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Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Friday, August 21, 2020
Watchdog Open Secrets Report DC Trump/Leaders Lobbyist
Ed.: When we VET candidates
we use Open Secrets for following the money. This is the new report on the
Lobbyist in bed with both parties. This is why for YEARS the Tea Party and
other grassroots organizations have tried to expose the money in the DC Swamp.
Many of you already understand this and have been fighting for a change.
Cynthia Lucas
A CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS REPORT
— By Karl Evers-Hillstrom and Dan Auble, Aug. 19, 2020
As President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) negotiated the legislative response to the COVID-19 pandemic, their former aides lobbied them on behalf of deep-pocketed companies.
Over 1,000 clients dispatched lobbyists with close ties to the White House or congressional leaders through the first half of 2020. About 40 percent of those clients reported lobbying on issues related to the pandemic.
Pharmaceutical companies that received massive windfalls from the federal government to swiftly develop COVID-19 vaccines deployed Washington insiders. So did firms tasked with producing ventilators, and businesses in hard-hit industries angling for government aid. Companies that had not lobbied during the Trump administration — or ever before — signed contracts with K Street firms.
The vast majority of these clients are businesses or trade associations, which make up nearly 90 percent of lobbying spending this year. The success of revolving door lobbyists indicates that powerful interests saw former aides to top officials as their best chance to influence high-level negotiations that mostly sidelined rank-and-file lawmakers.
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Misis: When It Comes to Masks, There Is No "Settled Science"
When It Comes to Masks, There Is No "Settled Science"
As the “fifteen days to slow the spread” continues to extend indefinitely, the issue of mask mandates has become increasingly contentious. The debate has been exacerbated by the inconsistency of the recommendations of authorities (political, scientific, and imaginary). Early in the pandemic, both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) advised against the use of masks, except by those who are particularly vulnerable (the elderly and immunocompromised) and their caretakers.
Many of us with some understanding of economics made such arguments at the outset of the debate, not necessarily because of any epidemiological expertise. When you understand the principle of scarcity, policies mandating that healthy teenagers vie for medical products with their more vulnerable grandparents is a formula for exacerbating the most severe outcome of any viral infection. In fairness, many medical experts raised exactly these concerns, even if they did not enjoy the media attention of their more demagogic counterparts.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with the masks-for-all policy, it is heartening to see how well entrepreneurs adapted to the spiked demand...
Friday, May 8, 2020
Townhall: Federalism doesn’t pause during a pandemic
Federalism doesn’t pause during a pandemic
As the COVID-19 lockdowns continues to grind on in most states, President Trump has signaled an intense desire for state governors to reopen their respective states. This pressure has ranged from the subtle to the overt. In one particularly alarming development, the president even went so far as to declare that the decision to lift the current stay at home orders is his to make, not state governors.
“The authority of the president of the United States” over reopening state economies “is total,” according to President Trump. “I have the ultimate authority.”
While the president’s remarks are no doubt intended to offset the already sizeable damage done to a large portion of the electorate’s economic prospects, any action taken by the federal government must account for the separation of powers built into our system of federalism.
Under the American system of federalism, the primary power to combat COVID-19 rests with the states, not the federal government or the president.
Monday, May 4, 2020
America Is a Technocracy, Not a Democracy
America Is a Technocracy, Not a Democracy
05/01/2020 |
Perhaps never before in American history have the unelected technocrats played such an enormous role in shaping public policy in America.
In recent weeks, members of Congress have been missing in action. Late last month, the House of Representatives passed the biggest spending bill in history while most members were absent. Member votes were not recorded and the legislation was passed with a voice vote, which required only a tiny handful of members.
Weeks later, the Senate refuses to even meet, and may finally get around to debating some legislative matters in May. As with the House, a handful of members assembled earlier to approve another enormous stimulus bill. Many Senators stayed home. This is "representative government" in modern America.
But if you thought this lack of congressional action means not much is happening in Washington in terms of policymaking, you would be very wrong. It's just that the democratically elected institutions have now become a largely irrelevant sideshow. The real policymaking takes place among unelected experts, who decide for themselves—with minimal oversight or control from actual elected officials—what will happen in terms of public policy. The people who really run the country are these experts and bureaucrats at the central banks, at public health agencies, spy agencies, and an expanding network of boards and commissions.
