From Patricia Maisch, the 60+ Year Old Woman Who First Tackled Jared Loughner in the Tucson Shooting

I admire this woman's courage in charging down a crazed mass killer holding a gun, who had just been firing at her.  She was the person who first stopped Jared Loughner from killing or injuring anyone else.  I wish there had been someone who had her kind of presence of mind and courage that could have found a way to intervene in the Aurora, Colorado shootings too.
Guns do not make anyone invincible, they only make it easier to kill more quickly.
We should all be able to come together to do MORE to stop the cycle of legal guns becoming ILLEGAL guns.  We should all be able to come together to do more to stop prohibited persons from acquiring legal guns, including the dangerously mentally ill.  At the time of the Tucscon shooting, Arizona had a terrible record of supplying the names to the NICS data base of the individuals who had been determined by a court proceeding to be dangerous to themselves and others; most states have poor records of submitting those names despite 2009 federal funding legislation for it, and have as bad or worse records of submitting the names of felons and convicted drug users.
Why? Because the NRA doesn't want those names added to the FBI maintained list - it might reduce their gun sales.  Drug users names drop off after just one year, even when the drug user is major drug cartel or gang member who has been sentenced for longer than that -- which enables those individuals to walk out of jail and right into a gun sellers place of business.  This, despite the efforts of organizations like the American Bar Association, to retain those names in the data base longer.

Who pushed for the names to be purged so quickly? Guess - the NRA and other pro-gunners.  Who pushes for individuals who are known to be volatile and dangerous, like Jared Loughner was known to be, to still be allowed to buy firearms in lax gun law states like Arizona, instead of allowing law enforcement the discretion to deny them permits? Three guesses, and they should all be the NRA, representing NOT lawful gun owners, but the manufacturers who want to sell more and more and more firearms, regardless of the dangers some of those sales represent.
If you object to events like the one where Patricia Maisch intervened, the direct blame and responsibility belongs to Jared Loughner. But beyond that, the organization that made it possible for Loughner to do what he did as easily, quickly and inexpensively as he did lies at the feet of the NRA, and squarely on the other corporations that belonged to ALEC, (like WalMart, that sold him the ammunition), for it to be possible.  ALEC has bought almost exclusively conservative politicians with money belonging to right wing special interest groups.  They have done so as an unregistered lobbying group that spends money to get local, state, and federal officials elected, and then pays for them (directly and indirectly) to pass legislation written by ALEC to benefit ALEC special interests.  ALEC operates in secret, contrary to the actions of legitimate organizations that are not afraid of the disinfectant, sunlight.
That is the very definition of corruption, and it is endemic among conservatives, including the tea partiers.  I don't know about you, but I don't want our legislation written by out of state, sometimes outside the country, big money for their benefit and against our state and personal interests.  I don't want a lot of corrupt right wingers, giving lip service to patriotism and freedom, engaging in wholesale corruption instead -- and that's what we have, and never more so than since the right wing assault on and auction of government of 2010.
Oppose special interest money, oppose illegal guns, oppose lax gun laws that enable prohibited people from easily and cheaply and LEGALLY acquiring them.  Support courageous people like Patricia Maish and Mayors Against ILLEGAL guns.  Prevent future mass shootings like Tucson, and like Aurora, Colorado.

From Patricia Maish and Mayors Against Illegal Guns:
            As a survivor of the shooting in Tucson, AZ last year, I have firsthand experience of the terrible effect that a mass shooting has on a community, and my heart goes out to the people of Aurora, Colorado.
Unfortunately, I also know what it feels like to wait for action from leaders who share words of comfort but seem to forget their promises. Eighteen months have passed since the shooting in Tucson, and it’s still just as easy for a dangerous person to amass an arsenal of firearms.
Our leaders gave us a moment of silence, but they haven’t given us a plan. That’s why I’m asking you to help Demand A Plan to end gun violence through a bold new TV ad.
It was recorded with several other Tucson survivors to demand concrete proposals from President Obama and Governor Romney.

Watch our new TV ad and please pitch in $25 or more to help make sure this important message is seen by as many people as possible.

No one should have to fear for their life when they walk across their college campus, go downtown to meet their member of congress, or simply go out to the movies.

That’s not the America I want for my family or community. And it’s time our leaders came forward with a detailed plan to do something about it.

We can’t wait until another mass shooting hits the headlines before we finally act. Please make a donation to help us keep our ad on the air and raise the pressure on the candidates to tell us what they’d do to end gun violence:

http://DemandAPlan.org/TVad

Thanks for speaking up,
Patricia Maisch
Tucson Survivor


One of the largest, leading organizations that should have their logo included among those on the right is the NRA, representing gun manufacturers. Guns which become illegally owned represent a significant part of the gun manufacturers sales every year; they oppose any legislation which would help track those transactions, such as microstamping.

Turns Out it was the NRA-promoted lax gun laws responsible for Fast and Furious!!!!!

