Back to Basics

I do a lot of reading and lately I have been learning about how our government is getting bigger and more out of control.  In short, it is running away from us, but not until it has taken more than an extra large bite out of our hard earned tax dollars.  It’s really not the government that is running away, it is the politicos who are distancing themselves from those of us who put those slick wizards into their plush and lucrative offices.

Back in Colonial days when our nation’s founders were burning the midnight oil (that’s true, as electricity wasn’t invented until one of them, Ben Franklin, was flying his kite one day and got struck by a bolt of lightning); they talked about how to make a better government than the one they had just left in England under the tyranny of King George III.  Taxes were out of sight and the same rulers prevailed from the day they were born until they passed away and then their eldest offspring stepped up and took over to keep up the not-so-good-work.

These trusty and tireless souls put together, first in 1775, a Declaration of Independence to let the King know that they, and all the others over here with them, had decided that they were not going to pay any more taxes to England as they were going to become a country of their own making.  Then, next, on July 4, 1776, they made it official and dared the Brits to do something about it; which they did, and the Revolutionary War was on.

As you know, we won that one and so we set about forming a Constitution. Back then our government, much like the ones today, didn’t work too fast and the Constitution was ratified by the people’s representatives in September, 1787.  Of course, considering the conditions at the time, with no telephones, television, planes, trains or buses and horse and buggy the major transportation, they could be excused.

I’ll let the current bunch of slugs explain why it takes so much time for a state’s representative to get to Washington to go to work.  Nancy Pelosi might be a good one to ask and while you’re at it, ask her to explain why she needed a huge military aircraft with a 200-person seating capacity to fly back and forth to California when she was Speaker of the House for (thank God) a short time.

That era (Pelosi,etc.) was a nightmare of logistics with even some Democrats leaving their posts in places like Milwaukee and travelling to other states so as not to be available for the Republican Governor to send the state police to their homes to round them up and make them come back to the jobs that the taxpayers were paying them to do.  And they got away with it! Absolutely nothing was done to censure or reprimand their abominable conduct.

The State Department is supposed to be testing its high-security employees to see if they are getting high, but testing has fallen way below the required levels and no overseas diplomats are getting drug tested at all, according to a new internal report.

Former President Ronald Reagan established the rule back in 1986 that federal employees aren’t allowed to use illicit drugs either on or off the job, due to the risk of coercion of employees entrusted with national security information, loss of productivity, and impairment of their health and well-being. The State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual dictates that all department employees with a “secret” level or above should be subject to random drug tests because they posses sensitive information and mandates that the State Department have a detailed plan for drug testing.

But the State Department’s plan doesn’t include testing for anybody stationed overseas, even though more than 40 percent of the highly sensitive jobs are located outside the United States, the State Department’s inspector general (IG) found.

“Moreover, the number of employees in sensitive positions subject to testing is only 1 percent, or approximately 190 employees, while the plan calls for 10 percent, or approximately 1,503 employees. Additionally, there are no formal procedures to ensure that all personnel selected for drug testing are in fact tested and that any employee who seeks a deferral of testing has a legitimate reason for seeking a deferral,” the report stated.

“As a result, the Department cannot ensure that it is achieving its goal of having a drug-free workplace.”

The IG made four specific recommendations which, if implemented, could mean that the party is over for diplomats who might be taking advantage of the local wares in places like Afghanistan, Thailand, and Colombia. The IG recommended that State develop and implement  an overseas drug testing program, make sure that drug testing is actually random, develop a new methodology for drug testing to be approved by the Department of Health and Human Services, and ensure “the Department is placing appropriate management emphasis and resources toward achieving the objective of a drug-free workplace.”

The IG blamed the problem on the lack of program supervision and oversight by the drug program coordinator, who is a deputy assistant secretary for human resources, and the drug program manager, who is a nurse in the office of medical services.

Neither the Bureau of Human Resources nor the Office of Medical Services responded to the draft report.

Border Patrol agent apprehending illegal aliens. Agent turnover is high with Border Patrol staff transferring to other government agencies. Credit: CBP/DHS

The Department of Homeland Security, the nation’s third largest federal agency with a workforce of over 200,000 federal workers, suffers from a bad case of low employee morale, according to a just released report submitted to the U.S. Congress on Thursday.

