March, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 4: Embarrassed By Fake Zombie Attacks, Hackers, Snipers, and a Better Russian Foreign Policy

This is our fourth post this month in our monthly series on political class insanity. It highlights how the American political class continually wastes our tax dollars, implements idiotic programs, and cannot operate any government program or project without incompetence and waste. The first post in this month’s series can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-2014-political-class-insanity_2.html

You can review previous month’s instances of political lunacy at the beginning of every month from the listing on the right side of this page.

1) Recent news reports have been reviewing the massive political and liberty problems going on in the Ukraine, formerly a part of the Soviet Union. It appears that the ruling political class in the Ukraine was very corrupt which ruled a country that was on the verge of bankruptcy. When mixed in with the split between those citizens in the Ukraine that wanted to align the country with the West and those that wanted to align the country with Russia, you ended up with a very volatile situation.

The country eventually exploded into street riots, fighting, deaths, and the eventual overturning of the current government. And as of the past few days there are reports that Russian military forces have entered the country and have taken control of at least two airports. This intrusion was relatively simple since the Ukraine and Russia share a geographic border and the area where the intrusion occurred is the part of the country friendly to Russian influences.

Which gets to our Secretary of State, John Kerry. Kerry wants to put up a billion dollars worth of U.S. taxpayer money in a guaranteed loan to the Ukraine to help it survive all of the turmoil including its dire financial situation. Any number of problems with this insanity:

• The Ukraine interim government says it needs at least $35 billion so $1 billion would be like spitting on a forest fire, a total waste.
• Kerry does not specify what the money will be used for or what conditions would be imposed, just wants to give them a $1 billion, a sure fire way to waste it.
• Given that Russian troops are already on the ground in the country, seems like giving a weak interim government would be like giving the Russians the money directly since it is Russia that will eventually have the major influence on what goes on in the country.
• Our national debt is now over $17 TRILLION, we cannot afford to be given away billions of dollars into situations that the political class has no plan or end game for.
• Maybe if this administration had had an effective and proactive foreign policy and strategy to begin with, all of this may have been averted and the billion dollars not put at risk.

I feel sorry for the Ukrainians, outside influences are driving their eventual fate. But giving their new, inexperienced leaders a billon dollar loan guarantee, while it may feel good, is nothing more than flushing a billion dollars down the drain. 

The Obama administration has no plan and really no leverage on the situation while the Russians are right there, on the ground, in the country, and pulling all of the strings in connection with their grand plans and strategies. Lack of planning, lack of ability to plan, that is the American political class ineptness in this foreign affairs crisis.

2) In yesterday’s insanity post we described a situation where an 84 year old nun and two accomplices had easily penetrated a government nuclear facility and had gotten inside where they caused cosmetic damage in protest of nuclear technology. We pointed out that the Federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year to protect the country from terrorist attacks, hundreds of billions of dollars that was easy defeated by an 84 year old nun.

Well, it appears that an elderly nun is not the only one that proved our domestic protection plans can be easily defeated despite the huge expenditures. Consider an excerpt from a Business Insider article about an April, 2013 sniper assault on an electrical substation in California:

The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Smith reports that a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman is acknowledging for the first time that a group of snipers shot up a Silicon Valley substation for 19 minutes last year, knocking out 17 transformers before slipping away into the night.

The attack was “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the U.S., Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, told Smith.

The sniper or snipers put the substation out of service for months. So now we have a nun and a few snipers that have proven how defenseless our national defense is against terrorists despite the inept Washington political class spending hundreds of billions of dollars every year to prevent just such attacks. Insane.

