Tag Archives: Washington DC

May 9, 2013 · 11:47 AM

Police Chief Calls Out Armed Protest Threat In Washington DC

Think Progress

A July 4 march encourages gun advocates tocarry loaded rifles into Washington, DC and knowingly break the law. Although described as a nonviolent “act of civil obedience,” organizer Adam Kokesh implied a threat of violence if “the government chooses to make it violent.” He encourages participants to peacefully submit to law enforcers but underlines that point with, “We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.”

Since Friday, more than 2,000 people have RSVPed to the march to “put the government on notice.”

In a local news channel interview pointed out by Politico, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier explained that this is an open disregard for DC law:

[W]hen you cross with firearms and you’re not in compliance with the law now you’re talking about a criminal offense and there’s going to be some action by police. Obviously there has been no permit filed by the organizer and we’ve not made contact with the organizer yet. But we will, and we’ll make sure they understand that if they want to pass through the District of Columbia with loaded firearms as long as they are in compliance with the firearms laws for transportation of firearms to the District, we’re all for it. But passing into the District of Columbia with firearms is a violation of the law and we’ll have to treat it as such.

Whether Lanier’s warning invigorates or extinguishes the protest remains unclear.

Kokesh’s plans, along with a series of other open carry protests, undermines arguments made by the National Rifle Association against gun violence prevention. The NRA claims that it is unfair of the government to strengthen background checks or ban assault rifles for law-abiding citizens. Yet this protest plans to purposely break the law.

That point is missed by Kokesh. Open carry is illegal in the District, but Kokesh wants to aim his message at the federal government for attempting modest background checks supported by gun owners and non-gun owners alike.

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February 2, 2013 · 9:25 AM

11 Things Wrong With Congress

U.S. News & World Report

Capitol Hole

America needs to rally. Jobs are scarce, incomes are falling, and prosperity seems to be slipping away. Congress could help, but instead of bold new bipartisan ideas, the nation’s legislators have done little lately except argue. Here’s why Congress is so out-of-touch.

Too Many Rich People

About one percent of all Americans are millionaires, but roughly 46 percent of those serving in Congress are. There’s nothing wrong with being rich. But there is a problem when the people creating tax and economic policy fail to understand the financial stress a typical family faces.

Automatic Pay Raises

Every year, members of Congress get an automatic cost-of-living increase in their pay, which is now $174,000 per year—about 3.4 times as much as the average worker earns. For the last two years, Congress has voted to forego its annual raise. But even flat pay would be a luxury to millions who have endured pay cuts, been relegated to part-time status or lost their jobs.

Gold-Plated Benefits

Members of Congress are eligible for two types of retirement plans and a retirement healthcare plan that in nearly every way are more generous than benefits typically offered to private-sector workers. One research group estimates that fringe benefits alone are worth about $82,000 per year to a federal legislator.

Free Parking

In addition to generous pay and gilded benefits, members of Congress enjoy a long list of conveniences and other perks, including free parking at their workplace on Capitol Hill, and at priority lots at Washington, D.C.’s two airports. They’re special, you see.

Earmarks

Congress has temporarily banned these pet spending projects, which evade ordinary budgeting procedures and often amount to home-district favors for donors or supporters. But some lawmakers want them back. The test will come in 2013, when the next Congress will either extend the ban or revoke it and start delivering overdue favors.

Speeches to Nobody

Some of those Congressional speeches broadcast on cable are given before an empty chamber in the Capitol, simply because politicians know they might get on TV. Expanded TV coverage of Congress has been a welcome bit of sunshine, but it also encourages posturing and sensationalism.

A Lack of Competition

In the private sector, competition punishes the obsolete and rewards those who deliver. Congress, however, holds a monopoly on legislating, so it still operates by ancient procedures and dallies indefinitely on urgent matters. There’s no measure of effectiveness for the body as a whole, and some members insist that gridlock—a euphemism for accomplishing nothing—is in the nation’s interest.

