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Thread: James Brady, White House press secretary under Reagan and gun control advocate, dies

  1. #1

    James Brady, White House press secretary under Reagan and gun control advocate, dies

    Now can they repeal that stinking Brady bill?


    James Brady, White House press secretary under Reagan, dies

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...r-reagan-dies/

    James Brady, the former White House press secretary who was badly wounded in the assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan and later became an advocate for gun control, has died. He was 73.

    His family announced Brady's death in a statement released Monday afternoon, saying he "passed away after a series of health issues."

    "Jim touched the lives of so many and has been a wonderful husband, father, friend and role model," his family said. "We are enormously proud of Jim's remarkable accomplishments -- before he was shot on the fateful day in 1981 while serving at the side of President Ronald Reagan and in the days, months and years that followed.

    "Jim Brady's zest for life was apparent to all who knew him, and despite his injuries and the pain he endured every day, he used his humor, wit and charm to bring smiles to others and make the world a better place. Over the years, Jim inspired so many people as he turned adversity into accomplishment."

    Brady was left permanently disabled after being shot in the head on March 30, 1981, by John Hinckley, Jr., outside the Washington Hilton Hotel.

    He afterward undertook a personal crusade for gun control, and lobbied for stricter handgun and assault-weapon laws. A federal law requiring a background check on handgun buyers bears Brady's name, and The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is named in his honor.

    Although Brady returned to the White House only briefly, he was allowed to keep the title of presidential press secretary and his White House salary until Reagan left office in January 1989.

    Brady, who spent much of the rest of his life in a wheelchair, died at a retirement community in Alexandria, Va., where he lived with his wife, Sarah.

    "Jim was the personification of courage and perseverance. He and Sarah never gave up, and never stopped caring about the causes in which they believed," former first lady Nancy Reagan said in a statement.

    Current White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, who was asked about Brady's legacy during Monday's briefing as reports of his death first crossed, said Brady "really revolutionized the job." He said even after he was wounded, he "showed his patriotism and commitment to the country" by being outspoken on an issue important to him.

    The White House briefing room is also named after Brady.

    Brady "leaves the kind of legacy ... that certainly this press secretary and all future press secretaries will aspire to live up to," Earnest said.

    Of the four people stuck by gunfire on March 30, 1981, Brady was the most seriously wounded. A news clip of the shooting, replayed often on television, showed Brady sprawled on the ground as Secret Service agents hustled the wounded president into his limousine. Reagan was shot in one lung while a policeman and a Secret Service agent suffered lesser wounds.

    Brady never regained full health. The shooting caused brain damage, partial paralysis, short-term memory impairment, slurred speech and constant pain.

    The TV replays of the shooting did take a toll on Brady, however. He told The Associated Press years later that he relived the moment each time he saw it: "I want to take every bit of (that) film ... and put them in a cement incinerator, slosh them with gasoline and throw a lighted cigarette in." With remarkable courage, he endured a series of brain operations in the years after the shooting.

    On Nov. 28, 1995, while he was in an oral surgeon's office, Brady's heart stopped beating and he was taken to a hospital. His wife, Sarah, credited the oral surgeon and his staff with saving Brady's life.

    Brady was a strong Republican from an early age -- as a boy of 12 in Centralia, Ill., where he was born on Aug. 29, 1940, he distributed election literature for Dwight D. Eisenhower. In a long string of political jobs, Brady worked for some well-known bosses: Sen. Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois, Sen. William V. Roth Jr. of Delaware, and John Connally, the former Texas governor who was running for president in 1979. When Connally dropped out, Brady joined Reagan's campaign as director of public affairs and research. He later joined the Reagan White House.

    Previously, he had worked in the administrations of presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford: as special assistant to the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, as special assistant to the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and as an assistant to the defense secretary.

