Tonight's subject is one we've discussed previously here, as in this diary—
Small towns add tons of military gear to their arsenals. Michael Shank and Elizabeth Beavers at
The Guardian note that this militarization included a record $546 million in equipment the Pentagon donated to civilian police forces in 2012.
Richland County, South Carolina, for example, got itself a tank with machine-gun turrets that can swivel 360 degrees. A town in upstate New York got itself a 20-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. A small Georgia town nowhere near the water got boats and scuba gear.
Even without the militarization aspects, the program is riddled with waste and nonsense and recklessness. Like the spread of SWAT teams to rural areas. Like the Illinois sheriff who lent assault rifles his department got from the Pentagon to his pals. Or the North Carolina firearms manager who sold his department's assault rifles on eBay.
The program is a grab bag of goodies. Once in place, although the inventory is supposed to be audited, it almost never is. The Guardian:
The Nebraska State Patrol's
Light Armored Vehicle, the LAV 150
In the fine print of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1997, the "1033 program" was born. It allows the Defense Department to donate surplus military equipment to local police forces.
Though the program's existed since the 1990s, it has expanded greatly in recent years, due, in part, to post-9/11 fears and sequestration budget cuts. The expanse, however, seems unnecessary given that the Department of Homeland Security has already handed out $34bn in "terrorism grants" to local polices forces—without oversight mind you—to fund counter-terrorism efforts. [...]
he lack of oversight is appalling. State coordinators admit that they conduct very few in-person inspections. In New York, the state is apparently outsourcing the majority of their inventory work to a part-time, unpaid intern. And in Mississippi, it took six years before federal authorities discovered that a state office, which was ineligible for the program, had received $8m worth of equipment, despite the fact that the Defense Department is supposed to review the program every two years.
The Pentagon program cannot continue in this manner. Congress should acknowledge the failure of this program and permanently ban military-grade weaponry, armored vehicles and aircraft from transfer to municipal police forces. If the Defense Department is to continue to lend surplus equipment to localities, it must vastly tighten oversight and ensure that no item go unaccounted for. On-site inspections must be frequent and consequences for noncompliance should be severe.
If America is concerned about helping its police forces prevent violence, there are more cost effective ways of doing that. Since we know that cities and states with lower levels of violence have higher levels of education, healthcare coverage and economic opportunity, and lower levels of poverty and income inequality, that is where we should be investing taxpayer dollars.
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2008—The Cowardice of Sarah Palin:
I suppose it should go without saying that if Sarah Palin has been reduced to speaking to hard-right audiences, but can't do any nonpartisan interviews because they're confident she'll blow it, and can't appear without John McCain because he may have to bail her out if things get dicey, and generally can't do anything but stay in her little anti-media box, coming out twice a day like the little bird in a cuckoo clock to yell a few phrases into a crowd and leave again, she's all but useless to her own campaign. Her favorable ratings have been diving. She's still got Troopergate in the works. There's still gawd knows how much embarrassing tape from her Katie Couric interview, which is probably going to keep being dribbled out from now until the election. So far, she's been making her most indelible American impressions on the pages of the National Enquirer. |
Tweet of the Day:
Guy Who Set House On Fire Complains No One Is Talking About The Leaky Faucet
— @delrayser
"Vintage"
Kagro in the Morning today while renovations continue at the state-of-the-art studios in the Worldwide Headquarters of Daily Kos Radio. It's
our October 8, 2012 show, featuring our in-house polling experts,
Greg Dworkin and
Steve Singiser, on the state of the 2012 races heading into the week of the Vice Presidential debate. In the second hour, more "dot connecting," in a reading on the "wisdom" of free markets and cost-benefit analyses (which connects nicely with
yesterday's live show, actually), plus a roundup of
Roll Call's Top 10 most vulnerable Members of Congress.
High Impact Posts. Top Comments. Overnight News Digest.