Tag Archives: corruption

FTC Endorses Hacking Private Data

Posted on by Standard Reply

Hacker_DetectedSo there you are, minding your own business, running a company that provides a much-needed medical service – lab analysis of specimens to help doctors diagnose and treat cancers and other dread diseases.  And out of the blue you find you are under attack by your own government.

Michael Daugherty, founder and CEO of LabMD, has been through hell, at the hands of the “Devil Inside the Beltway”.

His story defies logic and reason.  Why would the federal government – specifically the FTC – join forces with a for-profit extortionist hacker to wreak havoc on a private company?   And how could our court system not recognize theft of personal data as a crime?

Here’s the story, in a nutshell:  In 2008 a LabMD employee, against company policy, installed a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing application called LimeWire to her computer so she could share music files with other subscribers.   She just wanted to listen to music.  Unfortunately, this opened a port which made other data on her computer accessible to outsiders.  And an opened port is all the Devil needs to do his evil work.

In this case, the Devil is a company named Tiversa, Inc. – the self-proclaimed “World Leader in P2P Cyberintelligence”.  Tiversa developed a program which scours the internet, looking for open P2P ports and any tasty files that might be exposed, in the hope that a particularly delectable file might be useful for the purpose of extortion.

During the very short time that the LabMD employee’s computer was vulnerable, Tiversa grabbed a file that included patient data including social security numbers, medical codes, etc. – information that could be used by a bad actor for identity theft, blackmail, or other nefarious purposes.  And what did Tiversa do with their ill-gotten booty?  First they attempted to extort LabMD with an expensive, open-ended and loosely-defined service contract.  When LabMD CEO Daugherty logically told them to take a hike, they turned the file over to the FTC as an indictment of LabMD’s failure to protect their clients’ data.

This is where it gets crazy.

The federal government is there to protect and serve its constituents, right?  You would think that if somebody hacks into your computer system, and steals your sensitive information and then blackmails you with the release of it, the feds will help you nail them.  Right?

Instead, the FTC, typical of today’s over-reaching federal bureaucracy, decided to join forces with the bad guys to beat up on one of those despicable, “for-profit” private businesses.  “You didn’t build that!”  , they declare.  “And we will punish you for your success!”

Instead of pursuing the people who aggressively sought to steal sensitive data  (they claim their program performs exponentially more searches than Google) the FTC went after the victims of the theft.  Most of their victims acquiesced to the relentless FTC pressure and accepted  demands for consent decrees (guilty without proof).  LabMD and Michael Daugherty took a courageous stand against this extortion, and continue their brave battle today.

The obvious questions beckon:  what is the relationship between the top brass of the FTC and for-profit hackers like Tiversa?  Will the federal courts recognize data as property, and accept theft of data as theft of property?  And most importantly – when a federal agency like the FTC (or the IRS or EPA) lines up its infinite roster of taxpayer-funded lawyers against an individual or private company with limited resources in a ideological battle, is there any hope that justice will prevail?

Cyber-security is the 600 pound gorilla in the room.  Our government admits that China, North Korea, and Russia routinely hack our government databases.  It’s bad enough that foreign bad guys feverishly work at worming their way into our national databases.  How can we tolerate our own government cooperating with extortionist hackers who attack our private data?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Listen, Do you want to know a secret?
Do you promise not to tell?
Closer, Let me whisper in your ear,
Say the words you long to hear,
I’m in love with you!
The Beatles – Do You Want To Know A Secret
No live video, just a good old Beatles song here:

No Earmarks! Never Going Back There Again!

Posted on by Standard 1

“As long as I’m the Speaker, there will be no earmarks.” – Speaker of the House John Boehner – July 2014

Boehner is still Speaker, having been re-elected to the post for the third time by his members last week.

Believe it or not, many members of Congress, including Republicans, have been pushing for some time to end the ban on earmarks which was put in place in March of 2010.  Senator Harry Reid pressed for reinstatement of the earmark privilege last summer, saying, ” I am proud of all the earmarks I have gotten for the state of Nevada. They’ll come back — it’s only a question of time because that’s our constitutional obligation.”

