Sunday, May 15, 2011

Politics in the Land of Make Believe

An unfortunate fact of life, especially in this world of 24 hour media is that people are drawn to things that entertain and make them feel better.  And it seems that the culture in general are less and less able to distinguish between fact and fiction...reality and make believe.  And this goes across all all areas of life from home to work to politics.  It is sad, but it is the truth.

The video below from ZONATION points out that in the current culture, while conservatives "live in reality, Liberals live in a world of make believe...that's why they are so good at it."  He also says, "Liberals are able to make compelling points because they have to be creative to sell their B.S...Lying takes creativity by default.  A lie, in itself, is an exercise  in creativity...Telling the truth is not a creative process.  That's why its so hard to make the truth entertaining."  He warns conservatives that they had "better start tapping into the creative side to promote the truth."

Here's an entertaining, but sad, coverage of the topic.




Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Now For The Really Important Stuff

Well, we got bin Laden, now we can get down to the serious business of state...college football.  You know, this was one of the pressing issues on which President Obama ran for office.  In November of 2008, with two wars being waged and a flagging economy, he had time to think about this important issue.

"If you've got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses, there's no clear decisive winner. We should be creating a playoff system," then presidential candidate Obama told interviewer Steve Kroft.  "It would add three extra weeks to the season. You could trim back on the regular season. I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do."

And now that he's President and has saved the world, almost single-handedly, from the scourge of Osama bin Laden, he is turning his Department of Justice loose on the NCAA's , Bowl Championship Series (BCS).  The Associated Press (AP) reports that in a letter "the department's antitrust chief, Christine Varney, asked NCAA President Mark Emmert why a playoff system isn't used in football, unlike in other sports; what steps the NCAA has taken to create one; and whether Emmert thinks there are aspects of the BCS system that don't serve the interest of fans, schools and players."

But it's not just an Obama, or Democrat issue.  This is too important an issue to play partisan politics.  On October 21, 2010, Bloomberg reported that Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), "asked President Barack Obama to have the Justice Department investigate college football’s Bowl Championship Series to determine if it violates the Sherman Antitrust Act."  Hatch further said, “My goal is go get into a championship playoff system where whoever the teams are, they are justified in playing in the national championship.  The BCS system requires everybody to join. It’s an unfair system and we need to do everything we can to try and change it.”

So, there you go, finally an issue that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on.  And what could be more important.  Everybody with any awareness of the importance of college football understands just how terrible the BCS system is...at least if your team didn't make a bowl game. What better cause on which to use the coercive, destructive power of the Federal government than this?  I mean, if the Constitution didn't intend to protect us from travesties such as this, then there is no protection...no justice at all.

I urge all Americans to contact your Federal representatives and insist that they support this noble cause...to drop all of this extraneous business of budgets and the economy...war and peace...and other such wasteful pursuits and get behind President Obama's Justice Department in providing a more sensible and equitable college football bowl game selection system.

Stand firm! Stand for your rights as an American sports fan!  History will record this struggle along with the hearings about use of steroids in professional baseball and inquiries into the safety of football helmets.  Don't be on the wrong side of history.

Pigford - "Government Run Amok"

For those who think there is no fat in the Federal budget that could possibly be cut, allow me to introduce you to Pigford.  Not Eva Pigford...the beautiful actress...but the case of Pigford v. Glickman.  Pigford, as it is simply referred to, was a class-action suit filed by Timothy Pigford against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on behalf of 400 other black farmers who alleged discrimination in farm lending.

As Andrew Breitbart of BigGovernment.com reports, "There seems to be considerable evidence that some black farmers were denied access to timely loans and generally received unfavorable treatment by some USDA employees."  While the USDA did not admit to doing anything wrong, they did make some changes to their procedures and directed the Civil Right's Action Team (CRAT) to investigate.  "CRAT issued a thick report confirming that black farmers had been denied equal access to credit"

The case was adjudicated in favor of the farmers. Qualifying farmers could either "be paid $50,000 tax- free and would possibly have their government loans erased." or, through hearings "before a court-appointed independent arbitrator to seek larger damages."   But, that was just the beginning, the fraud and corruption had just begun.  As Breitbart explains:
"The original estimate on both sides of the lawsuit was that the number of claimants would total between 1,000-4,000. But what started out, as a relatively small case of perhaps 4,000 claimants at most, is today a multi-billion dollar settlement with over 94,000 claimants.  What makes that figure so problematic is that during the years the alleged racial discrimination took place (1981-1996), there were never more than 33,000 black farmers total in the entire United States according to the census bureau." 
FBI investigations estimated that at least half of the claims against Pigford were false...before the investigation was shut down.  There were aplicants who lived in suburbs and urban areas, who never farmed in their lives.  One USDA whistle blower reported that "“Pigford was basically legalized extortion. It reached the point where they were just handing money to people."  "The legal standard was supposed to be a preponderance of evidence,” says another employee, “but soon they pretty much gave money to whoever filled out a form.” 

