The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Murphy may have ruled out 2020 election bid
Wait, did Sen. Chris Murphy just take himself out of the 2020 presidential race? It seemed as though he did when used the R-O words on a CBS podcast last week.
R-O is “rule out.” You see, in the rarefied world of Washington journo-speak, political figures can say they’re not running for president because they are focused on their upcoming re-election, which is what Murphy told the interviewers, including CBS White House correspondent Major Garrett.
But then Murphy was asked whether he would “rule out” a run in 2020, a verbal construct that has considerably more sticking power.
“Am I ruling it out?” Murphy asked. “Here we go, I’ll rule it out for you.”
Whoa! That certainly seems pretty dispositive. But in a subsequent interview on ABC, Murphy went back to deflect-thequestion mode, saying: “I have an election in 2018 and so, all of my focus is on asking the people of Connecticut to send me back to the United States Senate.”
But, in the Kabukicraven argot of politicalreporter-obsessives, he added he would “cross bridges” if and when they appear after 2018.
Confused? Well, you have good company.
The wonder of it all is why would Murphy even bother to rule out or say anything very much at all about 2020?
He’s way, way ahead in fundraising with his main Republican rival Dominic Rapini, so at this point his 2018 re-election is hardly in doubt. But the dust heap of political history overflows with ashes of political hares so ahead and confident that they didn’t see the tortoise catching up. Anyone heard of Hillary Clinton?
Feeling stonewalled
Sen. Richard Blumenthal jousted with Attorney General Jeff Sessions on a host of topics — FCC’s power to take away TV licenses for criticizing President Donald Trump, the Constitution’s “emoluments” clause (think Trump hotel here in D.C., a popular international supplicant watering hole) and a host of other topics.
It was Sessions’ first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee since his confirmation hearing in January. Since then, Sessions and the Justice Department have sat in the eye of the storm over special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s TrumpRussia investigation. Sessions has even incurred the unbridled wrath of Trump himself.
The net result of Blumenthal’s Q&A? Not too much. Sessions tried to smile and laugh his way through Blumenthal’s questions, even asking Connecticut’s senior senator him to name his “source” for how he knew Mueller had contacted Sessions for an interview.
But during the course of the hearing, Sessions did offer up a few interesting tidbits. For one, Russian interference in the 2016 election is real, which undercuts Trump’s longstanding claim the whole thing is a “hoax.” For two, he said he respected Mueller and hoped for a fair conclusion to the investigation, again at variance with Trump.
Blumenthal was less than satisfied.
“This hearing was long overdue and lacking in forthright clear testimony on critical topics,” he said. Sessions “essentially stonewalled the committee.”
Debating bump-stock blame
Scott Wilson, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, is one of many closely following debate in Washington on bump stocks, the aftermarket device that essentially turns a semiautomatic rifle into a fully automatic machine gun — legally.
When I asked for his take on the issue, I expected a pro-gun kind of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” kind of response. Instead, he forwarded a video, which had already been taken down by YouTube for “dangerous or harmful content.”
Well, Wilson managed to convey two videos that weren’t in YouTube’s crosshairs. One depicted a man with a semi-automatic blowing off rapid-fire bursts by hooking the trigger around one of his belt loops.
Another showed a second shooter with a Hungarian semi-automatic rifle who got it to fire similar bursts by planting the metal stock against his shoulder and contorting his thumb and trigger finger into a simulated hook. His point?
In the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting, Congress “can ban bump stocks, they can do whatever they think they need to do to prevent future acts of this kind,” said Wilson, whose organization represents roughly 28,000. “But it boils down to whether they want to kill a whole bunch of people, they can find a way to do it.”
He called congressional proposals to ban legal bump stocks “feel-good legislation.”
We’ve heard the argument before. Take away guns and they will use knives — or trucks, for that matter. Murphy and others on the gun-violence-prevention side would counter that every time Congress fails to act after a mass shooting, it gives virtual license to the next killer.
You may think of Wilson as the most unpopular guy in the state, but he doesn’t see himself that way.
“I know our cause is unpopular with some, and I do get the occasional email that speaks to that,” he said. “But I’m OK, I sleep well at night knowing I stand up for principles I believe in.”