Monday, March 03, 2014

Still Waiting to Score

Click to enlarge.
I had a rude and raging Fairfax loyalist go ballistic on me yesterday. He called me a liar for truthfully reporting that NRA's statement of opposition to the Murthy nomination for Surgeon General does not state that confirmation votes would be scored.

It doesn't. See for yourself.

And that is inconsistent with past practice:

As background, when I called NRA ILA's media office before writing my article, they could not tell me if the Murthy confirmation would be scored and have still not responded to my request for a "yes" or "no" answer.

I'm aware that a report came out after I published my column that says the vote will be scored, and even linked to that in an update. What I'm not aware of is any public statement by NRA ILA directly confirming this.

I have tried again.

If anyone is aware of any official statement by NRA on this, please provide a link.  The object is not to "bash" NRA, it is to make sure the senators are put on notice in a way they can't miss that their vote will have actual political consequences.

Why NRA won't just pledge to score and be done with it is unknown. I'd be happy to stop tugging on their sleeve about this and spend my time focusing on other pressing matters.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even when they do score, it's a big beltway joke and a plausible deniability fraud on the membership, otherwise about 25 dirtbags with phony As & Bs wouldn't be senators today. Asking NRA management to score votes like this is effectively asking them to lie to us, because that's what they will be doing if they say they will score it.

Anonymous said...

I see your point that the grades are phony anyway but this can also be used show that. They sure seem afraid to make a public statement. Looks like they were hoping the WT piece would give them cover. This way, when they are ignored, they can hang Miller out to dry and claim they never promised to score and she must have misunderstood. If I were her I’d be going back to my source and telling them they got me into this, now issue a statement and get me out.

Anonymous said...

I see your point too, I agree with your point, and I offer another point for your consideration.

The NRA could easily defeat this nom if it took one of its phony A rated Dems, downgraded him to the F he deserves, and said "Who wants to be next? Vote for this guy and you go to an F and stay there through the next election." But to do that, they would actually have to *want* to kill the nom, and they would be admitting they gave the Senator a phony A and elected him in the first place.

No Senator could survive an F rating in places like Montana. If NRA management were not a bunch of Vichy collaborators, there is no way any Senator who needs an A to survive in a pro-gun state would ever vote anti-gun -- overt or covert, direct or indirect, high-profile or low-profile. They would never vote for bans, Soviet style "prohibited person" schemes, anti-gun leadership, anti-gun noms, or coup d'etat by amnesty or over immigration. Nor would they support other anti-gun candidates for other offices.

Anonymous said...

And of course the NRA wouldn't sponsor or cosponsor these schemes either.