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.
Airing of grievances part I
My comment to Mr. Anderson notwithstanding -scroll wheel time Mr. Anderson -I have some bones to pick and I’ll pick them now because this is the almost perfect, illustrative thread and I was too ill over Festivus to participate in the airing of grievances and I do have some:
It’s hard to find threads that aren’t polluted by conflict whores and enablers (Nick and Bron), flat out bigots across the whole spectrum of bigotry,(David and Skip and Bron), disruptive stalkers (Annie) and people getting sucked into their malicious agendas (In this thread Mike and Elaine -the names change with the thread but I’ll keep it localized to this thread on that front).
Nick (I’m just going to take yo at your word about your friend, though that word should turn to ashes in your mouth as you speak it: “As I said, my friend is not sophisticated; he’s street smart, not tech savvy. He was genuinely freaked out when you broke the anonymous rule.”
You have a friend (easily manipulated) in him but he has no friend in you. You enlist a meat-puppet, cultivate him for a long time, propagandize him and give him your eMail account so he can visit the blawg specifically to attack Gene. But you pull that pin during active conflict over privacy, a conflict you started with baseless allegations of Elaine cross-threading negative/personal information.
You set up his investigation as your sock-puppet then refer to him as “not sophisticated” (really, how dare you do something like that to a third party you’re stringing along a friend) all so you could have something to ‘report’ to teacher. You are a user and have gone out of you way to disrupt the blawg. You look for opportunities, that’s obvious, but to go to these lengths? Man, that’s a level of ugly I’d ban you for in an instant, even without your self-serving, whiny, confession because you’re a reoccurring liability: Ohhhh, I set this poor schmuck up to go at Gene but I got a to-fer, what an azz Mike is, I’m telling teacher! Is ‘idiota’ an Italian word?
Donald L. Anderson
1, December 30, 2013 at 2:21 pm
Enuf, already!
*********
Donald, you seem to have hit the blawg during a rough patch or, as a reader, just got fed up. This too shall pass. Stick around, post, have a good new year, enjoy the virtues of your scroll wheel.
AY,
“Isn’t upper middle class defined by the Koch standards anyone that has employment….”
Some people would probably agree with that definition.
AY,
you could be correct with your definition.
After reading all of the posts or most of them… John Prine comes to mind…. Dear Abby, Dear Abby….. It can’t get much better than this….. All for apparently raffs benefit…..
Isn’t upper middle class defined by the Koch standards anyone that has employment….
Hopes for the new year??? I hope you do a story on CVonnecticut Justice…
________________________________
AY,
One can hope!
Bwhahahaha!
Bring good government back…..
DogBiscuitGuy:
My dog wants to contribute to the cause, he said if he could he would castrate the perp with his teeth. He said it wouldnt be a quick bite either but like he does when playing tug of war.
It is not a lie. Your default position is to call anyone who calls you on horseshit a ‘liar.” You released my friends name and in the same comment mentioned his email company. He is very real. After all my assurances to him his personal information would NOT be released, like the bull in a china closet you are, you released his last name and email company. As I said earlier, this friend is someone I have mentioned previously. This was a birthday present to me along w/ a bottle of bourbon he brought. My friend took off work early to bring it over and to give me another gift.
I had always told this very private man he could post anonymously. He reads this blog and hates the way I am treated. His other gift was to bust Gene’s balls. My buddy REALLY doesn’t like him. So, that’s why I told him to use the anonymous name, Confucius is Laughing. He thinks you’re a pompous ass but Gene was the guy he was hoping to bust on. He was just warming up and trying to get in the flow. I told my friend that everyone would think it was me, and he could laugh, ANONYMOUSLY.
As I said, my friend is not sophisticated; he’s street smart, not tech savvy. He was genuinely freaked out when you broke the anonymous rule. His first name is quite common and if you had released that private information you probably wouldn’t have spooked him quite as much. I was hoping he would get into the flow and offer his very unique and out of the insular comment and GB base that exists here. He doesn’t have a computer, as I said. He uses public ones and sometimes mine. My friend was pissed @ me too, but I calmed him down and told him this would be reported. Needless to say, another person, not of the socioeconomic and racial class that is virtually all that exists here, will never return. I didn’t think it would go this far. I thought this was just going to be a ball bust. My friend did nothing against the rules. He followed the rules. I felt compelled to tell him several times to watch his language, he makes me sound like a choir boy. Well, you turned it into a much bigger deal w/ your impulsive, disrespectful, release of someone’s last name, not their alma mater, their last NAME.[All capitalization is for emphasis, I’m not yelling] and email provider in the same sentence. I had the good sense to not comment further last night. I know how to check myself, unlike yourself.
I had no doubt you would not man up. I have gone over past years and see that New Years is a big deal for Mr. Turley. I’ll report this next year. I will not be commenting further on this topic. Hopefully, you can summon from somewhere, an ounce of respect for my friend and do likewise.
“For chrissake, don’t you have even a bit of a conscience? You’re the sociopath.”
The story about your friend was not only a lie, but a blatantly stupid one. The dog didn’t eat your homework.
The Labrador was in the yard, on his line, when the perp hit him. The perp had veered around a dead bird and lost control while he was doing about sixty in a forty five zone. The perp got out, cussed at the dog for denting his car, and sped off. The dogs at the marina dogpac all want to go to perp’s house and crap in his yard but he lives miles away.
DogBiscuitGuy:
That is Missouri and you are in Florida. They will charge the guy for not having control of his dog.
A car ran over a nice Labrador and the dog died– right down the road here from the marina in Florida. The cops have a license number of the car that sped away. We are hiring a lawyer to sue the schmuck. The dog’s pal is grieving. This is the argument our lawyer is going to make to the jury in our case. It is from George Vest and is called Eulogy To The Dog. It was delivered in a jury trial in Missouri in 1869.
Gentlemen of the jury: The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it the most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.
Gentlemen of the jury: A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.
If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death.
”
Vest won the case (a possibly apocryphal story of the case says that the jury awarded $500 to the dog’s owner) and also won its appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. A statue of the dog stands in front of the Warrensburg, Missouri, courthouse.
Bron, I was addressing Spinelli. I do believe you, you’re ok.
annieofwi:
no I am telling the truth:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/dec/30/nh-state-rep-david-campbell-i-hit-some-ducks-bmw/
“All of a sudden, this 5 Series BMW comes up, it’s going about 15 miles an hour, and then when he gets to the ducks, it’s not like it even slowed down,” Mr. Murphy said. “It just crushed all of the ducks.”
Mike:
the story said the guy was driving a BMW.
Horseshit of a story. No one believes you. My god how pathetic.
Mike:
Now I am confused, I just read a story about a New Hampshire pol who ran over a bunch of ducks being fed by a former Marine.
I thought that is what Confu was talking about.
What is going on?