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Analysis of Scotus selection


Ten days before Justice Antonin Scalia died, launching the political battle over who would fill his vacancy, Chief Justice John Roberts delivered a speech slamming the Supreme Court nomination process. In remarks at Boston’s New England Law,The New York Times reports that Roberts denounced the politicization of the process that he says is really just meant to ensure that nominees are qualified for the job.

“We don’t work as Democrats or Republicans,” the chief justice said, “and I think it’s a very unfortunate impression the public might get from the confirmation process.”

Roberts pointed out that while nominees back in his day were easily confirmed, the last three justices — Samuel Alito Jr., Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — have all faced split votes from the Senate. “Look at my more recent colleagues, all extremely well qualified for the court and the votes were, I think, strictly on party lines for the last three of them, or close to it, and that doesn’t make any sense,” Roberts said. “That suggests to me that the process is being used for something other than ensuring the qualifications of the nominees.”

President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court last week, despite Republicans’ promises that they will deny any Obama nominee in favor of letting the next president fill the vacancy. It has become clear that the Congress is essentially Racist and disingenuous. Vice President Biden made it clear in a recent speech that the GOP Congress has  taken excerpts from a prior speech to avoid doing the job of vetting a candidate for the Supreme court. For the past 7 years we (voters) have been operating under a dysfunctional Government due to the Political machinations of our Congress. Voters are better than the people we elected to represent us but we seemingly have not considered this. Our Federal lawmakers are no more than 535 people who are taking our money for a job poorly done or not done  at all. If this were a contractor or service, we as consumers would be up in arms so the question is: Why are we not taking these people (Congress) to task  for not doing their job?

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Guantanamo Camp Cost $900,000.00 Per Prisoner Per Year


This posting from The Huffington Post shows what the cost to keep Guantanamo Camp open and what should be spent on the actual facility to bring it up to standards. Where could this amount be better used? We have several 
“High Security” prisons in the U.S. but due to politrics and fear mongering these facilities and the apparent boon to the communities as far as material resources like jobs, products sold to the facility and traffic from products being brought in has not happened. Maximum security is just that maximum security and would cost a lot less in the United States than off shore. This move would free up military forces now engaged in guarding this facility for other duties. The move would be n money saved and well spent.

WASHINGTON, May 3 (Reuters) – It’s been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth and President Barack Obama cited the cost this week as one of many reasons to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which burns through some $900,000 per prisoner annually.

The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per prisoner.

By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say. And the average cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000, they say.

The high cost was just one reason Obama cited when he returned this week to an unfulfilled promise to close the prison and said he would try again. Obama also said that the prison, set up under his Republican predecessor George W. Bush and long the target of criticism by rights groups and foreign governments, is a stain on the reputation of the United States.

“It’s extremely inefficient,” said Ken Gude, chief of staff and vice president at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank, who has followed developments at Guantanamo Bay since 2005.

“That … may be what finally gets us to actually close the prison. I mean the costs are astronomical, when you compare them to what it would cost to detain somebody in the United States,” Gude said.

The cost argument could be a potent weapon at a time of running budget battles between Obama and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and of across-the-board federal spending cuts that kicked in, in March. The “sequestration” as it is known, is due to cut some $109 billion in spending up to the end of September and has cut government services small and large.

Just one inmate from Guantanamo, for example, is equivalent to the cost of 12 weeks of White House tours for the public – a treasured tradition that the Secret Service says costs $74,000 a week and that has been axed under sequestration.

A single inmate is also the equivalent of keeping open the control tower at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport for 45 months. That control tower, another victim of cuts, costs $20,000 per month to run.

The $900,000 also matches the funding for nearly seven states to help serve home delivered meals to the elderly. Sequestration has cost Meals on Wheels a median shortfall of $129,497 per state, the organization says.

Or measured in terms of military spending and national security, the cost of four inmates represents the cost of training an Air Force fighter pilot – based on the Department of Defense’s figure of $3.6 million per pilot.

