Listening to Now: Barney Kessel`s Swingin' Easy

By Richard K. Barry

Not that I ever thought I'd play like Barney Kessel, but I do own an Epiphone ES-175 guitar and thought maybe some day I could make a few noises that sounded a bit like jazz. The clock is ticking and I'm not so sure anymore, but I still love Barney Kessel.

I've got Swingin' Easy on the turntable (yes, the turntable). It's a 1971 release on Black Lion Records.

It's one of those jazz albums that tries to take advantage of the popularity of '60s rock and roll and ends up sounding a little wierd in places, maybe like it should be part of the soundtrack for an Austin Powers' movie or a Love American Style episode (ask your parents if you need to).  Still, there are some nice cuts including "Autumn Leaves," "The Look of Love," and "I Will Wait for You."

Credits are:

Bass – Kenny Napper
Drums – John Marshall
Engineer – Carlos Olms
Guitar – Barney Kessel
Producer – Alan Bates

Here's a lovely version of "Autumn Leaves," by the man.

(Cross-posted at Hogtown Hipster.)

P.M. Headlines

(U.S. News & World Report): "Should John Boehner remain Speaker of the House?"

(Fox News): "House lawmakers now say fiscal crisis vote not likely until Monday"

(Bloomberg): "When getting your butt kicked is the strategy"

(Chicago Tribune): "Former President George HW Bush moved out of intensive care"

(Syndey Morning Herald): "India mourns rape victim"

Stupid and evil deficit scolds

By Frank Moraes

 Krugman posted an article that I quite agree with, A Double Shot of Misunderstanding. Basically, he says that there are two kinds of deficit scolds: stupid and evil. He doesn't put it that way, of course; he writes for the New York Times, after all. But I feel sure that late at night he turns to Robin and says, "Those deficit scolds are a bunch of fucktards!"

The evil group (the FUCKtards) are people like Pete Peterson. They are people who claim to care about the debt, but who really only use the debt to accomplish other goals. As Matt Yglesias pointed out, Quakers running around screaming that we had to fix the debt by cutting military spending would not really be interested in the deficit. Similarly, Fix the Debt (one of Peterson's many front groups) claims to care about the debt and yet it calls for cutting income tax rates.

Let me be clear: I understand that someone genuinely interested in the deficit might say we shouldn't raise rates because it would hurt the economy. But to call for lowering them? That's madness. What's more, raising taxes on the rich will not harm the economy nearly as much as cutting spending on the poor. It is clear that the primary goal of Fix the Debt and the many other groups just like it is to cut spending on the poor. They do this because they simply don't like these programs, not because there is anything about these programs that is destroying our budget. The following graph from Kent Conrad (who is in the stupid category discussed below) presents the following graph that ought to put our budget picture in focus:

Read more »

George Bush and the NRA

By Capt. Fogg

". . . and forgetting long-passed mischiefs, we mercifully preserve their bones and piss not on their ashes."

                                                                                                                    -Thomas Browne-
______________

I have to admit that there was a time I considered joining the NRA -- a couple of times actually. The first was when I heard that Michael Moore belonged to it and I thought that membership would mean that my frequent maledictions might find their way to someone's desk, and the second was when I found that the one local rifle range that allowed black powder muzzle-loaders like my flintlock Kentucky long rifle required NRA membership. In both instances my better senses took over and I decided it wasn't worth it.

I understand that following Wayne LaPierre's comments after the Sandy Hook massacre there has been a rash of resignations from the rank and file membership and a recent Snopes e-mail and a number of blog articles have reminded me of the 1995 resignation from the NRA of George H.W. Bush. The President wrote an open letter to the NRA after the group's refusal to disassociate itself from the then NRA spokesman LaPierre who gloated over the deaths of the "Nazi's" as he called the federal officials slaughtered in Oklahoma City.

TREASON: the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family.

I didn't vote for Bush. I've condemned him vehemently for his positions and offensive statements. Although to compare GHWB to his 'George-without-the-H' scion is to make the old man look like George Washington in retrospect, I was enraged when he told us that he couldn't see how an atheist could be a citizen, and when he vetoed the Brady Bill, I wrote him an unpleasant letter.

Read more »

Photo of the Day - Winter in Quebec

By Richard K. Barry

This is a photo of a winter scene in Quebec taken by a friend a couple of years ago, in the vicinity of Allumette Island (Isle des Allumettes). Certainly there are many negatives associated with this season, but there is also something spectacular about the stillness and beauty of winter, particularly in a rural setting. This captures some of that.

