Category Archives: Government

The NRA’s Circular Argument.

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As Congress debated the assault weapons ban in 1994, the NRA offered universal background checks as an alternative. Following the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, the NRA again called for universal background checks. But now that we’re once again looking for solutions to gun violence, the NRA leadership is adamantly opposed to universal background checks!

Their reasoning? Background checks don’t work.

They rightly claim that universal background checks will not work because the database is incomplete; that some states have not supplied necessary data on felons and those with mental health issues. What they neglect to mention is that NRA supporters have blocked the sharing of data.

The NRA leaders also claim that there are hundreds of gun laws on the books that are currently not being enforced. Again, they are correct…but only because an NRA-backed Republican, former Congressman Todd Tiahrt, attached amendments to appropriations bills in 2003 and 2004 limiting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. These amendments prohibit the creation of a national registry of firearms. They require data from background checks to be destroyed within 24 hours. They prohibit the ATFE from releasing any data on gun violence, except in aggregate. They even limit the use of tracing data to suspend a gun dealer’s license.

Worse yet, the ATFE has not had a permanent director since 2006 because NRA-endorsed Republican senators have refused to confirm presidential nominations. Even worse, the ATFE has too little money and far too few agents to do its job. Only a tiny fraction of the nearly 51,000 retail gun dealers can be inspected each year.

Things are further complicated by sequestration. Cuts to Medicaid and mental health care will likely result in even more Jared Loughners and Adam Lanzas being able to purchase guns.

This situation is completely untenable and the NRA knows it because the NRA created it to prevent any realistic limitation on gun sales. The NRA refuses to agree to universal background checks because they are incomplete and unenforceable. And the reason they are incomplete and unenforceable is because of the NRA and its lackeys in Congress!

As if all of this isn’t bad enough, the NRA has written and backed ever more permissive gun laws across the nation. In states like Arizona, any non-felon can walk into a gun shop and buy enough guns to arm a militia. The straw buyer can then walk across the street and re-sell those guns to a crime organization without restriction. If the police or ATFE agents arrest the straw buyer, the US attorney is unable to press charges because no laws were broken.

The laws may not have been broken. But the system is.

The GOP’s Continuing Attack On Voters, Workers, Women And The Constitution.

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Still stinging from its losses in the 2012 election, the Grand Old Party is becoming a Grand Old Pain In The Ass.  Not just for Democrats…for everyone.

While opposing a bill that would raise the minimum wage, the GOP is attacking labor unions across the nation and successfully ending defined benefit pension plans.  Now the GOP is pushing a bill that would loosen the rules for overtime, allowing corporations to overwork and underpay employees.

Famously, the Ryan budget, which was passed by the House, would drastically cut Medicaid, repeal Obamacare and turn Medicare into vouchers.

Although 94 percent of Americans want comprehensive background checks for anyone purchasing a firearm, Teapublican senators are threatening to filibuster any bill that would limit the sale of guns.

In states across the nation, the GOP is pushing a variety of voter suppression laws through state legislatures under the guise of preventing voter ID fraud, a problem that has been proven to be non-existent.   After gerrymandering districts to all but guarantee a Teapublican-controlled House far into the future, the GOP now senses a way to control presidential elections by changing the Electoral College.  The idea is to end the “winner-take-all” approach to electoral votes for states and, instead, award each electoral vote district-by-Teapublican-controlled-district.

If successful, this would almost certainly ensure an endless reign of GOP presidents.

In North Dakota, Arkansas and elsewhere, GOP legislatures are attempting to make abortion illegal. (Of course, the bills will not actually end abortion.  They’ll just drive it underground, making doctors and patients criminals.)  Under the guise of religious freedom, they also want to eliminate contraceptives from health insurance plans and block sex education in public schools.

In Arizona and numerous states of the Old South, a variety of so-called nullification bills have been introduced in the state legislatures.  If passed, these bills would ostensibly give the states power to ignore any federal law the GOP deems unconstitutional.  (Of course, this power is reserved for the Supreme Court and the bills are in direct defiance of the Constitution’s federal supremacy clause.)

Finally, a bill introduced by North Carolina Teapublicans will allow the GOP-controlled state legislature to name an official state religion in defiance of the Constitution’s establishment clause.

Does anyone else get the feeling that the GOP would be happier if our Constitution didn’t exist?

Putting The Party In Tea Party.