3) But our expensive defenselessness does not stop with a nun or solitary sniper. Consider a minority Senate report headed up by Senator Tom Coburn and published in February, 2014 on how defenseless our government’s cyber secrets and information processes are. The following examples of government computers and files being hacked comes directly from his report, The Federal Government’s Track Record on Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure:

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission stored sensitive cybersecurity details for nuclear plants on an unprotected shared drive, making them more vulnerable to hackers and cyberthieves. 
• The Securities and Exchange Commission routinely exposed extremely sensitive data about the computer networks supporting the New York Stock Exchange, including NYSE’s cybersecurity measures. The information the SEC exposed reportedly could be extremely useful to a hacker or terrorist who wanted to penetrate the market’s defenses and attack its systems. 
• Last January, hackers gained access to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' computers and downloaded an entire non-public database of information about the nation’s 85,000 dams — including sensitive information about each dam’s condition, the potential for fatalities if breached, location and nearest city.
• Last February, hackers reportedly broke into the national Emergency Broadcast System, implemented by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as the federal government’s tool to address Americans in case of a national emergency. The hackers caused television stations in Michigan, Montana and North Dakota to broadcast zombie attack warnings. “Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living,” an authoritative voice stated in the hacked broadcast message, while the familiar warning beep sounded. “Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous.”
• Last March, hackers exploited a vulnerability on web servers belonging to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal government’s authority for federal and private-sector cybersecurity. The servers, which hosted the federal government’s database of known software vulnerabilities, had to be taken out of service for several days. 
• In addition, hackers have penetrated, taken control of, caused damage to and/or stolen sensitive personal and official information from computer systems at the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense, State, Labor, Energy, and Commerce; NASA; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Office of Personnel Management; the Federal Reserve; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; the Food and Drug Administration; the U.S. Copyright Office; and the National Weather Service, according to public reporting.

Hundreds of billions of dollars every year and this political class cannot even protect the country from being hit by fake zombie attack warnings. Pathetic.

Obviously, the zombie attack hacking was not serious. But the other hacks that Coburn uncovered are very serious threats to Americans’ safety, threats that have obviously existed for years and which currently still exist. In fact, Coburn’s research found that the Federal government has spent $65 billon over recent years trying to secure the government’s computer systems, an effort and expenditure that has obviously failed in so many ways.

The Senator found out why the $65 million has not been effective, as he points out in his report: “And yet [government] agencies — even agencies with responsibilities for critical infrastructure, or vast repositories of sensitive data — continue to leave themselves vulnerable, often by failing to take the most basic steps towards securing their systems and information.” 

“Fail to take the most basic steps.” Sounds about right when discussing any government entity and its functions, a shortcoming that should be corrected by our elected officials but which never happens, possibly because they are too busy raising campaign funds for their next election.

Defeated by a nun, hackers, bogus zombies, and incompetence. Probably makes the Ukrainians think twice about allying with us, given how insanely inept the American political class and the government operates are. Last set of insanity tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Latest Political Class Insanity From Reason Magazine and More - June Edition, Zombie Special!

The June issue of Reason magazine arrived this week so it is that time of month again where we review the latest, most insane antics from the political class. These incidents come from both Reason magazine and a whole host of other sources. Reason magazine is one of the best publications for examining how destructive the politicians in this country are to the basic concepts of freedom and liberty. Their articles are well thought out and well researched but usually very easy to understand how taxes, wasteful spending, onerous laws, official corruption, and other actions continually weaken the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of Americans.

Thus, the following from Reason starts this month's listing of political class insanity:

- In a short article called "Lunar Lunacy", Reason discusses the Constellation program that is run by NASA. Constellation is, or was, the space program that was supposed to bring American astronauts back to the moon. However, the Obama administration shut down the program last year. But, in March 2011, Congress voted for a three week continuing budget resolution that compelled NASA to continue spending $1.4 million a day on Constellation, a program that was officially killed in 2010. This wasted about $29 million worth of taxpayer dollars during the three week budget window. What a disgrace.

However, it gets worse. Similar problems happened many times last year as Congress tried, unsuccessfully, to pass a budget last summer. Each time they failed, they had to pass a continuing budget resolution, resolutions that Alabama Senator Richard Shelby insisted continue to fund Constellation, a dead program. The reason: much of Constellation's funding went to businesses and employees in Shelby's state.

