It’s all there on video. A $1,600, 2010 training video, described as “another black eye” by the ever-objective Associated Press. The training video (identical to those used by virtually every government agency and major private corporations) was shown at the end of an IRS training and leadership conference. Two other videos have caught the eye of the crack investigators from the House Committee on Government and Oversight Reform as well.
An observation if I might. I doubt there’s a government agency that, in the last 50 years, hasn’t produced hundreds of “training” videos or films. The private sector does it all the time. $1,600? That would represent about 2 minutes of a Sears or GM training or POP (Point of Purchase) video. I know. As a Chicago free-lancer for a few years, I appeared in and narrated dozens of such presentations for the largest corporations in America, including the aforementioned.
As an aside, Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (the $450 million man) owned Directed Electronics for nearly 19 years until selling it off in late 2000. If 3 training videos get Issa all riled up, imagine if he were to go to this site, View Training Videos. Click on the prompt and it will take you to no less than 22 training videos. Does Issa subpoena his former company to appear before his committee? Uhhhhhhh, no!
Then there’s the Committee’s abiding and relentless concern over the IRS holding a number of tax-evading political propaganda arms of the repugican cabal accountable for not even remotely meeting the criteria for tax-exempt organizations. And shame on the administration for leaning on two (well, one) news organizations whose irresponsible reporting endangered numerous American lives. How dare Obama! Almost forgot Benghazi. The administration is telling the truth. Local Libyan protectors dropped the ball. End of story.
Of course dismissing, not acting upon or ignoring myriad clues that a catastrophe of radical Muslim initiation was about to sully our country and kill over 3,000 people in the most horrifying way possible, is not a scandal. Nor is the almost complete destruction of our economy through countless illegal and ignorant acts, collectively costing us trillions. No, those aren’t scandals, but $1,600 LINE DANCING???
Or how about a trumped up war to the benefit of the military-industrial complex and most especially a sitting Vice-President with deep ties to the biggest contractor of them all who made multiple millions on the corpses of brave young Americans? Not a scandal?
But they’re repugican scandals, so of no interest. What follows is perhaps the most shining example of all wingnut scandals.
Guns and the daily consequences of gun ownership of 310 million guns yielding 30,000 annual deaths is as scandalous as every Democratic “scandal” combined. Legislators, terrified to follow in Gabrielle Gifford’s life-altering footsteps are petrified; scared stiff or not inclined to even extend background checks at gun shows. Bullets and ricin and, on the plus side, major campaign bucks, will do that to you.
So, the true scandal is the national obsession that will never be brought fully to the fore, no matter how many young children are killed.
Saddleback evangelical millionaire Preacher Rick Warren’s adult son, Matthew, committed suicide with an unregistered gun acquired from some guy on the Internet and you don’t hear a negative peep about guns from ice-cold Warren; “I forgive him.” Warren misses the point. There should be thousands of less “him’s” out there. Warren should be badgering Congress daily for reform, but his “buy anything Rick sells” Evans are all gun-nuts and, as the late Elizabeth Taylor once said when then- husband Mike Todd was killed in a plane crash, “Mike’s dead and I’m alive.”
We have officially reached the point where guns (and fiscal self-interest) are more important than loved ones and a room full of brutally shredded 6 and 7-year-olds. Extraordinarily cowardly and heartless repugicans met President Obama’s genuine concern for the victim’s families lobbying Congress for “something” with accusations of using them as “props”. According to the latest figures from Slate’s gun death project, since the Sandy Hook massacre, 12/14/12, there have been 4,449 gun fatalities in the U.S. as opposed to the loss of 4,409 U.S. Armed Forces for the entirety of the Iraq war.
When an NRA patch is America’s national symbol, any semblance of humanity, culture and restraint disappears. The woodpecker is the national bird of course, because the rattle of beak on bark has such a wonderful symmetry to an automatic weapon.
Here’s another gun story. This one features a disgusting hunk of Alabama excrement who was “caught on tape” in late January grabbing a five-year-old autistic boy off a school bus to hold as hostage. The ABC audio comes from the Huffington Post and features the bus recording of this human sludge boarding the bus and kidnapping a child. This is what guns do. And I’m still struck by the awesome courage of the bus driver, Charles Poland, more of a man by infinity than the armed fool who killed him. Jimmy Lee Dykes AUDIO .
Dykes was killed in his homemade bunker by an FBI hostage rescue team when negotiations proved fruitless. The young boy was unharmed.
So Democrats can’t even squeeze out expanded background checks. In case you’re curious what the huge demands of this life-saving proposal might be, take a look at Form 4473. This is what buyers would be filling out. Firearms Transaction Record Not worth a few minutes to potentially save thousands of lives over time?
Again, does Issa subpoena an industry responsible for over a million deaths before his committee? Doubtful. The fact that Issa was once put on six-months probation and was fined for possession of an unregistered firearm found in his glove compartment, might influence his thinking.
So that leaves the status quo. In point of truth, here is the scenario that about 20-30% of the population believes is imminent from the Obama administration. Cue music for the goober training video!
And ACTION!!!
“Ma, who’s that at the door? Look outside, there must be a dozens of ‘em, all armed to the teeth and shouting something about throwing my guns outside. Look at them jack booted federal thugs wearin’ them jackets with a picture of Obama on the back. I can’t quite make out the writing; oh yeah…”Kenya forever.”
Hand me that AK-47 Ma; gimmie another one for the left hand. Ma, sneak out back an git that M142 HIMARS!!! Git Jr. to help yuh. Ain’t none of these federal bastards gitten’ my guns!!! What’s that jes’ went through the window? ‘Am tearin’ up; can’t see a lick! Trouble breathin’. I told yuh! Somebody what weren’t even born here. Whatcha expect?” (Obama heard barking orders as jack booted thugs force the family face down on the floor as the interior of home is being torn up). Sounds of helicopters whirring overhead.
IRS agents rifling through files while line dancing to Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.” .
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