Pigford began to be seen by activists and some in government as deserved reparations to blacks for the past sin of slavery, which has long been a goal of black activists.  Gary Grant, President of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association said, “If you are an African-American, you deserve $50,000 because your roots are in farming and your folks have already been cheated.  You are collecting what your grandparents didn’t have the opportunity to.”   These activist groups used the Pigford case as litmus test for political support.  As long as candidates promised to keep the gravy train running with continued Pigford payouts, the groups will deliver the votes.

Since not enough people were able to get in on Pigford, Congress is working on Pigford II, sponsored by then-Senator Barack Obama.  This incarnation offers up $1.25 billion in taxpayer money.  It also opens the door to claims by Hispanics, Native Americans and women to get their peice of the pie...seems we're all farmers now.

While the Crew of 42 blog on black members of the 112th congress decries the so-called raising of the bar for payouts to black applicants, they never really deny that there is fraud.  In fact, they quote Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) concerning changes made to Pigford II to raise the eligibility bar saying, “There’s fraud in everything the government does. There’s just not gonna be as much fraud.”  Well, I feel better, how about you?

There are many more details to this case.  Facts like the largest recipient of Pigford I was Shirley Sharrod, the USDA employee who was caught up in the NAACP racism charges and who was fired...then re-hired.  Her and her husband received over $13 million.  The next largest award was $675,000.  The fact that Obama has seemed to use this fraud as a pay-off for votes.  The fact that officials have seemed to turn a blind eye to the corruption, either through lack of political backbone...or for personal gain.  And then there is the hundreds of millions of dollars paid out to the attorneys. The details are still emerging.

As Breitbart concludes:
"This embezzlement of taxpayer money, possibly to the tune of billions of dollars, demands congressional attention. At the very least, it would seem prudent to have a congressional investigation into the very real possibility that over a billion dollars of taxpayer money is going to fraudulent claims into what ostensibly began as a legitimate grievance by a few thousand black farmers."

In the video below, Jimmy Dismuke, a real farmer and qualified recipient of Pigford I tells of  the fraud perpetrated  by attorneys in recruiting claimants for the class-action suit.



Additional information:
Me & Mrs. Sherrod — And The $1.25 Billion Pigford II Black Farmers’ Settlement

Monday, May 9, 2011

Free To Choose

Milton Friedman
In 1980, renowned economist, Milton Friedman produced and aired a television series called Free To Choose.  This series, as well as an updated series (1990), is available in it's complete  at http://www.freetochoose.tv.  In this series, taped 31 years ago, Dr. Friedman tackles many of the same issues that we face, and hotly debate today, including: free markets, government interventionism, the welfare state, equal rights, consumer protection, labor relations and many more.

The original 1980 Series consisted of ten, hour long episodes.  The first half of each episode was a film put together by Friedman on a given topic.  In these films, he traveled around the world to show examples of policies, practices and their effect on the population and economy.  The second half of the episodes are discussions with a panel of people who have expertise, from both sides of the debate, on the topic(s) covered.  Both the films and the panel discussions are very educational.

Series Titles:
Volume 1 - The Power of the Market
Volume 2 - The Tyranny of Control
Volume 3 - Anatomy of Crisis
Volume 4 - From Cradle to Grave
Volume 5 - Created Equal
Volume 6 - What's Wrong with our Schools
Volume 7 - Who Protects the Consumer?
Volume 8 - Who Protects the Worker
Volume 9 - How to Cure Inflation
Volume 10 - How to Stay Free
While Friedman's theories of economics are not universally accepted, by the Left or the Right, he was very influential in shaping of economic thought in the 1970s, 80s and beyond.   In this series, he offers a very understandable coverage of the topics and a cogent defense of his positions.  Regardless of your beliefs on the subjects covered, this series is worth watching...if you can keep an open mind.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Budget Cuts - No Sacred Cows

This is a challenge to all Americans...but especially to those who call themselves conservative...mostly because those who call themselves liberal really don't think there's a problem.  With the large deficit and debt our country faces, we must be willing to look at all areas of the Federal budget for potential spending cuts.  We must not be like so many others who say, "It's okay to cut those people's favorite program, but you can't cut mine." We must be willing to sacrifice our own "sacred cows."

