Tyranny of Bureaucracies

Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

In a recent article I wrote about how the Founding Fathers would be astonished at how we have allowed our freedoms to be curtailed by Big Government. If you have never read the novel, 1984 by George Orwell, now would be a good time to do so. Re-reading that book would also be useful if it has been awhile since you have done so. The theme of the book, written in the 1940s, relates how Big Government increasingly controlled people’s lives. With modern technology the effects can be even scarier.

One of the greatest threats is from ever expanding government agencies which actually have the power to implement rules and regulations that limit our freedom. For example, the Empire State Building in New York City was built in eighteen months. The approval process to build anything substantial today takes years; primarily, because of all the agencies that must give their approval. Consider the natural gas pipeline that that has been a part of the recent debt limit negotiations between the Biden administration and the Republican House of Representatives. The federal agencies that must review and give their approval consist of the Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, National Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, etc. There may also be state agencies that must approve. The review and approval process has no time frame. The construction may also be challenged in court by various groups. It is a wonder anything gets built in this country. Of course, this central control is right out of the Marxist playbook.

Let me give a more mundane example of bureaucratic tyranny. I own a 2016 Ram diesel truck that I use primarily for towing my RV. Two weeks ago, a warning code appeared on the dashboard indicating that the DEF (diesel emission fluid) system was not working properly and that I should take the truck to the dealer. I received an estimated repair cost of $3,000. Being somewhat of a do it yourself mechanic, I decided to fix it myself. Problem #1: no parts supplier in the New Bern area carried the DEF pump that I needed; nor could they order it from their usual vendor of repair parts. Problem #2: And this is the worst issue. The warning message stated that in 150 more miles the truck would not be able to operate at more than five miles per hour! Imagine being far from home and limping along at that speed–an almost guaranteed accident!

How did this restriction and control of the use of your own vehicle occur? Well, apparently, some government agency, (e.g. EPA) has required that manufacturers install computer programs that shut down your engine when you are violating one of their rules regardless of the negative impact on your safety and freedom to use your vehicle. Now this tyrannical control is only possible using modern computer modules. Add GPS monitoring, and they can control your speed, how far you travel, where you travel, etc.

This is where we are heading. We need to wake up and resist this tyranny. We need a president and elected officials who will fight this type of unconstitutional control of our lives. I am sure there are many other examples. President Trump, when he was in office, had the right idea when he instructed federal agencies under his control that they were required to eliminate two regulations for every new one they proposed. This was at least a start. Significantly cutting the budgets of these out of control federal agencies would also help. The Founding Fathers would never have put up with this. Why are we?

Ruining The Environment Because You Want To Win

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about the Iowa Caucuses and the role that ethanol plays in them. In theory ethanol is a great idea. In practice it has not had the positive impact on the environment that was hoped for.

The article reports:

The summer before the Iowa caucuses is when politicians abandon whatever it is they believe in and instead pay homage to King Corn.

When Republicans are running, any belief in free enterprise is scuttled in favor the big government ethanol mandate.

Among Democrats, concern about smog and pollution evaporates in the heat of an Iowa summer.

The politicians who pledge to take on the special interests instead bow obediently before the ethanol lobby.

Al Gore, who admits federal support for ethanol was a mistake, explains his own advocacy of such policies thus: “I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

It’s a dispiriting sight, but it’s as much a part of the Iowa caucus tradition as butter cows and fried Oreos.

The article explains some of the problems with ethanol:

Also, federally mandated use of ethanol wreaks havoc on the environment.

“Making corn into ethanol threatens surface and sub-surface waters in several ways,” the Freshwater Society states.

For starters, there are the spills, which occur every two days on average. Ethanol can’t be transported by pipeline, and so it rides trains and trucks from the heartland where it’s made to the coasts, where Uncle Sam forces refiners to buy it.

The added use of fertilizers in the extra corn-growing creates lots of runoff, which down the line deprives rivers of oxygen. Distilling ethanol requires four times as much water as does refining real gasoline — so the ethanol mandate depletes water supplies.

Ranchers pay the price as corn is shifted from feed to fuel. Drivers pay the price as they have to refuel more (ethanol has less energy per gallon than gasoline does). Bikers and boaters suffer more, as ethanol gunks up those smaller engines. Ethanol is also destroying your lawnmower this summer.

The article concludes:

Refiners, corn growers, and ethanol distillers all suffer from uncertainty and inconsistency. So, we’ve got a proposal for any 2020 Democrat who cares about taking on the special interests, protecting the air and the water, and moving beyond the inconstancy of the Trump administration.

