Category Archives: security / safety

The NRA is nothing more than a lobby for gun and ammunition manufacturers…

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…and the elected GOP establishment is nothing more than their personal representatives.

Adolphus Busch IV requested the NRA immediately cancel his lifetime membership,  one day after the U.S. Senate rejected a bill that would have expanded background checks on guns:

“…One only has to ask why the NRA reversed its original position on background checks. Was it not the NRA position to support background checks when Mr. LaPierre himself stated in 1999 that NRA saw checks as ‘reasonable’? [...]

I am simply unable to comprehend how assault weapons and large capacity magazines have a role in your vision. The NRA I see today has undermined the values upon which it was established. Your current strategic focus clearly places priority on the needs of gun and ammunition manufacturers while disregarding the opinions of your 4 million individual members.

One only has to look at the makeup of the 75-member board of directors, dominated by manufacturing interests, to confirm my point. The NRA appears to have evolved into the lobby for gun and ammunition manufacturers rather than gun owners.”

(h/t wilwheaton)

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via sandandglass

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jetgirl78: “I’ve heard some say the blocking the step would be a victory. My question is victory for who? Victory for what? All that happened today it was the preservation of the loophole that lets dangerous criminals buy guns without a background check. That didn’t make our kids safer.”

jetgirl78: “I’ve heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. A prop, somebody called them. Emotional blackmail, some outlets said. Are they serious? Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don’t have a right to weigh in on this issue?”

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“I have something I want to say to the victims of Newtown, or any other shooting,” Davis said. “I don’t care if it’s here in Minneapolis or anyplace else. Just because a bad thing happened to you doesn’t mean that you get to put a king in charge of my life. I’m sorry that you suffered a tragedy, but you know what? Deal with it, and don’t force me to lose my liberty, which is a greater tragedy than your loss. I’m sick and tired of seeing these victims trotted out, given rides on Air Force One, hauled into the Senate well, and everyone is just afraid — they’re terrified of these victims.”

“I would stand in front of them and tell them, ‘go to hell,’” he added.

Source via sandandglass

Our thoughts and prayers are with Boston

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Horrific attack on the innocent:

Realtime coverage - Google

It takes only one evil person to harm so many. And more than likely that person’s Excuse or narcissistic Purpose will be based on their interpretation of some religion and / or political cause. This behavior is not “human nature,” it’s an aberration of human nature. If you watched the news yesterday, human nature was evident in the response of the crowds of people helping each other, helping strangers, crying for others who were wounded, giving blood — just to do something, anything – until no more blood was needed last night (though it will be needed in the days / weeks ahead).

Or as Mr. Rogers said:

Of course, what happens after the shock wears off and the bad guy is found — regardless if he’s Middle Eastern or some variation of a RWNJ/fundie/supremacist – is another level of human nature. Unfortunately. We should all try to remember that this was one person (or a few), and what happened is not representative or the definition of an entire race, religion, political party, or group.

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Most importantly:

…Even the 9/11 terrorists got lucky.

If it’s hard for us to keep this in perspective, it will be even harder for our leaders. They’ll be afraid that by speaking honestly about the impossibility of attaining absolute security or the inevitability of terrorism — or that some American ideals are worth maintaining even in the face of adversity — they will be branded as “soft on terror.” And they’ll be afraid that Americans might vote them out of office. Perhaps they’re right, but where are the leaders who aren’t afraid? What has happened to “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”?

Terrorism, even the terrorism of radical Islamists and right-wing extremists and lone actors all put together, is not an “existential threat” against our nation. Even the events of 9/11, as horrific as they were, didn’t do existential damage to our nation. Our society is more robust than it might seem from watching the news. We need to start acting that way.

There are things we can do to make us safer, mostly around investigation, intelligence, and emergency response, but we will never be 100-percent safe from terrorism; we need to accept that.

How well this attack succeeds depends much less on what happened in Boston than by our reactions in the coming weeks and months. Terrorism isn’t primarily a crime against people or property. It’s a crime against our minds, using the deaths of innocents and destruction of property as accomplices. When we react from fear, when we change our laws and policies to make our country less open, the terrorists succeed, even if their attacks fail. But when we refuse to be terrorized, when we’re indomitable in the face of terror, the terrorists fail, even if their attacks succeed…

Read it all: Refuse to be terrorized

24-hour warning: By the way, red states take in more federal money than they pay in taxes

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Paul Begala thinks it’s a shame that sequestration cuts can’t be limited to states which take in more federal money than they pay in taxes and are represented by politicians who refuse to pay for the spending that their constituents demand (and have come to expect):

“This could be fun. Oklahoma so hates Obama’s big spending that every single county in the state voted for Mitt Romney. Oklahoma has twice the percentage of federal employees than the U.S. average, and Okies get $1.35 back from Washington for each dollar they pay in taxes. So close the massive FAA center in Oklahoma City. Move it to Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district, where they love big government. Two years ago I made a similar argument about Kentucky, calling on Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul to put the Bluegrass State in detox for its addiction to local pork. No such luck. But perhaps the principle can apply to the sequester: enforce it only in states whose elected representatives won’t support the taxes needed to fund the spending they want.” — A pox on one of their houses

Some facts:

Mother Jones: Even as Republicans gripe about deficit spending, their states get 30 cents more federal spending per tax dollar than their Democratic neighbors:

It’s no secret: The federal budget is expanding faster than tax revenues, a trend that’s been fueled by the rapid growth of entitlement programs and exacerbated by the recession. As a recent New York Times article documents, even as fiscally conservative lawmakers complain about deficit spending, their constituents don’t want to give up the Social Security checks, Medicare benefits, and earned income tax credits that provide a safety net for the struggling middle class.