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The Tea Party began as a group of individuals who claimed to be aghast at runaway government spending.  To fight back, they promoted a number of candidates who ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility.

That was 2010.

Just a few years later, those so-called fiscal hawks have decided that federal spending is a good thing…as long as it’s used for a good cause, such as paying large bonuses to their staff and friends.  According to the website, www.LegisStorm.com, Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), who was defeated in his attempt at a Senate seat, used taxpayers’ money to increase his staff’s salaries 98.3% in the final quarter.

Many outgoing Democrats also gave large bonuses to their staffs, but the records show that Republicans were even more generous with taxpayers’ money.  Among the most generous were Tea Party Representatives Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) and Allen West (R-Fla.), who ranked numbers 3 and 4 in giving pay increases to staff members.

In other words, these so-called deficit hawks are partying with our money as though it were 1999.

Moreover, if you think the Tea Party is any more serious about reducing the deficit than Democrats, compare the Paul Ryan budget, which was passed by the Teapublican-led House, to the People’s Budget proposed by the House Progressive caucus.

Both plans cut about the same amount from the federal budget.  But the Ryan plan does it on the backs of the poor and the middle class while cutting taxes for the rich and increasing the already bloated defense budget. On the other hand, the progressive plan cuts the defense budget, raises revenues by eliminating tax dodges for the rich, secures the future of Social Security and Medicare, and rebuilds our failing infrastructure.  And it does all this while reducing deficits by $5.6 trillion over the next decade according to the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute!

When you look past the Tea Party rhetoric and look carefully at its policies, you quickly discover that the teabaggers are more interested in self-interest, greed and ideology than principles, debt reduction and the future of our nation.

The Constitutional Fight That Never Seems To End.

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You may think that the current debate between the Tea Party and Democrats over the role of the federal government is relatively new. It’s not. The debate is as old as the nation itself. Following the Constitutional Convention of 1787, there was an intense debate over the same issue.

Anti-Federalists such as Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, George Mason and John Hancock were against the Constitution. They feared that a strong federal government would lead to monarchy. They believed that the bulk of the power should rest with the states and saw no value in abandoning the original Articles of Confederation. They feared an independent judiciary and disliked the separation of Church and State.

On the other hand, Federalists such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin believed the Articles of Confederation were too weak, and that a strong central government was necessary to hold the new nation together and raise the revenue needed to fund military pensions, foreign embassies, etc.

The Federalists won, but the fight has never ended.

One could make a strong case that this very issue led to the Civil War.  The South claimed states’ rights in order to maintain slavery.  And, following the war, former Confederate states complained of oppression by the federal government during Reconstruction, vowing that the South would rise again.

The issue resurfaced following World War II with the John Birch Society.  It was, once again, front and center during the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.

Now the Tea Party is leading the fight.

To support their beliefs, the Tea Party faithful, along with the nitwits on Fox News and talk radio, selectively quote the Founding Fathers in order to convince us that they (the Tea Party) are the true patriots; that they are merely doing as the Founders wanted.

What they neglect to mention is that there are at least as many quotes by Founding Fathers extolling the virtues of a strong federal government.  Moreover, the Constitution itself is evidence that the Federalists prevailed, as the Constitution is the very instrument that created the strong federal government in its current form.

The teabaggers can complain all they want about the federal government being too big and  too powerful.  They really can’t change that without abandoning the Constitution or starting another Civil War.  And we all know how the first one turned out.

If you’d like to learn more about this subject, I highly recommend That’s Not What They Meant!  Reclaiming The Founding Fathers From America’s Right Wing by Michael Austin.

Most U.S. Problems Are The Result Of The 2000 Election.

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In some ways, those who predicted apocalyptic disaster as the result of Y2K were right. No, our computers did not stop working.  No, the millennium did not lead to the end of the world. But we did experience a disaster nonetheless.

Despite winning the majority of the popular vote, Al Gore was denied a recount in Florida and, as a result, the White House. Consider, for a moment, the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision to award George W. Bush the presidency.

That unpopular decision led to almost all of our most intractable problems.

Let’s begin with 9/11.  A Gore administration likely would have continued most of the policies of the Clinton administration, including its attempt to kill Osama bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda with a cruise missile (a strike derided by Bush as “sending a million dollar missile to blow up a camel tent”).  Unlike Bush, President Gore almost certainly would have listened to warnings by counter-terrorism experts of an imminent strike in the US using hijacked airliners.

