At my recent gun safety debate with former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, we took questions from the audience. I was asked by a guy to explain why the government had purchased 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition.

I said I was unaware of such a claim and added that I had no idea if it was true.

Well, it turns out it is true. The Department of Homeland Security purchased the ammo, but not to be used against American citizens as my questioner was clearly suggesting.

The bullets are intended for the 90 federal agencies and their 70,000 agents and officers the DHS oversees

Organized by the Bush administration in the wake of 9-11, DHS is responsible for U.S. Customs, ICE, the Coast Guard, the National Law Enforcement Training Center and so on.

Such a bulk buy of ammo for training and use in the field to save taxpayer dollars makes perfect sense...except to the black helicopter watchers, who rushed to ascribe all sorts of nefarious motives to the DHS purchase.

So it was the other night Lou Dobbs, who has successfully transitioned from respected business journalist to a monger of nutty conspiracy theories, played to this delusional paranoia by declaring on his Fox Business show that, along with all the ammo, the DHS had also bought "2,700 light armored vehicles."

Let's see: 1.6 billion rounds of ammo plus 2,700 light armored vehicles must equal Obama tyranny!

Dobbs then asked his guest, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre (of all people), "What in the world is going on at the Homeland Department -- the Department of Homeland Security seems to be arming up and the administration is trying to disarm American citizens?"

Except the Obama administration isn't "trying to disarm American citizens" and there is no evidence to suggest it is.

And the DHS didn't buy the light armored vehicles. The U.S. Marine Corps did.

Dobb's bogus information, like so much of what Fox News reports, came from a discredited blogger famous for making sh...I mean stuff up, the Gateway Pundit.

There are many other such hacks and they're a rich source of unsubstantiated and slanted "facts" for right wing media outlets and tin foil hat wearers.

It's a sad but routine formula for Fox News hosts and other such pundits in today's instant news cycle: Grab something, anything, that will affirm the viewers' or listeners' prejudices, dispense with fact-checking, present it as authentic, bounce it around with a kooky guest like LaPierre or Orly Taitz or Victoria Jackson, and then move on, the damage done.

It's also irresponsible and unprofessional, as Mr. Dobbs well knows.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is a conservative heretic. His sin? Appearing with President Obama in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy as the two inspected the widespread destruction along the Jersey shore.

 

This is the same Christie who, just a few months earlier, was the toast of the GOP, hailed as one of its leading lights, a man who could help conservatives win back the White House.

 

"EXCLUSIVE: Chris Christie to Headline CPAC Chicago in June,"  the conservative Townhall web site breathlessly announced last spring.

 

But this year, Christie hasn't and probably won't be invited by the American Conservative Union to its national confab in Washington. Optics like those of last fall, a Democratic president and a Republican governor putting aside political differences to confront a huge natural disaster, can mean only excommunication from the conservative movement for Chris Christie.

 

Compromisers need not apply.

 

Instead, in the center ring, CPAC will present the very same people who helped Republicans lose the 2012 presidential election, starting with Mitt Romney.

Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Paul Ryan, and the man who put the clown show together, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus, will all be speaking.  

 

The CPAC sideshow will include failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, unhinged Obama conspiracy theorist Wayne LaPierre, and one-term Florida representative Allen West.

 

“As we extend our second round of invitations to these conservative leaders, it is easy to see why CPAC 2013 is shaping up to be one the best conferences yet,” said ACU Chairman Al Cardenas.

 

If you say so, Al.

 

Meantime, Christie's snub by the ACU is the perfect prism through which to view today's American conservative movement. When you lose an election, you should become introspective and examine and question what it was the voters rejected. You should look in the mirror and see what the voters saw: anger, intolerance and intransigence. You should consider modifying or moderating past positions.

 

Not this crowd. They believe you do the same thing over again and, this time, expect a different result. So Christie is out. Romney is in.

 

Good luck with that.

I notice a lot of far right reactionary types fail to comprehend when they read my columns. This is a trait common to the breed; when the thesis presents arguments supported by evidence they don't like, they "react", disregarding the evidence and lashing out at the thesis.

 

Comes Pete Borden, an aforementioned far right reactionary, with his latest assault on another one of my columns (Friday's is sure to commence Pete's blood to boiling), this time on my essay concerning the failure of the Republican-led House of Representatives to pass re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

 

"In Kevin Foley’s column of last Friday, the 15th, entitled 'Women second class citizens in GOP’s world', he used scare tactics intended to frighten women."

 

Well, Pete, women should be scared if the tools to protect them from domestic violence no longer exist. Somebody has to warn them.

 

Pete: "The 1994 version of the VAWA did very little to address the problem, which is a real threat to women."

 

National Association of Attorneys General: "Since its passage in 1994, VAWA transformed the response to domestic violence at the local, state and federal level, reducing domestic violence rates by 50 percent."

 

Pete: "Of course, what Mr. Foley fails to mention is that the program is still in effect, so nobody is in danger yet."

 

17 House Republicans: “Now is the time to seek bipartisan compromise on the reauthorization (Pete does not understand that reauthorization means VAWA was allowed to expire so it's not "in effect").