The right wing engages in the most ridiculous of conspiracy theories. The latest one has blown up in the face of the right wing like a whole keg of gun powder exploding. Could this folly promoted by the NRA result in the gun zombies being laughed into extinction as an organization?  If it doesn't - it should. This is another example of  the classic non-facts idiocy that gun nuts swallow because of their utter and total lack of any ability whatsoever at critical thinking exacerbated by their total lack of knowledge of facts and a complete and devestating inability to discern and discover FACTS. I coined a new term for the gun lunatic, gun zombie (mindless repetition of "must have guns") lexicon.  It is  more than a fract, defined as a minor singular deviation from objective and verifiable reality; it is a full-blown 'Fuct', a false piece of progandized information that is so massively stupid and inaccurate, on which the gun nuts rely that it is larger than a mere fract, and more foundational -- and more stupid on the part of the gun nutz. This is one of the latter,  a full-blown, neon-flashing, siren blaring 'fuct'. Turns out Fast and Furious is NOT even remotely as the right wingers and especially the NRA have portrayed it, and as is far more logical, it turns out that the responsibility for the  2000 firearms that ended up in Mexico, and the dead federal agent lies squarely on the doorstep of the pro-gunners and the NRA. Given this took place in ultra-conservative pro-gun to a disastrous fault Arizona, it is a reasonable speculation that the majority of these prosecutors who would NOT ALLOW the ATF to arrest straw purchasers were CONSERVATIVES, TEA PARTIERS and REPUBLICANS!!!! Your consciences, individually and collectively must by now be smoking, shrivelled and blackened beyone recognition. Here are the details of OBJECTIVE REALITY, not the gun lunatic NRA promoted fantasy conspiracy for the ignorant gun lunatics, from a well regarded and prestigious investigative reporter for a nationally respected journal. Prepare to hang your heads in SHAME for all the times you tried to represent this differently. Your skin should be brick red flushed with shame from your scalp down to the soles of your feet for EVER having believed the NRA about this (or anything else).  More than shame for yourselves, if you have ANY INTEGRITY WHATSOEVER you should be repudiating Rep. Issa as a dishonest reincarnation of the despicable witch-hunting cold war era Sen. Joe McCarthy.  I tried unsuccessfully to cut the clip to the proper length; the Fast and Furious interview begins at aprox. 4:00 in.

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Politifact.com Fact Checks the NRA with a Bang and a Bust!

from their latest updates:

Fact-checking the National Rifle AssociationNever mind that President Barack Obama has done little on gun issues -- so little, in fact, that gun control advocates are unhappy. The National Rifle Association continues to portray him as a relentless threat to the Second Amendment who wants to take your guns away.

A reader sent us an NRA flier that offers "10 reasons why Obama is bad news for the Second Amendment," so we put some of the claims to the Truth-O-Meter.

The NRA claimed that "Obama supported Ted Kennedy’s ammo ban to outlaw all deer-hunting ammunition." We found little evidence that's really what the bill would do and rated the claim False.

The flier said Obama’s regulatory adviser Cass Sunstein, "wants to ban hunting and says animals should be represented in court." We found he said that but has since walked it back. A Half True.

The NRA earned a True for its claim that Obama tried to slash funding for the armed pilots program.

And finally, for its claim that "Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar,’ " the NRA earned a Pants on Fire.

Here is their full treatment of the topic:

Is the NRA right that Obama is 'coming for our guns'?

By Aaron Sharockman
Published on Friday, June 15th, 2012 at 1:42 p.m.

Related rulings:

Says Barack "Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar.’ "

National Rifle Association, Monday, June 11th, 2012.
Ruling: Pants on Fire! | Details

Says Barack Obama is "trying to slash funding for the Armed Pilots Program designed to prevent terror attacks."

National Rifle Association, Tuesday, June 12th, 2012.
Ruling: True | Details

Says Barack Obama’s regulatory adviser Cass Sunstein, "wants to ban hunting and says animals should be represented in court."

National Rifle Association, Monday, June 11th, 2012.
Ruling: Half-True | Details

Says Barack Obama "supported Ted Kennedy’s ammo ban to outlaw all deer-hunting ammunition."

National Rifle Association, Tuesday, June 12th, 2012.
Ruling: False | Details

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The NRA's top 10 reasons on why Obama is bad for the Second Amendment. (See the full list in our individual fact-checks.)

Here are some facts you probably won't hear from the National Rifle Association: The Second Amendment is fading as a wedge issue in American politics, gun owners are winning, and President Barack Obama is doing little to alter the scales.

Nearly one in two Americans now have a gun in their home and just 26 percent favor an all-out ban on handguns, down from 60 percent in 1959, according to a recent Gallup survey. The number of Americans who support tighter gun laws is at an all-time low.

And Obama?
Gun talk has been almost anathema at the White House. Obama signed a bill in 2009 that allows people to carry loaded guns into most national parks; in 2011, he largely avoided a discussion -- to the anger of many activists -- about strengthening gun laws following the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Obama received a failing grade from the nation’s preeminent gun control group, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
We couldn’t find a word about gun policies on Obama’s re-election website.
"The gun control debate is over," said Rick Wilson, a GOP political consultant. "We live in a country where guns are a fundamental part of mainstream American culture. The moment I saw that Walmart now sells AR-15s (a type of semi-automatic rifle), I knew the debate was over."
Yet, you won’t hear much of that as the NRA campaigns against Obama in 2012.
In a new campaign mailer -- the contents of which we expect to be repeated in emails and at dinner tables -- the gun rights group is casting Obama as a gun control crusader who is "coming for our guns."
PolitiFact decided to put some of the NRA's claims to the Truth-O-Meter.
The gun rights group says Obama supported former Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy’s proposal "to outlaw all deer-hunting ammunition."
That’s False.
The NRA claim is cherry-picking an extreme, worst-case interpretation of a 2005 amendment to expand the definition of armor-piercing ammunition, which is legal to own or use in the United States but illegal to purchase or make.