And without 9/11, we wouldn’t have become mired in the 10-year war in Afghanistan which has cost us trillions of dollars.

Moreover, it’s highly unlikely that a Gore administration would have falsified evidence in order to justify the invasion of Iraq, leading to a second war costing trillions more dollars.

As for our economy, Gore would have continued the Clinton administration’s policies which led to budget surpluses – surpluses that were on track to eliminate the national debt by the end of 2012.  The Bush tax cuts, which added hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt, never would have happened (at least, not until the debt was nearly paid off).

As vice-president, Al Gore led the successful Reinventing Government Program that streamlined the federal government and cut wasteful spending.  He likely would have continued that program as president, continuing to down-size government.

Bush, on the other hand, oversaw the largest increase of the federal government in history!

Finally, Gore almost certainly would have led efforts to stem climate change at a time when smaller changes could have had great and lasting effects.  But thanks to Bush, Richard “The Dick” Cheney and all of their oil buddies, it now may be too late to avoid the predictable devastating effects of runaway carbon emissions.

Remember this the next time you hear Teapublicans complain about the budget deficit, the escalating national debt, and the cost of clean-up efforts following storms made worse by climate change.

Let’s Create A New Tax System!

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The US is a patchwork of federal taxes, state taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, gasoline taxes, tobacco taxes, etc. In addition, there are a myriad of tax loopholes allowing billionaires to pay lower tax rates than the secretaries who work for them. Worse yet, some of the world’s largest corporations are able to avoid paying income taxes, despite billions in profits.

If all of that isn’t confusing enough, taxes in some states are higher than in others, leading to competition between states.

For decades, states have spent more time trying to coax companies from other states than helping their own entrepreneurs to create new companies. Low tax states such as Arizona and South Dakota try to lure away businesses (and jobs) from higher tax states like California and Minnesota where the businesses began and grew, likely because of tax incentives and other state-funded investments in those businesses.

This kind of nonsense has to stop!

Businesses are not created by low taxes.  They are created and nurtured in states which value education, innovation, technology, infrastructure, and quality of life.

If states like Arizona and South Dakota want more jobs for their citizens, let them invest in the things necessary to create them. Let’s stop the competition to see which state can cut taxes to the lowest possible rate at the sacrifice of everything else. Let’s level the playing field. Let’s eliminate the multiple layers of taxes. Let’s create a single, federal tax system in which each state charges the same tax based on income and cost of living. (I think we can all agree that a $250,000 salary in Wyoming goes a lot farther than the same salary in New York.) The money would then be parceled out by the federal government based on population and defined need.

This system would end the free ride for low tax states and encourage real development and innovation.

After all, why should Minnesota, Delaware, New York and New Jersey have to contribute far more taxes per person to the government than they get back? And why should states like Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico and Wyoming get more out of the federal government than they pay in? And why should companies be encouraged to uproot their offices, production facilities and personnel just because another state offers a slightly lower tax rate?

Think about it.

What The Frack?

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If you’ve followed fracking in the US (the process of releasing gas and oil from rock formations hundreds of feet underground through hydraulic fracturing), you’ve heard about the many nightmares.

Some people have had their wells so polluted, the water can be set on fire.  Others talk of bullying tactics by the oil drilling companies who take over their land. Still others talk about the large tanks containing a secret witches brew of toxic chemicals placed on their land and the pools of highly polluted waste water.

It’s very different in the United Kingdom.

In listening to a discussion about fracking in England, I learned that the British government is handling the procedure far differently.  Unlike the US, England demands that the chemicals pumped into the ground to release the gas and oil be made public.  (In most cases, they use just one chemical.)  England also demands that the waste water be placed in double-walled tanks and treated before it can be released back into the environment.

Why the difference?

Apparently the oil and gas industry doesn’t own Parliament the way it owns Congress.

The Treason Party.

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Following the fallout of the Watergate break-in, we learned that Richard Nixon was a crook. Thanks to a documentary by the BBC and the Rachel Maddow Show, we now know that he was also a traitor.

The Thursday before the 1968 presidential election, President Johnson announced that the allies had reached a peace agreement with North Vietnam. But since Nixon had run on a platform promising to end the war, he couldn’t afford to have Johnson end the war a few days before the election.

So Nixon used an intermediary to convince the South Vietnamese to back out of the peace agreement!

Recordings of Johnson’s phone conversations reveal that he knew about Nixon’s treachery, but since he learned of it as the result of illegal FBI wiretaps of the South Vietnam ambassador’s phone, LBJ couldn’t make the information public.

