Daily Kos: Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Gun responsibility, autism ...

Team 26 riders supporting a team member up a long hill
Photo Credit: Becky Frank

Team 26 rides again!! This time, it's cycling to the 5th Annual Mothers United Against Violence March in Hartford. Gun violence affects inner cities as well as affluent suburbs. We are all in this together.

Dana Milbank:

?Don?t get squishy,? President Obama told members of Congress.

But they already have.

Milbank's analysis, like that of most inside the Beltway people, has a fundamental misunderstanding of what's done at state level (see CT next week), what's done at Federal level (it's all about background checks and keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them) and what it takes to make sausage in Congress (slow consensus building). Think of it as parallel to those who looked at one poll and concluded Romney is ahead. The data suggests otherwise:

Newtown changed the debate. The Newtown shooting had a greater impact on public opinion about guns than any other event in the past two decades?and led to a clear rise in public support for stronger gun laws. In particular, three aspects about public opinion in the wake of Newtown are notable:

? Near unanimous support for universal background checks and clear majority support for high-capacity magazine and assault-weapons bans
? Almost as much support for stronger gun laws among gun owners as among the general public
? A large gender gap in views on guns and violence

Vaccines are not associated with autism. Still.

A new study adds to years of research showing that childhood vaccines do not cause autism, despite worries among a growing number of parents that their young children receive ?too many vaccines.?

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that even when multiple inoculations are given on the same day, children are at no higher risk of developing autism, according to the report published in the Journal of Pediatrics Friday.
?This study looked into the concern that receiving too many vaccines at one doctor?s visit or too many vaccines during the first two years of life may be linked to the development of autism,? the report?s lead author, Dr. Frank DeStefano told NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman. ?We found they?re not related.?

If you think they are, you're wrong. You're not only wrong, you've wasted years of everyone's time and effort. Give it up and move on.

Jonathan Bernstein:

I recommend a solid New York Times editorial today about the unprecedented, outrageous obstruction by Republican senators against President Obama?s nominees, especially his executive branch nominees.

It?s critically important to give this story as much attention as it deserves ? which is quite a lot. Just the names alone: Hagel, Brennan, McCarthy, Perez, Cordray . . . and that?s only the ones from this term whom the Times mentions. Remember, however, that every single nomination is being subjected to a 60-vote requirement. That?s a filibuster, and it means that every single nominee is being filibustered. The only question is how many Republicans will support the filibuster, not whether there is one. And as the Times points out, there are additional forms of obstruction, too, whether it?s Sen. Rand Paul?s day-long speech, or asking the nominees to answering never-ending extraneous questions.

Greg Sargent:

Okay, so here?s today?s edition of what Brian Beutler has labeled GOP ?sequester NIMBYism.?

A group of nearly 30 House Republicans (and a few Democrats) has written a letter to the Obama administration protesting implementation of the sequester. They claim the federal government ? because of the sequester ? is requiring a refund of money that has ?already been disbursed to states,? which is unfair, because those funds ?are already being used for rural schools, emergency services, infrastructure, and protecting communities from the risk of catastrophic wildfire.?

Whether these Republicans are right on the merits ? and perhaps they are ? this is yet another reminder of the degree to which Republicans are chafing at the sequester cuts (which some of them claim they wanted all along) when they hit programs these lawmakers like.

Joe Nocera on some things about the NCAA you probably didn't know.... but ought to.

An organization with a moral compass would have refused to allow itself to be a pawn in a segregationist effort to preserve an all-white team. But the N.C.A.A. has never had a moral compass.

An interesting environmental observation from my son, Stephen Dworkin:

The timing of Shell?s New Years Day crash is also significant. According to the company?s own admission, Shell was hightailing the Kulluk out of Alaskan waters when the rig ran aground in order to avoid a January 1 state tax assessment. This scheme illustrates a much broader truth about Big Oil: there is a gaping disconnect between oil industry profits and Americans? economic prosperity. There can be no ?trickle-down? to working families or local and state governments when it?s standard practice to risk oil spills in order to evade taxes.

WaPo on the "changing" GOP:

Slurs against Latinos, gays complicate GOP?s mission to broaden its tent

Yes, we've discussed it before here. No, it has not gone away.

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/30/1197970/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up-Gun-responsibility-autism-and-crazy-Republicans

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