Since its creation in 2003, DHS has faced challenges implementing functions, and its employees have reported having low job satisfaction, according to the Government Accountability Office.

During the formation of the DHS, several law enforcement, security and organizational experts expressed fears that such a department — comprised of a diverse number of agencies, each with its own “culture” — was destined to fail.

The GAO itself at that time designated the implementation and transformation of DHS as high risk because it represented an enormous and complex undertaking that would require time to achieve in an effective and efficient manner.

The GAO analyzed DHS and component planning documents, interviewed relevant DHS officials about employee morale, and analyzed copies of the 2011 federal employee job satisfaction surveys.

GAO has previously reported on a variety of issues, including concerns about pay and a lack of trust in leadership that can lead to morale problems. The potential issues that can result in morale problems underscores the importance of looking beyond survey scores to understand the root causes of those problems and developing plans to address them.

“It’s not surprising to read this in the GAO report,” said former intelligence officer and police commander Mike Snopes. “The fact is that agency personnel — whether they be Immigration and Customs Enforcement, border patrol, or other components — give low marks to their top echelon commanders.”

Snopes points to a “vote of no-confidence” by ICE agents regarding their top leader John Morton. The U.S. Border Patrol agents are also on record complaining about their commanders’ political agenda. including that of Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Over time, surveys have consistently found that Department of Homeland Security employees are less satisfied with their jobs than the government-wide average. In the 2004, 56 percent of DHS employees responded that they were satisfied with their jobs, compared to 68 percent government-wide, stated the GAO analysts.

For example, job satisfaction index results show the Transportation Security Administration as 11 percentage points below government-wide averages while other components, such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection, posted above average results, according to the GAO analysts.

Joseph Wallen, a security manager specializing in security officer training, believes the TSA employees have the lowest morale since they are openly ridiculed by some political leaders, the news media and even “comedians” on cable news networks.

“No government job is held in such low regard as an airport screener. Most college-educated Americans look at them as nothing more than janitors. And unfortunately, too many times they’re treated that way,” said Wallen.

In subsequent years, the disparity continued — ranging from a difference of 8 percentage points in 2006 to a 4 percentage point difference in 2008, 2010, and 2011, the GAO reported.

In 2011, DHS’s percentage of positive responses was lower than the averages for the rest of the federal government.

UPI FILE

Politicians in America are employees of the state.

Politicians are employees of the state.

What’s the mystery? Why are these people (with some few exceptions) so against the American people? Why do they consistently promote socialism? Why do they have no financial responsibility? Why do they always promote socialist agendas like Obamacare and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that do away with human and personal liberties that have existed since the Magna Carta was issued?

Do not be deceived. Subversive elements can hollow out the soul of a nation without destroying its flag and national symbols, with very few people alert to what is happening. People, in their oblivion, think that they are still free if they don’t see tanks rumbling down the streets, armed guards and barbed wire, and fortified buildings with barred doors and windows.

Modern population control is not conventional warfare and military occupation. Modern warfare is psychological warfare. War has evolved into a form of false benevolence that masks tyranny in its most pernicious forms. It removes from the collective mind of the populace the thought that those being “protected” are, in fact, the target of the attack.

The pretenses and propaganda are so real that all but a few are deceived about the modus operandi of the political establishment charade. The state-induced psychosis segments and divides strangers, families and friends against themselves and polarizes the collective population against a small, alert minority.

This unbalanced situation can go on for years. Unbeknownst to the ruling elite, they continually self-destruct while their greed blinds them to reality that resistance is building sub-rosa.

People can be oppressed (pacified) to the extreme with propaganda and social welfare until a critical tipping point or shock potential is reached. At that point, physical pain and privation become general awareness, and demonstrations and riots appear.

This, too, can be suppressed with superior force for a time, but the same harsh armed suppression causes a greater portion of the populace to realize that government force is on one side and the citizenry on the other. This triggers a swell of capped rebellion to express itself and join the crowd.

