The Morning Line: The Forum, Filner and TeaBagger Frauds

7/30/2013 9:38 AM

The Morning Line 7/30/13

I listen to AM radio, with all its ads, and the same advertisers also interrupt the MSNBC TV simulcast on XM satellite radio in the evening. Apparently, America is made up of limp-dicked men, wide-waisted women, all of whom are in foreclosure, need a loan, and cheat on their taxes. Oh, and their teenage sons back-talk them (what, they never did that to their parents?), their dogs have mange and their cats have fleas.

Oh, well, at least our cat gets fleas when I forget to use the stuff on him. Otherwise, you’d think I wasn’t American.

Meanwhile, here in California, things seem to be getting, well, not worse. Democrats passed a budget on time, without the kinds of bookkeeping that Enron’s Kenny Boy and his buddy, George Bush, made famous. It even includes more funds back to K-12 schools, and a billion-dollar rainy-day fund.

Since this kinda puts the dagger in the ‘austerity lifts all boats’ crap that the GOP is selling in the red states, you knew they’d want to exact some revenge.  So their House faction is going to try to roll back (read ‘federalize’) a lot of the environmental and business practice regulations that make California capable of having some of the least polluted (per capita) cities in the U.S.  The problem is, some of this is flying under the radar by being included in Senate (!) bills to “strengthen” the EPA.  Sounds like the Dems are gonna get rolled again. C’mon, Lautenberg, haven’t you learned?

Meanwhile, and I can’t tip a big enough hat to Dave Dayen, Republicans and the banks are trying to get off the hook of having to produce the paperwork for their foreclosures (and cut your local registrar out of the business of tracking deeds) by adding a new, privately-owneddatabase as the national record of all real estate ownership. Boy, can’t wait ‘til it gets hacked so that everything belongs to the Whitewater Investment Company of Arkansas.

Locally, the Forum is gonna be back in business as a “music venue” in 2014, starting off with three nights of a band that made me run to KROQ for music back in the 70s. I haven’t been to a Lakers game since they left the Forum, and hadn’t seen a local game until the Expo line got to Culver City, and took me to a Clippers game this year. (Yea, while they were on the winning streak.) . Gave up on downtown ages ago. Can’t stand that Santa Monica Fwy parking lot. More time on the freeway than at the events. Now the light rail means someone else drives, and parking isn’t an issue, so I’m going more.

‘Cause if there’s something LA needs, it’s another venue for the circuses in “bread and circuses”, since we’re losing one, while the Republicans do their damnedestto sink this country.  So let’s all wait to see what a bunch of aging wanna-bes do in the audience of a band of wish-they’d-beens at the Forum come January.  It’ll be a nice way to start a year when the TeaBaggers want to take us back to the ‘70s…the 1870s.

I have one thing to say about Mayor Filner in San Diego.  Seventy? He’s seventy and he’s doing this? And he thinks anyone would believe two weeks anywhere is going to change he approach to, well, to anything? That thought process, as much as his well-reported handling (literally) of women, make him unfit to continue what, if you read that wiki bio, is a long career as a progressive, starting as a Freedom Rider in Jackson Mississippi. Buh-Bye, Bob. Don’t ask San Diego to pay for your lawyers, just take your publicly-funded pension and go

While Dems doing dirt seems to be the theme of the day, at least we call for them to step down, if they don’t do so on their own. As opposed to the freaks on the GOP side of the fence. If you want to spend a few bucks to make a statement, send $13 worth of men’s diapers to Senator David Vitter  at his Capitol office, 516 U S Senate, Washington DC 20510. Or to one of his many Louisiana offices.  Warning, shipping and tax will get this up to $22, but the childish satisfaction is so worth it.

And finally: Nuts. Reds lost to San Diego 2-1 last night. If you know baseball, you can tell exactly when the Padres got all their runs by seeing that the losing pitcher was Aroldis Chapman.

7/30/2013 10:36 AM

7/30/2013 10:43 AM

IBM Demonstrates Why the NRA Is Stupid, In a 30-Second Commercial.

You've probably seen this one recently.

As a cop leaves a donut shop and drives into the night, his voice-over talks about how his job has changed. "Used to be about catching crooks. But now, police analyze crime data, spot patterns, and figure out where to send patrols. " Jump cut to an unsavory character in a beaten, rusting muscle car, also driving through the night. And a picture of some clerk, loading cash into a deposit bag at another convenience store. Back to the cop: "Now, the city's cut crime by up to 30%...", as the cop and what we know now must be a crook, cross paths at an overpass.  The clerk again, zipping up the cash. The crook, parking behind the store, and marching towards the front door as he pulls on gloves to prevent finger prints. A car backs away from the front door, revealing the cop, leaning against his car in the next space, with a cup of coffee in hand, greeting the would-be crook. Who sees it's not his night, turns, and walks away.

Fun commercial, brilliantly simple explanation of a simple but straightforward idea. One that the NRA got Congress, through the Todd Tiahrt Amendments, to forbid.

See, if we change that line to "The ATF can analyze crime data, spot patterns, and figure out where to send agents to prevent sales to criminals", then you have what the Tiahrt Amendments were passed to prevent. Yes, I said "prevent". Written by the NRA.

I wrote about these awhile back, but now everyone's talking about them, on MSNBC, on KTLK 1150AM in LA, even on a couple of news shows on NPR. Between these Amendments to the federal statutes on guns, and other existing laws, the situation is this:

No matter how many guns you buy at one time, the information (type and quantity) is not included in the background check.

No matter how often you buy guns, the federal government is not allowed to keep the results of the background check for more than 24 hours, and they're forbidden from comparing them, even in those twenty four hours, with any other background check results.

This includes both ends of the transaction. So if you go into Guns-R-Us and pick up a hundred AR-15s and a couple thousand rounds of ammo, you can do it again tomorrow, and the next day, until your army is armed, or until Guns-R-Us runs out of inventory.

And Guns-R-Us, while supposed to keep records of those sales on paper, and records of their inventory, can only have either of those records inspected more than once a year. With significant advance notice. And without penalty if they can't find the paperwork, or lost some of those AR-15s, or Glock pistols, or whatever fell off the dock in back.

So the one-percent of gun dealers responsible for over 50% of the sales of guns used in crimes can no longer be identified or prosecuted. (By the way, those stats are from the last time they analyzed data they were allowed to collect. It was those results that caused the NRA to write the Amendments and Todd Tiahrt to get them passed.)

The only way left to prosecute the few dealers who are spoiling it for the rest of the 'law abiding gun owners' and their dealers, is to catch them in the act. In a sting the ATF named after a famous movie. What was that? "The Quick And The Dead"? No. What was it?....

Anyway, that's how the clowns at the NRA turned the ATF into those three monkeys that see no, hear no, and speak no evil about gun dealers.  And made monkeys out of the rest of America.

The IBM commercial ends saying  "Let's build a smarter planet". Let's. And let's start with smarter gun sales tracking, by repealing the Todd Tiahrt Amendments. And with a smarter approach to the NRA.

A one-finger salute.