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Progressives dream of an end to the NRA

by Phantom Ace ( 115 Comments › )
Filed under Democratic Party, Progressives at May 29th, 2013 - 3:00 pm

The NRA did something that the incompetent Republican Party could not do. They took on and defeated OFA’s vaunted machine. Progressives are still bitter over this defeat and are now plotting how to take down the NRA. The New Republic delusional claims the NRA will soon collapse. They beleive a group started by Mayor Bloomberg will be able to destroy the NRA.

The de facto headquarters for post-Newtown gun-control activism is New York City Hall, where the effort overlaps relatively seamlessly with the business of running a metropolis of eight million people. Bloomberg and his lieutenants were disappointed by the background-check vote, but not discouraged. After all, they now knew which senators to target in 2014. “The mayor has a long view,” says Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson, Bloomberg’s political point person on the issue. “He is well aware that the NRA had the field to themselves for decades, and you don’t overcome those advantages overnight.”

The modern gun-control movement emerged in the early ’70s in reaction to the urban crime wave and the assassinations of 1968; it was led by the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (now the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence) and the National Council to Control Handguns (now the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence).4 From the outset, its weaknesses were multiple and self-reinforcing. There were disagreements over whether to pursue incremental reforms or more ambitious proposals like handgun registration. And the movement has always been woefully outmatched financially. Gun-rights groups, funded by gun manufacturers, have given more than $30 million to federal candidates since 1989, compared with just under $2 million by their opponents.

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That serious opponent has finally emerged. In 2006, Bloomberg formed Mayors Against Illegal Guns with 14 of his counterparts. One of the group’s first moves was to dispatch undercover investigators to Virginia gun shops—the source of many guns on the streets of northern cities—where they recorded footage showing how easy it was to make illegal purchases.10 In 2010, Bloomberg hired Wolfson, a hard-bitten veteran of three Hillary Clinton campaigns. Listening to the mayor’s team discuss gun control is very different from talking to longtime advocates—the conversations are an odd mash-up of the ruthlessness of campaign hacks and a moral crusade. For an administration that has made its share of ethical compromises—disregarding term limits, pulverizing opponents with the mayor’s personal fortune—gun control has become the ultimate validation.

What Bloomberg has embarked upon now is nothing less than the construction of a mirror image to the NRA. There is plenty of latent public support for gun control, his logic goes, but politicians only see a risk in voting for it. He wants to reverse that calculation.

Progressives are dreaming if they think Bloomberg’s new group can defeat the NRA. Unlike the AstroTurf  Mayors against illegal guns, the NRA is a true grassroots organization. The NRA is not the Republican Party and Progressives underestimate the organization at its peril.

(Hat Tip: eaglesoars)

How the NRA defeated OFA

by Phantom Ace ( 110 Comments › )
Filed under Communism, Conservatism, Fascism, Liberal Fascism, Progressives, Socialism, Tea Parties, The Political Right, Tranzis at April 9th, 2013 - 11:00 am

nraad

(NRA Social Media Ad)

Organizing For America is the most formidable electoral machine ever assembled in American political history. Their use of behavioral scientists allows them to manipulate target groups. They run circles around Republicans and Conservatives through the use of social media and micro-targeting. OFA is on the verge of creating permanent one party rule in America. But for once, they met their match.

After the Newtown massacres, the fake god-king was out demonizing guns. OFA did its usual propaganda based attacks using emotional imagery. But unlike the Republican Party, The National Rifle Association is disciplined and well organized. Unlike the GOP, it is very popular with Americans and is viewed as fighting for people’s rights. They also have hired their own team of behavioral scientists and data-miners. They were able to destroy OFA’s emotional appeal with cold hard facts. The result was that as of this writing, the NRA has gotten the better of OFA.

Obama for America’s post-election transformation into the grassroots lobbying group Organizing for Action (OFA) was supposed to provide the political heft (and supersized bank account) President Obama would need to implement his sweeping second-term agenda. So far, however, efforts to translate OFA’s success in turning out support for its candidate into generating support for his actual policies have thoroughly failed to impress.

Take gun control. In the months since the tragic shooting in Newtown, Conn., the president has waged an aggressive campaign to implement stricter gun-control policies. He concluded his State of the Union address with a rousing appeal for congressional action — “The families of Newtown deserve a vote” — and continues to implore the American people: “Shame on us if we forget.” OFA, though legally prohibited from coordinating with the White House, has thrown its full weight behind the effort.

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NRA president David Keene concurs. “They’re learning that when you put together something like they did for Obama, it’s hard to translate that into other activities,” he tells National Review Online. “They believed they had put together this machinery that they could use for darn near anything, and that just wasn’t true.”