An amendment to roll back the moratorium on earmarks, led by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), was brought to a House vote last Friday, and failed by a 2.5 to 1 margin.

Good.  Apparently they get it.

Earmarks represent everything that is ugly about DC politics.  “Bringing Home the Bacon” is largely responsible for our $17 trillion debt.  Control over earmark awards has been a weapon used by house leadership in the past to bludgeon members into line.  One of the more infamous recent earmarks was the $223 million “Bridge to Nowhere,” which cost Alaska congressman Ted Stevens his political career.  “Material Girl” Nancy Pelosi steered hundreds of millions of dollars to her home district via earmarks.

Senator Tom Coburn has been a long-time opponent of pork-barrel spending and especially the use of earmarks, calling it the “gateway drug to Washington’s spending addiction.”

The “wave” election of 2014 places a heavy responsibility on Republicans to restore fiscal sanity to our federal government.  That even a few Republicans considered eliminating the ban on earmark spending is disappointing.  Let’s not go there again.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right SideYou don’t know what it means to win
Come down and see me again
Been down one time
Been down two times
I’m never going back again

Never Going Back Again – Lyndsey Buckingham

Cool live version of a Fleetwood Mac classic!

 

There Must Be One Honest Democrat Out There

Posted on by Standard 3

honestySeveral years ago, while on a long drive, I tuned in to National Public Radio’s afternoon talk show featuring Diane Rehm.  I nearly wrecked my truck as several Democrats fervently defended government officials and scientists who were caught fabricating weather data and computer models to make it appear that man-caused global warming was real.  They forthrightly stated that lying was the right thing to do if it achieved the results they sought.

Democrats routinely approve of dishonesty.  There is no longer any question that many Democrats will say anything, do anything that will keep them in power.  Part of the vaunted Cloward-Piven strategy, and the teachings of Saul Alinsky in “Rules for Radicals“, the playbook used so effectively by the Obama administration, is this tenet:  “The end justifies the means”.  They believe it.  Honesty and playing by the rules does not matter, as long as you win.

Conservatives like me can’t understand it.  We value honesty.  It is the bedrock on which civilization is built.  Relationships, societies, commerce and governments can not function without trust based on honesty.

But liberal Democrats don’t see it that way.  It shocked the conservative world when our president looked squarely into a television camera and said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” and then later admitted that he did.  As stunning as his lapse of morality was, what really blew us away was the unanimous dismissal of his dishonesty by Democrats.   They justified their support of a proven liar on the grounds that they generally agreed with his politics, and found him to be “cool”.  Conservatives asked, “if he would lie to his wife and family, and openly lie to the American public, how dangerous is it to believe anything he says as the leader of the free world?”

When a Republican is caught in an outright lie or an illegal or immoral act, he or she is removed.  When a Democrat is caught in an outright lie or an illegal or immoral act, his party and the complicit media circle the wagons and often will tell more lies aimed at baffling the dumbed-down, undiscerning populace – case in point, the Obama Administration’s ham-handed Benghazi Lie.

In an attempt to justify dishonesty, Democrats frequently turn to the only example they can think of by a conservative: the claim that President Bush lied when he said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.  They stop short of admitting that he based his concern on intelligence that was acknowledged by every official in the U.S. government, including their own Democrat leaders.  And Bush may yet be proven right – just this week our state department reported terrorists gained control of one of Hussein’s poison gas factories.

The level of dishonesty and immorality in American government during the Obama era has reached epic proportions.  When Nixon was found to have lied about a rather minor, but nonetheless illegal and immoral campaign activity, and then tried to cover it up by erasing taped evidence, he was unceremoniously thrown out of office by officials and supporters of both parties.

This week we are told that Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS, directly after being questioned about illegal targeting of conservatives during a campaign, had a computer malfunction that caused the loss of smoking-gun e-mail evidence from her and six other officials, and that in spite of legal requirements, department policy, and common practice, no backups exist.  Just “Oops, you’ll have to trust us.”