Kennedy’s proposal had nothing to do with deer hunting, but the NRA contended it could be threatened by the bill. Yet Kennedy said his proposal wasn’t meant to target rifle ammunition commonly used to hunt deer, and since the language was never approved, we don’t know how it would have been applied. More importantly, we have no idea if Obama would have supported a hypothetical deer ammo ban as the NRA claims.
"It is absolutely ludicrous to believe that a Democratic administration would have risked the political fallout of trying to use this section to prohibit rifle ammunition," said William Vizzard, a criminal justice professor at California State University-Sacramento and a former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms agent. "The Democrats have avoided all gun control controversies assiduously."
To ban deer-hunting ammunition "would be suicide politically," added David "Mudcat" Saunders, a pro-gun Democratic strategist. "There might be some way the NRA could twist the facts. But it’s not true."
Other NRA claims on the mailer include a 1995 quote from now-Attorney General Eric Holder. The mailer quotes him saying we need to "really brainwash people" against guns. The comment came in a discussion about the need to change public opinion about firearms. Holder, then a U.S. attorney, said, "What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we’ve changed our attitudes about cigarettes."
The NRA's mailer also targets Obama’s regulatory adviser, Cass Sunstein, for saying in 2007 that he wants to ban hunting and that animals should be represented in court.
Sunstein, a law professor at Harvard University, said those things -- but he also walked back most of his comments in 2009 as he was joining the Obama administration.
"I strongly believe that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess and use guns for purposes of both hunting and self-defense," Sunstein said in part.
We rated the claim against Sunstein Half True.
The NRA earned a True for its claim that Obama is "trying to slash funding for the Armed Pilots Program designed to prevent terror attacks."
However, it’s not necessarily clear that the cut to the program -- which was scrapped by the Republican-controlled House -- should be considered anti-gun.
The federal government has budgeted $25 million a year since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to deputize and train volunteer commercial pilots to carry firearms on commercial flights. But as part of his proposed 2013 budget, Obama wanted to cut funding for the program in half.
"In an ideal world, one without budget constraints, we would fully fund the program. We’re not in that environment, so we are taking reductions," Transportation Security Administrator John Pistole said.
Critics say the move was political. The $12 million-$13 million in potential savings comprises about 0.15 percent of the entire TSA $7.6 billion proposed budget.
"The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that this was being done for anti-gun reasons," said Brian Darling, a senior fellow for government studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation who has been following the issue.
The evidence for another claim was completely underwhelming, we found.
Relying on a secondhand quote of Obama -- relayed to Washington Post by gun control advocate Sarah Brady -- the NRA claimed that "Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar.’ "
The genesis of the quote is a brief 2011 White House meeting between Obama, Brady, her husband Jim, and former Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence president Paul Helmke.
Helmke told PolitiFact there was no promise from Obama on gun policy, and certainly no dramatic pledge to come for anyone’s firearms.
Likely, the president was talking about an in-the-works program to get gun dealers in border states to forward some gun purchases to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Helmke said.
Brady told us her quote has been misinterpreted and that she herself never spoke with Obama about gun policy. "What ever I might have said or agreed to was purely speculative as I never spoke to the president myself about this issue," she said.
Whatever was said and what it was referring to is murky, but the NRA took a fragment of an unclear quote and prescribed the most far-reaching, conspiratorial conclusion -- when there simply isn't enough evidence for such a sweeping claim. We rated that claim Pants on Fire.

Guns and Government: We need less of one, and more of the other

Earlier this morning, I read this news in 'Opposing Views' :
Senate Puts Hold on "George Zimmerman Armed Vigilante Acts"

Submitted by Brady Campaign on Apr 18, 2012

WASHINGTON -- Brady Campaign President Dan Gross issued the following statement in response to the hold Senator Dianne Feinstein placed on bills S 2188 and S 2213, which the Brady Campaign believes should be called the "George Zimmerman Armed Vigilante Acts." The Senate bills, pushed by the NRA just days after Trayvon Martin's shooting death, are similar to HR 822, which passed the House late last year. They would force virtually every state to honor the concealed carry permit of every other state.
"Just a day after her staff met with three gun violence victims from the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign, and two days after 32 victims of gun violence came to Capitol Hill to demand that Congress keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, Senator Dianne Feinstein put a hold on the concealed carry bills we believe should be called the “George Zimmerman Armed Vigilante Acts.”
Once again, Senator Feinstein is making it crystal clear that she puts the safety of the American people ahead of the dangerous ”guns everywhere” vision of the gun lobby.
If either of these bills become law, and your state has reasonable regulations that might prevent somebody like George Zimmerman, a man with an arrest record and a history of violence, from carrying a loaded hidden gun, tough luck! Dangerous people like Zimmerman could carry loaded hidden guns on your streets and there would be nothing you or your local law enforcement could do about it.
On behalf of the overwhelming majority of Americans, we thank Senator Feinstein for standing up for our safety and preventing more tragedies like the ones represented by the victims gathered in Washington DC this week. And to all the politicians that do the gun lobby’s bidding, let this serve notice that we are watching you, and we are prepared to hold you accountable for putting guns in the hands of dangerous people just to make a profit." (my emphasis added - DG)

