(Source: climateadaptation)
The degradations of passing through full-body scanners that provide naked pictures of you to Transportation Security Administration agents may not mean that the terrorists have won — but they do mark victories for a few politically connected high-tech companies and their revolving-door lobbyists.
Many experts and critics suspect that the full-body “naked scanners” recently deployed at U.S. airports do little to make us more secure, and a lot to make us angry, embarrassed and late. For instance, the scanners can’t see through skin, and so weapons or explosives can be hidden safely in body cavities.
But this is government we’re talking about. A program or product doesn’t need to be effective, it only needs to have a good lobby. And the naked-scanner lobby is small but well-connected.
If you’ve seen one of these scanners at an airport, there’s a good chance it was made by L-3 Communications, a major contractor with the Department of Homeland Security. L-3 employs three different lobbying firms including Park Strategies, where former Sen. Al D’Amato, R-N.Y., plumps on the company’s behalf. Back in 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed D’Amato to the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Also on Park’s L-3 account is former Appropriations staffer Kraig Siracuse.
The scanner contract, issued four days after the Christmas Day bomb attempt last year, is worth $165 million to L-3.
Rapiscan got the other naked-scanner contract from the TSA, worth $173 million. Rapiscan’s lobbyists include Susan Carr, a former senior legislative aide to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee. When Defense Daily reported on Price’s appropriations bill last winter, the publication noted “Price likes the budget for its emphasis on filling gaps in aviation security, in particular the whole body imaging systems.”
(Source: azspot)
Every fucking time I have to have surgery, it costs me $1200+, even with insurance. And it’s not like this surgery is optional; not having it means living in chronic pain and risking more damage to the nerves in my arms. I’ve already lost some sensation in my hands (right now, I have pins &…
It’s ridiculous how America’s system favors the incredibly rich and leaves everyone in the middle class and under in the dust. I have to say, I’m fortunate because my parents make a decent amount of money, and Hawaii already has a health care mandate, so I’m covered. And according to “Obamacare”, I will be covered until I’m 26. Of course, I’m trying to avoid this as much as possible, but say I put myself in Cara’s shoes. If I need a surgery before 26 and one of my parents’ health care plans will cover most of it but mine won’t, I’m using my parents’ health care plan.
What I don’t get is how people can be so adamantly opposed to reforming health care to ensure that it’s more affordable for everyone. That’s precisely what Democrats tried to do last year, until Republicans watered it down from a single-payer option to the public option, and now the end product, which is relatively weak. And Democrats had to overcome Republican filibusters by trying to get cloture in the Senate (60 votes instead of the usual 51).
Congress is broken, and people are ridiculous, voting against affordable health care for the American people.
This whole debate really comes down to the lobbyists that buy our politicians and their votes. Currently, we put politics before ethics. While working for a Senator, I learned that politicians don’t really have much to do with the legislation they propose. It’s their staffers that write it. The younger and more progressive their staffers are, the more progressive the legislation is. Currently, politicians’ staffs are riddled with people who want to become lobbyists because that’s where the big money is in Washington. So, they write favorable legislation that will help the groups that bought the politicians they work for. If they play ball, they get a job with the lobbyists and the cycle continues.
I just can’t believe that we’re letting people die for a few bucks. In the big picture, it’s really not even that much money the politicians are given. They don’t seem particularly affected by the struggles of the middle and working class because they’re so far gone that they can’t even relate to us anymore. They’re in their own little Washington bubble and the shouts from the lobbyists are louder than those from the outside.
This isn’t an issue about money or good economics. Health care is a human rights issue and I don’t think it’s okay that someone has to die because they weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth. The difference between those who have everything and those who have nothing is scary and we won’t progress until that’s fixed.
Incredibly well said.
This Thursday, SB-1070, Arizona’s radical new immigration law, will go into effect. Despite an incoming lawsuit from the Obama administration’s Department of Justice, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) has maintained that her state “will prevail,” claiming that she is simply defending the border integrity and safety of her state.
Yet a new investigation by local Arizona TV news station CBS 5 finds that the Brewer administration may have ulterior motives for its strong support of the new law. The station has found that “two of Brewer’s top advisers have connections” to private prison giant Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
Paul Senseman, Brewer’s deputy chief of staff, is a former lobbyist for CCA. His wife continues to lobby for the company. Meanwhile Chuck Coughlin, who leads her re-election campaign, chaired her transition into the governorship, and is one of the governor’s policy advisors, is president of HighGround Public Affairs Consultants, which lobbies for CCA.
This is important because CCA currently “holds the federal contract to house detainees in Arizona.” CBS 5 notes that the company currently bills $11 million a month to the state of Arizona and that, if SB-1070 is successfully implemented, its profits would be significantly padded as it would take responsibility for imprisoning immigrants arrested by Arizona police.
The company maintains that it “unequivocally, did not at any time lobby — nor did we have any outside consultants lobby — anyone in Arizona on the immigration law,” but direct lobbying would not be necessary with allies like Senseman and Coughlin working directly for Brewer.
Coughlin, in particular, has a history of boasting about the influence he has had on the state government on behalf of private business. In an interview earlier this month, he bragged about privatizing the commercial garbage business in Mesa, Arizona, by coordinating with industry lobbyists. He told the interviewer, “I can make [expletive] happen.”
Perhaps even more alarmingly, he explained his influence over Brewer to the interviewer. Coughlin explained that when he worked for Gov. Fife Symington (R-AZ) as his chief lobbyist, he locked horns with Brewer, who was at the time the Senate majority whip. He explained that his lobbying was so effective that she now says, “I was scared of you guys” — and that he has run her campaigns ever since:
Q: You got to the Capitol not long after Jan Brewer. Have you known her since then?
COUGHLIN: We both have discussed that. We tried to remember when we first really met. We think we met — I’m fairly confident — when I worked for Grant and she was in the House. I was Grant’s lobbyist, because I left Bob’s (Bob Robb) firm and I went to work for Grant as his director of public affairs in ’91, after his election.
Where we really got to know each other well was years later when she was Senate majority whip and I was Fife’s chief lobbyist in ’95. She was the chief vote-counter in the Senate, and it was our job to get the governor’s agenda through, so I got to know her pretty well. Fife’s team had a fairly aggressive, robust reputation. She’ll say to this day, “I was scared of you guys,” that we’d come in and threaten her or something like that. I don’t recall that.
She called me after I left Fife’s employ in ‘96 and started a firm called Coughlin Communications. We changed that to HighGround about four months later when Wes (Gullett) joined me. She came to me after that session and told me she wanted to run for county supervisor. We’ve run all her campaigns ever since.
CBS 5 filed a video report on CCA’s ties to the Brewer administration. Watch it
HUGE story. (THANKS)
If you only skimmed this, take the time to go back and really read it.
