Lobbyists will be the big winners under ObamaCare

Here is an article from FoxNews.com suggesting that lobbyists will benefit most under the federal health care law.  This article was written after sixteen democrats sought delay in the "Obamacare" tax increases that puts a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices, which is scheduled to take effect January 1 of this year.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/12/who-benefits-most-from-obamacare-lobbyists/

Wednesday 16 Democrats who voted for ObamaCare suddenly decided that they don't like the new 2.3 percent tax on medical devices that is scheduled to take effect on Jan 1, 2013.
Good! They're hypocrites, but at least they've finally figured out that taxes kill good things. Minnesota Senator Al Franken calls it a "job-killing tax." No kidding.
The 2.3 percent tax is particularly evil because it will take 2.3 percent of sales, not profits. Some companies' profit is less than that, so this tax will kill them off. That's tragic. We need more medical devices, not fewer.
Al Franken was once my neighbor. Our kids went to school together. I tried to educate him about economics. I failed.
I assume what woke Franken up was learning that his state has the most medical device makers per capita of any state in the country. They donate to his campaigns. They pay people to lobby him. So suddenly he opposes this particular new tax.
That's how politics works. Online gambling is banned in the U.S., but online gambling on horse-racing is legal. That's buried in subsection (10)(D)(i) of Section 5,362 of Chapter 53 of Title 31 of the US Legal Code, where it says:
‘Unlawful Internet gambling' shall not include any activity that is allowed under the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978.
The horse-racing industry pays lobbyists.
A new bill proposed by another clueless senator, Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, would allow online gambling, but only for poker, and only to existing casinos "that have an established track record of complying with a strict regulatory environment."
That's logical, coming from a senator from Nevada. His state has most of the existing casinos! They'd love a government-supported monopoly on online poker.
Reid's bill would also require places that want to take bets on horse-racing to have:
(i) at least 500 gaming devices at one physical location; or
(ii) ...at least $225,000,000 in all-source gross wagering... during any 3 of the last 5 calendar years preceding the date of the enactment of this Act
How sleazy is that? Looks like Harry doesn't want his casino buddies to have competitors. His bill would even increase penalties for all other online gambling.
This is why companies spend billions on lobbying, and why land values in Washington, D.C., are at record highs. Law-making is good for lobbyists and politicians, but usually bad for America.

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Senate GOP failed on disability rights

Here is an article from CNN.com suggesting that the Senate Republicans made the wrong decision in choosing to block ratification of a United Nations treaty intended to promote the rights of disabled people around the world.  The reasoning for many conservatives not supporting the treaty was that the United Nations could potentially impinge on the rights of disabled people and their families in the U.S.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/08/opinion/piccone-senate-rights/index.html?hpt=op_bn6

(CNN) -- As human rights advocates around the world celebrate the 64th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this week, their counterparts in the United States are mourning the Senate's rejection last week of the international convention for disability rights. Appalling in its own right, the Senate Republicans' defeat of the 21st century's first human rights treaty is a sad but sharp reminder that misinformation and fear can still override fundamental principles of human decency and common sense.

More importantly, it is yet another blow to the United States' ability to play a leading role in promoting freedoms and human dignity in the world.

The international bill of rights adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, still stands as the gold standard in the daily fight for basic human rights today. As our societies democratize, mature and progress, human rights defenders are winning longstanding battles to expand the frontiers of rights to include women, children, indigenous peoples, LGBT communities and migrants. Economic and social rights are ascendant as well, as people make claims for the essentials of human life: water, food, health, jobs and education.

The United States has a long and generally bipartisan tradition of concern for human rights, a pillar of its founding principles. Americans also have been at the forefront of the global human rights movement for generations and consider ourselves a leading example for others of a rights-respecting society, even if we still have much work to do to improve our record. Indeed, it was Congress' passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 that paved the way for the international campaign for disability rights and which served as the standard for the treaty the Senate rejected.

When it comes to international law, however, some Americans get confused. The image of the United Nations as a supranational body with powers to insert itself into our living rooms persists even though there is no evidence to support it.

This myth-making, and its inherent contradictions, are in full display in Rick Santorum's bizarre opinion essay published last week in The Daily Beast. In it, the leader of the conservative movement, to defeat the treaty, claims that unelected U.N. bureaucrats could take away a parent's power to demand special education services for a disabled child. He then asserts that there is no point in ratifying the treaty because it "would do nothing to force any foreign government to change their laws or to spend resources on the disabled. That is for those governments to decide."

