This isn’t a send-up — Russell Gallo needs a systematic detoxifying program or whole body cleanse, a religious retreat or period of spiritual reflection and a smack up the side of his head
Obviously, Gallo’s heart and his spleen are in the right place, but posts like his 3/21/13 “Dianne Feinstein is Reprehensible” on the “Brooklyn GOP Radio -Official- Show Blog” [http://brooklyngopradio.blogspot.com/2013/03/dianne-feinstein-is-reprehensible.html] are completely an unsatisfactory waste of his time, effort and ability — and for the rest of us, just so much waste.
Russell Gallo should know that lines like these: “Like most liberal pieces of _______, [as in original] Senator Feinstein is a hypocrite. They believe they are the ‘elite’ and that we are...” may serve as a venting exercise for the speaker or writer, but they neither win friends nor influence people.
Ultimately, what little “argument” was being advanced by Mr. Gallo was mixed up with his seething rage and overwrought irony. That really doesn’t matter because Gallo’s little "argument" is transparently cheap and dishonest. Mr. Gallo writes that, “She says here [in the video link contained in Gallo’s post] that she bought a gun to protect herself, her family, and her property. I guess her life is more important than mine, yours, your mother, and your children.” I don’t believe that Senator Feinstein has ever said or advocated any position that holds that adequately vetted American citizens should be prohibited in any way from obtaining a gun, just like she did, to protect themselves, their families, and/or their real and personal property.
Gallo then stated that Senator Feinstein recently proposed a bill that would ban hundreds of specific models of guns that are currently legal to own. However, that isolated fact is not logically connected to any other fact; nor is it linked, other than by physical proximity on a page, to any particular conclusion.
Lastly, what are we supposed to do about Russell Gallo’s concluding lines, “In the end we deserve what we get. Elections have consequences and far too many of our neighbors are either uninformed or simply stupid. If you are offended by that statement then think about which category you fall in...” ? Well, I’m very offended by that statement, for the same reason I wrote above, “Lines like this ...neither win friends nor influence people”; furthermore, even though I am offended, I certainly don’t fall into any of the categories suggested by Mr. Gallo. Moreover, Gallo’s concluding lines simply do not present any coherent conclusion relative to the proposition, “Dianne Feinstein is Reprehensible.”
Gallo can do better than this. He owes it to himself and to the rest of us to do so. As I said above, he needs a systematic detoxifying program or whole body cleanse, a religious retreat or period of spiritual reflection and a smack up the side of his head, and the last should be first.
6 comments:
Who do you suggest to do this intervention ?
UPDATE: Russell Gallo just refuses to be good when it’s so easy to be bad. — It seems that he’d rather misquote a U.S. Senator than properly debate the gun issue
Rather than bring real substance to the gun debate, and argue about the full meaning and import of the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – including the right to legally keep and bear some assault rifles and arguably many other military-style weapons – Gallo persists in his cheap, dishonest and personal attacks on a senior United States Senator.
In his most recent post on the “Brooklyn GOP Radio -Official- Show Blog” (possibly posted by Mr. Gallo in response to my post above) Russell Gallo resorts to making a false charge that Senator Feinstein would have preferred to have prohibited and removed all guns from “...Mr. and Mrs. America” when she only helped pass the “Assault Weapons Ban” into law in 1994 ( See ““The Reprehensible Franken-Feinstein” by Russell Gallo, 3/22/13, “Brooklyn GOP Radio -Official- Show Blog” [http://brooklyngopradio.blogspot.com/2013/03/th-reprehensible-franken-feinstein.html]).
Here’s what Russell Gallo had to say in his latest post, almost all of it about Senator Feinstein:
“Here she is back in the 90s saying things like: *** ‘If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States, for an outright ban, picking up [every gun]… Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in.’ *** This monster (Feinstein) tipped her hand back in the 90s with what she (and the Democrats) really want to do....”
Gallo included a video link to a 45 second portion of a clip of the Senator making her “statement.”
All of what Gallo presented in his most recent post was a gross canard. The Senator was taken completely out of context; and Gallo’s editorial addition of the words “every gun” makes the statement a complete misquote of the senator, as it is was presented in print.
What the 45 second clip actually does show is California Senator Feinstein discussing shortcomings of the assault weapons ban, which had been passed as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. She was specifically discussing why the 1994 act only prohibited the manufacture and/or import of certain “assault weapons,” instead of the complete prohibition of the possession and sale of all such assault weapons. The clip was taken from an interview by Leslie Stahl on CBS-TV's “60 Minutes” program, that first aired on February 5, 1995.
It was during that program that Senator Feinstein said the lines, whose meaning was completely misrepresented to the point of misquotation by Russell Gallo. These are the words that were spoken: “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here.” Any fair-minded person who looks at the complete segment will see and hear, that taken in the context of the entire segment by Leslie Stahl and/or in the particular interview of Senator Feinstein by Ms. Stahl, when the California senator says “picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in” Feinstein is referring only to “assault weapons” and not to “[every gun]” as appears in Gallo’s version of the quote.