                                                                                          Photo by Patrick Delaney

A.M. Headlines

(USA Today): "Obama: Congress must meet fiscal cliff deadline"

(New York Times): "Senate leaders set to work on last-minute tax agreement"

(Politico): "Wall Street's pain may be cliff deal's gain"

(NECN): "First same-sex couple marry in Maine"

(Financial Times): "Deal averts strike at US's troubled ports"

This Day in Music - December 28, 1976 - Blues guitarist Freddie King dies at 42

By Richard K. Barry

I love Freddie King's music. He was a huge force in blues music, having influenced people like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Vaughan.  His best known songs are "Have You Ever Loved a Woman," (1960) and "Hideaway" (1961).

Didn't live a long time, but did some fine work. 

I was always partial to "Tore Down."

(Cross-posted at Hogtown Hipster)

Danger of balanced budgets

By Frank Moraes

Yesterday, Ezra Klein posted an article that surprised me, For Republicans, It's Not About Deficit Reduction. In it, he says that Republicans don't like budget deals because they claim that the tax increases are real while the spending cuts are just chimera. I'd never thought of this because, of course, there is only really evidence for exactly the opposite.

The argument that I've long made goes something like this. Suppose we cut a trillion dollars out of Social Security and raise taxes by a trillion dollars. There is basically no chance of getting the Republicans to go along with expanding Social Security at a later time. But tax cuts are usually popular with Democrats. So within a couple of years (especially when the economy is doing well), it will be easy to cut taxes.

And there is a major recent example of this. In 1993, under Clinton, the Democratic Party did the unpopular work of cutting spending and raising taxes. As soon as they could, those tax rates were lowered. The spending cuts are mostly still with us, but the Republicans are apoplectic about the idea of even raising the top tax rates back up to where they were.

Of course, it wasn't just tax cuts. The Republicans manage to spend ridiculous amounts of money on two wars and a huge corporate giveaway in the form of Medicare Part D. Klein points all this out, of course. But he dabbles in a bit of Republican apologetics. He argues that Democrats should still be for a balanced budget because it is good for the country, regardless of what happens in 8 years.

I don't really understand this. Chris Hayes often makes the argument that the Republicans don't care about the deficit. On last Sunday's show, he gave an example of this: the only thing the Republican controlled House has managed to pass is a repeal of the defense sequester. If they cared about the budget, they would have managed to do something other than make it worse.

Republicans just know that the government is too big. Similarly, the vast majority of Villagers just know that the budget deficit is too big. What's more, they have always known that it is too big. Before Reagan was in office (26% of GDP), it was too big. After Reagan left office (42% of GDP), it was too big. And now (65% of GDP), it is too big.

This is a recipe for disaster. On one side, you have a group that simply wants to destroy the government. On the other, you have people who think the budget deficit is a terrible thing. Put together, you still end up with a "starve the beast" approach to the budget. Our only hope is that liberals stand up for the positive role that government plays in the lives of Americans. Balancing the budget is a fine idea, but it is not on the top of the list. It is not an end in itself.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious)

When everyone's a terrorist

By Frank Moraes

Glenn Greenwald sent me to a CNN article from 1 July 2008, Mandela Off U.S. Terrorism Watch List. The first sentence of the article reads, "Former South African President Nelson Mandela is to be removed from a U.S. terrorism watch list under a bill President Bush signed Tuesday." You've got that right: Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist by the United States until the middle of 2008.

The point here is that when we say "terrorist" in the United States, we don't necessarily mean anything other than, "someone we don't like." In the case of Nelson Mandela, the problem was most likely American corporate interests in South Africa who didn't like his political work. And that's very important when we claim that torture is acceptable to fight "terrorism." We tend to expand the definition of that word to whatever we find useful.

In the end, I truly believe that the use of torture says a great deal about the torturer and very little about the tortured. And when our definition of a terrorist can include Nelson Mandela for almost 7 years of the "war on terror" (when he was in his 80s), it means the United States government is willing to torture anyone.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious)

Nobody asked me, but...

By Carl

The Year In Review

(Stories you may have missed because you were out snorting blow and banging hookers)

1) Along with the alleged fiscal cliff comes a real financial cliff. The farm bill also expires at December 31, and failure to pass a new one will drive dairy prices into the stratosphere.