Precisely. The hallmark of the U.N. human rights system is its success in elaborating international standards for protecting a comprehensive set of human rights, monitoring states' respect for those rights and making recommendations for improving their records. In exceptional cases involving gross violations, such as war crimes and mass atrocities, governments (though not the United States) have agreed to a more robust set of mechanisms, like the International Criminal Court, to hold individuals accountable.

The emerging doctrine of responsibility to protect civilians has even been applied to prevent the slaughter of civilians in Libya. But these measures are a far cry from any alleged interference of U.N. lawyers in our schools and homes.

At the end of the day, however, national sovereignty trumps these efforts, leaving any state free to follow its own path for governing its people. For better or worse, that's the way it works.

There is a broader and more disheartening message that the world hears from Washington on this year's International Human Rights Day: The United States is losing its moral voice on human rights because it is not leading by example.

As one human rights defender remarked to me recently, his government routinely cites U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantanamo as justification for its own violations of human rights. When the exceptional case, like the "necessary" measures adopted to wage battle against terrorists, becomes the norm, we have lost a major source of credibility to promote basic principles of due process and "innocent until proven guilty."

Unfortunately, the conservative movement's victory in defeating the disability rights treaty is just the latest example of our political leaders' failure to convert high-sounding rhetoric into meaningful action when it comes to human rights. If a war hero Republican like Bob Dole, who uses a wheelchair, cannot persuade his colleagues to do the right thing, then we are all the losers in the battle for human rights.

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MILLER: Obama’s secret middle-class tax hikes

Here is an article from Emily Miller of the Washington Times suggesting that in addition to the wealthy receiving higher taxes, the rest of the American population will see an increase in taxes as well:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/10/obamas-secret-middle-class-tax-hikes/

President Obama continued to gallivant around the country on Monday, pushing to raise taxes on those deemed wealthy. The surprise will come in less than three weeks when the rest of us see our taxes go up as well.
Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, describes what the president is doing as political sleight-of-hand. “It’s a magician’s misdirection,” the anti-tax activist told The Washington Times in an interview. “Obama is keeping people from noticing that the same day that the Bush tax cuts disappear, the Obama tax hikes show up. His unstated tax hike deliberately raises taxes on all Americans, not just rich people.”
Five major Obamacare taxes take effect on Jan. 1 that will cost taxpayers a whopping $1 trillion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The elderly will find it more difficult to write off medical expenses on their income taxes when the medical deduction minimum goes up from 7.4 to 10 percent of adjusted gross income. Families that take advantage of pre-tax flexible spending accounts to pay for out-of-pocket health care expenses will be newly limited to putting just $2,500 into that account.
There’s also a new 3.8 percent Obamacare surtax on investment income for individuals who make over $200,000 a year. Combined with the hike under debate in the fiscal cliff talks, capital gains taxes would jump from 15 percent to 23.8 percent and dividends from 15 percent to 43.4 percent. The Medicare payroll tax will jump to 3.8 percent for wages and profits exceeding $200,000 — a provision that most affects small-business owners stuck with the bill for the whole payroll tax.
Even disabled war veterans will feel the pain of the Obamacare tax hikes. A sneaky provision imposes a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical device sales, which will drive up the cost of everything from artificial joints and prosthetics to lifesaving machines like defibrillators, pacemakers and stents. According to a poll by the Emergo Group, 58 percent of American manufacturers say they will pass along some or all of the new costs to consumers.
Mr. Obama is facing a backlash from his own party on this. A group of 17 Democratic senators and senators-elect, including three elected leaders, wrote a letter on Dec. 4 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking that the tax be delayed as part of the final negotiations on the fiscal cliff. The letter, obtained by Dow Jones, explains to Mr. Reid that the 400,000 people in the United States who work in the industry could be affected by the confusion and uncertainty on how to comply with the tax hike.
The Obamacare tax hikes will raise the cost of health care for everyone, kill jobs and suck a trillion dollars out of the economy. Since there appears to be a growing bipartisan consensus that letting these taxes take effect would harm the economy, negotiators should do everything in their power to stop them in a final fiscal cliff deal.
Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.

