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.
- Baxley
- Bean
- Benacquisto
- Bradley
- Brandes
- Broxson
- Gainer
- Galvano
- Grimsley
- Hukill
- Hutson
- Lee
- Mayfield
- Passidomo
- Perry
- Simmons
- Simpson
- Stargel
- Steube
- 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.
