26 Comments

It's not the guns. It's the loss of family meaning family life. That was lost in the sixties as women were walking down 5th Ave. swinging their their brassieres in the air yelling they are just like men. We are NOT like men. It is also the educational system. Whatever happened to God and Country. To respect, to honor, to the Pledge of Allegiance ? ! Pride in a job well done. Guns have always been in this culture. Just watch some of the old cowboy movies. The old mob movies. Guns, guns, guns.

Have you seen, lately, a film honoring a quadraplegic for achieving a PHD ? But the news of some guy destroying his successful business by using all the financial assets his investors have trusted him with by using them for his personal life style is reported ad nauseum. It's amazing what a little backbone can accomplish. Look at Ukraine. It's love of one's country and pride in one's roots.

Expand full comment

“Guns have always been in our culture… here are examples where people shot each other with glee…”. You do realize that mafia movies are often based on real life events where lots of people really got killed? And of course you blame feminists too. 🙄

Expand full comment

Yes, too many watch movies believing they are historical documents. Movies generally portray a skewed view of reality. Ordinary daily activities do not make a lot of compelling movies. People love John Wayne movies and John Wayne is a great example of misunderstanding the message. Of course John Wayne wasn’t John Wayne, he was Marion something or other, but he came to believe in his mythical persona. In reality many of the characters he portrayed in most of his best loved movies were not good people. Often the single heroic act at the center of the movie is a contradiction to everything else in the characters life and in some, like “The Searchers,” he is a person trapped by his hate dragging others along not to save his niece but to kill her…because he believed she had been raped by Comanche who she lived with and in his mind that made her life pointless.

True Grit? He was a drunk not very different than the men he hunted.

In real life Marshalls were hired to end gunfire in the streets of “Wild West” towns. People did not want guys with guns hanging around. They wanted safe communities for their families.

Expand full comment

I’ve read that in the “Wild West” towns folks were required to turn in their guns upon entry and only got them back upon leaving. They apparently didn’t have a strong gun lobby and Congress filled with nihilists back in the good old days.

Expand full comment

and know that #pos_tefanik

who is supposed to represent NYS in congress has promoted federal laws that supersede NYS laws

and allow gun nuts to bring concealed weapons into the state

Expand full comment

so

• You are okay with removing guns from our society because it will prove guns are not a problem.

• you are cool with women being second class citizens, which is what the women were REALLY saying. They were not saying "we are men" they were saying it is time to pass the Equal Rights Amendment and treat women as equals

and let me remind you

• the number one cause of death for children is guns (https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/child-and-teen-firearm-mortality-in-the-u-s-and-peer-countries/)

• the ERA has not been passed (https://www.equalrightsamendment.org/)

• women make about 80% of what men make (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/03/01/gender-pay-gap-facts/#:~:text=The%20gender%20gap%20in%20pay,%2D%20and%20part%2Dtime%20workers.)

You make some really good points.. IFyou ignore facts... and since you have a lack of them... your points are void.

Expand full comment

I did not say any of those things, so you might want to go back and read the piece again.

Expand full comment

To be clear --- if you are responding to me..

I was responding to:

Gunta Krasts Voutyras

Not your post

Expand full comment

Liked by mistake.

Expand full comment

Assault weapons have not always been a part of our society and have no place in it now. I also think people are tired of working hard and not getting a living wage when CEO's and corporations are making huge profits.

Expand full comment

Meanwhile, while one news channel the other day was broadcasting information about the shooting in Nashville, Fox was discussing transgender issues, gun rights, and Hunter Biden. You can blame the media, or rather, op Ed TV, for a lot of the problems this country and others face. Misinformation cripples society

Expand full comment

It is amazing how mass shootings with assault stay guns have everything to do with what ever republicans want to put fear into people's minds with fake outrage

but a machine made for butchering humans

Expand full comment

I’m happy to see that Jill Lochner, unlike Ron DeSantis, realizes she’s not going to compete against Elise Stefanik by being a clone.

She seems to offer a serious alternative for many who think the country is going too far in restricting women’s choice on pregnancy. If she has a sane position on that, I’d like to think she’s open to at least stiffening background checks and red flag laws on gun ownership. There’s no way she’s worse than Stefanik.

I’m realistic enough to acknowledge I’m probably not going to be repped by a Democrat in upstate NY anytime soon. I’m willing to settle for a country first Republican.

Expand full comment

It will be interesting to see the lies that come from #pos_tefanik about Ms. Lochner. Especially considering she is a republican who is actually tethered to reality.

I will say I am surprised, if not confused, to see a republican pointing out facts about the lies of stiffy. Hopefully there are some cracks in the q-publican party

Expand full comment

I’d say the lies are already starting with trying to present the Albany tourist as born and raised and nurtured in northern NY. It’ll get pretty nasty if Lochner looks like she has any chance. The last two guys that were looking to take her on were not even close to serious candidates. From what little I’ve seen of Lochner maybe she will be.

