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The Department Of Homeland Security Is Buying 450 Million New Bullets

 

post-98-0-82745600-1333113628.jpg

 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is getting an "indefinite delivery" of an "indefinite quantity" of .40 caliber ammunition from defense contractor ATK.

 

U.S. agents will receive a maximum of 450 million rounds over five years, according to a press release on the deal.

 

The high performance HST bullets are designed for law enforcement and ATK says they offer "optimum penetration for terminal performance."

 

This refers to the the bullet's hollow-point tip that passes through barriers and expands for a bigger impact without the rest of the bullet getting warped out of shape: "this bullet holds its jacket in the toughest conditions."

 

We've also learned that the Department has an open bid for a stockpile of rifle ammo. Listed on the federal business opportunities network, they're looking for up to 175 million rounds of .223 caliber ammo to be exact. The .223 is almost exactly the same round used by NATO forces, the 5.56 x 45mm.

 

The deadline for earlier this month was extended because the right contractor just hadn't come along.

 

Looks like the Department of Homeland Security means business.

 

 

Where's Cav? He'll like this.

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Florida seniors already have a mental picture of "death squads" drawn by Republicans. Nothing that the Democrats do will change seniors minds. I don't think that healthcare is a right but I do think, as a society, there should be priorities set to what the government should do. I think that most Americans would put healthcare reform near the top. The present healthcare system is hardly an example of capitalism, with the number of Doctors restricted, patients having no incentive to do any cost cutting (or even checking their bills) and segments of the population, led by government and union workers, receiving much more generous healthcare benefits than those down the list (the list ends with self employed people who are screwed). A capitalistic healthcare system would allow as many doctors (and other healthcare workers) to come to the U,S, to work, as long as they passed a stringent competency test, allow insurance companies (and global companies for that matter) to offer health insurance across state lines, tax any healthcare benefits one receives (which are not taxed now) and offer insurance which gets cheaper as the deductible increases (and what the insurance will cover decreases) but leave a basic insurance plan which insurance companies have to offer (and won't leave the person using the plan having to go bankrupt if something catastrophic happens). This would be a very Republican proposal, except for the fact that Republicans (and Democrats, for that matter) are owned by lobbyist and special interest who would never allow such a healthcare system to exist. I heard several Justices on the 3rd day of testimony show concern for the insurance companies if they had to still cover those "sick" patients without the healthy coerced to join. I head nothing from those Justices about the 30 million people that would be left with no health insurance if Obamacare was overturned.

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<< I head nothing from those Justices about the 30 million people that would be left with no health insurance if Obamacare was overturned. >>

 

And you shouldn't. Like it or not, their sole concern is whether or not the federal government has the authority to do it. It may well be a wonderful idea, but if it is not legal under the Constitution, it is still a no-no.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Not-So-Smooth Operator

 

Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest.

by Peggy Noonan

Something's happening to President Obama's relationship with those who are inclined not to like his policies. They are now inclined not to like him. His supporters would say, "Nothing new there," but actually I think there is. I'm referring to the broad, stable, nonradical, non-birther right. Among them the level of dislike for the president has ratcheted up sharply the past few months.

 

It's not due to the election, and it's not because the Republican candidates are so compelling and making such brilliant cases against him. That, actually, isn't happening.

 

What is happening is that the president is coming across more and more as a trimmer, as an operator who's not operating in good faith. This is hardening positions and leading to increased political bitterness. And it's his fault, too. As an increase in polarization is a bad thing, it's a big fault.

 

The shift started on Jan. 20, with the mandate that agencies of the Catholic Church would have to provide services the church finds morally repugnant. The public reaction? "You're kidding me. That's not just bad judgment and a lack of civic tact, it's not even constitutional!"

 

Faced with the blowback, the president offered a so-called accommodation that even its supporters recognized as devious. Not ill-advised, devious. Then his operatives flooded the airwaves with dishonest—not wrongheaded, dishonest—charges that those who defend the church's religious liberties are trying to take away your contraceptives.

 

What a sour taste this all left. How shocking it was, including for those in the church who'd been in touch with the administration and were murmuring about having been misled.