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Bob Costas can't shoot straight when it comes to guns

Here is an article from FoxNews.com suggesting that Bob Costas is misinformed about the gun culture in the United States and that he is backing himself into a further hole with his comments after his gun control monologue on "Sunday Night Football":

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/06/bob-costas-cant-shoot-straight-when-it-comes-to-guns/

Bob Costas doubled down on gun control Wednesday night on "The O’Reilly Factor" and Tuesday on MSNBC. Despite all the commotion generated by his rant on guns during halftime on NBC’s "Sunday Night Football,” he just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He called for restrictions on concealed handgun permit holders and reduced gun ownership in cities. Some Democratic lawmakers  followed Costas’ lead and called for more gun control this week.
Unfortunately, Costas’ statements were filled with errors on topics ranging from "body armor" to “automatic weapons” to the gun laws in Colorado to the views of police to the behavior of permit holders.
During appearances on both shows Costas worried about the “Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality” of America’s 8 million concealed handgun permit holders.
Regarding the Aurora, Colorado shooting he attacked: “people who actually believe that if a number of people were armed at the theater in Aurora, they would have been able to take down this nut job in body armor and military style artillery.” But Costas never asked why the killer picked the Cinemark’s Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado on July 20th to commit mass murder.
Despite what some might think, the theater chosen by the killer for the attack was neither the closest one to his apartment nor the one with the largest audience. Instead, out of the seven movie theaters within a 20 minute drive of his apartment showing the new "Batman" movie that night, it was the only one at that time where guns were banned. So why would a mass shooter pick a place that bans guns?
The answer should be obvious, though it apparently is not clear to Costas – disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks. And I have written elsewhere about many other such cases, such as the Columbine shooting.
It is true that the Holmes’ bullet resistant vest might have protected him from getting killed by a permit holder, but any hits on the vest would have likely knocked him down and stopped the attack. As to the “military style” weapons, Costas confuses how the outside of a weapon looks with how it functions.
None of the attacks that have been in the news involve machine guns. Costas claims that police agree with him about the dangers of permit holders: “In fact, almost every policeman in the country would tell you that would have only increased the [Aurora] tragedy and added to the carnage.”
As to what police believe, the 2010 annual survey by the National Association of Chiefs of Police found 78 percent of their members believed that concealed-handgun permits issued in one state should be honored by other states "in the way that drivers' licenses are recognized through the country"—and that making citizens' permits portable would "facilitate the violent crime-fighting potential of the professional law enforcement community."
Surveys of street officers show even more support. That none of the many multiple victim shootings that have been stopped by a concealed handgun permit holder has ever resulted in a permit holder accidentally shooting a bystander would also be a relevant fact.
Costas told O’Reilly: “it's far more likely than somebody playing Dirty Harry and taking this guy down that, over the course of time, there would be a dispute about somebody stepping on someone's foot on the line for popcorn and that dispute would escalate because somebody has a gun.” But if that is the case, why do murder rates rise around the world whenever guns are banned?
On Monday, Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, whom Costas has been quoting, asserted “the NRA is the new KKK” because it is trying to arm so many black gangs. Costas also expressed his justifiable concerns about “inner cities where teenage kids are somehow armed to the hilt.” But Costas’ and Whitlock’s response will hurt blacks.
There is a real drug gang problem in inner cities. But it isn’t any easier to stop the gangs from “being armed to the hilt” than it is to stop them getting illegal drugs. Police are probably single most important factor for reducing crime, but they almost always arrive on the crime scene after the crime has occurred. The question is whether law-abiding poor blacks will be allowed guns to defend themselves. As the most likely victims of violent crime, poor blacks living in urban areas benefit more than any other group from owning guns.
Finally, it isn’t just women and those who live in high crime urban areas who benefit from owning guns. Even large, powerful football players face a relative high crime rate because of their wealth. Though Costas downplayed last night, conceding: “All right, they -- they may feel that they need it for protection.” Instead, ascribing their gun ownership again to “Wild West cowboy Dirty Harry” and gangster rap videos.
Costas feels baffled by the response he has received because on Sunday night: “I never used the word ‘Second Amendment.’ Never used the words ‘Gun Control’,” but it was pretty hard to miss what he meant. He really didn’t leave any doubt when he said: “Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.”
Costas’ biggest problem is that he just made too many factually incorrect claims. All the interviews that he has given this week have only made that problem worse.

