Voluntary disclosure isn't working as well as it could be, so SEC could propose a new rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose all of their political contributions

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Plan Would Force Public Companies To Reveal Political Giving
By Kara Brandeisky, April 27, 2013

The 2012 election was the most expensive in history, but there remain some gaping holes in our knowledge about who paid for what. The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering a proposal to add more transparency in future elections, but it won't happen without a fight.

The SEC proposal would require publicly traded companies to disclose all of their political contributions. And that would force companies to decide, in effect, if being linked to a candidate or partisan position is worth the impact political advocacy might have on its bottom line. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is vowing to fight the effort to tighten disclosure rules.

SuperPACs And 'Social Welfare' Groups

The Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling allowed corporations to give unlimited contributions to superPACs, but relatively few public companies have done so, perhaps because political action committees must disclose their donors.

Watchdog groups think some public corporations have contributed to tax-exempt groups that fall under the 501(c) section of the tax code. These groups can engage in political activity — as long as they say their primary purpose is educational — and do not have to disclose their donors. Yet these "social welfare" groups include big political players, ranging from Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS to President Obama's Organizing for Action.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Crossroads GPS spent more than $70 million in 2012. Organizing for Action, which grew out of Obama's 2012 campaign, was formed after the election cycle. Its founders have pledged to refuse corporate contributions and disclose a list of donors.

Most corporations also belong to 501(c)(6) organizations, like trade associations and chambers of commerce, which can engage in political activity. For example, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $35.7 million in 2012 — and it's now leading the charge against the SEC's petition. Altogether, the Center for Responsive Politics estimates these tax-exempt groups spent at least $300 million in the 2012 election cycle.

If the SEC does propose the new rule — an action it could take as early as next week — it would start a process that would include a comment period and public meetings. Enacting the rule also could spur legal action from opponents.

Voluntary Transparency

A study of the 2012 election cycle shows that many companies already are making at least some donations public, perhaps due to increased pressure from activists and shareholders.

The Center for Political Accountability has been tracking voluntary disclosure by corporations since 2003. For the past two years, the group has compiled a ranking called the CPA-Zicklin Index, which found that 58 percent of the top 200 companies in the S&P 500 voluntarily disclosed some information about their political spending, and 85 percent of companies studied over two years improved their scores for political disclosure and accountability.

Center for Political Accountability President Bruce Freed said that disclosure and accountability policies have become mainstream corporate governance practices. "When we did the index in 2011, we were really, frankly, quite surprised at the results — really pleasantly surprised — when we found that there were companies that were adopting disclosure and accountability policies without having been engaged by investors," Freed said. "They were doing it on their own."

However, the group also found that 59 percent of companies did not disclose any information about payments to trade associations, and 75 percent did not disclose any contributions to tax-exempt social welfare groups.

The Center for Responsive Politics has reported that some companies, including PepsiCo and Koch Industries, have lobbied against the SEC proposal during the first quarter of 2013. But Freed has found that other corporate representatives are frustrated by the varied patchwork of voluntary disclosures.

"I know from discussions with companies that there are a growing number of companies that will say privately, yes, we would like to see a rule because they see uniformity as in their self-interest," Freed said. "It means that companies would be operating on a level playing field here."
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Congress doesn't believe that the Army knows what it's doing

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Tanks, but no thanks!  Not to mention, these aren't even NEW tanks-- they're upgraded older Abrams tanks!
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Congress wants to spend millions on tanks, the Army says 'no thanks'
Published on msnNOW.com, April 28, 2013
Congress gave the Army $436 million over the past two years to retrofit Abrams tanks, but the Army says it doesn't need that done. "If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way," says U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno. So why the cash splash? One word: Ohio. The nation’s most promiscuous swing state is home to its only military tank plant, located in the city of Lima. And guess what: Both Ohioans in the U.S. Senate are big Abrams tank fans. Small world, right?
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Army says no to more tanks, but Congress insists
By Richard Lardner, April 28, 2013

Built to dominate the enemy in combat, the Army's hulking Abrams tank is proving equally hard to beat in a budget battle.

Lawmakers from both parties have devoted nearly half a billion dollars in taxpayer money over the past two years to build improved versions of the 70-ton Abrams.

But senior Army officials have said repeatedly, "No thanks."

[snipped]

The tanks that Congress is requiring the Army to buy aren't brand new. Earlier models are being outfitted with a sophisticated suite of electronics that gives the vehicles better microprocessors, color flat panel displays, a more capable communications system, and other improvements. The upgraded tanks cost about $7.5 million each, according to the Army.

[snipped]

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Government Of, By and For the Special Interests: Rolling Right Along
By Rebecca Hamilton, April 29, 2013

Government of, by and for the special interests is rolling right along, despite a national debt that hangs like the Sword of Damocles over all of us. 

A case in point is the on-going debate in Congress about the Abrams Tank.The Army doesn’t want more Abrams tanks. But members of Congress are pushing to force more of them on the Army, anyway.

One factor in this is, of course, the location of Abrams Tank plants. These plants provide jobs for constituents. Voting for the funding because it will keep jobs for your constituents, is, of course, pork barrel voting. But at least the Congressperson who’s doing it has the interests of the people who elected them in mind.

But what about the rest of them? I rather doubt that there are enough Abrams Tank plants in enough Congressional districts to swing a vote in Congress. So, what’s motivating this bi-partisan push to force the Army to buy more tanks, despite the fact that it says it does not need them to keep us safe?

This is just a wild guess, of course, but I’m wondering if campaign donations play a part in this. Or maybe the possibility of a cushy job after leaving office. 

[snipped]

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WMDs

http://www.hbo.com/vice/index.html#/vice/episodes/01/03-guns-and-ammo/video/the-morning-after.html/eNrjcmbO0CzLTEnNd8xLzKksyUx2zs8rSa0oYc5nLlTPz0mBCQckpqf6JeamsjFyMjKySSeWluQX5CRW2pYUlQLFAFv-Fzg=


Do yourselves a favor and check in on this segment, about the toxic weapons used in Iraq.

It gagged me to think we are standing in judgement of Syria when we left behind birth defects in Iraq

Self admission is the first step

While cruising the interwebs, I stepped in something that stuck to my shoe....

"and progs wonder why we’re so fucking paranoid"

Yep....from the blog that we won't mention for the smell that it leaves behind.

At least they are admitting paranoia.

Of course there's bias against Fox! Fox itself has cultivated and encouraged it.