This gap between political perception and fiscal reality is also reflected in the distribution of tax dollars at the state level: Most politically “red” states are financially in the red when it comes to how much money they receive from Washington compared with what their residents pay in taxes.

A look at 2010 Census and IRS data reveals that the 50 states and the District of Columbia, on average, received $1.29 in federal spending for every federal tax dollar they paid. That means that some states are getting a lot more than they put in, and vice versa. The states that contributed more in taxes than they got back in spending were more likely to have voted for Obama in 2008 and were more likely to be largely urban. (There are some clear exceptions: For instance, New Mexico, a rural, Democratic state, gets more federal money per tax dollar than any other state.)

Added to that is “the world’s least surprising chart” from Brad Plummer: 

A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds that most Americans like the idea of cutting federal spending in the abstract — they just can’t agree on any specific areas they’d actually like to cut…

[...] Foreign aid is far and away the most popular suggestion for the chopping block, but even here, it’s a close call — 48 percent of respondents said cut it, 49 percent said keep it the same or increase it. (Foreign aid makes up less than 1 percent of the federal budget.) In no other spending area is there majority support for cuts.

The tide has turned… and it’s turned away from career war profiteers in Congress:

Think Progress: A new poll released by the Hill newspaper has found that more voters favor slashing military spending versus cutting spending on domestic programs like Medicare and Social Security in order to reduce the debt and deficit.

Voters are tired of funding the GOP’s Forever Wars and think there should be spending cuts — but they think the cuts should be to all those other programs and services they personally don’t like or use (like foreign aid — only 1% of the budget). And while everyone in the country continues to subsidize the red states’ appetite for federal cheese, red state conservatives will continue to tell themselves that they deserve more federal cheese than blue states (or that it’s not federal cheese – it’s freedom cheese!). So we’ll see how long Teapublicans can hold out on their belief that only Democratic states and Democrats will be ‘hurt’ by the sequester.


Source: questionall

Want to see how much your state will lose with sequestration cuts? Go here.

Let me show you on the doll where Mr. Sequester will touch you

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Where will Mr. Sequester touch you? In these places:

Here are the top five ways that sequestration will make the nation a less healthy place:

  1. More Americans could be put at risk for foodborne illnesses.
  2. Medical researchers will be forced to delay the development of treatments that could help sick Americans.
  3. The government will have fewer resources to provide Americans with health coverage.
  4. Thousands of Americans living with mental illnesses could go untreated.
  5. Fewer Americans will get screened and treated for HIV.

Economists estimate that sequestration “most likely would reduce growth by about one-half of a percentage point in 2013,” the New York Times reports.

“Many economists are particularly critical of the arbitrary nature of the cuts, arguing that Congress could reduce annual deficits by the same amount with far less economic damage by spreading the cuts across a broader range of programs, directing them at lesser priorities or giving government agencies more discretion in how they make them.”

Travelers should brace for longer airport lines and possible flight delays after March 1 if automatic federal spending cuts reduce staffing as scheduled, government and industry officials warn. “This truly could become a nightmare for travel,” said Geoff Freeman, chief operating officer of the U.S. Travel Association. [...] The wait at security checkpoints could be an extra hour and up to three more hours at Customs and Border Protection checkpoints at the nation’s busiest airports, Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee have estimated. – Federal Times

Air Travel: An estimated $619 million would be cut from the operations and facilities and equipment accounts of the Federal Aviation Administration, according to a report by House Appropriations Committee Democrats. This could mean major flight delays and an economic hit on the millions of people who depend on air travel every day. — GovExec

  • $483 million cut from the FAA operations budget, forcing all FAA employees to be furloughed for 11 days. On any given day, that could mean that 10 percent of the FAA’s 40,000 employees could be on furlough, resulting in longer delays, reduced air-traffic control, and losses in tourism. There will also be a hiring freeze.
  • $136 million cut from the FAA’s facilities and equipment account, which helps maintain and modernize the air-traffic control infrastructure.
  • Transportation Security Administration screeners would receive a seven-day furlough.

The Environmental Protection Agency may shut down for three days in response to automatic budget cuts set to begin late next week, according to union officials involved in discussions with agency management.  [...] The EPA cuts would translate into fewer compliance inspections, less money for water quality projects, and cutbacks in research to help communities adapt to climate change, then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., earlier this month. – Federal Times

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will furlough its employees for up to 14 days this year if the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester kick in on March 1, according to a letter the agency sent to union officials this week. [...] The letter said furloughs would be mandatory for all Customs and Border Protection employees, including management and workers without union representation. Notices would go out in mid-March, the agency said. — Washington Post

The automatic budget cuts set to take effect on March 1 will delay the opening of the East and West Rim drives at the Grand Canyon and reduce hours of operation at the main visitor center. At Gettysburg, 20 percent of student education programs would be eliminated this spring. — Washington Post

  • Also affected: Blue Ridge, Parkway, Mount Rainer, Glacier, Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Tetons, the National Mall, Yellowstone. (All the parks,really.)

