Tag Archives: government

IRS and Internal Emails

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Like a lot folks, I’m skeptical about the…accuracy…of the IRS’ lately claim that they can’t find Lois Lerner’s emails from before 2011.

My skepticism flows from a number of sources:

  • Why are they only now discovering the loss, a year after all that documentation was subpoenaed by House oversight committees?
  • The IRS claims a hard drive crash is at the heart of the loss—on what basis are we to believe that a single hard drive held all those documents?
  • The IRS’ hard drives—actually, the material stored on them—like all government hard drives/data, and like all such materials in the private, competitive sector, are backed up nightly: what are we to believe happened to all those backups?
  • Are we expected to believe that a professional IT crew would be so careless as to leave a single hard drive at the core of such a critical system? That they would leave all those backups at mercy of a single point of failure?

Note to those of you who believe the IRS’ claim: perhaps I can interest you in some beachfront property north of Santa Fe.

A Bit of Paranoia

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In 2010, a report from Amnesty International painted a grim picture of North Korea’s crumbling health care system, with witnesses and health care workers recounting barely-functioning hospitals, multiple medication shortages and epidemics caused by malnutrition.

And

US military officials soon grew concerned over the possibility of a lethal pathogen originating within North Korea, as the nation’s health care officials would be nearly powerless to stop the spread of infection. And if such an illness were to continue to expand, a global pandemic would likely occur.

But what if this is deliberate? Baby Kim isn’t stupid, and he is insane enough to give serious thought to such a thing. Northern Korea can’t invade with their army, so might they invade with disease? They’d infect a major fraction of their population (they’re already allowing a major fraction to become infected) and let a goodly number leak across the DMZ, which really is quite porous from the north’s side. And many of these diseases can spread via airborne vectors, against which the DMZ is no barrier at all.

A thug’s version of Napoléon’s levée en masse.

Pride and Reluctance

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Two hundred and seventy-six young girls were kidnapped by the terrorist organization* Boko Haram, whose leader is threatening to sell them into slavery, if he hasn’t already.

On the matter of offers from the US, Great Britain, Israel, and a number of others of military help both in dealing with these terrorists and presently in recovering the stolen girls, though, Nigerian pride seems more important than the safety of Nigerian children.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesman Doyin Okupe, has said about foreign military aid

Nigeria is a very proud nation. We feel that to subjugate our military under another world power would be to really compromise our integrity.

How is your national integrity, President Jonathan, not already disastrously compromised by your failure to protect even your children and your present inability to recover them?

 

*Aside: Why is it that so many “news” organizations and “journalists,” all of whom pretend to respectability, keep referring to such gangs as “insurgents” or “radical Islamists?” Why are they so desperate to avoid naming these organized mobs for what they are: terrorists?

Bureaucratic Misbehavior

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Bipartisan legislation…would prevent federal employees from receiving bonuses if they have been disciplined for tax and conduct issues.

Senators Kelly Ayotte (R, NH) and Claire McCaskill (D, MO) are sponsoring the bill inspired by a recent government report describing how the Internal Revenue Service paid more than $2.8 million in bonuses to employees with disciplinary problems.

“Federal employees who have disciplinary problems or who haven’t paid their taxes shouldn’t be getting bonuses,” Ayotte said in a statement. “Taxpayers in New Hampshire and across the nation were alarmed by recent reports of IRS employees being awarded bonuses that they shouldn’t have received.”

McCaskill added

The notion that taxpayer dollars would be used to pay cash bonuses to employees who’ve engaged in conduct that could get them fired or sent to jail is outrageous—and our bill would put an end to it.

What’s even more outrageous, though, is that “employees who’ve engaged in conduct that could get them fired or sent to jail” weren’t fired or prosecuted. As dismaying as that is outrageous is that McCaskill doesn’t even see that: she’s happy to have them on the payroll and unprosecuted, just denied bonuses.

To all of which I say, why not make the relevant bosses hold their people accountable themselves—because that’s the right thing to do? If those “supervisors” can’t or won’t perform, fire them and get supervisors who will.

Moreover, the tax scofflaws should be fired for cause. Why aren’t they? Oh, wait—public service unions. Those with a history of disciplinary problems (as opposed to one or two incidents) should be fired for cause. Why aren’t they? Oh, wait—public service unions. Their discipline problems should be listed as an, if not the, explicit reason for their getting no bonus for the period. Why aren’t they? Oh, wait—public service unions.

Plainly, we need to deal with the public service unions, too.

It shouldn’t have to come to this. The bureaucrats, including the appointed officials at the top, should have more moral backbone than this, even if it means crossing the unions. It’s crap like this, though, that contributes excuses for government to grow.

The whole viper’s nest needs to be cleaned out, a 100% turn-over, from the top down.

A New McCarthy Era

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[Gina “Joe”] McCarthy told an audience at the National Academy of Sciences on Monday morning the agency will go after a “small but vocal group of critics” who are arguing the EPA is using “secret science” to push costly clean air regulations.

Because we can’t have all this dissent. It gets in the way of our Agenda. It’s unseemly. McCarthy claimed,

Those critics conjure up claims of EPA secret science—but it’s not really about EPA science or secrets. It’s about challenging the credibility of world renowned scientists and institutions like Harvard University and the American Cancer Society.

No, Madam, it’s about challenging their conclusions and methodology—which is what science, real science, honest science, does.

And

It’s about claiming that research is secret if researchers protect confidential personal health data from those who are not qualified to analyze it—and won’t agree to protect it. If EPA is being accused of secret science because we rely on real scientists to conduct research, and independent scientists to peer review it, and scientists who’ve spent a lifetime studying the science to reproduce it—then so be it.

This is patently false—no one has asked for the confidential personal data, which are metadata, anyway, and not the raw data. No, Madam, only those raw data, data the scientists used to reach their conclusion are being sought.

And that peer review bit? On what basis do you ignore the peer reviews that dispute the conclusions of your chosen scientists? On what basis do you ignore the efforts of these…scientists…to suppress dissenting papers?

Relatedly, even, arguendo, were confidential personal data called for, the Federal government has procedures in place for safeguarding them, even while briefing members of Congress in detail about them. The security agencies, the NSA, CIA, etc are well experienced, with sound procedures in place, in doing this. McCarthy knows this; her demurral here is just another cynical red herring.

And there’s this:

McCarthy promised she would make such data publicly available during her confirmation process last year. Now her refusal to cough up the data has angered Republicans.

This is another McCarthy era tactic—just make stuff up, then refuse to follow through when it becomes inconvenient to do so.

Finally,

“Those critics are playing a dangerous game by discrediting the sound science our families and our businesses depend on every day,” McCarthy said. “You can’t just claim the science isn’t real when it doesn’t align well with your political or financial interests.”

Nor can you claim it is real just because it aligns well with your political or financial interests, Madam.