For modern conservatives, one of the most sacred areas of governmental spending is the military budget. Providing for the "common defense" is, actually, one of the few, enumerated powers of the Federal government. We need to fund a strong and effective military that can carry out their constitutionally mandated role of defense.  But, if we are to be intellectually honest with ourselves, we must be willing to admit that it is possible that the government bureaucrats in military procurement could be just as untrustworthy as the bureaucrats in the rest of government.  After all, the Department of Defense is the only department of government that is not subject to outside audits.  Just maybe, there might be a little room for some waste and corruption there?  Maybe?

Beware the Military Industrial Complex!  Growing up I thought this was just some term that hippie, commie-freaks used to speak out against our military power...and they did.  But that is not the origin of the term or the warning.  It came from the farewell speech of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961.  Eisenhower, of course, was no stranger to the military, being a West Point graduate who became the Supreme Allied Commander of the European Theater of Operation during WWII, and a two-term President of the United States.  I think he knew a little about that of which he spoke.

While Eisenhower understood that, "A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction."  He recognized that the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry" was new to America and that "the total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government."  It was Eisenhower who warned:
 "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
In 2001, during as Senate hearing, the late Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) questioned a requested increase in the defense budget by saying, "How can we seriously consider a $50 billion increase in the defense budget when DoD's own auditors say the department cannot account for $2.3 trillion in transactions in one year alone?"  As much as I disagreed with most anything the late king of pork, Senator Byrd said...when you're right, you're right. Then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, replied by saying, "It is...ah...I was going to say terrifying."  Rumsfeld continued:

"I doubt, to be honest, that people inside the department are going to be capable of sorting this out.  I have a feeling its going to take some folks from outside to come in and look at this, and put in place a process that over a period...and I regret to say, but I've seen how long things take...a period of years to sort it out.  And, I think it'll probably take the cooperation of Congress to try to get the system so you can actually manage the financial aspects of that institution, rather than simply report on things that have happened imperfectly."

Questioning the military budget does not, in any way, dishonor or disparage our men and women in uniform.  On the contrary, it values them more in that it insists that they not be used as pawns on a geopolitical chess board with the goal of accruing power and wealth to the members of the military industrial complex.  Our citizen soldiers fight to maintain safety and liberty of their country and the ones they love...not to prop up a corrupt government and their industrialist cronies.

Think about it this way, though many have claimed that the Gulf War and Iraq War were fought for oil...where is this oil we have fought for?  Oil supply is down, gas prices are soaring...it obviously wasn't a very successful venture, was it.  More likely, though,  it was fought to benefit the defense industry rather than the oil industry.  You see, if you have a very large stockpile of bombs, ammunition, and weapons systems, you really don't need to buy any more...unless you use up what you have.  For that, you need a war.  I'm just sayin'.

But, regardless of the relative merits of our actions in the Middle East, the defense procurement process has a large potential for fat and waste...as well as corruption.  Dr. Thomas E. Woods Jr. gives a little of the detail in the video below.  As you watch it, keep an open mind, maintain your intellectual honesty, and be willing to sacrifice your own sacred cows.



Thursday, May 5, 2011

High Cost Government

Judge Andrew Napolitano speaks about the High Cost of Government Control in this country and the need to return to "first principles."

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Rethinking the Role of Our Military

John Stossel had an interesting discussion with Christopher Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the CATO Institute concerning the current role of our military in the world.

"We have to rethink the purpose of our military," Preble said.  "Start from scratch.  Start from the core function, which is to defend the United States, and expect, and demand that other countries play the primary role of defending themselves and to police their respective regions."

Our defense budget is 20% of the overall Federal budget and growing every year. "We are spending more, in real terms today," says Preble, "than we did at the height of the Cold war...the height of the Reagan build-up...the height of the Viet Nam war...the height of the Korean war.  More today than at anytime during the Cold War."

Preble contends that we are not fighting the Cold War any longer and that we do not need the same level of presence or spending that we did during that time.  We do not need troops in Korea and Germany any longer...who are we protecting them from?  "We've frightened ourselves and we've taken on the responsibility of doing for other governments what they should do for themselves," said Preble.
 
