Obama's "Chicago Way"

Please read:  http://nationalreview.com/article/349610/obamas-chicago-way-john-fund

Falling Bridges – Rising Pensions

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if the main issue in the next political campaign were this simply described?

Do you want your taxes to repair and rebuild the crumbling bridges and road beds in America, or

Do you want your taxes to pay salaries, benefits and pensions to public employees at levels two and three times higher than that which you, the average taxpayer, is paid?

No, you can’t have both – you have to pick one or the other.

Then the campaign would start.  Enter David Axelrod and his APKD propagandists.  Enter the public employee union “leaders” to tell us everything will collapse without the public servants.  You see, there is no effective propagandist to get the word out that there is only so much tax revenue available and if it is used for all those wages, benefits and pensions, there is not enough left over to pay for bridges and roads.

Now most of those political candidates who seek support from the public employees and their very highly paid union “leaders” will also tell you – raise the taxes – most certainly raise them on the rich – the well to do – make them all pay their fair share.

Have you heard this idea; this concept; this statement before?   Who have you heard it from? 

Well – let’s keep our answer simple and focused.  We hear it from Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden – we hear it from the 55 democrat senators in the senate and the 201 democrats in the house.  We hear it from democrat governors in 20 states and from the democrat controlled legislatures in 17 states. But there is one source – a fairly new source in terms of the life of the American republic – from whence we hear it 24/7 – 12 months a year – a constant never ending demand for more tax money to pay already the highest salaries, benefits and pensions in every one of our townships – our cities – our counties – our states and our federal government.

Who is the source of this constant wailing for more, more and even more?

NAGE, AFSCME, NEA, NRLCA, AFGE, NALC, AFT, NTEU, AATU, IBPO, NAON, APWU, SEIU and NFFE.  They got the bridge money and the road money – the park money and the school money.  They still want more.

There is no way any of us have enough money – not even if you tax 90% of every cent earned by the well to do –not even if you tax 50% of every cent earned by the middle class – not even if you just tax 5% of every cent earned by the lower earners – there is no way America can afford to pay the 22+ million government public employees at the rate we are paying them and providing them benefits and pensions that 80% of  Americans will ever dream possible much less attain.

So, if you want to repair and rebuild bridges and roads – all you need do is get rid of some of the public employees and their union masters who are taking the money collected to repair bridges and roads and actually use it to employ contractors who, in open bidding, offer their competitive services and their background and their accomplishments to get the job done.  If you take this simple step, in a matter of 9 or 10 years you will have rebuilt much of America’s crumbling infrastructure – roads and bridges as well as schools, water systems, sewage plants and parks.  If you so choose, we can also build high capacity broadband distribution systems to prepare America for a very competitive 21^st century.  In other words, we will actually be doing what other countries are doing right this minute – while we spend our resources on overstaffed – overpaid – over benefited – over pensioned public employees who don’t know a bridge from a bandwidth – don’t know a water main from a Wi-Fi signal; they are building their country.

Oh, one more thing.  Spending our tax revenues on these activities for which they are collected will do the following:

·       Create private sector jobs building things – not bureaucracies

·       These added private sector jobs will create more private sector jobs as the tax funds spent for the intended purposes rebound throughout the economy, and

·       This process – rebuilding and repair work plus the multiplier effect – both of which create private sector jobs – will then create even more private sector jobs as the economy picks up and business people, also in the private sector, add factories and distribution centers and buy more trucks and supplies and hire even more private sector employees to supply the products and services to meet the growing demand

·       Now all this will occur in the private sector. The unions listed above will not benefit.  The people will benefit.  The country will benefit.

·       So choose – bureaucracies or bridges – it’s just not all that complicated.

Presidential Integrity

What is integrity?

Mr. Webster, please:  “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values: "INCORRUPTIBILITY”

Especially moral or artistic values.  What are Mr. Obama’s moral values?  NBC (owned by Comcast) can address his artistic values.

What we know is what he occasionally reads to us or that we can find in a delivered speech and what he may say off the cuff in unscripted, not unpracticed, remarks.  And, of course, what he does.

