We asked the progressives to take the pledge to not vote for a bill that doesn’t have a strong public option. I’ve got news for them and a new pledge—not for them, for us.
If the final bill has Stupak in it, no more votes, no more volunteering, no more money for any of them.

I pledge to give all I would have given to any or all dems henceforth to the NNAF to help fund the abortions for poor women who will not have any access to them.

It’s the least I can do. What about you?

Ready to take the pledge?

One of the problems dealing with the sales force of any industry, such as firearms and other political forums, is in how they begin every possession on your twenty yard line. And we allow it, without thinking about it.

There is a hidden protocol in all Second Amendment discussions which upholds private firearms ownership for Freedom, or some other noble symbol authorizing treason and homicide in defense of personal preference, plus the right to kill animals easily from a safe distance. And so any opposition must declare, yes, there’s that, but maybe we should trim back the edges of the monstrous flow of weaponry into our cities and onto our streets.

You can never win an argument based upon reason. You can never convince a member of Congress, say, of a rational approach to what LBJ long ago called "this insane traffic in firearms" because you simply don’t have the funds to amplify your speech sufficiently to be heard. That congressperson has a sinecure based upon votes which are paid for by the highest bidder, and that means they may agree with you in private during the monthly koffee klatsch back in the district, but they won’t do it at work. As our Secretary of State declared earlier this year on the issue of drug cartels and violence on our borders, the administration just is not ready to take on the NRA right now. (Indeed, Bill Clinton himself cited that as a factor in why there won’t be a Democratic loss in Congress in 2010 like that of 1994.)

If crime is to be controlled, we must control the weapons with which so many crimes are committed.

We must end the easy availability of deadly weapons to professional criminals, to delinquent youth, and to the disturbed and deranged.

We must stop the flow of firearms into dangerous hands.

It is not enough to say that gun control is a state responsibility. States with gun control laws now stand helplessly by while those laws are flouted daily by the unchecked sales of guns by mail.

Our Federal responsibility is clear. It is promptly to enact legislation, such as S. 1592, to regulate and control interstate traffic in dangerous firearms.

The front pages of our newspapers make us acutely aware of the human tragedies that flow daily from the unchecked purchase of firearms. Recent Congressional hearings added abundant evidence of the gravity of this problem.

There is no need to curtail the right of citizens to keep arms for such traditional pastimes as hunting and marksmanship. But there is a pressing need to halt blind, unquestioned mail-order sales of guns, and over-the-counter sales to buyers from out of state whose credentials cannot be known.

Only the federal government can give the several states and cities their first real chance to enforce their own gun laws. We must do so without further delay.

There’s a rallying cry for you about defending your own twenty yard line. I hope everyone will jump on the bandwagon – which was looking for passengers 9-Mar-1966, when LBJ delivered the address from which the above was taken to a joint Congress.

You can see another of my voices from another room on this subject right here.

One of the really great things about Firedoglake is its community; they are really loyal and have created a rhythm both out front and behind the scenes which regular readers have come to love.

Today and probably again tomorrow, this rhythm is likely to be out of sorts, and for good reason.

We now locked into the battle for health care reform and the public option which we have been working towards for months and years; for many of us and our fellow Americans, this battle is a matter of life and death.

You’ll see that some of our regularly featured authors may be pushed back or cut short as we try to bring you news about this historic debate taking place in Washington D.C.

Watch here for new and important content from our affiliated sites as well as our regular content as time and history permit.

And do let us know if you see something very important to the community taking place during the debate.