Politics Plus

The ATF has been unpopular with extremist gun-nuts ever since the ATF attempted to seize the illegal weapons cache at the Branch Dravidian compound in Waco, TX, resulting in the subsequent destruction of that compound by the FBI. For the extreme right, it's a serious enough matter that it prompted one of their number, Tim McVeigh, to bomb the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, because it contained an ATF office. He has been lionized by the Tea Party to the extent that Tea Baggers have celebrated that date by bringing their weapons to "Open Carry" protests near Washington, DC. But Republicans have actually found a much sneakier way to keep the ATF from enforcing gun laws, and Democrats want to change it.

The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate is readying legislation aimed at pressuring the gun lobby to endorse the confirmation of a permanent Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) director.

The bill being crafted by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) would allow for the ATF’s functions to be shifted to another agency, such as the FBI, effectively bypassing the need for the Senate to confirm a director of the embattled bureau.

“It strikes me that if the Senate has not confirmed the head of an agency as important as this, after a certain period of time, that we should transfer the jurisdiction of that agency to the FBI for example, which has a long-term director,” Durbin told The Hill. 

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has successfully lobbied Congress to block every presidential pick to head the ATF since 2006. The group argues that a permanent director could lead to more severe enforcement of firearm laws… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Hill>

Photo credit: The Rude Pundit

Rachel Maddow Provided Details

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The hypocrisy here is extreme, because Republicans are saying that we just need to enforce the laws we have, at the same time they are preventing those laws from being enforced. I like Durbin's bill, but I see no chance of its passage as long as Republicans control the House. However, I consider it worth pursuing, because it makes public the manner in which Republicans are sabotaging Americans' safety for the sake of gun industry profits and seditionist hate groups.

Few things are more cut and dried than American citizens’ right against self incrimination.  …nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself…  At least that used to be correct.  In most 5-4 decisions, the Supreme Court is split between the fascist five Injustices of SCROTUS and the four Justices of SCOTUS.  Not only did SCROTUS deny the Constitution in this case, but also, four critical cases remain on this year’s calendar.

…The court ruled that a suspect’s failure to answer a police officer’s questions before an arrest may be used against the suspect at trial.

The Supreme Court has long said the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination applies after arrest and at trial. But it had never decided, in the words of a 1980 decision, “whether or under what circumstances pre-arrest silence” in the face of questioning by law enforcement personnel is entitled to protection…

…Justice Stephen G. Breyer, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said allowing “a prosecutor to comment on a defendant’s constitutionally protected silence would put that defendant in an impossible predicament.” Mr. Salinas’s choice, Justice Breyer wrote, was “between incrimination through speech and incrimination through silence.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

The four Justices of SCOTUS were absolutely correct. The right against self incrimination is meaningless, if its invocation before arrest can be used in court to imply guilt. But the Fascist Five Injustices goose-stepped against the Constitution to help make this nation a Republican police state. As for what’s next, Chris Hayes covered the remaining four decisions in two segments. In the first, Chris and his panel discussed what’s at stake in the decisions.

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I strongly fear that Chris may be correct in his hypothesis that SCROTUS may use gay rights to mask the demise of voting rights and affirmative action. The wrong decision in any of these cases will be tragic, because all are key to America’s freedom. However, the worst decision they could would be to allow their Republican cronies to steal elections by denying minority Americans the right to vote. In Chris’s second segment, he and his panel discussed that.

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Chris is correct that the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is at stake, because Republicans have already made it clear that their intent is to use the law to disentrance blacks and Latinos, in addition to seniors, students, labor and poor people. If destroying the Voting Rights Act is the decision, in combination with Citizens United, the Supreme Court will have demonstrated that it is illegitimate.

No Republican may be allowed to infest the White House before the Injustices od SCROTUS have been replaced with Justices.

Here is the sixth article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is former WND writer John Derbyshire for blaming military women for being victims of sexual assaults.

Fired former National Review writer John Derbyshire is trolling us again, this time with a remarkable essay [propagandist delinked] in Taki’s Magazine about how the military shouldn’t be concerned with rising numbers of sexual assaults because they are the fault of “eccentric” women who are  “prone to behave eccentrically”…and anyway, “There is an entire continuum of consent.”

 

“Let’s talk about the ‘sexual harassment’ panic that is currently gripping the West,” Derbyshire implores, followed by a series of points in which he argues that the military shouldn’t be concerned about a rising incidence of assault and harassment in its ranks. (Emphases are mine)[the author’s].

(3) Women are strongly attracted to higher-status men. If male officers are in command of units containing women, human nature is placed under severe strain.

(4) Men who join the military are responding to widespread, innate male urges—the urge to break things and kill people, for example. Women who join the military are, by contrast, outliers in their sex. They are eccentric and prone to behave eccentrically. As a designated victim group, they are especially susceptible to the associated pathologies, e.g., victim hoaxes for attention,spite, or cash reward…

… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch>

Only a true Republican could continue the GOP War on Women in such an insulting manner.  I feel outraged, and I’m male!

Barack Obama is making the trop to the G8 summit, where financial cooperation between the world’s largest economies will be discussed.  Europe is having financial difficulties, because they are suffering the effects of austerity.  Meanwhile, back on the home from, the news could not be more clear that austerity is the wrong was, as this Paul Krugman article explains.

Yesterday the IMF chided the United States for spending too little and cutting its budget deficit too fast — and most people, if they heard about it, just shrugged. To be honest, that was my initial reaction too: we’ve come to accept the sheer stupidity of our current economic policies, and the fact that apparently nothing can be done about it, as part of the “new normal”.

Still, every once in a while we should step back and consider the awesomeness of the situation. Normally, we expect governments to have trouble containing demands that they spend more and/or tax less. Normally, we expect the IMF to be a fiscal scold, telling spendthrift governments to make tough choices; the old joke is that IMF stands for It’s Mostly Fiscal.

But now we’re in a situation — a liquidity trap — in which more government spending is a good thing, because it helps put unemployed resources to work; meanwhile, the cost in terms of future debt service is minimal, because interest rates are so low. Both ends of the intellectual case for austerity — the claim that spending cuts are actually expansionary and the claim that terrible things happen when debt rises even if interest rates are low — have collapsed… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Photo credit: The Political Carnival

Krugman goes on to say that there is only one reason that we are not pursuing a sane economic policy: The Republican party.

Karen Finney, Jared Bernstein Heather McGee discussed the crumbling case for austerity, as Obama prepares to attend the G8 Summit.

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What better proof could we have than Europe’s record that austerity does not work. Republicans know this and the support austerity for the 99%, but runaway spending for the 1%. I loved Bernstein’s comment that Republicans use facts liker a drunk uses a lamp post. The keys to making Republicans happy are these. Make life more austere for you and I and more excessive for the 1%. Do everything possible to make America fail, as long as we have a Democratic President.

I expect Europe to use the G8 as an opportunity to move away from austerity. Sadly, elements of austerity, that is, for the 99%, will remain in place, as long as Republicans have the power to sabotage Democrats’ attempts to grow the economy.