homeland security

The right wing media is in a frenzy today over the plan to send homeland security and disaster alerts to your cellphone. Listen to Limbaugh going off on the “regimes” plan today:

I really hope that Limbaugh is talking about the Bush regime. This plan was authored by Tea Party poster boy, Jim DeMint in 2006 and passed by Congress and also supported by an executive order signed by President Bush. In 2006 the GOP controlled all of Congress and the White House. This is a GOP plan, not a Democratic one.

Of course the apologists will start claiming that we are “blaming Bush” again, despite the fact that this plan was when President Obama was still Senator Obama – not even candidate Obama. Facts are a really hard thing for these people to stomach.

Here’s what Lindsey Graham said about attempted car bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad being read his rights:

Miranda warnings are counterproductive in my view,” Graham said at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday.

“The homeland is part of the battlefield. So this idea that you get to America, the rules dramatically change, to the benefit of the suspect – the terrorist – makes no sense,” he said.

So Lindsey doesn’t like the 5th amendment, but what about when it comes to suspected terrorists being able to buy guns?

Graham described the bill as an instrument of those who would ban guns altogether. "We're talking about a constitutional right here," he said, explaining that he could not support a bill that would force "innocent Americans" to "pay the cost of going to court to get their gun rights back."

I thought Graham was a lawyer? Doesn’t he understand that being read your rights is also a constitutional right?

Like I said yesterday, Democrats need to run on this big time. They need to point out that Republicans want to insure that suspected terrorists can still buy guns. Something like this: “Republicans want terrorists to be able to legal access the tools to kill you, your family and your neighbors. Why do the Republicans support terrorism?” If the tables were turned that is the exact kind of play the Republicans would be pulling right now.

Bernie Kerik, former NY police commissioner and BFF of Rudy 9ul1an1 has been sentenced to four years for lying and tax fraud. Let’s not forget that Kerik was also appointed by Bush to head up Homeland Security. Yup – another Republican hero.

Drudge is pushing this headline today:

Largest-ever federal payroll to hit 2.15 million employees...

It goes to a Washington Times story talking about the increasing workforce of the U.S. government – not a bad thing with unemployment where it’s at. But let’s take a look at where these numbers are coming from:

Mr. Obama says the civilian work force will drop by 80,000 next year, mostly because of a reduction in U.S. census workers added in 2010 but then dropped in 2011 after the national population count is finished. That still leaves 1.35 million civilian federal employees on the payroll in 2011.

From 1981 through 2008, the civilian work force remained at about 1.1 million to 1.2 million, with a low of 1.07 million in 1986 and a high of more than 1.2 million in 1993 and in 2008. In 2009, the number jumped to 1.28 million.

Including both the civilian and defense sectors, the federal government will employ 2.15 million people in 2010 and 2.11 million in 2011, excluding Postal Service workers.

So there really hasn’t been that big of a jump in the size of government, well except for defense, which is about 79% of the increase. Will the right start demanding that we make cuts there? Haha yeah right. Let’s take a closer look at these defense numbers:

After years of decline at the end of the Cold War, the Defense Department is restaffing. Mr. Obama estimated that the Pentagon will have 720,000 employees this year and 757,000 employees next year - up from a low of 649,000 in 2003.

I’m going with Andrew Sullivan on this one:

Her latest interview on the Today show again reveals a total obtuseness. Yes, as was obvious from the original clip, it was clear she was referring to what happened after the incident occurred and the system does seem to have worked from then on. But before that? This was a massive failure by DHS, and you will notice she takes not a smidgen of personal responsibility for it.

Does she not realize how sick we are of government officials responding to obvious mistakes, errors and failures by bragging about what they did get right?

She is responsible for homeland security and scores of human beings nearly died because of her failure and survived solely because of luck and courage and the incompetence of the religious extremist.

This attitude was what enraged people about the Bush administration. If Obama wants to show he is not like that, he needs to fire Napolitano now, and explain why there are no excuses in his administration for failing to perform a core government function like ensuring that airline security is as fool-proof as possible. The rest of us have had to go through hell for years in airports only to see this happen.

If she won't resign, fire her.

Yesterday Napolitano said the system worked. Today she says it ‘failed’. This is the exact same lack of responsibility we saw during Katrina and our nation can not use another Brown leading a department that can directly affect rather people live or die. This was her first big test and she failed miserably, in a position where failure is synonymous with death. She either needs to resign or Obama needs to shit can her. Anything else is unacceptable.

And we don’t have anyone running FEMA yet. But don’t blame the President or Democrats for that:

A Louisiana senator is stalling Florida emergency management director Craig Fugate's nomination as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Fugate had sailed through his nomination hearing and Monday cleared the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by a unanimous voice vote. Republican Sen. David Vitter said, however, that he'd blocked Fugate because of concerns he has with FEMA.

"I have a hold on the FEMA nomination because I sent a list of hurricane recovery questions and projects to FEMA, many of which have not been adequately addressed," Vitter said in a statement. "I'm eager to get full responses and meet with the nominee immediately."

Perhaps if FEMA was allowed to have a boss, then they would have someone to answer the questions Vitter has. Of course that makes sense and we are talking about a hooker loving, airport screaming hero of the right here.

This Tuesday is when Senate Democrats will vote on Lieberman’s fate, and that vote will be by secret ballot:

Senate Democrats will decide by secret ballot Tuesday whether to take away Sen. Joe Lieberman's chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee — a post from which he oversees U.S. security issues, as well as the operations of a wide segment of the federal government.</p>The anger over Lieberman's campaigning for the Republican presidential candidate is still boiling — fueled by memories of his undercutting Barack Obama, including in a nationally televised speech at the Republican National Convention.

I have been staying pretty much out of this, but I can’t wait to see the outcome. I personally think Lieberman should be told to get out, but don’t think that all the blogosphere’s energy should be spent on Joe. Hell we all know he is an attention whore, so he must be loving it.

The secret ballot plan is great. That way neither side can go after the opposing views. I would hate to see any senators targeted because of the way they voted, and that is something bound to happen. This way things stay hush hush and we find out the fate in two days.

Bush is still trying to show us he cares nothing about our privacy, just his own:

The Bush administration has informed Congress that it is bypassing a law intended to forbid political interference with reports to lawmakers by the Department of Homeland Security.

The August 2007 law requires the agency’s chief privacy officer to report each year about Homeland Security activities that affect privacy, and requires that the reports be submitted directly to Congress “without any prior comment or amendment” by superiors at the department or the White House.

But newly disclosed documents show that the Justice Department issued a legal opinion last January questioning the basis for that restriction, and that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, later advised Congress that the administration would not “apply this provision strictly” because it infringed on the president’s powers.

Several members of Congress reacted with outrage to the administration’s claim, which was detailed in a memorandum posted this week on the Web site of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department.

I think the biggest regret in the future is going to be from Congress and the fact that they didn't impeach this asshole. Of course we need to wonder what would happen if President Obama tried something like this. You can bet all the righties would be screaming for impeachment.