NRA chief LaPierre: Bloomberg ‘can’t buy America’ with ad blitz

The head of the National Rifle Association (NRA) slammed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) on Sunday, accusing him of trying to “buy America” by spending $12 million on a massive advertising campaign advocating for stricter gun laws.

“He's going to find out this is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people,” said NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And he can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public.

“They don't want him telling them what food to eat; they sure don't want him telling them what self-defense firearms to own. And he can't buy America. He's so reckless in terms of his comments on this whole gun issue.”

Bloomberg this weekend announced a massive advertising campaign aimed at drumming up support during the congressional recess for tighter gun restrictions in the states of 13 key senators, who will face a vote on several gun control measures when they return next month.

Bloomberg, a billionaire and co-chairman of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns group, said on Sunday that it’s his responsibility to provide advocates for stricter gun control with a national voice that counteracts the NRA’s messaging and influential lobbying efforts.

“I think I have a responsibility, and I think you and all of your viewers have responsibilities, to try to make this country safer for our families and for each other,” said Bloomberg on “Meet the Press.”

“And if I can do that by spending some money and taking the NRA from being the only voice to being one of the voices, so the public can really understand the issues, then I think my money would be well spent, and I think I have an obligation to do that.”

The ad campaign, much of which Bloomberg has personally funded, will encourage people to call their senators and pressure them to vote in favor of tougher gun laws, according to the mayor.

The ads will target Republican Sens. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Dan Coats (Ind.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Susan Collins (Maine), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Dean Heller (Nev.), Rob Portman (Ohio), and Pat Toomey (Pa.). It will also target Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.). 

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pledged to hold a vote on gun legislation when the Senate returns from its Easter recess.

Reid said the bill would include three provisions that have been reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee: a measure requiring background checks of nearly every gun sale, including most private purchases; a measure that would provide $40 million in grants to schools for security upgrades; and a measure increasing penalties for people who purchase guns on behalf of people barred from buying them.

The background check bill that is currently scheduled for the Senate to vote on is sponsored by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and was reported by Democrats along party lines. The measure would require background checks for all private gun sales, except those between immediate family members.

Republicans say that gun sales between friends should also be exempt. They also object to a requirement for the seller to keep a record of the purchase.

On Sunday, LaPierre argued that a move towards requiring background checks for most private sales would be useless because the federal government does not prosecute many of the people who fail to pass their background checks and some states do not submit complete mental health and criminal history records into the national database.

“The whole thing, universal checks, is a dishonest premise,” said LaPierre. “There's not a bill on the Hill that provides a universal check. Criminals aren't going to be checked.”

“It's not accurate, it's not instant,” said LaPierre of the National Instant Criminal Background Checks System (NICS). “The mental health records are not in the system, and they don't prosecute any of the criminals that they catch. It's a speed bump for the law abiding. It slows down the law abiding and does nothing to anybody else.”

Reid said he hoped that ongoing talks between Republicans and Democrats attempting to agree on a bipartisan version of a background check bill would progress over the break. The Democratic leader said he would be open to replacing the Schumer bill with a new bipartisan measure if they reached a consensus.

A vote on amendments banning assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and new mental health provisions is also expected, according to Reid.

The House has not moved on any major gun legislation this year and has put the onus on the upper chamber to act first. The assault weapons ban is not expected to pass Congress because of Republican opposition to the measure.

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Climate change

(Difference between revisions)'''Climate change''' is mostly a natural phenomenon, which scientists say has occurred in repeated cycles of cooling (see [[Ice Age]]s) and warming over millions of years. Yet many writers have been urging America to fund an ill-conceived initiative to "stop global warming", as if warmer nights or winters would make human life more difficult. The term "climate change" has largely replaced the term "global warming", in ideological discussions.'''Climate change''' is the new name used by [[liberal]]s for their [[global warming]] hoax, which they coined as it became obvious that there is no crisis in global warming.Climate change occurs naturally, which scientists say has occurred in repeated cycles of cooling (see [[Ice Age]]s) and warming over millions of years. Yet many writers have been urging America to fund an ill-conceived initiative to "stop global warming", as if warmer nights or winters would make human life more difficult. The term "climate change" has largely replaced the term "global warming", in ideological discussions.Ideologues insist that the world's top scientists have reached a "consensus" that most of the warming which land-based weather stations have recorded in the last century is due to human activity. The basis for this claim is a set of reports published by the [[IPCC]], an agency of the United Nations. The assumption is that the government-appointed representatives who run the IPCC would be completely objective and neutral, and would place finding and revealing the truth ahead of any nationalistic interests.  Ideologues insist that the world's top scientists have reached a "consensus" that most of the warming which land-based weather stations have recorded in the last century is due to human activity. The basis for this claim is a set of reports published by the [[IPCC]], an agency of the United Nations. The assumption is that the government-appointed representatives who run the IPCC would be completely objective and neutral, and would place finding and revealing the truth ahead of any nationalistic interests.  

