Government is shut down, but Congress keeps its gym open

The Hill reports today that, oh no, House members have to reuse their towels at their gym! Gosh, do they have to bring their own soap too?

National Institutes of Health clinical trials are on hold; many Centers for Disease Control employees and Agriculture Department meat inspectors are off the job as a salmonella outbreak occurs; families who lost loved ones in Afghanistan aren’t getting money for funerals and expenses; and, of course, the usual: National Parks closed, contractors not getting paid, regular government work not getting done.But most members of congress are collecting their paychecks, getting their benefits and, thank goodness, not denied their gym privileges, for which they pay the ungodly sum of $250 a year to use a pool, basketball court, and fitness equipment.

Trust me, this Hill story is going viral and will enrage the public.

My advice to the leadership in congress: Shut down the gym until the shutdown is over. Let them go to Sports Club/LA and pay for it.

By PETER FENN

I am not the first to point this out, I am sure, but this government shutdown, this insanity over raising the debt limit, this readiness on the part of the Republicans to devastate the economy sure looks like “Breaking Bad.”

Do Republicans not understand the implications of their actions? Do they not see what is happening to the country because of the choices they made? It reminds me of Walter White in the finale when he admitted that his descent into a life of disaster made him feel “alive.”

Some Republicans were giddy about the shutdown and the havoc they were causing: “Beautiful” said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga.; “People went bonkers, they were very excited” exclaimed Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.; “It’s exactly what we asked for and we got it!” said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the government shutdown.]

Can you imagine what would have happened if “Breaking Bad” had shown not only the devastation that Walter White was causing to those around him but the effects of his meth production on the tens of thousands who were using his product?

The Republicans are doing real harm to real people in and out of government. The ripple effects of this shutdown and a possible refusal to raise the debt limit will devastate retirees’ savings, result in lost jobs and a slowdown in hiring, hurt the housing market and cost taxpayers dearly. The last government shutdown in the 90s cost us $1.4 billion — this could be much more. And this is fiscally conservative? I don’t think so.

And neither do the American people. According to a Quinnipiac poll out this morning, American votersoppose by 72-22 percent shutting down the federal government to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. In addition, voters oppose blocking an increase in the debt ceiling to stop Obamacare by 64-27 percent.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the Republican Party.]

The public is almost evenly divided on Obamacare – 45 percent in favor, 47 percent opposed. But by 58-34 percent they are opposed to Congress cutting off the law’s funding to stop its implementation.

The scary thing for the Republican crazy caucus is that the government shutdown that Republicans have instigated is opposed 74-19 percent by independent voters, 90-6 by Democrats and only supported 49-44 by Republicans.

There is no doubt this is truly breaking bad for the Republicans – and for the country.

By PETER FENN

Idaho Democratic Sen. Frank Church in 1975, discussing CIA involvement in assassination plots.

I was 27-years-old when I saw the secret tally of American citizens that the National Security Agency had put on their “watch list.” It was a list of 1960s civil rights activists, anti-Vietnam War demonstrators and those who organized the Students for a Democratic Society and took to the streets during the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968.  Even famous reporters were on the list.

As Claude Raines said in “Casablanca,” “Round up the usual suspects.” Those of us who were staff members of the Church Committee investigating intelligence agencies back in 1975, we were not totally shocked to see the names – Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Martin Luther King, Bobby Seale, Muhammad Ali and Tom Wicker, to name just a few of the over 1,600 people.

There were many names we did not recognize – criminals, drug dealers, even old-line suspected communists.

[See a collection of editorial cartoons on the NSA.]

But there were two names we never saw, because they were never given to the Church Committee:  Sens. Frank Church and Howard Baker.

New documents just made public by NSA and George Washington University’s National Security Archive now reveal that Church, the chairman of the investigative committee and Baker, a member of both the Watergate and Intelligence Committees, were both put on the watch list and their communications were monitored.

NSA’s recent report called these actions “disreputable, if not outright illegal.”