 

Events of just the past 10 days have contributed to the shift. There was the open-mic conversation with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in which Mr. Obama pleaded for "space" and said he will have "more flexibility" in his negotiations once the election is over and those pesky voters have done their thing. On tape it looked so bush-league, so faux-sophisticated. When he knew he'd been caught, the president tried to laugh it off by comically covering a mic in a following meeting. It was all so . . . creepy.

 

Next, a boy of 17 is shot and killed under disputed and unclear circumstances. The whole issue is racially charged, emotions are high, and the only memorable words from the president's response were, "If I had a son he'd look like Trayvon" At first it seemed OK—not great, but all right—but as the story continued and suddenly there were death threats and tweeted addresses and congressmen in hoodies, it seemed insufficient to the moment. At the end of the day, the public reaction seemed to be: "Hey buddy, we don't need you to personalize what is already too dramatic, it's not about you."

 

Now this week the Supreme Court arguments on ObamaCare, which have made that law look so hollow, so careless, that it amounts to a characterological indictment of the administration. The constitutional law professor from the University of Chicago didn't notice the centerpiece of his agenda was not constitutional? How did that happen?

 

Maybe a stinging decision is coming, maybe not, but in a purely political sense this is how it looks: We were in crisis in 2009—we still are—and instead of doing something strong and pertinent about our economic woes, the president wasted history's time. He wasted time that was precious—the debt clock is still ticking!—by following an imaginary bunny that disappeared down a rabbit hole.

 

The high court's hearings gave off an overall air not of political misfeasance but malfeasance.

 

All these things have hardened lines of opposition, and left opponents with an aversion that will not go away.

 

I am not saying that the president has a terrible relationship with the American people. I'm only saying he's made his relationship with those who oppose him worse.

 

In terms of the broad electorate, I'm not sure he really has a relationship. A president only gets a year or two to forge real bonds with the American people. In that time a crucial thing he must establish is that what is on his mind is what is on their mind. This is especially true during a crisis.

 

From the day Mr. Obama was sworn in, what was on the mind of the American people was financial calamity—unemployment, declining home values, foreclosures. These issues came within a context of some overarching questions: Can America survive its spending, its taxing, its regulating, is America over, can we turn it around?

 

That's what the American people were thinking about.

 

But the new president wasn't thinking about that. All the books written about the creation of economic policy within his administration make clear the president and his aides didn't know it was so bad, didn't understand the depth of the crisis, didn't have a sense of how long it would last. They didn't have their mind on what the American people had their mind on.

 

The president had his mind on health care. And, to be fair-minded, health care was part of the economic story. But only a part! And not the most urgent part. Not the most frightening, distressing, immediate part. Not the 'Is America over?' part.

 

And so the relationship the president wanted never really knitted together. Health care was like the birth-control mandate: It came from his hermetically sealed inner circle, which operates with what seems an almost entirely abstract sense of America. They know Chicago, the machine, the ethnic realities. They know Democratic Party politics. They know the books they've read, largely written by people like them—bright, credentialed, intellectually cloistered. But there always seems a lack of lived experience among them, which is why they were so surprised by the town hall uprisings of August 2009 and the 2010 midterm elections.

 

If you jumped into a time machine to the day after the election, in November, 2012, and saw a headline saying "Obama Loses," do you imagine that would be followed by widespread sadness, pain and a rending of garments? You do not. Even his own supporters will not be that sad. It's hard to imagine people running around in 2014 saying, "If only Obama were president!" Including Mr. Obama, who is said by all who know him to be deeply competitive, but who doesn't seem to like his job that much. As a former president he'd be quiet, detached, aloof. He'd make speeches and write a memoir laced with a certain high-toned bitterness. It was the Republicans' fault. They didn't want to work with him.

 

He will likely not see even then that an American president has to make the other side work with him. You think Tip O'Neill liked Ronald Reagan? You think he wanted to give him the gift of compromise? He was a mean, tough partisan who went to work every day to defeat Ronald Reagan. But forced by facts and numbers to deal, he dealt. So did Reagan.