And NOT ONE DEMOCRAT will question her honesty.  Not one is bothered by the stench of corruption.

It is hard for me to accept that there aren’t still a few honest Democrats out there.  There must be.  Believing that every single Democrat accepts dishonesty is like believing that every single voter in 59 Philadelphia precincts pulled the lever for Barack Obama.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Honesty is such a lonely word.
Everyone is so untrue.
Honesty is hardly ever heard.
And mostly what I need from you.
Honesty – Billy Joel

 

 

 

Is the “Money Game” Dying in DC?

Posted on by Standard 4

ChangeCongress-FollowTheMoney696In my last post I decried the incessant corruption in Washington, DC.  I recently read Peter Schweitzer’s amazing book “Extortion” and suddenly I see the baffling events inside the Beltway with new clarity.

Yesterday Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor got 26 other Republican congressmen to join 200 Democrats and pass a “clean” bill to extend the debt limit until after the election.  All the other Republican congressmen sensibly voted against passage.

Today the Senate, with Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican Whip John Cornyn voting along with the Democrats, passed the bill for President Obama’s signature.  As a result the national debt will rise to at least $18.2 trillion while our government does nothing but accelerate the calamitous decline in our economy.

Until I read Schweitzer’s book I could not fathom how the Republican leadership of both houses of Congress could vote not only against the wishes and interests of their constituents, but also in defiance of their own body of legislators.  The Republican majority-holding members in the House could have stopped this travesty in a heartbeat, and would have, were it not for John Boehner and the other Republican leaders.   What kind of evil pathology is this?  How can we face our children?

It just didn’t make any sense to me.  Until I learned about “the money”. 

I learned from Schweitzer and subsequent research that the game of government in DC is all about “the money”.  A congressman cannot get elected without “the money”.  Once a candidate is anointed by his party (both teams play by the same rules) and then elected, he is immediately indebted.  He is required to not only raise enough funds to win his own re-election, he also must also raise funds to sustain the party.  And let me tell you, these are some high stakes.

Committee assignments and leaderships are granted to legislators based on the funds they raise.  Votes are bought and sold.   Party leaders can financially make or break any member in a heartbeat.   None of the attributes a congressman brings to his position – knowledge, experience, skill, hard work – matters at all.  One’s status and hope for re-election is solely the result of how much dough he raises for the party.  The vast majority of a legislator’s time is spent chasing “the money”.

While you never hear about this “Lord of the Flies” culture in the press, it is no secret inside the Beltway.  It has been in place for a long, long time.

But a change took root in recent years.  Conservative voters, seeing that the entrenched political class in Washington, DC no longer took any interest in limiting government, supporting constitutional rights, and passing reasonable budgets, began sending principled men and women to the nation’s capital.  These newcomers were less engaged in “the money” and more driven by practical economics and common sense.  As the Tea Party influence became more pronounced, and fewer members feared the leadership’s “protection racket”, the DC money machine started to break down.  The Republican war chest was depleting.  And the central control of the Republican leadership started to crack.

For a candidate, the worst thing about the Tea Party is that they will work hard for you, but they won’t bring you a lot of money.  The best thing is that you won’t have to sell your soul to pay them back.

Boehner and friends have thrown in the towel. From the Huffington Post:

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he “hoped to find 18 of them to join 200 Democrats to get the job done.”

“The fact is, we’ll let the Democrats put the votes up,” Boehner said. “We’ll put a minimum amount of votes up to get it passed.”

The new conservatives don’t care that much about raising money and are not indebted to the leadership.  They voted a resounding NO, and led most of the Republican membership into the light with them.  The old guard Republican leadership hunkered down in their central command, clinging to the hope that they could keep hold of their power and positions, and “the money”, by caving in, again, to their Democrat opponents.  In his final hurrah, Boehner bought just enough votes to do the deal and now he is broken and broke, along with Cantor, McConnell and the others.  “The money”, and the power structure it bought, may soon be extinct.

I hope we will look back at this day as a pivot point.  It was a battle lost, but one that could light the path to winning the war, where true conservatives stand on principle and vote for the people, not “the money”.