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack described the impact of the cuts, amounting to $2 billion, in a letter that warned “these furloughs and other actions would severely disrupt our ability to provide a broad range of public services.” — Reuters

  • a nationwide shutdown of meat and poultry plants during a furlough of (meat) inspection personnel for as much as 15 days of lost production, costing over $10 billion in production losses.
  • Up to 600,000 low-income women and infants could be cut from the so-called WIC program that provides supplemental food and nutrition education if the budget cuts last for the rest of this fiscal year…
  • Closure of 670 of the Forest Service’s 19,000 recreation sites, such as campgrounds, picnic areas and trailheads, in the national forests and shorter hours at visitor centers. “This would largely occur during the peak use seasons in spring and summer,” said USDA.
  • The Forest Service would reduce its law enforcement force by 35 workers to 707 officers.
  • A work pause on the Census of Agriculture. “Data will become incomplete and will not be statistically sound for publication,” said USDA. The census, conducted every five years, provides valuable data on farm operation and output that is used in USDA’s forecasts. USDA faced repeated funding shortages for its crop and livestock reports in the past couple of years.
  • A slowdown in USDA aid to landowners wanting expert advice or matching funds to control runoff from fields and feedlots and a reduction in USDA-backed loans to farmers to buy land or cover operating costs until harvest.

More than one million workers will start taking unpaid leave on April 1 because of sequestration. – Wall Street Journal

And of course, the nearly two million federal workers facing furloughs won’t just be getting less work done to benefit all of us, they’ll be losing pay. That not only means they and their families may struggle to make ends meet, but money taken out of their local economies as they spend less. In other words: bad for federal workers, bad for people who rely on federal oversight and services, bad for the economy as a whole. — Laura Clawson

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It’s really too nice of a day to read comments, but it’s amazing how quickly the Fox-Rush base are losing their minds in the comment sections of some of these articles over simple information about what actual things will actually be affected by sequestration. It’s as if they really thought they could pick and choose what should be cut and what shouldn’t. They seem extra upset about park closures, air travel inconveniences, and the Border Patrol being affected. ‘Barry Zero’ and the ‘Dims’ are fear-mongering and guvmit can’t take taxpayer money from WeThePeople and not give us what we want! The banjo music is almost deafening. Such thinking could be classified as Narcissistic Sheeple Disorder and, unfortunately, designated as a chronic and practically incurable condition.

REMINDER: there are currently TWO PLANS to avoid the sequester:

  1. the President wants a mix of cuts and new revenue through closing loopholes [for the wealthiest taxpayers];
  2. and the Republican plan is to replace draconian cuts to military spending with draconian cuts to social insurance programs.

The sequester, furloughs and shutdowns: let people see what government really means

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Matthew Cooper believes that if there’s one silver lining to be found in the “buffoonery” of the sequester, it’s that at least it will be a teachable moment for the public:

But if agencies and departments can’t or won’t juggle their books, hey, let people see what government really means. …There’s something sobering about aircraft carriers that won’t sail and forest rangers who won’t be paid to protect. The last time I can think of such an educational moment was not the short-lived government shutdown on the ’90s, but the Oklahoma City bombing. Who died in the blast? IRS officials, Secret Service agents, General Services Administration workers. President Clinton offered a reflection on the victims, “many there who served the rest of us, who worked to help the elderly and the disabled, who worked to support our farmers and our veterans, who worked to enforce our laws and to protect us. Let us say clearly, they served us well, and we are grateful,” he said.

In 2001, looking back on the bombing, Clinton said: “And I had, like every politician, on occasion, gotten upset by some example of government waste or something the way we all do, and referred derisively to government bureaucrats. And I promised myself that I would never use those two words together for the rest of my life. I would treat those people who serve our country with respect, whether they’re in uniform, in law enforcement, firefighter, nurses, any other things.” I’m not comparing the tragedy of Oklahoma City to sequestration. One is evil; the other buffoonery. But they each have the effect of making you realize what government employees do.

Some examples of what’s at stake: 

Few corners of the federal government directly touch the public as do the 398 parks, monuments and historic sites, which draw 280 million visits a year. The system would feel the effects immediately of a $110 million slash should budget cuts take effect March 1 — from a three-week delay of Yellowstone’s spring opening to save money on snow plowing, to shuttered campgrounds and visitor centers along the Blue Ridge Parkway. [..] The prospect of dirtier restrooms, sporadic grass mowing and litter pickup, and a shortage of rangers to answer questions and patrol has set off a furious campaign by a coalition of park advocates, tourism officials and businesses from to Maine to Wyoming. Their plea: The reductions would not just set back conservation efforts but also undermine local economies around the parks that rely on tourism.

The Defense Department will notify Congress as early as Wednesday of plans to furlough almost 800,000 civilian employees starting in April if automatic budget cuts take effect, according to a defense official. [...] By law, however, DoD must give lawmakers 45 days notice of employee furloughs. If the spending cuts, formally known as sequestration, begin as scheduled March 1, the Pentagon will likely send most civilians home for one day per week for up to 22 weeks through the end of the fiscal year in September, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a House committee last week. The furloughs would save DoD about $5 billion out of the $46 billion total it will have to cut under sequestration, Carter said. Military personnel would be exempt.

