The Epic Fails of the TSA

It’s happened again. The most touchy-feely agency in the federal government, the TSA, has struck again with its security blunders.   The agency known more for feeling up grandmas than preventing terrorist attacks has again forced a completely innocent American to undergo a traumatic ordeal.

In the latest chapter of Transportation Security Administration theater, we find ourselves at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in Missouri.  Last month, TSA officials at Lambert detained 3-year-old Lucy Forck, and threatened her with an invasive pat-down.  To make matters worse, little Lucy is confined to a wheelchair. Her mother took cell phone video of the entire traumatic experience, and put it up online for the world to see.

Thanks to that, and the videos having over 100,000 views, the TSA, as usual, was forced to issue an obligatory apology.  Late Wednesday night, the agency issued a statement, saying that, “TSA regrets inaccurate guidance was provided to this family during screening and offers its apology...We are committed to maintaining the security of the traveling public and strive to treat all passengers with dignity and respect. While no pat-down was performed, we will address specific concerns with our workforce.”

Basically, the TSA again acknowledges that it screwed the pooch. Again. 

But the real problem here is that the TSA seems incapable of learning from its mistakes, no matter how many times it says, “we will address specific concerns with our workforce.”  

This past December, a 12 year old girl in a wheelchair suffering from a debilitating bone density disorder was detained by TSA agents at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport after they claimed the girl had “explosive residue” on her hands.  The girl was later released after testing.

Back in 2010 – TSA agents at Chicago O’Hare airport detained and swabbed 3-year-old Rocco Dubiel, who was using a wheelchair because of a broken leg. Again, video of the incident was taken, posted on the web, and the TSA issued an apology, that it apparently learned nothing from.   

And then there are the real WTF’s of the TSA. In May of 2012, TSA agents at Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida pulled an 18-month-old baby off of a flight, because her name was on the government’s no-fly list.  Apparently, the TSA was positive that the cute and innocent girl was actually a terrorist mastermind, who likes to build bombs, and not just drop them in her diaper. 

If that’s not bad enough, look at the story of 50 year-old Frank Hannibal.  Hannibal was hauled away by TSA agents at New York’s LaGuardia airport after the they failed to make the fairly easy conclusion that a jar labeled peanut butter that appeared to be filled with peanut butter, was actually real peanut butter, and not some new type of explosive device.  Hannibal is now suing the TSA for getting him into such a sticky situation. 

I even have some personal experience with the incredibly inept TSA.  My father is one of the many perfectly normal and legitimate Americans who find themselves, by one way or another, on this nation’s flying watch list.  To this day, we don’t know why he is on the list. But we do know that every time he tries to fly internationally, he is met with glares from security officials that don’t know quite what to do or how to handle the situation.  My father wrote the TSA and lawmakers in Washington to try to get an answer as to why he was on the watch list, but never got any reasonable response.  

Except for the traumatizing situations that the TSA is routinely putting Americans through, it really is laughable how terrible this government agency is at doing its job.  Heck, kindergartners have more common-sense then these TSA officers who apparently cant discern a toddler from a terrorist.  

It’s abundantly clear that something needs to change. Americans should not be forced to worry about security checkpoints every time they go to the airport. Parents should not have to dread their children  being patted down and felt up. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m in totally support of the theory of the TSA and of the organization’s mission. I would much rather feel safe every time I step foot on an airplane, than worry about possibly becoming the victim of a terrorist attack.  With that said, the execution on the part of the TSA needs to change.  This incredibly flawed system needs to be reworked, from the top down.  

It’s time to leave comedy up to actors and comedians, and not to security staff at our nation’s airports.

Drafting Away The Wars

Next month marks the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. It’s been ten years since war criminals Bush and Cheney sent us to war under false pretenses and mountains of misinformation.  As a result, over the past decade, thousands of brave men and women have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of serving and defending their country.  

But think about this for a second: Would we still be in Iraq today or even have gone to war with Iraq, if there was still a military draft in this country? 

Look at our involvements in past wars. In World War I, II, the Korean War and even Vietnam, the United States had a military draft in place, and these wars were all far shorter than the Iraq debacle.  Coincidence? I think not…

The fact is America needs to bring back the draft, and needs to have citizens who are committed to their nation. Our founding fathers knew that. That’s why they called for a well-organized militia. That’s why George Washington warned us to beware of foreign entanglements.  

See, the thing about the draft system is that it’s the great leveler.  When there’s a draft, or a citizen’s militia as our founding fathers called it, every single American has skin in the game.  

Less than 1 percent of Americans have been touched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Less than 1 percent of Americans have had to experience the pain and suffering of losing a loved one on the battlefield. 

But if we were to have a draft, our involvement in wars would affect everyone, from Main Street to Capitol Hill. The children of our nation’s lawmakers would be serving in the military, meaning that our lawmakers would have to put a very personal face to a war, and not just send our men and women off to the battlefields without giving it a second thought.  