No Penalty for Ignorance

Members of Congress sometimes reveal a dangerous degree of ignorance on vitally important issues they have considerable power to regulate. This year, for instance, the science journal Nature said a House committee had “entered the intellectual wilderness” on climate science, and The Economist called Republican debt-ceiling negotiators “economically illiterate.”

Lobbyists

For every member of Congress, there are about 22 registered lobbyists who donate money, throw fundraisers and manipulate legislation to the benefit of corporations and interest groups. Some of the most powerful lobbyists are former members of Congress, who form a “shadow Congress” more influential than pressure from voters.

The Media

Journalists, bloggers, and pundits jump on every argumentative word in Washington, while underreporting key issues likeunemployment and poverty that matter more to real people. This makes politicians even more narcissistic and combative, since they know they’ll generate coverage if they say something controversial.

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January 22, 2013 · 12:15 AM

Inauguration Day – Mario Piperni

Barack Obama - January 21 2013 : http://mariopiperni.com/

Mario Piperni’s posts and graphics never cease to amaze me…

Mario Piperni

Random stuff…

If you lived through Republican’s disgusting display of politics over the last four years, I’m sure you’ll appreciate this message to the right from Van Jones.

Van Jones@VanJones68

To those who wasted 4 years trying to keep this day from happening – you may as well have been trying to stop the dawn.#HopeWins#tcot#p2  21 Jan 13


Despite Mitch McConnell’s best effort, the one term presidency of Barack Obama was not to be.

I thought the President’s address was as progressive a speech as you could have hoped for.  My highlights…

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.  But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it.”

and…

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall … Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

Climate change and gay rights mentioned in a presidential inaugural address. This ain’t your granddad’s president.

John Liming shares his Inauguration Day thoughts:

I was proud to be an American when Truman was president and I have been proud to be an American under every president since up to and including President Barack Obama!

I am not proud to be an American because of who is in the white house or who is running their mouths in Washington - – I am proud to be an American because America is worth being proud about!

Some of my relatives died in the Revolution and some in some of the other wars.

I served in uniform (honorably) for seven years and a few months myself.

I gotta say, “Even if there was a president in the white house that I didn’t particularly like, when that trio of helicopters with the president inside of Marine 1 went over, I couldn’t help but shed tears of pride and joy and snap to attention and salute.

Read the rest of John’s post here.

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January 6, 2013 · 4:14 AM

Welcome to the new Civil War

Welcome to the new Civil War

In a recent discussion with a friend, I mentioned how news pundits constantly use the phrase: “Our country has not been so ideologically divided since the Civil War.”

My friend’s question was “why the Civil War analogy…?  The following piece tends to address this question.

Salon

Lincoln’s unfinished war rages on, as the neo-Confederacy tries to turn back the clock on women, gays, God and guns

On a repeat viewing of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” over the New Year’s holiday, a scene I had barely noticed the first time jumped out at me. Confederate vice-president Alexander Stephens (played with reptilian gentility by Jackie Earle Haley), in a secret meeting aboard a steamboat with Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward, faces up to the reality that the era of slavery has come to an end. Ratification of the 13th Amendment, Stephens muses, will destroy the basis of the Southern economy and the South’s traditional way of life. “We won’t know ourselves anymore,” he says.

If only it had been so. What an affluent slave owner like Stephens feared most, no doubt, was the utopian vision of “radical Reconstruction” imagined by legendary abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones in the movie), in an earlier conversation with Lincoln in the White House kitchen. Stevens envisioned a future in which all the land and property of the Southern aristocracy would be dispossessed and divided among the emancipated slaves, building a new society of free soil and free labor amid the ruins of tyranny. To put it in contemporary social-studies terms, Stevens hoped that by uprooting and destroying the South’s slave economy, one could also replace its culture.