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‘Journalists Everywhere Would Go Nuts’: Why the Case Against a Fox News Reporter Is So Important
By Madeleine Morgenstern, April 12, 2013

Fox News reporter Jana Winter returns to the court house after a midday recess to face Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester regarding evidence in the case of Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes at the Arapahoe County Justice Center in Centennial, Colo. on April 1, 2013. Winter is facing contempt charges for not revealing her sources that broke a gag order in the case.

The attorney for the Fox News reporter facing possible jail time for refusing to reveal her sources in a report about the Colorado movie theater massacre said her client knows the consequences of not talking. And a media expert tells us the implications in the case are far-reaching.

Jana Winter exclusively reported days after the Aurora shooting that suspect James Holmes mailed a notebook "full of details about how he was going to kill people" to a University of Colorado psychiatrist before the attack. Winter cited confidential law enforcement sources for her report, and attorneys for Holmes want to know who they were -- arguing they violated a gag order and could jeopardize Holmes' right to a fair trial.

Winter has said she will not testify and give up her sources, and says Colorado's reporter shield law and the First Amendment protect her from having to do so. But if that doesn't hold up, it could mean jail time.

"She knows what the potential consequences are of being compelled to give up confidential news-gathering information and refusing to do it," Winter's attorney Dori Ann Hanswirth told TheBlaze in an interview Friday. "She can't give up who her sources are because if she gives up her source, then no journalist in the country is going to be able to definitively convince a source that 'journalists just don't do that sort of thing and therefore you can trust me with your information.'"

Fox News reporter Jana Winter, right, and her attorneys arrive at district court for a hearing for Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes in Centennial, Colo. on April 10, 2013. Winter was subpoenaed to testify in Colorado about who gave her confidential information about a notebook James Holmes sent to his psychiatrist days before he allegedly opened fire on a crowded movie theater last July, killing 12 people. (AP)

At issue is whether the judge decides the notebook Holmes mailed should be evidence against him. If the notebook is deemed to be communication between a patient and a mental health professional, it would be considered privileged and therefore inadmissible in court -- and the issue of forcing Winter to testify who told her about it would likely be over, Hanswirth said.

Judge Carlos Samour Jr. said Wednesday he was not ruling on the notebook issue yet, and said Winter did not have to return to Colorado until a hearing Aug. 19 -- staving off any potential jail time at least until then.

"Even if the judge does rule that the notebook is admissible, that doesn't mean necessarily that Jana will have to testify," Hanswirth said. That's because Holmes' attorneys would have to prove the information she holds would be "directly relevant to a substantial issue in the proceeding" and therefore an exception to Colorado's reporter shield law.

Shield laws to protect journalists vary by state -- there is no all-encompassing federal law. Hanswirth said there's case law in Colorado that's on Winter's side, but it's not as "robust or wide-bodied" as in, say, New York, which has a stronger shield law and is where Winter lives.

Hanswirth believes there is no way that the names of her client's sources are critical at all to the case against Holmes.

"We have a trial that's not scheduled to begin until February of 2014 -- by that time it will have been a year and half or so [since her reporting] -- it's really hard to understand how whatever conversation Jana Winter had with people back in July would really have any relationship to the issues in the case," she said. "And because of that tenuous connection between information she had and the case, it's even more troubling that Holmes is trying to make her disclose her confidential news-gathering."

A First Amendment issue

Kelly McBride, an ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla., thinks it's more about the First Amendment than the shield law. When the Founding Fathers enshrined freedom of speech and a free press in the Bill the Rights, they specifically guaranteed the press -- journalists -- the ability to be critical of the government.

"When a government tries to force a reporter to reveal her sources for information, that is interpreted by the press as a hostile act meant to curtail the freedom of the press," McBride told TheBlaze.

The shield law, McBride said, creates a special class for journalists, but First Amendment protections for the press can extend to anyone, particularly given new technology and the proliferation of blogging.

"If a court did send Ms. Winter to jail...I would think that journalists everywhere would just go nuts," McBride said.

Anti-Fox bias?

There is the question of why it took so long for Winter's case to gain widespread attention; until this week, coverage was largely limited to Fox News itself. Judith Miller, a Fox News contributor and former New York Times reporter who spent 85 days in jail in 2005 for refusing to give up the name of a source, said an anti-Fox bias was to blame.

"If she worked for mainstream newspapers or CNN, I think the case would have been covered," Miller told BuzzFeed last week. "There's a certain reluctance because it's Fox News."

Starting Monday, coverage about Winter's case appeared in many of the major news outlets, including the Times and on CNN, where new anchor Jake Tapper demanded to know, "Where's the public outrage?"

But McBride said she's not convinced there was an anti-Fox sentiment in play, and thinks the general news blackout had more to do with the unbelievable nature of the case.

"The main thing I think is most people, when they look at the facts of the case, said 'oh, this couldn't possibly go anywhere," she said.

Hanswirth, Winter's lawyer, seconds that assessment.

"Probably people were thinking, 'oh that's never gonna happen, no judge is going to make her testify about that, that doesn't happen in the United States," she said. "I think that once it came to light that this was a potential reality, that the media indeed started to pay the appropriate attention to this matter."

If it goes much further, Winter's situation could have grave consequences for news and news-gatherers, Hanswirth said.

"As a society, we value our freedom of speech very highly...anytime somebody interferes with the relationship between a journalist and a source it is bad for journalism as a whole. It makes sources scared to come forward, it makes editors fearful, and it kind of chokes off the flow of news," Hanswirth said.
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Shameful-- Cheney's covert deployment of lethal tactics

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The Full Power Of Vice President Dick Cheney Is Only Now Becoming Clear
By Michael Kelley, April 25, 2013

On Sept. 12, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that "what we are seeing is the definition of a new battlefield in the world, a twenty-first century battlefield." 

On Sept. 16, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said that America would have to "spend time in the shadows" and work on the "dark side."

Since then the U.S. has been engaged in a global war on terror, but Americans haven't known how exactly it is being fought.

That changed on Tuesday with the publication of "Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield" by investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Scahill.

Based on years of on-the-ground research and countless interviews, "Dirty Wars" details how Rumsfeld and Cheney began covertly deploying lethal tactics including black ops, secret prisons, snatch operations, and political assassinations at an unprecedented level.

From "Dirty Wars":

As The World Trade Center towers crumbled to the ground, so too did the system of oversight and review of lethal covert ops that had been carefully constructed over the course of the previous decade.

