She booked a small venue, and then packed the room.
In the hour prior to the 6:30 p.m. start, her campaign filled the room with upbeat music from the 1980s. As she entered the room the volume increased, and the song was Eye of the Tiger, by Survivor. After her speech, the song American Girl, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, pounded out of the loudspeakers.
She was confident, articulate, and presented herself credibly as a can-do, jobs-oriented governor who exemplified the immigrant experience of upward mobility and She did not talk about Trump, January 6, or abortion. More about all this in future blog posts.
Rick Millward's Guest Post today addressed guns, and it was the only "tough" question she got. A woman presented herself as a mom worried about the safety of her school-age children. Haley addressed her worries, saying that guns were not the problem. She said she had a concealed gun permit herself and fully understood why Americans would want to carry a gun for personal protection. One out of four Americans has some kind of mental illness, she said. (Really. One of four. That is what she said.) She said the reason we have mass shootings is that so many people have undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. Therefore, we need a huge increase in mental health professionals, especially within schools. We don't need mere "guidance counselors," she said. We need mental health professionals, one in every school. We also need an armed police officer in every school. We need a single point of entry for every school building.
As a quick parting comment. If DeSantis' campaign continues to struggle under relentless criticism by Trump, and the fallout from a 6-week abortion ban and his fight with Disney, I would expect Nikki Haley to rise in visibility and begin to be taken seriously as a plausible contender. She packages a set of policies that would be acceptable to both Trump supporters and Trump-wary Republicans who want the MAGA message and a toned-down nastiness. She is energetic and articulate, in a way that Biden most certainly is not.
As I write this I am preparing to go next door to watch a Trump rally. I am simultaneously hearing a TV report detailing the testimony in Trump's trial for defamation following sworn testimony that he raped a woman in a department store dressing room. So strange.
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14 comments:
She's right about the 1 in 5 stat, but the percentage who are dangerous are the ones with access to guns, who use them for suicide, sometimes taking others with them.
The majority of those diagnosed are garden variety cases of anxiety and depression, both very treatable with drugs and therapy. It often first manifests itself in childhood, but I don't think placing the burden for identifying those in need should be on educators, that's really not practical if you really think about it, which Nik clearly hasn't. However, a mental health eval could be part of a standard pediatric workup, which would include family history, etc.
The fortification of schools is becoming a standard Republican trope, and I'm surprised to hear she didn't advocate for a 9mm on every teacher's hip. This kind of security will make schools prisons in reverse, will cost a fortune, not address the actual issue, and traumatize kids even more.
I'd like to hear more about charging the health insurance companies with covering these services, as well as efforts to remove the stigma and ignorance surrounding the issue, but as expected the Republican solution is...wait for it...more guns.
President Pistol Annie...
It sounds like Nikki Haley could satisfy the gun nuts. In a way, she’s right: Gun violence is a mental health issue. If Republicans weren’t so flat-out crazy, they wouldn’t insist on making it so easy for everyone to obtain guns designed to quickly kill as many people as possible.
However, polls show the majority of Republicans also agree with the core tenet of the “great replacement theory,” that a group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views. I wonder how she plans to pander to those nut cases.
“ One out of four Americans has some kind of mental illness, she said. (Really. One of four.)
Easy to believe. I think something like 30% of repubs support trump. If so, that means a minimum of one in THREE republicans have mental illness.
I'm sure the mental health statistics are about the same in every first-world country, so clearly that would not be a differentiating factor in explaining the extreme rate of gun deaths in the U.S. So, Haley is obviously an idiot for telling us that those are her thoughts and recommendations for a solution. Wow. And she seems so reasonable and nice!
I'm sure...
Did you do any research? Or is this just what you think in your mind?
Also, I Googled: Percent of Americans with mental illness
Answer: According to Johns Hopkins, the answer is 1 in 4 Americans.
I realize that this blog attracts many readers that grew up without search engines and the internet. But we all have access now. Try doing a little bit of research before posting something fake, misleading or ridiculous that can be fact-checked very easily.
Let's not contribute to the dumbing-down, stupidity and anti-intellectualism of our country.
Also, please try to understand the DIFFERENCE betweens facts and opinions. Thanks
1 in 4, hello...which is accurate per Johns Hopkins
Mental health classifications are currently defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders (there are apparently 70). What’s a little amusing to me is that under “Definitions” it states “no definition adequately specifies precise boundaries for the concept of a ‘mental disorder’”. I’m not a mental health professional, but it seems anyone can simply state that bad behavior, or gullibility is a catch all sign of a mental disorder; and who can argue with that? There are no precise boundaries.
“ The solution is actually pretty simple; reduce the number of guns”. Good idea, Rick; any idea how to do this? We certainly can’t go to peoples door and demand that they surrender their guns.
Didn’t Australia drastically reduce their number of guns by offering to pay for them? Maybe that would work.
At the very least, I think we should pass laws where it’s fine to own automatic and semi automatic weapons AS LONG AS THEY REMAIN AT THE OWNERS' HOMES. Take them out in public, and you risk losing them, plus you face jail time. Win win situation lol
Or we could simply ban those bad-boy guns. Like you said, that worked for bazookas. I wonder how that was done without the IRA calling for civil war?
Haley and Anonymous are right – we have too much mental illness in the U.S. Every gun seller should be required to have a licensed, qualified psychologist on hand to administer a mental health exam to every gun buyer.
Alternatively, we could limit gun buyers to purchasing only those guns that that were available when the Second Amendment was written. Any self-respecting Constitutional Originalist would have to be on board with that.
Malcolm said:
Or we could simply ban those bad-boy guns.
Depending on what the Supreme Court thinks about that.
Why is the part about "wel-regulated militia" always conveniently omitted?
Make all gun owners perform state regulated community service and store their guns in an armory.
GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley says President Biden would likely die within five years if re-elected — warning his supporters they’d have to contend with Kamala Harris in the Oval Office.
Haley doubled-down on criticism of Biden’s decision to run again after the 80-year-old — the oldest president in the nation’s history — announced his re-election campaign Tuesday.
“I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” Haley, 51, told Fox News.
Good idea
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