WHY THE HUGE COST?

The huge cost of running the prison and judicial complex stem from its offshore location at a 45-square-mile U.S. Naval Base on the southeastern coast of Cuba. Because ties between the two countries are almost nonexistent, almost everything for the facilities has to be ferried in from outside.

When the military tribunals are in session, everyone from judges and lawyers to observers and media have to fly into Guantanamo on military aircraft. Food, construction materials and other goods are shipped in from outside, experts say.

But despite the high cost of the camp, and despite the fact that Republicans traditionally demand belt-tightening by the federal government, a Republican aide with the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee said there was little point in asking if the price was worth it because “there isn’t an alternative at the moment.”

“No one has any particular affection for Guantanamo Bay, but no one has come up with a practical solution that’s better,” the aide said.

Obama needs to produce a plan for what to do with the detainees at Guantanamo “who are too dangerous to release,” Representative Buck McKeon, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in an opinion piece in USA Today this week. “Until a better solution is offered, at Guantanamo they must stay,” he wrote.

Among current inmates, nine have been charged with crimes or convicted, 24 are considered eligible for possible prosecution, 86 have been cleared for transfer or release and 47 are considered too dangerous for release but are not facing prosecution.

But until now, worries about security have prevented the idea of transferring some or all of the inmates to the United States from getting much traction.

Obama pledged to close the prison within a year after first taking office in January 2009 but his efforts ran aground, partly because of congressional opposition, from both Republicans and some in his own Democratic Party, to transferring prisoners to the United States.

Inmates started a hunger strike in February that has swelled to some 100 prisoners and has led to force-feeding of 23 of the prisoners. With the camp back under a critical spotlight, Obama told a news conference on Tuesday he would renew efforts to shut it down. He has an array of options, some of which would be more achievable than others.

Gude said it was difficult to figure out how much the United States has spent overall on Guantanamo detention facilities since it began housing prisoners there in 2002 because administrations only recently have been noting the expense in a budget line item.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an estimate but it is certainly more than $1 billion by a comfortable margin, I would say, probably more than $2 billion,” Gude said.

Above the annual operating cost, capital spending on the prison could rise again if the Pentagon receives the funding it says it needs to renovate the place.

General John Kelly, the head of Southern Command, which is responsible for Guantanamo, told a House of Representatives panel in March that he needed some $170 million to improve the facilities for troops stationed at the base as part of detention operations. Kelly said the living conditions were “pretty questionable” and told the panel, “We need to take care of our troops.” (Reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Frances Kerry and Tim Dobbyn)

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Io’s rison Facility

 

Not 1941


A recent poll shows that  “a majority ” of Americans want American boots on the ground to fight ISIS. Personally I believe this to be a knee jerk reaction. First remember that wars are expensive and the money has to come at the expense of other stuff. Given the inability of the Congress to construct a budget where will the money come from? Currently the UN Security council has called for members to join the fight against ISIS this action will relieve the financial burden from the United States while affording quicker responses to the threat by local member countries. Keep in mind that ISIS members  are no more than criminals who have subverted a religion to gain recruits and unfortunately have used online methods to spread their message of hate around the globe. We can complain about what needs to be done, what is not done  or even who should do it but the fact remains that we cannot enter into another protracted ground war without the UN security council members. This is not December 7, 1941. The current Dupublicans can scream and shout about what should be done as long and as loud as they want but in the end we the people suffer for it. We lose resources such as irreplaceable human capital and hardware of all sorts. We (voters) need to keep in mind the knee jerk reactions are what put us in IRAQ, Afghanistan and Vietnam and we know how those incursions turned out.

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note This was from a Newsweek Poll

Zero Accomplishment


The House has again made much ado over nothing, you would think that these folks would look into existing rules for refugees before making new ones that shadow or negate existing ones. The new bill is listed below first then the existing one below it under Politics. This is just another item to think about when it is time for reelection . This is another “business as usual moment.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan holds up statements from the FBI director and the secretary of Homeland Security about the risk involved in admitting refugees from Syria, during a news conference Wednesday about the House bill calling for a stricter vetting process for refugees from Syria and Iraq.