Yesterday I read this one:

FBI tries to stem rising death rate of police officers

Austin Police work the scene of a shooting at a Walmart April 6, 2012 where a police officer was shot in the neck and died at the scene. The department identified him as Senior Police Officer Jaime Padron. Padron was responding to a call about a drunk man inside the store around 2:30 a.m., officials said. The suspect attacked the officer as soon as he arrived at the store and Padron didn't have a chance to even pull out his own weapon, police said. (Austin American-Statesman, Deborah Cannon)

Only days ago, a police officer was gunned down in an Austin Walmart parking lot, responding to a seemingly routine call of dealing with a reported drunk.
This death may be part of a disturbing trend uncovered by the FBI: The number of police officers dying at the hands of perpetrators is climbing in the United States.
Texas ranked second in the FBI analysis, with 45 officer deaths between 2001 and 2010. That’s the second-highest, after California, which had 50 officer deaths in that time period. But it appears to be getting worse. In 2011, 72 officers were killed by perpetrators, a 25 percent increase from the previous year and a 75 percent increase from 2008, according to the New York Times.

The 2011 deaths were the first time that more officers were killed by suspects than car accidents, according to data compiled by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The number was the highest in nearly two decades, excluding those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
While a majority of officers were killed in smaller cities, 13 were killed in cities of 250,000 or more. …

The city of Houston lost one officer in 2011, Kevin Scott Will, to vehicular assault.
The Times report says that in many cases the officers were trying to arrest or stop a suspect who had previously been arrested for a violent crime:

That prompted the F.B.I. to change what information it will provide to local police departments, the officials said. Starting this year, when police officers stop a car and call its license plate into the F.B.I.’s database, they will be told whether the owner of the vehicle has a violent history. Through the first three months of this year, the number of police fatalities has dropped, though it is unclear why.

It is worth noting here that it has been the position of law enforcement across the various entities and agencies to oppose easy transportation of firearms across state lines.  Law enforcement - who are, after all, the people who are most often in the front lines of those at whom shots are fired - have also opposed expansion of both open and concealed carry, more lenient licensing, shoot first laws and other expansions on the perfectly functional Castle doctrine laws.  The increase is coming from both legal and illegal gun owners.
We were promised that there would be no increase in violent crime with firearms, that there would be no blood in the streets.  In point of fact, we have a steady increase in deaths and injuries from firearms used against law enforcement officers.  We have a dramatic increase in homicides in every single state that has enacted Shoot First laws.  While those are euphemistically called justifiable homicides, under the laws of any other state, or for that matter the laws of any other civilized nation on the planet, most of those homicides would not meet the standard for a justifiable homicide.
What those have been are homicides where the shooter is wrongly excused from consequences.  With the increase in the sales and manufacture of firearms has been an attendant and related slow but steady increase in the statistics of crimes involving firearms, including a slow steady rise in the rates of firearm homicides.  Increasingly, there is not only blood running on the streets, but on the sidewalks, in parks and in parking lots, and everywhere else people are more frequently carrying firearms - and using them.
With my mid-morning coffee break, I read this one, following a look at an excellent op ed cartoon from 'the Big Apple':

The NRA is no longer an organization for sportsmen and other gun enthusiasts. It was hijacked some years ago at the Cincinnati convention, where it became a combination promoter of exclusively right wing agendas, and a promoter for the profit of the gun industry, rather than a critical consumer of it.  The NRA puts the dumb in claims of 2nd Amendment rights and their 'freedumbs'.

It is EXACTLY the promoter of ways to increase gun sales, at the cost of death and injury, portrayed above.
Their assurances we would be safer, or more free has only resulted in a large number of mostly old and white, flabby and crabby men stroking their toys and indulging in delusional fantasies they are important instead of impotent, and powerful instead of pathetic.  (In the following article, the large/bold emphasis added is mine -DG)

Here is the story behind the cartoon, from the New York Daily News
Four NYPD cops shot in Brooklyn following hostage standoff

Ex-con held pregnant girlfriend captive

By Mark Morales, Rocco Parascandola, Barry Paddock AND Helen Kennedy / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS      Sunday, April 8, 2012, 8:24 AM Updated: Monday, April 9, 2012, 8:58 AM

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Joe Marino for New York Daily News

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Nakwon Foxworth

Jessica Hickling, believed to be the girlfriend of Nakwon Foxworth who allegedly wounded four police officers after holding Hickling hostage.

Det. Michael Keenan (r.) and Officer Matthew Granahan were two of four police officers wounded in the gun battle.

Capt. Al Pizzano and Det. Kenneth Ayala were also injured.

