Spocko's Brain

Dear Emma, Cameron and David:

As I predicted the day before you went to Tallahassee, certain politicians pretended to listen to you, and then did what the NRA wanted.  On Saturday your Florida Senators voted 21-17 to defeat an  amendment to ban sales of AR-15s.
Who didn’t pass it?
This guy: Joe Negron, Senate President, (Hey didn’t you meet with Joe?  What did he say then vs. what he did now? ) 

Joe Negron, Florida Senate President, Republican @joenegronfl
NRA Grade A+ 

Negron voting record and endorsements on guns

And these people.

1. Baxley
2. Bean
3. Benacquisto
4. Bradley
5. Brandes
6. Broxson
7. Gainer
8. Galvano
9. Grimsley
10. Hukill
11. Hutson
12. Lee
13. Mayfield
14. Passidomo
15. Perry
16. Simmons
17. Simpson
18. Stargel
19. Steube
20. Young

What is your next move? I won’t tell you what to do, because everyone is looking at YOU to do things differently this time than what was done by us veterans of the gun law fights.

One thing that you might want to do differently is not to accept this vote. There are things you can do in addition to voting these politicians out in November. Act now!

For example: You can employ additional pressure. David, remember when you asked students to not come to Florida for Spring Break if there wasn’t an AR-15 ban? There isn’t! Now it’s time for your friends to start making calls to hotels, airlines and theme parks canceling reservations. 

If your friends do that right now the big business folks will make some calls to senators at home, on Sunday! (Old people call each other on the phone, they don’t tweet or text, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tweet at them today. )

Make it clear:
NO AR-15 Ban, No Spring Break Dollars!

When the money they are counting on stops coming in the tourism folks freak out. Three of the top 10 destination cities were in Florida.
After Miami, Orlando was No. 3 and Fort Lauderdale was No. 10. And Spring Breakers drink a lot of beer. About 38 percent of alcohol consumed and shared on social media was beer.

When lawmakers are getting calls at home from Budweiser, Disney, Universal, Hilton, Marriott, Delta and United they will know things are different.  Politicians need to know this isn’t BUSINESS as usual. 

Nobody wants to be on the side of the NRA now. Every normal person wants to be on YOUR side. You are the hot new band, the streaming hit.

Lawmakers still think they need to listen only to the NRA, and it will be fine. But you might want to start following the Delta story.

It looked like the NRA won, costing a major employer a tax break. But it also pissed off a major employer, and that is going to cost those politicians. Delta execs are not stupid. Any money that Delta might have been giving to NRA politicians will dry up right now. And that is what REALLY scares the politicians.

Cameron, you asked Marco if he would stop taking NRA money. He said no. Imagine if OTHER business execs said this to your state politicians “We aren’t going to give you money either because you didn’t do the right things by these kids. Also, don’t try and screw us like Georgia politicians did to Delta. These kids are our future customers. They are our kids and our friends’ kids. You picked the wrong horse to back in this race.”

When rich old people are double crossed by politicians they punish them by taking away their money. The NRA uses this leverage on politicians to keep them in line.  But there are more  people on your side now, ask them to help you out by not giving money to those politicians on that list. It’s a pretty easy ask. ‘Hey, stop giving money to these jerks!”

Also, now that you have CNN producers’ emails, ask to go on some of those Sunday shows.  Nobody you know watches them, but big business types do because they want to see if their name is mentioned. You could have a lot of fun if there was a Florida lawmaker on who had to explain why he just couldn’t do an AR-15 ban and now Spring Break revenues will be down 78%.

NO AR-15 Ban means NO Spring break money! Spring breakers on South Beach in March 2015. Al Diaz MIAMI HERALD file photo

Speaking of explaining and excuses. I watched the senators try and spin their bill. “We did so much good stuff! Like money for people with guns in schools! We came up with more money to turn schools into fortresses, but we just couldn’t pass an amendment to stop AR-15 sales because that would COST THE NRA MONEY.”  They are selling this as a WIN! They will whine that you all should be grateful they are getting you more armed police. As Emma would say. “It’s BS.”