I think he makes some very good and reasonable points.  There is no Constitutional basis for being the policemen of the world or providing "humanitarian" military intervention anytime people we like are being killed.  I struggle a bit with what our responsibility to come to the aid of our allies, but I agree that what we are doing now is not correct and must be rethought from scratch. 

Watch the interview for yourself.  Let me know what you think.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Budget Cuts Across the Board!



With all of the discussion about deficits, debt and government budgets, we see all of the usual suspects coming out of the woodwork to cry that you can't cut THEIR thing...THEIR thing is the most important of all.  Apparently, if we even cut 1% of the budget, terrible, terrible things will happen.  Children will starve to death, old people will be made homeless and all infrastructure and public safety services will fail..."real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria"*

The facts are that, as seen in the chart to the left, the median household income in the U.S. has gone up 29% in inflation adjusted dollars since 1970, while Federal government spending has increased by 242%...with no end in sight. And we are supposed to believe that there is no fat at all in the Federal budget to be trimmed.  They need every penny of tax dollars they can get, and more.  Trust them, they say.  They only have your best interest in mind.

In a previous post, Why Feed the Pig, I lay out the reasons why it doesn't make sense to launder our tax money through Washington D.C.'s leviathan bureaucracy to fund our country's infrastructure.  They add no value to the process and use our own money to buy votes.  But there are many other examples of monumental fat and waste across the spectrum of government.  Dr. Thomas E Woods, Jr. documents many of these in his latest book, Rollback.

Let's look at one of the touchiest subject of all, welfare programs.  Even if you take as fact that everyone...or at least most everyone...on welfare today absolutely need and "deserve" it. The system itself is bloated and inefficient beyond repair.  As Dr. Woods points out:

"Another way to approach it is to recall that at least two-thirds of the money assigned to government welfare budgets is eaten up by bureaucracy.  Taken by itself, this would mean it would take three dollars in taxes for one dollar to reach the poor.  But we must add to this the well-founded estimate of James Payne that the combined public and private costs of taxation amount to 65 cents of every dollar taxed.  When we include this factor, we find the cost of government delivery of one dollar to the poor to be five dollars."

Is this an efficient...or even sane ...use of your tax dollars?  Where there is such a huge amount of bureaucratic overhead, there is fat to be cut.  But, you see, that fat represents a block of people who's product and trade is to put people on and maintain welfare programs.  To protect themselves, they perpetuate the myth that any money cut would directly remove food from the mouths of the poor, health care from the elderly, and safety from the children.  This is all about maintaining the status quo.  "We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!"**

This does not even deal with the fraud and misuse of the systems or whether all of this welfare spending even provides us with what it promises.  Ask yourself if poverty and crime rates are better or worse as a result of all of the so-called Great Society programs.  The answer is that things, by all objective measures have gotten worse, not better.  Don't we have a right to expect that our taxes are being used in an effective manner?  Dr. Woods offers another insightful point on this issue:

"What if poverty, crime and social dysfunction had been very high before the Great Society programs were instituted and then were dramatically reduced?  Can we doubt that its advocates would have attributed the decline in these features of inner-city to the government's wise new programs?  Yet when things work the other way, and the inner-cities become almost unlivable after these programs were introduced, we're hastily assured that the one has absolutely nothing to do with the other."

But what about Education?  Surely there is no fat to be cut here!  It is all for the children, after all.  Well, here again, the truth is different from what those who would protect their fiefdoms would tell you.  Just ask yourself if it is a necessity for high schools to have AstroTurf on their football fields or computerized white boards in their class rooms?  Boards not even found in my son's computer engineering classes at  the university.  But any talk of cuts in education inevitably leads to claims that teachers will be fired and quality of education will fall.

So, as with the welfare issue, let's examine the relationship of educational spending to quality of education, as measured by test scores.  If  an increase in spending would correlate to better test scores, the Educrats (educational bureaucrats) may have a case.  But in fact, it seems, according to statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics, as compiled into the chart above by the Cato Institute, increased spending has no distinguishable effect on test scores.  From the data represented by this chart, a case could reasonably be made that we could cut inflation-adjusted spending back to the level of 1970 without negatively affecting test scores.

Again Dr. Woods points out that while education spending has skyrocketed, "in 2003, the federal government found only 13 percent of Americans at or above age sixteen to be proficient in reading prose, following written directions, and carrying out quantitative tasks."  Is this an acceptable return on your education dollars?