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News Media Overheard Coordinating Anti-Romney Questions

Here is an article from the Inquisitr discussing a report done by the TheRightScoop stating that several journalists could be overheard coordinating questions intended to stump Romney and put Romney in a favorable position:

http://www.inquisitr.com/329698/news-media-overheard-coordinating-anti-romney-questions-listen/

If you were holding out any hope that the mainstream news media would be fair to both presidential candidates this year, in a word “fuggedaboutit.

GOP nominee Mitt Romney fielded a whole bunch of hostile questions at today’s press conference about the anti-American violence in Egypt and Libya, and interestingly enough, those questions — which really amounted to badgering in an apparent attempt to trip him up about the his statement released last night — were apparently pre-planned by the journalists in attendance.

In a exclusive that was broken by TheRightScoop website, various journalists — including what is said to be a CBS reporter — were overheard on a hot mic joyfully coordinating their questions so that “no matter who he calls on we’re covered on the one question.”  The media seemed far more concerned with Romney’s statement than the loss of life in Libya.
The BigJournalism.com website noticed a trend:

[The media's] goal was to make sure that no question would address the substance of the crisis but instead put Romney on the defensive about made-up mistakes in his criticism of President Obama.
In the event, six out of the seven questions were almost exactly the same, all questioning Romney for his supposed mistake. (Romney handled the questions very well.)
…The nation is in the midst of a profound national security and foreign policy crisis, and the American people deserve to know why their government was asleep at the switch–as well as what the position of the political opposition is. Yet the mainstream media is trying to quash that critical discussion and debate.

Whether you agree with him or not, Mitt Romney, just like any other American, can engage in free speech under the Constitution, including the right to comment on both domestic and international affairs. Unlike the reaction today, moreover, the mainstream media fully celebrated the all-out criticism of the Bush foreign policy record by Sen. John Kerry and then-Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats in 2004 and 2008, respectively.
The president read a prepared statement on the Middle East violence and the terrorist killing of the US ambassador and three others but took no questions today at his Rose Garden appearance.
Perhaps prophetically, New York Post columnist John Podhoretz wrote on Monday about those who used to function as government watchdogs but now in general serve as an adjunct to the Obama re-election campaign:

Obama has two advantages Romney doesn’t: a lapdog media and the presidential megaphone — and he’ll use both to his advantage.

In its debate prep, similarly, Team Romney must also plan for accusatory, gotcha questioning as opposed to the softballs that will be likely tossed at President Obama.
What’s fascinating about pervasive liberal bias is that many media members (like their vocal counterparts in Hollywood) have prospered very nicely in the free enterprise system, but they seem to want the rest of us to be under the control of bureaucratic central planners.

Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/329698/news-media-overheard-coordinating-anti-romney-questions-listen/#683D06xFDmZWxZ3O.99

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Shoes a start, but homeless need far more

Here is an article from CNN.com suggesting that the United States and all other wealthy nations must take charge to help homeless people.  The author wrote the article in wake of the NYPD officer giving a homeless man a pair of all-weather boots.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/04/opinion/ghitis-homeless/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

(CNN) -- Americans love a hero. Everybody does. So who could resist the touching story of the New York policeman who, seeing a homeless man sitting barefoot in the cold, walked into a shoe store and bought him a new pair of all-weather boots?

The picture of clean-cut Officer Larry DePrimo kneeling before bearded, straggly Jeffrey Hillman became an Internet sensation. More than 1.6 million people saw it in the first 24 hours after the New York Police Department posted the image, which was snapped by a tourist.

Chapter 1 of this story moved millions to shed a tear, and one hopes it inspired countless acts of kindness.

Now, we have Chapter 2. And it should move us even more.

Hillman, who became much less famous than his benefactor, is barefoot once again.

And the story, as it turns out, is much more complicated than we ever thought. New York City officials say Hillman has had an apartment but, for some reason, returns to the streets.

Despite veterans benefits, federal Section 8 assistance and Social Security, he sits on the cold New York pavement and, barefoot, walks its streets.

Clearly, this is a sad situation that will not be resolved with the purchase of a new pair of shoes.

Indeed, while DePrimo deservedly received accolades and media attention, we heard almost nothing about the homeless man; there was never any reason to believe his fortunes had improved. After providing protection for his blistered feet, society simply moved on, happy to pat itself on the back for a job well done -- and just in time for Christmas.