Good government advocates (like myself) believe the farm bill needs to be all but abolished. There is no reason for corn prices to be subsidized. There is no real reason for dairy prices to be subsidized, either, except for helping families afford milk for their kids. Milk prices could double (probably even higher, given how corn is such an integral part of feed prices) and put a real crimp in working families' budgets.

2) The number of journalists jailed worldwide broke a record this year. In a world where democracy seems to be taking greater root, this is an unhealthy development.

3) The Antarctic is warming three times faster than expected. Hurricane Sandy was just a prelude.

4) 2012 was the worst year on record for mass shootings in the United States.

5) If you were hoping for a breakthrough in Middle East peace next year, don't count on it. Believe it or not, there's a conservative crazier than Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel who could impact the elections next year and win the prime ministership.

6) Crack and blow your mind away with the 100 best photos from space of 2012.

7) Nearly a thousand species have gone extinct since man started exploring the planet in the 17th century. Here's a tribute to them.

8) As healthcare prices have soared over the past ten years, people are taking less and less care of themselves. Exhibit A.

9) This will happen more and more as global temperatures rise and droughts extend: The Mississippi River is closing.

10) Finally, you will own a robot before the decade is out.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind)

A.M. Headlines

(NBC News): "White House meeting a last stab at a fiscal deal"

(New York Times): "Summoned back to work, senators chafe at inaction"

(Politico): "Why they want to go over the cliff"

(Financial Times): "Russia bans adoption by US citizens"

(New York Times): "Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf: Lionized for lightening victory in '91 Gulf War"

P.M. Headlines

(Reuters): "Fiscal cliff deal increasingly unlikely"

(The Times-Picayune): "New Orleans native Linda Jackson leaving EPA after pushing to send BP fines to Gulf states"

(Washington Post): "Ed Markey to run for Kerry's Senate seat"

(Politico): "Bush aide: 'Please put the harps back in the closet'"

(Pew Internet): "E-book reading jumps; print book reading declines"

Everything old is new again - JD McPherson

By Richard K. Barry

In my never-ending quest to figure out what people are listening to "these days," I was recently checking out the Americana Music Association (AMA) website. Okay, maybe I don't care about Top 40 or Grammy winners, but, rather, good music that people might be listening to.

The AMA lists the top 100 Americana Albums of 2012 and at the top is a guy by the name of JD McPherson with an album called Signs and Signifiers. Not that I had never heard of him, but maybe I didn't realize he was doing so well. 

It sounds like rockabilly and old fashioned R&B to me. Not that I haven't always loved that stuff, but it's hardly new. None of that matters, I guess, but it does make me smile.

Here's a cut called "North Side Gal." Good stuff. 



(Cross-posted at Hogtown Hipster)

A.M. Headlines

(Washington Post): "Powerful storm begins lashing Northeast a day after sweeping through the nation's midsection"

(New York Times): "Senators to return with 5 days left and no clear fiscal path"

(Associated Press): "No deal in sight as deadline for fiscal deal nears"

(CBS News): "The 'fiscal cliff': What to expect if there's no deal"

(ABC News): "Sen. Inouye's replacement named"

P.M. Headlines

(CNN): "Source: Reid looking for votes on fiscal cliff package"

(Reuters): "Winter storms hits eastern US, snarl post-holiday traffic"

(Washington Post): "FreedomWorks tea party group nearly falls apart in fight between old and new guard"

(Politico): "SCOTUS denies emergency injunction in contraception case"

(Houston Chronicle): "Ex-President Bush in guarded condition in ICU with elevated fever"

"Only Outlaws Will Have Guns"

By Carl

I'm starting to think that NRA bromide might not be such a bad thing:

WEBSTER – An ex-con killed two firefighters with the same caliber and make military-style rifle used in the Connecticut school massacre after typing a note pledging to burn down his neighborhood and “do what I like doing best, killing people,” police said Tuesday as another body, believed to be the gunman’s missing sister, was found. 

William Spengler, 62, who served 17 years in prison for manslaughter in the 1980 hammer slaying of his grandmother, set his house afire before dawn Christmas Eve before taking a revolver, a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle to a sniper position outside, Police Chief Gerald Pickering said.

Now, here's the thing: Spengler should have been clearly ineligible to have weapons of any kind...after all, we live in a country where if you're an ex-con, you can be purged from voting rolls, even if your debt to society is completely paid.

