More homeland security stuff (Robert Byrd, Patty Murray pork)

Charleston Daily Mail ^ | 14 Jan 2005 | Charleston Daily Mail

[Uncle Fud]

Sen. Robert Byrd noted this week that the Port of Huntington Tri-State includes hundreds of facilities on almost 200 miles worth of the Ohio, Kanawha and Big Sandy rivers.

"We cannot turn a blind eye to the security of these ports," he said. "They are too vital and too vulnerable."

Accordingly, Byrd was pleased to announce that sometime soon, the U.S. Coast Guard will have three 25-foot boats equipped with bow-mounted machine guns.

The terrorist community must collect these homeland security news items like stray plastique. Americans are bumbling all over the place with this stuff.

There will be no need for an attack. The United States will simply spend itself silly.

The amount of pork-barrel spending that has gone on in the name of homeland security is embarrassing. States have acquired lumbering fast-reaction vehicles that would take hours to get anywhere. Little police departments have loaded up on night-vision goggles.

And now we're to have 25-foot boats with machine guns able to respond, given enough time, to just about anyplace along a couple of hundred miles of the Ohio, the Kanawha and the Big Sandy.

What kind of rigmarole will be involved in getting live ammunition, you wonder. And what are the odds that any one of these boats would be at the right place at the right time to stop a wrong thing?

Infinitesimal.

Make no mistake. The Coast Guard has real needs. But what it got, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, was $145 million worth of "Homeland Security Response Boats" -- as many as 700 of them -- from SAFE Boats International in Port Orchard, Wash.

That's part of the district represented by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. In a 2003 press release, her office noted that she "chaired the appropriations panel with jurisdiction over the Coast Guard's budget, and she wrote the bill that increased the Coast Guard's budget by 10 percent."

Her district certainly got our money's worth.

Said komotv.com at the time: "Safe Boats International could be the poster child for the new economy -- the Homeland Security economy."

That's the most honest account yet.

[Uncle Fud]

Repeated for emphasis:

There will be no need for an attack. The United States will simply spend itself silly.

[Blue Screen of Death]

Not to worry. The terrorists who hate America would never attack Washington state. Their best friends like Baghdad Jim and Patty Murray are from Washington state, and the last election proves we are not a hated western democracy.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

Pray for those of us who have to reside in Washington State, it hurts to be covered with liberal sleaziness all around you.

[Libloather]

Just passing this along - the new Homeland Security Bill has passed. Things will be different now and Internet surfing will be tracked by what the FBI calls a "non-intrusive method." The FBI says you will not notice anything different.

For a demonstration, click below...

FBI Eyes

[freepatriot32]

Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.

[EGPWS]

"We cannot turn a blind eye to the security of these ports," he said. "They are too vital and too vulnerable."

If it weren't for Ted Kennedy's statement about Obama, Ernest Hollings "There's too much consumin' goin' on out thaaah", THAT would have to be placed at the top of the list of the most ridiculous Senate speeches to date.

[Just mythoughts]

Bump

[dAnconia]

Love the link!