But don’t listen to me, I don’t want you to be accused of being a puppet whose strings are pulled by big money interests. (BTW, if anyone asks if you are funded by George Soros say “No, I’m funded by George Clooney!” It’s true! Even I think he’s dreamy, and I’m a logical Vulcan.)

Who am I? I’m just a fictional Star Trek original series character who developed the model that destroyed the right-wing media advertising model costing them 100’s of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

I hope you can do something different this time because otherwise this is looking more and more like the darkest timeline, and I really don’t want to grow a goatee, but I will if I have too.

UPDATED: Most companies have cut ties with the NRA.Yesterday: First National Bank Enterprise Alamo National

Today: Symantec LifeLock MetLife Chubb SimpliSafe Teladoc Hertz Allied Van Lines NorthAmerican Van Lines Avis Budget Wild Apricot

More details: https://t.co/uUhabbHdxF pic.twitter.com/e4pkAaRwgH

— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) February 24, 2018

UPDATED 2-24-2018 Today United and Delta have cut ties with the NRA. Parkland students ask spring breakers not to come to Florida unless gun legislation is passed.

As my friend Eric Milgram, spokesperson for the Newtown Action Alliance has said, make this an economic issue. Make the firearms industry pay the full costs of the damage their products do.

I’ve shown in the past with right-wing radio hosts that corporations don’t like to be associated with a toxic brand. But they often need a negative news event about the group or person to cut ties.

The Parkland shooting was another occasion for activists to ask corporations, “Do you still want to associate with the NRA brand?”  Today 16 of them said no.

My friend Amanda Gaily, president of Nebraskans Against Gun Violence, put it this way.

“It’s time to withdraw support from the slaughter lobby.” 

It is possible to convince folks in any state . . . → Read More: How To Cut Off The Slaughter Lobby’s Money Stream

My friend Eric Milgram, from the Newtown Action Alliance, was on MSNBC today to talk about the Parkland school shooting.

The administration is trying to make this shooting about mental health. Eric brought the focus back to the gun lobby and the politicians who enable more guns everywhere. When asked about what to do next he said the usual: universal background checks and more funding for mental health, but he the took a turn that I encourage. Make the firearms industry pay.

http://www.spockosbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/EricMSNBC3-17-2018.mp4

This is a line of activism that needs to be developed.

Here is the whole segment.

http://www.spockosbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/ScreenCaptureProject247.mp4 Recommend on Facebook Tweet about it Email this!

Today’s quote about activism.

“It is ignored ‘til it makes a bang” – Zeynep Tufekci on protest movements.

I’ve determined that cities in states with super gun preemption laws may need to rewrite their insurance requirements for special events on city property. If they don’t, the cities will be on the hook financially for gun accidents on city property. Insurance vendors for municipalities need to review city policies to ensure the city is correctly insured.

City risk managers need to understand that it is their fiduciary duty to protect the city from expensive liability lawsuits on their property.

If the city decides to pass this burden to others, such as vendors holding events in their parks and convention centers, they need to inform the vendors, and the vendors’ insurance agents. If vendors find out that insurance costs go up 1000% they will look for other venues.

But all of this is just background noise ’til it makes a bang.

The stories about the financial impact of guns take a back seat to the physical impact of guns.

It’s hard to make news when you prevent an accident. Passive methods that prevent gun injuries aren’t newsy.

So what CAN make . . . → Read More: Making A Bang with Gun Activism

Did you know that Trump could have launched a nuke today? It would have been in response to a false alarm in Hawaii.

No law could have stopped him. Only “norms” — and as we know, he’s not good at following those.

On December 1, 2016  Alex Wellerstein, a historian of nuclear weapons at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.  wrote a piece for the Washington Post explaining how and why the whole system was set up so the president — and only the president — could decide when to launch.  No one can stop President Trump from using nuclear weapons. That’s by design. 

[Trump] will have sole authority over more than 7,000 warheads. There is no failsafe. The whole point of U.S. nuclear weapons control is to make sure that the president — and only the president — can use them if and whenever he decides to do so. The one sure way to keep President Trump from launching a nuclear attack, under the system we’ve had in place since the early Cold War, would have been to elect someone else.

I’ve been listening to the book Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and . . . → Read More: No Laws Stopped Trump From Launching A Nuke Today