A draft also creates more skeptical voices. It creates more questioning and more criticism. It gives rise to more whistleblowers, who put the well-being of the nation and its people ahead of the military industrial complex.  

Speaking of that military industrial complex, it would finally be held in check if we were to re-instate a draft.  The lack of a draft gives rise to a professional military, which is what we have today. That professional military corrupts our democracy, and gets in bed with war profiteers, and the two entities look out for each other’s interests first, and the interests of the nation and its people second.

Then there are the implications that drafts have on public opinion.  Look at Vietnam for instance.  Thanks to the draft, and countless men being sent off to a faraway land only to come back home in a coffin, millions of Americans rallied and protested in our nation’s streets.  They fought tirelessly to bring an end to one of the bloodiest wars in American history.  And ultimately, it was the American people, and their opposition to the Vietnam War, that brought our soldiers home, and ended the devastating war. If we had a draft for the Iraq War, it’s almost certain that Americans would have been in the streets years ago, fighting to bring an end to the purposeless war.  We would not have just blindly accepted that we were plunged into war under false pretenses, and just stood by and watched as our men and women died in the Iraqi desert.  Simply put, drafts get us out of insane wars. 

This all goes beyond a debate over reinstating the draft though. It’s about making Americans recommit to their country.  In addition to the draft, we should be asking Americans to give 1 or 2 years of their life to serve their country, and that doesn’t just mean in the military. Americans could enlist in civilian alternative programs like Americorps, volunteer in hospitals and schools, and care for this nation’s elderly population. Even working in pet shelters could help us to recommit to our nation. 

And it’s important that we reward Americans who give up their time in service of their country. Let’s create a system where Americans who serve in the military or in civilian alternatives for 1 or 2 years are rewarded with free college or trade school education. 

Reinstating the draft, and creating civil service programs will do a wonder of good for our country. Both will greatly help to rebuild this nation’s infrastructure. 

More importantly, both will provide the clear transition from youth to adulthood in our society which we no longer have.  In the past, graduating from high school, and receiving your high school diploma provided the rite of passage from a youth to an adult.  But now, since it is nearly impossible to get a job in this country with a high school diploma alone, this ritual of maturation into an adult has been lost.  A year or two in the military or civil service programs would bring this developmentally healthy ritual back.  

I recognize that many Americans are content with our all-volunteer military, and are happy that the draft is no longer policy in the United States.  But look at the benefits that it would bring. It levels the playing field, and forces everyone to be effected by the tragedy of war.  It makes our lawmakers thing twice before blindly sending our men and women into battle. It helps to brew public opinion, which has the power end war.  It helps to hold our military industrial complex in check, preventing war profiteers from making profits at the expense of American lives.  And it even helps to rebuild our nation, and provide a rite of passage that is desperately needed. 

So, as the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War approaches, just ask yourself, if everyone had skin in the game, would we still be in Iraq today? 

Screw The Sequester: It's The Wealthy Inequality, Stupid!

The looming sequester isn’t just about Republicans trying to crash our economy, and it isn’t just about them trying to layoff unionized public sector workers in favor of protecting America’s wealthy elite.

The looming sequester is also about the most destructive and significant problem facing our economy today: wealth inequality.

Thomas Hungerford of the non-partisan Congressional Research Service has released a new study on wealth and income inequality in America. He looked at a recent 15 year period in the country and found that, “by far, the largest contributor to increasing income inequality (regardless of income inequality measure) was changes in income from capital gains and dividends.”

As Hungerford puts it, “The reason income inequality has been increasing has been the rising income going to the top one percent. Most of that has come in capital gains and dividends.”

America’s millionaires and billionaires make the majority of their income from long term investments, like stocks, bonds and real estate holdings.  As such, these investments are taxed differently from ordinary income.  In fact, they’re taxed at much lower rates than ordinary income. 

Right now in America, the average teacher or public sector employee pays an average tax rate of 25% to 35%. 

But then there are this nation’s wealthy elite, the Mitt Romneys of the world, who currently pay a capital gains tax rate of only 20%. And that’s the highest rate they’ve paid in the last 12 years. 

America’s 400 billionaires own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans all thanks to the incredibly low capital gains tax rates that they pay. 

In fact, the capital gains tax rate hasn’t been this lowsince the early 1930’s, and we all know what happened then: The Great Depression. 

That’s because when wealth accumulates in the hands of a few, as it did in the 1930’s, and as it has now, the entire economy suffers, and spirals into a recession. 

So rather than letting the rich get richer and trying to crash the economy, shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to decrease levels of income inequality, including spreading the burdens of taxes around to ALL Americans, and not just the middle class?

Even Ronald Reagan knew that a low capital gains tax rate, combined with other tax loopholes that let billionaires pay less than bus drivers, were bad things for America.