It didn’t quite work out that way. You can’t boil one of the most tumultuous periods of American history down to one paragraph, but here goes: Lincoln was assassinated by a domestic terrorist and replaced by Andrew Johnson, who was an incompetent hothead and an unapologetic racist. Within a few years the ambitious project of Reconstruction  fell victim to a sustained insurgency led by the Ku Klux Klan and similar white militia groups. By the late 1870s white supremacist “Redeemers” controlled most local and state governments in the South, and by the 1890s Southern blacks had been disenfranchised and thrust into subservience positions by Jim Crow laws that were only slightly preferable to slavery.

So even though it’s a truism of American public discourse that the Civil War never ended, it’s also literally true. We’re still reaping the whirlwind from that long-ago conflict, and now we face a new Civil War, one focused on divisive political issues of the 21st century – most notably the rights and liberties of women and LGBT people – but rooted in toxic rhetoric and ideas inherited from the 19th century.

Edit Note:  Emphasis are mine

Continue reading here…

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December 17, 2012 · 2:37 PM

Meet Sen. Tim Scott: The Tea Party Lawmaker Who Wanted To Impeach President Obama And Kick Kids Off Food Stamps

More crazy comes to the Senate GOP in the guise of a Black man…

Think Progress

Tim Scott is America’s newest senator today after getting tapped by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) to fill the vacancy left by former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). DeMint announced this month that he was leaving the Senate to head up the Heritage Foundation, an arch-conservative think tank in Washington DC.

Though DeMint left big, controversial shoes to fill for Republicans, few conservatives will be disappointed with Scott’s record. Elected to Congress just two years ago in the Tea Party wave, Scott has already garnered headlines for his plan to impeach President Obama, his legislation to cut off union members’ children from food stamps, and his defense of Big Oil.

Here’s a quick look at Scott’s record:

  • Floated impeaching Obama over the debt ceiling. As the debt ceiling debate raged in the summer of 2011 because of the intransigence of Tea Party freshmen like Scott, the nation inched perilously close to defaulting on its obligations. One option discussed by some officials to avoid that scenario was for the president to assert that the debt ceiling itself was an unconstitutional infringement on the 14th Amendment. However, Tim Scott tolda South Carolina Tea Party group that if Obama were to go this route, it would be an “impeachable act.”
  • Proposed a bill to cut off food stamps for entire families if one member went on strike.One of the most anti-union members of Congress, Scott proposed a bill two months after entering Congress in 2011 to kick families off food stamps if one adult were participating in a strike. Scott’s legislation made no exception for children or other dependents.
  • Wanted to spend an unlimited amount of money to display Ten Commandments outside county building. When Scott was on the Charleston County Council, one of his primary issues was displaying the Ten Commandments outside the Council building. According to the Augusta Chronicle, Scott said the display “would remind council members and speakers the moral absolutes they should follow.” When he was sued for violating the Constitution and a Circuit Judge’s orders, Scott was nonplussed: “Whatever it costs in the pursuit of this goal (of displaying the Commandments) is worth it.”
  • Defended fairness of giving billions in subsidies to Big Oil. Scott and his Republican allies in Congress voted repeatedly last year to protect more than $50 billion in taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil corporations. When ThinkProgress asked Scott whether it was fair to do that, especially at a time when oil companies are earning tens of billions in profit every quarter, the Tea Party freshman defended the industry: “fair is a relative word,” said Scott.
  • Helped slash South Carolina’s HIV/AIDS budget. As a state representative, Scott backed a proposal to cut the state’s entire HIV/AIDS budget, despite the fact that South Carolina ranks in the top-third of reported AIDS cases. The cuts were ultimately included in the state’s budget, impacting more than 2,000 HIV-positive South Carolinians who needed help paying for their medication.

UPDATE

Scott is an ardent proponent of guns, calling them a “cornerstone of our democracy” on his congressional page. “The federal government should never interfere with this right,” said Scott.

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December 6, 2012 · 2:34 PM

11 Reasons You’re Glad Jim DeMint Is Leaving The Senate

I need only one reason to be glad to see Senator DeMint leave the Senate:  The man is nuttier than a Snickers candy bar.