In place of that system, Scahill writes, a "War Council" led by Cheney advisor and fellow neoconservative David Addington developed legal justifications for capturing, torturing, and/or killing any al Qaeda suspect anywhere in the world. 

The system became known as the "Cheney Program."

On September 17, 2001, George W. Bush signed a presidential finding that was used to create Greystone — a highly classified program outside of Congressional oversight that effectively "declared all covert actions to be pre-authorized and legal."

"I had never in my experience been part of or ever seen a presidential authorization as far-reaching and aggressive in scope," John Rizzo, a CIA veteran who helped draft the authorization, said. "It was simply extraordinary."

The most significant part, Scahill reveals, is that Greystone was not directly run by the president but by a small cadre of advisors led by Cheney.

Greystone became the umbrella under which authorization for targeted killing was streamlined — operations no longer needed direct presidential approval — and a global torture network involving "black sites" in at least eight countries.

"We deliberately kept the circle of people who knew where the black sites were to a very small number," Jose Rodriguez, the CIA official who coordinated the construction and use of the black sites, told Scahill. "As far as I know, the location of the black sites was not even shared with the president."

What came next, Scahill writes, is the development of "the most effective kill and capture machine the world had ever seen — one that, by it's very nature, would answer to no one but the president and his inner circle."
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Beck's false conspiracy theory (but then aren't all of his theories false?)

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Glenn Beck conspiracy theory: What's his evidence? -- 

Glenn Beck conspiracy theory: A Saudi national was involved in the Boston Marathon attack, Glenn Beck alleges. US officials reject the notion and dismiss the 'evidence' as so much bureaucratic paperwork.

By Peter Grier, April 25, 2013

Glenn Beck has spent lots of time in recent days alleging that the Boston Marathon bombing was carried out by a conspiracy that revolved around a shadowy Saudi national questioned by police in a Boston hospital in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.

OK, is he just winging it here, or does the ex-Fox, now-independent radio and Internet video host have any real evidence for this charge?

He says he does, unsurprisingly. On his show Wednesday morning Mr. Beck produced a document that he claimed is an official US “event report” showing that the Saudi in question is a bad, bad man who was on a no-fly list and already subject to visa revocation.

What he didn’t mention is that Fox News reporter Bret Baier has already looked into this whole alleged Saudi conspiracy, including the document Beck deemed so revealing, and concluded that there was no there there, to paraphrase writer Gertrude Stein’s jibe about Oakland.

It’s “false and misleading” to use the internal document on the Saudi’s immigration status as evidence of the man’s involvement in the bombings, according to US officials quoted by Mr. Baier in a Fox video blog on April 23.

“The FBI says the Saudi [in question] was just a victim of the terrorist attack,” said Baier.

OK, let’s rewind a bit to clarify this, shall we?

In the immediate aftermath of the Boston tragedy, many media outlets reported that law enforcement officials were interrogating an injured Saudi man who had been seen running from the site of the bombs. Authorities that evening searched his residence in suburban Revere.

Officials later reported that this Saudi was a student and an innocent spectator who had been injured by the blasts and was trying to escape along with many other people on the Marathon route.

Although the man’s name has been reported by some media outlets, Decoder won’t be using it, so as to not further publicize the identity of someone police say did nothing wrong.

Since then Glenn Beck has continued to link the Saudi to the bombing and to terrorism in general. He has charged that the man was in the US on a student visa that had expired and that he will be deported by US immigration for security reasons. He has gone so far as to speculate that a Saudi national may have been an Al Qaeda control agent who recruited the Tsarnaev brothers to carry out the Boston attacks.

Then on Wednesday Beck dropped his other shoe, revealing what he said was important new evidence in the case.

Beck said he had received a document he called a 212 3(B) report, named after its reference in the Patriot Act. The document said that a Saudi national with the same name as the person questioned in the hours after the bombing is an “exact match” to someone on a no-fly list and that derogatory information on him is “sufficient to request visa revocation.”

A copy of the alleged document posted online by Beck’s web site The Blaze also noted that the person in question “has One (1) prior event,” though there was no indication what, or how serious, that event was.

Wow, I mean, this does not look good, does it? Twitter has exploded with comments about how important this is, and how it presages the exposure of the conspiracy, which probably involves everyone up to the level of the Oval Office, and perhaps beyond.

But Bret Baier had this piece of paper already. On Tuesday, he talked with US officials about it, and got a different story.

First off, Baier said the wording of the paper was indeed somewhat dire.

“Anyone looking at this would say this is a bad guy, this means they had a lot of stuff on this guy,” he said.

But officials told him it was simply an automatic piece of customs paperwork triggered when police went to question the Saudi in the hours after the bombing.

To make sure he did not somehow get on an airplane before they could talk to him, they put him on a no-fly list. That automatically meant he was subject to visa revocation. The other language, including the reference to an “event,” followed from that.

“Also keep in mind, it’s just … a customs and border control document…. It’s not indicative of any investigative information,” said Baier.

After the FBI determined the man had no connection to the Boston crime, it took several days for the bureaucracy to scrub him out of its system. That is why the document existed for a short period of time, and why it shows evidence of officials trying to change it. But anyone searching the system for his name on the Sunday prior to the bombing would have found nothing, reported Baier, because no US government agency was looking for him.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano referred to all this obliquely in a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R) of Iowa asked her, “With regard to the Saudi student, was he on a watch list?”

The Homeland Security Secretary replied that the Saudi in question had not been on a watch list prior to the bombings and was never really a person of interest in the case.

“Because he was being interviewed, he was at that point put on a watch list,” Napolitano added. “And then when it was quickly determined he had nothing to do with the bombing, the watch listing status was removed.”

As if all this weren’t complicated enough, a number of news outlets have reported that there is a second Saudi man in Boston, unrelated to the student, who was taken into custody when he showed up at a port to retrieve a package, and a routine check showed he had overstayed his visa.

That’s the Saudi who is subject to deportation. The student who was caught in the bomb blast is not.

Of course, it’s easy to point out that all this is based on the word of US officials, and that they’re eager to cover up the conspiracy, since it makes them look bad, or they are part of it, or something like that.

But that’s why conspiracy theories persist: it’s easy to dream them up, and hard to disprove them, especially to believers.
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Bush doesn't have a realistic chance of improving his standing

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Will George W. Bush Ever Get Historians on His Side?
By Jill Lawrence, April 25, 2013

Nearly 60 percent of the historians and political scientists in a 2006 Siena College survey rated George W. Bush’s presidency a failure—an unscientific sampling that echoed public dismay over Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war. Adding insult to injury, two-thirds of the 744 respondents said he did not have a realistic chance of improving his standing.