Stefanik should be getting behind Jill since this is her last term. She wasn’t lying about only serving 10 years, was she? I’m 😳, 😳 I tells ya!

Expand full comment

It’s the first time I’ve seen someone call Stefanik out on ethical issues. You would like to think that will resonate with a certain part of the electorate especially since she is a Republican, but I don’t see the committee folks budging. They seem to believe Stefanik’s power will bring them federal money to their communities. Such as????

Expand full comment

I don’t have high hopes. But I look at the nonsense defenses of Trump over the mundane paying off a porn actress case and wonder where do they go from there. When Willis and Smith drop indictments they’re essentially going to have to sign back onto the election lie and say that, yes, Trump was justified in the attempted coup.

If there’s another way to spin it I’m waiting to see. Based on how well the weaponized investigations are going they don’t seem awfully handy.

A year and half is a long time. We’ll see what happens. Curiousity keeps me going!

Expand full comment

I received this text last night

"Colleen's daughter was working in the ER yesterday at Vanderbilt hospital when they brought the latest shooting victims in.

The way Coll talks this is the worst day of her career."

• The daughter = a doctor

• Vanderbilt University Medical Center = hospital in Nashville and where the victims of the Covenant School shooting were taken

• Nashville = a very violent city (read the police twitter feed -- > https://twitter.com/MNPDNashville)

The Worst Day of an ER doctor in a violent city

======

Now pretend you like children (i.e. you aren't a republican like sarah huckabee sanders and you see them as someone who should be working at age 14, or #pos_tefanik and end up on the wrong end of her gun policy). Pretend you think their life has value.

Pretend that with all our science, research and medicine we have made the chance of a healthy life better than ever.

Now think about this

the Number One Cause of Death for a child is a gun

https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/blog/gun-violence/17-facts-about-gun-violence-and-school-shootings/

Now tell me again you care about children.

-====

explain to mt greene how the trans community, drag shows, or books are dangerous to children

more so than guns

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/twitter-ban-marjorie-taylor-greene-b2309784.html

Expand full comment

Add to that: lack of healthcare in the state of TN. Since they refuse to expand Medicaid, most of their rural hospitals are forced to close. How is that pro-life?

https://fox17.com/news/local/apple-news-inews-google-facebook-twitter-instagram-tiktok-middle-tennessee-more-than-75-of-tennessees-rural-hospitals-at-high-risk-of-closure

Expand full comment

This falls under the heinous and hypocritical gop

right now they are doing all they can to say it is a

Mental Health Issue

you know the thing they defund

Expand full comment

An alternative to reading the January 6 Report is to listen to the audio version with excellent multiple readers and Jamie Raskin.

Expand full comment

Thanks for pointing that out. I had not thought of that.

Expand full comment

I think most try to live a life of appreciation so we try to give thanks for the gifts in our lives even when going through a tough time. That doesn't mean we are accepting of the losses that can be controlled such as the right to control our own bodies, the right to vote easily, the abuse of our planet or the loss of respectful behavior in our community. Politics has played a huge role in our losses and that is upsetting, especially when people don't vote to maintain what we have had in the past.

Expand full comment

Not many seem to care about climate change considering the damage it’s doing and mostly Republicans seem to fear losing their assault weapons.

Expand full comment

I think Americans don’t reflect on the thing that made our country unique in its founding, that our government was instituted among the people deriving its JUST POWERS from CONSENT of the governed. We are a nation based in the enlightenment philosophy of John Locke. We are not great because a person can be anything they want to be if they work hard. Lots of people work about as hard as they can and they are never going to get rich.

What America is about is the promise to expand Justice, to provide JUST rights to everyone. In that regard we have been making a lot of progress in my lifetime -not enough, but we have been expanding justice. Example? Gay marriage. Counter example: the Equal Rights Amendment.

But as those of us who the Right deride as “woke” work to expand JUST rights to groups of people who have given consent in full measure to the government but not received equal treatment under our laws. There is an opposing force working against the ideas that Thomas Jefferson put in the very beginning of our primary founding document. The movement to deny rights for minorities, for women, for transgender people, etc is unjustly denying consent. That is the foundation of our current political crisis. This is not a “both sides” problem. It is a usurpation of power by those on the reactionary libertarian fringe and a warping of what America is meant to be.

Expand full comment

Very glad to see a Republican opponent to Stefanik. So many people in our district are “traditional” Republican voters and only vote for that “R”, are really not informed about the candidates and their policies. This is why Stefanik has been re-elected. It is certainly not at all related to her integrity (ha!).

Expand full comment