Mitch McConnell, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and most other Republicans are champions when it comes to playing \u201cKick the can down the road.\u201d You can fill in the blank after the euphemistic six words: \u201cNow is not the time to \u2026\u201d Sometimes they add two more words to make a full sentence, \u201cNow is not the time to play politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The mass shooting in Las Vegas is just another example of avoidance and distraction. The gunman, Stephen Paddock, had over forty rifles. He had an arsenal sufficient to kill nearly sixty people and wound over five hundred. But it\u2019s not the right time to talk about gun control.<\/p>\n

Well, I suppose that you could say that if a meteor landed on your head, \u201cnow would not be the right time to discuss gravity.\u201d Unlike gun violence, being bopped upside the head by a meteor is not something that is man-made, and it does not require a man-made solution.<\/p>\n

When, if ever, do Republicans think that it is the right time to talk about gun control? We all know that this is a specious question, because they never want to talk about. Whether we\u2019re talking about Sandy Hook or the Pulse Nightclub shooting, or Las Vegas, it doesn\u2019t matter. Now is not the time and there never will be a time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that different from their views on health care. The myriad of plans that Republicans had to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act all seemed to be missing something. In a word, we\u2019re talking about talking.<\/p>\n

Some people think that Senator John McCain\u2019s reasons for opposing the latest versions in the Senate of repeal and replace were minimalist. He did not necessarily say that he opposed the policies presented by his Republican colleagues. Instead, he said that a process was not being followed, a process that involves study, dialogue, deliberations and conversation. He was saying to Mitch McConnell and others, \u201cNow is the time to talk about health care.\u201d That seemed to be too much for his Senate leadership to accept; after all, with health care, we were only talking about one-sixth of the entire American economy.<\/p>\n

Republicans are good at playing the news cycles. They know the drill. Something serious happens, the media comes in and covers it with varying degrees of serious consideration followed by what often is a maudlin aftermath. By then, we\u2019re all worn out and ready to move on. And by then, Republicans can be confident that America does not have the appetite to give serious consideration to issues like gun control or health care.<\/p>\n

One of the things that we work with students on is \u201cB.S. Detection.\u201d Five-year-olds begin to get the hang of it; by the time that kids are ten, they have a good handle on it. But there seems to be a certain numbing and dumbing nature to much of our education system and Republicans definitely know how to capitalize on that. So, they can say, \u201cnow is not the time to \u2026\u201d and they get away with it because not enough of the public sees the B.S. in it. Shame on them; shame on us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mitch McConnell, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and most other Republicans are champions when it comes to playing \u201cKick the can down the road.\u201d You can<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1988,2582,843,1656,2347,1528,1929,202,834],"tags":[1510,1877,3122],"yoast_head":"\n