Read the rest: The Rise of the Technocracy...
Thursday, April 23, 2020
WALTER E. WILLIAMS: Benefits vs. costs and COVID-19
WALTER E. WILLIAMS: Benefits vs. costs and COVID-19
April 22, 2020
One of the first lessons in an economics class is everything has a cost. That’s in stark contrast to lessons in the political arena where politicians talk about free stuff.
In our personal lives, decision-making involves weighing costs against benefits. Businessmen make the same calculation if they want to stay in business. It’s an entirely different story for politicians running the government where any benefit, however minuscule, is often deemed to be worth any cost, however large.
Related to decision-making is the issue of being overly safe versus not safe enough. Sometimes, being as safe as one can be is worthless. A minor example: How many of us before driving our cars inspect the hydraulic brake system for damage? We’d be safer if we did, but most of us just assume everything is OK and get into our car and drive away.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 40,000 Americans lose their lives each year because of highway fatalities. Virtually all those lives could be saved with a mandated 5 mph speed limit. Fortunately, we consider costs and rightfully conclude that saving those 40,000 lives aren’t worth the costs and inconvenience of a 5 mph mandate.
With the costs and benefits in mind, we might examine our government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first thing to keep in mind about any crisis, be it war, natural disasters or pandemics, is we should keep markets open and private incentives strong.
Markets solve problems because they provide the right incentives to use resources effectively. Federal, state and local governments have ordered an unprecedented and disastrous shutdown of much of the U.S. economy in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
There’s a strictly health-related downside to the shutdown of the U.S. economy ignored by our leadership that has been argued by epidemiologist Dr. Knut Wittkowski, formerly the head of the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at Rockefeller University in New York City.
Wittkowski argues that the lockdown prolongs the development of the “herd immunity,” which is our only weapon in “exterminating” the novel coronavirus — outside of a vaccine that’s going to optimistically take 18 months or more to produce.
He says we should focus on shielding the elderly and people with comorbidities while allowing the young and healthy to associate with one another in order to build up immunities. Wittkowski says:
So, it’s very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible, and then the elderly people, who should be separated, and the nursing homes should be closed during that time, can come back and meet their children and grandchildren after about 4 weeks when the virus has been exterminated.
Herd immunity, Wittkowski argues, would stop a “second wave” headed for the United States in the fall. Dr. David L. Katz, president of True Health Initiative and the founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, shares Wittkowski’s vision. Writing in The New York Times, he argued that our fight against COVID-19 could be worse than the virus itself.
The bottom line is that costs can be concealed but not eliminated. Moreover, if people only look at the benefits from a particular course of action, they will do just about anything, because everything has a benefit. Political hustlers and demagogues love promising benefits when the costs can easily be concealed. By the way, the best time to be wrong and persist in being wrong is when the costs of being wrong are borne by others.
The absolute worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic, and possibly its most unrecoverable damage, is the massive power that Americans have given to their federal, state and local governments to regulate our lives in the name of protecting our health. Taking back that power should be the most urgent component of our recovery efforts. It’s going to be challenging; once a politician, and his bureaucracy, gains power, he will fight tooth and nail to keep it.
Walter E. Williams
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. This content is provided courtesy of Creators Syndicate.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Davos Forum: Stuck On Stupid Over “Climate Action Failure”
Davos Forum: Stuck On Stupid Over “Climate Action Failure”
This year’s World Economic Forum Davos convention of global elitists drew 2,782 registered participants representing 117 countries and 121 nationalities. In a micro-sense, it resembles a United Nations meeting but only for plutocrats: rich, famous and powerful.
For all of the economic problems facing the world, the Davos leadership saw fit to have 17 year-old Greta Thunberg come and give them a tongue lashing for not living up to her expectations of climate change hysteria.
She duly scolded them on every front, but mostly for listening to her while subsequently doing nothing about her demands.
Sunday, December 29, 2019
These companies helping Obama Foundation ‘transform’ America
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Dershowitz: How Should the Senate Deal with an Unconstitutional Impeachment by the House?
How Should the Senate Deal with an Unconstitutional Impeachment by the House?