Abolish the ethanol mandate altogether.

Maybe Cory Booker or Joe Biden can pick up the bill Ted Cruz pushed in 2015, which would wind the mandate down to zero gallons in five years. Cruz even won Iowa, in part because enough voters liked a man who stood on principle.

Do the Democrats have a man or a woman like that?

Stay tuned.

We Need To Get Healthcare Right

Yesterday Issues and Insights posted an article about ObamaCare 10 years out.

The article reports:

Based on polling data, Obamacare has been a miserable failure, and Obama will be far from the last president to grapple with this issue.

The most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that health care is at the top of the nation’s priority list, with 24 percent of respondents listing it as their top priority for the federal government. Next on the list is immigration, at 18 percent, and after that, economic growth at 14 percent. 

The poll also found that 42 percent list health care as either their first or second choice on the priority list.

Back in June 2008, when Obama was running for president, only 8 percent rated health care as a top priority, just 20 percent as their first or second priority. Of course, the economy was in a recession and the country at war with Iraq, both of which weighed heavily on the public’s mind at the time.

But even in earlier years when the economy was doing well, health care ranked far lower on the list of priorities than it does today. In June 2006, only 14 percent ranked it as No. 1 on their list. A year later, 15 percent said it was their top priority.

The public has not been impressed with ObamaCare:

An ongoing Gallup survey finds that the public was actually more satisfied with their own coverage and quality of health care in 2007 than they were in 2018. Other surveys find cost remains a major complaint.

The article lists a few problems with ObamaCare:

It has done nothing to slow, much less reverse, the rising cost of health care. In fact, Obamacare itself caused premiums in the individual market to more than double in its first four years.

…National health spending, which was 16.3 percent of GDP in 2008, is now 17.9 percent and is slated to hit 19.4 percent by 2027. Per-capita spending on healthcare jumped from $7,898 to $10,739 over those years.

Far from driving the deficit down, Obamacare is pushing federal red ink up. The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that repealing Obamacare would cut the deficit by some $473 billion in the first 10 years

Rather than admit failure, the Democrats simply want to throw more money at it.

The article concludes:

Naturally, because of these failures, the Democrats’ answer is to dump even more taxpayer money into government-run health care programs, with most now favoring a $32 trillion plan developed by socialist Bernie Sanders to have the government nationalize the entire health insurance industry.

Only in government, and only among fans of big government, are massive failures like Obamacare rewarded with still more government. 

It’s Time To Shrink The Government

As of 2012, four of the five top per capita earnings counties in America were suburbs of Washington, D.C. Working in government or lobbying the government has become very profitable. On Monday, CNS News reported that the number of people employed by the United States government is now higher than the number of people employed in manufacturing in America.

The article reports:

Government employment grew from 22,216,000 in September to 22,235,000 in October, according to BLS, while manufacturing jobs dropped from 12,267,000 to 12,258,000.

The 22,235,000 employed by government in the United States now outnumber the 12,258,000 employed in manufacturing by 9,977,000.

Over the past year—from October 2015 to October 2016—manufacturing employment fell by 53,000, declining from 12,311,000 to 12,258,000. During the same period, government employment climbed 208,000, rising from 22,027,000 to 22,235,000.

This is the picture:

governmentemployeesIt is time for a change in Washington. Hopefully, we have elected that change.

Common Core In North Carolina

The article below was written by the Chairman of the Common Core section of the Watchdog Committee of the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers’ Association, Kim Fink:

The NC Legislative Study Committee on Common Core has recommended a repeal and replace piece of draft legislation that will be up for a vote in the short session of the General Assembly.

Obviously, this has the proponents of nationalized education digging in their heels with all sorts of dooms day scenarios that a repeal would cause.  The Big Business, Big Government and Chamber of Commerce advocates are spending allot of money on radio and TV advertising, trying to build public support to put pressure on legislators not to repeal Common Core.  Since this is an election year, money talks.  There are two sides to every issue, and the compliant, and complacent Media has made it difficult to get the opposition opinion out.  I pray that our legislators have done their own homework and will support the repeal of Common Core in NC.

Common Core is copyrighted, it cannot be altered by state or local school authorities.  The schools can Add 15% content, however, they will not be tested on that content.  Cursive writing is an example of what NC has “added” that is being used to demonstrate how “flexible” these standards are.  The combination of taxpayer-funded bribes, ( like Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind waivers), outright deception (like globally benchmarked standards that has yet to be seen, or proven) and rampant bullying by the Educrats leaving most teachers fearing retaliation for complaining, is truly alarming. 

