THE VA SCANDAL

I live in Phoenix and when the news broke from a Dr. Sam Foote that there were shenanigans within the VA Hospital here we all thought it was just a carry-over from the state bureaucracy run by a bunch of incompetent conservatives that have trouble finding their way home in the evening.  It wasn't, and now we know the extent of this systemic problem. It goes all the way up to the White House and many believe that the administration and Shinseki had early warnings that were either ignored or not acknowledged. Montel Williams, a veteran himself, put it into perspective.

GUN CONTROL PREFERRED

There are eight companies who have banned guns from their premises: California Pizza Kitchens, Peets Coffee & Tea, Whole Foods, IKEA, AMC Theatres, Buffalo Wild Wings, Toys R Us and Disney World.

There are four that have made guns unwelcome in their establishments: Starbucks, Chipotle, Chile's and Sonic Drive in.

Now where are we going to eat, have coffee and entertain ourselves?

LAUGH FOR THE DAY

When Donald Trump calls someone else a clown, in this case, President Obama, you have to wonder what planet this fuzzy headed moron is living on. He did it on the Tea Party site, but, then, he is certainly in good company.

 



BBC SAYS U.S. WON'T CHANGE GUN LAWS AFTER RECENT VIOLENCE

If Newtown didn't do it--20 children killed by guns--then Isla Vista sure won't, says Tim Krieder on BBC news. What could be more pathetic than the fact these two incidents plus Tucson, Aurora, Columbine and Virginia Tech along with other individual gun violence on a daily basis is thrown in our face by the Brits. Those folks across the pool, by the way, have had sane gun laws for years and thousands less per capita deaths. But, then, they don't have wacky Wayne LaPierre to deal with.



TEA PARTY SAYS "MARTIAL LAW IS IMMINENT!"

They warn, "Obama is...Freedom Stripping America," a ruse TPers have been using for some time now. To milk the pathetic group of supposed patriots of their money. To give them the finances to spew the crap they do on a daily basis. They told these fruitcakes they could get Obama impeached. They didn't. They told their brainless followers they would take control of the government. They didn't. And the Tea Party is failing miserably for 2014. When will we be able to write this gang of morons off?

 

 



The latest in gun control

What we need is big time gun control

There’s a hitch in the passage of gun control laws in the Senate with Republicans objecting to the Democrats who want some record keeping when it comes to passing a law to require background checks.  The Guardian reports that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wants private sales made at gun shows and through the internet, not only to be put through the FBI-maintained National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), but they also want such sales to be recorded.”  The GOP (and the NRA) says no.

The National Rifle Assn. (NRA) led by head gun fanatic Wayne LaPierre, has always been against any kind of registry of names on who owns guns fearing that once that is in place, the government will come into gun owning homes and take away their weapons.  "There absolutely will not be record-keeping on legitimate, law-abiding gun owners," Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican, said.  This kind of thinking should illustrate to the American public just what a group of gun worshipping maniacs LaPierre and his NRA minions are.

And Chris Matthews, progressive anchor for MSNBC’s Hardball, said: “Support Gun Control or an American President Could Be Murdered,” in a closing commentary in a show last week.  It is worth repeating, below:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with this: I was in a big city hospital recently and the issue of gun control, gun safety came up. The doctor said if I wanted to know the impact of guns, he could show me, take me down and show me. Look, gunshot wounds can be truly horrible. The reality justifies the discussion, today, about the need to try and do something about the proliferation of assault rifles, huge ammo magazines and the loopholes in the requirement that there be background checks. People have told us of the horrible sight of those young kids up in Newtown, Connecticut. I personally don't want to be part of a movement to keep those semi-automatics flying into the hands of all sorts of people as they are today, the hoarders, the survivalists, the paranoid, the criminal and downright politically nutty.

Why? Because the next mass shooter could well emerge out of this pack. Check the shooters of John F. Kennedy and Jerry Ford, who got shot at twice. Look at the men that shot Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and George Wallace. They all had political motives and they all had guns. Got them easy and put them easily to use. And if you're not against this movement, you're with it. Write your congressman and say what you think and what you feel. Do it tonight before you go to bed. The address of Congress, for all the congressmen is Congress, U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C., 20515. That's Washington, D.C. 20515. It will get there. And that's Hardball for now. Thanks for being with us.

Well done!

Did you know that the United States, specifically Waikiki, Hawaii, is a haven for tourists who just want to shoot guns, all kinds of guns, because the gun laws in this country allow you to do pretty much anything you want with a firearm?  There are four shooting ranges along Waikiki’s Kalakaua Avenue where they learn how to shoot assault weapons.  A large majority of these tourists are Japanese, who are frequent visitors to Hawaii anyway, here because they can get their hands on guns they are not allowed to own in Japan.  There, only shotguns are legal.