(To my Montana friends – The “Responsible Republicans” in the Big Sky State should take note.  Their future may look a lot like that of Boehner and friends.)

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right SideYou never give me your money
You only give me your funny paper
And in the middle of negotiations
You break down!

You Never Give Me Your Money – the Beatles
covered by the Ed Turner Band

Boehner, Reid and Friends Are Playing Us for Fools

Posted on by Standard 3

cartoon courtesy Rhode Island InsiderOur federal government is dysfunctional.  Everybody knows it.

Most people blame the polarization of politics in America today.  The Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on anything because they have deep ideological differences, right?

Maybe not so much.  Our entrenched political leaders in Washington – Democrats and Republicans alike – are less driven by ideology than they are by money.  This is nothing new, but it sure seems to be accelerating.

The untold secret, closely guarded by the press and the political oligarchy, is that politics inside the Beltway is hopelessly corrupt.  The average American assumes that lobbyists work for big, evil corporations seeking to buy political favors.   Sadly, the opposite is more often true.  Our political leaders live and breathe to extort money from corporations, fattening their campaign coffers and their own wallets by promising (or threatening) to pass (or not pass) legislation that will affect profits.  They write bills specifically for the purpose of shaking down a given company or industry – often writing and then erasing the same proposals over and over to generate fresh cash with each iteration.  Democrats and Republican leaders frequently collude on legislation, agreeing to pass it after all palms have been well greased.  Legislative leaders repeatedly stall votes until the appropriate ante has been paid.

Peter Schweizer’s book “Extortion – How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets” lays out the schemes in non-partisan detail.  Here’s an example:  In 2011 the Wireless Tax Fairness Act, written specifically to help AT&T and Verizon prevent local taxation on cell phone bills, was stalled in the House, waiting for a floor vote.

“Everyone expected Boehner, given his general aversion to raising taxes, to support the bill and hold a vote.  But as the months went by and mid-October arrived, it was unclear whether the vote would ever come.”

“Members of Congress from both parties had their hands out.  Employees of Verizon and AT&T wrote over two hundred checks totaling over $180,000 to the campaign committees of members of Congress during September and October of 2011.  Finally, he declared a vote for the bill on November 1, 2011, and on the day before the vote, Boehner’s campaign collected the toll: thirty-three checks from wireless industry executives, totaling almost $40,000.  Twenty-eight of those checks came from executives with AT&T.  The day of the vote, employees of Verizon sent twenty-eight checks to members of Congress.”

“The tribute had been paid.  The vote was held.  The Wireless Tax Fairness Act passed the House easily on a voice vote.”

Actually, the more polarized the Democrats and Republics seem to be, the more money they can raise.  They love conflict, and work hard to preserve it.

Let’s stop being naive.  There is a reason why the United States has slid to 19th place on the “least corrupt government” ranking by Transparency International.  There is a reason why Congress writes thousands of bills for every one that is passed.  There is a reason why Congressmen begin their careers with modest wealth and end them fabulously rich.  There is a reason why a lobbying firm will frequently work for both Republicans and Democrats.  There is a reason why so many lobbyists are related to politicians.  There is a reason why the president’s campaign contributors get federal contracts.  There is a reason why 154 (and counting) tax breaks are written to be “extended” every year or so instead of put in place permanently.

It’s called corruption.  But you will never hear the press talk about it, and to this point no candidate has mentioned it.

The framers of our Constitution didn’t build in malware that would stop corrupt individuals from taking financial advantage of their positions.  They relied on the voters to elect people of character.

We can’t afford to send one more corrupt or corruptible person to Washington.  We must fight to remove Pelosi, Boehner, Reid, McConnell and Obama.  Our last, best hope is the Tea Party – until we get principled people in the positions of leadership in Washington, DC nothing will change.

The Democrats and Republicans have played us for fools for far too long.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Everybody plays the fool,
They use your heart just like a tool.
They never tell you so in school
Everybody plays the fool.