So, we know his values include:

Spreading the wealth around

The rich should pay more (or, as he likes to say – their fair share)

Government spending is good

More government spending is even better

It is okay for his administration to incur debt to pursue their programs and activities

He will not permit Iran to have a nuclear weapon…

Syria had better not cross the red line of using poisonous gas, or else…

Government debt need not be repaid (he learned this in Illinois)

Big money must be removed from politics – well some sources of big money should be eliminated – not public employee union money or money from the bureaucrats who work for their public union masters

Tea party people are riling up the electorate and they should be squished – or at least examined by the IRS and other governmental agencies but you bureaucrats are on your own if you examine them too closely

It is not okay for his predecessor’s administration to incur debt to do pursue their programs and activities  - it's irresponsible and unpatriotic

Guns are good when in the hands of government employees and bad when in the hands of those for whom the government employees work  – the people

He works for the people – all the people – all the time – works hard

He has a self-acknowledged tendency to be lazy, and

His political values are those of Chicago, Cook County and Illinois

So, if you worked for this man’s government and you could do something based on his “values” and a republican opposition party organization came to you because your job was to approve their tax exempt status, what would you do?  (Before you answer, if you are an Obama voter, remember, you are already casting your vote for him and his party because he has promised you something coming from that money collected from the haves and you see yourself as not getting your fair share of the pie – i.e. you can justify anything if it helps you get your piece of the pie.)

Oh, one more of his values – if he is caught doing something he shouldn’t do or someone who works for him is caught doing something they shouldn’t do – act “outraged” – be firm – find someone to blame – stand up for your values – and by all means, call for an investigation. 

One last value – this one is a well-established  “Illinois” value  – unless you are in the inner circle he will toss you under the bus in the blink of an eye.  But don’t blame Illinois too much for this value – it was firmly established in his psyche when he got there.

Integrity?  It's his second middle name.  When it comes to values, he's a beauty.

 

 

 

Indict, Prosecute and Adjudicate

This is not rocket engineering, to quote Sergio Garcia.

It is common sense – it also happens to be the American judicial system.  If we are accused of a crime – by we, we mean any one of the 93% of the US population; the other 7% work for one form of government or another – based on reasonable cause, some evidence and a prosecutor who by their own definition can indict a ham sandwich, we enter the American judicial system – indictment, prosecution, adjudication.  We defend ourselves at our own expense, and we are either found guilty, exonerated or the case is tossed out for lack of evidence, reasonable doubt, etc.

It works for us – the 93% - there is no reason why it can’t work for the 7%.

Now, there is only one little hitch – just as the 93% seldom argue that they should be able to conduct the investigation and the indictment process for themselves, so can we argue that the 7% should not conduct the investigation and the indictment process for themselves.  Alas, though, the government controls the investigators and the prosecutors.

So what to do?

Simple – assemble a cadre of independent investigators (no not the FBI or CIA or NSA or any of the countless inspector general’s working for the heads of the bureaucracies under investigation) and independent prosecutors to work the government cases.  This “we will investigate ourselves business” that is now rampant under the Obama administration is not independent and it is not going to produce an impartial result and it sure will not instill a tad of confidence in a government that is now deemed to be inefficient at best, routinely incompetent and, at worse, corrupt to its very core as is the governments of the locales from whence came Mr. Obama. 

Aside:  we hate to say it but we told you so – you cannot get good government by advancing someone who worships at the altar of Chicago, Cook County and Springfield, Illinois politics and politicians.  Many of these folk end up being prosecuted by the feds – but the feds can’t prosecute their own.

Anything short of this process is just more avoidance, deflection and distraction.  We would like to see the emails flying between the white house and AKPD propaganda – why isn’t the justice department investigating that gang?  Is the NSA listening in to their phone calls?

Oh, that’s right – if you are on the side of more government; more public employment unions; more bureaucrats; more rules, laws and regulations, you get a pass.

Either send a message now – with the situations (IRS, etc.) in front of you – or get ready for 3+ years of this “we will get back to you when we complete our investigation” nonsense.  In the meantime, someone needs to remember this simple fact – the United States has wasted more money and accumulated more debt in the last five years than any other time in its history.  And it has done nothing to advance the output and innovation of our economy.  All it has done is add to a federal government bureaucracy that depresses economic advancement.  The guiding principle of TheFundamentals is and continues to be:

Deficits = Debt = Destruction

These bureaucrats and their bumbling, illegal activities are just one of the more obvious causes of the deficits – and the one that clearly needs immediate elimination.

Managing the Bureaucrats

The title is tongue in cheek.

If you are a bureaucrat, and golly gosh have we got a ton of them, you are in one of two camps on the title issue:

Camp One – your bureaucracy has reached the optimum size where manageability is no longer a concern – no longer an issue – not even discussed.  When a bureaucracy reaches optimum size no one is responsible – there is no accountability – even the lowest bureaucrat in the bureaucracy fears no one because no one has a clue what he/she is doing; is supposed to be doing; they don’t even know why that person was hired.  The only thing anyone in Camp One bureaucracies care about is – is someone making more money than I am?  Camp One bureaucracies have achieved bureaucratic nirvana.