These two grounds [of impeachment] — abuse of power and obstruction of congress — are not among the criteria specified for impeachment. Neither one is a high crime and misdemeanor. Neither is mentioned in the constitution. Both are the sort of vague, open-ended criteria rejected by the framers. They were rejected precisely to avoid the situation in which our nation currently finds itself.- So, what options would the senate have if the House voted to impeach on two unconstitutional grounds? Would it be required to conduct a trial based on "void" articles of impeachment? Could it simply refuse to consider unconstitutional articles? Could the president's lawyer make a motion to the Chief Justice — who presides over the trial of an impeached president — to dismiss the articles of impeachment on constitutional grounds?
- Regardless of the outcome, the damage will have been done by the House majority that will have abused its power by weaponizing the House's authority over impeachment for partisan purposes — exactly as Hamilton feared.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and author of The Case Against the Democratic House Impeaching Trump, Skyhorse Publishing, 2019, and Guilt by Accusation, Skyhorse publishing, 2019.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Totalitarianism or Rightful Regulation? The Reasons for the Redirection of Education Fall into Place
Invisible Serfs Collar
"a group which desires to be strong has no use for the man who claims to think for himself."
Totalitarianism or Rightful Regulation? The Reasons for the Redirection of Education Fall into Place
Posted on
The author presents her argument that modern "conservatives" have joined in the corruption of education.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Why the Worldwide Left Is So Opposed to Donald Trump
Rush Limbaugh has finally said the words...
We who have been listening to Rush Lumbaugh through the years have known that his dialog often describes the threats from the Left in such general terms that it is impossible to convict Rush of rash, unfounded accusations. This week, however, he has been building up to a crescendo that resounded on Thursday to expose the true nature of the threat to our Republic from Transnationalism. On that occasion, he used the words of a speech by John Fonte to expose the "big picture" workings of both foreign influencers and domestic activists toward the destruction of Constitutional government in the United States.
Rush then explains that he believes that President Trump is well aware of these existential threats and his every move is designed to slow or halt their progress against your national interest. If you take the time to read the entire transcript, you will reach the part where Rush explains that the Left's twisted accusations against Trump's "nationalism" are designed to obscure the real nature of this Administation's struggle to regain the sovereignty that has already been eroded by the Transnationalists. - ed.
Why the Worldwide Left Is So Opposed to Donald Trump
Aug 15, 2019
RUSH: So, I ran across this piece and I want to share it with you because when I was reading this piece, it caused a bunch of lights to go off. One of the things that I’ve been trying to figure out, even though those of you who listen will think I have it figured out, to me there’s always more than what I understand on most things. Even though I think I may have something figured out, there’s still more to learn about it.
And this opposition to Trump, it’s so irrational. It’s so obsessive that it puzzles me. And over what? Make America Great Again. Now, look, I understand the left hates America. The left hates the concept of capitalism and freedom. But they have never been anywhere near a majority of the population in this country. Never. They’ve always been fringe. They’ve been around since the days of the founding. Their strength has ebbed and flowed, you might say they’re 30, 35 percent, but I don’t even think that in terms of getting votes.
But yet they’re portrayed by a sympathetic media as being the majority of the country. If you landed here from Mars you would think the election of Donald Trump was some kind of real aberration because he represents 20 percent of the thinking and that the whole country is outraged every day because Donald Trump somehow shouldn’t be president. And, of course, the truth is over 65 million people voted for Donald Trump. He won the presidency fair and square. And yet this picture exists of something else.
And the opposition to Trump goes way beyond just Democrats losing. And it is the singular slogan of Trump’s that it’s not just a slogan, it’s an objective: Make America Great Again. The degree to which that has rendered his opponents insane has remained a big question. Even though I think I understand most of it intellectually, I’ve said to myself there’s got to be more to this. This is just irrational. It doesn’t make sense that this many people do not want America to be great.
So that remains a focal point, a frame of reference, as I go about my life living, learning, reading, this kind of thing. I came across something today that helped me understand it a bit more. It was nothing I didn’t already know. It’s one of these pieces, like Angelo Codevilla’s piece that we shared with you many, many moons ago on the ruling class versus the country class. It was like the revelation of learning what the current services baseline is in the federal budget and how that leads to what is called baseline budgeting. Those were light-goes-off moments.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Patriots take a stand at the HQ of Fake News Ireland RTE (Representing The Elite)
Patriots,
This is our FUTURE, for we are fighting the same agenda. If we do not get engaged on the ground
local, state, and federal, this will be us! Remember, President Trump asked the
American people in a speech during his campaign, "...do you want GLOBALISM or
AMERICANISM?"
