Chad’s Morning Brief: Should Campus Carry be Added to the Special Session? Ted Cruz Seeks Help From the Grass Roots, & More
Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of August 1, 2013. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or on your iPhone/Android with the radioPup App.
1. Campus Carry (link)
Governor Rick Perry has called a 3rd Special Session to deal with Transportation. However, there are calls to add more to the session including Campus Carry.
State Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, authored a bill requiring colleges to allow individuals with concealed handgun licenses carry in classrooms earlier this year but was unsuccessful after Democrats blocked the measure in the regular session. Birdwell penned a letter to Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, House Speaker Joe Straus and the House's author state Rep. Allen Fletcher, R-Cypress, Tuesday asking them to create a legislative path on which the so-called campus carry bill could move forward.
“I know you share my concern that law-abiding Texans are being stripped of their God-given, Constitutional right to self-defense simply because they have set foot on a college campus,” Birdwell wrote. “I again implore you to give very serious consideration to instructing the legislature to consider the matter of personal safety and self-defense rights of faculty, staff, students and visitors on the premises of institutions of higher education.”
Lawmakers at the Capitol Tuesday said that a campus carry measure could be tacked on as an amendment to other legislation or added to the third special session's agenda by Perry. Tuition revenue bonds are also being discussed as possible expansions to the call.
Birdwell said it's “certainly an interest” to add a campus-carry amendment but pointed out that tuition revenue bonds haven't yet been added to the special-session agenda.
“That's too far out right now to tell,” Birdwell said. He said he hasn't received an indication from Perry that he would look with favor on the idea but added, “I would certainly want his very serious consideration.”
Birdwell emphasized that his proposal would apply to concealed handgun license-holders, who generally must be 21 years old (exception for veterans). Given that, he suggested that those carrying guns on campus would mainly be faculty, staff, visitors and parents.
He also said the same restrictions in current law would apply to college campuses, such as not being able to carry handguns into hospitals or athletic events.
Asked if he would leave it up to boards of regents, Birdwell said, “Where I'm at is it's a constitutional right, not subject to boards of regents. What the House passed out in the .. regular session had an annual review. Those would be things that would have to be worked out.”
Personally, I would love to see Campus Carry added to this session. What about you?
2. Cruz Seeking Help From Grass Roots (link)
Senator Ted Cruz is wanting to defund ObamaCare, but not all Republicans are with him. Cruz is now looking for help from the people.
Despite resistance from congressional Republican leadership, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is continuing with his fight to defund the federal Affordable Care Act, calling on grass-roots organizers to join his efforts.
“If ordinary Washington rules apply, we can’t win this fight,” Cruz said Wednesday during a conference call with Texas reporters. “We don’t have the votes, and we are unlikely to get the votes in closed-door meetings in Washington. The only way that we win this fight is if the American people rise up.”
Congress has 61 days remaining to pass a resolution to continue financing federal government operations when the 2014 fiscal year begins Sept 1. If the resolution isn't passed, mandatory spending — such as spending on Social Security and Medicare — would continue, while programs and agencies that rely on discretionary spending, such as defense and federal law enforcement, would be shut down until Congress passed a resolution to resume financing those operations.
“My focus for the next 61 days is very directly targeted to one thing, and that is working to defund Obamacare,” Cruz said Wednesday. “In my view, this is the best opportunity we have to defund Obamacare and quite possibly our last opportunity to effectively defund Obamacare.”
Cruz is calling on the 41 Senate Republicans and the 218 House Republicans to stand together and ensure that explicit language is added to the continuing resolution to prohibit any spending to implement provisions in the Affordable Care Act. Although he has the support of fellow Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have not signed on to support the plan.
Another Republican lawmaker who hasn't signed on is U.S. Senator John Cornyn. I will visit with him today at 9:15am.
3. Chris Matthews is an Idiot (link)
MSNBC's Chris Matthews again shows that he isn't very bright.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews called Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a "political terrorist" on Wednesday after the tea-party favorite called on fellow Republicans to defund Obamacare and said that a government shutdown wouldn't necessarily spell disaster for Republicans.
"I believe it's terrorism: This is the first time I've seen a political party, or even a fraction of it, say that their number one goal is to shutdown the American government, kill a bill that's already been passed by congress, and refuse to pay bills already run up by congress in an attempt to basically risk default," Matthews said on MSNBC's Hardball. "This is an attempt to destroy all we know of the republican form of government in this country."
The term "terrorist" elicited discomfort from both Republian strategist Steve Schmidt and former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, both of whom said the word should be reserved for people like the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.
"I disagree with your use of the word terrorist and its application to him," Schmidt said. "I think he's a demagogue, I think he's irresponsible, but I think when we use the word terrorist we apply that to the Boston bombers, we apply that to the September 11th hijackers -- I'm not comfortable with the word."
Axelrod later echoed Schmidt, saying he too was uncomfortable with the word "only out of respect for the victims of violent terrorists."
Matthews stressed that he had used the term "political terrorist" and that he would "continue to use it."
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