It seems likely that Spengler, who spent 17 years in prison for bldugeoning his 92 year old grandmother to dead with a hammer, owned these weapons legally. He was off parole in 2006, presumably his "debt" being paid.

This is the world Wayne La Pierre and the fascists who are NRA members want you to live in. You have trouble voting. Felons can carry guns. It looks to me as if the only people who amass these kinds of weapons ARE outlaws, and the mere fact that you own any assault or semi-automatic weaponry ought to make you suspect in any kind of polite society.

Really, who needs a Bushmaster to hunt deer? I know those antlers can be pretty intimidating, but think of it as a giant hat rack and you should be fine shooting with your little Remington rifle. You are in no danger, and it's not like the fight is a fair one anyway.

La Pierre spoke last week of having a registry of the mentally unstable. For my part, he has a seed of that registry if he just lists his membership roles. Any sane person would have quit after his egregious press "conference" and subsequent appearance on Meet The Press Sunday.

But isn't it interesting that he'd rather have a government-compiled list of people's private medical information than a government-compiled list of weapons that will kill someone.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind)

Merry Christmas from The Reaction

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Whether you have the "Christ" in it or not, and we generally don't, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas from all of us here at The Reaction.

(And Happy Holidays, of course, speaking more generally.)

And personally, I want to wish the same to my friends and family, and especially in this context to my wonderful co-bloggers, without whom this blog wouldn't be nearly what it is, and to my many friends and acquaintances throughout the blogosphere, wherever they may be on the political spectrum.

Thank you, friends. Thank you, readers. Have a safe and happy day.

**********

I don't blog about art nearly as much as I used to, but here, to mark the seasonal occasion (even if its not exactly a white Christmas here in the Toronto area), is the very lovely Rabbit Warren at Pontoise, Snow (La Garenne à Pontoise, effet de neige) (1879) by Camille Pissarro, now at the Art Institute of Chicago:

As Richard Brettell writes in A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape (yes, I'm pulling out the research for this):

This one... is doggedly complex and difficult. There is nothing pleasant about the subject; its pictorial structure is highly idiosyncratic and even unclear; its facture is almost messy. Pissarro seems to have reveled in the ugliness of winter, and neither space nor sunshine gives us relief from what is little more than a tangle of vegetation in the dirty snow. None of this is made any pleasanter by the fact that the painting depicts a rabbit warren; the viewer is therefore called upon to imagine a group of shivering rabbits living together in the cold.

I'm not sure if Pissarro meant this to be an existential metaphor, but of course you may take it as such, for the human condition may well be akin to "a group of shivering rabbits living together in the cold."

Whatever the case... Merry Christmas!

More gun violence takes the lives of two firefighters

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN:

A man convicted of killing his grandmother decades ago ambushed firefighters on Monday, fatally shooting two of them as they arrived to battle a blaze in upstate New York, police said.

Two other volunteer firefighters were wounded in the attack in the Rochester-area town of Webster. A police officer from the nearby town of Greece suffered minor shrapnel wounds when his vehicle was hit by gunfire.

Investigators believe the suspect, William Spengler, 62, set the original fire, then likely set himself up on a berm with a clear view of the scene and started shooting.

As Pam Spaulding writes in response: "When will we have the broader discussion about why so many Americans are so damned violent and have hair-trigger tempers lit over irrelevant bullsh*t. The fact that lethal weapons are the first resort in minor disputes or even just uncertain situations (like this one — in what context should you shoot at a firefighter?!) is extremely troubling.

Read more »

Don't fear the fiscal cliff!

By Frank Moraes 

Ryan Grim has written the best article I have yet read on the Fiscal Cliff, "Fiscal Fail: Government Agencies Plan Few Significant Changes For January, Despite Cliff Hype." He starts by explaining what readers of this site already know: nothing happens on 1 January. The stock market won't freak out. Tax collectors won't go door to door demanding money. And an asteroid will not collide with the earth. Instead, John Boehner's caucus will finally see that in fact they had no leverage all along and an agreement will be made to keep tax rates the same on the bottom 98% of tax payers.