And how about one for the "Far Right?"  Military spending.  No patriotic American could suggest that we can or should cut military spending, right?  Surely if we cut defense spending our brave and deserving warriors and their families will go without food and basic necessities.  At least this is what the leaders of the, as Dwight D. Eisenhower called it, military-industrial complex would have you believe.

A big problem with assessing fat in military spending is that the Department of Defense is not subject to audit.  That fact alone should raise huge red flags.  A department of the government responsible for approximately 20% of the federal budget with no audits; no chance of abuse there, huh?  Add to this the manner in which Defense Department procurement is carried out through cost-plus and fixed-fee contracts, rather than sealed bids like most of the rest of the rest of the country operates and you get an environment primed for gross inefficiencies at best and massive fraud at worst.

These issues are not Republican issues or Democrat issues.  They have come about and been defended by the actions of both parties.  It is issues like these, and many others, that have lead to incredibly bloated and feckless juggernaut we call government.  There are no departments, no bureaus, no offices of government that do not have considerable fat that can be cut...and without adversely affecting their stated missions.

The problems of our economy, the deficits and crushing debt, are far to large and intricate for our politicians to sort through with a fine tooth comb.  They are also too fraught with political pit falls.  But, it is up to our representatives to solve the problems.  So what should they do?

I believe that the only workable solution is to make cuts, by a given percentage, across the board...all budgets.  Congress should mandate that the heads of each governmental department come up with plans to cut their budget by the proscribed amount.  This mandate would come with the direction that no vital services will be cut.  There is to be no "playing politics."  The bureaucrats should be put on notice that this is a mandate from the people and failure to make the cuts in an appropriate way will mean that heads will roll...starting at the very top.  This method will take control back from the bureaucrats and avoid the appearance of any political favoritism.  Republicans and Democrats could come together in a bi-partisan manner and proclaim the real dangers we face if the cuts are not made.

I think that as a first step, the budget could be cut by 20%.  After this, Congress could begin to look for whole departments that could be eliminated.  The Department of Education, which has only been around since 1979, adds little or no value in actually providing education to our children.  As we have seen above, they have also not been a positive influence on test scores.  Department of Energy?  What good has that done?  Soaring oil prices and no viable alternative sources of energy.  Well, you get the point.

All of these bureaucracies claim that they could indeed do what they are tasked with...if only they had more money...and control.  Well, they have had more than 40 years to try.  I say times up and remind you of Einstein's definition of insanity: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

One more quote from Rollback.  This one brings home the ridiculousness of our current situation:

"Every year $250 billion is borrowed from China so the U.S. government can play superpower. (Paul Craig Roberts, assistant secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan was more blunt: 'A country whose financial affairs are in the hands of foreigners is not a superpower.')"

* from the movie Ghost Busters (1984)
** from the movie Blazing Saddles (1974)

Monday, May 2, 2011

Osama Bin Laden: Dead

Bye bye, bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, head of the al Qaeda terrorist network, is dead.  GOOD! We should be happy that the man responsible for the death of thousands of innocent people through directing cowardly acts of terrorism has been killed.  We should be thankful for the dedication of the hundreds of people in our military and intelligence organizations...for the skill of our Navy SEAL warriors who took him down. 

Last night in President Obama's speech, he said, "Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we've made great strides in that effort. We've disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot."

But, then, he would have you think that nothing really happened until HE got there: 

"And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda.. I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden...I met repeatedly with my national security team...And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice."  And on it went. "I've made clear, just as President Bush did...Over the years, I've repeatedly made clear that we would take action...These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief..."

He did spend two short paragraphs thanking and recognizing the "countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who've worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome."  And also "the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country" who he said have "borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day."


Truth be told, Obama had little or nothing to do with this victory.  It has been a long 10 year slog by the intelligence, counterterroism, and military personnel.  Obama just happened to be in office at the time.  So while he is quick to blame all of his problems on his predecessor, George W. Bush, he seems more than willing to assign himself credit for something that was in the works through most of the Bush administration.  But, I guess this is not much different than what many politicians do...and that's the problem.  We need Leaders, not politicians.

I do agree with parts of his speech, especially when he said. "The cause of securing our country is not complete."  Bin Laden is dead!  Good.  But he is just one man...an important man to the cause of radical Islam, no doubt...but, one man only.  So while I'm happy that this murderer is gone, I worry that, to his followers it will be a martyr's death with a martyr's cause.