On Sunday mornings, when I was a kid, we'd wake up and have bagels and lox that my grandfather would bring over to our house early in the morning. This family does other stuff on Sunday mornings...

You'll note that Chief Justice Roberts was working from a piece of paper this time, so as to avoid the mistake he made administering the oath incorrectly, from memory, during the official swearing in in 2009. That gaffe led to a "mulligan" swearing in the following day, privately, in the White House.

For the record, today's swearing in is the official start of President Barack Obama's second term under the U.S. Constitution, which specifies, in the 20th Amendment, that "The terms of the President and Vice President shall...then begin" at noon on the 20th day of January. (Prior to the 20th Amendment, Presidents had been sworn in on March 4th.) But, since, this year, January 20th falls on a Sunday, the public swearing in will take place on Monday, January 21st instead, in a massive ceremony outside the U.S. Capitol, as per tradition.

According to an announcement from Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), chair of the 2013 Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, as cited by USA Today "this is the seventh time in U.S. history that the constitutionally mandated inauguration date has fallen on a Sunday."

"The last time was for President Ronald Reagan's second inauguration in 1985," said Schumer's office. "When this occurs, the public ceremonies traditionally are held on Monday."

Past inaugurations to fall on Sundays, with public ceremonies moved to the following Monday, include James Monroe's 2nd (1821), Zachary Tayor's (1849), Rutherford B. Hayes' (1877), Woodrow Wilson's 2nd (1917), Dwight D. Eisenhower's 2nd (1957) and Ronald Reagan's 2nd (1985).

Schumer's office notes that January 21 "is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It will be the second time that this federal holiday has coincided with a presidential inauguration. The first was President Bill Clinton's second inauguration on Monday, Jan. 20, 1997."

The timing of this year's ceremonial swearing in makes makes this Photoshopped graphic, widely circulated during Obama's first inaugural, perhaps even more appropriate, even if somewhat less moving four years later...

USA Today also notes that "The law designating the third Monday in January as a federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was signed into law by President Reagan in 1983. President Reagan's 1985 inauguration fell on the third Monday of January, but the new federal holiday did not become official until 1986."

Jon Stewart's take last night on "King Obama's" shocking executive actions (there were not "executive orders") on guns issued Wednesday was similar to our own here at The BRAD BLOG that same day, and later in the afternoon on our radio show.

In other words Stewart focused on those who are willing to beclown themselves by insisting that the President's rather tepid --- rather non-controversial if you bother to read them --- 23 executive actions and 9 recommendations to Congress to improve gun safety in this nation were nothing short of TYRANNY!!!!

As Stewart observes in the very funny segment posted below, it seems these folks are "confusing tyranny with the unpleasant burning sensation of losing democratic elections."

He ultimately concludes: "I guess it can be summed up by the old homily: 'First they came for the guns, and I said nothing, because...they really didn't."

The segment is split into two parts, both below, but it's really just one segment...

While the short answer is that it is no doubt protected against criminal prosecution by the Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution, one can't help but think of how the successive efforts by radical 'Tea Party' Republicans, first during the manufactured "fiscal cliff" crisis, and now by way of holding a figurative gun to the head of the nation's and world's economy, in order to extract concessions that would destroy the New Deal safety net (see two Jan. 14 segments of the Ed Schultz show below), resembles the crime of extortion, perhaps even treason.

For those of us who live in California, this latest round of GOP hostage-taking comes as no surprise. Year-after-year, the CA GOP utilized the Golden State's requirement of a 2/3 vote for passage of either spending or revenue enhancing measures as a means to force austerity, such as former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's draconian $15 billion cuts to education and health care. By refusing to pass a budget, the CA GOP at one point forced the state controller to issue $2.6 billion in IOUs. And, all during the CA GOP reign of economic terror, the Golden State's budget deficit expanded --- reaching an indebtedness in excess of $20 billion despite those massive cuts.

Democracy struck back. The percentage of CA voters who are registered Republicans dropped to less than 30%. During the 2012 election, CA voters passed a relatively progressive, revenue-enhancing tax measure supported by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) by a wide margin and the GOP's ability to hold the state hostage was eliminated when Democrats achieved a super-majority in the state legislature.

