people who make comments like this themselves only have a passing understanding of it.
The separation of powers embedded in the Constitution does not mean feckless branches of government vying to delegate their authority and duck responsibility. It does not require a weak president, weak congress, weak judiciary, and weak media.
Quite the opposite. The constitution envisions three strong, vigorous branches of government all vying for power. We did not get to the point where the executive branch has too much power because Presidents have been too authoritarian. Every President has grabbed more power, even Obama who did not like it. That is the nature of the office. Obama did it. Clinton will do it. They all do it. This is what Presidents do!
We got to this point because congress and the judiciary has been too weak. Congress delegates their authority, writes ambiguous laws, and shoves actual legislative functions and hard decisions to unaccountable agencies. The judiciary has the doctrine called Chevron deference, which is like a rubber stamp for executive power. Where the *** did Obama get 1.7 billion to hand over to Iran, and what is Congress going to do about it? I fell pretty sure that money was not properly appropriated.
The Problem with Clinton is that she knows all the tricks, and will expand Obama’s use of executive power. She will appoint cronies to the judiciary who will rubber stamp her authority. Congress will be irrelevant. She will “find” billions to “buy back” guns, Aussie style, starting with “prohibited” people and the mentally ill (which will be expanded to those right wing rednecks).
Or whatever else her donors feel they want.
So, yeah, Clinton knows more about the constitution and how to rig the system than Trump. I do not consider that a feature.
I feel pretty sure under Trump that Congress, the judiciary, and the media hate him so much that they will grow a spine. Checks and balances. Under Clinton, all the institutions will be rowing with her agenda.