Jessica Wright, acting Defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness, said that while the impact of sequestration on “military personnel would be devastating, the impact on civilians is catastrophic.” [...] “The first-, second- and third-order effect will be felt in local commands and communities. It’s not a Beltway phenomenon,” she said, noting that 80 percent of defense civilian employees work outside the Washington area. The 20 percent decrease in pay would affect business and communities and confront “many families with tough decisions.”

The Army estimates automatic budget cuts scheduled to take effect March 1 will have a $15 billion economic impact and affect more than 300,000 jobs nationwide. Hardest hit states include Texas, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Among the least affected: Delaware, Wyoming, Montana and Rhode Island. [...] The cuts will affect every Army installation, according to the documents. States with large bases and military contractors are taking the biggest hits. Texas, for instance, would face a $2.4 billion economic loss from the Army’s budget cuts. Nearly 30,000 Army civilian employees will be furloughed if the cuts go into effect. They will lose $180 million in pay.

If across-the-board budget cuts take effect as scheduled next month, every FBI employee, including special agents, will be furloughed for almost three weeks by the end of September. Ditto for many law enforcement officers at the Department of Homeland Security, where layoffs are also a possibility. Furloughs for Agriculture Department food safety inspectors will mean temporary shutdowns of meat processing plants. At the Social Security Administration, more than 1,500 temporary workers and re-employed retirees will be shown the door.

Budget cuts could result in up to 20 percent pay cut for federal workers:

Agriculture: Plans to furlough about one-third of its workforce, which would lead to “a nationwide shutdown of meat and poultry plants during a furlough of inspection personnel.”

Commerce: “Up to 2,600 NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) employees would have to be furloughed, approximately 2,700 positions would not be filled, and the number of contractors would have to be reduced by about 1,400.” Census vacancies would remain vacant.

Justice: “The Department estimates that it would lose the equivalent of more than 1,000 federal agents . . . as well as 1,300 correctional officers.”

“These employees aren’t some fat cat bureaucrats in a plush Washington office. They are the firefighters who safeguard our bases, the health-care professionals who treat injured soldiers in military hospitals, the mechanics who repair our tanks and planes, the logistics personnel who ensure supplies make it to our troops, the acquisition experts who prevent big defense contractors from ripping off taxpayers. Congress [needs] to find a solution to this manufactured crisis that does not punish our hard-working federal employees, cripple our economic recovery or gut federal programs and services.” — J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees

In addition to all the lost hours that went towards serving the public in one way or another – you never miss it until it’s gone! — imagine the lost commerce locally and regionally because of lost income. Civilian employees with the DoD (among others) stand to lose 8 hours in pay per week through September — that works out to a 20% pay cut. Could you afford that? Not to mention the lost incomes of all the people who will be sent home permanently or who could have been employed and who won’t be now.

All this manufactured crisis and upheaval because Republicans won’t agree to close some tax loopholes for the wealthiest to balance massive spending cuts (in a fragile economy!) with new revenue. In addition to March 1, we also have March 27 to look forward to. That’s when the government’s continuing resolution (funding to run the government) expires and when Republicans will undoubtedly threaten another government shutdown when they’re asked to ‘compromise.’

Let’s not forget two important things: right now the economy is improving and the deficit is shrinking.  And maybe that’s why Republicans are so unhappy. As former GOP Virginia governor Jim Gilmore said recently: “They think spending is the most important thing. It’s not.”

(Graphics above via the NYTimes)

This is not the President’s sequester. This is a GOP-manufactured crisis. Again.

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questionall: Remember this when the shit hits the fan. If 218 House Republicans hadn’t voted Aye on ROLL CALL 677, the sequester would have died in Congress. ~ http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll677.xml

WITH NINE DAYS TO GO before $85 billion in automatic federal spending cuts begin, some Democrats on Capitol Hill are calling on Republican leaders to reconvene the House immediately and find a way to avert the spending reductions known as the “sequester.” Both the House and Senate are in recess this week. “This is an unnecessary self-inflicted wound on the United States economy,” Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D-N.J.) said in a conference call with other House Democrats to highlight some of the fears and adverse affects of the sequester they’re hearing about back home. “Congress should come back to Washington to fix the problem.”

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Anyone want to bet that the Republicans don’t come back before Monday? And before you drink the Fox propaganda tea about this crisis being “Obama’s sequester,” let’s take a look at some FACTS from recent history:

STEVE BENEN: So, if we’re stuck in the argument GOP leaders insist on having, we might as well note they’re wrong about this, too. For Republicans, President Obama “proposed and demanded the sequester.” We know this isn’t true. Indeed, at the time, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) bragged about Republicans getting the sequester into the Budget Control Act.

JOHN AVLON:  I happened to come across an old email that throws cold water on House Republicans’ attempts to call this “Obama’s Sequester.” It’s a PowerPoint presentation that John Boehner’s office developed with the Republican Policy Committee and sent out to the Capitol Hill GOP on July 31, 2011. Intended to explain the outline of the proposed debt deal, the presentation is titled: “Two Step Approach to Hold President Obama Accountable.” It’s essentially an internal sales document from the old dealmaker Boehner to his unruly and often unreasonable Tea Party cohort. But it’s clear as day in the presentation that “sequestration” was considered a cudgel to guarantee a reduction in federal spending—the conservatives’ necessary condition for not having America default on its obligations.