In the 1970's and 80's we spent time in Ireland. It was beautiful and
not spoiled at all. It reminded us of small towns in our Country. Watch the
video below and look what the Globalist have done.
The Smart Growth Socialist have already infiltrated the U.S. and put these policies into
our cities and towns. We stopped the Seven50 regional plan, but it has not gone
away. Watch our fellow Patriot in Ireland, Gemma O’Doherty, who is a multi award-winning journalist whose work has shone a
light on some of the darkest corners of Irish life. The video will open
you eyes and it will sound familiar to you. Please send this out to as many
people as you can. Gemma is running for office in Ireland - another Patriot fighting
for her COUNTRY.
A future Communist slum for the 'new Irish' on a historic Dublin hillside – Dublin Video
- Cindy,
Martin 9/12 TeaParty Committee
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Taking Back ‘We the People’ From the Left
Taking Back ‘We the People’ From the Left
Constitutional populism, from Barry Goldwater to Donald Trump, built the modern right and changed the world.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Following The Rules: Courts Can Require Agencies To Follow Congressional Rules
Following The Rules: Courts Can Require Agencies To Follow Congressional Rules
March 18, 2019
As children, we were all taught to follow the rules -- obey your parents, share your toys, be nice to others. The same is true for our laws. When we break them, there are consequences.
But what happens when government bureaucrats fail to abide by the laws set forth by Congress?
The Constitution establishes three branches of government -- the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. While the Founders envisioned that Congress would create the rules by which the people were to abide, today’s reality is that alphabet soup agencies -- FDA, USDA, EPA, USFWS -- adopt most of the rules that Americans are subject to. These laws have become so numerous and oppressive that one civil rights lawyer estimates that every American has committed at least three federal crimes by dinnertime every day.
Read the rest of the article at Sunshine State News...
Kaycee Royer is an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, which litigates nationwide to achieve court victories enforcing the Constitution’s guarantee of individual liberty. Her article was originally published by Townhall.
Thursday, February 7, 2019
(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Laughable Indictment of Trump’s World Bank Choice
(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Laughable Indictment of Trump’s World Bank Choice
07ThursdayFeb 2019
in (What's Left of) Our Economy
I was going to post this morning on more implications of yesterday’s new monthly U.S. trade figures, but as so often happens, the Mainstream Media has just come out with an article whose mind-boggling cluelessness reveals such deep-seated biases that I had to switch gears. Special bonus – it didn’t even come from a mainstay of the establishmentarian U.S. foreign policy and globalization Blob. Instead, we have the Financial Times editorial board to thank.
What other conclusion can be reasonably drawn from the FT editorial slamming President Trump’s appointment of David Malpass to head the World Bank?
Not that Malpass has been God’s Gift to Economics or to the cause of third world economic development. But according to the FT, a big problem with Malpass is that he lacks the leadership experience as well as intellectual and often political heft of previous U.S. choices like – wait for it – Robert S. McNamara.
That’s right – the same Robert McNamara who deserves such blame for the American disaster in Vietnam...
Monday, February 4, 2019
Texas Can Get Trump's Border Wall Accomplished
Texas Can Get Trump's Border Wall Accomplished
Texas can make a border wall happen. Many worry that courts will block President Donald Trump from building a border wall with funds reprogrammed from other projects under a declaration of an emergency. However, Texas is in the more conservative Fifth Circuit, not the Ninth.
As an attorney who worked for Judicial Watch and more recently for Larry Klayman at Freedom Watch, this topic has prompted legal research by the author.
The border wall should be built exclusively in Texas at first, postponing California, Arizona, and New Mexico until after the Texas border is secure. That will keep lawsuits in the Fifth Circuit and out of the Ninth. Texas can make this happen.
- Texas governor Greg Abbott should formally request that the president issue a declaration of an emergency.
- Abbott should declare a state-level emergency.
- Abbott should ask Texas officials to compile incidents of violence, gang activity, drug-smuggling, human-smuggling, sex-trafficking, etc. to document grounds for an emergency.