An ex-con brandishing an illegal gun wounded four NYPD cops Sunday in a wild shootout inside his sixth-floor Brooklyn apartment after menacing his pregnant girlfriend and their infant son.

Three of the officers were shot in the leg; one was grazed in the face. They were all in good shape, and two were released from the hospital within hours.

Suspect Nakwon Foxworth, 33, was in critical condition, hit three times in the gunfight inside his Sheepshead Bay apartment. The apartment was strewn with baby toys — and guns.

Eight police officers have been shot with illegal guns from out of state in the past four months, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

“These are the guns that are turning our city into a shooting gallery,” Kelly told Daily News columnist Mike Lupica. “I’m tired of this!”

RELATED: WASHINGTON NEEDS TO STOP COWERING BEFORE GUN LOBBY, MAYOR BLOOMBERG SAYS

One of the four officers, Detective Mike Keenan, won a Medal of Valor for his part in a shootout in another Brooklyn apartment 15 years ago that stopped a terrorist plot to blow up the subways.

This weekend’s mayhem began about 10:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Foxworth, who was arriving home at 3301 Nostrand Ave. with girlfriend Jessica Hickling and their 4-month-old son, argued with two men who were moving a woman into a fifth-floor apartment and blocking the building’s service entrance.

“We had a barrel in front of the door and all of a sudden he gets angry,” said one of the movers, Kairon Decaul.

“He took the stroller, with the baby in it, and started ramming it into the barrel. He became very angry. The woman started screaming, ‘The baby! The baby!’”

Decaul, 43, said Foxworth pulled a gun.

“My friend ran, and he chased him to the truck,” Decaul said. “He came back inside and threw the gun in the baby’s stroller. He put his finger in my face and threatened me. The girl was screaming, ‘Calm down! Calm down!’”

Inside the truck, the other mover called cops. “He’s got a gun. ... He’s got a gun,” he told the dispatcher, Kelly said.

Cops said Foxworth then took his terrified pregnant girlfriend and baby up to their apartment.

NYPD investigators enlisted the help of the building superintendent, and they used surveillance footage to determine which apartment was Foxworth’s, Kelly said.

At Apartment 6-K, they got no answer. Looking through the peephole, they could see a man, woman and child inside, Kelly said.  The cops settled in for a standoff and had summoned hostage negotiators when Hickling rushed out of the apartment door with the baby in her arms about 12:30 a.m.

She said Foxworth had a gun and was holding her captive.

A six-man Emergency Service Unit team end nuentered the apartment, and bullets started to fly.

“When she just left and left the door open, he started shooting,” Kelly said. “The gunfight occurred in close quarters with the assailant and the officers no more than 10 feet apart.”

Police said that Foxworth, standing in the bedroom, fired 12rounds from his 9-mm. Browning semiautomatic handgun at cops. Two injured cops and a third officer at the scene returned fire, Kelly said.

The injured officers were Keenan, 52, shot in the front calf; Detective Kenneth Ayala, 40, shot once in the thigh and once in the left ankle; Officer Matthew Granahan, 35, shot in the calf, and Capt. Al Pizzano, 49, who was grazed in the face.

“The shots were almost whizzing by my door. It was like a little war,” a neighbor said.

Pizzano and Granahan were released from the hospital Sunday afternoon.

Ayala, the father of a 3-year-old daughter, is likely to be released Monday, said his wife, Maria.

She said one bullet missed the bones in his foot, and the other bullet missed major arteries and bones in his thigh.

“I feel like it was a lucky day,” she said.

Maria Ayala said she heard the news of the shooting from her husband, who called her to say he had “hurt his leg.”

“It was very comforting to hear his voice,” she said. “It was better then hearing it from a sergeant, because I knew for sure he was okay.”

Keenan’s wife was also thankful — and relieved.

“He’s going to be all right,” she said at their Staten Island home. “Thank goodness.”

She declined to call her husband a hero. “He’s just a regular guy doing his job,” she said.

Pizzano’s family was having an Easter celebration and refused to comment.

Roy Richter, head of the Captains Endowment Association, met with him at the hospital before he was released.

“I told him I was going to go to church and thank God that he was okay, and he said, ‘I think I should go to church, too,’” Richter said.

Foxworth was in critical but stable condition at Kings County Hospital on Sunday morning.

He was charged with attempted murder, assault on a police officer, criminal possession of a weapon and menacing.

Records show he was let out of prison two years ago after serving 10 years for robbery, attempted murder and selling drugs in prison. He also served two years for another attempted murder conviction at age 15, cops said.

His sister Tyona Foxworth said he worked as a carpenter.

“He’s a wonderful person and a great uncle,” she said

She asked about the wounded cops and appeared relieved that their lives were not in danger.

Inside Foxworth’s pad, cops found a 22-caliber revolver and a sawed-off military assault rifle equipped with a sniperscope and 50 rounds of heavy ammunition.

They say the 9-mm. Browning that Foxworth used to shoot the officers came from a gun store in Wilmington, N.C. The assault rifle had been stolen in Florida before arriving in New York. The revolver had been defaced and could not be easily traced.

Mayor Bloomberg also noted that eight cops have been shot in the past four months. “All of these shootings have a disgraceful fact in common. All were committed with illegal guns that came from out of state,” said Bloomberg.