USA Today says that, “…fewer than 1% of Japan's population owns a gun and the death rate from gun-related violence is extremely low.”  There were only 19 gun-related homicides in Japan in 2010 and in comparing that with gun violence in the U.S., “47% of Americans own a gun, according to a 2011 Gallup poll, and 8,583 Americans were killed in gun-related homicides, according to the FBI's 2011 crime report.”  It is pretty pathetic to think that tourists coming to America do it because of loose gun laws, which causes the gun carnage in the U.S.

But on a final note, at one of this country’s largest firearms manufacturers, Beretta USA, one of its lunatic executives, Jeffrey Reh, the company’s general counsel, is quoted in The Washington Free Beacon as saying, “Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013 is ‘tantamount to a legislative effort to ban certain books.’”  Just when you think you’ve heard it all.  Wacky Wayne would be proud of this sycophant of the gun rights fruitcakes who probably, himself, has never read a book outside the law.  Amen

Gene said…Bob said…White House wins this one

Gene Sperling

Gene Sperling is President Obama’s economic adviser and Bob Woodward is an award winning journalist who works for the Washington Post and along with Carl Bernstein exposed the Watergate conspiracy.  There are sufficient credentials on either side of this supposed “disagreement,” and frankly, from what I have read, the whole thing was blown completely out of proportion.  I believe even Woodward made this comment, which was echoed by White House spokesman, Jay Carney.

In an exclusive, Politico obtained and released the following emails between Sperling and Woodward:

From Gene Sperling to Bob Woodward on Feb. 22, 2013

Bob:

I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. My bad. I do understand your problems with a couple of our statements in the fall — but feel on the other hand that you focus on a few specific trees that gives a very wrong perception of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here.

But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim. The idea that the sequester was to force both sides to go back to try at a big or grand bargain with a mix of entitlements and revenues (even if there were serious disagreements on composition) was part of the DNA of the thing from the start. It was an accepted part of the understanding — from the start. Really. It was assumed by the Rs on the Supercommittee that came right after: it was assumed in the November-December 2012 negotiations. There may have been big disagreements over rates and ratios — but that it was supposed to be replaced by entitlements and revenues of some form is not controversial. (Indeed, the discretionary savings amount from the Boehner-Obama negotiations were locked in in BCA: the sequester was just designed to force all back to table on entitlements and revenues.)

I agree there are more than one side to our first disagreement, but again think this latter issue is different. Not out to argue and argue on this latter point. Just my sincere advice. Your call obviously.

My apologies again for raising my voice on the call with you. Feel bad about that and truly apologize.

Gene

From Woodward to Sperling on Feb. 23, 2013

 

Gene: You do not ever have to apologize to me. You get wound up because you are making your points and you believe them. This is all part of a serious discussion. I for one welcome a little heat; there should more given the importance. I also welcome your personal advice. I am listening. I know you lived all this. My partial advantage is that I talked extensively with all involved. I am traveling and will try to reach you after 3 pm today. Best, Bob
 

From there on it’s ‘he said,’ ‘he said’ with Woodward commenting at one point, "I never characterized it as a 'threat.' I think that was Politico's word."  But Woodward at least implied that the “I think you will regret staking out that claim,” was a veiled threat and of course at that point it went viral.  It wouldn’t mean diddly squat had it been said by some lesser known journalist than Bob Woodward, especially with his connections to Washington and insight into Beltway politics.  It must have been a slow news day.

But the New Yorker had a different slant.  John Cassidy said, “The real rap on Woodward isn’t that he makes things up. It’s that he takes what powerful people tell him at face value; that his accounts are shaped by who coöperates with him and who doesn’t; and that they lack context, critical awareness, and, ultimately, historic meaning.”  Further, Joan Didion wrote:

“’…that “measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent’” from Woodward’s post-Watergate books, which are notable mainly for “a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured.”

Cassidy states that in one of Woodward’s books about the Bush admin. he says that, “…President Obama bungled negotiations with congressional Republicans, and portrays him as overconfident, underprepared, and confrontational.”  Yet Ryan Lizza in a piece about Eric Cantor said, “…the House Republican virtually admits it was he who torpedoed the debt-ceiling negotiations.”  Cassidy confirms that Obama “was clear all along that, when it came to replacing the sequester, it would demand a balanced package of spending cuts and revenue increases.”

Cassidy added that Sperling’s history is a matter of record with “little to apologize for.”  But Woodward’s background is basically untarnished in a business that requires near-perfection in what you are doing.  Let’s just call it a draw and move on.