    He was divorced from the former Sue Beh when, in 1973, he courted Sarah Jane Kemp, the daughter of an FBI agent who was working with him in a congressional office. Sarah Brady became involved in gun-control efforts in 1985, and later chaired Handgun Control Inc., but Brady took a few more years to join her, and Reagan did not endorse their efforts until 10 years after he was shot. Reagan's surprise endorsement -- he was a longtime National Rifle Association member and opponent of gun control laws -- began to turn the tide in Congress.

    "They're not going to accuse him of being some bed-wetting liberal, no way can they do that," said Brady, who had become an active lobbyist for the bill.

    The Brady law required a five-day wait and background check before a handgun could be sold. In November 1993, as President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law, Brady said: "Every once in a while you need to wake up and smell the propane. I needed to be hit in the head before I started hitting the bricks."

    Clinton awarded Brady the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. In 2000, the press briefing room at the White House was renamed in Brady's honor. The following year, Handgun Control Inc., was renamed the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence as a tribute to Brady and his wife.



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  3. #2
    I liked Brady before he was shot. He seemd like a relatively decent guy. Afterwards he was just a puppet so I don't think he can be characterized as a gun control advocate.
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  4. #3

  5. #4

    Nutcase Brady gun grabber has croaked!

    Dancing on his grave!

    W00t!

    -t

  6. #5
    Hoping Feindstein follows suite SOON!

    -t

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by tangent4ronpaul View Post
    Dancing on his grave!

    W00t!

    -t
    Yeah this thread started out with a different title.......

    I too am glad this piece of $#@! is gone, it'll take decade to fix the wrongs he wrought.....

  8. #7
    Bryan,

    I have no tears to shed for those that want to strip us of our second amendment rights.

    -t

  9. #8
    //

    James Brady's Death Was a Homicide, Medical Examiner Rules


    The medical examiner's ruling has the potential to open the door to federal murder charges against Hinckley, who is now a mental patient at St. Elizabeth's hospital in suburban Washington, said NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams on News4.

    Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity of attempted assassination of President Reagan. Brady, Reagan, police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy were shot on March 30, 1981 as they left the Washington Hilton Hotel.

    But, he added, "We are a long way from knowing what the federal authorities are going to do with this, or whether they are going to do anything with it."

    Williams said prosecutors will have to weigh the likelihood of getting a different verdict on murder charges than they did decades ago on the 13 charges that Hinckley faced after the assassination attempt.

    Any charges also could complicate effort of Hinckley's family, who are trying to get him a permanent leave from St. Elizabeth's, Williams said. Hinckley has been granted repeated weeks-long leaves to stay with family in Williamsburg, Virginia.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia issued a brief statement Friday afternoon, saying it is reviewing the ruling.

    Brady's wife, Sarah, said the family had not yet been officially notified of the ruling, but had seen the reports. "This isn't a surprise to anybody or to her, given that his health was impacted and he suffered such consequences over the years," a family spokeswoman said. "If that is the case it is in the prosecutors' hands, and it is up to them."

    Sarah Brady is comforted by the outpouring of love for her husband since his death Monday, the family spokeswoman added. "She is feeling great about the sendoff that Jim is getting. She is holding up."

    http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/lo...270522411.html



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by tangent4ronpaul View Post
    Dancing on his grave!

    W00t!

    -t
    Don't.
    And don't blame him for what has been done in his name.

    He is the poster boy.. but not the driving force behind the "Brady campaign".
    They have been exploiting him for years to push an agenda.

    And they are not done yet


    They have ruled his death a Homicide.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...5c4_story.html
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Acala View Post
    I liked Brady before he was shot. He seemd like a relatively decent guy. Afterwards he was just a puppet so I don't think he can be characterized as a gun control advocate.
    Nope. His wife and others with that agenda have been exploiting him for years.

    He has been pretty much vegetative since the shooting.. (which all the laws created in his name would not have prevented)

    Perhaps now he can rest in peace.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by tod evans View Post
    Yeah this thread started out with a different title.......