- Abbott should make demand invoking Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution that the federal government "shall" protect Texas against "invasion" by armed gangs and criminals.
- The Texas Legislature should pass a resolution invoking Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution that the federal government "shall" protect Texas against "domestic violence" spread from Mexico across the border, including armed gangs and criminals, drug-smuggling, human-smuggling, sex slavery, etc.
Decision-makers need to stop viewing this topic as one single step or as mutually exclusive with other actions. Trump should declare a national emergency while still negotiating with Congress for appropriations. It is not "either-or." He can reprogram funds in a later, separate step.
Section 4, Article 4 of the U.S. Constitution commands the U.S. government – unconditionally – as follows (emphasis added):
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."
Congress passed the Secure Fence Act of 2006, mandating the following:
Not later than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take all actions the Secretary determines necessary and appropriate to achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States, to include the following[:] ... (2) physical infrastructure enhancements to prevent unlawful entry by aliens[.]
The law further mandates that "operational control" means "the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband."
Notice "entire" border. Notice "prevention of all unlawful entries." The act requires "all" of the border to be 100% secure, not just 700 miles, as people say. The secretary of DHS has to decide what type of barrier is best in various sections. But the result must – with no discretion – prevent "all" unauthorized entry.
However, Congress never appropriated sufficient money to fund the construction authorized by the Secure Fence Act. It was yet another lie by politicians. Yet under an emergency, any president can repurpose funds under the authority of 33 U.S. Code §2293.
President Trump's declaration of a national emergency would be unassailable in the courts if backed by a declaration of a state-level emergency; a request from Texas for a declaration of a national emergency; the legislative command of the Secure Fence Act of 2006; and a constitutional command of Article IV, Section 4.
Attorney General Greg Abbott – now governor – sent several letters to President Barack Obama calling for action. One letter responded to bullets fired from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico that struck City Hall in El Paso, Texas on June 30, 2010. See Texas Capitol Report, El Paso Times, June 30, 2010.
Dear Mr. President,Deadly violence from drug cartels and transnational gangs in Mexico is knocking on the United States' door with ever increasing frequency. Yesterday, gunfire from the cartels pierced that threshold and struck City Hall in El Paso. Fortunately no one was injured or killed. But that good fortune was not the result of effective border control – it was mere luck that the bullets struck buildings rather than bodies.Luck and good fortune are not effective border enforcement policies. The shocking reality of cross border gunfire proves the cold reality: American lives are at risk. As the attached news article notes: "More than 1,300 people have been murdered in Juárez this year as a war continues relentlessly between the Juárez and Sinaloa drug cartels." Americans must be protected as this deadly war bulges at our border.Law enforcement officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety and your own U.S. Customs and Border Protection will reveal the hard truth. Our state is under constant assault from illegal activity threatening a porous border.The time for talk has passed. The time for action is now. The need is urgent. Each day that passes increases the likelihood that an American life will be lost because of the federal government's failure to secure the border.This threat demands immediate and effective action by your Administration to secure our border. As the Attorney General of Texas, I urge you to make border security your top priority so that no more innocent lives are lost to border violence.
A 48-year-old woman shopping in El Paso was struck in the leg by bullets that flew across the border from Ciudad Juárez while pushing a stroller on a busy downtown El Paso street (Fox News, February 22, 2012).
On October 8, 2015, The Daily Mail reported: "[A] gang of drug traffickers tried to hide from US border patrol agents next to [Olissa's] home. ... Olissa, of McAllen, Texas, lives two blocks from the border, and her home is less than a mile from the most dangerous Mexican border city, which has a higher murder rate than many war zones."
Abbott should immediately order a meticulous update of survey data of the whole border, even requesting LANDSAT satellite images. Texas could upgrade roads and muster mobile housing for workers to move along the border as work progresses, water trucks, stockpiles of food, and cargo trucks.
Texas should immediately acquire 1,000-foot easements along the border by eminent domain where needed. Under Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), lawsuits cannot stop eminent domain, only squabble after the fact over payments. The correct approach is for only an easement, not the "designed to fail" approach of taking entire ranches whole to artificially drive up the cost.
If Trump starts in the Fifth Circuit, opponents can delay the project. But they cannot stop it. The sooner we start, the sooner we will get it finished.
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