Don’t just take my word for it; look at the whole thing on a clip of “Sixty Minutes” where the Feinstein quote first appeared ( See “What Assault Weapons Ban?” by Leslie Stahl, 8/1/99, “Sixty Minutes” [http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7380236n], this is a post-Columbine rebroadcast of the segment that originally aired on February 5, 1995, Senator Dianne Feinstein’s interview and the particular quote appears at about the 3:20 – 4:00 minute mark of the 13 minute 28 second segment).
Gallo and Galemassey should talk about New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s “Gun Trafficking Prevention Act” making the individual movement of most guns into New York a Federal Crime.
They talk about criminals and transporting guns to commit felonies, but in New York under the S.A.F.E. Act just having most of these guns unregistered is a felony – so the bill would make it a FEDERAL CRIME for most individuals to transport almost any guns to sell or give to somebody else in New York that don’t comply with all of the other federal and state and local gun laws. Also under the Gillibrand and Maloney Bill, it would make all individual gun-owners responsible to conduct background checks and register all gun transfers – “to protect them” from prosecution. Just read what Gillibrand says about her own gun bill at >>>> http://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/agenda/protecting-communities-by-keeping-illegal-guns-out-of-new-york.
UPDATE: Russell Gallo's bad Feinstein material is still posted on the "Brooklyn GOP Radio -Official- Show Blog". There is no correction or addendum, nor any acknowledgement whatsoever of the post and comments that appear above, although the substance of this criticism is known to those operating the "Brooklyn GOP Radio -Official- Show Blog."
UPDATE on another front closer to home: What “some people,” like Russell Gallo, have to learn is that the “political debate” on many topics isn’t about making noisy and unsubstantiated pronouncements. Since Gallo says that he cares about the anti-gun fervor of some politicians, why doesn’t he focus a little closer to his home in Brooklyn; and talk about the NYS S.A.F.E. Act, which was supported by the “-Official-” Gallo’s only Brooklyn GOP home-grown elected official, State Senator Martin Golden. Relax, Russ, I’m not bashing that “______ [as in Gallo’s original text]” Martin Golden today, I’m going to let his friend, Andrew Cuomo make some noisy and unsubstantiated pronouncements that the governor wants to make about the NRA and others, who oppose and want to challenge the NYS S.A.F.E. Act in court.
According to Colin Campbell’s post in today’s Politicker blog, “Governor Andrew Cuomo said he’s unfazed by pro-gun groups like the National Rifle Association and their lawsuits against New York’s new gun control legislation. Indeed, Mr. Cuomo took his argument a step further this morning and labeled the legal efforts ‘propaganda’ and part of a plot to ‘misinform and scare people’.” (“TAKING AIM – Governor Cuomo Blasts ‘Propaganda’ Lawsuit Against State Gun Law” by Colin Campbell, 3/25/13, NY Observer/Politicker [http://politicker.com/2013/03/governor-cuomo-blasts-propaganda-lawsuit-against-state-gun-law/] ). Here’s a little more of what New York State’s Governor Cuomo had say :
“This is about their organizations and their membership and their propaganda,” he said. “This nation passed an assault weapons ban before. This state, under George Pataki–a Republican–passed an assault weapons ban before. We banned the new sales of assault weapons; people with assault rifles have to register it. And, by the way, people have been registering handguns for many, many years. … This whole theory of, ‘Well, government will have a list and then they’ll come to our house and take our guns because government doesn’t want us to have guns because it’s how citizens defend themselves.’ There’s been a handgun registry. … Has it ever happened? They have to get real!”
Maybe, I’m wrong; but it seems to me that Governor Cuomo is acting quite fazed by both the organized and unorganized push-back that he is getting over his anti-gun S.A.F.E. Act in New York — and how that might be effecting his national ambitions for 2016. All of that seems quite "REAL" enough.
See Mr.Gallo, no potty-mouth words, no misquotes and nothing out of context — but the point is still being made --- both with respect to Andrew Cuomo's remarks and yours.
UPDATE: Russell Gallo didn't need to misquote Senator Diane Feinstein out of context to make his point, he only needed to wait a few days for the official national gaff machine, Vice President Joe Biden, to give old Galloots all the ammunition he needed to wail against Democrats and liberals to his heart's content.
According to many published reports, on Wednesday, the Vice President spoke by conference call organized by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns and what he had to say was truly remarkable at this juncture in the national gun debate. Vice President Joe Biden told supporters of several proposed federal, state and local gun laws that the federal push on gun control would not end with the current proposed bills in the U.S. Senate.
This is just one piece of what Biden said, ".... And lastly, but not least, the Assault Weapons ban and the limitation on the size of magazines, let me say this as clearly as I can: this is just the beginning. We believe that weapons of war have no place on our streets. That’s the message that the retired admirals and generals have spoken to us about. The comment one of them used was: if you want to learn how to use a semi-automatic weapon, join the United States military, but these are weapons of war, and we believe there’s no rational reason why someone would need a clip that can hold fifteen, twenty, thirty, one-hundred bullets, one-hundred rounds. We have to do more and we will do more."
Appropriately channeling John Lennon, Biden added, "Imagine what a world it would be if every weapon purchased could only be fired by the person who purchased it, and everyone who purchased it was entitled to have that weapon if they had passed a background check."
However, in the same set of remarks Joe Biden acknowledged that gun control wouldn't solve the problem.
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