In other news today………

Reid has had to pull the gun bill from consideration.

From TheWashingtonPost

“Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced Thursday that the Senate will “take a pause” and return to consideration of gun legislation at a later date.”

“Reid’s decision came the day after President Obama’s comprehensive gun control effort suffered defeat in the Senate, with all the major proposals he backed failing to gain enough votes.”

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How Obama misread the politics of gun control. From NationalJournal

“Watching President Obama’s fury after Congress failed to pass any gun-control legislation was a sign of his political helplessness. Despite aggressively pushing for expanded background checks, despite enlisting the victims of recent gun violence to lobby their representatives, despite getting one of the more conservative senators to support a watered-down background-check measure, he fell five votes short of getting anything passed in the Senate, including losing four members from his own party.

If this doesn’t demonstrate the limitations of the president’s political muscle and the influence of his newly minted Organizing for Action lobbying group, I don’t know what does. Yet, despite the embarrassing setback, Obama nonetheless argued that he still held the upper hand, politically: “If this Congress refuses to listen to the American people and pass commonsense gun legislation, then the real impact is going to have to come from the voters.”  That couldn’t misread the political environment heading into 2014 anymore. That’s the audacity of mope.

Put simply, the 2014 Senate elections will be fought predominantly on the very turf that is most inhospitable to gun control–Southern and Mountain West conservative states. It’s no coincidence that three of the four Democrats who opposed the Toomey-Manchin bill are facing difficult reelections in 2014 and presumably are attuned to the sentiments of their constituents. Blame the National Rifle Association for the bill’s failure, but the lobby is feeding into already deeply held opposition to gun regulations and a broader sense of anxiety about the president’s and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s intentions–particularly given the president’s past publicized remark about “bitter” rural voters who “cling to their guns and religion.”  It doesn’t take much for the gun-rights crowd, significant in these states, to jump to inaccurate conclusions given that history.”

Inaccurate conclusions? I think he’s describing Obama, not the “bitter clingers.”

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We’ve all seen the President and Senate Dems pitching fits over the whole thing in front of the cameras. But the fits the media are throwing over their failure to persuade the commoners is just as bad. From Politico

“Even by the standards of today’s partisan media environment, the response has  been noteworthy. Television hosts, editorial boards, and even some reporters  have aggressively criticized and shamed the 46 Senators who opposed the plan,  while some have even taken to actively soliciting the public to contact them  directly.

The decision by some members of the media to come down so  firmly on one side of a policy debate has only served to reinforce  conservatives’ longstanding suspicions that the mainstream media has a  deep-seated liberal bias.

“I guess the liberal media get annoyed when Senators listen to their  constituents and think for themselves, rather than doing the media’s bidding,” Bill Kristol, the editor-in-chief of the Weekly Standard, told POLITICO.”

Bias? What bias? 🙄

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So the President plans on doing the only think he can. Make like a third world dictator and do it by decree. From TheWeeklyStandard

“Joe Biden says the president of the United States is preparing to take “executive actions” to deal with guns.

BuzzFeed reports:

Vice President Biden told White House allies in the gun control fight Thursday that President Obama will be announcing new executive actions on gun violence in the days after the Senate voted down a gun violence bill.”

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Meanwhile the Senate has a bi-partisan amendment to prevent the media from releasing gun owner info, with strong support.

From TheWashingtonExaminer

“Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., in an attempt to prevent local newspapers from publishing lists of gun owners in a given area, convinced 66 of his colleagues to support an amendment that cuts funding for state and local governments if they release the information.

“If a state or local government releases private information on gun owners — which we know has happened — then that state or local government will lose part of its funding that comes from the Federal Government,” Barrasso said while arguing for the amendment.  “This includes private information on individuals who have licenses to purchase, possess, or carry firearms.”

Wow. Look at that. Some common sense for a change.

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ObamaCare is causing rate increases? 😯

Say it ain’t so! 🙄 

But Dems like Franken would like you to believe it’s not true, just an insurance industry plot or something. From KaiserHealthNews

“Few aspects of the Affordable Care Act are more critical to its success than affordability, but in recent weeks experts have predicted costs for some health plans could soar next year.

Now health law supporters are pushing back, noting close ties between the actuaries making the forecasts and an insurance industry that has been complaining about taxes and other factors it says will lead to rate shock for consumers.

“Most actuaries in this country — what percentage are employed by insurance companies?” Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, asked an actuary last week at a hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.”

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And for the last one today, another abortion related story the national media will ignore. From LifeNews

“The former director of a leading abortion advocacy group who was caught in a child sex sting pleaded guilty to his crimes.

Scott Richard Swirling, who was the director of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), was arrested for attempting to arrange for a sexual encounter with a twelve-year-old girl. He was charged with traveling across state lines to engage in illicit sexual conduct, a crime which carries a penalty of up to 30 years.”

“Sexual predators who impregnate underage girls rely on cooperative abortion clinics to cover up their crimes.  As Live Action, Life Dynamics, and others have documented, Planned Parenthood abortion clinics frequently fail to comply with mandatory reporting laws,” it said.

“The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association strongly supports taxpayer funding for abortion clinics.  Many Planned Parenthood affiliates are NFPRHA members,” it added. “There is no mention of Mr. Swirling on the NFPRHA website.”

That’s not surprising.

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