Stamp Out Politocrats

If you read my blog regularly, you may have come across the word, politocrat. If this is your first visit, welcome, you have never seen this word before. I know that because I made up the word. From time to time when I am unable to find a word that fits my needs, I am not above creating one from scratch.

We all understand that an autocrat is a single despotic ruler, such as a czar, that controls a country, or even an empire, all alone and with a heavy hand. A good example would be the Kims of North Korea. A plutocracy is a country in the control of a group of the very rich. The United Arab Emirates comes to mind. A politocracy is a country ruled by a group of powerful politicians steeped in the maintenance of their own power. They do not like to share and they do not like change. The United States of America, I suggest, is close if not already a politocracy.

There are certain traits that politocrats share. They are generally older but some are given a special circumstances dispensation and may be as young as their late forties. Most have never worked in the private sector. If they have it was briefly when they were very young. To be part of the club, you must have survived three election cycles. Many have held office for thirty years or more. And you must have a huge campaign war chest. This will allow you to attach some pliant newcomers to your coattails. Then you can teach the next generation of politocrats the ropes.

The big thing is that you don't roil the waters. Your political party is irrelevant. But you must go along to get along. If you are a member of the minority party you may gently voice some protests to keep your base thinking well of you but in the end you pass that new debt ceiling or that new tax bill. The status quo must rule. If you play along with the big plan you will be allowed to dip into the pork barrel enabling you to show your constituents how hard you are working for them in the nations capitol.

If this description seem to fit any politician running in your area you might want to rethink your vote. Another clue that will help you tell who the politocrats are is the way they treat new energetic young politicians that get to Washington hoping for change. They attack them. Even young pols of their own party. It is ugly. They will stand before a TV camera and call these fine young men "wacko birds". What adult male calls another adult male a wacko bird. Some fine examples of politocrats would be Reid, Boehner, Pelosi, McCain, Obama, Schumer, and Biden. There are many more, and plenty waiting to join the ranks.

It was never intended that our country should be run by a political class. Men, or women for that matter,  who get too much power tend to love that power too much. There is definitely something to be said for term limits. These people have power, real power. The only way we can ever get our country back is to stamp out the politocrats.

I have been posting more than usual lately. I have to. It is what the military call a "target rich environment".

How Soon They Forget

I have been monitoring, with great interest, the latest big scandal to hit the Obama administration. Everyone has heard, by now, that the NSA is monitoring American phone traffic and emails and recording these call logs for posterity. A minor functionary with a contractor company who had, apparently, a very deep security clearance decided to tell the world of all the evil doing. 

It has long been known that the NSA is made up of very nosy people. That is their job. They snoop. Probably they do a lot of other things also. But mostly, they snoop. In 1929, Secretary of State, Henry L.  Stimson would not permit such behavior, saying, "Gentlemen do not read each others mail.". Well times have long since changed. To survive in this world we need to read the other guys mail. Maybe not so much other fellow Americans. I do not believe that anyone has rescinded the fourth amendment. The government has just taken a path around it.

But this is nothing new. Back sometime, I believe during the Clinton administration but possibly earlier, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand formed a massive world wide program called Echelon. A group of receptor satellites were put into  geo-synchronous orbit monitoring all electronic transmissions. The data accumulated was fed into super-computers and sorted out by a software called Silkworth or Sire. If you go on-line to check this information you may have to dig a little for some parts but it is there.

The really wonderful thing about Echelon was that they could tap into any phone call in real time. Any phone call. Now I have never heard anything about Echelon being closed down. Most government projects of this nature tend to grow. Let's just posit, that if this "new" capability is either a part of Echelon or added to Echelon, the government owns us. Businesses can't communicate without the government being in on it. If you are running against an incumbent politician that has some power, your conversations may now be on the party line, so to speak. And don't think abuses haven't taken place already. At all levels.

So, we have a spy agency monitoring electronic communications, unfettered. We have the IRS being used as a very powerful political tool to encumber or destroy those that our incumbent President refers to as enemies. Actually, the loyal opposition. We have the Justice Department stomping all over the first amendment. We have the EPA wrecking good businesses, with whom the administration disagrees, with extreme regulation. I'm not putting any spin on this. This is just what I see and hear in the news. This along with Janet Napolitano expanding the Federal Police Force makes me very nervous indeed. Four years ago, what is now the Federal Police, were just building guards. Now they are fully empowered police and they are getting fully automatic weapons and military armored troop carriers.