I have been wondering how all of this would affect government agencies. In particular, the IRS has to tell businesses how to withhold taxes. And other government agencies need to know what to assume about their budgets. As Grim points out, they are all in agreement: they will proceed assuming that a deal will quickly be worked out: 

[T]he letter also holds clues to the agency's broader plans -- or lack thereof. The IRS told lawmakers it would not reprogram its system to account for the possibility the AMT would not be patched because "if Congress were to act at some point next year to enact a new AMT patch, the time and substantial expense necessary for the IRS to reprogram its systems... would ultimately be wasted."

Read more »

Boston Globe whitewash of Romney loss

By Frank Moraes 

Michael Kranish has written an amazing post-election analysis of the 2012 presidential campaign, The story behind Mitt Romney’s loss in the presidential campaign to President Obama. I do not mean that in a good way. It does nothing so much as apply the Romney family narrative on top of the facts of the campaign.

Kranish clearly had a lot of access to Tagg Romney, because he is quoted throughout the article. The story he is trying to push is that Romney lost because those meanies in the campaign wouldn't focus on Mitt's personal story and all the great things he's done for the little people over the years. Early on in the campaign, Tagg made a list of 12 people who Romney had helped—things no one knew about. The campaign wasn't really interested. And it is no wonder way. One of these stories -- highlighted in the article -- was Mitt helping the dying 14-year-old son of a church member write his will. Not exactly helping the lepers in Calcutta, right?

In order to push this narrative, Kranish deceptively writes:

Exit polls told a stunning story. The majority of voters preferred Romney's visions [hallucinations? -- FM], values, and leadership. But he had clearly failed to address the problem that Romney's own family worried about from the start. Obama beat Romney by an astonishing 81 to 18 percent margin on the question of which candidate "cares about people like me."

This is not true.

Read more »

Defending the indefensible, the NRA blows its load

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The NRA's chief gun fetishist and bullshitter, Wayne LaPierre, was on Meet the Press yesterday and -- surprise, surprise -- objected to any and all gun control efforts. (Watch below.)

He also defended the NRA's "universally panned call for armed guards to be stationed at every school in the country." Because, you know, there's no problem that more guns can't solve.

For once, it does seem that the NRA and gun nuts generally are facing a fight they simply cannot win, a tide of public opinion that will ultimately prevail.

Oh, maybe they'll win in the short term because there are more than enough Republicans in Congress to block meaningful legislation, but it's just so obvious now that they're defending the indefensible and that their extremist absolutism is essentially murderous.

Maybe, sadly, it took the killing of 20 young children in Connecticut to wake everyone up, but maybe that's the silver lining of that horrific tragedy.

Read more »

A.M. Headlines

(ABC News): "Snow threatens post-Christmas travel"

(New York Times): "Search for way through fiscal impasse turns to the Senate"

(Washington Post): "Tea Party staying on the sidelines of fiscal cliff"

(National Journal): "White House waivers on Hagel, considers others for Defense"

(Associated Press): "Lawmakers look to restrict gun magazine capacity"

(The Hill): "GOP lawmakers show caution as NRA rejects call for gun control"

America is a crazy place

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Question for you:

A guy goes into an elementary school and kills 26 people, including 20 children, with an assault weapon, yet another (if numerically and dramatically worse than usual) violent crime committed with firearms, there's national shock and outrage and along with the grief and mourning there's talk of what's wrong and how to prevent such a horrific thing from happening again, specifically talk of sensible gun control laws including a ban on such assault weapons, and how do people respond?

Why, by loading up on assault weapons, of course. This is America, for fuck's sake.

Even if its just a small minority of Americans who are responding in this way, it's certainly a large enough number to warrant concern, to put it mildly.

Personally, I favor broad gun control, but even if it's just assault weapons we're talking about, weapons of mass destruction as we saw in Connecticut, there's simply no reason for them to be in anyone's private possession, as their sole purpose is to kill large numbers of people rapidly.

And if you do own one, or want to own one, there are only two possible reasons why, other than wanting to kill large numbers of people rapidly: (anti-government) paranoia or fetishism (or both).

And in either case, you're fucking crazy.

NRA's absurd scapegoating of violent movies, video games doesn't hold up to scrutiny

By Marc McDonald 

For five days after the horrific bloodbath at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the National Rifle Association went eerily silent. They slithered under a rock and nobody heard a peep from them until Friday. The cowards even temporarily took down their Facebook page. 

Finally, the NRA's head ghoul Wayne LaPierre spoke up. And in his idiotic, error-filled statement, LaPierre fell back on the one of the gun lobby's oldest scapegoating tactics. He blamed Hollywood for its violent movies, as well as video game makers. He called them "a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people." 