Bush’s presidential library, being dedicated Thursday at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is the first step toward trying to prove their prediction wrong. It’s only fitting that the man who coined the word “decider” would feature a “Decision Points Theater” designed, the library website says, to “take the visitor ‘inside’ the decision-making process” as his administration dealt with the 9/11 attacks, Iraq, Katrina, and failing banks.

Visitors may come away with more appreciation for the difficult choices Bush faced, and perhaps remember what they liked about him as a man and a politician. But his place in presidential history is another matter, one judged purely on his record and legacy. And Bush is not faring well by those measures.

The former Texas governor was rated one of the nation’s five worst presidents—39th of 43—in a Siena College ranking by 238 presidential scholars in 2010. He was a marginally better 36th in a 2009 C-SPAN ranking by 64 students of the presidency.

There is precedent for presidents to rise in historic esteem, usually after someone writes a biography based on new information or fresh thinking, or weak successors make them look smart by comparison. This group is led by Harry S Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Eisenhower, for instance, was No. 8 in the C-SPAN survey and No. 7 in a 2012 Newsweek ranking by 10 historians, and has been in Siena’s top 10 since 1994. Yet in 1962, 18 months after his term ended, a panel of 75 historians rated Eisenhower toward the bottom of the average/mediocre category, below even Herbert Hoover. “By and large these 12 believed in negative government, in self-subordination to legislative power,” historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote in The New York Times. “They were content to let well enough alone or, when not, were unwilling to fight for their programs or inept at doing so.”

Views of Eisenhower began to change 20 years later with the publication of The Hidden Hand Presidency, by Fred Greenstein. The Journal of Politics called it “an important corrective” to dismissive views of Eisenhower’s leadership skills. Jim Newton, author of the 2012 book Eisenhower: The White House Years, says people had the impression that Eisenhower was “captive” to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles—yet declassified documents show Eisenhower was in touch with Dulles three to four times a day and very much guiding U.S. foreign policy.

“He was a much more active leader of his administration than people understood at the time,” Newton told National Journal. “People regarded him as genial and affable, a sort of grandfatherly figure. They did not appreciate what a shrewd, calculating president he was.”

Likewise, “Truman has made a huge comeback,” says Robert Dallek, who wrote a short 2008 Truman biography for a series on American presidents. Truman’s standing was substantially aided by Merle Miller’s Plain Speaking, an oral biography published in 1974, and Truman, David McCullough’s epic 1992 “valentine,” as Dallek put it in an interview (his book was one-fifth the length of McCullough’s 1,117-page opus).

Truman’s successors also contributed to recognition of his strengths. His straight-shooter quality could hardly have been a greater contrast to Richard Nixon. He also is credited with a containment policy that, except for his intervention in Korea, avoided war in the quest to defeat Communism. Instead, through the Marshall Plan and NATO, he helped Europe become a strong U.S. partner and ally.

Bush and Lyndon Johnson rejected containment when they made ill-advised decisions to pour troops into Iraq and Vietnam. That has made Truman look all the wiser, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Eisenhower's advisers repeatedly urged him to go to war or take covert action in Indochina, Germany, Iran, Guatemala and Indonesia, Newton said, but he resisted the pressure. “You can think of Eisenhower’s geopolitical military record as almost the opposite of Bush. He was extremely reluctant to commit American forces to battle,” he said. Eisenhower's legacies instead include building an interstate highway system that helped fuel the middle class and economic expansion.

It is possible that documents and archives will reveal Bush in a more positive light, but there’s no getting around the fact that his decisions on Iraq and on fiscal policy have led to huge problems. He not only committed U.S. forces in Afghanistan after 9/11, his decision to invade Iraq kicked off a 10-year war of choice that has destabilized the Middle East and drained the United States of blood, treasure, and the will to intervene abroad. He cut taxes across the board and borrowed money to pay for the wars as well as a new prescription-drug program for seniors. That led to a ballooning deficit and debt, and left the country ill-positioned to deal with the Great Recession that set in toward the end of his term.

It’s not that there weren’t accomplishments during the Bush era. He receives deserved praise for his international drive to fight AIDS, and his controversial No Child Left Behind Act institutionalized the overdue concept of accountability in U.S. education. The even more controversial legal and military methods he adopted to fight terrorists have been largely validated by the Obama administration, which has in many cases continued their use. And he was a pioneer in pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, a worthy cause that has now been revived.

But all of that is overshadowed by the deficits, the economic collapse, and, above all, Iraq. “Ultimately, what will drive how he’s viewed is how the Iraq experiment turns out,” says Bruce Buchanan, a presidential scholar and longtime Bush-watcher at the University of Texas-Austin. “The mismanagement of Iraq will always be there, but it will fade if Iraq turns into a flower of democracy.”

Even if that mirage becomes reality years or decades from now,  the fact that Bush chose to invade Iraq will weigh heavily on historians as they rank him against the many presidents, from John Adams (who rejected his party’s calls to declare war on France) to Truman and Eisenhower, who tried to avoid rather than start wars.
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I prefer "Chicken-Hearted Invertebrates"!

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Yellow-Bellied Cowards
By Will Durst, April 22, 2013

And now for a few choice words about the recent Senate vote that scuttled universal background checks on gun purchases. And the first three of those words are… Yellow-Bellied Cowards. Here’s a couple more. Gutless, Craven, Chicken-Hearted Invertebrates. Dastardly, Lily-Livered, Spineless Jellyfish with the moral compunction of inbred Piranhas crowded into a too-small tank filled with liquid meth.

That giant, arrogant pimp known as the NRA should be laughing hysterically after its lackeys trashed the ephemeral spirit of compromise that had settled over Washington like a soft dawn mist. Ninety percent of Republicans voted against an issue 90 percent of the American people support. A bipartisan bill that was so watered down it was translucent. Leaked moisture all through the Senate chamber to a depth of a half-inch. Would have easily supported two schools of guppies.

The Senators that deigned to speak before scurrying down their greasy little wormholes to bunk in the nether regions of hell whined that pro-gun forces punish politicians for votes, while pro-gun control forces don’t. Nobody mentioned the right thing to do or keeping automatic weapons out of the hands of felons or making the country or our schools safer. You know, their job.