130215-Avlon-Boehner-Sequester-embed
A slide from the final page of Speaker John Boehner’s Powerpoint to House Republicans on July 31st, 2011, obtained by The Daily Beast. Click to download full pdf.

GREG SARGENT explains why GOP leaders are repeating falsehoods and spinning desperately:

Republicans may simply be putting on a game face about the politics of the sequester because they may view it as a necessity at this point. As you may recall, a top GOP aide told Politico recently that a government shutdown fight might be necessary for Republican lawmakers to get the need for an apocalyptic confrontation with Obama “out of their system,” i.e., for “member management purposes.” But The Hill reports that Republican aides have revised this strategy; they have decided the sequester is a better target than the government shutdown to stage this confrontation. And so the sequester is apparently necessary for rank and file lawmakers to get the need to stick it to Obama “out of their system.” Republicans have defined victory as agreeing to no new revenues whatsoever, so it’s unclear whether there’s any other way out of this for them.

And finally, and most importantly, MICHAEL TOMASKY points out something that almost everyone seems to forget: Congress passed sequestration before the president signed it, and the whole self-defeating exercise was carried out in response to Tea Party Republicans’ insistence that we play chicken with the debt ceiling, which ultimately cost America its AAA credit rating:

So fine, the White House proposed it. It did so only after months of Republicans publicly demanding huge spending cuts and refusing to consider any revenues and acting as if they were prepared to send the nation into default over spending. In other words, this was the administration’s idea in much the way that it’s a parent’s “idea” to pay ransom to a person who has taken his child hostage. There was a gun to the White House’s head, which was the possibility of the country going into default. And then, when it was all put into legislation, it was the Republicans who passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 in the House, with 218 of them voting yes. So even if administration officials proposed it, it would have remained just a proposal if those 218 Republicans hadn’t supported it (no House Democrats backed it). Most Republicans agreed at the time that the sequestration trigger was a good thing—that it would force everyone to get together and agree to a path forward and a long-term budget deal.

We all have such short memories. And by we, I mean our mainstream media and conservative base-rubes.

Related: 15 Republicans Who Want The Damaging Sequester To Occur

There’s a sucker born every minute and Wayne LaPierre needs them to join the NRA

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Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, wrote an incredible op-ed published by the Daily Caller, after President Obama’s called for a vote on proposed gun safety legislation in his SOTU speech.

TPM: “LaPierre detailed in his op-ed the scary situations in which Americans will need guns to protect themselves, including ‘terrorists, crime, drug gangs, the possibility of Euro-style debt riots, civil unrest or natural disaster.’”

Here’s a list (which I’ve helpfully annotated):

  • Latin American drug gangs (i.e. brown skin threat… enough said?)
  • Hurricanes, and other natural disasters: (quote by LaPierre, demonstrating that he’s now completely off his meds: “After Hurricane Sandy, we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia…”)
  • Riots brought on by financial collapse: (No one will laugh at your stockpiles of gold and survival seeds now…)
  • Terrorists: (Or turrists… fightin’ the war on turr!)

Hey, remember 9-11? What if all the good guys in the WTC had been armed! is all LaPierre is saying.

What other dystopian hellscapes did LaPierre not describe? Aliens and zombies. Obviously, he didn’t want to insult his NRA members. Conversely in any of the scenarios above, who would LaPierre’s personal bodyguards be protecting him from? Yep, his well-armed NRA members.

 

The immediate impacts of the Sequester: this should be GREAT for our economy!

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Remember 10 years ago, when George W. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security and moved many established bureaus and agencies to DHS (along with hiring many, many, many new federal employees)? The same political party who thought that was a great idea at the time now, 10 years later, wants to burn it all to the ground because a Democrat is in the White House — and because they refuse to even consider closing tax loopholes for the wealthy.

Here’s how the GOP’s fickle political ideologies will affect us all in just two short weeks:

Federal Times reports that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano outlined how the Sequester will affect her department on March 1: “Sequestration would roll back border security, increase wait times at our nation’s land ports of entry and airports, affect aviation and maritime safety and security, leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to attacks, hamper disaster response time and our surge force capabilities, and significantly scale back cybersecurity infrastructure protections that have been developed in recent years.”

Here’s a list of where the immediate impacts will hit first:

  • Frontline DHS law enforcement officers would be furloughed for up to 14 days
  • Layoffs at DHS
  • FEMA’s disaster relief fund would be cut by more than $1 billion (that fund had $7 billion in 2012)
  • The Secret Service would have to undergo furloughs and cut down on overtime, which would reduce agents’ availability and hinder ongoing criminal investigations.
  • Congressionally mandated levels of Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol agents could not be maintained.
  • The Transportation Security Administration would have to cut its frontline workforce, which would “substantially increase passenger wait times at airport security checkpoints.”
  • Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not be able to sustain its current operations to detain and remove illegal immigrants, and could not maintain the 34,000 beds for detained immigrants that Congress now requires.
  • The Coast Guard would have to cut back its air and surface operations by almost 25 percent. This would hurt its maritime safety and security efforts, drug and migrant interdiction, fishing law enforcement, navigational aid efforts, and other law enforcement operations.
  • Homeland Security would not be able to move forward on critical management programs such as modernizing its financial systems.