“You see our police officers putting their lives on the line every single day,” he said. “Here we were very lucky, but it could have been a great tragedy.”

With Eric Zerkel, Michael J. Feeney, Jennifer H. Cunningham, Edgar Sandoval, Ole Skaar, Vera Chinese and John Doyle

We do not need or benefit from more people carrying more guns.  We especially do not need or want, and should not allow, more guns crossing our state borders, contributing to the continuing rise in firearm violence, especially homicides.  We also do not need and should not permit a greater leniency in when we let civilian people shoot other people; that should remain primarily the authority exclusively of law enforcement.

The changes from the pro-gunners have not worked out as well as they claim; they continue to be part of the problem and not the solution.  It is time for a different solution, a solution with fewer guns more stringently regulated.  To heck with the NRA.

More on the F-35 Defense Contract Corruption and Conservatives: "Oh Canada......" and U.S. Congressional Insider Trading

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

Corruption: use of public office for private gain - World Bank definition
From the Republic Report 'Corruption Watch':

Corruption Watch: Congressmen Awarding Big Defense Contracts to Companies in Which They Own Stock

By Lee Fang posted Apr 9th 2012 at 10:30AM

Congressmen Michael McCaul and Kenny Marchant of Texas and Richard Hanna of New York all have two things in common. One, according to their personal financial disclosures, they own stock in defense contractor Pratt and Whitney. Two, they are all members of the F-35 Caucus, a group of Congressmen dedicated to awarding more contracts to defense contractors like, well, Pratt and Whitney.
The Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon, White House officials, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) all agree: Spending hundreds of millions for new F-35 engines are a waste of taxpayer money. The planes have already cost taxpayers over $56 billion in research and development. Constant cost overruns have turned a plane that was supposed to cost $69 million each into one that now comes with a $156 million price tag. Some suggest that the entire F-35 program could spiral out of control and cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion over fifty years.
Defense contractors are pushing back against proposed cuts aggressively. In addition to increased lobbying spending and pro-F-35 advertisements in the Metro stops of Washington D.C., members of Congress agreed to form a “F-35 Caucus” to keep the taxpayer money flowing to the companies. As the Center for Responsive Politics noted, the F-35 Caucus members collectively received over $325,400 in contributions from the companies that make the F-35, including Pratt & Whitney, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems.
Republic Report has reviewed the personal finance disclosures of F-35 caucus, and found that a number of the lawmakers are also personally invested in the companies that produce the F-35:

– F-35 Caucus Member Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX) owns between $350,000 and $750,000 in stock in the parent company of Pratt & Whitney.
– F-35 Caucus Member Congressman Kenny Marchant (R-TX) over $11,000 in stock with Northrop Grumman, over $5,000 in stock with Lockheed Martin, and over $5,000 in stock with the parent company of Pratt & Whitney.
– F-35 Caucus Member Congressman Richard Hanna (R-NY) owns up to $50,000 in stock with Lockheed Martin, and up to $15,000 in stock with the parent company of Pratt & Whitney.

Congressman Norm Dicks (D-WA), whose campaign committee is a top recipient of F-35 contractor cash, is helping to lead the F-35 Caucus along with Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-TX).
In February, Congress refused to attach Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) strong reform amendment to the Stock Act that would have forced legislators to place their investments in a blind trust. So, this form of corruption goes on as perfectly legal.  (emphasis added is mine - DG)
This post was written with valuable research help from intern Haley Streibich.

From the Roll Call CQ, preceding an article on ALEC:

Gates Foundation Will Withdraw Support for ALEC Nonprofit By Janie Lorber

Related from CQ Today
Senate Judiciary Leaders Call for Conference on Insider Trading Measures
Senators Seek Vote on Insider Amendments Dropped by House
Senators Look to Reconcile Insider-Trading Bills With House
After Expected House Passage, Future of Insider-Trading Bill Uncertain
House GOP Considers Rolling Back Some Provisions in Insider-Trading Bill

And then we have this from Canada.com:
Cabinet knew F-35's $25 billion cost, says AG

Lee Berthiaume, Postmedia News

Published: Thursday, April 05, 2012

OTTAWA - Canada's auditor general dropped a bombshell Thursday when he said the Conservative government knew before the last election that the F-35 fighter jet program would cost at least $10 billion more than what National Defence was telling Parliament and the public.
The government says it did nothing wrong as it was simply reporting the cost of buying the stealth fighters, not the price of operating them or associated salary costs, which would have been incurred no matter which plane replaced the CF-18s.

The Conservative government would have known that the F-35 was estimated to cost $25 billion when the Defence Department provided Parliament with a $14.7-billion figure in the weeks before the last federal election, Auditor General Michael Ferguson says.

Chris Wattie/Reuters

But while it has agreed to provide those full costs in the future, the revelation has thrown more fuel onto a raging fire that has already seen the opposition call for House Speaker Andrew Scheer to launch an investigation.

The issue goes back to March 2011, when Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page released a major report weeks before the last federal election that estimated the F-35 would cost taxpayers nearly $30 billion.

The Department of National Defence responded by telling Parliament - and Canadians - that the stealth fighter actually would cost even less than the $16 billion budgeted for the program, putting the figure at $14.7 billion.

