AS A READER NOTES, THIS COULD COME STRAIGHT FROM ATLAS SHRUGGED — WHICH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A WARNING, NOT A HOW-TO MANUAL: Bill Nojay: Lessons From a Front-Row Seat for Detroit’s Dysfunction. “Union and civil-service rules made it virtually impossible to fire anyone. A six-step disciplinary process provided job protection to anyone with a pulse, regardless of poor performance or bad behavior. Even the time-honored management technique of moving someone up or sideways where he would do less harm didn’t work in Detroit: Job descriptions and qualification requirements were so strict it was impossible for management to rearrange the organization chart. I was a manager with virtually no authority over personnel. When the federal government got involved, it only made things worse.”
Archive for 2013
July 30, 2013
QUITE LIKELY: Will Your Congressman Retire Richer Than You? “Not only do congressional representatives and senators earn the guarantee of a monthly pension check — a benefit that has become increasingly rare for most U.S. workers — they also receive Social Security payments and can opt to pay into the federal Thrift Savings Plan, a 401(k) style-plan with fees that are far lower than most retirement plans. As a result, longtime members of Congress can easily retire with six-figure annual incomes for life.”
ONE HAND WASHES THE OTHER: Lockerbie bomber release linked to arms deal, according to secret letter. “The disclosure is embarrassing for members of the then Labour government, which always insisted that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s release was not linked to commercial deals.”
But wait, what about U.S. opposition? White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.
The US administration lobbied the Scottish government more strongly against sending Megrahi home, under a prisoner transfer agreement signed by the British and Libyan governments, in a deal now known to have been linked to a pound stg. 550 million oil contract for BP.
It claimed this would flout a decade-old agreement between Britain and the US that anyone convicted of the bombing would serve their sentence in a Scottish prison. Megrahi was released by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill on the grounds that he had three months to live, making his sentence effectively spent.
The US Senate foreign relations committee launched a probe after The Sunday Times revealed this month that Megrahi’s doctors thought he could live for another decade.
A source close to the Senate inquiry said: “The (LeBaron) letter is embarrassing for the US because it shows they were much less opposed to compassionate release than prisoner transfer.”
A BP deal? Hmm. Politico: Obama biggest recipient of BP cash. I’m sure there’s no connection.
THAT COULD BE CHANGED BY LEGISLATION: FBI to Rand Paul: Domestic drone surveillance doesn’t require a warrant.
Drone surveillance in the United States does not require a warrant, but the practice remains limited, the FBI told Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in a letter after he placed a hold on James Comey’s nomination to be the new FBI director.
“[T]he FBI does not, and has no plans to use [unmanned aerial vehicles] to conduct general surveillance not related to a specific investigation or assessment,” Stephan Kelly, the assistant director at the FBI’s Office of Congressional Affairs, wrote Paul.
Kelly said that UAVs, or drones, have only been used for surveillance in the United States 10 times since 2006, in cases related to “kidnappings, search and rescue operations, drug interdictions, and fugitive investigations.”
Extant Supreme Court rulings suggest that such surveillance does not qualify as a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, Kelly added, and so does not require a warrant.
Related: Senate confirms James Comey as new FBI head. “The Senate on Monday easily confirmed President Obama’s nomination of James Comey as FBI director, ending a standoff over concerns about the agency’s domestic use of drones. Comey, who served as deputy U.S. attorney general for President George W. Bush from 2003 to 2005, replaces Robert Mueller, who had led the bureau since shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The 93-1 vote was opposed only by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.”
COMIC RELIEF: Sheila Jackson Lee for Homeland Security post?
As long as she’s not NASA Administrator.
RAND PAUL NOT LETTING CHRIS CHRISTIE HAVE THE LAST WORD:
“It’s really I think kind of sad and cheap that he would use the cloak of 9/11 victims and say – ‘I’m the only one who cares about these victims.’ Hogwash!,” Paul said on Fox’s Hannity. “If he cared about protecting this country maybe he wouldn’t be in this gimme-gimme-gimme, give me all the money you have in Washington or don’t have, and he’d be a little more fiscally responsive and know that the way we defend our country, the way we have enough money for national defense, is by being frugal and not being gimme-gimme all the time.”
