Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Idea III: Everybody's mad at the NRA

Liberals are, of course, mad at the NRA about a thousand issues concerning gun control.

But conservatives are hopping mad at them too. It seems that NRA's cutting a deal to get an exemption has made passage of the campaign finance disclosure bill more likely. So conservatives are blaming them for "denying free speech to the American people."

If that needs a little parsing, here it is. The bill in question would require disclosure of the identity of donors who give large amounts of money to entities like the NRA, which then takes the money and lavishes it on political campaigns to buy their way into control of legislation.

Conservatives wanted to defeat the bill -- claiming it limited freedom of speech (code for limiting their ability to buy elections). They see NRA as betraying their cause, because conservative Democrats beholden to the NRA will now vote for it.

I'm just happy for anybody to be mad at the NRA, whatever the reason.

Ralph

1 comment:

  1. And there's also the possibility that the exemption won't survive in the Senate -- especially if other conservatives are mad enough at the NRA to vote for the bill anyway.

    Wouldn't that be a lover-ly outcome?

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