Photos: Haunting portraits of the homeless

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly gave DePrimo a pair of cuff links. As for Hillman, Kelly flippantly explained, "We're not looking for him. He has shoes now. He's much more difficult to spot."

Hillman, 54, has told reporters that he hid the shoes because "they are worth a lot of money." The explanation is not important. Hillman's family told a reporter that "Jeffrey has his life, and he has chosen that life."

But can the country turn its back on one of its own, a homeless military veteran, and say "it's his choice"?

Remember the homeless man with the velvet voice, Ted Williams? He, too, was rescued by a miracle. But he needed help, substance abuse treatment, before he could keep a job: before he could keep on his all-weather boots.

What matters is that Hillman, like thousands of others, in the street, in a country that, despite all its economic challenges, remains the richest nation the world has seen. What matters is that a heartwarming act of kindness -- a man opening his wallet to buy another man shoes -- is not enough to keep him from going barefoot.

Some problems are too big for individuals to tackle alone. Some problems, such as homelessness, require complex solutions. Some problems remind society that when it came together and organized, it created government.

The reminder is particularly timely now as the country's leaders negotiate over the "fiscal cliff." The talks are a political contest. But they are also about the soul of the nation. America's leaders are discussing the country's guiding philosophy. Sadly for the Jeff Hillmans of America, the weakest of the weak, America seems to have decided it has less money to help its neediest.

Other nations are undergoing similar debates about their own identity and values. America is not the only country with a homelessness problem, and charges that the United States is callous and indifferent to the poor, which I have often heard abroad, are simply false.

The U.K.-based Charities Aid Foundation, says Americans are the most generous people on earth. Last year, 65% gave money, 43% gave time, 73% helped a stranger. Despite the economic slump, three-quarters of the giving, $217 billion, came from individuals. Corporations and foundations gave $56 billion.

Those are amazing numbers. Americans should be proud.

Photos: Down and out in the south

Still, thousands sleep out in the cold. In Atlanta, just down the street from CNN's headquarters, drivers can spot homeless camps under highway overpasses. One caught fire a few weeks ago. Homeless life is stressful and dangerous.

Practically every major city in the world is home to people sleeping in the streets. An estimate of homelessness in Paris about a decade ago put the number there at 12,000. Up-to-date figures are bitterly disputed. The consensus among advocates is that numbers have climbed significantly. In the United States, 2010 census figures show some of the highest percentages of "street homeless" in California. According to those figures, New York has one homeless person for every 2,506 people, compared with one for every 259 in San Francisco.

New York authorities claim to have reduced the number of "unsheltered" individuals to about 3,000, 26% fewer than in 2005. The Coalition for the Homeless says statistics underestimate the problem.

Some studies show much higher, but that is because the term "homeless" includes people living in emergency housing. In this case, we are referring to the worst category of chronic homelessness: people who spend most nights in the streets.

Whatever the figure, more can be done.

In Sweden, a determined government effort brought the number of people living in the streets to just 280, with thousands receiving help in alternative housing. I once saw a city worker in Stockholm help a homeless man off the pavement and walk with him onto a city bus. The government seems to have a handle on the situation of each homeless individual.

Not all places are the same. Cities such as Paris and New York have many more immigrants, more newcomers with fewer connections to the community, with less of a safety net. There is also more poverty, inequality, unemployment.

The Christmas Miracle story of the police officer and the homeless man faded in an Internet minute. And then we moved onto the next social-media sensation. But it continued for the man who should have garnered more attention from the beginning.

The story is not over. Not for Jeffrey Hillman. Not for any of the homeless people in the streets of New York or Paris, Stockholm or Atlanta, whom we glimpse briefly as we move on with our lives.

The shoes help; the cash helps. But the more effective act of generosity, the real miracle, would come if the millions looking at the picture of the generous police officer trying to help a man in need wrote the perfect Chapter 3, pushing for better mental health services, more affordable housing, more job training. For enough attention from the government to those who need it most.

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A gun control halftime show: Should Bob Costas have spoken out on Belcher suicide?

Here is another article from CNN.com addressing Bob Costas' comments on gun control in wake of the Javon Belcher murder-suicide.  The author suggests that Costas' comments were intended to rekindle discussion on gun control.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/03/us/nfl-chiefs-shooting/index.html?iref=allsearch

(CNN) -- There are a few things you can usually expect out of an NFL halftime show. A debate about gun control isn't one of them.