Dr. Sandra Stotsky (member of the standards committee that wouldn’t “sign off” on them) has stated that the texts and analysis are used to guide students’ thinking toward a pre- determined outcome.   The new buzz word will be consensus, and building towards a global community. 

This is NOT the America I was educated in.

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The Coming Age Of Fiscal Sanity

Michael Barone posted an article in the Washington Examiner on Saturday entitled, “History suggests that era of entitlements is nearly over.” Wow. Is that a promise? Mr. Barone points out that you can actually divide American history in 76-year periods.

The article points out:

It was 76 years from Washington’s First Inaugural in 1789 to Lincoln’s Second Inaugural in 1865. It was 76 years from the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865 to the attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Going backward, it was 76 years from the First Inaugural in 1789 to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which settled one of the British-French colonial wars. And going 76 years back from Utrecht takes you to 1637, when the Virginia and Massachusetts Bay colonies were just getting organized.

The article points out that the reason for change in each 76-year cycle was that the original arrangement became unworkable. We are now more than 76 years away from the passage of the Social Security in 1935. The entitlement society is in the process of going broke, and people are beginning to look for alternatives to big government programs. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

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Andrew Breitbart Has Died

Big Government has announced that it’s founder, Andrew Breitbart, has died of natural causes.

The Big Government website posted the news this morning:

With a terrible feeling of pain and loss we announce the passing of Andrew Breitbart.

Andrew passed away unexpectedly from natural causes shortly after midnight this morning in Los Angeles.

We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.

Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love.

Andrew Breitbart will be sorely missed. My sympathies to his family and his co-workers.

 

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Why It Is So Difficult To Get Government Spending Under Control

Yesterday Big Government posted an article about part of the deal that allowed the payroll tax holiday to continue for the year. One way to offset the cost was to increase the amount of money federal employees pay toward their pensions by .08%. First of all, the concept is false. The money that will not be taken out of your paycheck this year was supposed to go toward the non-existent ‘Social Security Fund’–not the general fund. All the payroll tax holiday is doing is hastening the demise of Social Security.

Meanwhile, the article at Big Government quotes the union leader’s reaction:

 “Working class men and women who have dedicated their lives to serve their country should not be on the hook for solving a crisis they did not create,” American Federation of Government Employees National President John Gage said.

[…]

Continuing to attack federal employees’ pay and benefits doesn’t create new jobs and only adds to the pain and suffering many working class men and women are experiencing,” Gage said.

For the moment I am going to ignore the fact that federal workers make double what their counterparts in private industry make (USA Today 8/13/2010) and focus on exactly what the .08% means in actual dollars. If you, as a federal worker, were currently contributing $100 to your pension plan, you are now required to contribute $100.80. That small amount will save the government about $15 billion.

I don’t think 80 cents is an attack on working class men and women. If they are so unhappy with paying the 80 cents, maybe they should try to get a job in the private sector.

 

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Losing Faith In Political Leadership

I think cynicism might be popular right now. That’s not really the problem–the problem is that it is justifiable. Yesterday Big Government posted an article on a new crony capitalism scandal that is breaking. This scandal is a further development in the LIghtSquared scandal I wrote about initially on September 17 (rightwinggranny). My initial problem with the scandal was that it endangered our soldiers, but it seems that there is a whole lot more to it than that.

The article at Big Government reports:

 Harbinger Capital Partners LLC hedge fund just acknowledged its highly political founder Phillip Falcone and other key executives have received “Wells Notices”. Such communications are normally sent by the Securities & Exchange Commission to a target for fraud just before the Justice Department launches a civil and or criminal case. Although the Wells Notice appears to relate to allegations that Mr. Falcone used his hedge fund customers cash as his personal slush fund; an indictment of Mr. Falcone will also inflame the swirling crony capital investigation by the Congress of White House pay-to-play donations in support of a $14 billion scheme to siphon off part of the U.S. military and civilian Global Positioning Satellite (GPS)’s dedicated wireless bandwidth by a start-up company Mr. Falcone controls, called LightSquared.