Everybody Plays The Fool – the Main Ingredient

Big-Government Fails – What Did You Expect?

Posted on by Standard 3

DuhIs anybody surprised?

We now know, irrefutably, that ObamaCare really IS a train wreck.  The Affordable Care Act has instantly made health care unaffordable for millions of previously happily-insured Americans.  Many have lost coverage altogether – experts now predict that another 50 to 100 million cancellations are on the way.  It has ballooned the Medicaid rolls to the point where states don’t know how they will be able to manage the cost.  Using CBO data, the total cost of ObamaCare has been calculated at up to $3 Trillion over ten years.  And after three and a half years and $1 billion of IT work, the still-dysfunctional ObamaCare website is 40% short of completion (including the part which is supposed to deliver our subsidy payments to the insurance companies) and the personal data collected by it is not secure.

Well, what did you expect?   You glassy-eyed Obama zombies, you liberal/progressive elitists, you arrogant academics, you shameless, thrill-up-the-leg media hucksters, you blind-ambition Democrat politicians, you weak-kneed RINOs who value re-election over the will and well-being of your constituents, you crocodile-tear bleeding hearts who never contribute your own money to anything – what do you say now?  Did you really believe the bungling bloated bureaucracy you created and enabled, and Obama’s corrupt campaign-contributing cronies could actually pull off an undertaking of this scope?

Really?  The same big-government people who gave away $4 billion dollars in tax refunds to identity thieves, including 655 refunds to one address in Lithuania?  The same big-government people who left an ambassador and three brave defenders to die at the hands of radical Muslim thugs and then blamed it on a Hollywood video?  The same big-government people who waste billions of dollars humiliating grandmothers in airports, but fail to follow up on Russian warnings about known terrorists?

There was a time when the U.S. government could get things done.  World War II comes to mind.  The Hoover Dam.  The Interstate Highway System.  Astronauts on the moon.  Those days are gone.  We have allowed our government to become corrupt, fat, lazy, and mired in irrelevant politically correct nonsense.  Rudderless.  Incompetent.  Pathetic.

While they did little to address the impending health care problem for decades, I give credit to the 100% of DC Republicans (and a smattering of responsible Democrats) who at least voted against ObamaCare.  Ted Cruz and a few brave conservatives went to the wall to try to stop it.  The Tea Party took the point on patrol, battling every assault on personal freedoms, free-market capitalism, and the values that built our nation’s success.  But they couldn’t stop this latest, potentially fatal attack on Lady Liberty.

If the liberal progressives do not finally admit and capitulate to the total failure of big-government socialism now, in the face of irrefutable evidence, their motives are clear.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

You’ve been talking in circles
Since I’ve been able to cry
There’s never been any reason
for ever telling me why
Save my life, I’m going down for the last time!

Never Been Any Reason – Head East

ObamaCare Navigators – Just Another Political Payback

Posted on by Standard 3

obamacare[Update 10/14/13 – it gets uglier by the minute]

[Update 10/13/13 – new related post here, by I-4 Activist Watch]

Lost in all the ObamaCare kerfuffle is the fact that President Obama gave the contracts for “navigators”, those in charge of educating the public about enrollment, to crony left-wing organizations instead of insurance professionals.

This is just one more slap in the face to the taxpayer public, as more and more public funds find their way to the people who campaigned for the president (and still do).

A report in the Missoulian illustrates how Planned Parenthood of Montana received $300,000 from Obama to act as navigators.  So far the services rendered are two meetings – one had seven attendees and the other had “less than a half dozen”.  But Planned Parenthood is getting a ton of PR in addition to the money, and both will go a long ways toward killing more babies.

The navigators were apparently chosen strictly on the basis of political payback – only Obama community organizer types need apply.  In addition to Planned Parenthood, the paybacks also extend to the SEIU and Acorn (yes, the group that was convicted of vote fraud , misappropriating HUD funds, and a host of other ugly crimes.)   There are no background checks for navigators – an alarming invitation to identity theft and invasion of privacy as citizens divulge their social security numbers, personal and financial information, and medical details to total strangers, some from groups who are notorious bad actors.