But Sunday wasn't a normal day in the NFL. It was two days after Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend and the mother of his child before killing himself outside the front door of the Chiefs' practice facility.

It was shocking. And it was expected that this tragedy would seep through into Sunday's football coverage.

But many people were not expecting Bob Costas to make a plea for gun control.

During halftime of NBC's "Sunday Night Football," Costas blamed the nation's gun culture for what happened between Belcher and his girlfriend, remarks that set off a heated debate about whether the sportscaster should have launched into what some called a "rant" on gun control.

Here's a transcript of Costas' comments:

"Well, you know that it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, that most mindless of sports clichés was heard yet again: Something like this really puts it all in perspective.

Well, if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games. Please, those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective.

You want some actual perspective on this? Well, a bit of it comes from a Kansas City based-writer Jason Whitlock with whom I do not always agree but who today said it so well today that we may as well as quote or paraphrase from the end of his article.

'Our current gun culture,' Whitlock wrote, '... ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenaged boys bloody and dead. ...

'Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.'

In the coming days, Jovan Belcher's actions and their possible connections to football will be analyzed. Who knows? But here, wrote Jason Whitlock is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."

Costas' remarks seemed to send the Internet into an immediate feeding frenzy. Was it appropriate for him to talk about a political issue during a sports show? What is the right forum for this kind of discussion? Was he only saying what everyone else was already thinking? The comments kept flying:

"I will gladly debate Jason Whitlock and Bob Costas on gun control, BUT we tuned in for an NFL game! Ridiculous programming decision!" sports talk show host John Kincade wrote on Twitter.

He added: "Do Bob Costas and Jason Whitlock realize if an NFL linebacker wants to kill a woman he does NOT need a gun? ABSURD LOGIC."

Costas declined to comment on his remarks.

Robert Kahne tweeted: "Big ups to Bob Costas for standing up for gun control. Hopefully someday we can actually have a conversation about it as a nation."

But Bill J. Chien used a case many people were familiar with to take a sarcastic jab at Costas' commentary.

"If OJ Simpson did not have a handgun, Nicole and Ron would still be alive today," he tweeted. Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and friend Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death in 1995, a crime for which the NFL legend was tried but acquitted.

Others added that blaming one thing, in this case guns, was not helpful.

"That Costas rant there was umm interesting. Let's focus on mental health and not just gun control. Can't strictly blame one or the other," Audrey Snyder tweeted.

Gun control has always been divisive. If you remember, it had been practically impossible to get the presidential candidates to talk about the issue. "Saturday Night Live" even mocked the candidates' avoidance of it during a skit on the presidential debates.

There was equal outrage online Sunday regarding CBS' football preshow, which took five minutes before mentioning the tragedy and seemed to feature more about a Victoria's Secret fashion show and hard-hitting commentary about the color of the anchors' ties instead of a serious issue.

The main point here may be you can't please everybody. There will always be critics when it comes to an issue that sparks such intense debate. But does that mean you don't even touch it? Or did Costas' comments do exactly what he may have intended -- reigniting the debate over gun control?

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Bob Costas addresses gun violence in ‘Sunday Night Football’ halftime comments

During halftime on "Sunday Night Football" two nights ago, Bob Costas delivered a monologue advocating gun control in wake of Jovan Belcher's murder-suicide the day before.  Belcher, a Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, shot and killed his girlfriend at their home in front of his mother and ten minues later drove to the Kansas City Chiefs practice facility and killed himself with a self-inflicted gun-shot wound to the head in front of Kansas City Chiefs personnel. 

The author of this article from Yahoo! states that during halftime of a football game was not the right place for Costas' monologue on gun control.  Additionally, the author discusses that Costas' monologue came across as "opportunistic and condescending" and damaging the cause he was trying to defend.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/bob-costas-advocates-gun-control-sunday-night-football-164208209--nfl.html

In the wake of Saturday's horrifying tragedies at Kansas City, you knew the pundits would get their laptops rolling. The first wave involved the decision to play the game; some said it was a terrible idea, while others advocated it as a proper method of healing. Once the game was in the books, talk turned to Bigger Issues, as in How Could This Happen? Concussions and head injuries will come under the microscope, as will the NFL's approaches to counseling depression. Sunday night, NBC commentator Bob Costas, echoing a column by Fox Sports' Jason Whitlock, took on another aspect of the tragedy: gun violence.
Costas quoted with approval from Whitlock's column, which states, in part:

Our current gun culture simply ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead.
In the coming days, Belcher's actions will be analyzed through the lens of concussions and head injuries. Who knows? Maybe brain damage triggered his violent overreaction to a fight with his girlfriend. What I believe is, if he didn't possess/own a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.
That is the message I wish Chiefs players, professional athletes and all of us would focus on Sunday and moving forward. Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.