All this scandal after scandal is almost like a magician trying to distract on the left side while he is actually doing something on the right side. I will admit that maybe I have a little paranoia going on. But just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean you are wrong.   


One last note. Do not forget Benghazi. That is the scandal that this administration fears most. Every day they pray  it will get lost in the razzle-dazzle of all the other scandals. Don't let that happen.  

The Insanity Goes On

I do not watch the Saturday business shows on TV. I tire very early with a bunch of people sitting around trying to shout each other down, each one knowing that they alone are the font of all financial wisdom. But if you are flipping around the news channels looking for new news you can't help but pick up on bits and pieces. Sometimes it is worth a pause to listen. Most of these people are smart and knowledgeable. One at a time, most of them are worth listening to. In a group, they are just noise.

Lately there has been a lot of talk about the stock market, quantitative easing, and interest rates. This is what I have been referring for some time as the Bernanke Bubble. Early last week rumors were out there that Ben Bernanke was actually going to slow down the printing presses and let interest rates come up a bit. Which is actually a good idea.

Immediately the Dow dropped. The rich folks started screaming that they weren't getting richer fast enough and good old loyal Ben couldn't kiss their hem (so to speak) fast enough. He assured all concerned that he didn't mean it. He was in for the long slog. And just because his monetary policy has not helped the broad economy, he was just happy as a pig in muck on a hot summer day, to accommodate his rich friends and those that donate large sums of money to Barack Obama.

Now, getting back to the financial pundits on TV. The best of them all seem to agree that the Bernanke Bubble will burst. When it will burst seems to be the question at hand. Based on the rumors, I said mid-summer. Others say anytime out to five years. I fully admit that five years is a possibility. The problem being, the longer this financial farce goes on the bigger the explosion will be.

The administration will have spent eight years not fixing the economy. Fewer people are gainfully employed. The middle class will shrink even more. The dollar will be worth next to nothing. And the non-rich American people (most of us) will suffer as hasn't been seen since the "Great Depression". Don't kid yourself, Bernanke knows this. He may be a tool but he is not a fool.

That is the reason that he put out rumors that there would be changes come mid-summer. He was right to do that. Better to take the pain in small pieces now than suffer the ravages of a complete blowup of the economy at sometime in the future. I actually respect him for trying. I know that he must be under enormous pressure. When the administration's economic policy has been failing for four and one half years, it is not time to double down. 

I believe the next four years are the most financially dangerous that our country has seen. I will say again, if our country is to survive as we know it, we need more statesmen in Washington and far fewer politocrats. What is a politocrat you ask? A politocrat is part of a group of politicians who's sole aim is to gather power in order to rule.  And more and more of the people we send to Washington are politocrats.

The Government Just Stormed Your Castle

It is often said, that a man's, and I assume women's, home is their castle. It is their inviolate possession. Unbreachable and safe. Short of the intervention of the courts, even the government has no right of entry.

If that is true, and it should be, how much more inviolate is a persons body. Again, short of the intervention of the court, a persons body is unassailable without that person's consent. That is until now. I am not a Constitutional scholar. I have never even played one on TV. But I have read the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. That is the part of the Bill of Rights  that protects us all against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court has just thrown the Fourth Amendment into the trash heap.

I cannot imagine what the justices were thinking.  In a five to four decision they allowed police to administer a DNA test to any suspect for any crime. We are not talking about those that are convicted of a crime. You only need to be a suspect. It doesn't even have to be a felony. I can be a misdemeanor. The results of these tests will go into a federal DNA database. Even if you are not guilty of any crime your DNA stays in the database. It was the opinion of the court that this is no different than finger printing or taking a mugshot. 

But wait, in a mugshot it is a simple photograph. There is no physical contact. And mugshots of suspects do not go into a national database. Even a fingerprint is just an image, not a portion of ones body tissue. While a DNA test is minimally intrusive, it is intrusive. They stick a cotton swab in your mouth and swab your cheek. Not so bad. Quick, clean, and non-painful. But the issue is that they intrude into your body without your consent or evidential examination by a judge. It is a search without a warrant.

Then there is the part about the database. Where in the Constitution does the government get the right to hang the intimate information of your physical makeup out there for the world to access. Certainly, such a database would be useful in many circumstances. Solving some crimes would be almost automatic. Identifying unknown bodies would be simple. Proving relationships would be a snap.