As a result, fiscal sanity was restored. CA is now on track to achieving a budget surplus even as $5.2 billion has been added to the state's school, university and health care budgets.

It is appropriate that President Barack Obama, who unfortunately lacks a record of holding fast to principle, has, so far, stated that he will not give in to the latest extortion demands concerning the upcoming need to raise the debt ceiling once again. But, given the nature of the far greater damage to both the U.S. and even global economy that could be wrought by the Congressional GOP's latest round of hostage-taking, can the nation or the world await a subsequent election to deal with extortion by an organization, the so-called 'Tea Party,' that is funded and controlled by the rapacious billionaires Charles and David Koch, whose Koch Industries was described by William Koch, David's twin, as a form of "organized crime?"

Two 1/14/2013 segments of MSNBC's The Ed Show addressing GOP hostage-taking on the debt ceiling follow below...

Tyranny! No, wait! Freedom and liberty! No, wait! Obama puts the 'O' in Ompeachment!

Oh, this dictatorship stuff is all so confusing. But not nearly as confused as today's KPFK/Pacifica Radio listeners may have been. Don't believe me? Give a listen to today's BradCast posted below. Tons and tons of callers, and we didn't even get to half of the callers who were waiting on hold to be heard over their public airwaves...

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx. 58]...

Oh, sure. They laughed when Matt Drudge responded as follows to Vice-Dictator Biden's remarks last week that Dictator Obama may propose "executive action" to be taken in addition to his recommendations to Congress for new gun safety measures...

But now that Herr Obama has maniacally and tyrannically signed 23 gun-grabbing executive orders actions today (all listed below), without anybody's permission, who's laughing now?

Certainly not Washington Times Columnist Emily Miller:

Or Fox News Radio Host Todd Starnes:

Or super-genius Republican "voter fraud" crusader Matthew Vadum who, as ever, has his thumb firmly on the pulse of America and courageously said this afternoon, out loud, what we are all thinking today!:

So, for the record, courtesy of comrade Rick Ungar at leftist rag Forbes magazine, here are the 23 scandalous, shocking, outrageous, gun-grabbing, tyrannical, impeachment-worthy executive actions --- and freedoms lost --- that Dictator Obama signed today...

So this happened quietly last week:

In the very same week...

• A military judge agreed that U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning's pre-trial confinement, for having allegedly leaked classified diplomatic cables, was excessively harsh, but refused to dismiss the charges against him. Instead, the judge reduced 4 months from Manning's potential life sentence that he hasn't even received yet while being jailed for 2 years and 8 months, so far, waiting for his day in military court. The judge also delayed the start of his trial for another 3 months in the bargain.

• 26-year old activist and Internet prodigy and pioneer Aaron Swartz killed himself after what his family describes as bullying by a federal prosecutor who filed 13 felony charges against him --- with potential penalties of nearly 50 years in prison --- for something that has never been a crime and has no victims.

Meanwhile, just a few weeks earlier...

• Britain's largest bank, HSBC, was slapped on the wrist with a $1.9 billion settlement (a few weeks of profit) for having knowingly laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels and terrorist organizations and rogue states after federal prosecutors in the U.S. decided that any harsher punishment --- such as larger fines or taking them to court or, God forbid, sending any single one of their employees or board members to prison for even a day --- would potentially result in bankruptcy for the "too big to jail" international bank.

And, a few weeks before that...

• Oil giant BP pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter and other criminal charges related to the massive oil spill and deaths of 11 men on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. They agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines (they made more than that in profit alone in the third quarter of 2012) over a five year period. Nobody would face any jail time in the settlement.

Yet, all the while...

• NRA stooges continued to pretend that their big bad assault weapons are responsible for keeping this country safe from big government tyranny.

What the fuck is wrong with this picture, those people, this Administration, our Dept. of Justice, and this country?

We're just returning to The BRAD BLOG Universal News Headquarters from a couple of weeks on the road with family, during which we spent much of our time off the political grid, trying to look the other way, and otherwise hoping our brain might heal a bit in the bargain following an exceedingly grueling year.

Lots to catch up on before we're back at full speed, but if the news out of the White House was always this much fun perhaps this work wouldn't be so difficult in the first place.