Even though the NASA administrator, Charlie Bolden, wrote a letter to Shelby last June warning of the waste, by the time the budget issues got resolved, the American taxpayer had paid out more than $250 million to fund a program that had already been axed by the President, $250 million paid for absolutely no benefit received. The classic example of a political zombie, a program that cannot be killed or starved.

- Recently, three Americans decided that they did not want to be enrolled into the government's Medicare program when they became eligible. They did not ask for a refund of the Medicare funds and taxes that they had paid into the system during their working years, they just did not want to enroll, probably happy to get their health care coverage elsewhere.

Sounds like a good deal for the government, especially in these times of Medicare's fast arriving bankruptcy: a customer has already paid for the service but then does not want to receive either the service or a refund. Any rational business would love to have these kinds of customers.

Apparently, the Federal government and the political class that operates it is not quite so rational. The government took these three ordinary Americans to court, saying that they HAD to enroll into the Medicare program and pay the monthly fees involved until they died. Unfortunately, the judge hearing the case agreed with the government, saying that no loophole or provision existed for someone to opt out of what now appears to be a mandatory government program.

The lead attorney for the three plans to appeal but did make an insightful comment after the verdict: "an entitlement is now an obligation." You cannot live in a free country when the government demands that you pay for a service you may not want, whether it is Medicare in this case or Obama Care in the larger sense.

- In Baltimore, a police officer is supposed to sign every ticket that is issued as a result of a traffic light camera, i.e. those tickets where a physical officer did not issue the ticket on the spot. The officer signing the camera tickets is supposed to swear that he or she had reviewed the video footage and a traffic violation had actually been captured on tape.

Unfortunately, although Officer James Fowler had passed away in September, 2010, his signature continued to appear on tickets issued as recently as January, 2011. Makes you wonder if you can believe anything the political class tells you, especially when it is sending out tickets from dead people. Or maybe this is just another example of a political zombie, akin to the NASA program above that would not die!

- 80 year old Delia Gluckin had recently left her Manhattan apartment building and was heading for the subway when she tossed a newspaper into a city trash can on her street. Unfortunately, this resulted in a $100 ticket for throwing "improper refuse" into the trash can.

Apparently, unknown to Ms. Gluckin, city trash cans are only for litter and her newspaper was legally deemed to be household trash, trash she should have disposed off prior to leaving her home. The only comment I can make here is that if NYC has someone on the payroll that is worried about how a newspaper is disposed of, then NYC has too many people on the payroll.

- Speaking of too many people on the payroll, a short Reason blurb this month talked about how Chicago employs more than 1,400 truck drivers at an average wage of $30 an hour. The city's inspector general recently reported that about 200 of these drivers are "severely" underemployed. All they have to do is transport people and equipment to work sites, at which point they they then sit around all day, collecting their pay, until they need to take everything and everyone back from the work site.

The inspector general estimated that if the drivers themselves were forced to actually work during the day, the city could save about $18 million a year in its budget. However, the city's contract with the union will not allow those work rules to be changed. Thus, the good taxpayers of Chicago pay an additional $18 million a year for no services received.

Think maybe the city's school system might make better use of the wasted $18 million? Think that city departments serving the unemployed or homeless might make better use of the wasted $18 million? Think that the Chicago taxpayers might like the wasted $18 million back in their wallets?

Some more political class insanity that Reason missed:

- According to an article in the February 14, 2011 issue of the Washington Examiner, as reprinted in the Cato Institute's Policy Report in June, an employee of the D.C Metro System was found to have stolen more than 70 pieces of Metro System equipment including a 32 inch computer monitor, tools, camera equipment, and a portable generator. The employee took some of the equipment directly out of Metro facilities but also used his Metro employee credit card to purchase items directly for himself. The Metro's inspector general, investigators, and police found all of the stolen merchandise at the employee's home.