So what happens? The state, in its unbridled greed, self-destructs. When the thousands of greedy bureaucrats and paid politicians overplay their greed so that chicanery in government is widespread and widely visible, it sparks social and militant revolution between the state and an aroused people who have guns. This is now!

Nothing can change this spontaneous process. It might blow hot and cold with twists and turns in the propaganda and a few million more food stamps. But the end is in sight and the crowds of people are beginning to see reality: A change of regime is at hand.

The old entrenched crowd must go, and some must be tried for treason. The hangman must be hanged!

Now, my friends, what do you imagine has delayed and postponed the liberation of the people from a greedy and despotic government?

If you wanted evidence that government workers are overwhelmingly Democratic, this should make it pretty obvious. From The Hill newspaper:

Democrats in the House and Senate on Wednesday proposed legislation that would ease penalties that federal workers face for engaging in partisan political activities such as campaigns or other overt actions.

Federal workers are restricted from engaging in partisan political activity under the Hatch Act of 1939, a law that grew out of complaints that federal workers were helping collect votes for the Democratic Party.

Under current law, employees who violate the Hatch Act are required to either be removed or suspended for at least 30 days without pay. Suspensions can only take place if the Merit Systems Protection Board votes unanimously to take this step.

But under legislation introduced by Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) in the Senate and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) in the House, the Board would have flexibility to choose from a menu of penalties. These include not just removal, but “reduction in grade, debarment from federal employment for a period not to exceed five years, suspension, reprimand or an assessment of a civil penalty not to exceed $1,000.” . . .

The first and foremost purpose of government is to create government jobs. Going back to the early days of American history a time honored tradition of newly elected politicians was to obtain positions for their friends, their nephews and assorted cousins. In those more innocent times appointing someone an inspector of something was a cordial way of repaying a favor. But the problem with inspectors is that they inspect things.

There are only so many idiot cousins you can hire to stamp papers and frown at things until you have to create an entire new department and then a division and then an agency to give them something to do. And that leads to budget drains and an expansion of government authority that interferes with the lives of people who work for a living.

A few centuries later we live in a country where every place that has more than three people living within three miles of each other is overseen by a multitude of agencies with overlapping levels of authority beginning from the locals to the staties and all the way up to Washington D.C. where the swamps were paved over to construct massive buildings full of agencies all descended from the day someone’s idiot cousin got a sinecure, a government horse and an inkwell in a city that no one used to take seriously.

Many of us would gladly trade off those buildings and those bureaucrats in return for a few dozen idiot cousins drinking in Washington taverns on the public’s dime in a country with no income tax and no one pounding on your door every five minutes because you don’t feed your kids arugula, don’t recycle your trash and don’t care about the latest trendy cause already being written into the state religion.

Unfortunately like rabbits, idiot cousins lead to more idiot cousins. Corruption doesn’t stop at a set line, it pushes as far as it can, and when a man with some big ideas gets hold of it, then bar the door because it’s DOE/EPA/HUD/DOL time.

The idiot cousins are satisfied to think small. Their ambitions reach as high as a government salary for doing nothing and a few taverns and ladies of the evening to spend it on. A hundred thousand of them can be a problem, but a million of them organized under a creed that has set out to seize power using an unelected bureaucracy is one of those moments when a society must realize that its corruption has become a liability to its own survival.

We are of course far beyond idiot cousin territory. Idiot cousin jobs were handmade, much like Solyndra or other recent examples of crony capitalism. It’s mass production that turns a problem into a plague and the mass production of government jobs began around the same time that many other industries were discovering that they could make money cranking out vast numbers of identical copies of things.

The cities were the perfect mold for a new mass produced bureaucracy. Not only did they have social problems and political machines galore, but they also had massive numbers of immigrants who came up the hard way in the industrial age and wanted their kids to have something better than they did.

Most people think of the penalties from crime as involving prison and fines. But they go well beyond that and include lost professional licenses and lost retirement money. Blagojevich will lose his pension once he goes to prison, but the board wants to make sure that he doesn’t get the money before he goes there. From the Chicago Tribune:

Convicted ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich will now have to clear a few more hurdles before he would even have a slight chance of collecting a $65,000-a-year state pension.

