The total and utter incompetence is just amazing.

I had written a lengthy post about this, but decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and didn't post it.

Let's just say that there is more wrong with America than most people care to know, and that's what scares me!

It's not incompetence. It's a demonstration that "terrorism" for the most part post 9/11, is yet another political buzzword and pork barrel commodity to be traded like any other aspect of our government.
Yet there were those just a couple days ago trying to convince some of us that Homeland Security is necessary, valid, and appreciated.
I'd like to think of myself as being exceptionally articulate. I wonder if I could qualify for a few hundred million to protect my small town of 400 people? We don't have a Statue of Liberty (worthless anyway, as it was a gift from France) and we don't have a White House (mostly worthless as a building, it's so old, but has a great location, location, location) but if Omaha and Buford, MS get an increase, we should get one too. After all, 1/5 of the nation's small weapons ammunition is stored less than 30 miles from here.

Course, I pinched too. And then winced as I re-read this story. Ironically, it hit CNN about the same time as I read your post.

I've said many times, even in this forum I think...

You get what you vote for.

NYC has probably a dozen "actual targets" that I can think of off the top of my head. Not possible targets, but locations that have turned up in plans of actual terrorist groups. Hell I used to work a block from a windowless building that was ground zero for a Russian nuke.

Also considering the London and Madrid bombings were the most recent success of Islamists in Western countries, the Washington and NYC subways are prime targets.


I don't know about Buford, MS, but Omaha, I believe has a prime military installation there.

It's not incompetence. It's a demonstration that "terrorism" for the most part post 9/11, is yet another political buzzword and pork barrel commodity to be traded like any other aspect of our government.

Spot, you hit the nail on the head.

This is worse than the quarter-billion dollar "Bridge to Nowhere" though.

One NY newspaper headline read, "Feds to City: Drop Dead!"

If the elephants don't march on Washington, it will cost them dearly this fall.

And that's even without thinking about the new Fed demands that ISPs store the addresses of everybody you e-mailed, plus a list of all web pages you looked at, "for use in potential future terrorism or child pornography cases."

This list is already talked about as great fodder for subpoenas in divorce cases, property settlements, and who knows, maybe even tree trimming disputes with your neighbors.

Unless this demand is stopped right now, we'll all be soon walking around with mandatory GPS tracking devices around our ankles and video cameras on our heads so the feds can see what we're doing, "for use in potential future terrorism or child pornography cases." "It's a necessary minor sacrifice to save our freedom!"

No matter how much I think about it, Spot, I can't help agreeing with you that DHS should never have been created in the first place.

It was a purely political creation, to show the public "we're doing something."

The disaster is compounded by the DHS management bungles, the neglect of FEMA (which was very well regarded before it was Borged), the harrassment of a lot of ordinary honest people, and of course being part of the 33% expansion of the federal budget in the last 5 1/2 years (all charged to credit cards), and our country being increasingly owned by Beijing, as illustrated by a cartoon today in the LA Times:

New treasury secretary's first day on the job. Surprised to see an empty fairy tale type treasury room, he asks the guard, "Where's our treasure?"

There is indeed Offut Air Force Base an hour plus south of Omaha, that's where the SAC is (Strategic Air Command), but if the newspapers etc are correct, it's not nearly as important as it was during the "red menace" years of cold war with Russia. Those days are long gone. Heck, I'll bet a full quarter or more of the forum members don't even know we were in a "cold war" with Russia because they're not old enough to remember when we were all taught as children to take cover beneath our wooden desks in the event of an atomic attack.
Anyway...Omaha....just think of all the beef we'd lose if Omaha was attacked. On second thought, protect Omaha, let DC burn. I'm more interested in good beef than bad pork.

It's certainly an interesting political plum being passed around. I was fascinated to learn that my own dear San Francisco Bay area had asked for over 330 million, but officials here were not surprised by the 28 million they actually got. Meaning that regions were asking for much more than they expected, probably to be on record about their needs.

The one thing I wonder about is the funding of wildfire crews. Wildfires are easy to start, expensive to fight, and they pull firefighters out of other regions. It seems like we could easily be overwhelmed on that front. To me that implies that some funds need to be flexibly applied and not limited to regions.

Since the Neocons seem to be trying to starve the government to the point that they can, to quote Grover Norquist, "drown it in a bathtub", I think regions are struggling to get any pork they can lay their hands on. And the red regions are largely propped up with blue region tax money anyway so it should come as no surprise that a red dominated government would funnel pork to their constituents.

What really surprises me is that the money isn't yet going to "faith-based" antiterrorism organizations. That's what we really need ;-)

Rob Mack

Since the Neocons seem to be trying to starve the government to the point that they can, to quote Grover Norquist, "drown it in a bathtub"...

Great success, Jenny Craig. Only 33% fatter now than before the starvation!

A lot of Old Cons (Real Conservatives) have said publicly that they are going to stay home this fall.

This fall could go to the history books (no pun intended, but...).

"We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic." - Hunter S. Thompson

Written in the year 2000.

Priceless.

Time to pull out his writings. Do you have any recommendations?

In addition to the cuts in New York, major cuts have been directed to Portland, OR and Seattle, WA, ports receiving the majority of shipping from Asia.

In compensation, here in Seattle we've been given some drug and explosive sniffing dogs to "root out explosive devices" which might be transported on our ferries! Not for port security; for the inter-island ferry systeml.

