Yesterday I suggested that “The Republican agenda to keep you safe is a fraud.” Today I suggest that, if not a fraud, it is a massive example of incompetence and failure.
“In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one stopped these materials,” the report said.
Reuters.com – US airport screeners fail homemade bomb tests
Update: McClellan Falsely Claims “We Are Doing Everything We Can To Protect Our Ports”
“For example, one of the programs McClellan touted today – the Container Security Initiative – is only in operation at 43 of the 140 overseas ports that ship directly to the United States due to chronic underfunding.”
March 17th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
You know what really floors me? Absolutely gets me with outrage and actually makes me think I’m a consesvative instead of a liberal?
Homeland Security.
The Office of Homeland Security is the biggest waste of government resources and money that I have ever seen. After 9-11 there was talk of having to streamline government and cut through red tape and what has happened but they endorsed a seperate office that simply put up more red tape between agencies.
We have a Defense Department that no longer tries to defend the country against foreign and domestic threats. The US Intellegence departments are splintered apart and not consolidated to streamline the very thing they are supposed to specialize in – intellegence gathering.
Homeland Security does a shit job of protecting our ports and our costal communities (as Hurricane’s Katrina and Wilma’s response indicated — thanks to a non-election year) while also throwing up red tape between FEMA and other government agencies to respond to the disaster.
Tony Dungy might have sounded like a broken record to Buc fans when he kept talking about getting back to basics and working on fundamentals — but the man was right and it applies to the defense of the United States as well. We don’t need color coded warning signs to warn of terrorist threats — what we need is intellegence agencies and government officials working together when threats come in. We need officials to take that crap seriously. We don’t need a missle defense shield. We need credibility as a nation to talk problems out with our advasaries and — when needed — attack a rogue nation with a united front of force instead of unilaterally in a holier-than-thou attack.
I can go on and on, but it gets past the point. Those in command are out of touch with the principles they are supposed to be shephards of. Homeland Security is a classic liberal farce of big government and the Bush administration has been liberal to no end on all fronts besides appealing to the conservative base through tax cuts and preaching Jesus/ go it alone in the world stuff.
March 21st, 2006 at 8:17 am
Of course. FAR more important to spy on American citizens than to secure our borders, make airports and ports safe, or listen to the will of the American people.
March 21st, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I think it’s safe to say that this administration has permanently muddied the definition of traditional conservatism. However it remains to be seen if any Republicans will effectively camp out in any particular wing of conservatism. There is no real fractious element(s) emerging. So far they are content to be lock step with the status quo blanket definition that is defined for them by the neocons.
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