I used to think that blatant, corrupt, under-the-table paybacks from elected officials only happened in banana republic third-world countries.  It couldn’t happen here.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Too many people need me
I’ve got so much, So much to do
But when my travelling is over
I’ll pay you back with interest
I’ll pay you back with interest

Pay You Back With Interest – the Hollies

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/14/obamacare-navigator-in-kansas-has-outstanding-arrest-warrant/2/

Obama and the Big Piggies

Posted on by Standard Reply

pigs_troughYesterday President Obama made a speech denouncing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

“For too long, these companies were allowed to make huge profits buying mortgages,” Obama said Tuesday, “knowing that if their bets went bad, taxpayers would be left holding the bag . . . It was ‘heads we win, tails you lose.’  And it was wrong.”

Yes, Mr. President, you’re damned right it was wrong.

In 2008 you were at the head of the Freddie/Fannie trough, sucking in a cool $165,000 for your campaign.  In ten years Fannie Mae slopped over $100 million into that trough, quickly gobbled up by corrupt Democrats and Republicans alike. Nobody wanted to blow the whistle, for fear of losing their place at the trough.  “Fannie and Freddie had Congress wrapped around their fingers,” said Guy Cecala, CEO of Inside Mortgage Finance, which publishes trade publications following the mortgage market. “They were untouchable.” (CNN-Money)

The top officials of Freddie / Fannie were caught cooking the books, and to this day the taxpayers are still footing their legal bills.  Meanwhile Fannie’s biggest piggie, James Johnson, took in a cool $100 million in wages over nine years; ridiculous salaries and bonuses flowed throughout both organizations.

Ten years ago the Bush Administration, seeing the looming disaster, tried to step up the oversight and get Freddie and Fannie under control, but failed as Barney Frank and virtually every other pig at the trough circled the wagons to protect their interests.  The Obama administration was sued by Judicial Watch in 2009 for access to records which would prove Congress did nothing for years, even while knowing the extent of the corruption.

The pig sty stench came to a crescendo when the taxpayers were forced to refill the trough with a $200 billion bailout, and that doesn’t begin to contemplate the liabilities still on the Freddie/Fannie books, which the Congressional Research Service estimated at $4 to $5 trillion dollars a couple of years ago.

So, President Obama, and all you other pigs who have gorged at the taxpayer-funded trough for all these years – DON’T YOU DARE act sanctimonious about finally taking baby steps to clean up your stinking pig sty.  You should all be ashamed.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

In their styes with all their backing,
They don’t care what goes on around.
In their eyes there’s something lacking,
What they need’s a damned good whacking!

Piggies – the Beatles

Brazil’s “Tea Party” – Takin’ It To the Streets

Posted on by Standard 4

Brazil protestThe government has become too big, inefficient, costly and corrupt.  Citizens are oppressed and punished by heavy-handed government officials.  Promises made by the government have not been kept.  Taxes increase, but services diminish.  The health care system is broken.  Scandals arise daily, revealing government corruption in every corner.   The voters elected the nation’s first ____  president without proper vetting, and now regret it.   A land of astonishing natural resources and industrious people languishes in economic misery.

No, it’s not the United States.  It’s Brazil.

This week, frustrated Brazilians took to the streets.  What was the “one more drop” (Brazilian version of the straw that broke the camel’s back) that pushed citizens over the edge, uniting rich, poor and middle-classes in protest in the face of violent police pushback?  It was a twenty-cent increase in bus fare.  One more little spit in the public’s eye by a government class that has taken its power and control for granted.

It wasn’t only the relentless increases in taxes and fees.  It wasn’t just the massive spending on lavish sports facilities while hospitals and roads crumble.  Or the ubiquitous “palm-greasing” for political favors.  It was all the above, and finally “one more drop.”

One protester quoted in The Independent (UK) summed it up: “Our parents fought against the dictatorship, but then we went to sleep,” he admitted.   After an extended period of improving economic conditions and expanding personal freedoms and opportunities, Brazil’s government got too big for its britches.   “Now, finally, we’re waking up.”