In a 1985 speech at Northside High School in Atlanta, Reagan told a crowd that, “We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying ten percent of his salary, and that’s crazy. [...] Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver or less?”

Unfortunately today’s Republicans don’t agree with “The Gipper”.  They see nothing wrong with a teacher paying more in taxes than Mitt Romney.

That’s why, in the debate over the sequester, John Boehner and company are opposing closing tax loopholes like the capital gains tax rate, and are in favor of deep spending cuts that will hurt the majority of poor and middle class Americans, and further the income inequality epidemic in this nation. 

In fact, Republicans would be more willing to damage our military might, than they would be to take one extra penny from our nation’s billionaire class.

On the other hand, President Obama and Democrats understand just how devastating deep spending cuts will be to the economy and to Americans, and are in favor of closing the tax loopholes that let the wealthy elite make huge profits at the expense of everyone else. 

The bottom-line is that there’s a great deal of money out there in the hands of millionaires and billionaires that could be taxed as ordinary income, and which would help us avert the sequester, and prevent unprecedented damage to our economy. 

And more importantly, this is an opportunity to do something about wealth inequality. As researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett at the Equality Trust UK have discovered, wealth inequality underlies all of our social problems, from drug addiction to mental illness to mass school shootings. 

It’s time to close the tax loopholes and make America’s billionaire class pay its fair share again.

Send The Grandpas Back To The Home

You’ve heard of the birthers and the truthers, and even the tenthers and the nullifiers.

But now it’s time to meet the Simpson-Bowlers.

Over the past few years, we’ve gotten used to hearing a lot of crackpot ideas.

First there was Donald Trump and his jolly gang of truthers, who to this day still claim that President Obama was born in Kenya.

Then came the Koch-brother funded climate change deniers, who, despite record temperatures and unprecedented super storms, claim there’s no such thing as climate change. 

Finally, we have the tenthers and the nullifiers, who think they have the power to ignore federal laws, just because they don’t like them. 

But none of these outlandish and nonsensical ideas are anything compared to the “new” Simpson-Bowles fiscal plan. 

That’s right. Washed-up deficit hawks Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson have returned to the spotlight. 

Yesterday, the pair introduced a rebooted, or should we say, rebaked, version of the original Simpson-Bowles “Let’s Get America Back on Track by Cutting Our Way to Prosperity – Which Has Never Been Done before Plan for Deficit Reduction”.

Unfortunately, the media is still in love with these irrelevant hustlers and their crazy ideas for our economy, which makes understanding the absurdity of the Simpson-Bowles plan that much harder. But let’s give it a try.

In the original Simpson-Bowles plan, the pair sought a whopping $2.9 trillion in budget cuts combined with $2.6 trillion in revenues.  

Under the new Simpson-Bowles 2.0 plan, which is being proposed as a grand bargain alternative to the looming sequester, the pair of crackpots now seek just $1.3 trillion in revenues, meaning they jacked up budget cuts this time around to a staggering $3.9 trillion.  While the original plan had roughly one-to-one spending cuts to new revenue formula, the new plan is three-to-one in favor of cuts to revenue.

Simpson-Bowles 2.0 calls for $2.4 trillion in new savings over the next 10 years, through “serious tax and entitlement reforms and cutting additional spending.” So what are the exact devastating cuts and reforms that Simpson and Bowles want to make in federal government spending?

First, they want to reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending, meaning fewer and fewer elderly Americans will have access to healthcare and medications.

Next, Simpson and Bowles want to enact “comprehensive, pro-growth tax reform” which is really just a fancy way of saying “we want to give corporations even more corporate tax breaks.”

Of the $2.4 trillion in new savings that the Simpson-Bowles 2.0 calls for, nearly $600 billion of it comes from so-called tax reform. 

Finally, the old washed up hustlers want to “strengthen limits on discretionary spending” and reduce non-health mandatory spending”  which means cuts to thinks like social security, higher education and farm subsidies just to name a few.  

The bottom-line here is that Simpson-Bowles 2.0, much like its predecessor, is entirely about helping out corporate America, and screwing over the rest of us.  Along with the so-called “pro-growth tax reforms” come the entitlement reforms that basically mean we have to abandon elderly Americans and watch our loved ones die, if we want to save the American economy. 

The only people that should be happy with Simpson-Bowles 2.0 are the corporate sponsors that are undoubtedly funding them, and profiting from their recommendations.

The rest of us, working class Americans, need to see through all the smoke and mirrors, and past the media circus, and realize that, much like the birthers and the truthers, the Simpson-Bowlers completely off their rockers. 

No country in the world has ever cut its way to prosperity, and whether Simpson and Bowles like it or not, America won’t either.

So, let’s shut down the cameras, turn off the TV’s, and roll Grandpa Simpson and Grandpa Bowles back to the old folks home, where they can’t do any more damage to our economy and to our country.