The NRA, itself worried about being primaried from the right by other gun associations, encouraged its well-compensated hookers to compete among themselves to see who could lie most outrageously. Numerous Senators claimed the bill would lead to a national gun registry even though the very bill they spoke of included provisions to specifically prohibit such a thing. Perhaps it needs to be spelled out in simpler language like: “Gun Registry — Bad. Not Good. No-Go. Not Going to Happen.”

Besides, exactly what is wrong with a national gun registry? You have to register a car. Most cities mandate bicycles be licensed. You need a card to take a book out of a library for crum’s sakes. Proving that some people are much more comfortable with guns than they are books. Which is part of the problem.

In what was surely meant as an inside joke, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn complained the bill would raise taxes. Why stop there? And child pornographers will camp in your back yard practicing Sharia law with uncircumcised goats riddled with Chinese bird flu.

This time the NRA may have over-reached. Perpetrated an outrage too far. A revulsion too great. Could very well have created its own Frankenstein monster. 90 percent is a big figure. You’d think even the most casual of voters might tend to remember when someone turns their back on the country, jumps up and down on a litter of newborn puppies, then parties. And it would only take a committed few to throw their allegiance to candidates who pledge loyalty to the nation rather than a lobby that focuses on weapons of mass destruction.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal wasn’t kidding. The GOP’s path is clear. It is doomed to be the rich, white guy, anti-science, pro-gun, stupid party. Destined to slowly strangle on its own gurgling incoherencies until it is no longer comprehensible or relevant. Couldn’t happen soon enough to a nicer bunch of rich white guys. And their grinning, gun-toting, treacherous minions.
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Tweet, tweet. Twitter -- right or wrong?

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Boston Marathon Bombing: Was Twitter For the Birds or Revolutionary?
By Joe Gandelman, April 24, 2013

When James French became the last person to be executed in 1966 under Oklahoma’s death penalty law, he uttered these famous last words (no joke) that quickly belong to the ages: “Hey fellas,” he shouted to reporters there to witness his electrocution. “How about this for a headline for tomorrow’s paper? ‘French Fries!’”

Shortly after that, French became toast. The way some critics of the social media Twitter dismiss its journalistic role during and immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing almost seem like famous last words. In fact, the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath left Twitter a force to be reckoned with — far more of a perceived threat to television news than to print or online newspapers, and magazines. Broadcasters better harness and use its potential or they’re in big trouble.

The use of Twitter in the Boston Marathon tragedy started within seconds of the bombs exploding. According to the website Mashable, a map created by an enterprising Syracuse University professor and his students found some 200 Tweets were sent from the bomb scene over the blast’s first hours. But that was only the beginning.

Why is Twitter being underestimated by many professional media types as a truly formidable player in news the future? Once upon a time, a reporter who could express a viewpoint, or give information in 140 characters would be an editor’s dream. But whether it’s wisecracks, links to posts or developments during a crisis, Tweets quickly communicate information tidbits sent out as fast as it takes to type.

But there’s another reason. It was once predicted that weblogs would create a series of citizen journalists who researched, reported, investigated, and wrote pieces equivalent to newspaper reports. That largely has not happened. Today, most “blogs” are glorified extended op-ed pages, often written by unabashed partisans, but they differ from newspaper op-ed pieces in one respect: many blog posts would never be run in a daily newspaper because the tepid quality of writing, thought and argument. Many left and right blog posts read as if they’re regurgitated left and right talk show host rants.

In reality, blogs haven’t created “citizen journalists” — but Twitter has. They are citizen journalists who — unlike newspaper and broadcast reporters, and even less than bloggers — don’t have to worry if they get it wrong. And errors were made: much of the breaking news tweets on the nights police battled the terrorist suspects was based on things picked up on a police scanner, sometimes misheard. The New York Post ran a SCREAMING HEADLINE based on wrong suspect identification and — no surprise — Rupert Murdoch in effect stood by it. Police warned Tweeters not to give away police positions or detail their movements, but it often did no good.

The Twitter star became twitter.com/newsbreaker. The get-it-fast-and-right media star became NBC’s Pete Williams. Over the years, print newspapers were battered by the impact of television evening news, supermarket tabloid scoops, the Internet and the recession — but there are signs they are now adapting and surviving. Twitter will seriously batter broadcast news because it’s faster, and more dramatic and happening in real time (accurate or not) — and in future crises many people will turn to it. Twitter is an opportunity for television news not to merely feel threatened, but to learn from the experience and grow because of it.

The bad news: Twitter has no verifiers. The good news: It was indispensable during Boston Marathon hell week. The unbelievable news: Rep. Anthony Weiner is back on Twitter. All of this shows you the cultural ecstasy — and agony — of the 140-character instant-info phenomena.
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Nothing like a little humor

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For a bit of on-going frivolity, go to http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-glenn-beck-conspiracy.htm
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The Glenn Beck Conspiracy Theory Generator
Fair and Balanced Paranoia, Delivered on Demand

Buckle up your seatbelt, America, and prepare for a crash landing 
because the liberals piloting your plane are trampling on our values 
so they can exterminate undesirables under the pretext of providing 
universal health care, just like Hitler did.
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Obscure political dynasty

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Harrisons: The Real American Political Dynasty
By Nathan Raab, April 23, 2013

The Kennedy, Adams, and Bush political dynasties are well known to nearly every politically conscious mind.  But there is another political dynasty that few think of, one that created two Presidents and centuries of public servants: The Harrison Dynasty, which also boasts several elected representatives and a Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The House of Harrison does not begin with the short-lived President William Henry Harrison’s term, nor end with the Presidency of his grandson, Benjamin. Consider this testimony to its remarkable longevity.  From the 1600s through the mid 20th century, every generation of Harrisons has served in public office, and many have fought notably on the field of battle.

•    Benjamin Harrison II, died in 1712: He was the son of Benjamin Harrison, who came to America from England in the 1630s;  A commissioner for the Colony of Virginia, an influential member of the King’s Council, and a member of the legislature, then called the House of Burgesses. His epitaph reads: “”Here lyeth the body of Benjamin Harrison, Esq., Who did justice and loved mercy, and walked humbly with his God; was always loyal to his Prince and a great benefactor to his country”;

•    Benjamin Harrison III, died before his father in 1710, at the age of 37.  Even so, he served as Virginia’s Attorney General and Speaker of the House of Burgesses;

•    Benjamin Harrison IV, died in 1745. Like his father and grandfather, he was a member of the House of Burgesses;

•    Benjamin Harrison V, died in 1791. He signed the Declaration of Independence and was the Governor of Virginia;

•    William Henry Harrison, died in 1841. The future President was a military hero in the War of 1812, Governor of Indiana, and, briefly, President of the United States;

•    John Scott Harrison, died in 1878.  He was the only man to be a son to one President and father to another; Member of Congress from Ohio;

•    Benjamin Harrison, died in 1901. He was a Civil War Brigadier General, Senator from Indiana, and President of the United States;

•    Russell Benjamin Harrison, died in 1936. A soldier in the Spanish American war, Consul to Mexico and Portugal, Congressman, and Senator in the Indiana State legislature;

•    William Henry Harrison II, died in 1990. The last Harrison to serve, he was a Congressman from Wyoming.