The General Assembly Retirement System board added the extra layer of scrutiny Wednesday with Blagojevich on the verge of turning 55 in December. That’s when he’s eligible to apply for a state pension.

The move came the same day the Illinois Supreme Court suspended Blagojevich from the practice of law “effective immediately and until further order” by the court. Blagojevich had not been known to even be practicing law, however, and losing his license upon conviction had long been expected.

Typically, a former lawmaker or statewide official would apply for a pension, and the checks start soon thereafter. The board would then review the pensions at a follow-up meeting and give final approval.

But on Wednesday, lawmakers on the pension board decided that any former lawmaker or statewide official convicted of a felony should get more scrutiny before the pension system begins cutting them checks. If Blagojevich applies for a pension, for example, the application would be frozen and the board would hold special meetings to consider it.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, D-Orland Park, raised the Blagojevich issue because the impeached former governor will turn 55 before the panel had planned to meet next spring.

The issue also is complicated because Blagojevich has not been sentenced yet. The sentencing has been indefinitely postponed, and pension board lawmakers did not want to take a chance that Blagojevich would start cashing pension checks in the meantime. . . .

’s based in part on Illinois’ experience with convicted former Gov. George Ryan, who collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in pension before he went to prison. Ryan was making a pension worth nearly $200,000 a year when it was revoked.

Ryan left office and began collecting a pension immediately. Later, Ryan was indicted, convicted, and after a lengthy delay, sentenced. During that time, he collected $635,000 from Illinois taxpayers. . . .

In the land of the blind, it’s said that the one-eyed man is king. In our own land, it seems that hypocrisy trumps sight. Americans, whose ancestors fought a war to free themselves of monarchs, now find themselves under the thumb of kings, queens, dukes and earls, who deign to pass themselves off as public servants.

Consider that in spite of a dire economy, Obama keeps adding White House staff. The number of fetch-and-carriers is now 454, at a cost to the taxpayers of $37 million-a-year. So, how about the next time the Obamas decide to host a gala for the well-heeled likes of Tom Hanks, Paul McCartney and Jerry Seinfeld, the guests at least pay for their own drinks?

On top of that, the taxpayers had to pony up $800,000, so that Michelle, her mom and the kids, could take a trip to Africa. No doubt they were anxious to see where Barack wasn’t born.

I can’t even count high enough to figure out what it’s costing us to finance Obama’s travels around the country so he can do the all-important work of campaign fund-raising.

Speaking of Obama, the Boston Globe, which even Chris Matthews can’t dismiss as a conservative smear sheet, recently came up with the news that Barack Obama, Sr., a notorious womanizer, tried to foist baby Barack off on the Salvation Army. So now, at long last, we actually know what his father’s dreams amounted to; not really all that different from Casey Anthony’s, it seems..

But, God knows, Barack Obama isn’t the only hypocrite holding down a good-paying job in Washington. What’s ironic is that politicians spend a few trivial hours with prostitutes and it ruins their reputations and sinks their careers, but they spend half their lives being wined and dined by lobbyists, and all it does is increase their chances of getting re-elected.

Come to think of it, it’s the prostitutes who have congressmen as clients who should be ashamed. One just naturally expects them to have higher standards than our elected officials.

I wouldn’t want you to get the idea that ours are the only politicians who should be horse-whipped in the public square on a regular basis. In the wake of Eric Holder’s latest calamity, the ATF debacle code-named “Fast and Furious,” which saw scores of guns sent to south of the border drug cartels, Mexican politicians have been bitching about our ignoring Mexico’s sovereignty. This is the same country that has spent decades doing all it can to encourage their poor, their illiterate and their criminals, to treat our sovereignty with the same respect one normally extends to used piñatas.

Recently, I wrote an article in which I made fun of gays for inventing a mental disorder they call homophobia as a way of demeaning those people who oppose same-sex marriages or are merely sick and tired of Gay Pride parades disrupting traffic. I don’t happen to know anyone who has an irrational fear of homosexuals. In the piece, I stated that gays were the only group that had the chutzpah to suggest that questioning their behavior was tantamount to a mental derangement.

Well, a reader reminded me that there is something Muslims and the media like to call Islamophobia.