There are a lot of layers to this scandal, and I suggest that you follow the link and read the article at Big Government, but I will attempt to highlight it here. LightSquared was going to create a new wireless network from an area of bandwidth on the fringe of the safety zones for military and civilian GPS’s. Obviously GPS coordinates are vital to our military. After corporate officers made large donations to Democrat organizations in 2010, the bandwidth standards were relaxed enough for their project to move forward. There were Congressional hearings to determine whether the project would endanger our military, and there were some questions as to whether corporate executives’ testimonies were influenced by the White House.

The article at Big Government concludes:

With Phillip Falcone potentially about to do the perp walk and Congress already geared up for crony capitalist investigations of Solyndra and MF Global; the White House and several of the Executive Department agencies may have a very busy schedule over the next few months trying to figure out what they didn’t know and when they didn’t know about LightSquared. The miraculous timing of the release of this crucifying technical report will inflame Congressional suspicions that only crony capitalism could have allowed a proposal that would have disrupted navigation systems on cars, boats, tractors and planes to come so close to approval.

Washington is not Chicago. It’s time to vote out the people who are trying to make it Chicago.

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The Cost Of Occupy Boston

The Occupy Boston camp at the Dewey Square section of the Greenway has been removed. Across the nation, the rap sheet on the Occupy Wall Street movement reached 417 as of December 9th according to Big Government. So what is the legacy of Occupy Boston?

The Boston Herald reports today that 46 of the Occupy Boston protesters were arrested as the camp was closed.

The Boston Herald reports:

Brennan (Nancy Brennan, executive director of the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy) said the grass, which has turned into a mud pit, will need to be completely resodded, and she fears several trees that have been damaged will have to be replanted.

“Three or four trees might be lost. There’s browning of the foliage, and there are some broken and bent limbs,” she said. “Part of what we need to do is check on the root systems, and that is just going to take a little bit of time.”

Brennan also expects that the sprinkler system was damaged so much it will have to be repaired or replaced. Also in need of replacement are about 20 percent of the shrubbery and the pebbles from a pedestrian walkway that runs along Purchase Street.

She also said the wall of the large air intake tower for the O’Neill Tunnel will have to be power-hosed to remove markings and messages left behind by the squatters.

“The grass crete has really taken a beating,” said Brennan, referring to the concrete-type material covering the delivery truck driveway that allows grass to grow through. “We need to see if we can restore or replace it.”

Brennan couldn’t provide an estimate for what the final repair bill will be, but local landscapers pegged it at upward of $50,000.

My first question is who will pay for the restoration. There were never any permits for Occupy Boston, so there was no deposit to the city for sanitation fees or police detail fees.

WCVB TV5 reported on November 30:

Crime in the Dewey Square encampment of “Occupy Boston” is out of control, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis told Newscenter 5.

“(There are) drugs, vandalism and assaultive behavior,’’ Davis said.

As of Wednesday, taxpayers had paid $723,000 in police overtime to patrol the tent city protest.

I believe in free speech, but what happened in Dewey Square was ridiculous. The Occupiers should have been removed at the end of the first day–not allowed to set up camp and destroy public property. As a taxpayer, I resent having to finance the activities of people who decided it was their right to camp out on public property at my expense without proper permits or sanitary facilities.

 

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If These Records Ever Get Unsealed They Will Be Dumped On Either A Friday Night Or Christmas Eve

Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard Blog reported today:

The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.

This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.

This story has been a nightmare for the administration since the story first broke. On October 4, 2011, Big Government reported on a CBS reporter who had been yelled at by the Department of Justice for reporting on Operation Fast and Furious. These documents need to be made public and the entire story told.

 

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“Throw Them All Out”

Seal of the Speaker of the United States House...

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“Throw Them All Out” is the name of a recent book by Peter Schweizer. It deals with insider trading and crony capitalism in our government. There are multiple stories on the internet about this book and its information, my sources are CBN News and Big Government.

CBN cites the following examples:

When California Democrat Nancy Pelosi was House speaker in 2008, she got preferred treatment to invest in a credit card company at the same time Congress was considering credit card legislation.

Another former House speaker, Republican Dennis Hastert, returned to his home state of Illinois after making millions on a land deal that involved a congressional earmark.

Big Government reports:

Media Matters has offered up a ridiculous post that tries to distort the fundamental facts about Barack Obama’s green energy program. I hesitated whether to even comment on it because they fail in the basic tenets of honest journalism. George Soros is a large contributor to Media Matters.

The article at Big Government lists the approved loans to green energy companies that included major fund raisers for the Obama campaign. All of these loans did not go through for various reasons, but all were approved.

