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**JUNE 6, 2022**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Bullets and Biden's Bully Pulpit
Sometimes a feeble compromise is worse than nothing.
The Senate is on track to enact "bipartisan" gun legislation
that falls far short of what's needed to prevent mass gun violence.
What's needed is a ban on sales of military assault weapons that serve
no purpose other than to kill people. But that's not even on the
table.
President Biden has been caught between two contradictory strategies.
One is to achieve something that can pass for incremental "progress."
The other is to make clear that the blood of children is on the hands of
Republicans, and to remind voters that this key issue differentiates the
two parties. It's hard to do both things.
In his Thursday prime-time speech
,
the struggle was palpable. Biden explicitly called for a ban on assault
weapons and on high-capacity magazines, items not on the agenda of a
bipartisan Senate working group. He added, "My God, the fact that the
majority of the Senate Republicans don't want any of these proposals
even to be debated or come up for a vote, I find unconscionable."
Amen. But as a number of commentators have pointed out, you don't
trash the other side when you are ostensibly seeking common ground.
An annoyed Lindsey Graham tweeted
that he
was "ready to work across the aisle to find common ground-something
that was absent from President Biden's address to the nation." And
another Republican who is part of the Senate group seeking compromise,
Pat Toomey, chided Biden for putting forth "policies that he knows for
sure have no chance of passing the Senate, probably couldn't even get
50 votes and hold the Democrats, much less get the 60 we would need."
Biden is in a tough spot because some of the Democratic senators who are
the most passionate champions of gun control, such as Connecticut's
Chris Murphy, are hoping to get half a loaf. But that could well turn
out to be crumbs.
Among the proposals under discussion are red-flag laws, or better
background checks. It's not at all clear that these would have stopped
the shooters in the Buffalo or Uvalde massacres; or the man who killed
his spine surgeon and three others at a Tulsa hospital because his back
still hurt.
The bipartisan deal under discussion won't come close to solving the
problem. But it will give Republicans cover to claim that they have made
progress and are not the gun nuts their critics depict.
On both counts, Biden's own gut instincts are far better than the
advice of those around him to support an incremental compromise. The
Republicans are indeed unconscionable, and worse. Public opinion seems
to grasp that. It's Biden's moment to lead.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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Therapy by and for Black Women
Racial trauma research is having a new day as the scientific community
finally acknowledges the burden of being Black. BY RAMENDA CYRUS
Rick Caruso's Potemkin Campaign
The mall developer has spent over $30 million to buy the mayor's seat
in Los Angeles. But his policies and messaging are as fake as his
shopping centers. BY DAVID DAYEN
Sam Bankman-Fried's Multimillion-Dollar Game
He is spending prodigious amounts on lobbying and elections to ensure
that crypto is lightly regulated in the future. BY TIMI IWAYEMI
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