Climate change is the new name used by liberals for their global warming hoax, which they coined as it became obvious that there is no crisis in global warming.

Climate change occurs naturally, which scientists say has occurred in repeated cycles of cooling (see Ice Ages) and warming over millions of years. Yet many writers have been urging America to fund an ill-conceived initiative to "stop global warming", as if warmer nights or winters would make human life more difficult. The term "climate change" has largely replaced the term "global warming", in ideological discussions.

Ideologues insist that the world's top scientists have reached a "consensus" that most of the warming which land-based weather stations have recorded in the last century is due to human activity. The basis for this claim is a set of reports published by the IPCC, an agency of the United Nations. The assumption is that the government-appointed representatives who run the IPCC would be completely objective and neutral, and would place finding and revealing the truth ahead of any nationalistic interests.

A lot of money is spent publicizing each side's position in the debate:

"Newsweek purports to take readers inside the world of “Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine” without mentioning that the global-warming alarmists are even better funded, in some cases with government support. [3]

Ideologues use all sorts of tricks to convince the general public to support them on the climate change issue. A perennial favorite is to trumpet the current year as the "warmest year on record", as if one outlier denotes a trend. Probably the most insidious kind of trick is to accuse objective people of cherry-picking and censorship, while hypocritically doing just that themselves.

The allegedly harmful effects of climate change include warming temperatures, changing weather patterns, an increase in sea level and in general any climate event affected by global warming.[1] Climate change is one of the top environmental issues, with liberals and conservatives evenly divided on whether global warming is man-made or, if it is significantly occurring, is a natural event — along with global cooling.

Jack M. Hollander wrote:

The planet has warmed since the mid-1800s, but before that it cooled for more than five centuries. Cycles of warming and cooling have been part of Earth's natural climate history for millions of years. So what is the global warming debate about? It's about the proposition that human use of fossil fuels has contributed significantly to the past century's warming, and that expected future warming may have catastrophic global consequences. But hard evidence for this human contribution simply does not exist; the evidence we have is suggestive at best. Does that mean the human effects are not occurring? Not necessarily. But media coverage of global warming has been so alarmist that it fails to convey how flimsy the evidence really is. Most people don't realize that many strong statements about a human contribution to global warming are based more on politics than on science. Indeed, the climate change issue has become so highly politicized that its scientific and political aspects are now almost indistinguishable. [2] if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } What is the most important greenhouse gas? What is the role of clouds? Low-altitude clouds reflect some of the sun's radiation back into the atmosphere, cooling the earth. It's not yet known whether global warming will dissipate clouds, which would effectively speed up the process of climate change, or increase cloud cover, which would slow it down. [4] What are the uncertainties in understanding climatic change? The UN's climate panel said recently there is a 90% chance that most of the last 50 to 100 years of global warming are due to human activity Sallie Baliunas points out that the same climate panel also said, "Our ability to quantify the human influence on global climate is limited because the expected signal is still emerging from the noise of natural variability, and because there are uncertainties in key factors" [5]

Many times, AGW advocates pay lip service to general principles which they themselves violate, while broadcasting false accusations that their opponents are violating these principles. The AGW side has made every effort to censor their opponents, heaping enormous pressure on scientists and other academics to silence them. Accordingly, the US media gave great publicity to James Hansen when he accused NASA of trying to silence him.[4]

The main contention of environmentalists like Al Gore is the argument that:

The earth's atmosphere warmed one or two degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 Centigrade) during the 20th century. Most of this warming is man-made. The warming is likely to continue and to be harmful to human, animal and plant life. We must all work together to stop it by reducing emission of greenhouse gases.