As promised, when a petition posted to the White House's "We the People" website crosses the threshold of garnering a certain number of signatures, they issue an official response to it.

Recently, the petition calling on the Obama Administration to "Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016," crossed that threshold.

There is no word on whether Dick Cheney was the one who filed the original petition, but the official response from Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget, is awesomely geek-worthy and follows in full below. Among other observations, he astutely asks: "Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?"

The Force is strong with Mr. Shawcross...

There has been much debate over the last several weeks over the inaccurate use of scenes of torture in the new film Zero Dark Thirty to suggest that so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" were key to the capture and ultimate killing of Osama Bin Laden. (See "Zero Dark Thirty's Wrong and Dangerous Conclusion" by Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney, for example, or Glenn Greenwald's "Zero Dark Thirty: new torture-glorifying film wins raves", which asks "Can a movie that relies on fabrications to generate support for war crimes still be considered great?")

Beyond the question of whether it is appropriate or not to use blatantly false and misleading "dramatic license" in a theatrical film which it's filmmaker describes as employing "almost a journalistic approach to film", there is another troubling issue that seems to be getting lost in the debate.

It is disturbing, if not altogether surprising, to find an article on the front page of the Los Angeles Times recently, discussing the film, and its related "debate" amongst Democrats and Republicans on the U.S. Senate Intelligence over "the value of 'enhanced interrogation techniques.'"

The topic is one we have covered extensively here at The BRAD BLOG --- coverage that has included a five-part series on the history of CIA torture and a dire warning that the very survival of our Constitutional Democracy could hinge on justified prosecutions of those who previously ordered or engaged in torture.

In early 2009, in "Fixing the Facts and Legal Opinions Around the Torture Policy," I took dead aim at the sophistry employed by President Barack Obama to evade his constitutionally mandated obligation to see that the laws are faithfully executed. The same Harvard Law School-educated President who said that, in torture, America had lost its "moral bearings," suggested we must only look forward, not back. As I noted at the time, it was an "illogical formulation [that] was incompatible with the very essence of the rule of law."

Those prosecutions were not forthcoming, and, as a result, we find two writers at Los Angeles Times discussing the dispute triggered by the movie, Zero Dark Forty, over the efficacy of torture without so much as a passing reference to the fact that torture is a crime under both U.S. and international law.

This woefully deficient "coverage" drew a sharp and very personal response, given my family's history, by way of a Letter to the Editor I wrote to the paper, which they recently edited, and then published...

Steve Heller notes in BRAD BLOG comments today...

He then added separately...

We'd add only one other thought for now: Where does the 2nd Amendment, or any other, afford anybody the "civil liberty" of buying and purchasing as many semi-assault rifles, boxes of ammo and high-capacity magazines as they want without restriction or regulation? We can't seem to find that in our copy of the U.S. Constitution and, though we've asked, no one has yet identified for us where that "liberty" is enumerated.

That said, Heller's point above is probably far more important.

IMAGE: Shutterstock/Sascha Burkard

 

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Snow is BACK! Winter returns to parched Midwest; Time's "Person of the Year" promises action on climate change, but can he deliver?; Good and Bad 2012: top environmental stories of the year; PLUS: It's the end of the Mayan Apocalypse Myth as we know it! (And we feel fine) ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): WSJ's climate "dynamite" is a dud; U.S. Electric Grid 2030: 100% renewable, 90% of the time; 333 straight warmer than "normal" months; U.K. dash a test for global fracking; 'Peak Farmland' as a good thing; China to overhaul solar industry; Keystone XL won't use advanced spill equipment; Sea otters vs. commercial fishermen; MoJo's Eco-Doom Headline Generator; To the Moon!: yes we can grow plants in space ... PLUS: We'll 'never run this economy on renewables' --- and why we'll never have to ... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's The BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio here in Los Angeles, we dealt with, what, if anything, will now be done in the wake of the latest mass shootings in Newtown, CT, and if the lies and propaganda and bullying of the NRA will finally be overcome --- or not.

We covered this morning's announcement that President Obama is naming Vice President Biden to head a task force with recommendations for new gun safety regulations due by January; the fact that the vast majority of NRA members call for many such regulations (even as their con-men leadership do not); and whether this moment --- and the change in positions by people like Republican Joe Scarborough and maybe even the NRA themselves) might finally become a tipping point in returning sanity to our out of control gun laws, or lack thereof, in this country.

