Tanks for Nothing?!

By William L. Garvin
“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set.  We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”  Barack Obama, July, 2008

When you have to cancel White House tours, will the Easter egg roll be far behind?  What a foolish, foolish display of pettiness and phony politics.  In reality, sequestration has not resulted in planes falling out of the skies or thousands of airline passengers waiting in line for hours and hours to be assaulted by TSA personnel.  The President who incessantly cried fiscal wolf now says there is no imminent fiscal crisis.  Apparently, $16.7 trillion of debt doesn’t really matter!  Unfunded liabilities of trillion after trillion after trillion don’t matter either.  Record income tax revenue isn’t enough to stem another trillion dollar deficit to add to the national debt but still he insists there’s no immediate crisis.  There’s no budget either.

That explains why the Postal Service can spend $2 million on another GSA-styled conference.  That’s why Congress refuses to allow them to NOT deliver mail on Saturday.  What’s a measly $2 billion in savings?  Also, Janet Napolitano could have saved the $50 million she spent on spanking brand new TSA uniforms so she didn’t have to release 2,200 criminal aliens.  Tom Vilsack could have stopped wasting money with his stupid ads teaching college kids how to use a microwave instead of threatening to stop inspecting meat.  He might have also considered his super expensive “awareness program partnership” with Mexico to popularize our food stamps.  Since recipients are approaching fifty MILLION, the world seems to be pretty aware of the benefits.  By the way, Tom, how about cancelling those conferences in California and Oregon which feature “guest chefs” and “exceptional wines” for tastings?  By the way, where did the money come from to give Egypt another $250 million on top of the twenty fighter jets and 200 tanks already squandered?

Speaking of tanks brings us back to Janet Napolitano and her hoarding of ammo and weapons in the Department of Homeland Security.  By most estimates, DHS now has over 1.6 billion bullets.  One analysis concludes that is enough to fight the equivalent of a 24-year Iraq war, given that American troops were firing 5.5 million rounds per month at the war’s height.  Another analysis pointed out that DHS has enough ammo to shoot everyone in the United States, legal or illegal, at least five times!  Various other federal agencies also purchase large quantities of ammunition which liberal fact checkers/apologists invariably rationalize as needed for “target practice” and “training scenarios.”  Largely ignored are the specific requests for “.357 hollow point” bullets which are not used in target practice or training scenarios!  Of course, the 7,000 “personal defense weapons” capable of fully automatic fire and the 30-round magazines are perfectly understandable…aren’t they?

When it takes a thirteen hour filibuster to get the Attorney General to clearly say that an American citizen should not be killed by an American drone without due process, it’s no wonder that conspiracy theories proliferate.  When the use of drones and internet spying proliferates, when the government is not forthcoming, let alone transparent, many people readily believe the internet theory that DHS has purchased “2,700 tanks.”  Ms. Napolitano has an ignorant history of linking military veterans to “terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.”  Similarly, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the radical left equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church, defines “rightwing extremist groups as primarily hate-oriented or anti-government” which “may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."  Of course the SPLC demanded the Justice Department and DHS “crack down on Americans expressing opposition to an increasingly tyrannical federal government.”  Only liberals should have freedom of speech!

The SPLC has now been joined at the hate hip by the Los Angeles Times.  Its editorial opined that “They are white, right-wing Americans, nearly all with an obsessive attachment to guns, who may represent a greater danger to the lives of American civilians than international terrorists.”  This is the prevailing liberal mindset.  This is the liberal culture of deliberate racial divisiveness.  This is the deliberate fanning of the flames of hatred.  The Times editorial queried:  “What can be done to reverse this tide of belligerent ignorance?”  Physician, heal thyself.  Times editors should look in the mirror and try to tell the truth!  Until they do, more and more Americans will “bitterly cling to their guns and religion.”