U2: New Year's Day

I remember listening to this cassette while crossing the English Channel, taking the ferry from France to England, 27 years ago. Woosh. One of my all-time favorites.

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GOP House chair pushing TSA privatization while contractor is campaign donor

In a rather astounding example of burying the lede, the Washington Post writes today about how many airports are considering using private contractors, instead of the TSA, to handle airport security. Then the Post interviews the incoming House Transportation chairman, who trashes the TSA and is pushing airports to switch to the private contractors.

Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), the incoming chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has written to 200 of the nation's largest airports, urging them to consider switching to private companies.

The TSA was "never intended to be an army of 67,000 employees," he said.

"If you look at [the TSA's] performance, have they ever stopped a terrorist? Anyone can get through," Mica said in an interview. "We've been very lucky, very fortunate. TSA should focus on its mission: setting up the protocol, adapting to the changing threats and gathering intelligence."

What the Post doesn't tell you, until the end of the story, is that one of the big private contractors is in the House Transportation chairman's own district.

Covenant, based in Mica's home district in northeastern coastal Florida, has airport screening contracts in Sioux Falls, S.D., Tupelo, Miss., and seven small airports in northern and eastern Montana. Its deal at San Francisco International is by far its largest. Covenant employs nearly 1,100 people in the bay area, who make up nearly all of its 1,150 workers. The last four-year contract, from 2006 to 2010, totaled $314 million. A new contract has been put out for competitive bids. Meanwhile, Covenant is operating on a two-month contract ending in February.

Um, kind of a relevant fact that deserves to be highlighted a tad earlier. Rather than a story about airports ditching TSA, you may have a story about an incoming House committee chair trying to base our entire airport counter-terror security on who donates to his campaign - oh yeah, the post didn't tell you that one either, the president of the private contractor is also a donor to incoming Chairman Mica's campaign. Too bad the Washington Post didn't bother checking:

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Krugman: Responsible government can 'easily collapse in this country'

The Professor has written a piece that looks forward to our future under Republican rule. He sees a land enthralled by "magical thinking":

[T]he incoming House majority plans to make changes in the “pay-as-you-go” rules — rules that are supposed to enforce responsible budgeting — that effectively implement Mr. Kyl’s principle. Spending increases will have to be offset, but revenue losses from tax cuts won’t. Oh, and revenue increases, even if they come from the elimination of tax loopholes, won’t count either: any spending increase must be offset by spending cuts elsewhere; it can’t be paid for with additional taxes.

So if taxes don’t matter, does the incoming majority have a realistic plan to cut spending? Of course not. Republicans say that they want to cut $100 billion in spending, which is itself small change in a $3.6 trillion federal budget. But they also say that defense, Medicare and Social Security — all the big-ticket items — are off the table. So they’re talking about a 20 percent cut in what’s left, which includes things like running the judicial system and operating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; they have offered no specifics about where the cuts will fall.

And the future is on Long Island:

Nassau County — the part of Long Island that directly abuts New York City — is one of the wealthiest counties in America and has an unemployment rate well below the national average. ... But a year ago, in one of the first major Tea Party victories, the county elected a new executive who railed against budget deficits and promised both to cut taxes and to balance the budget. The tax cuts happened; the promised spending cuts didn’t. And now the county is in fiscal crisis.

His point is that while local governments are not exactly like the national government — most of them can't run deficits — nevertheless:

Nassau County shows how easily responsible government can collapse in this country, now that one of our major parties believes in budget magic. All it takes is disgruntled voters who don’t know what’s at stake — and we have plenty of those. Banana republic, here we come.

I'm a little less sanguine. The crisis is the plan. Welcome to the bathtub you're drowning in.

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Anti-mosque loons boycott pop star over fake interview

From Salon's War Room.

Andy Sullivan, a construction worker and Brooklyn native, has been one of the loudest opponents of Park51, the planned mosque and community center near ground zero. Founder of the 9/11 Hard Hat Pledge -- under which construction workers vow not to work at the mosque site -- Sullivan has been a regular presence on television, known for wearing his signature American flag hard hat and talking tough about radical Muslims.

So it was quite a surprise this month to read that Sullivan has set his sights on a new target: Canadian teen pop superstar Justin Bieber.

Mosque foes recently started a boycott of Bieber after he made comments in support of the mosque project in an interview with Tiger Beat, a teen fan magazine, Sullivan told WYNC earlier this month. Now, his 8-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son have been banned from attending Bieber performances.

"I informed them, 'Hey guys, guess what? Justin Bieber spoke out for the ground zero mosque," Sullivan explained to Salon in an interview. "My little girl took down his poster and said she didn't want to have nothing to do with him anymore. These are my kids. They're living this thing."

Except, of course, the interview with Bieber is a fake - it's from a satire Web site.

Oh, and I believe the correct expression in Republican English is "she didn't want to have nothing to do with him no more," not "anymore." Get a Sarah Palin dictionary, folks. Read the rest of this post...

Richardson won't pardon Billy the Kid

I waver between intrigued and annoyed that this is being discussed.

In 2003, Richardson, a history buff, first said that he would consider pardoning the famous outlaw. He finally made up his mind today.

"It was a very close call. I've been working on this for eight years. The romanticism appealed to me to issue a pardon, but the facts and the evidence did not support it and I've got to be responsible especially when a governor is issuing pardons," Richardson said.

Richardson said that Billy the Kid's decision to continue to murder after the pardon wasn't granted to him impacted his decision.

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Friday morning open thread

Joe should be back from Christmas break in California, while Chris is on his way out to the door to Normandy for New Years. (I spent New Years in Normandy with Chris and his wife, a few years ago. Lots of cow wallpaper and rain. But the food was great (Chris cooked) and the company couldn't have been better. I don't have any stellar New Year's Eve plans, it's not really a high holiday for me. Probably going to a local bar with some friends.

In the meantime, filibuster reform seems to be moving forward, though it's a treacherous path (after all, what possible incentive do the Republicans have for reforming it - they're the only ones who use it (practically), even when the Rs are in control. I didn't think I'd support getting rid of it, but at this point, the Republicans have so abused the process, and the Dems have so caved on the abuse ("60 is he new 50" - uh, no it's not and please stop saying that), it's not clear what other option there is than to curtail the darn thing. Read the rest of this post...

63% of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan

Huff Post:

Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is at an all-time high, with 63 percent of the public now opposed to U.S. involvement there, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey. Just 35 percent of survey respondents say they still support U.S. involvement.

The increase in opposition to U.S. involvement comes as pessimism about how the war is going is rising. According to a poll done Dec. 17-19, 56 percent of the public believes that "things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan."

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