Gary Cameron/Reuters/Landov

The House of Representatives has easily passed a GOP-authored bill to restrict the admission of Iraqi and Syrian refugees to America by requiring extra security procedures.

The bill — called the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act of 2015, or the American SAFE Act of 2015 — would require the secretary of Homeland Security, the head of the FBI and the director of national intelligence to sign off on every individual refugee from Iraq and Syria, affirming he or she is not a threat.

The FBI director would also need to confirm that a background investigation, separate from the Homeland Security screening, had been conducted on each refugee.

Lawmakers say it is the first of many bills aimed at addressing security concerns in the wake of the Paris attacks, reports NPR’s Muthoni Muturi.

Supporters of the bill say it would require a “pause” in admitting Syrian and Iraqi refugees, as current applications would be halted while a new vetting process was established. Some conservative critics object that it doesn’t ban such refugees outright.

Meanwhile, liberal House members say requiring top officials to be involved in thousands of individual applications is unmanageable, and that the bill would result in an extended roadblock for Syrians and Iraqis fleeing a humanitarian crisis. That’s a rejection of American values, some Democrats argue.

The bill passed the House of Representatives 289-137.

It’s unclear whether the Senate will take up the legislation, says NPR’s Arnie Seipel. If the bill does pass through Congress, President Obama has pledged to veto it. But if the House were voting on a veto override, they’d need no more than 290 votes — just one more than they had Thursday — to overrule the president.

The administration says the bill would introduce “unnecessary and impractical requirements that would unacceptably hamper our efforts to assist some of the most vulnerable people in the world.”

It would also undermine allies and partners in the Middle East and Europe, the administration says.

Obama argues that the existing vetting process — which includes fingerprinting, examination of personal history and interviews — is sufficient, and the certification requirement the Republicans are calling for would “provide no meaningful additional security.”

The Obama administration has recently begun disclosing details about how Syrian refugees are currently screened. As we reported Tuesday, the process includes multiple agencies and lasts up to two years.

One challenge is that the Syrian government does not cooperate with the U.S., making it difficult to verify some Syrian documents, The Associated Press reports. But the administration says Syrian refugees provide extensive amounts of information for investigators to use.

Politics

4 Things To Know About The Vetting Process For Syrian Refugees

The U.S. has taken in about 2,500 Syrian refugees since 2011, according to the AP, and the Obama administration has announced a plan to accept 10,000 more in the coming year. The White House says half of the refugees admitted to the U.S. are children, and about a quarter are older than 60.

 

With the news that one of the Paris attackers may have entered Europe posing as a refugee from Syria, more than half of American governors are now objecting to Syrian refugees being resettled in their states. On Tuesday, White House officials hosted a call with 34 governors to better explain current security screening measures. And this week, some members of Congress have called on the Obama administration to stop or at least pause the resettlement program until refugees can be properly vetted. Here are four things you should know about the current vetting process and concerns over security:

1. Refugees are screened by several different agencies.

Their first point of a refugee’s contact is with the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. The UNHCR refers people to countries based on whether they have any family members there and where resettlement makes the most sense, say U.S. officials. If that’s the U.S., then refugees are vetted by the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, and the Departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security. Fingerprints are taken, biographical information is collected. They are then each individually interviewed by U.S. officials trained to verify that they’re bona fide refugees.

Refugees from Syria are then subject to additional screening that looks at where they came from and what caused them to flee their home, stories that are checked out. All of this occurs before a refugee is allowed to set foot in the country.

2. It’s a lengthy process.

As you might imagine, all of the vetting, from interviews to fingerprinting, takes a while. On average, officials say it’s 18 to 24 months before a refugee is approved for admission to the U.S.