Desi Doyen joins us for a brief history of how the NRA changed in 1977 from a 100-year old gun safety organization, to a Republican political operation, as well as for the latest Green News Report.

Plus, we got to a lot of phone callers with opinions on all of this, including an NRA member who says he'll be quitting the group; an NRA instructor who says we're absolutely right about what the NRA has become; a caller disagrees that any more gun laws are needed, because it would "allow the wolf in the door", or some such; and even a surprise call from our pal, the great progressive trouble-maker Cliff Schecter. Enjoy!

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx. 58 mins]...

P.S. The BradCast is now carried on the free TuneIn mobile app as well as on the Stitcher Radio app. It's also available via RSS here --- since we don't always get around to posting every episode ourselves here.

We're busy with today's BradCast on KPFK, so, until later, here are a few items that may, or may not, matter to you this afternoon...

• President Obama names Vice-President Biden to head up a task force to work on new gun safety regulations to be submitted to him by January. Press conference transcript here.

• Supreme Court rulings on what gun control measures are allowed by the 2nd Amendment are actually quite narrow and leave a lot of room for further interpretation and rulings. Here's a quick legal analysis of where the court seems to stand at the moment.

• Robert Bork dies. In an attempt to be generous upon the occassion of his passing, we'll associate with Ian Millhiser who observes today: "At his best, Bork was a voice for the kind of judicial restraint that conservatives all but abandoned the minute President Obama took office." Bork had been selected by Mitt Romney to help him select judges as President. Mitt Romney's dream died first.

• 3 State Dept. officials resign after a report on Benghazi attack finds "grossly inadequate" security measures at the U.S. consulate on the night Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed last September 11th. "We did conclude that certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability," said report panelist Adm. Mike Mullen. In response, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton accepted all 29 of the panel's recommendations, while nursing her reported recent concussion that has, to date, kept her from testifying to Congress on the matter.

• Something or other occurred today in regards to the so-called "fiscal cliff" negotiations, but we couldn't care less what it was. At this point, after Sandy Hook, the "fiscal cliff" stupidity feels a whole lot like the "Summer of Sharks" did, in retrospect, after 9/11. Of course, after Obama's prepared remarks at his presser on guns today, the D.C. press wanted to ask him, almost exclusively, about "fiscal cliff" bullshit. Same as it ever was.

• Finally, here's your 7 day forecast...

Desi Doyen has more.

Discuss.

"If we're going to get past this almost hysterical fear of trying to do anything at all on gun rights," MSNBC's Rachel Maddow asked on Friday during her breaking coverage of the mass shootings at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, CT, "if we're going to try to puncture the myth that anything to reform or rationalize gun laws is absolutely, politically impossible as a categorical thing, what would happen if we just started at the edges?"

"What would happen if we just started with what even members of the NRA say they want from national gun laws? Because they want a hell of a lot more than we've got right now," she correctly noted. "The organization that they're a member of may not admit that, but when you poll their members, even they want improvements."

She is absolutely right. And so is the rank and file membership of the National Rifle Association when it comes to many of the most pressing gun safety issues. The numbers (read on) are unequivocal. They want what their leadership does not, and by huge margins. The con-men and scam-artists who run the terrorist-enabling NRA racket, on the other hand, as usual, are absolutely bloody wrong.

If we could reform gun safety laws just enough in this country to meet the wishes of the vast majority of the NRA membership, we would be leaps and bounds beyond the deadly political quagmire we have been languishing in as a nation --- thanks to the insidious liars and profiteers of the NRA leadership and the cowardly politicians afraid to take them on --- for at least a decade in this country.

The NRA's loudest and most dishonest voice is its Executive VP and chief political strategist Wayne LaPierre. He is opposed to any and all legislation that might stand a chance of making Americans safer, claiming a twisted and tortured view of the Bill of Right's 2nd Amendment as a prohibition against any and all such legislation...

[This began as breaking coverage. It has been UPDATED many times below.]

