The debate on firearms dominated the interviews today so major developments in the Russia investigation were subordinated to a brief end game conversation on today's "Meet The Press," but justifiably so.
David Brody from the Christian Broadcast Network made the point that people in the heartland [of America] don't care about the Mueller probe and memos and convoluted talk of Russia oligarchs, which makes total sense. Fmr. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest lent the perspective that they may not care now, but when the investigation is finished and Mr. Mueller reports his findings then people will be listening. Basically, what they're telling you is that the American people aren't paying attention to the investigation and because it doesn't effect their daily lives, they don't care. Fair enough. It does remind me of how the American people came around on their collective opinion of the invasion of Iraq. At one point, many people were lead to believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 and that the dictator had weapons of mass destruction. When the heartland started really paying attention to things, it came to conclude that the Iraq War was a terrible decision. People will come around.
But for the readers of a blog such as this, the intrigue of the Russia investigation continues and this week saw the Special Counsel level more charges against Paul Manafort, a cooperation with Rick Gates, and the release of the Democratic memo, which refutes the political motivations of the FBI as outlined in the Nunes memo. (You can read the entire memo below):
U.S. HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE MINORITY MEMO
It's also worth noting, American Enterprise Intitute's Danielle Pletka's point that the connection between Trump and the Russia investigation is constantly reinforced by Trump himself, and that the Special Counsel hasn't come forth with any such evidence. But given what the evidence that Mr. Mueller's investigation has presented, we know that the same Russian oligarch that we mentioned in last week's column, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that owns the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg is also running a mercenary army made up of Russian soldiers in Syria. As Chuck Todd flatly stated, these Russian mercenaries attacked American soldiers and American-backed troops.
This is a grave matter and the president has no stated position, opinion or plan in light of this revelation. Nor does he acknowledge any sort of need to protect our elections - more examples in an endless line of instances where presidential leadership is need and is absent from this Administration.
Despite the Administration's inaction, it's good to know that individuals in congress, like Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) are putting legislation forward the puts some regulatory measures on advertising placed on social media, a minimal first step, but absolutely necessary. There are regulations for advertising in all other media spaces, why not on social media?
I don't even want to get started on the whole conversation about where Republican Congressional leaders have been in all this, which is nowhere to found.
But...
As Mr. Brody explained, the people of Peoria aren't concerned about the Russian investigation, and I guess by extension Russian soldiers under no flag attacking American soldiers or that a foreign power launched a cyber-war against the United States. (I know, that's not necessarily true, but...)
What they care about is the gun debate, Mr. Brody mentioned, and really it is no less important so understandably it took over today's conversation because we're witnessing the beginning of a political change in this country on guns. The biggest loser will be the NRA, whose own defensive rhetoric is working against itself.
As the panel noted, the NRA's rhetoric is outdated and tone-deaf [David Brody], showing little to no sympathy for the victims, and people are turned off by it as they should be. After so many mass shootings, the argument for every other factor except for the availability of the gun, assault weapons especially, no longer holds up.
When NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch says that the mainstream media loves mass shootings for the ratings and the organization's head, Wayne LaPierre, blames Democrats and their socialist agenda about eliminating the Second Amendment, there is no reason to take you seriously anymore because of its uncompromising extremism.
Corporations who had partnership deals with the NRA are now walking away. Apparently, many companies gave discounts to NRA members and by them walking away, NRA memberships are less enticing because you don't get all those discount benefits that are promised. The question is why did these companies have these discount programs with the NRA in the first place? You get a special discount because you own a gun? How American.
And hardening schools... What does that even mean? The big idea from the right is to arm teachers as President Trump suggested, nay - the NRA suggested and the president repeated. If teachers were armed then they could confront a shooter and protect students, hence needing more guns in the equation to solve the problem. Arming teachers is idiotic on so many levels.
For Mr. Trump, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA), Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) and anyone else who thinks it's a good idea to arm teachers, they have no idea what they're talking about. It's a terrible proposal. Teachers are at school to teach, not to be an armed guard. There really aren't enough columns one could write on why this is such a bad idea. The tragic hypotheticals are endless and the questions about how these guns would be handled in the school leave no one feeling comfortable, to say the least. But ludicrous ideas like this advocated by figures on the national stage like the president and Senator Toomey say leave it to the school districts and states to decide. That's what is called passing the buck so that you can stand by ideology without having to take responsibility.
Conversely, None of the proposed regulations such as raising the purchase age or prohibiting bump stocks or requiring universal background checks or banning assault weapons like Mr. Massie argued would stop a mass shooting unto itself, which is an effective argument that gun advocates make because it's true. However, each put the responsibility on a single segment of the society when we all have to be responsible. As a society we haven't been and several measures need to be taken. "Well regulated" doesn't impede "not infringed" which are two phrases used in the Second Amendment. So we should be able to accommodate both.
Panel: Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Josh Earnest, fmr. White House Press Secretary; David Brody, Christian Broadcast Network
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