So what relegated the Harrison family’s fame to relative obscurity? Perhaps we are a Ken Burns documentary or a David McCullough book away from a Harrison resurgence.
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Well, it's a start.....

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Bill Would Expand Disclosure Of Political Money
By Peter Overby, April 23, 2013

The partisan rift over disclosing political donors has widened since last year's election. But now, along come Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., with a bill that would radically expand the disclosure of political money trails.

Their bill is aimed at outing the wealthy donors, corporations and unions that financed some $300 million in secretly funded campaign ads last year. Most of the anonymous money was raised and spent by 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, including the conservative Crossroads GPS and the liberal Patriot Majority.

"It's not my intention, I don't think it's Sen. Wyden's intention, that anybody gets an unfair advantage," Murkowski said. "It's even-steven across the board."

FEC Or IRS Rules?

Current law goes two directions on disclosure, because two agencies regulate the political groups. Candidate committees, parties, political action committees and superPACs all have to disclose to the Federal Election Commission. But tax-exempt 501(c)(4)s, 501(c)(6) business associations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and 501(c)(5) labor unions have no disclosure requirements — or contribution limits either, for that matter — because they are regulated by the Internal Revenue Service.

The bill would apply one set of disclosure rules, regardless of who's doing the spending, the senators said. One exception would be for "widely supported membership organizations" — groups that include the National Rifle Association and Sierra Club. They wouldn't have to publish their membership lists.

And the one set of disclosure rules would be jointly written by the FEC and IRS. The new rules would cover what the bill calls "election-related activity" by the swelling ranks of independent groups, such as 501(c) organizations and superPACs.

But the FEC and IRS have different approaches to defining "political activity." The FEC uses a "bright-line" approach: For instance, TV ad spending within 60 days of the general election has to be disclosed. The IRS uses broader definitions — vaguer, some might say — and it doesn't draw those bright lines.

The bill would use the IRS approach.

Reaction

Democrats have tried to strengthen disclosure requirements since 2010, when the Supreme Court issued its Citizens United ruling. That decision gave corporations more latitude to play partisan politics. The decision endorsed disclosure, but did nothing to require it.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are united against the Democrats' efforts; they say the Democratic bills have a hard partisan spin. Murkowski — who was re-elected as a write-in candidate in 2010 after being hammered by Tea Party groups — says she hopes her colleagues like this bill better, with its broad-brush approach to the issue.

Initial reactions showed what Wyden and Murkowski are up against.

The conservative Center for Competitive Politics says disclosure would violate the First Amendment rights of donors to the tax-exempt groups. And at the liberal group Public Citizen, lobbyist Craig Holman praised the senators for tackling the disclosure issues, but he said they're making a legal mistake by dropping the bright-line standard for defining election activity.
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Fighting for measures to prevent gun violence

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Newtown families: We'll keep fighting for gun law
By Michele Salcedo, April 21, 2013

Disappointment. Disgust. Grossly unfair.

That's how some families who lost loved ones in December's massacre at a Connecticut elementary school view the Senate's defeat this past week of the most far-reaching gun control legislation in two decades, as they pledged to keep fighting for measures to prevent gun violence.

Neil Heslin, Erica Lafferty and Carlee Soto were among the Newtown, Conn., family members who spent a week on Capitol Hill describing how their loved ones died at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14. But their stories of horror and heroism were no match for a threat from the National Rifle Association to rate the vote, and concern from Republicans and a small band of rural-state Democrats.

Lafferty, whose mother, school principal Dawn Hochsprung, lunged unarmed at the gunman to stop him from firing the assault weapon, said she was "honestly disgusted that there were so many senators that are doing nothing about the fact that my mom was gunned down in her elementary school, along with five other educators and 20 6- and 7-year-old children."

The Senate rejected on Wednesday a series of gun control bills that would have tightened background checks for buyers, banned assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and loosened restrictions on carrying concealed weapons across state lines, the last measure backed by the NRA.

Within hours of the votes, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords accused senators who opposed the new regulations of "cowardice" in a piece published in the New York Times' op-ed page. Giffords was among 13 people wounded two years ago when a lone gunman opened fire as she met with constituents in a Tucson, Ariz., shopping mall, killing six others. She and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, had lobbied for the bills' passage.

On CBS'"Face the Nation," moderator Bob Schieffer asked Heslin, Lafferty and Soto Sunday whether the words "cowardice" and "cowards" were appropriate to describe Wednesday's vote.

"I do," said Heslin, who's 6-year-old son Neil Lewis died at Sandy Hook. "I feel they're not standing up for what they should be."

Carlee Soto, recounted her sister Victoria's courage to try to save her students, Neil Lewis among them.

"My sister wasn't a coward that day. My sister pushed the kids up against the wall, out of sight," she said, adding, "She protected her kids. Why aren't they protecting us?" referring to the senators who voted against the gun bills.

The families say the gun legislation would have strengthened laws already in effect rather than undercut the Second Amendment, which provides a constitutional right to bear arms.

"It's beyond me how these congressmen cannot stand up and support something that would prevent - or help prevent - something like this from ever occurring again," Heslin said.

"We aren't going to go away. I know I'm not," he added. "We're not going to stop until there are changes that are made." 
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Where the spouse goes, so go the people

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Key to political rebirth: Does the wife forgive?
By Kathleen Parker, April 21, 2013

As the reporter said to the novelist: Why bother to make stuff up?

For stories and characters, one needs only a pair of walking shoes in this city, where recent attentions have turned to two salacious stories. One concerns a murder-for-hire plot involving a banker, his wife, his lover’s ex-husband and his ex-lover’s husband’s cellmate. Not to be confused with his soul mate.

No, that designation refers to the other story making rounds on the cocktail circuit. Yes, he’s back but maybe not for long. Former Gov. Mark Sanford, who disappeared for five days, allegedly to hike the Appalachian Trail only to find himself in the arms of his lover (now his fiancee), is discovering that not every kid gets a comeback.

