Economy, espionage and ethics

Austerity ahead or no recovery is possible

            Here is a hint of what must inevitably happen in every city, state and federal government organization and department if this country is ever to recover from this economic depression, runaway government spending and debt. East St. Louis, Missouri laid off 30 percent of police and city workers because the municipality can  no longer pay its bills. Predictions are of criminals running wild in the streets as unions protest the cuts and demand their full wages, benefits and salary increases. Makes one wonder who the crooks are.

            Government, public sector and union obligations are an unsustainable obligation the country already cannot afford to pay and a harsh burden for generations far into the future. The nation’s very survival is contingent on Americans, from the poorest to the wealthiest in the private and government sectors to do more with less. It means fewer bureaucrats and managers, fewer police, fire and emergency services, cutbacks on welfare, unemployment and social programs, lower wages and taxes—in other words, major spending cuts across the board until the debt is paid down and the economy can really recover.

            It took decades to dig this financial pit and it will take decades to climb back out. The deeper the cuts and austerity, the sooner recovery can happen. It’s not just the little guy and the private sector that must “tighten their belts.” We are all in this together.

Espionage by any other name

            The apparent connection between WikiLeaks, hackers associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, accused source U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks founder, Australian Julian Assange, has all the hallmarks of a conspiracy to commit espionage against the United States, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

            Assange now claims White House and U.S. government sources warned him of possible attempts to detain and prosecute the man who claims the war in Afghanistan is immoral, but had no qualms about revealing thousands of documents and reports that will be fodder for Taliban death lists.

            Along with Assange and Manning, any government found to have abetted the revelation of 90,000 military documents, or failing to properly report contacts with foreign agents intent on interfering with the war effort, should be tried by military tribunals.

Electoral College hijinks 

            Blogger Josie Wales expounds on the unconstitutional attempts to eliminate the Electoral College and the consequences of progressives actually doing so.

            “Imagine (as painful as this might be) the progressive-statist utopia in which universal voter registration (without ID) exists, and the Electoral College does not. Voter fraud would run rampant as challenges to one’s qualifications to vote would be virtually non-existent. Illegals, dead people, and individuals voting in multiple jurisdictions could cast votes … since everyone within the United States would presumably be eligible (without ID).”

            It’s a bad idea that benefits only a faction desperate to hold on to power as the constituents professional politicians long ago stopped representing realize the profound and undemocratic future of the American experiment being foisted on us. Don’t be fooled. 

It’s racism, not ethics

            Here comes the race card in the Charlie Rangel-Maxine Waters ethics investigations underway in the United States House of Representatives.

            “There’s a ‘dual standard, one for most members and one for African-Americans,’ said one member of the Congressional Black Caucus, speaking on condition of anonymity.”

            Twenty members of the Congressional Black Caucus now support a House measure to rein in the ethics investigation panel created by Nancy Pelosi in 2008 to “drain the swamp.”

            Remember Maxine Waters’ “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander” speech on the House floor when Speaker Newt Gingrich was under an ethics investigation in 1995?

            The current charges against two African-American members of Congress is merely the tip of the iceberg. The crooks, schnooks and incompetents in government should be rooted out, exposed and punished regardless of political party, length of service, political power or ethnic background. For the benefit of America, the panel should be enlarged and its authority expanded.

Advertisement

About zingstrom

Journalist, free-lance writer, photographer and aviator.
This entry was posted in News and views and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s