The U.S. has admitted some 1,800 Syrian refugees in the past two years, and President Obama wants to allow 10,000 more. The administration says half of those who have been admitted are children and about a quarter of them are adults over 60. Officials say 2 percent are single males of combat age.

3. Physical resettlement.

There are nine different nonprofit groups, six of them faith-based, that help refugees settle in the U.S. Volunteers with the groups help refugees find homes, furniture, school supplies and jobs.

4. Objections of governors and members of Congress.

Some officials, including FBI Director James Comey, worry there are what Comey has called “gaps” in the vetting process. Experts say U.S. intelligence in Syria isn’t very good, because the U.S. lacks much of a presence on the ground. So there’s no way to compile a thorough watch list of possible terrorists from Syria against which refugees can be checked. Administration officials are briefing governors and members of Congress about the process, but lawmakers may try to pass legislation calling on the administration to suspend its refugee resettlement

Is It Possible


Is it possible, could we as people become color, race and religious blind? How important are the divisions that separate us? American being a microcosm of the world should be an example of how a diverse group should work together. We have always had the capability to be the example beyond our other problems of financial, political and manufacturing malfeasance. In spite of the past 200 plus years of learning to be a world power, we still have a way to go. We should have no place in our mainstream for political misdeeds, tacit bigotry and financial cheats. It is odd that other countries have figured out how to educate their citizens without a mountain of  debt, provided healthcare that works for all without debt. It appears that proper taxing of the citizens and correct use of the taxes is the key. We currently have several  (too many) aspirants to be a candidate for the Presidency, each brings his own baggage yet we are fascinated by their speeches and ranting’s. When the speeches and debates are over we really need to understand what the President can actually do and keeping in mind that there is still the issue (no mistake, issue is the correct word) of Congress. Our Congress has become no more than a group of people who have begun to see themselves as better than the people who placed them in office (repeatedly). With that thought in mind, isn’t it time to decide that our Congress is our real problem and not the President (no matter who it is). None of us would trust anyone who would lie to our faces and then pretend to help yet we have 535 people who have raised that activity to an art form. These seat fillers have avoided action on healthcare so that it fails the people it is designed to help, our 535 could have acted in a statesmanlike manner and made changes that would be even more beneficial to us all however politics took over and we all lost. Now it is election season and  time for the politricks to begin along with the blatant lies about everything and done in our names.

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If We Could


If we could agree that our political process is broken perhaps we could agree that we have been under served for the past 10 – 20 years by our elected representatives. Looking at the debacles also called debates, it should give us a reason to think about who we really need to have running the country. No one person is going to be perfect however the onus of not being re-elected is a powerful incentive to try to get it right. If we could allow the evils of racism, religious intolerance and personal bias to race off into the sunset , we find that we are all facing the same issues on one level or another. Our common  problem  appears to be the people we elect to represent us. Each of us has an opinion on what we believe ( TRUE OR NOT) and that belief is changeable when all facts are known, but we must stay out of the tar pits of political rhetoric that is constantly in our ears and faces. Do you find it odd that so many are willing to lie to get elected and continue the lies once elected? The lies are no more than fairy tales with a supposed happy ending which is so far away that we forgot it was coming and accept what ever the ending is with relish. If we could, would we make the same election choices again? I hope not, yet we allow the political ads to sway us on voting much like the ads for the products we buy. The real story is the one we don’t want to hear because we have been advertised into believing what is wrong is right and vice versa. Why else would we be told to talk to our Doctors about medications when he should already know what we take and if this new medication is correct for us? This is advertising and it is the same as a political campaign. Would we really want to elect someone based on advertising?

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4.2 Million Dollar Show With No Music


As if we didn’t already know!

 

 

Not Hillary. Benghazi was GOP’s fault.

by Corp Flunky

This story is a few years old, but now that we’ve cleared the air over Hillary, maybe it finally deserves more attention.

Jason Chaffetz is on tape saying he “absolutely” voted with the GOP to cut $300 million for embassy security.