What is it about the shamed male politician that he seems unable to accept when it’s over?

Part of the answer is hubris. Another part is history: Voters generally are forgiving once a person confesses and repents. But key to general forgiveness is the forgiveness of the wronged spouse.

Consider the case of Bill Clinton.

Despite his well-known peccadilloes, the former president has become a respected global figure in the wake of his impeachment by the House of Representatives. His personal sins mostly forgiven He has emerged with his popularity largely intact.

Perhaps the explanation lies in his overall likability as well as his good works through his foundation, not to mention a larger sense that he was persecuted for behaviors that were more or less familiar to a majority of voters. At some point in the investigation, he became more sympathetic than his pursuers.

Clinton did not, moreover, seek public office again. And Hillary, her early protestations notwithstanding, stood by her man.

Switch now to former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, who left Congress after accidentally tweeting a photo of his assets to his Twitter followers. Despite unfathomable embarrassment, Weiner now is considering a run for mayor of New York City. A recent poll shows him in second place in a hypothetical Democratic primary at 15 percent.

Weiner’s wife stayed with him.

Lest Democrats feel unfairly singled out, we note that Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana has held his seat despite his intersection with prostitution. His longevity no doubt is attributable to his sincere repentance, constituent satisfaction and: his wife’s forgiveness.

Which brings us back to Sanford. Not only did he abandon his state for five days during his walkabout, but he committed the unthinkable. He wept. No taking it like a man, this one. Without consideration for his wife and young sons, he referred to his paramour as his soul mate.

Sanford didn’t even have the decency to resign from office, but finished his term and vanished for a couple of years only to re-emerge in pursuit of a fresh legacy. He won the Republican primary for an open congressional seat and faces Elizabeth Colbert-Busch (sister of Stephen Colbert) in a special election May 7.

If history is any guide, his candidacy is on life support. Not only did his former wife, Jenny Sanford, not stand by her man, she wrote a book, went on TV and recently took him to court for trespassing. This in the wake of his fiancee showing up at his primary victory party and appearing on stage with him and two of his sons, one of whom had not previously met their future stepmother.

Sanford’s lack of empathy for his family, not to mention his impeachable judgment, should disqualify him from further public service, an opinion apparently shared by the Republican National Committee, which withdrew support. Where the wife goes, so go the people.
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Koch Bros. want their voices heard

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Conservative Koch Brothers Turning Focus to Newspapers
By Amy Chozick, April 20, 2013

Three years ago, Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists and supporters of libertarian causes, held a seminar of like-minded, wealthy political donors at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colo. They laid out a three-pronged, 10-year strategy to shift the country toward a smaller government with less regulation and taxes.

The first two pieces of the strategy — educating grass-roots activists and influencing politics — were not surprising, given the money they have given to policy institutes and political action groups. But the third one was: media.

Other than financing a few fringe libertarian publications, the Kochs have mostly avoided media investments. Now, Koch Industries, the sprawling private company of which Charles G. Koch serves as chairman and chief executive, is exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Company’s eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.

By early May, the Tribune Company is expected to send financial data to serious suitors in what will be among the largest sales of newspapers by circulation in the country. Koch Industries is among those interested, said several people with direct knowledge of the sale who spoke on the condition they not be named. Tribune emerged from bankruptcy on Dec. 31 and has hired JPMorgan Chase and Evercore Partners to sell its print properties.

The papers, valued at roughly $623 million, would be a financially diminutive deal for Koch Industries, the energy and manufacturing conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., with annual revenue of about $115 billion.

Politically, however, the papers could serve as a broader platform for the Kochs’ laissez-faire ideas. The Los Angeles Times is the fourth-largest paper in the country, and The Tribune is No. 9, and others are in several battleground states, including two of the largest newspapers in Florida, The Orlando Sentinel and The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. A deal could include Hoy, the second-largest Spanish-language daily newspaper, which speaks to the pivotal Hispanic demographic.

One person who attended the Aspen seminar who spoke on the condition of anonymity described the strategy as follows: “It was never ‘How do we destroy the other side?’ ”

“It was ‘How do we make sure our voice is being heard?’ ”

[snipped]

Koch Industries has for years felt the mainstream media unfairly covered the company and its founding family because of its political beliefs. KochFacts.com, a Web site run by the company, disputes perceived press inaccuracies. The site, which asserts liberal bias in the news media, has published private e-mail conversations between company press officers and journalists, including the Politico reporter Kenneth P. Vogel and editors at The New Yorker in response to an article about the Kochs by Jane Mayer.

“So far, they haven’t seemed to be particularly enthusiastic about the role of the free press,” Ms. Mayer said in an e-mail, “but hopefully, if they become newspaper publishers, they’ll embrace it with a bit more enthusiasm.”

A Democratic political operative who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he admired how over decades the brothers have assembled a complex political infrastructure that supports their agenda. A media company seems like a logical next step.

This person said, “If they get some bad press that Darth Vader is buying Tribune, they don’t care.”
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Facts don't matter

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Be Meaningful or Be Quiet: Partisans have grasped onto the thinnest facts about the Boston bombing to score political points. That’s because the facts never mattered that much to them.
By John Dickerson, April 15, 2013

As the manhunt for the remaining Boston bombing suspect unfolded, partisans took to Twitter. Watching them scramble to come up with an easy political explanation for the events was like watching a 1950s switchboard operator. Too few guns? No, wait, soft on immigration. No, Islamic radicalism. These conclusions weren’t being drawn based on facts, but rather existing arguments and political agendas into which the skinniest fact or rumor could be fit. Sen. Chuck Grassley suggested at a Senate hearing on immigration that the incident meant we needed a thorough investigation of the loopholes in the immigration system. What evidence was there that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev had exploited loopholes at the time of Grassley’s claim? None.

We need more restraint and less wild guessing. Free-flowing debate in the search for meaning is a part of these moments and a part of the human condition, but what I’m talking about is using tragedy for evidence shopping. That people reach immediately for their pet political theory at moments like this highlights what's wrong with a lot of political debate. But perhaps this moment also offers a useful sorting technique. If you can't shut up now, when either reason, decency, or good taste requires it, you disqualify yourself from the conversation in calmer times. 

If you're going to reason with someone over a complicated issue, you've got to have the expectation that they are going to leave a little window open to persuasion. There can’t be much of a debate—or even conversation—if they are in such a state of siege that they instinctively dismiss everything you say or take every new fact and mindlessly mold it to their purpose. Through this narrow portal you might be able to squeeze your salient point and come to some understanding about a complicated issue.