Think Progress

In an unexpected move, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), an arch-conservative and leader of the Tea Party movement, is resigning his seat in order to head up the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington DC.

DeMint has been among the most extreme members of the Senate since first getting elected in 2004, drawing a hard-right line on issues from unions to LGBT rights to abortion and beyond.

Here’s a look back at some of DeMint’s Senate highlights:

1. Stood with Akin after “legitimate rape” remarks. Following Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous statement that victims of “legitimate rape” can’t become pregnant, DeMint was one of the first major conservatives to stand with the Missouri congressman. DeMint even used his political action committee to donate $90,000 to Akin’s campaign and used its network to raise hundreds of thousands more. “We support Todd Akin and hope freedom-loving Americans in Missouri and around the country will join us,” DeMint’s group said.

2. Led the opposition against Obamacare. In 2009, during the height of the GOP’s opposition to health care reform, DeMint told a conference call of conservative activists that, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Ironically, DeMint once supported Mitt Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts, the law on which Obamacare is based.

3. Wants to prevent gay or unmarried teachers from teaching in public schools.In 2010, DeMint “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.” During his first Senate campaign in 2004, DeMint agreed with the state party’s platform barring gay teachers from public schools, claiming that the government shouldn’t endorse certain behaviors.

4. Pushed a bill outlawing the discussion of abortion over the Internet. Last year, DeMint proposed an amendment to an unrelated bill that would have barred a woman and her doctor from discussing abortion over the internet, even if her health was at risk and tele-conferencing was the most feasible option to receive care.

5. Wants to strip all federal employees of collective bargaining rights. Though most federal employees don’t enjoy the rights and benefits of unionization, DeMint wants to take away even the few bargaining rights they currently enjoy. “I don’t believe collective bargaining has any place in government,” DeMint told ThinkProgress last year.

6. Blocked creation of the National Women’s History Museum. Along with fellow arch-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), DeMint placed a hold on a 2010 bill to sell land near the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in order to create the National Women’s History Museum. Coburn justified their move to block the museum by noting that there already exist museums for “quilters” and “cowgirls”.

7. Likened striking Chicago teachers to “thugs” in the Middle East. Speaking at the Values Voters Summit in September 2012, DeMint blasted Chicago teachers who were on strike for a brief period earlier this year. “On my way over, I was reading another story about a distant place where thugs had put 400,000 children out in the streets,” DeMint said. “And then I realized that was a story about the Chicago teachers strike.”

8. Threatened to single-handedly shut down the Senate. In September 2010, DeMint warned his colleagues that he would place a unilateral hold on every single piece of legislation in the Senate, bringing the entire lawmaking process to a grinding halt. Despite being in the minority, DeMint threatened to only allow bills to proceed that his office had personally approved.

9. Used a failed terrorist plot to attack unions. Following the failed “underwear bomber” plot in December 2009, DeMint went on Fox News and used the episode as an opportunity to bash unions. “I am concerned, because it’s related to another issue that we’re dealing with now in the Senate,” DeMint said. “The administration is intent on unionizing and submitting our airport security to union bosses’ collective bargaining.”

10. Argued that people with pre-existing conditions got better care before Obamacare. Speaking with ThinkProgress at a Tea Party rally this year, DeMintargued that Obamacare actually hurt people with pre-existing conditions, despite that fact that it bars insurance companies from denying them care. “I can guarantee you people with pre-exisitng conditions are going to get less health care—lower quality health care—under Obamacare,” DeMint said.

11. “Willing” to cause “serious disruptions” in the economy in order to secure draconian cuts. During last year’s debt ceiling showdown, DeMint appeared on Fox Business and said that, despite the fact that not raising the debt ceiling would cause “serious disruptions,” he was “willing to do that” in order to get major cuts to social programs like Medicare and Social Security.