Like all the NRA's claims, though, this one doesn't hold up to scrutiny. 

As film director Oliver Stone noted, Hollywood movies are viewed all over the world. And violent video games are played worldwide. 

If one takes a look at Japan's culture and society, one begins to realize how idiotic LaPierre's argument is.

Read more »

Tim Scott and the future of the Republican Party

By Frank Moraes 

In his farewell address to the Senate, Jim DeMint said, "If we can win the hearts and minds of the American people with these ideas, I know we can engage and enlist them to convince all of you here to set the politics aside, the parties aside, and to adopt those ideas that work." It has a certain charm to it: let's put politics and parties aside and all agree to be Republicans. This is kind of at the heart of the Republican Party: the religious belief that they have good ideas. But as I've written before, other than tax cuts for the rich, destroying the social safety net, and an intense desire for power as power, they have no actual ideas. And regardless, they never test their ideas. They don't mean to shrink the size of government because it will be good for the country; the want a smaller government because they believe in a smaller government.

Jamelle Bouie reports at The Plum Line blog, "GOP Elevates Reactionary Tim Scott to South Carolina Senate Seat." How reactionary? He has the usual Republi-Crazy positions: climate change denier, deep-water oil drilling proponent, stem-cell research opponent. But in addition, he proposed a bill that would deny assistance to any family that had a member who went on strike. And he wanted to impeach Obama over the debt ceiling.

Bouie notes, "It should be said that for all of the real problems the GOP has with diversity in terms of its organization and its candidate pool, the party does an excellent job of elevating the minorities that do find themselves in its tent." Of course, that is just a symptom of their fundamental racial problem. Rather than court minority groups with policy, they instead elevate those few minorities in their coalition. Frankly, I don't think that Bobby Jindal or Marco Rubio are really ready for prime-time national politics. Neither would have risen so fast in the Democratic Party.

Read more »

What happens when Republicans lose

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From the Times:

Though it has been 45 days since voters emphatically reaffirmed their faith in Mr. Obama, the time since then has shown the president's power to be severely constrained by a Republican opposition that is bitter about its losses, unmoved by Mr. Obama's victory and unwilling to compromise on social policy, economics or foreign affairs.

For more on how House Republicans forget/ignore/disregard the past, including 2004, see Angry Bear. Otherwise, here's what's going on:

-- When Republicans lose an election, they pout like bratty little children when you tell them no, the country be damned; when Democrats lose an election, they cave in to Republican demands and think that the only way to win ever again is to embrace Republican policies.

-- When Republicans win an election, they seek to impose their far-right ideological will on the entire country even on issues they didn't campaign on; when Democrats win an election, they sell out their progressive base and reach out to Republicans in hopes of securing bipartisan (i.e., Republican-friendly) consensus.

Read more »

Do the math

By Mustang Bobby 

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said on Friday that there should be an armed police officer at every school in the country. Aside from the fact that there have been incidents where there were already people with guns protecting a facility and still a shooter got in and did his carnage — Fort Hood, for example — let's indulge Mr. LaPierre in his masturbatory Rambo fantasy and put one well-trained armed guard at every school in the country. How will he pay for it? The cost would be out of the reach of most school districts, and even if Congress decided to pay for every one of them via a federal grant, it would be a budget buster.

Let's just take a look at one school district. How about one I know pretty well, such as Miami-Dade County Public Schools? It is the fourth-largest district in the country, with over 347,000 students. It has 354 schools or facilities with students, so we'll need one guard per school. Let's say that the base average salary of a guard is $75,000. I know that seems a little high for a cop, but we're talking average salary, not starting.

But you just don't pay for the base salary and you're done. There are other costs, such as paying into their retirement account, Social Security and Medicare contributions which the district has to pick up a portion of, contribution to health insurance, and the required payment of workers compensation, liability, and unemployment insurance, all required under contract or state or federal law.


Read more »

A.M. Headlines

(New York Times): "How party of budget restraint shifted to 'no new taxes,' ever"

(Politico): "Why Obama isn't caving"

(The Hill): "Conservatives urge GOP leaders to be bold, prepare to go over the cliff"

(Chicago Tribune): "Scenarios: Seven ways the 'fiscal cliff' crisis could end"

(CNN): "NRA doubles down: New gun laws won't work"

(ABC News): "Former president Bush still hospitalized"