Category Archives: Politics

When Mike Bloomberg decided to run for a third term as New York City mayor, he derailed the mayoral ambitions of Rep. Anthony Wiener, Congressman from New York’s 9th District. Wiener, who was considered the leading candidate, seemed set on following the Ed Koch career path, and the zeitgesit pegged him as the leading Democratic candidate. Instead, he has reinvented himself as the most outspoken Congressional advocate for real health care reform and the public option.

Hat’s off to you Anthony! Keep up the good work!

If you too share my enthusiasm, why don’t you drop Rep. Wiener an email here.

Years after 9/11, Bush/Cheney responds to the question, “what was the biggest mistake you ever made?”

But Barack “the buck, ultimately, stops here” has to hear crap from Cheney every day about the penis bomber? Isn’t there some island where Cheeney and Rash can live happily ever after in wedded bliss? They could share endearing heart disease stories.

One of these is really a "weapon of mass destruction."

There has been a grotesque dumbing down, recently, of the definition of “weapon of mass destruction.” Once reserved for chemical, nuclear and biological weapons capable of killing millions, it has been revised, in the years starting with the passing of the USA PATRIOT ACT in late 2001, to include just about any and all weapons used against an American citizen. To wit:

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 113B > § 2332a

(2) the term “weapon of mass destruction” means—

(A) any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title;

(B) any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxic or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors;

(C) any weapon involving a biological agent, toxin, or vector (as those terms are defined in section 178 of this title); or

(D) any weapon that is designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life; …

(http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002332—a000-.html)

 TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 44 > § 921

 (4) The term “destructive device” means—

(A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas—

(i) bomb,

(ii) grenade,

(iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces,

(iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce,

(v) mine, or

(vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses;

(B) any type of weapon (other than a shotgun or a shotgun shell which the Attorney General finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes) by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, and which has any barrel with a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter; and

(C) any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into any destructive device described in subparagraph (A) or (B) and from which a destructive device may be readily assembled.

(http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000921—-000-.html)

The “destructive device” language is the product of legislation since 2001.

Whatever else one might think of them — and personally, I think they should rot in jail for the rest of their lives — the penis bomber and the Ft. Hood shooter have both been charged with the use of “weapons of mass destruction.” This is ridiculous, and has the potential to leave us naked, legally, if and when, g*d forbid, someone actually uses, or tries to use, a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon against the United States and its citizens. Let alone, the fact that the “destructive devices” described in Section 921 are commonly used by U.S. military and police forces, and it would be quite easy to find the legal tables turned on us. Note, for instance, that Section 921(a)(iv) simply descibes a common type of explosive bullet.

This continued insistence on rhetoric over common sense — especially as it continues to be codified in our laws — has more potential to seriously threaten our society than all the Al Qaeda cells in Saudi Arabia.

William Butler Yeats, by John Singer Sargent

 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

–The Second Coming (1919/1920), William Butler You-Know-Who

Recent days have heard a raft of criticism of Barack Obama for not responding with more passion to the threat posed by the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. This is a welcome sign, frankly. Compared to the supposedly heroic and “passionate” George W. Bush, Obama’s measured response is entirely appropriate to an incident that caused no casualties, and which doesn’t change a single fact about the scope or scale of the terrorist threat, or of the competencies (or lack thereof) of  those who wish us harm. The simple fact of the matter is that Islamic extremist terrorism, as awful and bothersome as it is, poses no real day-to-day threat to the average American, and only in the most long-term and improbable circumstances — China or Russia becoming full-bodied allies of Al Qaeda, thus changing the global military equation — will they ever pose such a threat. Al Qaeda blew its wad on September 11th, and most everything that follows will be a mop-up operation. The existence of the Al Qaeda threat has not tangibly changed anything about the daily lives of Americans, except maybe to add a bit of humiliation, at the hands of our own government mind you, at the airport check-in counter, the blow to our mutual self-esteem inherent in our willingness to expose our children to military personnel and unsheathed M-16s on our streets and at the regional railroad station.

For all the demagogic rhetoric of the Bush administration — for all the “bring it on’s” and “crusades” and “dead or alive’s” — Osama Bin Laden and his entourage are still at large; something that can’t be said of last week’s penis bomber. And buried by all the demagogic rhetoric and war-talk is the simple fact that throughout this era the Republicans have never stopped for one day quietly pursuing their Restoration reactionary agenda — eliminating the progressive income tax and the inheritance tax; substantially and permanently reducing the capital gains tax and effective corporate tax rates; guaranteeing that the President, the Vice President, their families and supporters would profit personally and maximally from our two-front “War on Terrorism”; stripping away the last vestiges of regulatory control of corporate entities; and making worker organization and unionization virtually illegal — all at a time when our spirits and our resources should supposedly have been mobilized to meet the great existential, military threat posed by six turbaned guys hiding in a tenement in Peshawar (or a cave, if you prefer; but that is so passé). 

These domestic affronts to the liberty and livelihood of the vast majority of Americans, which proceeded unabated while Junior and Darth Vader held the mike and prattled endlessly on about war, are the real threats inherited by the American People of 2010 — the things that really affect our daily lives today, as we suffer through massive loss of real income and 10% unemployment. And so it is, in my view, infinitely appropriate that our new President ratchet down the hysteria, and concentrate on fixing our broken home. Thank heaven for a real leader at last!

And for those liberal hawks — I’m thinking of you Chris Matthews — who have their panties all twisted about Abdul the Panty Bomber: get over it, baby. This guy can’t hurt America. Seriously. And if not adding to the panic costs the Democrats some seats at the mid-terms — well, so it goes. Better to be lead by real men for a short time than to succomb to the lies and panic that have brought us, altogether, to this ugly present.

DEMINT: The president has downplayed the threat of terror since he took office, and he waited eight months to even nominate Mr. Southers for this position. And then he wanted him approved in secret with no debate and no recorded vote in the Senate.

And this is all in the context of the president promising the unions that he will submit our airport security to collective bargaining with union bosses.

Complete Fox interview here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,581499,00.html

DeMint “thinks labor unions are a bigger threat to American citizens than al-Qaida,” said Carol Fowler, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party.

 

Rock Hill lawyer Chad McGowan, a Democrat running for DeMint’s seat, said the senator is “putting his partisan agenda ahead of our safety.”