The article also quotes Washington Post reporting showing that the GOP embassy security cuts were part of a multi year effort, lead by Paul Ryan’s budget, to cut the following.

For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program — well below the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration’s request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012….[In 2011] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans’ proposed cuts to her department would be “detrimental to America’s national security” — a charge Republicans rejected.

[GOP vice presidential nominee Paul] Ryan, [Rep. Darrell] Issa and other House Republicans voted for an amendment in 2009 to cut $1.2 billion from State operations, including funds for 300 more diplomatic security positions. Under Ryan’s budget, non-defense discretionary spending, which includes State Department funding, would be slashed nearly 20 percent in 2014, which would translate to more than $400 million in additional cuts to embassy security.

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Is It Worth It?


Is pursuing Hillary Clinton on Benghazi worth 4.6 Million dollars? The Federal government is on a path of shutdown with just a temporary budget in place but our legislators are spending millions on an issue that has been (we thought) over. This money would be better spent on National infrastructure. These are the people we elected  to take care of our business but as usual politics take over. Our legislators have taken leave of their senses in this matter while espousing this pursuit in our names. It does not matter what individual voters think of Hillary Clinton but it should matter what our legislators are doing with our  tax money (supposedly on our behalf yet not asking us if we agree). There are American citizens on the brink of starvation and homeless but we can spend money on preventing the run of Hillary Clinton for the Presidency. If the Legislators believe this is the correct way to spend tax dollars then why is it that we can’t fund Planned Parenthood for the health of Women? This Planned Parenthood issue is based largely on fictionalized and invented information. It utterly amazing that we have continued to elect these clowns time after time when they have lied to us time after time. Shouldn’t we spend some money to get at the truth of what they are really doing for us or better said – to us? 

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Bigotry?


Reposting from Daily KOS. While every Republican may not be a bigot the trend for it is in their general beliefs. It almost amounts to hating America.  

 
Daily Kos member

Sun Sep 25, 2011 at 05:42 AM PDT

Top 10 reasons to vote Republican

by plf515Follow

Why would anyone vote Republican? Well, here are 10 reasons.

1. You are a bigot

It’s true that not all Republicans are bigots. But if you ARE a bigot, the Republican party will be much more your group than the Democratic party. Remember that there are lots of ways to be a bigot: You could be a racist, a homophobe, an Islamophobe, or lots of other things.

2. You like eating, drinking and breathing poison.

Many Republicans are calling for or voting for shrinking or eliminating agencies that protect us against poison. They seem to think that the corporations will do the right thing, without any pressure from the government. Uh huh. Read The Jungle.  Look at the way Monsanto is hiding facts about Round Up. Look at food safety and outbreaks of E. Coli.

Corporations exist to make money. They will do so any way they can. The government needs to stop them from doing so in ways that hurt people.

3. You think the rich don’t have enough money

The idea that giving more money to rich people (via tax breaks) will help poor people is nonsensical and has been shown wrong time and again in history. Huge tax breaks for the rich (a la George Bush) don’t work.

4. You don’t support our veterans

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran’s Association (IAVA) rates every member of congress on how well they support our veterans.  In the Senate, 9 people got A or A+: All were Democrats. 30 got D or F: 29 Republicans and one Democrat.  More on this

5. You like big deficits

Since the end of WW II the ratio of debt to GDP for the nation has gone down in 9 administrations (3 Republican and 6 Democratic) and up in 7 administrations (6 Republican and 1 Democratic).  The largest increases by this measure were GW Bush’s 2nd term; GHW Bush, and Reagan’s first term. The largest decreases were the three terms right after the end of WWII (Truman and Eisenhower). The last decrease under a Republican was in Eisenhower’s 2nd term

source

6. You don’t believe in free speech.

The American Civil Liberties Union is the premier defender of our civil liberties, including the right to free speech.  That’s free speech for EVERYONE; from Nazis to Marxists to Fred Phelps to anyone else. They rate politicians, including governors, senators and representatives.  12 people got a 100 rating: All were Democrats. 65 people got a score of less than 10: All were Republicans. Only 6 Democrats got a score under 50 (Joe Donnelly,  Michael Ross, Collin Peterson, Joseph Shuler, Mark Critz and David Boren). Only 2 Republicans got scores over 50 (Olympia Snowe and Mark Kirk)  Full list