But the military did not include a number of important costs in its response, and during the course of his own study, Ferguson found Defence actually had estimated as far back as June 2010 that the total cost would be at least $25 billion.

Most of the attention since Ferguson's report was released Tuesday has been on the bureaucrats responsible for the F-35 file.

But the auditor general told reporters Thursday that the Conservative government itself knew about the $10-billion discrepancy when National Defence put forward the $14.7-billion figure in March 2011 because the cost estimates were essential for long-term budget planning.

"I can't speak to sort of an exact date," Ferguson said. "(But) at the point in time, to respond to the Parliamentary Budget Office's office, it's my understanding that the government had that number."

The auditor general, who was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in November, told reporters he could not say exactly who would have known the military's true cost estimates.

But he was clear that by "government" he was referring to the executive - namely, cabinet and other members of the Conservative government, not the bureaucracy.

Related Links

• Den Tandt: A-G shreds Harper's fig leaf of deniability on F-35 debacle
• What was said about the F-35: Quotes from politicians, officials and critics about the Joint Strike Fighter program
• Coyne: F-35 debacle demonstrates a system of government in collapse
• AG report reveals key players in troubled F-35 program
• F-35 program proving a political pain for Tory government
• Den Tandt: Heads should roll for F-35 fiasco
• Canada's companies will remain involved in F-35 project: Harper

Just linking to a few of these related stories produced this little gem:

AG report reveals key players in troubled F-35 program

Lee Berthiaume, Postmedia News

Published: Wednesday, April 04, 2012

OTTAWA - Auditor General Michael Ferguson's scathing report on the F-35 has put a rare spotlight on the coterie of senior officials - both civilian and military - who have been central to Canada's involvement in the troubled stealth fighter jet program over the years.

The list includes a former general now responsible for providing civilian oversight of military purchases, several former fighter pilots and a top official at the Public Works Department who previously managed communications at National Defence.

On Thursday, Ferguson will appear before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about his report, and Liberal MP Gerry Byrne will attempt to call the bureaucrats involved in F-35 procurement to testify at a future meeting.

In the context that the Canadian Conservatives circumvented - as in cheated - the required parliamentary process on the F-35 intended to protect the citizens from corruption.  The article from Canada.com above continues:

- Dan Ross, assistant deputy minister of materiel at the Department of National Defence - One of the most powerful bureaucrats in Ottawa, Ross is a retired general turned civilian charged with ensuring  the military gets the equipment it needs - not necessarily what it wants - at an affordable price. He has held his current position since 2005, during which time the number of military purchases made without a competitive process has increased. Ross would have been involved in most if not all key briefings and meetings leading up to the government's decision to purchase the F-35.(emphasis added is mine - DG)

Australia has joined Italy and the UK in delaying - possibly cancelling if the plane proves to be the turkey it is reported to be - their previous orders for the F-35.  Continuing the bird metaphor, it looks like the cost over runs combined with poor performance, despite the profits made in investments by members of Congress in companies receiving these lucrative defense contracts, might finally have killed the goose that laid their golden eggs.

More 'related' stories from Canada.com:
Related Links
F-35 replacement candidates in the wings
U.S. auditor slams F-35 overruns

From Canada.com

F-35 replacement candidates in the wings

Michael Den Tandt, Times Colonist Published: Thursday, March 22, 2012

As the Tories batten the hatches ahead of an auditor general's report expected to be highly critical of the F-35 fighter jet procurement,  indications are the government now intends to move into a holding pattern on the controversial project, awaiting further developments in the U.S. and internationally before making a final decision on a purchase, which could come between six months and a year from now.

Meantime, defence-industry players in Ottawa are quietly laying the table for what many now expect will be the eventual unwinding of the sole-sourced program, which has been plagued by delays, technical glitches and cost overruns, to be replaced by an international competition.  The likeliest contenders, should there be a competition, are U.S.-based Boeing, maker of the F-18 Super Hornet, and Dassault of France, maker of the Rafale.

Both are twin-engined aircraft, which adds an element of safety in the Far North that the single-engine F-35 does not have.  The Rafale, like the F-35, comes with radar-evading stealth technology, and, insiders say, could be built almost entirely in Canada. The Super Hornet has the advantage of being in wide use already around the world, and would be highly "interoperable" both with NATO air forces and with Canada's existing, aging fleet of CF-18 Hornet fighters.