    I too am glad this piece of $#@! is gone, it'll take decade to fix the wrongs he wrought.....
    The dude was probably not mentally capable of doing anything other than being a puppet, I mean he got shot in the $#@!ing head. Blame the people that exploited his tragedy, not him....thats just stupid.
    A society that places equality before freedom with get neither; A society that places freedom before equality will yield high degrees of both

    Make a move and plead the 5th because you can't plead the 1st

  14. #12
    James Brady: Collateral Damage

    Charles Burris

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/...ateral-damage/

    Many observers, including author Roger Stone in his LRC podcast interview with Lew Rockwell today, believe that James Brady was the unfortunate collateral damage of the Bush-engineered assassination attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan. Brady died Monday at a retirement community in Alexandria, VA. He was 73. The medical examiner’s office in Virginia ruled the death a homicide and the D.C. Metro Police have opened a murder investigation. This could conceivably lead to murder charges against the alleged assassin John Hinckley in the 1981 shooting. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on multiple charges. However do not expect extradition papers to be served to Maine authorities regarding a certain geriatric resident of Kennebunkport in this matter.

    Critics believe that the Reagan assassination attempt was a direct follow-up of the 1980 October Surprise scandal. The aim of the conspirators was to first engineer the removal of Jimmy Carter as president, then launch the coup d’état against Reagan.

    The Deep State never wanted the former Hollywood actor and California faux cowboy governor Reagan as the GOP nominee. They were solidly behind Trilateralist George H. W. Bush, former CIA director who had been a trusted Agency asset since the 1950s, and the son of Prescott Bush, one of the closest friends of CIA director Allen Dulles since the 1930s, and one of the major senatorial supporters of the CIA during his tenure in office. Fired by JFK after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, the vengeful Dulles later became the major directing influence of the Warren Commission cover-up assigned by Lyndon Johnson to investigate Kennedy’s murder.

    The renowned researcher John Judge was one of the leading experts in documenting the background of the Washington, D.C. Reagan assassination attempt and coup d’état. Many of his remarkable findings are online.

    As with the JFK assassination by Lyndon Johnson and the top echelon of the National Security State in Dallas there were a wide variety of broken or ignored Secret Service protocols for protection of the president, as well as very suspect actions of the Reagan cabinet. Everyone remembers Secretary of State Alexander Haig’s bizarre “I am in control HERE at the White House pending the return of the vice president” statement to the White House press corps.

    As this concise online summary of these events, “Did Bush Assassinate Reagan?” noted:

    Bush started his takeover of government when he orchestrated a key reorganization of Reagan’s national security apparatus via a document known as National Security Decision Directive. Originally a product of Al Haig’s work, a second version not to his liking was formulated by the Bush camp which placed the vice president – rather than the Secretary of State – as the chairman of the Special Situation Group (SSG).

    When Bush took the helm of the SSG, and after taking an initial report concerning the state of affairs domestically and internationally, he declared that there had been no conspiracy, on the authority of fragmentary FBI reports asserting that there was no such thing. This obstruction of justice followed exactly the tactic used by Nicholas Katzenbach when he wrote a memo within 3 days of the Kennedy assassination that Oswald must be found guilty as the lone assassin.

    Here are several authoritative books which conclusively document the nefarious criminal (and covert intelligence) background of the Bush dynasty:

    Pete Brewton, The Mafia, CIA and George Bush;

    Russ Baker, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America;

    Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush;

    Russell S. Bowen, The Immaculate Deception: Bush Crime Family Exposed;

    Al Martin, The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider;

    Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan;

    Robert Parry, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq;

    Webster Griffin Tarpley, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    Nope. His wife and others with that agenda have been exploiting him for years.

    He has been pretty much vegetative since the shooting.. (which all the laws created in his name would not have prevented)

    Perhaps now he can rest in peace.
    Quote Originally Posted by dillo View Post
    The dude was probably not mentally capable of doing anything other than being a puppet, I mean he got shot in the $#@!ing head. Blame the people that exploited his tragedy, not him....thats just stupid.
    Well then a pox on those who have used his name to push legislation and if he wasn't involved in the bill with his name on it may he rest in peace.



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