Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty(rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
With the end of 2013 fast approaching, I have begun to wonder what the New Year holds for the country. It looks like the Affordable Care Act is finally getting its website to function properly and the sign ups are now being counted in the millions. Wall Street is still booming with the Dow Jones over 16,000, but yet unemployment is still too high and Congress is still trying to push austerity for the middle class and the poor, while doing everything in its power to prevent corporations and the wealthy from paying their fair share of taxes. The Citizen’s United decision opened the money floodgates and needs to be curbed. The military budget was spared in the recent Budget Deal, but yet unemployment benefits for millions have not been extended.
The gun lobby continues to prevent reasonable gun control legislation and needless scores of innocents continue to be slaughtered. Instead of closing the gun show loophole or mandating reasonable and effective universal background checks, Congress did nothing. Although there has been some recent movement from the Obama Administration to push Congress to allow the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the facility remains open after 12 years. With all of the bad news or non-action on many fronts, is it possible to have hope that 2014 will bring better news for all Americans?
I do have high hopes for the country in this New Year, but Congress and the rest of Washington will have to make some significant changes before the hopes can be realized. Ever since the Sandy Hook school shooting, the NRA has been pouring money into Washington in an attempt to stem the tide of public support for reasonable gun control legislation. It is obvious to me, that without a culture change in how Americans and government officials look at guns in this country, the mass shootings and needless killings that happened in 2013, will continue unabated.
Even though the killings are still rampant, one of my biggest hopes is that Congress will see past the NRA and corporate money and agree on universal background checks in 2014. I don’t have any evidence that my hope will come to fruition, but at some point, the killings will over take our Wild West mentality and people will come together to help relieve the problem. Maybe that will begin to happen in 2014.
Another of my hopes for 2014 is the closure of Guantanamo military prison. We have seen some movement on the part of Congress to agree with the Obama administration’s plans to close the facility. However, much has to be done and President Obama needs to use his bully pulpit to move the closure ahead, but President Obama’s actions to push for closure leave something to be desired.
“As a notable improvement, NDAA 2014 includes a provision that Obama called a “welcome step” toward fulfilling his longtime promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The bill relaxes regulations that have held up the transfer of detainees out of the detention center.
The defense act also includes provisions aimed at intervening in the epidemic of sexual assault in the U.S. military. But, as the Washington Post noted, “it stops short of the broad reforms that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and other advocates have been calling for.”
While legislative movement on Gitmo’s closure is necessary, it is insufficient. As Amnesty International USA’s director Zeke Johnson commented, “[the president] should move forward with foreign transfers immediately and lobby Congress hard to end the ban on transfers to the U.S. mainland. Guantanamo must be closed by ensuring that each detainee is either fairly tried in U.S. federal court or released to a country that will respect his human rights.”
Meanwhile the troubling NDAA provision first signed into law in 2012, which permits the military to detain individuals indefinitely without trial, remains on the books for 2014. Efforts to quash or reform the provision (especially with regard to the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens) have failed and have been fiercely fought by the administration.” Salon
Hopefully, Congress will allow for detainees to be transferred or tried in a Federal court, as suggested by Amnesty International. We need to keep the Democrat’s feet to the fire.
My last hope for the New Year revolves around reforming the NSA. As we have seen and heard here and in the mass media, the NSA has turned the 4th Amendment into a mockery. The latest Federal court judge’s decision that the mass retention and collection of phone data is legal, is in conflict with another recent District Court decision and the Supreme Court may need to decide once and for all, just how far the NSA and other intelligence agencies can go.
It is amazing that in the judge’s decision, he stated that the 4th Amendment is not absolute. However, why is it that the 2nd Amendment seems to be absolute, but the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment must be subject to limitations? If the NSA is allowed to continue to collect all calls and all data, shouldn’t they at least have to pay a portion of my phone bill? It is my sincere hope that the NSA can be restrained in the New Year, but it may be a long fight.
I have listed just a few of my “hopes” for the New Year. I have some others, but I want to hear what your thoughts are for the New Year. What hopes do you have for 2014? Let us know what you are hoping for and why you are think it is important for the country. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you favor, because most of these issues should be non-partisan. It is not a Democratic or a Republican problem when scores of people are being murdered and killed by people who have no reason to own guns or could have been prevented from acquiring the deadly weapons.
It isn’t a partisan issue when the NSA is collecting almost all of our phone calls. Just where does the Fourth Amendment begin and end? I look forward to reading your hopes and the reasons why they are important to you and to the country.
Happy New Year to all and let’s hope that Congress and the President can make progress on my Hopes and on your Hopes.
Mike,
He poked at me on the “toxic thread” and couldn’t get me to growl. He thought he’d make another attempt on this thread. Same old…same old. Some things never change.
This begins to represent my hopes for 2014.
“Bringing over horseshit from a toxic thread I voluntarily left is classless”
Being Nick Spinelli is classless as he once again tries to make another thread about himself reminding people of a chimpanzee tossing excrement.