AP: Suspect used .223 caliber rifle. This is a picture of a .223 rifle. This is legal. #NRA #PrayForNewtown twitter.com/MarlowNYC/stat…

— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) December 14, 2012

Despite the horror of a second mass shooting playing out during the holiday season this week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says "today is not [the] day" to discuss gun laws. So it is, undoubtedly, a very Merry Christmas for the terrorist-enabling NRA and their cowardly supporters.

UPDATE 12:14pm PT: According to AP, at this hour, there are 27 dead at the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, including 18 children, most of them kindergarteners, making this the second deadliest shooting in U.S. history. Which means, according to BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski, that "of the 12 deadliest shooting attacks in US history, six have occurred since 2007."

In other words, the six of the most deadly shootings in our history all happened in the years since the NRA was so successful in assuring the Reagan-era assault-weapons ban was ended and other gun laws were loosened and struck down entirely across the country.

As of this week, all 50 states now allow concealed guns to be carried. But, according to the terrorist-enabling NRA and its cowardly supporters, the solution is for still more people to carry guns (the Republican MI legislature approved a new law allowing guns in schools just last night) so we all keep getting safer and safer. Right?

The NRA plan to make America safer: Everyone get a gun. Wait for someone in bullet-proof armor to use a semi-automatic assualt rifle to shoot 60 people in a crowd in 90 seconds or so. Someone try to shoot them. That plan is perfect! No downsides at all.

UPDATE 12:21pm PT: President Obama just spoke in the Brady Press Room, named for Ronald Reagan's Press Secretary James Brady, who was shot in the head during the assassination attempt on Reagan, and the man for whom the now expired assault weapons ban, supported by Reagan and signed by George H.W. Bush, was named.

In terse remarks, while fighting back tears, the President said: "We've endured too many of these tragedies these past few years...We are going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent tragedies like this, regardless of the politics."

He offered no suggestions, at this time, for that "meaningful action".

UPDATE 1:20pm PT: Number of children said killed, among the 27 shot by suspect, increased to 20.

Also, Democratic strategist Julian Epstein on MSNBC says 30 people are killed by guns every day in the U.S. 11,000 per year. "The equivalent of a jumbo jet going down every week in this country."

UPDATE 3:27pm PT: According to NBC News: "Weapons used in shooting were legally purchased and registered to gunman's mother, law enforcement officials tell NBC News ". Thanks for the great work, NRA con-men!

UPDATE 3:40pm PT: Fox "News" confirms weapons used were legally purchased and registered by shooter's mother (who was also killed). They (and CNN) report one weapon was a .223 caliber semi-automatic rifle made by Bushmaster. Here's the Bushmaster 2012 catalog. Note the bottom of their website includes two different links to the NRA.

Apparently, you can buy one over the Internet today. It comes standard with 30-round magazine capacity. 27 were killed in CT today.

Here's a video of a .223 Bushmaster AR-15, similar to the one reportedly used in the killing of 27 in CT today, firing at 100 yards...

UPDATE 9:51pm PT: There seems to be quiet a bit of confusion, and conflicting information, about the type of weapons used in the mass shooting today. So let's try to clear that up a bit, with what we're able to learn at this hour...

A few items of late that have caught our eye, but we haven't had time to cover in detail. So, you get the Readers Digest versions for now. You're welcome!

• Susan Rice and the Democrats once again succumb to the demands of terrorists.

• Whodathunkit? But questions arise about the legitimacy of the claims made by Fox' latest wannabe James O'Keefe, about that video purporting to show an "unprovoked attack" by "union thugs" outside the capital building in Lansing, MI this week. The most amazing part? Someone at The New York Times --- yes, that New York Times --- is one of those actually noticing the big honkin' edit in the middle of the video, rather than just reporting it all as unquestioned fact.

• Eric Holder spoke about the need to protect voting rights at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. We have more than a few bones to pick about it, but we'll just point you to the actual speech for the moment.

• What's the difference between this and just stealing? House Republicans secretly --- secretly --- authorized $500,000 in tax payer dollars to defend the unconstitutional "Defense of Marriage Act". More of that small government "conservatism", apparently.

• Finally, for now, the critically acclaimed Zero Dark Thirty, the new theatrical film about the manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, reportedly glorifies the torture that led to his capture and killing, even though no torture whatsoever actually led to his capture and killing.

Discuss.