Good police work, got the criminal, you say. Well, not so fast. While the employee was forced to retire as a result of his larceny, he will not face any criminal charges. Why? The county's district attorney decided not to press charges since the Metro "may have served to create an atmosphere where such behavior, although not explicitly condoned or excused, was part of an implicitly tolerated practice." In other words, this guy is not guilty because everyone else stole from the Metro System. That is a place I would like to work at, I can steal anything I can get my hands on because my co-workers are doing the same thing. Unbelievable.

I wonder what Metro's ridership thinks of such waste relative to their fares. Maybe if there was not such a practice and so much stolen merchandise and credit card abuse, the fares go could go down.

- We have discussed the financial disaster that the state of California is today. Huge revenue shortfalls and serious expense problems. A prime example we talked about previously was the small California town that was close to bankruptcy, probably because the people running the town, both high ranking employees, and city council members, had voted themselves salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range.

Now comes word from the June 3, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, that Newport Beach, California citizens are going nuts because it has come to light that many city lifeguards make over $100,000 a year, with two lifeguards making over $200,000 a year in salary. No wonder the state and the towns in California are going bankrupt, outrageous salaries for occupations that do not warrant such pay levels.

- By just about any standard, America pays more for education than any other country in the world. And what do we get for a our generous funding? Well, not much if you are a taxpayer in Detroit. According to an Associated Press report that was summarized in the May 20, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, 47% of the adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate. According to the AP report, only 10% of those who are unable to read have made attempts to learn how.

How sad and pathetic. We have almost half of the population, in what is now a semi-major city, existing as illiterate zombies. These types of educational failures are a direct threat to our democracy and freedoms since if a large part of the population is not able to read and think for themselves, than someone else will do it for them, to the detriment of society and the benefit of those that would take advantage of illiterate people.

- According to the May 27, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, the United States had spent $750 million on the military actions against Libya. Remember, Libya is a country that holds no strategic significance for the United States, that provides virtually no oil to this country, is not a terrorist haven, is half a world a way, and represents absolutely no reason why the United States needed to expend military resources. For no purpose and to no end with the exception of laying almost another $1 billion of wasteful spending onto our $14 TRILLION national debt.

- But politicians screw up around the world also, not just in this country. In Britain, they had passed a very generous paternity leave law several years ago for pregnant women. The law  apparently grants a woman a full year of maternity leave with pay, at the expense of the company she works for, to care for the new infant. This was viewed as progressive and supportive of women's rights in the work place.

Unfortunately, the rule of unintended consequences kicked in, according to an article in the May 27, 2011 issue of The Week magazine. According to the article, companies now hesitate to hire women of child bearing age, lest they get pregnant and take a year off with pay. Thus, "the rights put in place to protect women at work are now functioning against them."  Did not quite think this one through, did they?

- And finally, some international political insanity from Turkey. It seems, according to a June 3, 2011 article in The Week magazine, that at least 10 members of a Turkish religious political party, a party that bills itself and its principles as guardians of Islamic values, were caught in a sex sting. Apparently, the behavior caught on videotape is not totally consistent with the values the party is supposed to represent. Many of the party members caught on tape, meeting young women for sexual encounters, have already resigned.

However, you have to give one of the party members credit for originality. He blamed President Obama for the sting and the videotapes. Original, but stupid.

That's it for this month. The beauty of writing about the political class, in all countries, is that they continue to prove how insane, wasteful, and incompetent they are, providing a never ending stream of incidents to report about. Which is a shame. I would much rather write about politicians actually acting sane, being efficient with our tax dollars, and competently going about a process, any process, that actually addresses and accurately implements programs to eliminate the major issues facing the country.

But I guess zombies are hot in our culture today and the political class is more than happy to provide their versions of zombie programs, zombie government employees and other assorted zombie insanity.


Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.loathemygovernment.com
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com