Elaine, That was cheery! That half full glass just tipped over. Schools will always work just fine for upper middle class white kids. The Education Industry is composed of that elite demographic. So, don’t fret, your granddaughter will do just fine, particularly w/ the pre schooling she’s getting from you.
marcuscarey just gave me a new wish for this New Year. Instead of people like him just dropping in, stay around. We need more free speech, less echo. Never seen you before marcus, keep coming back. You won’t many welcomes or pleasant words here, but you will be welcomed by a few guerillas! Happy New Year to you, sir.
Dredd,
Nice catch on the euphemistic language.
I advance no hopes, so they won’t be dashed.
I have goals though.
Rafflaw posted:
(bold added). Thanks for not calling it “the defense budget” rafflaw.
During more honest times “The War Department” was the official name and “the war budget” was the official game.
Now, it has been changed for obvious reasons into “The Defense Department” and “the defense budget.”
How easily people are deceived.
rafflaw,
Where to start? There are so MANY things that I’d like to see change in 2014. I’ll begin with something close to home…with something that will have an impact on the life of my granddaughter–education. I was hoping she’d have the same kind of enriching elementary school experience that my daughter had at the school where I taught. I doubt it. Unfortunately, school reform brought us an insane mania for testing children. Education today is all about prepping children for standardized tests–not meeting their educational needs. Gone are the days of looking at children as individuals…of trying to help them to find their strengths and talents and working with them to address and overcome their weaknesses. We spend billions of dollars on testing while cutting arts and library programs and field trips. We are treating our youth like little automatons. I think it’s a form of child abuse. I doubt anything will change in the near future. I’m not very hopeful that this truly misguided attempt to “reform” education will be reformed soon.
Gun control? Income redistribution? Wow! My hope for the new year would be that the people of America wake up to the rampant anti-personal freedom forces at work in this country which have obviously twisted your mind so badly that you would somehow think these are good ideas. I also hope that once awake that the people of this nation kick your kind of non-sense back into the darkness from which it was allowed, by complacency, to crawl on its snake like belly into our culture. Your posts in favor of civil liberty must be the mask behind which you hide your true intentions that history teaches ultimately lead to no civil liberty, except of course for the select few who end up in control. Sorry Larry, but some of your ideas are so far out there on the left that I think you will eventually be “left” out. At least I hope so. Happy New Year!
Thanks Mespo. We had some good hope suggestions.your family and friends will want whatever you hope for…at least I hope so!
Elaine,
You could never ruin a thread!
Now the Bears ruined quite a bit today! 🙂
He didn’t have snark directed @ him, I did. He thanked you, as did I, for the retrieval. And don’t be a drama queen, we said both said our piece, let it go.
Oh dear, another lecture from nick. I’ll go sit in the corner as punishment for my egregious crime.
The pizza was delicious.
BTW, raff thanked me. Evidently, he didn’t think I ruined his thread.
Thank you. I ALWAYS thank people for retrieving lost comments, and your sarcasm is unbecoming. Bringing over horseshit from a toxic thread I voluntarily left is classless and not becoming a GBer, particularly you. It is true peers can have positive and negative influences. I will continue to thank in advance and subsequently when my comments are retrieved, and I will point out when a comment is deleted. You got a liar in your midst. Deal w/ him, not me!! Of course that won’t happen.
I hope the pizza was good. Have some sympathy for these Bear fans. That would be a productive use of your emotions. They had a tough day. This is a positive thread, don’t ruin it for raff. It’s been tough enough for him today.
Rafflaw:
Bravo, raff. You hit the high (and some low) points. I’d just hope that my friends and family are going to be happy however they choose to define that word. Of course like all meaningful hopes, it’s a selfish one!
Thanks Elaine!
My list isn’t too far from Otteray Scribe’s. Just add an end to fracking without the research to assure that the fracking chemicals do not enter the water supply. And action to reduce green house gas emissions.
Beyond that, that we can regardless of where we stand on the political spectrum, to not just talk to each other but to listen and try to understand where the other is coming from. I have no illusions that this will fix anything wrong with the United States but at least there will be less otherness in people we disagree with politically.
nick,
We guest bloggers don’t delete comments; we retrieve them from the spam filter.
Help please. A response to Darrell was eaten. Thank you for your anticipated help.
Darrell, There’s an interesting HBO doc on selling kidneys on the black market. It is even handed and shows both sides of the argument. And amen to “Do something.” I’ve been a volunteer since my Vista tenure back in the 70’s. It doesn’t need to be organized. Just find some person who needs help, elderly, disabled, etc. Build a relationship w/ them. It’s quite simple. Just get off the couch!
My admonishment is that all of you “hoper’s and wisher’s” ought to instead, DO something, DO anything, that WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Say we could part out scrap criminals for organ transplant instead of just executing them……..now they save lives to compensate for having wasted them????????