Posts tagged Joe Biden

Did the Assault Weapons Ban Work? (Part 2)

101
3 months ago
by Reed Davis in

David Kopel in his interview.

As I men­tioned last time, David Kopel, a pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Den­ver, was on the Decem­ber 17th edi­tion of The PBS New­shour. Regard­ing the assault weapons ban, he said the following:

Well, I think we can look at what hap­pened when she had her 10-​​year in the past. The Con­gress, when it enacted that ban, also ordered that a for­mal study be done of the results of it.

The study was per­formed by the Urban Insti­tute, a very well-​​respected, some­what left-​​leaning think tank in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. The Urban Insti­tute reported that it had no effect on homi­cide rates. There was no sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fit in terms of sav­ing lives.

As I described in Part 1, the Urban Insti­tute study reached no such con­clu­sion. In any event, David Kopel was back on the Jan­u­ary 16th edi­tion of The PBS New­shour, dur­ing which he said the following:

Well, the Depart­ment of Jus­tice con­ducted a study of the effec­tive­ness of that ban, pub­lished it in 2004, after it had been in effect for nine years, and con­cluded it had done absolutely no good. No lives were saved. There weren’t fewer shots fired in shoot-​​outs with police offi­cers or any­thing else. So it was — it’s a proven fail­ure.

Once again, Kopel is claim­ing that the offi­cial stud­ies con­cluded that the assault weapon ban did “absolutely no good”. (more…)

Vice Presidential Debate

171
7 months ago
by Monotreme in

Martha Rad­datz, mod­er­a­tor and light­ning rod.

Tonight is the only Vice Pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2012 elec­tion, mod­er­ated by Martha Rad­datz of ABC News. The venue is Cen­tre Col­lege in Danville, Kentucky.

The stakes for tonight’s con­test were raised by Pres­i­dent Obama’s per­for­mance in the first Pres­i­den­tial debate, which most pun­dits regarded as lack­lus­ter. Accord­ingly, the pre-​​debate pos­tur­ing has begun.

The Daily Caller and Tucker Carl­son have claimed that Rad­datz has a con­flict of inter­est because Barack Obama attended her 1991 wed­ding to Julius Gena­chowski. At the time, both Obama and Gena­chowski were Har­vard law stu­dents. Rad­datz and Gena­chowski were divorced in 1997, and Rad­datz is now mar­ried to NPR cor­re­spon­dent Tom Gjelton.

The Democ­rats will try to cut off the Repub­li­can team’s momen­tum that they gained from the Den­ver Pres­i­den­tial debate. Biden’s exten­sive for­eign pol­icy expe­ri­ence and four years of inten­sive, on-​​the-​​job train­ing as a val­ued advi­sor and assis­tant to Obama are his strengths.

On the Repub­li­can side, Ryan will try to close the deal. He has been in Con­gress 14 years, and has worked in pub­lic ser­vice his entire adult life (with the excep­tion of a stint at the wheel of a Wiener­mo­bile). He now chairs the House Bud­get Com­mit­tee and is the prin­ci­pal author of the Repub­li­can plan to cut the deficit, pri­mar­ily by repeal­ing Oba­macare and replac­ing the cur­rent Medicare fund­ing sys­tem with a voucher-​​based fund­ing model. (more…)

Talking Heads September 11

5
1 year ago
by Logarchism.com in

Memo­r­ial foun­tains show the foot­print of the twin towers.

Talk show day is upon us again. This week is, unsur­pris­ingly, all about Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001…well, except for Bloomberg’s Polit­i­cal Cap­i­tal. Accord­ing to Politico, here’s the lineup for this week:

Meet the Press (NBC) — Spe­cial cov­er­age of the anniversary.

This Week (ABC) — Broad­cast from Ground Zero.

Face the Nation (CBS) — Also broad­cast­ing from Ground Zero, with inter­views of White House coun­tert­er­ror­ism adviser John Bren­nan, for­mer Defense Sec­re­tary Don­ald Rums­feld, New York Mayor  Michael Bloomberg and the for­mer mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

Picture of Rudy Giuliani

For­mer Mayor Rudy Giu­liani brings his own nouns and verbs

State of the Union (CNN) — Broa­cast­ing live from…you guessed it…Ground Zero, with Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, for­mer Bush White House chief of staff Andrew Card, for­mer CIA Direc­tor Michael Hay­den, and Rumsfeld.

Fox News Sun­day — Bren­nan, Rums­feld and Giu­liani appear here with Sen­a­tors John McCain (R-​​AZ), Dianne Fein­stein (D-​​CA), and Joe Lieber­man (I-​​CT); and House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Chair­man Mike Rogers (R-​​MI).

News­mak­ers (CSPAN) — This show is preëmpted this week by CSPAN’s spe­cial cov­er­age of the anniversary.

Polit­i­cal Cap­i­tal (Bloomberg TV) — This is the only show not cov­er­ing the story of the day. Instead, Sen­a­tor Mike Crapo (R-​​ID) will talk about the con­gres­sional super­com­mit­tee charged with find­ing at least $1.2 tril­lion in deficit-​​reduction measures.

Buck Up!

0
2 years ago
by filistro in

(From FOX NEWS) Pres­i­dent Obama and Vice Pres­i­dent Biden both used unusu­ally tough lan­guage this week to describe their own sup­port­ers. In an inter­view with Rolling Stone released Tues­day, Obama accused many of being apa­thetic, self-​​defeating pes­simists. “It is inex­cus­able for any Demo­c­rat or pro­gres­sive right now to stand on the side­lines in this midterm elec­tion,” he said. “The idea that we’ve got a lack of enthu­si­asm in the Demo­c­ra­tic base, that peo­ple are sit­ting on their hands com­plain­ing is just irre­spon­si­ble.” Obama said pro­gres­sives tend to see the glass “half-​​empty” and are apply­ing that trade­mark bit­ter­ness toward the health care pack­age because “it didn’t have every bell and whis­tle that we wanted” like a government-​​run insur­ance option. But he urged the base to “wake up,” rec­og­nize the leg­is­la­tion he’s signed on every­thing from health care to finan­cial reg­u­la­tion to stu­dent loans and con­sider the alter­na­tive — Repub­li­can lead­er­ship that is “to the right” of for­mer Pres­i­dent George W. Bush.

The inter­view was released after Biden used sim­i­lar terms to account for the enthu­si­asm gap in the party. At a cam­paign stop for New Hamp­shire Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates Mon­day, he urged Democ­rats to “stop whin­ing.” In an inter­view with MSNBC, Biden also traced voter “anger” in the Demo­c­ra­tic base to dis­ap­point­ment over the scope of the health care pack­age. “Because there was no pub­lic option, some of them are so angry they say we’re not going to par­tic­i­pate. They should stop that,” he said. “Those who don’t get … every­thing they wanted, it’s time to just buck up here.”

So, what do you think…is this effec­tive? Is it wise? Will it serve the desired pur­pose, or be counter-​​productive?  Opin­ions among lefty com­men­ta­tors seem to be all over the place. Sur­pris­ingly, though, the rank and file seems fairly united. Today Ed Schulz asked his view­ers on the daily phone-​​in poll, “Was Obama right when he told Democ­rats to “buck up?” I waited all through the pro­gram to hear the answer…(not easy for me, because I find Ed’s voice to be  like fin­ger­nails on a chalk­board.) I thought the break­down from his far-​​left audi­ence would be 50–50 at best, and more likely 70–30 against the President’s tough language.

The result, when it finally came… Yes…96%. No…4%.

Go to Top