Reading history from the 20th century, as a Senator, Harry Truman discovered horrific but very similar problems with defense spending, where the decisions about purchasing and the awarding of contracts was corrupt, and where the nation was being ripped off.
From the United States Senate, 'Historical Minutes Essays':

1941-1963

March 1, 1941
The Truman Committee

Senator Harry Truman in his Senate Office Building suite. Senate Historical Office

No senator ever gained greater political benefits from chairing a special investigating committee than did Missouri's Harry S. Truman.
In 1940, as World War II tightened its grip on Europe, Congress prepared for eventual U.S. involvement by appropriating $10 billion in defense contracts. Early in 1941, stories of widespread contractor mismanagement reached Senator Truman. In typical fashion, he decided to go take a look. During his 10,000-mile tour of military bases, he discovered that contractors were being paid a fixed profit no matter how inefficient their operations proved to be. He also found that a handful of corporations headquartered in the East were receiving a disproportionately greater share of the contracts.
Convinced that waste and corruption were strangling the nation's efforts to mobilize itself for the war in Europe, Truman conceived the idea for a special Senate Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. Senior military officials opposed the idea, recalling the Civil War-era problems that the congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War created for President Lincoln. Robert E. Lee had once joked that he considered the joint committee's harassment of Union commanders to be worth at least two Confederate divisions. Truman had no intention of allowing that earlier committee to serve as his model.
Congressional leaders advised President Franklin Roosevelt that it would be better for such an inquiry to be in Truman's sympathetic hands than to let it fall to those who might use it as a way of attacking his administration. They also assured the president that the "Truman Committee" would not be able to cause much trouble with a budget of only $15,000 to investigate billions in defense spending.
By unanimous consent on March 1, 1941, the Senate created what proved to be one of the most productive investigating committees in its entire history.
During the three years of Truman's chairmanship, the committee held hundreds of hearings, traveled thousands of miles to conduct field inspections, and saved millions of dollars in cost overruns.
 And then there was President Eisenhower, who also warned about the problems associated with the 'military industrial complex'.  I can say that through the lens of history, "I Like Ike" (a motto during his presidential campaign).  I REALLY like Ike, who was a great general, and a better president - a conservative, moderate Republican president back when that stood for something.  The modern right, far more extreme, effectively worships Ronald Reagan, attributing qualities to him that he didn't have, and claims of aligning themselves with him in ways that are actually contrary to his positions.  I would argue that Eisenhower - aka 'Ike' - was a better president, and a better conservative, if much less flashy and charismatic.
A few of Ike's notable quotes that seem applicable in this context:
 “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims? ”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

 (in other words, the entire 'Bush Doctrine', and the position of every current GOP presidential candidate except possibly Ron Paul - DG)

Coming full circle to the excerpted quote at the beginning of this post is the entire quote from President Dwight David Eisenhower:
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

Corruption, conservatives, and defense spending are all closely connected, not only in this country but in the governments of our allies.  We need to oppose it, we need to root it out.  We need to expose the corrupt connections between defense spending corruption and legislators - predominantly conservative legislators more than others at the moment - and between corrupt corporations and conservatives generally.  The right is not the party of fiscal responsibility; they are corrupt, and they have and will continue to sell out the country, sell out American citizens, all of us, to corporate interests and big money.  In the process they will trample our liberties as they have already shown they are willing to do in their culture wars, which are part backward bigotry and part an effort to retain power by a bunch of predominantly old white men. 

Corrupt conservative old white men. 

Corrupt conservative old white men making money off of  public office for private gain, like the F-35 caucus and ALEC.

From the brilliant cartoonist, Ed Stein! I'm presuming this is his commentary, not only on hoodies generally but also on the NRA concealed carry hoodie which now seems in exceptionally poor taste

Not He Said / She Said; He Said / He's Dead

The above is from the HuffPo.
President Obama said that if he had a son, his son would look like Trayvon. Presumably he was speaking generally, rather than literally. But even in a general context, he was not that far off the mark. While I couldn't quickly locate a photo of President Obama IN a hoodie, I did find one of him ON a hoodie, that I share here for fun. Of course the Nutjob Gingrich had to call the President's comment disgraceful, criticizing Obama because he didn't apparently make it sufficiently inclusive for the Nut that he meant ALL American kids and adults should be safe. The very dishonest Nutjob did that by omitting to reference Obama's full statement where he identifies the common concern of EVERY American, especially every parent.   Clearly however, as a person of color who himself has on occasion experienced discrimination and suspicion because of being a black man, and a black teen, he can identify with the victim.   Here is what the Nutjob Gingrich had to say, in a vain effort to appeal to his tiny slice of an already small, fearful white old people base.  Clearly the President did not suggest it would be OK if a white teen or a teen of any other gender or ethnicity than Trayvon Martin had been shot.  The Nutjob Gingrich is pandering, as the current crop of GOP Presidential candidates so consistently have done, to racial division and fear of racial preference that would not favor white dominance any longer.  It is the pasty Nut Job playing the reverse race card.  From the Huff Po:

What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful. It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background.

Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up. It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.

President Obama now, left, Trayvon Martin right

a young  Obama, at a similar age to Trayvon Martin
(thank goodness, he isn't wearing a hoodie, or he
might not have lived to become
the first black President of the United States -sarc.)

from Amazon.com  Cybertela

Cybertela Barack Obama 2012 Sweatshirt Hoodie President Democrat Hoody

1332608534

The message on a hoodie (or hoody), the human equivalent along with buttons of "bumper sticker think" on cars that I most enjoyed was this one. If you can't see the wording clearly, it says Hope over Fear, with the name of Barak Obama underneath. What we are pushing back against is inappropriate fearfulness in taking the side of Trayvon Martin, in opposing people being racially profiled, in opposing people being victimized by vigilantes under too-loose gun laws. That is what we need to oppose, where we need to push back against conservative paranoia and special interest exploitation for profit of our legislative system.