Jack M. Hollander wrote:

... climate change remains a fascinating and important scientific subject. Climate dynamics and climate history are extraordinarily complex, and despite intensive study for decades, scientists are not yet able to explain satisfactorily such basic phenomena as extreme weather events (hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts), El Nino variations, historical climate cycles, and trends of atmospheric temperatures. The scientific uncertainties about all these matters are great, and not surprisingly, competent scientists disagree in their interpretations of what is and is not known.[5]

William Happer wrote:

The current debates about global climate change are complicated by our not understanding the physics of the sun or of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans well enough to dismiss them as major causes of climate change on the earth. Dramatic climate changes like the medieval warm period at the time of the Viking settlements of Iceland and Greenland from about a.d. 900 to 1250, and the subsequent “little ice age,” from about 1250 to 1700, which led to extinction of the Greenland settlements, were certainly not caused by manmade changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.[6]

One of the major problems with many scientists' conclusions about climate change is a misunderstanding of correlation versus causation. Some studies show correlations between increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases and increasing precipitation, and between human activity and atmospheric greenhouse gases, and then go so far as to conclude that humans are causing increased rain, snow, and catastrophic flooding.[7][8] Correlation does not imply causation. This is especially true considering the relatively short periods of data used (a few decades at most) compared to the Earth's age, and the fact that weather patterns have been cyclic throughout history (see climate cycles).

? http://chaser.env.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~kengo/lec/IPCC_TAR-FRONT.pdf? http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-2875898_ITM Global Warming: Both Sides? "Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas ..." [1] ? Hansen "shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change" [2] ? http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-2875898_ITM? http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817939326_27.pdf? Gillis, Justin. "Study Links Rise in Rain and Snow to Human Actions." The New York Times, February 16, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/science/earth/17extreme.html?_r=2&ref=science? Schiermeier, Quirin. "Increased Flood Risk Linked to Global Warming." 2011. Nature, Vol. 470, p. 316. http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110216/full/470316a.html

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ABC Journalist Calls Out Karl Rove: ‘Stop Scaring People’ About Background Checks

During a heated debate about gun regulations on Sunday morning, ABC News’ Terry Moran accused Karl Rove of using “Orwellian” language to scare people about background checks, noting that the federal government is not seeking to confiscate guns but rather keep them out of the hands of criminals and people who are mentally ill.

Discussing proposals that would require private sellers to maintain records of the background checks they perform, Rove falsely claimed that the government would maintain a “registry if a grandfather wants to give a treasured shotgun to his grandson or granddaughter” and keep a “national registry of gun sales and gun purchases and gun owners.” Moran hit back at Rove, noting that he was spreading “paranoia” and “fear” in order to build opposition against the measure:

MORAN: Karl — stop scaring people, you’re scaring people with this Orwellian sense, that black helicopters and the government are going to confiscate Americans’ guns. That kind of paranoia fuels…

ROVE: Will all due respect, it’s not paranoia.

MORAN: Who is going to confiscate all of the guns?

ROVE: People have a fear of this. Why do it? Why do you need it? …

MORAN: The result of this is that all the votes that have been taken since Newtown have weakened gun control.

Watch it:

The proposals currently being drafted would require a background check on all gun purchases including those by private sellers while exempting family and temporary transfers. In some of the drafts being circulated, private dealers would have to maintain records for all private sales, while other exempt non-commercial private sales from record keeping. None of the bills would maintain a national gun registry, which is already illegal under current law. But the record keeping provision is important, advocates claim, to ensure that the checks are being properly conducted.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 88 percent of Americans, including 85 percent of gun owners, believe “those purchasing firearms at private sales and gun shows should undergo a background check.”

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Bloomberg on assault weapons ban: ‘We’re going to get the vote’

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) pledged that supporters of an assault-weapons ban would get a vote in Congress.

“We've been fighting since 2007 to get a vote. We are going to have a vote for sure on assault weapons and we're going to have a vote on background checks,” said the prominent gun-control advocate in an interview aired Sunday on NBC’s "Meet the Press."

“If we were to get background checks only, it wouldn't be as good as if we got both, but look, we demanded a plan and then we demanded a vote. We've got the plan, we're going to get the vote,” he said.