Political debate about facts is fine. When the White House puts out a picture of the president in the situation room, it’s fine to point out that it’s propaganda they never put out on Benghazi. But a person who uses tragedy as new evidence in an existing political fight is probably incapable of keeping this window open. They can't pause to honor the solemnity of a moment of tragedy or wait until the facts come in, which means that the facts never really mattered much to them at all. These partisans are ever on alert to advance their relentless claim—whatever it is. Michael Moore immediately fingered Tea Party types after the bombing. In the hours after attack, when authorities questioned a man of Saudi dissent (who was later released), Rep. Steve King tied it to the comprehensive immigration reform he opposes. Nate Bell, an Arkansas state lawmaker, tweeted, “I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A” There was lots of this from partisans on both sides on Twitter.

In the wake of the Boston bombing, a lot of smart commentators suggested we follow the advice of the World War II British poster: Keep Calm and Carry On. Since we seem predisposed to misinterpret events upon first hearing, perhaps jumping to conclusions is the most natural way for people to “carry on.” Maybe, but it is not an example of calmness; it’s an example of panic—or even worse, shameless opportunism.

When someone makes a tasteless joke in proximity to a tragedy, we say it's too soon. There should be a disqualifying equivalent for those who declare political conclusions too fast.

In these fast-moving times when the only thing that is certain is that the first piece of news has repeatedly been wrong, perhaps those lawmakers and pundits who want to be part of the final conversation should (paraphrasing Mike Monteiro) follow the Quaker rule: Be meaningful or be quiet.
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Ain't this the truth!

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U.S. Senate: we couldn't care less about what you want

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GUN LOBBY'S FANATICISM PREVAILS OVER COMMON SENSE
By Cynthia Tucker, April 20, 2013

You might have thought that the mangled bodies of 20 dead children would have been enough to overcome the crazed obsessions of the gun lobby.

You might have believed that the courage and exhortations of a former congresswoman -- her career cut short and her life forever changed by a would-be assassin's bullet -- would have pushed Congress to do the right thing.

You might have reasoned that polls showing overwhelming public support for a sensible gun control measure would have persuaded politicians to take a modest step toward preventing more massacres.

You would have been wrong. Last week, the U.S. Senate sent a stark message to the citizens it is elected to represent: We couldn't care less about what you want.

Fifteen years of highly publicized mass murders carried out by madmen with firearms -- Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson and Aurora, to name just a few -- have changed nothing. Newtown, where 26 people, including 20 young children, were mowed down by a man armed with an assault-type weapon and high-capacity magazines for his ammo, provoked little more than a ripple in the corridors of Washington, where the National Rifle Association and its like-minded lobbies carried the day.

The grip that the gun lobby maintains on Congress is hard to explain. The National Rifle Association has persuaded spineless politicians that it is an omnipotent election god, able to strike down those who don't cower before it. That's simply not true, but even if it were, aren't some principles worth losing elections over?

The proposal that appeared to have the best chance of passage last week was modest enough. It would simply have expanded criminal background checks to include guns sold at gun shows and via the Internet, a step supported by 90 percent of Americans, according to polls.

As its proponents conceded, it would not have stopped the Newtown atrocity. Adam Lanza took his mother's legally purchased weapons to kill her, to carry out a massacre and to then commit suicide.

But expanded background checks would certainly save other lives, since violent husbands and other criminals have been able to saunter through huge holes in the system to purchase guns. Speaking with justifiable anger after the background-check measure went down to defeat, President Obama noted, "... if action by Congress could have saved one person, one child, a few hundred, a few thousand ... we had an obligation to try."

In an exhaustive report last week about online purchases of firearms, The New York Times showed clearly why expanded background checks are needed. As the newspaper noted, websites for firearms function as "unregulated bazaars" where sellers offer prospective buyers the following assurance: "no questions asked." Reporters found persons with criminal records buying and selling guns.

It is infuriating that the gun lobby defeated a proposal to rein in that dangerous commerce. And, as usual, it defended its opposition with a lie: The amendment would have led to a national registry of guns, just a slippery slope away from confiscation.

While many discussions of the gun lobby's fanaticism include a nod to the country's frontier origins, it's a mistake to believe this craziness is rooted in history. The lunacy from Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, has a more recent provenance.

When I was a child in Alabama -- the daughter and niece of hunting enthusiasts -- gun owners didn't demand the right to take their weapons into church or bars or onto college campuses.

But as hunting has become less popular and as the number of households owning guns has declined, the ranks of gun owners have become over-represented by conspiracy theorists and assorted crazies and kooks. They can be easily persuaded that the government is on a mission to confiscate their firearms.

There is little doubt that paranoia is amplified by the presence of a black president, who represents the deepest fears of right-wing survivalist types. So it was probably naive to expect that he could drum up support for more reasonable gun safety measures.

But if 20 dead children can't persuade Congress to tighten gun laws, what will?
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No background checks necessary at the "U.S. Senate gun show"

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The Senate doesn't compare favorably

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More on Kid Rock's "embarrassment"

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Political insider: Michigan Republicans hit a sour note with Kid Rock
The Detroit News, April 18, 2013

Musician Kid Rock , a Republican, is ticked off at some Michigan GOP lawmakers over an attempt to place restrictions on paperless concert tickets.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the Romeo native (whose real name is Robert James Ritchie) went off on New York and Michigan Republican lawmakers for "passing laws" making it harder for him to put on concerts for $20 a ticket.

The article caught the attention of political junkies because Kid Rock used several expletives to describe how "embarrassed" he is to be a Republican on concert ticket issues.

"They already did it in New York and they're trying to do it in Michigan. I've even called some of those guys to try and stop it," Kid Rock told Rolling Stone.

Last year, state Rep. Kevin Cotter , R-Mount Pleasant, introduced legislation that would prohibit concert promoters from selling paperless tickets that restrict buyers from giving them to someone else. Cotter sponsored another bill prohibiting websites like StubHub.com from gobbling up coveted concert tickets with automated purchasing software.

Kid Rock has been a longtime critic of StubHub and scalping.

Cotter said he talked to Kid Rock by phone last summer about the legislation and believes he and the rock-rapper are both looking out for average concertgoers. Cotter has not yet reintroduced the legislation and said he's trying to reach Kid Rock again following the article. The singer's publicist did not respond to requests for comment.

[snipped]
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