The treason helped Nixon win a close election over Hubert H. Humphrey.  It also caused the war to rage on for another 5 years, costing 15,000 more American lives!

Of course, Nixon isn’t the last Republican president to play fast and loose with the Constitution. Reagan created a shadow government to covertly arm Iran in exchange for money to finance the Contras of Nicaragua.  George W. Bush led us into war with Iraq on false pretenses.  And his administration violated international treaties by torturing captives.

More recently, Teapublicans have used every parliamentary trick in the book and a record number of filibusters in order to block President Obama’s appointments and his attempts to improve our economy.

Yet they have the audacity to wave flags and call themselves patriots!!!

If I Were King.

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Ever think about what you might do if you were named King (or Queen) of the US for a day? I realize this is a somewhat narcissistic exercise, nevertheless, here’s what I would do:

1 – Cut the defense budget in half and use the leftover money to rebuild our antiquated and decaying infrastructure

2 – End the war on drugs by decriminalizing the use of illicit drugs

3 – Empty the prisons of those incarcerated for drug use and petty drug sales

4 – Prosecute those who have ordered or participated in war crimes

5 – Prosecute the bank executives who crashed our economy by stealing trillions from ordinary citizens

6 – Prosecute those who have created off-shore bank accounts for tax evasion

7 – Limit the number of Congressional lobbyists and ban campaign contributions

8 – Institute public financing for electoral campaigns

9 – Implement a national holiday for elections with mandatory voting

10 – Institute a tax on financial transactions

11 – Index federal income tax rates based on cost of living for each taxpayer’s permanent address

12 – End sales taxes on everything except luxury items

13 – End tax exemptions for more than one home

14 – Restore the FCC Fairness Doctrine requiring electronic media to operate in the public interest and withholding licenses to those who knowingly tell lies

15 – Create a single-payer national healthcare system

16 – Strengthen Social Security by removing the income cap for FICA deductions and means test Social Security recipients to prevent millionaires from receiving it

17 – Reduce the influence of multinational corporations on our State Dept.

18 – Require 2 years of service for all US citizens

19 – Ban semi-automatic weapons, high-capacity clips and military-style ammunition and offer federal buy-backs of banned guns and ammo

20 – Require universal background checks for all gun purchases

21 – Proclaim equality for all and increase penalties for any form of discrimination

22 – End tax exemptions for church property, except that used to perform charitable services, such as education, medicine, services for the poor, etc.

23 – End all corporate welfare, especially for those corporations who export jobs or pollute our environment

24 – Ban elected officials from working for government contractors as employees or lobbyists for a minimum of 10 years

25 – Require that corporate offices of government contractors be located in the US

I’m sure I’ll think of more. Of course, our nation is as likely to implement these ideas as it is to make me King for a day. Thanks for allowing me to indulge in my fantasies.

Drone Controversy Nothing New.

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Sen. Rand Paul’s talking filibuster succeeded in calling attention to the issue of government-sanctioned assassinations. But this issue is far from new. The US has been using the threat of assassination for decades. The only thing that has changed is the means of killing.

Following World War II, our CIA and military planned assassination attempts of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, Cuban President Fidel Castro, Congo President Patrice Lumumba, Dominican President Rafael Trujillo and many more. We succeeded in having both Chilean President Salvador Allende and Chilean Armed Forces Chief Rene Schneider killed.

These plots ranged from poisons to snipers to small invasion forces.

When the CIA operations eventually came to light, President Ford issued an order banning the involvement of US government employees in such plots. The ban was renewed by President Carter and President Reagan.

Confronted with Islamic terrorism, President Clinton signed an order creating a list of specific terrorists targeted for capture or assassination. Then, in 2001, Congress gave President Bush the power to use all appropriate and necessary force against those involved with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We’ve been carrying out assassinations of terrorist targets ever since.

One can make a strong case that the drone strikes are needed to eliminate terrorist leaders in nations that refuse to make arrests. Drone strikes are certainly better than invading those countries with troops! Nevertheless, the US needs to have a transparent policy with regard to drone strikes. We need to have oversight so that this means of assassination is not abused and so that the possibility of collateral damage is minimized.

Without such oversight, drones and other weapons intended for “surgical strikes” are bound to be misused. Imagine if Richard “The Dick” Cheney was able to control such power again. Imagine someone worse!