Bloomberg’s comments come after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced earlier this week that the Senate would vote on a gun control bill after returning from Easter recess. Reid, though, decided not to include a measure for a federal assault weapons ban, a key provision backed by the White House and Bloomberg.

Reid said Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) proposal could have hampered passage of other gun control measures. Efforts to heighten restrictions on gun ownership face an uphill struggle, with strong opposition from GOP lawmakers and the nation’s gun lobby.

Bloomberg will also personally fund a $12 million national campaign to target swing state senators to back gun control. The ads are slated to run in 13 states over the Easter recess. But the Bloomberg ads will press for background check legislation, which gun reform advocates believe has the best chance of becoming law, making no mention of assault weapons.

Bloomberg defended his efforts on gun control Sunday, saying that he had a "responsibility" as a public official to push for safer gun laws.

"I think I have a responsibility, and I think you and all of your viewers have responsibilities, to try to make this country safer for our families and for each other," he said. "And if I can do that by spending some money and taking the NRA from being the only voice to being one of the voices, so the public can really understand the issues, then I think my money would be well spent, and I think I have an obligation to do that."

Bloomberg's move though attracted a sharp rebuke from National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. 

LaPierre who also appeared on NBC said Bloomberg would realize he "can't buy America."

"He can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public. They don't want him in their restaurants, they don't want him in their homes. They don't want him telling them what food to eat; they sure don't want him telling them what self-defense firearms to own," said LaPierre.

Bloomberg met on Thursday with Vice President Joe Biden to discuss gun control efforts, and at a joint press conference warned that voters would watch Congress closely and expect action on gun control after last December’s traffic mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut.

“I don't think there's ever been an issue where the public has spoken so clearly, where Congress hasn't eventually understood and done the right thing,” said Bloomberg on Sunday.

“If 90% of the public want something, and their representatives vote against that, common sense says, they are going to have a price to pay for that. The public is going to eventually wake up and say, ‘I want to put in office somebody that will do the things that I think are necessary for this country,’” he added.

Gun-control advocates believe that legislation to mandate checks on all firearm purchasers has the best chance of passing Congress this session, with an assault weapons ban facing a much tougher fight.

President Obama, though, has made calls for an assault weapons ban a key element of his proposals to stem gun violence. In his weekly address he again urged lawmakers to vote on a series of gun measures including bans on the sale of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity clips.

“These ideas shouldn’t be controversial — they’re common sense,” Obama said. “They’re supported by a majority of the American people. And I urge the Senate and the House to give each of them a vote.”  

This story was published at 7:35 a.m. and has been updated.

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Rep. Rogers: Syria ‘red line has been crossed’

By Molly K. Hooper - 03/24/13 11:42 AM ET

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee on Sunday warned there was “mounting evidence” Syrian President Bashir al-Assad has used chemical weapons and said the red line calling for a U.S. response “has been crossed.”

“When you look at the whole body of information over the last two years, there is mounting evidence that the Assad regime has used at least a small quantity of chemical weapons throughout the course of this conflict," said Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Rogers comments come after reports earlier this week of an unconfirmed chemical attack in Syria.

President Obama, who was in Israel earlier this week during a three-day tour of the region, vowed that he would investigate the reports and said that the use of chemical weapons would be a “red line” inviting U.S. action. Such an attack would be a “game changer,” Obama added.

Asked if Obama should take action, Rogers said "that red line has been crossed." 

The chairman said top GOP and Democratic members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees believe that "if we're going to do something, now is the time." 

"If we are going to have any hope for any diplomatic solution to stop the wholesale slaughter - up to 70,000 and more - in Syria, which is now spilling up to the doorstop of Israel ... this is a growing destabilizing event. The fact that they have put chemical weapons in a position to use and I believe have intent, and at some course during the last two years have used some quantity of chemical weapons, this needs to be a game changer," Rogers noted.

He warned that administration "indecision in this case" would be dangerous.

The White House hopes to reach a diplomatic solution to end the conflict, which has dragged on for over two years, but lawmakers from both sides are intensifying calls for the administration to do more to aid the Syrian rebels. 

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday called for arming opposition forces and launching strikes against Assad’s missile batteries. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) has introduced legislation in the House to provide weapons to some rebel groups vetted by the administration.

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