And it’s going to cost us a lot of lost revenue:

Washington Post: National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen M. Kelley said in the statement that the cuts for Homeland Security would “have a ripple effect throughout the government, since Customs and Border Protection is the second-largest generator of federal revenue, behind only the Internal Revenue Service.” The NTEU president said furloughs for Department of Homeland Security personnel would increase wait times at ports of entry by nearly two hours, ultimately affecting the national economy. She pointed to a 2008 Commerce Department report that said border delays at that point were expected to cost the economy $86 billion by 2017 in the form of lost jobs, wages, economic output and tax revenue.

GovExec: The White House outlined some of the government-wide “severe impacts” in a fact sheet:

  • Loss of more than 1,000 FBI and other law enforcement agents
  • Justice Department furloughs of hundreds of federal prosecutors
  • Furloughs of all Agriculture Department Food Safety and Inspection Service employees for approximately two weeks
  • An unspecified number of furloughs at the Internal Revenue Service that would lead to more fraud slipping through
  • Reduced hours at Social Security Administration offices
  • Taking Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors “off the job for some period of time”

See also:

  • JANET NAPOLITANO’S Feb. 13 letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
  • WHITE HOUSE FACT SHEET: Examples of How the Sequester Would Impact Middle Class Families, Jobs and Economic Security, 2/8/2013

When Wayne LaPierre became a ‘dark joke’ at NRA headquarters

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LaPierre did not come from gun culture. He wasn’t a hunter, a marksman, a military man or a Second Amendment activist. “He’s not a true believer,” says NRA biographer Osha Gray Davidson. “He’s the first NRA chief you can say that about.” According to NRA legend, LaPierre is actually a menace with a gun. NRA’s PR team once thought it would be sexy to film LaPierre at a firing range. “It was a nightmare,” an NRA staffer told Davidson. LaPierre was aiming downrange for the camera when an engineer called for a sound check. To answer the man, LaPierre swung around, but he failed to lower his rifle, aiming it directly at the engineer – before someone took the gun away from LaPierre. The incident, terrifying at the time, became a dark joke at NRA headquarters. Staffers behind on their projects were threatened that they’d have to “go hunting with Wayne.” (The NRA’s press office did not reply to Rolling Stone inquiries.) — The NRA vs. America | Rolling Stone

Fox’s Chris Wallace to NRA’s Wayne LaPierre: “That’s ridiculous and you know it, Sir!”

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“The most basic right is to protect yourself. If you limit the American public’s access to [assault weapons] semi-automatic technology, you limit their ability to survive.” — Wayne LaPierre, on Fox News Sunday, arguing that banning assault weapons limited the ‘ability to survive’ and that high-capacity magazines should not be outlawed because women need more bullets.

Paul Krugman on ABC’s This Week: “The NRA is now revealed as an insane organization, What strikes me is we’ve actually gotten a glimpse into the mindset, though, of the pro-gun people and we’ve seen certainly Wayne LaPierre and some of these others… It’s bizarre. They have this vision that we’re living in a ‘Mad Max’ movie and that nothing can be done about it, that America cannot manage unless everybody’s prepared to shoot intruders, that — the idea that we have a police forces that provides public safety is somehow totally impractical, despite the fact that, you know, that is, in fact, the way we live.”

Think Progress: During a heated exchange with NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre on Sunday, [Fox host Chris Wallace] played a clip of a now infamous NRA ad criticizing Obama for relying on Secret Service to guard his children and asked if the organization believed that every child in America faces a threat similar to that of the Obama kids. LaPierre said that they do, leading Wallace to forcefully push back against the gun chief, saying, “that’s ridiculous and you know it, Sir!”

Daily Intelligencer: Wallace then asked LaPierre, who showed up to the Fox News studio with armed guards, whether he counted as “an out-of-touch elite, because you have security.” LaPierre skirted the issue, explaining that, “We’ve had all kinds of threats coming to us. I don’t deny anybody the right to security when they need it. What I am saying is, it’s ridiculous, Chris, for all the elites and all the powerful and privileged, the titans of industry to send their kids to schools where there is armed security, to have access to semi-automatic technology.”

TPM: LaPierre argued that background checks were ineffective, possibly part of a government plot against gun owners, and not a real legislative option because of a powerful “mental health lobby.” He noted that the NRA used to support universal checks but said special interests surrounding mental health and privacy had derailed the effort and led to NRA leaders throwing in the towel. “The instant check was actually the NRA’s proposal. We offered it as an amendment to the Brady Bill. And I’ve been in this fight for 20 years. We supported it. We put it on the books. But I have finally become convinced after fighting to get the mental records computerized for 20 years and watching the mental health lobby, the HIPAA laws, the AMA oppose it, I don’t think it’s going to happen,” he said.

Bob Cesca: The gun control advocacy group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, paid for a 30 second ad to run during the Super Bowl, using Wayne LaPierre’s unearthed statements on universal background checks:  

“We think it’s reasonable to provide mandatory, instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere, for anyone.” — Wayne LaPierre, public testimony from 1999.