7. You like big government

The Republicans like to claim they are against big government. It’s a lie. They only object when government helps people. But they are supporters of the Patriot Act; they want the government to say who you can marry; they want the government to forbid abortion; they want the government to be able to spy on you without restraint. Unfortunately, many Democrats agree with them on some of these, but to find opposition to these big government ideas, you have to look to the Democrats.

8. You want government to hurt people, but not help them

This is really just a summation of some other points.

9. You are greedy, short sighted and rich

You really have to be all three for this to work.

If you’re rich but not short-sighted, you know that, in the long run, when there is huge income inequality, it leads to things like stock market crashes and revolution, and everyone loses.  In a revolution, it is often the rich who lose most.

If you’re rich but not greedy, you recognize that helping others is a good thing, and that the government assuring that people have a safety net is a good thing as well.

10. You like torture

The Democrats don’t exactly shine here, but the Republicans are much worse.  It was, after all, Dick Cheney who bragged in his memoir about being a war criminal. It was Don Rumsfeld who opined that a problem in Abu Ghraib was that they weren’t torturing prisoners enough.  And it is mostly Democrats who have objected to torture.

Torture is wrong.  It’s also stupid. It doesn’t work. People who are tortured will say ANYTHING (true or not) that they thing their torturers want to hear.

Originally posted to plf515 on Sun Sep 25, 2011 at 05:42 AM PDT.

Also republished by Daily Kos Classics

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Congressional Fault


With the recent spate of Racially based crimes on buildings and individuals it is not hard to connect the dots. Our Congress since the election of Barack Obama has tacitly condoned (renewed) Racism. The vitriol over most programs presented by the President have met more opposition than possibly any of his predecessors. What we have is big money powering the anti’s coupled with the innate racism of some members of Congress. While it is not necessarily quantifiable, it is feasible to imagine that some members of Congress while advocating for their districts have seeded their “home” speeches with racial epithets that serve to invigorate the supposed or perceived Racial differences in America. While are we giving so much attention to “old flags”  the Oligarchs are pushing to enslave us all as they have enslaved our government ( Congress). Be aware that our Congress contrary to popular belief is not as independent as they would have us believe, they have all benefitted from the largesse offered from the Oligarchical coffers. Our political system is all about who can spend the most money while many voters are in dire need of healthcare, jobs and basic living standards all of which was promised by the people we elected to Congress to make this happen. The amount of funding provided by the oligarchs apparently is too tempting to ignore but comes with a price – “their Souls” . We have issues that should be clear to all Americans since this is the only country we have and it is just over 200 plus years in existence wouldn’t you think we should be more caring about it and our fellow Americans of all races (since these assorted Races are what make up America). From the beginning when the first landers on the shores of what is now the United States, they began to push the Real Americans (Natives) around and became upset when they fought back. From that point on it became open season on non whites (who had already been here for Eons), then there was the import of slaves , stolen from their home country because the New Americans wanted cheap (free) labor. It is small wonder that Americans as a whole have less respect around the world and that has translated into disrespect for our current President and his initiatives (which if he were White would be less of an issue). Our current and past Congress have all been at fault due to their short-sighted thinking and allowing “white Privilege ” to make a joke out of our Democracy. We have people who are aspiring to run for the Presidency who are advocating another round-up of “illegals” to provide jobs for Americans yet not many Americans want to do the jobs that these immigrants do which is why “Americans” hire them. Our Congress is more of a hindrance to better government than any of the left or right wing groups in combination. We voters (every  multi-ethnic one of us) should pay careful attention to who we elect as bombastic speeches do not make a competent legislators. Indolence in our voting will be our downfall as history has shown in the past.

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