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October 18, 2012 · 1:49 PM

Sidwell Friends, Obama Daughters’ School, Evacuated Due To Suspicious Package

Sasha Malia

All appears to be well at the time of this post…

The Huffington Post

One of the campuses of the private school that Sasha and Malia Obama attend was briefly evacuated Thursday morning due to a suspicious package that turned out to be a child’s backpack.

Washingtonian magazine reports that Sidwell Friends distributed this notice of the evacuation through its emergency notification system at about 11:30 a.m.: “This is an emergency message from Sidwell Friends School. Due to a suspicious phone call, the buildings on the Wisconsin Avenue campus have been evacuated. We will notify you when further information is available.”

D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department told Politico that “that there is no evidence that the threat was directed at the First Family.”

An all-clear was issued just before 11:50 a.m.

wusa9@wusa9 

Suspicious package at Sidwell Friends cleared, it was a kid’s backpack.

A parent told Washingtonian that just before noon, students were returning to campus.

This is a developing story…

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July 28, 2012 · 12:40 PM

West Wing Week – 7-27-12 or “A Brighter Day Is Going To Come”

 

The White House

This week, the President addressed the nation on the tragedy in Colorado and made Aurora his first stop on a four day trip out West, then continued to Reno to address the VFW, and to New Orleans to speak at the National Urban League.

Back in Washington DC, Dr. Biden announced a major Joining Forces initiative for social workers, the President signed an Executive Order on Education, and hosted a reception at the White House to honor the International AIDS Conference taking place in Washington DC.

 

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May 19, 2012 · 7:50 AM

West Wing Week 5-18-12 or “Reach High and Hope Deeply”

The White House

A quick glimpse at this week on WhiteHouse.gov:

Fight for Your Seat: President Obama traveled to New York City to deliver his first commencement address of the year at Barnard College, one of the famous “Seven Sisters” private female liberal arts colleges. HIs first piece advice to the graduates was: “Don’t just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.”

Celebrating Soccer Champions: On Tuesday, President Obama welcomed the L.A. Galaxy to the White House to congratulate the team on their 2011 Major League Soccer Cup Championship. The star-studded team won a tough championship match after going undefeated at home all season long, and as President Obama noted, “You combined star power, hard work; it paid off.”

What Comes with the Badge: President Obama visited the U.S. Capitol for a ceremony where he paid tribute to law enforcement officials who were killed in the line of duty in the previous year. “Every American who wears the badge knows the burdens that come with it – the long hours and the stress; the knowledge that just about any moment could be a matter of life or death. You carry these burdens so the rest of us don’t have to,” the President said, acknowledging the bravery and sacrifice of all of those who serve as law enforcement officers across our country.

Above and Beyond: On Wednesday, President Obama awarded a Medal of Honor for valor above and beyond the call of duty to Leslie H. Sabo, Jr., an Army Specialist who died while serving in Cambodia in 1970. In honoring Sabo, who received the award posthumously, President Obama also paid tribute to those who served alongside him in the Vietnam era: “This medal is bestowed on a single soldier for his single courage. But it speaks to the service of an entire generation, and to the sacrifice of so many military families.”

Spruce Street at Taylor Gourmet: President Obama joined Small Business Administrator Karen Mills at Taylor Gourmet, a quickly expanding hoagie shop in Washington, D.C. for a roundtable with the business’ owners. President Obama discussed his To-Do List for Congress which includes passing legislation to help hard working small business owners create jobs by giving them a tax credit for new hires and tax relief for investments they make.

Fighting Global Hunger: At Friday’s Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security, President Obama announced that leaders at the G8 meeting this weekend at Camp David would devote a special session to the chronic hunger facing nearly 1 billion people around the world. G8 and African leaders will launch a major new alliance with private sector partners with a clear goal of reducing hunger and lifting 50 million people out of poverty by investing in Africa’s agricultural economy.

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April 29, 2012 · 2:05 AM

In Case You Missed It…

President Obama at the podium of the 2012 White House Correspondents Dinner:

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