 

An American president has to make cooperation happen.

 

But we've strayed from the point. Mr. Obama has a largely nonexistent relationship with many, and a worsening relationship with some.

 

Really, he cannot win the coming election. But the Republicans, still, can lose it. At this point in the column we usually sigh.

 

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<< I head nothing from those Justices about the 30 million people that would be left with no health insurance if Obamacare was overturned. >>

 

And you shouldn't. Like it or not, their sole concern is whether or not the federal government has the authority to do it. It may well be a wonderful idea, but if it is not legal under the Constitution, it is still a no-no.

The only problem that I have with 9 "impartial" SC Justices deciding the fate of Obamacare is that they are hardly impartial. If the vote is 5-4, that will mean 5 Justices appointed by Republicans will have voted to repeal it and 4 Justices appointed by Democrats will have voted to leave it intact. Just like in Congress, where no Republican voted for Obamacare. Politics is of the essence of Obamacare and it reaches all the way to the SC. The only difference between now and the 1930's is Obama isn't stupid enough to try to pack the SC. The two biggest votes in front of the SC in the last 12 years have been now and the 200 election and both are going to go by party lines. It certainly doesn't say much for the 3rd branch of government.

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Actually, the only reason that I would vote for Obama is to make sure no other President has the opportunity to sabotage Obamacare. If Obamacare is sunk by the S.C. (and shows Obama, a former constitutional law professor, as someone who can't even anticipate that his signature law would be held as unconstitutional, even if the S.C. decision is political), then I have no particular reason to support him in the 2012 election.

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The Department Of Homeland Security Is Buying 450 Million New Bullets

 

post-98-0-82745600-1333113628.jpg

 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is getting an "indefinite delivery" of an "indefinite quantity" of .40 caliber ammunition from defense contractor ATK.

 

U.S. agents will receive a maximum of 450 million rounds over five years, according to a press release on the deal.

 

The high performance HST bullets are designed for law enforcement and ATK says they offer "optimum penetration for terminal performance."

 

This refers to the the bullet's hollow-point tip that passes through barriers and expands for a bigger impact without the rest of the bullet getting warped out of shape: "this bullet holds its jacket in the toughest conditions."

 

We've also learned that the Department has an open bid for a stockpile of rifle ammo. Listed on the federal business opportunities network, they're looking for up to 175 million rounds of .223 caliber ammo to be exact. The .223 is almost exactly the same round used by NATO forces, the 5.56 x 45mm.

 

The deadline for earlier this month was extended because the right contractor just hadn't come along.

 

Looks like the Department of Homeland Security means business.

 

 

Where's Cav? He'll like this.

 

An army within an army.

Seems like Homeland Security is going to make us walk the line or else!

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<< I head nothing from those Justices about the 30 million people that would be left with no health insurance if Obamacare was overturned. >>

 

And you shouldn't. Like it or not, their sole concern is whether or not the federal government has the authority to do it. It may well be a wonderful idea, but if it is not legal under the Constitution, it is still a no-no.

 

Why didn't the Republicans come and stand before the plate

when we paid the tab for our new 'brothers' in Iraq?

 

I still don't understand why paying the Iraq health care was okay

when a lot of our own people don't have health care.

 

Are we still paying the Iraq healthcare bill?

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Zimmerman's close friend is a black TV announcer in Florida. He has publicly stated that though he doesn't know what happened, it was not because of racism. Zimmerman is not a racist, period.

 

As to Social Security and Medicare, Jesus you guys. These were okayed by the courts long ago, SS back when my parents were high school kids. Not to say the Dems might try to strike fears over them. Politics has very little to do with the truth or honesty. Integrity is also very rare in a politician.

 

Maybe Bangkok Traveller is afraid the Supremes were revoke the Gadsden Purchase and return southern Arizona to Mexico. :)

 

The one who named Arizona claimed President Santa Ana of Alamo fame did not put the money

given to him for the Gadsen Purchase into the Mexican treasury but into his own pocket.

 

There has always been questions posed if that purchase was really legal.

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