Tag Archives: ethics

Mending Fences

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President Barack Obama‘s national security adviser castigated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli leader’s plan to address a joint session of Congress next week has been “destructive” to the relationship between the two countries.

Most administrations would take advantage of the visit of a major ally’s head of state to work out programs, resolve differences (at least down to a dull roar), even to mend fences.

Not President Barack Obama and his administration.

This is fence mending ego-ridden style. Obama just can’t stand to have grown adults not saying, “Mother, may I?” to him.

His minions in the Senate are illustrative of how widespread Obama’s poison has become. Some Senate Democrats had “invited” Netanyahu to a private audience with them: Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D, IL) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA) among others. Netanyahu declined the secretive meeting, noting (accurately, it turns out)

I believe that doing so at this time could compound the misperception of partisanship regarding my upcoming visit[.]

Durbin was displeased:

His refusal to meet is disappointing to those of us who have stood by Israel for decades[.]

No, Dick. If you were serious, you wouldn’t demand a secret meeting; you would attend the public joint session.

Wobbly

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The Senate Democrats succeeded Monday night again in filibustering a House-passed bill that fully funds the DHS because those Democrats support President Barack Obama’s “executive actions” and want small provisions that would block them removed from the bill (yet they won’t permit debates and votes on amendments designed to achieve exactly that; they’d rather just defund the entire Department).

The vote was 47-46 for cloture, which means that 7 Republican Senators folded on this.

Instead of pressuring fellow Republicans to fold, as for instance Lindsey Graham (R, SC) so readily and often does, those gentlemen should be spending that energy pointing out the Democrats’ failure to support DHS in an era of large and increasing threat to our homeland.

Remember this in the primaries leading into the 2016 elections.

Israeli Election Commission Censorship of Netanyahu’s Speech to Congress

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The article, by Reuters, is being censored in its entirety, even though it’s about the Commission’s planned censorship and not an attempt to carry the speech.

From http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/16/us-election-israel-congress-idUSKBN0LK1C320150216?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

or via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RevelationsRevealedNow/posts/1540371689585941

Following is that article.

Israeli election chief puts curbs on Netanyahu’s speech to U.S. Congress

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM Mon Feb 16, 2015 10:11am ESTNetanyahu

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a handover ceremony at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, in which the new Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gadi Eizenkot replaced outgoing Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, February 16, 2015.  Credit: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

(Reuters) – The head of Israel’s election commission acted on Monday to limit any pre-election boost Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may get from a March 3 speech to the U.S. Congress in which he will warn of the threat from Iran’s nuclear program.

The speech has caused controversy in Israel and the United States, where the Democrats and the White House are angry that the Republican speaker, John Boehner, invited Netanyahu to speak at a sensitive time in the nuclear negotiations between Iran and six big powers including Washington, and only two weeks before Israel’s closely fought March 17 election.

Following complaints from opposition parties, election chief Salim Joubran decided that Netanyahu’s address should be broadcast with a five-minute delay in Israel, giving news editors time to cut any statements deemed partisan.

“Editors-in-chief of broadcast channels will watch and make sure that nothing the prime minister says can be construed as election campaigning,” Joubran said in a statement. “Any campaigning will be omitted from the broadcast.”

President Barack Obama, at odds with Netanyahu over the Israeli prime minister’s criticism of the nuclear talks, will not meet him during his visit, saying it is a breach of protocol to receive a foreign leader before an election.

In Israel, Netanyahu has been roundly criticized even by some of his right-wing allies, mostly for appearing to put his ties to the Republican Party ahead of the close relationship Israel has always had with the United States.

After weeks of negative commentary, officials close to the prime minister’s office said last week the format of the speech could be changed, with Netanyahu possibly speaking behind closed doors or in smaller groups of congressmen rather than in a primetime televised address.

But Netanyahu appeared to put paid to any change of plans, saying he was determined to honor the invitation. The Israeli leader has vowed to foil what he says would be a “bad and dangerous agreement” on Iran’s nuclear program.

With a month until the election, some polls suggest voters are unhappy about him going to Washington. A survey by Army Radio showed 47 percent thought Netanyahu should cancel the address, while 34 percent said he should go ahead with it.

Overall, however, Netanyahu’s Likud party remains marginally ahead, with most polls expecting it to win 24 or 25 seats in the 120-seat parliament, just ahead of the center-left opposition.

Even if the center-left wins, most analysts expect Netanyahu will be the only one able to form a workable coalition among right-wing and religious parties, allowing him to return as prime minister for a fourth term.

Corporate Dishonesty

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I received in today’s snailmail a document postmarked Sacramento, CA, Permit No 1827. In bold, black print, the envelope carrying this document had the following notice:

WARNING: $2000 FINE, 5 YEARS IMPRISONMENT, OR BOTH FOR ANY PERSON INTERFERING OR OBSTRUCTING DELIVERY OF THIS LETTER.

Who sent me this very important document? Who knows? The originator was so ashamed of himself and/or what he had to say to me that he declined to put his address, much less his name, on the envelope.

I opened it.

It turns out it’s from some crowd calling themselves 1st Nationwide Mortgage, and the document was signature-stamped by someone claiming to represent Chris Arco, Senior Vice President, First Nationwide Mortgage.

If this crowd is so dishonest it puts misleading threats of dire consequences on the outside of its envelope, and/or if it’s so cowardly it won’t put its name and return address on the outside, then on what basis can any of us take it seriously?

I put its trash into the recycling bin for pick up next week. Yeah, we recycle in Texas, just like they do in California. Only we recycle our trash to our own facilities, we don’t mail it out of state.

Personal Data Encryption vs Convenience

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It appears Anthem Inc may have made a poor decision.

Recall that Anthem, the health insurer, got hacked a few days ago, giving up Social Security numbers and other personal data for 80 million customers to those hackers. It turns out that Anthem had deliberately chosen not to encrypt those data. At all.

Scrambling the data, which included addresses and phone numbers, could have made it less valuable to hackers or harder to access in bulk. It also would have made it harder for Anthem employees to track health care trends or share data with states and health providers[.]

Apparently, the company considered convenience more important than the sanctity of the personal data which those 80 million victims had entrusted to Anthem.

Naturally, Kristin Binns, Anthem’s Vice President of Public Relations, as cited by The Wall Street Journal, is excusing the failure:

Anthem encrypts personal data when it moves in or out of its database but not when it is stored, which is common in the industry.

Everybody does it, therefor it’s OK. No, Madam, everybody doing it just makes the failure widespread.

She added

We use other measures, including elevated user credentials, to limit access to the data when it is residing in a database[.]

Plainly inadequate measures. Your IT department could have told you that. If they did not, that omission would seem grounds for their termination. If they did, and senior Anthem management chose to ignore them, that would seem grounds for termination of senior management.