Examples of Camp One Bureaucracies, please –

·         US Department of Defense

·         US State Department

·         CIA

·         IRS

·         Department of Justice (here we have an example of Camp One bureaucratic humor – the appropriate name would be:  Department of Injustice)

·         Environmental Protection Agency (ditto as to use of the word “protection”)

·         Most state departments of motor vehicles, and

·         In the private sector – Comcast (desperately trying to rebrand their corporate image under the rather bizarre name – Xfinity (a reference, we think, to the amount of time it takes a customer to attain customer service)

Camp Two – all other bureaucracies.  By definition a bureaucracy, from its moment of conception, is on the path to Camp One status.  Otherwise, it would not be a bureaucracy.  The only objective of a bureaucrat is to ultimately belong to a Camp One bureaucratic organization.  Many attain this status (see above.)  All others strive to attain Camp One status but until you belong to a bureaucracy wherein you know for certain that someone else employed in the very same bureaucracy is doing the exact opposite of what you are supposed to be doing, you are still working at a Camp Two bureaucracy – shame on you.

Bureaucratic management update.  On February 1, 2012 TheFundamentals named Leon Panetta as America’s number one bureaucrat – Mr. Bureaucrat  (see:  http://thefundamentalsus.blogspot.com/2012/02/mr-bureaucrat.html )  The significance of this high honor cannot be understated.  Literally, one must spend an entire lifetime striving for such a vaunted position.  Leon’s resume reads like the script to a life of uncontrolled commitment to reaching Camp One enlightenment – no one knows what you are doing – few care – but you don’t care because you know that there can be no accountability for your actions or lack thereof.  But, Leon, be careful.  Hillary Clinton has her eyes of supplanting you – she wants that title (Ms. Bureaucrat) and she is very close to securing it.

Closing tip for all the Camp Two bureaucrats out there – if you are asking yourself, “Self, what can I do to get my bureaucracy to Camp One status while I can still enjoy it?” Here is your answer – screw up – as often as possible.  The bigger the screw up, the better.  The more visible the screw up, even better.  Try to involve the highest officials available – preferably top elected officials.  Then claim inadequate resources – inadequate authorizations – ask for more – resources (money, money, money) and authorizations (laws, rules, regulations, etc.)  It always works – and you will be on the road to Camp One status.  Or just hitch yourself to Hillary’s wagon – she knows the route.

 

 

 

In her own words – "Saint" Hillary Clinton, “..what difference..does it make.."

 

This is not the only time this person applies her dismissive philosophy to an event from which she singularly chooses to distance herself – quickly and completely:

·         How about her husband explaining his Vietnam War deferment shenanigans?

·         How about her husband denying sex with Gennifer Flowers?

·         Or renting out the Lincoln bedroom?

·         What about when Bill's vice president, AGore, observed that there was “no controlling legal authority” about raising campaign money from his VP office?

·         Or about Bill's close companion, the oh so handsome JCarville referring to Paula Jones as some opportunistic trailer park resident?

·         Or Katherine Willey coming onto her guy?

·         Or Monica wandering the oval office, on her knees?  Hubby Bill sans pants?

·         Or that handsome but somewhat chubby Bill Richardson offering Monica some form of post white house employment?

·         Or even the great Hillary herself flying into some war zone, under fire, but doing her job nonetheless, and then it turned out to never have happened?

Well, call it what you want – we call it lying.  She is a liar – her husband is a convicted liar.   Some pair, huh?  But what difference does it make?

Here is a situation we would pose to you, a hypothetical situation, involving this gal who knows what is best for all of us but who gets a bit testy when questioned or challenged:

"Let's say Mrs. Clinton were to go away and not be heard from again?"

"What difference would it make?"

 

ps:  our thanks to the late Michael Kelly (1957 - 2003) for much of this compilation of just why none of us really need even four more minutes of any one from the Arkansas Clinton family.  We highly recommend that you get your hands on Michael's Collected Writings, "Things Worth Fighting For."  Michael wrote one of the first "exposes" of Hillary for the New York Times Magazine in 1993 entitled "Saint Hillary" and it sure raises some interesting questions when matched up against the topics in those bullet points above.

In His Own Words - David Bego

 

The purpose of this post is twofold:

1.  For those who are not familiar with the Heritage Foundation - an introduction.  You can visit them anytime at www.heritage.org  TheFundamentals encourages support of this fine organization, and

2.  To introduce you to David Bego - an American who deserves the same recognition given to Eliot Ness.  An American who today stands up to organized thugs - even those who operate with the full legal and financial support of your federal government.