Well, he’s a man of strong appetites.
MICHAEL TOTTEN: Tunisia On The Brink. Hey, that’s okay, we’ve got John Kerry on the job to execute our smart diplomacy.
JOHN MITCHELL PROBABLY HAD HOPES FOR HIS LEGACY, TOO: Holder hopes defense of civil rights will be his legacy.
#WARONWOMEN: California Democratic Party Covered Up Filthy Filner’s Sex Harassment. “Former Assemblywoman Lori Saldana, a Democrat, says she told California Democrat Party leaders about San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s habit of groping and sexually harassing women two years ago. The party covered it all up.”
I DUNNO, IT DIDN’T LOOK THAT BIG TO ME. OH, WAIT: “You’ve got to admire Anthony Weiner’s moxie.”
ROGER SIMON: Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Libertarianism, and the NSA. “I admit to having a strong attraction to libertarianism domestically, especially in this era of monumental deficits, pervasive bureaucracy, and endless government spending, but I find it almost absurd as a basis for foreign affairs.”
THE HILL: Tax reformers find receptive audiences in road show stops.
In heading to Philadelphia and Lawrenceville, N.J., Baucus and Camp continued their quest to leverage outside-the-Beltway pressure to force a skeptical White House and a gridlocked Congress to act on their legacy-fulfilling goal of tax reform.
But the skepticism facing Baucus and Camp, each facing the final 17 months of their chairmanship, is also born of real policy differences — especially on the question of whether a rewritten tax code should raise more revenue to reduce deficits.
Even so, both chairmen have pledged to push a reform bill out of committee after the August recess. The two are still seeking suggestions, via Twitter and other avenues, about tax reform, and also met privately on Monday with someone in the Philadelphia area who gave them a submission.
I guess I should have submitted my own revenue enhancement proposals. But seriously, if we could get something like the 1986 Tax Reform Act again that would be terrific for the country and for the economy. And, again, I recommend reading Showdown At Gucci Gulch for those interested in how things happened last time around.
IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: “The IRS subjected conservative groups already granted tax-exempt status to additional scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) charged on Monday. Issa called on a Treasury watchdog already looking into the IRS to investigate the matter, and signaled he would expand his committee’s probe into improper targeting of political groups given the new revelations. . . . Issa specifically questioned whether the IRS had a ‘systematic’ plan in place to automatically review conservative groups several years after granting an exemption. He said that interviews with 18 IRS employees indicated that at least some Tea Party groups were referred to the unit that conducted follow-up scrutiny.”
July 29, 2013
CHANGE: Pew poll: Major swing against government surveillance among tea partiers. “This shift has happened entirely on Obama’s watch. And it’s not just Republicans who’ve decided that the feds have gone too far. A narrow plurality of Democrats now agree. It’s bipartisan and it’s recent — although it’s most pronounced on the right.”
REHABILITATING WEINER, COVERING FOR FILNER, SHILLING FOR SPITZER: My USA Today column on the Democrats’ War On Women.
BOO-FRICKIN’-HOO: Bill and Hillary Clinton are ‘livid’ at comparisons to Weiner’s sexcapades and Huma’s forgiveness. Bill’s like, “How can you compare me to that guy? He didn’t even actually get any!”
UPDATE: “It’s Just About Sex!”
IF YOU’VE READ MOTHER OF STORMS, THIS IS DISTURBING: Earthquakes trigger undersea methane reservoirs: study.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Considering A Threesome? Read This First!
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “Georgia’s state scholarships boost enrollment, but the people who pay for them are mostly poor.” “Of all the negative consequences, perhaps most important is that the Georgia lottery is a highly regressive tax scheme. Because the HOPE scholarship requires no direct taxation and is instead funded entirely by the ‘lottery tax,’ it is extremely popular with middle- and upper-income residents. Since those who predominantly play the lottery are lower-income people, there is a transfer of funds from lower-income to middle-income families.”
THE FRUIT OF AL SHARPTON’S — AND BARACK OBAMA’S — RACIAL HATEMONGERING: Adams Morgan hate crime was motivated by Zimmerman verdict, police say.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: An online college revolution is coming.