I'd feel better about this if I hadn't experienced the following: Recently my wife and I returned from Europe via air. At customs and immigration we stood in a long line, waiting for our bags to be inspected. A teen aged boy was standing in line ahead of me, a clean-cut well spoken lad.

A Customs Agent, accompanied by a small Beagle, began working her way up the line, the dog sniffing and ignoring each bag. Passing by me and my wife, the dog approached the young man's duffle bag, stopped dead in its tracks, and did the drug/explosive dog's version of going "on point."

The kid freaked! "You have drugs in your bag?" asked the CA. "No way," said the boy. "Open the bag, please." Kid opens the bag, takes clothing, books, etc. out and puts then onto floor.

CA: "What's in the paper bag?"
Kid: "My lunch."

CA: "Show, please." Kid opens bag, takes out sandwich and banana.

CA: (to Kid) "Sorry Sir, our mistake." (to Beagle) "Bad dog! Bad dog!" (to all waiting in line "He (pointing to Beagle) does that all the time. He has this thing about bananas."

Sounds like a shaggy Beagle joke, but it really did happen.

Our tax dollars at work. Really makes me feel secure!

Jack

The agenda item behind all this is globalism. America is being sold out. Click on this link and listen.

Course,

"This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed -- for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now." --HST

I'm working my way through the Gonzo Papers right now--I'm currently reading volume #2 "Generation of Swine: Tales of Decadence and Degradation in the Eighties." It's weird as hell reading HST's account about how Bush #1 made it to office during the Reagan era and comparing to current events.

Anyway, I'd guess "Kingdom of Fear" would be the most relevant to current events since it was published around 2000, I believe.

Thompson made a career out of hating Nixon, but Bush #2 takes the cake. He wrote: "Is it even vaguely possible that some New Age Republican whore-beast of a false president could actually make Richard Nixon look like a liberal?"

Here's a site I found with some quotes (half way down are some about GW)

http://supak.com/gonzo.htm
http://www.gonzo.org/

-Jeff

How can you people speak in such a jaundiced way about this great country?

Oop--sorry, wrong century.

As I have told my friends so many times, the key to understanding the current Wonderland is that it is being run by a gang of thieves. Who else would reduce veterans' benefits while they are risking their lives in Iraq?

This is the natural evolution of increasingly expensive election campaigns and increasingly bold private interests who want government out of their way and can get that control by 'buying' legislators, contributing to their campaigns. That's why even some Democrats are caught up in the current feeding frenzy.

The goal--an impossible one--is to gradually substitute the private sector wherever there is government (like "deregulation" of energy, followed by the economic rape of California and Texas). Taxes are transformed into "prices." Money then goes not to the public benefit, but to a handful of multinational corporations.

Campaign finance reform--real reform--is the only real hope of putting more Actual People back in government over the next generation.
.

While we're on the subject:

Worst President ever

That Rolling Stone article was very well written, with lots of interesting historical facts too!

The follow-on archive articles were also very good, although not quite of the same caliber as this magnum opus.

Somehow I have the feeling that what's currently going on in California has something to do with all this.

We're in the middle of an election campaign – some contests are primaries, some not. The only thing I've been able to find out about any of the candidates, (both Republicans and Democrats) is that they have all committed all kinds of despicable acts – this according to the ads on TV.

NONE of the information that I have been exposed to (and I do read the papers) has told me what any one of these people stand for, how competent they’ve been, or how they would vote on any of the issues.

Sigh...

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but I'm stunned that some folks here have apparently made up their minds about how things are without apparently hearing both sides of the story.

I heard Chertoff (the boss man of the Department of Homeland Security) in an interview today while driving, and he logically explained how the numbers came about. Some people with Bush Derangement Syndrome will refuse to consider that there is even an ounce of gray matter in W's head, and will thus automatically reject ANYTHING the current administration says or does. For the others, however, I ask you to not shut out arguments from both sides of an issue before forming opinions.

I've enjoyed using Vegas over the past few years, and I've learned a lot from all of you on this Board, but I'm getting weary of these increasing diversions into politics. What's next, some threads bashing Catholics and Jews?

Let's go back.

Divert the money to where it should go - a proper 9/11 investigation.
This investigation can start at bldg 7.

The biggest problem with the story is that it is not true. It doesn't even pass the laugh test. Wait a few days ...

riredale,

I heard Chertoff's explanation, and analyzed the numbers based on his explanation before commenting on the issue.

His so called explanation made absolutely no sense, I can't see other than that this was just pork barrel politics at its worst.

Worst because this is not just a waste of money, but because a large number of people may die because of it.

Local communities and states have been looking for federal handouts since Bush cut all kinds of block grants etc. to the states.

Politicians want to look good, so they see it as their duty to bring in "other people's money" to their constituency.

In the case of some of our bureaucrats at DHS, they may be thinking about potential future constituents. "Elect me, while I was at DHS I got you this money..."

In the case of "The Bridge to Nowhere", even the local residents said it wasn't worth a quarter of a billion dollars.

I see hopeful signs everywhere that ordinary people are getting really worried about the future of this country, with all this pork barrel spending, political corruption that spans all party boundaries, and a total lack of foresight and thoughtfulness when dealing with intelligent adversaries.

I guess it could best be referred to as "immaturity," and we are the ones who have to pay the price for it (together with the next 2-3 generations).