I’m not really supporting the idea of throwing them all out. There were some Congressmen elected in 2010 that are not involved in this sort of thing. There are also some Congressmen that have been there for a while who have not used their offices for personal gain. We need to make sure we differentiate between those who have been dishonest and those who have not. I am, however, willing to throw anyone out who has profited because of insider knowledge or has used their office for personal gain. We just need to make sure we do our homework before we throw anyone out of office!

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Why The Federal Government Is Going Broke

 

 

This photo is of the Gibbs family farm house c...

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Big Government reported yesterday that Federal judge Paul Friedman has given final approval to a $1.2 billion government settlement with black farmers who claim they were unfairly denied loans and other assistance from the Agriculture Department over many years.

This is the second round of settlements in the 1999 Pigford case. As previously reported at rightwinggranny.com:

When some black farmers sued, claiming discrimination, the USDA agreed to pay $50,000 to every black person who was discriminated against.

According to the census, there were 18,000 black farmers in the country when the lawsuit was filed.  But 97,000 black ‘farmers” have applied for the money.

Black farmer Jimmy Dismuke says its fraud.  He said lawyers went to black churches and told people who had never farmed to file for the money.

”People say well, how do I qualify?” Dismuke told us.  “And then [the lawyers] started talking about potted plants.  They said if you had a potted plant, you can be a farmer.  And if you have a yard and you fertilize it, you’re a farmer.”

Just about anyone can say that they “attempted to farm.”  And the USDA–which did not keep all its loan records–has no way to refute that.  So the taxpayers pay, and pay.

If you follow the articles on the Pigford settlement previously posted at biggovernment.com, you learn that there is no standard of proof required for the payments. It is unfortunate that our government discriminated against black farmers, but I don’t believe that taxpayers should be required to pay reparations at a time when the country is spending itself into bankruptcy.

 

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An Interesting Perspective From A Respected Voice

Lech walesa prezydent RP

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On Friday, Big Government posted a story stating that Lech Walesa will not be coming to New York to get involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The article reports:

The Polish champion of freedom and liberty, founder of Solidarity, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, and first President of modern Poland Lech Walesa had been rumored to possibly be traveling to New York to stand with Occupy Wall Street protesters.  Press accounts reporting this “breathless” news had given all of us pause.

The group at Big Government reached out to Mr. Walesa. This is what followed:

When Walesa’s comments hit the AP wire last week, my team immediately reached out to our Polish contacts.  We made the point that the political themes of Occupy Wall Street may have started out with some of the principles that we share, but OWS themes were rapidly being morphed into anti-freedom and anti-liberty messages.  At the core is the want for a big, powerful central government to dominate the lives of individual citizens.

Using biggovernment.com plus other news sources, rapidly we painted an accurate picture of the groups training, leading, and organizing the “movement.” The movement is organized by anarchists, Code Pink, the American Communist movement, jihadists, anti-Israel, socialist, and anti- free enterprise interests. OWS folks are politically to the left of President Barack Obama.

At the Lech Walesa Institute Foundation in Warsaw, they were thankful to receive this information.

Based on our discussion and intervention, President Walesa is not going to get involved with the OWS.  He is not comfortable with the “organizations” behind the movement.  It was not a difficult discussion.

All of us are in danger of being manipulated or used by the media. Sometimes that takes the form of reporting wrong information, sometimes it is in the form of simply leaving out information. As we approach the election of 2012, we need to learn to do our own fact-checking and our own research on the events that are shaping both the world and our country. Obviously, it is not up to me to tell you how to do that, but you need to begin to stumble your way around the internet (if you haven’t already) and look for the ‘back stories’ on the things that are happening now. In the internet age, we have all become our own bureau chiefs, and we need to do our homework to stay informed.

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When Politics Trumps Responsibility

The Jews are the canary in the coal mine. Whatever cruelty is done to the Jews will be eventually aimed at the rest of us. That is the reason we need to pay attention when anti-Semitism is expressed. Usually the Anti-Defamation League (ADF) handles that job very well. However, they are currently ignoring what is in front of them because it would interfere with their politics.

Yesterday Big Government pointed out that there have been a number of anti-Semitic statements and signs at the various Occupy Wall Street protests and the ADF has been strangely silent.

This is one picture from one of the protests. The picture is from Pajamas Media.

One quote from a protester (cited in the Big Government article) was posted on October 12 at Reason.tv.  Patricia McAllister, a self-described employee of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and a demonstrator at Occupy LA:

“I think that, uh, the Zionist Jews who are running these big banks, and our Federal Reserve, which is not run by the federal government–they need to be run out of this country.”

