The Associated Press did some fact checking on the claims of Democrats and some Republicans that a shut down of the Department of Homeland Security would have terrible consequences for our national security. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the wild rhetoric coming from Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski: "There are ghoulish, grim predators out there who would love to kill us or do us harm," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. "We should not be dillydallying and playing parliamentary pingpong with national security."... "If this goes to shutdown," Mikulski said, "this could close down ports up and down the East Coast, because if you don't have a Coast Guard, you don't have the ports. You don't have the ports, you don't have an economy." But if the department loses its money, the Coast Guard will stay in operation and so will the ports. Human...(Read Full Post)