If NSA had revealed such explosive information in 1975, all hell would have broken loose. So they chose to lie. There were no whistle blowers then, no voices within the Ford administration that revealed such secrets. Who knew? How far up did this information go? Was it kept just within NSA at Ft. Meade? Did other intelligence agencies know? As chief of staff to Gerald Ford, Dick Cheney dealt with the Church Committee, did he know?

Now, we hear the same 1975 arguments once again from NSA: According to the agency’s director, General Keith Alexander, there is “rigorous oversight” and there are “rigorous training programs for analysts.” Really, when 40 percent of clearances in the intelligence community go to outside contractors, like Edward Snowden?  When over four million people have security clearances? Do they really believe that there is a great deal of rigor when the collection of metadata rules the day?

Is there real understanding and legal oversight when Deputy Attorney General James Cole maintains that the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply to the collection of metadata? Cole holds that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t protect the phone records of Americans because they are customers of phone companies and don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy for those they call. This is just assembling information indiscriminately and that is somehow all right?

Just as it is legal to have seven years of phone records and all new records stored in a $4 billion facility in Bluffdale, Utah, capable of building intrusive analyses of every American’s communications history. And what about emails and tweets and Internet searches and Facebook? (And, seriously, “Bluffdale”?) This will hold 250 trillion DVDs’ worth of data. I can’t even get my head around that one. And, by the way, don’t expect a grand opening with ribbon cutting from our politicians.

According to NSA, everything is fair game, because they aren’t recording actual phone conversations. Plus, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is approving the collection. Even though this court has no adversary proceeding, is run in almost total secret and approves over 99 percent of its requests.

We have watched as budgets of the sixteen intelligence agencies have mushroomed to $52.6 billion plus another $23 billion for the military, doubling since 9/11. They have increased 25 percent since 2006. There are more than 107,000 employees plus contractors. The national security state has been transformed by technology and immense resources over the last 40 years.

There is, some believe, a new definition of privacy and we should all just suck it up and go with the flow. You want the high-tech world, you better just give in to becoming Hoover-ized – as in both the vacuum cleaner and the former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who built files on his political enemies.

What worries me the most is that the NSA has not changed, even after the Church Committee investigation or after the laws were tightened. They have simply found a way around them and proceeded with a blank checkbook and a purported mandate after 9/11 to build a massive Big Brother database that could be easily turned on us.

If two United States Senators were not safe over 40 years ago and the most distinguished civil rights leader in our history was not immune, what makes us think that we could be protected by our constitution? We now know, from these disclosures, they weren’t.

I remember Frank Church had suspicions that this might be occurring. He was one of the most trusting, least paranoid, most patriotic men I have ever known and many of us thought it was out of character. But now we know that he was right and that the battles he fought, and the causes he championed, are not over.

It is time for a new Church Committee, with a full staff and subpoena power, committed to getting it right this time. His legacy deserves no less and those of us who have become older and grayer still believe that the battle we fought so many years ago still matters. It was important then, it is even more important now.

PETER FENN

By PETER FENN

Think about this: Republicans are far sighted and Democrats are near sighted.

What do I mean? Republicans can’t see what is right before them; they can’t see the implications of their immediate actions as destructive to the economy; they can’t put in focus what is right up close. They fail to realize that the ranting, raving and raging about Obamacare, the debt ceiling and threats to shut down the government are tanking the economy. Their eyes are way down the road. They are focused on 20-30 years into the future.

Democrats are near sighted. They get the implications of the immediate, but they fail to see down the road. Or they fail to act on it. They fail to put in focus and perspective what is far out in front – the long term debts, the necessity of reforming entitlements, the importance of putting corrective lenses on so they can make the right choices on navigating the future. No, it isn’t easy, and they will be called “four eyes” by some in their own party, but it is time to make the hard choices.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the Republican Party.]

I believe so strongly that everything we are going through now with budgets, continuing resolutions, health care and raising the debt ceiling is all a dangerous and destructive side show. Nothing good is coming of this. Republican extremists are making utter fools of themselves and Democrats are sitting back watching it all unfold.