Fortunately Brazil enjoys an aggressive and free press, who relish in pointing out the failures of their government.  Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, a Marxist who battled the country’s ruling military junta before being catapulted to its highest elected office, now sees her popularity rating tumble.  After a prolonged silence, she has announced her intention to pursue reforms.

It seems the disrespect Brazil’s government shows its citizens is not so different from our own.  But our only resistance to date has been a small but persistent Tea Party, which is vilified by those who refuse to wake up.  In Brazil, the people are “taking it to the streets.”  Could it happen here?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side
Are you…telling me the things you’re gonna do for me
I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see
Takin’ it to the streets
Takin’ it to the streets

Takin’ It To The Streets – Michael McDonald

Do Our Leaders Really Care?

Posted on by Standard 3

men_confusedobama_confused2reid_confused



Listening to the media and to our political leaders one would think it is impossible to straighten out our nation’s fiscal mess, and that we, our children, and our grandchildren are doomed to mediocrity for decades to come.   Oh, they want to help us, they “feel our pain”, but the task is just too difficult.

Hogwash.

If our federal government really wanted to cut spending and reduce the debt and deficits, they would immediately:

  • Sell all of the excess, obsolete and unused federal property, including land, buildings, military bases and equipment.  Where does our constitution authorize the federal government to buy up all this private land, anyway?
  • Compensate federal employees similarly to comparable private sector employees – reasonable pay rates, raise the retirement age,  replace defined benefit pensions with 401(k) plans, require full forty-hour weeks, and implement the same social security and health care treatment as taxpayers have.  Government-sector unions must be eliminated because the pay-for-play election scam is irretrievably corrupt and imperils democracy.
  • Pay senators and representatives each $1 million per year, and make them responsible for all of their own costs – staffing, transportation, office expenses, mailing, etc.  If they want to take a “fact-finding” junket to Tahiti, have a girlfriend in Brazil, or travel home every weekend, they can pay for it themselves.  Term limits might not hurt either.
  • Outsource most of the costs of government to co-ops made up of top private companies.  Social security and welfare fraud would be zero if administered by IBM and Visa.  Defense contractors have proved they work better together than they do in competition.  With co-ops, the winning private companies will regulate each other.
  • Establish a real, non-partisan budget and cost management department, led by private-sector experts and technicians instead of political lackeys and cronies.  Pay commissions to those who find corruption, and prosecute the offenders.
  • Implement zero-based or priority-based budgeting.  Start every department and program at zero and require true cost justification for all expenditures every annual or bi-annual cycle.  Same process for entitlements – disability and unemployment must be verified.  Eliminate unnecessary, duplicative and obsolete departments.
  • Replace unemployment compensation and most direct welfare payments with honest work projects.  No work, no money.
  • Tie all foreign aid and investment to our own national interests.  Not one dollar to nations or despots whose actions are damaging to the US.  That includes the United Nations.
  • Simplify the tax code and work with businesses instead of against them.
  • Eliminate the EPA and make the United States the energy provider to the world – aggressively develop natural gas and liquefied natural gas as an alternative to oil.  Abandon the infaturation with ridiculously inefficient wind and solar energy and pour our efforts and investments into the efficient use of proven energy sources.

I could go on.  Maybe some of these ideas have holes, or need development.  Surely there are many more opportunities – bigger and better ones.  But if you and I can discuss many methods of improving our government’s performance, why can’t our leaders talk about it?

Do they really want to solve the problem?  Are they actually interested in reducing the drag of bloated government on our economy?  Obviously, no.  Otherwise they would be doing it.

So the only remaining solution is to replace all the self-serving charlatans with motivated leaders who ARE interested.  And the only way that will happen is if we can educate and win the majority of Americans who currently don’t get it or don’t care – our neighbors, our friends, and any stranger on the street whom we can engage.

Time is of the essence.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Whatever happened
To all the good times we used to have
The times we cried and laughed
I wanna know, I wanna know

Don’t You Care? – the Buckinhams