A Friend At Apple Says They Have Research Showing The Elderly Are Deathly Afraid Of Robots-- More Than Of Anything

I guess drones count as robots, right?


Oh, everyone is writing about what a corrupt sack of turd Buck McKeon is these days. Even the L.A. Times and New York Times are rumored to have stories coming about the Countrywide scandal and his defense contractor bribes and... Queztalcoatl-knows-what-else. All the newspapers in his district have done stories and so many Beltway trade magazines have that Boehner is starting to feel pressured that maybe-- just maybe-- the guy strong-arming defense contractors into "donating" to his dizzy wife's boneheaded run for the California state legislature should step down as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. But just so you don't think all McKeon does all day and all night is squeeze money out of lobbyists and funnel it into his household through the wife, keep in mind he is also the founder and the chairman of the House Drone Caucus.

Actually they call it the House Unmanned Systems Caucus. They even have website and a statement of mission and goals:

The mission of the U.S. House Unmanned Systems Caucus is to educate members of Congress and the public on the strategic, tactical, and scientific value of unmanned systems; actively support further development and acquisition of more systems, and to more effectively engage the civilian aviation community on unmanned system use and safety.

As members of this Caucus, we:
1. Acknowledge the overwhelming value of these systems to the defense, intelligence, homeland security, law enforcement, and the scientific communities;
 
2. Recognize the urgent need to rapidly develop and deploy more Unmanned Systems in support of ongoing civil, military, and law enforcement operations;
 
3. Work with the military, industry, the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and other stakeholders to seek fair and equitable solutions to challenges created by UAV operations in the U.S. National Air Space (NAS);
 
4. Support our world-class industrial base that engineers, develops, manufactures, and tests unmanned systems creating thousands of American jobs;
 
5. Support policies and budgets that promote a larger, more robust national security unmanned system capability.

Nothing about sucking campaign contributions out of the defense contractors who make these things. Not counting the bribes McKeon has illegally solicited for his wife's campaign, he's-- by far-- the biggest recipient of money from arms merchants this election cycle ($343,355, more than three times his closest competitor). Career-long, McKeon's $1,143,150 is surpassed only by bribes to C.W. Bill Young ($1,260,425) and Jim Moran ($1,537,596) among all current House Members. Since 1992 McKeon's 5 biggest campaign contributors, again, not counting the illegal money he's gotten out of them for Patricia, are Lockheed Martin ($185,900), Northrop Grumman ($159,300), Boeing ($87,150), SLM ($84,750), and General Atomics ($84,000). And he always puts their interests above the interests of his Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley constituents.


On the website, McKeon boasts about his role in promulgating drones.

As founder of the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, McKeon is helping to educate members of Congress and the public on the strategic, tactical, and scientific value of unmanned systems. McKeon actively supports further expansion of the entire unmanned industry and hopes to continue effective engagement of the civilian aviation community on UAV use and safety.

In a study of the 26 votes Congress has taken since 2010 that involve government surveillance of citizens, which is, of course, the well-founded fear many people have about drones, McKeon scored a perfect zero. Do all Republicans score zeroes? No; civil liberties rollcalls aren't partisan votes. Reactionary, authoritarian Democrats like Jason Altmire (PA), John Barrow (GA), Jim Cooper (TN), Henry Cuellar (TX), Joe Donnelly (IN) and Larry Kissell (NC) also scored zeroes, and Republicans concerned about the intrusive nature of what Eisenhower warned about in his Military-Industrial Complex speech-- like Walter Jones (NC), Roscoe Bartlett (MD), Ron Paul (TX), Rob Bishop (UT), Raul Labrador (ID), Jimmy Duncan (TN), Chris Gibson (NY) and Michael Fitzpatrick (PA)-- scored 100%. McKeon's zero probably won't sit well in his district. I asked Lee Rogers, the doctor running against him-- who has been endorsed by Blue America-- and he had the same kinds of reservations most people in the district have:

The Unmanned Systems Caucus is an appropriately named group for McKeon to found. He's been letting the defense budget run away like an unmanned ship since he's been the chair of the House Armed Services Committee. The military industrial complex rewards him greatly, but now also rewards his wife for this. I think most people would agree that drones are very useful to our military and save the lives of our troops on the battlefield. But McKeon's vision for drone filled skies in our own country, to be used by government agencies to spy on citizens, is a violation of our most basic freedoms.