Gun control is, of course, a controversial issue, with such rabid belief on both sides that even politicians tend to steer clear of it. And politics are so laden with potential conflict that most sports commentators give anything remotely political a wide berth, as well. So when you've got gun control and politics jammed right in the middle of your football game, well, you can see how that might get a few people a touch upset. Social media and comment sections across the Internet boiled over on Sunday night with vitriol both against Costas for his views, and against NBC for permitting any kind of political commentary on its broadcast.
[Related: Victorious Chiefs make no effort to hide pain one day after tragic events]
Personal view: I don't mind politics occasionally cropping up in my sports. It's my belief that no social or public interaction — sports, politics, entertainment, business — exists in a vacuum, and it's only natural that elements from one seep over into another. But I also recognize that there are plenty who look to sports as an escape from the harsh realities of everyday life, that a Cowboys-Eagles game is a safe and risk-free way to avoid the horrors of the world by focusing instead on the horrors of two mediocre NFC East franchises.
Tracking the prospects of your fantasy team's third receiver rather than the impact of social issues might not be advisable on a long-term basis, but it's perfectly normal and appropriate during a football game. Costas tried to make his viewers feel guilty for not being as outraged as he is, and that's an approach doomed to both failure and deserved scorn. We all perceive tragedy differently; nobody, least of all a sportscaster on a football game, ought to be telling us to "recalibrate our sense of proportion."
As for the validity of Whitlock's comments: He's framed them in such a way that arguing against them effectively puts the arguer in the position of advocating gun violence. The guns-are-the-primary-problem stance deliberately oversimplifies an emotionally and psychologically complex situation. In other words, Whitlock, and by association Costas, is painting this tragedy in primary colors as a means of advancing an agenda, and as we've seen in the most recent election season, people really don't like to be told what to think.
[Also: Faced with tragedy, Chiefs record second win of season]
Pontificating on social issues is Whitlock and Costas' right, of course; both men have earned a public stage to air their beliefs, whether or not we agree with them. But oversimplification never holds up to even the most basic scrutiny. (There's also the troublesome, for Whitlock and Costas, fact that guns have, on occasion, saved lives in situations like these.)
Whitlock and Costas contend that if only Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Perkins would still be alive. Really? It's the object and not the man that caused this tragedy? If that's the case, hey, confiscate every gun everywhere. Shoot, confiscate everything that could potentially be used as a weapon.
And if that tidy little solution is how we're working, then why stop at guns? Why not advocate for stricter regulations on what we see on TV and hear in music? Whitlock's beloved "The Wire" and cop shows broadcast on Costas' employer NBC feature violence as a key plot element. When Whitlock himself criticizes an organization or individual, he refers to it as "filling up the vacants" — a reference from "The Wire" to the way a Baltimore drug lord kills and disposes of the bodies of his enemies. Hmmm.
Might the attitudes that entertainers embody contribute to "more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car [that] will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead"? Ban 'em all!
(Note, just so we're clear: All these arguments are deliberately absurd in the service of making a point.)
There's a place for discussion of the role that gun control could, and should, play in tragedies like this. There's also a way to frame it that doesn't come across as opportunistic and condescending, hurting the very cause you're trying to defend.
UPDATE: According to USA Today, Costas, said an NBC spokesman, "feels an unfortunate leap was taken that he was advocating taking away Second Amendment rights. He was not." NBC spokesman Greg Hughes noted, "In a short (on-air) time period he can cover only one aspect of a complicated issue. So he quoted (Whitlock) about the gun culture and an almost Wild West attitude in parts of this country. He is pro-sensible gun reform and pro-attitude adjustment on guns." Hughes further added that Costas is "in favor of people owning guns to hunt and carrying them in reasonably controlled circumstances."

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