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The specific nature of the gun-control debate makes Obama’s and OFA’s challenge all the more difficult. Gun-control advocates will likely never be able to match the natural enthusiasm that exists in the pro-gun segment of the population, particularly when the latter finds itself on the defensive. “The difference between OFA and the NRA is that the NRA has millions of members who are passionately focused on the issue of Second Amendment rights, whereas Obama supporters are a much broader and much shallower pool of support for a specific person,” says Collegio.

This is just like the Nazis biting off more than they can chew by attacking Soviet, Russia. OFA thought it was invincible because it runs circles around the paraplegic like Republican Party. But when confronted by a well disciplined opponent with the resources to match it, OFA failed.

The NRA proved OFA can be beaten. Whether the Republican Party of Conservatives in general will study this defeat is another matter. In that regards to the latter, I am not hopeful. I salute the NRA for defeating this evil organization.

Corpulent Fake Guido attacks NRA over anti-Obama ad

by Phantom Ace ( 147 Comments › )
Filed under Elections 2016, Progressives, Republican Party, Second Amendment at January 18th, 2013 - 7:00 am

The loudmouth Corpulent Guido rushes to Obama’s aid again. The NRA ran a very effective ad showing the hypocrisy of Obama’s position of armed guards in schools. They pointed out that Obama’s daughters go to a school that has armed guards. Christie condemns the brutal ad exposing the ads of his god-king.

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), who has been campaigning for the media’s new favorite Republican, is now making his journey toward the dark side complete with a misguided assault on a new ad from the National Rifle Association. The NRA ad points out that President Obama is more than happy for his children to have security guards, but thinks that proposals regarding more security in schools for other children is out of the question. Christie said today:

To talk about the president’s children, or any public officer’s children, who have not by their own choice, but by requirement, to have protection, and to use that somehow to try to make a political point is reprehensible …. To somehow feel, as it said in the commercial, “Well, the president has armed bodyguards for his children but thinks it’s not good enough for your children,” the president doesn’t have a choice …. It’s awful to bring public figures’ children into the political debate. They don’t choose to be there. For any of us who are public figures, you see that kind of ad and you cringe.

Christie has a press conference where he ranted about gun violence.

Chris Christie is enjoying the favorable coverage he is receiving from the Progressive Media. He wants the love of the Left, so he goes after the NRA. He thinks the support of the media will help win the GOP nomination by claiming to be the most electable who can win. The media once loved John McCain before he took on the god-king and they turned on him. Christie is a fat pig being set up for the slaughter.

Mike Lupica goes after the NRA

by Phantom Ace ( 109 Comments › )
Filed under Liberal Fascism, Progressives at December 25th, 2012 - 1:20 pm

What is it with sports writers and politics? We had in recent weeks, Bob Costas anti-gun rant and Rob Parker calling RGIII a cornball. In recent years we had the Keith Olbermann soap opera. But one of the most annoying sports writers is NY Daily News writer, Mike Lupica. When he discusses sports, Lupica is usually spot on. When he veers into politics, Mike Lupica shows his Far left colors. Inserting himself into the gun debate, he goes after the NRA and really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

So now Wayne LaPierreof the National Rifle Association, who attacks the mental health system in this country even as he sounds like he needs to be in it, goes on “Meet the Press” and continues to double down on his notion that the only way to keep our schools safe is to put armed guards at the front door and the side door and in every home room in America and maybe on every school bus, too.

The other day there was a terrific Daily News front page calling LaPierre, the NRA’s executive director, the “craziest man on Earth,” and he was clearly referencing that Sunday morning, even as he continued to sound like just one more coward made brave and tough by a gun.

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But then LaPierre is the type who lies to stay in practice, as he continues to pass himself off as the front man for responsible gun owners when he actually is a front for their lunatic fringe. To say that the NRA represents mainstream thinking for gun owners is the same as saying that the Tea Party represents mainstream thinking in the Republican Party.
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The phony is LaPierre, who chooses this moment in American history — one that should change the country and will change the country — to push his own agenda and his association’s agenda and expects people to believe that it is all about our children.

“The NRA is not going to let people lose the Second Amendment in this country,” LaPierre said Sunday, and at that point he does sound like an expert on what he calls the “cracked” mental health system, because that system is clearly doing nothing as he goes from his press conference Friday to national television sounding like a slobbering idiot.

Why can’t sports writers just stick to sports? Mike Lupica is very ignorant about politics. Just like Keith Olbermann, he’s in over his head when discussing political subjects. This rant shows Lupica’s Far Left political bias.