This is not acceptable and Americans need to speak out against this kind of anti-Semitism. If this sort of statement were directed at certain other favored groups (pick your group), there would be outrage, charges of hate speech, and charges of whateverphobia the liberal press thought might apply. We need to protest the double standard that is at work here.

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Behind The Scenes At Occupy Wall Street

Wall Street taken above steam stack road works...

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Big Government has posted two articles on some of the people involved in the Occupy Wall Street protests. The first article is here. It summarizes some of the emails that reporters from Big Government have obtained. These emails show who the people and groups are that are behind Occupy Wall Street, what these groups are planning, and what their goals are.

One highlight of the article:

The true purpose of the Occupy movement appears to be further economic and governmental destabilization, at a time when the world is already facing major financial and political challenges. By embracing the Occupy movement, President Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, and their union allies may be supporting an effort to harm both the domestic and global economies; to create social unrest throughout the democratic world; and to embrace other radical causes, including the anti-Israel movement. Ironically, the emails suggest that the President and the Democrat Party may soon find their friends in the Occupy movement to be a political burden. The email below calls for the Occupy movement to begin “executing higher-risk actions, civil disobedience and arrests,” and suggests: “We must draw a line, disavow the Democrats explicitly, make our messaging a little uncomfortable.” 

The second article at Big Government explains what caused Big Government to investigate the people behind Occupy Wall Street.

The article reports some disturbing connections:

Then, at the end of August, we were alerted by a fellow researcher that information about USDoR (U.S. Day of Rage, to which Occupy Wall Street is connected) had been posted on Shamuk and Al-Jahad, two Al-Qaeda recruitment sites. We began to take the “Occupy” protest more seriously, and dedicated more time to research and monitoring.

Days later, Anonymous announced that it would be releasing its new DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) tool. Because of the Al-Qaeda posting, we contacted the New York Field Office of the FBI so they could investigate the potential threat. From that point on, we decided we needed to include the Human Element of Intelligence (HUMINT), and to infiltrate the protestors to map their ties to Anonymous, and to the postings on Shamuk and Al-Jahad.

Admittedly, a protest movement cannot truly control who shows up to protest, but I do think recruiting on Al-Qaeda websites is a bit much.

The second article contains links to emails relating to specific plans of the protesters. So far, the attempts at violence and financial disruption have failed. Hopefully, that will be the case in the future.

I will admit to being a child of the sixties. I have protested. I was a peaceful protester. I never destroyed property or was rude to police or protesters on the opposite side of the issue. Protests are valid in a free society. Destruction of property and violence are not valid. As Occupy Wall Street continues, we need to take a very close look at who is behind the protest and exactly what they are doing and what they intend to do.

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When Political Contributions Endanger Our Soldiers

Navstar-2F satellite of the Global Positioning...

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On Thursday The Daily Beast posted a story about a Congressional investigation into a satellite broadband company named LightSquared. On Friday, Big Government carried the story. The question involved in the investigation is whether or not the White House pressured a Air Force General to change his testimony before Congress to help a corporation that happened to be a large democrat party donor.

The Daily Beast reports:

According to officials familiar with the situation, Shelton’s prepared testimony was leaked in advance to the company. And the White House asked the general to alter the testimony to add two points: that the general supported the White House policy to add more broadband for commercial use; and that the Pentagon would try to resolve the questions around LightSquared with testing in just 90 days. Shelton chafed at the intervention, which seemed to soften the Pentagon’s position and might be viewed as helping the company as it tries to get the project launched, officials said.

Big Government supplies some of the specifics:

Gen Shelton told members of Congress that the GPS satellite constellation operates in a “quiet neighborhood” in terms of bandwidth, and it’s this lack of interference that helps shield the GPS system from harmful interference in its critical operations. The LightSquared project would be the equivalent of a rock band moving into the neighborhood and blasting its music. All the testing the military did on LightSquared’s systems indicated major disruptions in the GPS system.

The Daily Beast further reports:

The White House confirmed Wednesday that its Office of Management and Budget suggested changes to the general’s testimony but insisted such reviews are routine and not influenced by politics. And it said Shelton was permitted to give the testimony he wants, without any pressure.

The fact that the General was asked to alter his testimony at all in a way that could put the American military at risk is a disgrace. Crony capitalism is becoming a serious problem in this White House. The voters are beginning to make it clear that Chicago politics is not appreciated in Washington.

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