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Why the change? What does the NRA stand to lose with instant background checks and closing loopholes, like unchecked gunshow sales? As with most things in America, follow the money:

Tim Dickerson | Rolling Stone: “The shift in LaPierre’s rhetoric underscores a radical transformation within the NRA. Billing itself as the nation’s “oldest civil rights organization,” the NRA still claims to represent the interests of marksmen, hunters and responsible gun owners. But over the past decade and a half, the NRA has morphed into a front group for the firearms industry, whose profits are increasingly dependent on the sale of military-bred weapons like the assault rifles used in the massacres at Newtown and Aurora, Colorado. “When I was at the NRA, we said very specifically, ‘We do not represent the fi rearm industry,’” says Richard Feldman, a longtime gun lobbyist who left the NRA in 1991. “We represent gun owners. End of story.” But in the association’s more recent history, he says, “They have really gone after the gun industry.”

“Today’s NRA stands astride some of the ugliest currents of our politics, combining the “astroturf” activism of the Tea Party, the unlimited and undisclosed “dark money” of groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, and the sham legislating conducted on behalf of the industry through groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council. “This is not your father’s NRA,” says Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a top gun-industry watchdog. Feldman is more succinct, calling his former employer a “cynical, mercenary political cult.”

“The NRA’s alignment with an $11.7 billion industry has fed tens of millions of dollars into the association’s coffers, helping it string together victories that would have seemed fantastic just 15 years ago. The NRA has hogtied federal regulators, censored government data about gun crime and blocked renewal of the ban on assault weaponry and high-capacity magazines, which expired in 2004. The NRA secured its “number-one legislative priority” in 2005, a law blocking liability lawsuits that once threatened to bankrupt gunmakers and expose the industry’s darkest business practices. Across the country, the NRA has opened new markets for firearms dealers by pushing for state laws granting citizens the right to carry hidden weapons in public and to allow those who kill in the name of self-defense to get off scot-free.”

NRA’S Newtown ad campaign: BUY MORE GUNS! 

Two ‘Quotes of the Day’ on guns: David Corn and Jon Stewart

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“Like if you put a speed limit on a highway, pretty soon they’re going to take your car away from you.” — David Corn of Mother Jones on the NRA’s “slippery slope” argument (via)

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source beeishappy

“Since when does the ability to fire a weapon become a badge of honor? A patriotic achievement? All you need is a finger.” — Jon Stewart, TDS | 2013.01.31 [x]

President Obama’s Inaugural Address: there will be outrage!

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David Drucker at Roll Call laments the President’s “appropriation” of “tea party” language in his Inaugural Address:

[...] Obama essentially asserted that America could only live up to its most cherished virtues when citizens are protected by, rather than from, the government.

“We have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action,” Obama said. “We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” [...]

Congressional Republicans and conservative activists no doubt gnashed their teeth over Obama’s appropriation of the very language that became a rallying cry of the 2010 tea party revolt to support a domestic agenda at odds with their call for the country to rediscover its roots as a federalist republic whose constitution reserved most power for the states.

But in responding to Obama, conservatives and congressional Republicans have to ask themselves this key question as they look ahead to the 113th Congress just under way and the 2014 midterms and 2016 presidential election: Are they engaged in politics to achieve an emotional catharsis or to rally the public in an effort to influence public policy? This is a particularly relevant question for the Republicans serving in the House majority.

If conservatives outside Congress and Republicans on Capitol Hill are serious about winning the Senate in 2014, recapturing the White House in 2016 and earning the ability to govern that would come with those victories, they’ll stop complaining about Obama. They will stop complaining that he won the election or is winning the argument because he didn’t or isn’t telling the truth.

And, they will stop sounding so eager to shut down the government and risk federal default, while describing their own policy goals as the country akin to having to ‘take its medicine.’

Apparently in the minds of The Villagers, “We, the people” is only reserved for tea partiers and rightwing extremists? If conservatives are serious about remaining a major political party, they better start recognizing that more than half of the country VOTED this president in, along with his agenda. And those voters find this president’s interpretation of the founding principles better reflect their beliefs as citizens of this country and wish the government to better serve WE, THE PEOPLE — and not a group of screeching extremists who like to refer to themselves as patriots, but who ultimately represent the financial agendas of wealthiest one-percent.

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones saw the Inaugural Address as “surprisingly barbed” and gives the following as evidence:

To Mitt Romney: “The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security….do not make us a nation of takers.”

To the climate change denialists: “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.”

To the neocons: “We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.”

To the voter suppression gangs in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and elsewhere: “Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.”

To the NRA: “Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.”

To the entire tea party wing of the GOP: “We cannot mistake absolutism for principle or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.”

Drum says, “Did conservatives take these lines as obvious, personal attacks? You betcha. I would too, if I were them.“ So you see, when Obama expresses his opinion on issues and reminds us that he is, in fact, a Democrat with democratic values, that’s called a ‘barb’ or ‘personal attack’ aimed directly at his political opponents. I guess if a Democrat has an opposing viewpoint, s/he should just be really, really quiet about it or it’s a direct personal confrontation?

Only Republicans could see remarks meant to be inclusive of all as excluding them specifically; remarks meant to highlight the safety and security of future generations as a personal threat to their freedom; and a call to more reasonable negotiation and dialogue as an insult. What a bunch of children — OR what a bunch of fake outrage.