But here is the problem. Paralysis benefits no one in the end. Democrats should be initiating precisely the kinds of discussions that almost led to a grand bargain a few years ago. They should rise above this – and work the problem.

Republican leaders should talk turkey with their cuckoo caucus and tell them to zip it. Let’s get on with solving the nation’s problems; what we are doing now is exacerbating those problems.

[See a collection of political cartoons on Congress.]

It is time for both the “near sighted caucus” and the “far sighted caucus” to recognize that the path to a stable, predictable, reasonable solution rests with their ability to compromise on an agreement that trims government and entitlements, raises revenue, takes on some sacred cows and makes everybody angry. If the AARP isn’t furious, if the labor unions aren’t mad, if the tea party isn’t tearing its hair out and the Club for Growth isn’t crying “betrayal,” then the two parties haven’t done their job.

Off the table are issues like extending the debt ceiling and failing to approve budgets, voting over and over on Obamacare, slicing and dicing programs just to make a political point.

This is what the grand bargain should be all about and what should move us away from the constant brinkmanship, the vitriol, the political hardball.

Maybe the parties would end up with a nice set of reading glasses to see up close and handsome spectacles to see far away. In technical terms, from your friendly optometrist and ophthalmologist, we’d be curing the myopia and the hyperopia.

PETER FENN

By PETER FENN

Democrats used to be able to count on the senior citizen vote.  After all, it was FDR who created Social Security and Lyndon Johnson who created Medicare. But, hello, that was about 75 years ago and 50 years ago, respectively! Times do change.

As I like to scream at my Democratic friends, the post-65 generation were Ronald Reagan voters and had zip to do with FDR and LBJ.

As most now know, the only age group to support John McCain was the 65+ crowd and Romney beat Obama handily among seniors in 2012. Romney got 56 percent of the senior vote and McCain go 53 percent to Obama’s 45 percent in 2008.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the Republican Party.]

The 45-64 group was very close in 2008 and Romney narrowly won it in 2012. And this was when Obama was the first Democrat since Carter in 1976 to receive more than 50 percent of the vote.

So what is my point?

Republicans have taken serious hits for their efforts to shut down the government and their possible refusal to raise the debt limit. In my blog post last week, I quoted Ronald Reagan on the debt limit. He got the message; he never drank the Kool Aid on that one.

But here is a very serious problem for the Republicans. If they really go through with their draconian plan, sure it hurts everyone, hurts the economy big time. But who does it especially freak out? You got it, senior citizens.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the budget and deficit.]

Why? The retired and those who live on fixed incomes and who have to draw on their retirement accounts get hammered. The last time the Republicans even threatened to hold the debt limit hostage in 2011, the stock market went down 17 percent.

Let me repeat that: After the debacle of 2008 and the economic meltdown, the stock market took a 17 percent hit for one reason and one reason only  – Republicans doing what Reagan had warned against. Plus, the U.S. credit was downgraded, which was unprecedented.

Seniors can’t afford to have that happen again and they know it – their 401(k)’s can not become 201(k)’s. The crash in 2008 and the double digit hit in 2011, if repeated, will affect those who are retired and those planning on retirement, and that is about 50 percent of the voters. If Republicans lose substantial numbers of those who are over 50 years old, it won’t just impact their chances of winning the presidency, with the changing demographics of race and ethnicity, but it could well spell disaster for them in the mid-term elections as well. Republicans could lose the House and not make the gains they want in the Senate.

[See a collection of political cartoons on Congress.]

Republicans may think they are going strong with their base of tea party radicals bashing the Affordable Care Act, but nothing impacts voters as much as watching their monthly savings and retirement statements tank.

Seniors and upcoming retirees watch their stocks and bonds and IRAs and 401(k)’s like a hawk and if Republicans get the blame for big losses, trust me, they will feel it big time at the polls next November and for many Novembers to come.

Shutting down the government and defaulting on our obligations are not just bad policy, but they are really bad politics for the Republicans. They simply cannot afford to watch their advantage with the 50+ age group evaporate.

The real question is will the Republicans come to their senses?  It is not a sure bet.