 

Pete: "What he also failed to mention is that the GOP controlled House passed its own bill eliminating the changes made by the Senate. The Senate has not approved  that bill (Pete doesn't understand that the Senate doesn't "approve" House bills. It reconciles House bills with Senate bills and vice versa. The House bill excluded protections for same-sex couples and battered undocumented immigrants - Pete also doesn't understand that "illegal alien" is considered a racial slur by many Hispanics and Latinos).

 

Foley column: "This week, Republicans in the Senate helped pass a VAWA bill, 78-22 with all 20 women senators (Republicans) voting for the bill. The legislation adds protections for gays, lesbians and immigrants."

 

So, what we have here is ill-informed opinion clashing with inconvenient facts. Thanks for playing, Pete.

Over-the-top patriotic demonstrations at sporting events reached a new low this weekend, when servicemen and women were on exhibit at Pebble Beach during the PGA tour stop there.

There was something vaguely obscene about watching an enlisted person earning a little more than the poverty level standing at attention while a bunch of rich kids played golf for a $6.5 million purse.

We're supposed to feel humbled by these young people who "protect our freedom" on the sunny shores of the Monterrey Bay, where some of the nation's wealthiest 1 percent enjoy undisturbed splendor in their heavily guarded and gated enclaves.

We're supposed to pay homage to the sacrifice and dedication of those service personnel while, at the same time, we watch people named named Brandt, Keegan and Tag smack a little white ball around for the entertainment of corporate swells ensconced in their hospitality pavilions swilling fine wine while whining about paying a few percentage points more on their income taxes.

We all know how these guys really feel.

Mitt Romney gave voice to their disdain of the 47% who don't pay taxes. That number includes, by the way, most of the same enlisted men and women they were "honoring" at Pebble Beach.

As long as he breathes, CBS seems determined to trot out the doddering Clint Eastwood as the face of the tournament, who eclipsed his performance as the Man With No Name with his shamefully embarrassing Obama chair-talking shtick during the Republican National Convention last summer.

Like Romney, Clint evidently has it in for the president and those working poor and disabled folks who don't make enough to pay income taxes, let alone afford the price of admission to cruise 17 Mile Drive through Pebble Beach.

I wonder how those enlisted men and women felt about being used as props by a giant TV network making a pile of advertising dollars, or if the sad irony ever occurred to any of them.

Maybe they should have asked for a slice of that CBS pie, but that's not how it works in Carmel, where such uniformed folk are perceived the same way the gardener or delivery man are regarded, hired help to be seen but not heard.

Those servicemen and women, you see, have an important role to play in the CBS show when the camera cuts away and we see them, naively unaware of being exploited, shaking hands with a series of millionaire golf pros who were instructed to recognize them, look grateful, and then move on to the next tee. Thus, the PGA, CBS and the viewer all bask in the reflected glow of their selflessness and heroism. Meantime, their commanding officers and entourages enjoy free admission to the shindig.

Ostentatious military displays have become de rigueur at televised sporting events. We used to sing the Star Spangled Banner and let it go at that.

Now, we must have fighter jet fly overs, American flags the size of the field, the singing of God Bless America at half time, and, of course, soldiers, sailors and marines in uniform to remind us that "freedom isn't free," never mind that all the jingoistic showboating renders real patriotism cheap and real courage meaningless.

But the offensive travesty at Pebble Beach gets first prize for its naked hypocrisy not to mention its showcasing of the symbolic economic wall between the have mores and have almost nothings.

I love Paul Broun. I dearly hope he wins the Republican senate primary in 2014. I'll even vote for him because there are very few politicians in these parts who could make Phil Gingrey and Tom Price look positively moderate.

"God's word is true," said Dr. Broun. "I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught (at the University of Georgia and Georgia Health Sciences University) about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior."

I'm getting the message, catching his drift. Pete Borden doesn't like my opinions because they don't mesh with his own puny worldview. To Mr. Borden, when I'm not "lying" I'm a "coward."

Really? Here I present progressive push back every week in the hard right conservative stronghold of Cobb County, putting my real name to my real words, but I'm gutless.

Mr. Borden suggests I waited until Boortz's last day on the air suggest "Mighty Whitey" was a nasty, elitist bigot. But what better coda could there be to Boortz's disgraceful career, polluting the public airwaves with his disgusting brand of minority-bashing.

Forget that Boortz was a complete bore, a tasteless, unfunny, uninteresting radio gabber. I simply used Boortz's own comments in my column, which is limited to 600 words. I could have filled the MDJ with Boortz's bullying attacks on people who couldn't possibly defend themselves, such as the Katrina survivors Boortz called "garbage" or Muslims he described as "cockroaches."

That's the dictionary definition of coward, Mr. Borden.

Mr. Borden reveals much about himself rushing to Boortz's defense. His listeners - and evidently Pete Borden LOVED Neal Boortz - must have affirmation and, as I noted, only the willfully ignorant, delusional, racist or paranoid would waste their time listening to Boortz or people like him.

Pete, which are you?