The GOP’s debt ceiling retreat probably means there will be a government shutdown

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Jonathan Chait says the jig is up, the debt ceiling hostage crisis is over:

It’s over. House Republicans, following a literal and metaphorical retreat, have announced they plan to lift the debt ceiling without extracting policy concessions. Whatever mini-dramas may follow, the GOP leadership has both recognized the need to abandon their strategy of using the debt ceiling as a hostage and also to recognize this publicly. The GOP announcement came wrapped in a face-saving demand …to let right-wingers believe, or at least claim, that they succeeded in extracting some concession in return for not playing Russian roulette with the world economy. But it’s a superficial gesture. The Senate’s failure to pass a budget resolution has become a ubiquitous Republican talking point, but it’s essentially a meaningless technicality. [...]

The main credit here goes to the Obama administration for recognizing that enmeshing the debt ceiling with policy negotiations was a horrible idea that it had to stop dead in its tracks… The whole key to making Obama’s extortion-squelching plan, and saving American government from endless cycles of hostage drama that would eventually end in a default, was to credibly insist that he would not trade anything for a debt ceiling hike… Now, Republicans are only voting on a three-month extension. But this is a face-saving gesture, too. Once they’ve recognized that the debt ceiling isn’t leverage, they have no reason to keep taking painful votes that expose their members to attack ads.

Steve Benen thinks there’s still too many potential Teapublican “glitches” that could occur to consider this a victory just yet:

Even if we assume Democrats accept the GOP’s retreat, which isn’t a sure thing just yet, GOP leaders may once again run into trouble with their own caucus, leaving John Boehner and Eric Cantor dependent on Democratic votes for the third time in four weeks. In an odd twist, it’s not necessarily the case that those intransigent House Republicans want to default and trash the full faith and credit of the United States — on the contrary, many want the debt ceiling to go up. The problem is they don’t want to vote for it. The New York Times calls this “unofficial group” the “Vote No/Hope Yes Caucus.”

Greg Sargent predicts that caving on the debt ceiling means there will be a government shutdown over sequestration cuts — if for nothing else than for the “Vote No/Hope Yes Caucus” to be able to impress its voter base:

On the debt ceiling, at least, this is a complete cave. As noted below, the mere willingness to raise the debt ceiling temporarily was itself an acknowledgment by Republicans that the threat of default gave them no leverage and that they had essentially lost this fight. Now the three month extension means that in practical terms, it’s essentially been removed from the talks entirely.

The GOP will now stage the battle to get the spending cuts it wants around the threat of a government shutdown. Remember, GOP aides have explicitly conceded that instigating a confrontation will be necessary in order to placate House conservatives and Tea Partyers who wanted to flirt with default in order to get their way, but will ultimately be forced to accept the fact that this just ain’t gonna happen. Remember that quote to Politico? House Speaker John Boehner “may need a shutdown just to get it out of their system,” said a top GOP leadership adviser. “We might need to do that for member-management purposes — so they have an endgame and can show their constituents they’re fighting.”

And so it looks as if we’ll now have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown, rather than default, so House conservatives can “get this out of their system.”

These conservatives aren’t in the House or the Senate for the public “service.” They don’t care how well or badly the government runs for the majority of Americans. They’re in Congress for personal fame and job security. They have one bottom line, and that’s to impress their hometown, extremist, tea-smelling voter base — and they’ll happily sacrifice the rest of us to prove themselves.

Here’s what’s wrong with America: AR-15s in a JC Penney

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A Guy Walks Into JC Penny With An Assault Rifle Strapped To His Back: “This is 22-year-old Joseph Kelley. The gun is an unloaded AR-15. “I felt no negative vibes from anyone,” Kelley told the Salt Lake Tribune, after these photos snapped by fellow JC Penny shopper Cindy Yorgason went viral. “I think it went rather surprisingly well.” Kelley added that he carries guns to protect people from “criminals, cartels, drug lords” and “evil men.” He was also carrying a loaded Glock 19c.”

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Sometimes it’s just a matter of melanin. Let’s just imagine for a minute that Joseph Kelley had middle-eastern features — or that he was a black man: might his fellow SLC Penneys’ shoppers given off some ‘negative vibes’? Might Kelley have been greeted at the door by the police?

Or, for the fun of it, let’s imagine Joseph Kelley wearing the AR-15 in any other large city that isn’t the completely homogenized HQ of the Church of Latter-day Saints: would it have gone ‘surprisingly well’? And would he have made it home WITH the firearm still attached to his person? Does anyone really want a 22-year-old “protecting” them from his idea of imaginary villains?

Most importantly: as we’ve witnessed all too often, the most dangerous people in America have been young white men with guns. You have to wonder why his fellow shoppers weren’t more alarmed.

Colbert mocks Limbaugh and Doocy over Obama’s gun reform proposals

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Colbert mocks Rush Limbaugh, Steve Doocy’s criticism about Obama’s gun reform proposals: Limbaugh barked on his radio show about how sickening he found Obama’s display. “He brings these kids, supposedly who wrote letters to the White House after Newtown … to paint a picture of support [mocking voice] among the children!” Limbaugh said. He continued in a falsely sympathetic tone, “They don’t want to die. How can you not listen to them?” And Colbert dished it right back, adopting a similar voice. “Boo hoo! I want a pony, I want to go to Disneyland, I want to wake to see another day. Boo hoo!” After all, why would kids be terrified of accident-prone weaponry?

FLASHBACK:


image: yobaba

(Limbaugh caricature above: DonkeyHotey)