Tho Bishop — Instead of Draining the Swamp, the GOP is Greasing the Wheels

Libertarians piling on.

"Greasing the wheels" means rescinding the ban on earmarks.

Mises Wire
Instead of Draining the Swamp, the GOP is Greasing the Wheels

Tho Bishop

Medea Benjamin — Police Departments Shouldn't Become Dumping Grounds for Weapons Makers

Public good, or pork barrel for the defense industry? File under WTF?!

Your head will spin if you take a look at this map the New York Times published on August 21. It lists the counties that have received military surplus and the supplies they’ve received. The acquisitions under the Department of Defense (DOD) program since its inception in 1991 are valued at $5.1 billion, with $449.3 million given out in fiscal year 2013 alone. In just the past 5 years, as part of Section 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997, the Pentagon has given away “tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft” to counties in every state throughout the country.

While attention is now focused on the DOD’s program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a program that is three times the size. This year alone, DHS plans to give away $1.6 billion worth of military equipment for counterterrorism, border security and disaster preparedness. Thanks to DHS, every squad car in Fargo, North Dakota, has assault rifles and kevlar helmets and 1,500 beat cops in Philadelphia are trained to use AR-15s.

DHS is also giving out money for a few dozen police departments to experiment with drones. When the Federal Aviation Administration opens US airspace to drones in the coming years, civil liberty advocates fear that the nation’s 18,000 police departments will be lining up for DHS grants to get their latest toy--a toy that has the capacity to spy, stun, maim and kill.

This is already starting. In May 2012, DHS began distributing $4 million in experimental grants to help local law enforcement agencies buy their own small drones, opening a new market for politically connected drone makers as the wars overseas shrink. The sheriff’s department in Montgomery County, Texas received a $250,000 grant to buy a drone, which in April 2014 crashed into Lake Conroe and was destroyed. In 2013, citizens of Seattle pressured police into returning two drones they had received from DHS grants for $82,000. The drones were then pawned off on the LA Police Department, which is now facing a citizen backlash to get rid of them.

In the past, Congress has done nothing to rollback the handouts. When Congressman Alan Grayson introduced legislation in June to limit funding to the 1033 program, it was quashed by an overwhelming vote of 355-62, including 35 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who voted against it.….

Worse than traffic cameras for revenue generation as a replacement for taxation.

AlterNet

Police Departments Shouldn't Become Dumping Grounds for Weapons Makers
Medea Benjamin

See also, Steve Holland and Andrea Shalal, Obama orders review of U.S. police use of military hardware, Reuters

Key concerns include a clause in the program that requires police to use the equipment within a year, something the American Civil Liberties Union argues may give police forces an incentive to use the equipment in inappropriate situations. The program also does not mandate training for crowd control or other uses.…

U.S. weapons makers have been eyeing what they call "adjacent" markets for years, keen to drum up fresh demand for products initially developed for the military, and recently, to offset declines in U.S. and European military spending. 

Faced with a dwindling number of big-ticket military contracts, even the Pentagon's largest suppliers such as Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N) are competing for increasingly smaller contracts in commercial or non-military markets, analysts and industry executives said. 

Among the products marketed to state and local officials are military-grade communications equipment, radios, night-vision goggles, drones and other surveillance equipment.…

Inadequate Application of Common Sense: Gnomes Endlessly Pontificating About "Lack" Of The Very Demand That THEY Are Suppressing!

Commentary by Roger Erickson

The Century Foundation and New America Foundation invite you to The Inadequate Supply of Demand

Good Grief!!!

Can we just trade these bozos for Marriner Eccles, Beardsley Ruml and Warren Mosler? Today? As in, without further waste of hot air?

We're waiting on either incomprehensible stupidity, or incomprehensibly stupid mal-intent. Is there any functional difference? Do WE care which it is?

In other settings I'd recommend replacing the entire headcount ... but in this case there are no detectable brains to replace! Just idiot savants that are NOT saving anyone from the faux savant services being foisted on citizens.

Let me get this straight.

I'm "invited" to a @#$%^&*!!! "inadequate supply of demand?"

Here's my response: "No @#$%^&*!!! THANK YOU! 

 OUR aggregate demand is not THEIRS to dole out!!!

AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH! 

 @#$%^&*!!! on a  @#$%^&*!!!,  ^%&#$@,  *(+@#(  STICK!! 

Now I really am mad as hell."

"Alpert argues that we are now living a world in which labor, production, and capital far outstrip demand."

You don't say?

Any suggestion WHY that's been increasingly true, for 80+ years running?
Or WHAT the US Middle Class will be ALLOWED to do about it?
And WHEN?
And, oh yes, allowed by WHOM?

What? No comment there? You're "working on it?" On our diverted dimes? Look, I personally don't care WHAT you trolls do, on your time. Just get the @#$%^! out of OUR way, and stop getting between the citizens and their fiat ... or many, MANY people are going to get hurt, far worse than they already have been.

Remind me why I, or any US citizens, should waste time listening to these windbags spout stuff our grandparents already clearly stated, 80 years ago?

"Economists and political leaders have failed to see the cataclysmic shift in the global economy that resulted from the flood of labor and productive capacity unleashed by the end of socialist regimes."

Duh uh uhhh. Where have these trolls BEEN the last 80 years, when anyone with common sense KNEW this, and saw it, because they LIVED it?

"Alpert argues for bold new policy solutions to jump-start sluggish advanced nations—a new playbook for the new normal."

BMHOTK! Here's a bold new policy suggestion for Alpert and his little band of pork-takers too. How about you guys just get the @#$%^&*! out of the way??? Just @#$%^&*! off and @#$%^&* ? Wouldn't that be far simpler - and much faster? Instead of talking more of us to death?

Less talk, lower taxes, more investment of OUR growing fiat in OUR nation. 

There, I just summarized the situation for D-Al in ONE sentence.

Now he doesn't even need to have his stupid seminar or sell his stupid, $100 book, and we can get on to actually doing things, instead of his endless talk & endless book sales.

While D-Alpert & his Tijuana wags might CLAIM to be on the right path - which they probably read about in a FREE book somewhere, THEIR suggested TEMPO leaves OUR aggregate path lingering so long in their own, personal pocketbooks that it doesn't matter WHAT PATH we take at their suggested tempo!

D-Alp & company, if you're not part of an solution that is allowed to unfold with adequate tempo ... then get the hell out of our way, YESTERDAY?

End of suggestions. Actions needed instead.