But there is also a very dark side. Consider this. Any skilled hacker or anyone with connections into law enforcement, anyone that had access to some low level governmental clerical employee would be able to beg, borrow, or buy access to that database. Everyone in witness protection programs would be in danger. People working undercover would be jeopardized. 

Think about this. An abusive husband beats his wife. She fights back. The police are called and both are hauled in to jail as "mutual combat". Now her DNA is out there. If she should try to leave her abusive husband and hide to protect her life, her DNA trail will always be there. 

Just stack this up to the never ending list of bad decisions by government entities. Their power increases daily at the expense of ours. 

The Stupidity Continues

I have written before about zero tolerance policies. With what has been happening lately, I am compelled to revisit a subject that should not exist. It was once, when a grammar school student misbehaved the punishment was tailored to fit the crime. It could be anything from being made to sit in the corner to a trip to the principles office. If said student really messed up a parent was brought into the mix. 

It was not a perfect system. Some teachers were more tolerant than others. Some played favorites. But the one thing that made the system work, most of the time, was that human intelligence was brought into the equation. Children's mistakes became teaching moments and kids learned the difference between harmless and harmful. They learned the difference between having fun and being hurtful. Teachers understood that boys and girls were wired differently. Boys didn't play quietly. They roughhoused and made noise. 

One would think that the educational system would be the heart and core of teaching our youngest and most needful, about honest educational right and proper discriminatory thinking. If all negative behavior is treated alike and all negative behavior is treated in the harshest terms, it confuses young minds. Little boys have been playing cops and robbers since cops and robbers were invented. Now at recess if the chase each other and point their finger shouting bang bang, it becomes like real cops and robbers because someone in charge will feel obliged to act as if they were the police.

When I was a boy, we played cops and robbers, we played war, and we played cowboys and, dare I say, Indians. And despite all my exposure to  that "violence", I have yet to shoot anyone. And I have never heard of any of my old playmates getting in trouble through violent behavior.

But the stupidity gets worse. A lad bit his pop-tart into the shape of a gun. Down to the office he goes and bring in the authorities before someone is seriously injured by leaking jelly. One lad made something resembling a gun out of Legos. It was smaller than a quarter. Well he got hauled off pretty quickly. We all know how dangerous a miniature lego gun can be in the wrong hands. But the crowning moment in institutional stupidity has to belong to a Nebraska school system. A school official told the parents of a three year old deaf child that he must learn the execute his name in sign language differently. The reason being that the correct way of signing his name in the "Signing Exact English  System" requires him to point his fingers. Intolerable, some misguided soul may mistake a three year old's fingers for a gun.

As I have said before and will probably be forced to say again zero tolerance is zero brains. I'm just waiting for the first teacher to be taken out in cuffs because she or he pointed at a student just to attract their attention. Then stupidity will have come full circle. They say, "you can't fix stupid". But can't we please try.

The Amateur Hour

When I was a wee small child growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts, there was a national radio show (this was long before TV) called "Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour". It was the "American Idol" of it's day. With today's production standards and celebrity focus, it would be a sad joke. But in WWII USA it was a big deal. Those were the days when dedicated amateurs meant something.

A great deal of the Allied success in WWII belonged to the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA. They were all amateur spies trying to save Europe from the Nazi scourge. The head of the OSS was a Washington lawyer called Wild Bill Donovan. Some of those that worked and sometimes spied for the OSS were famous names like Ralph Bunche, Julia Child, David Niven, and Arthur Schlessinger.  Actually, I think David Niven may have worked for MI6. But it was a real who's who in World War Two.

It was a simpler time and talented amateurs could contribute to the greater good. Time marches on. The world gets more complicated. Skilled, trained, experienced professionals are really needed to balance decisions without personal prejudice.

Look at the state of the country. Look at the state of the world. It is not a time to vent ideological preferences. Just in case no one is paying attention, we have Muslim extremists that want to destroy all that is not them. We have a resurrection of global communism in Russia. We have China, while pretending to be a friend, robbing our secrets blind. Also you have two nations of complete whackadoos, Iran and North Korea, playing with nuclear weapons. It is a time we should stand united. It is not a time we should be driven apart by a megalomaniacal President.

This is a time where we need trained, skilled, and experienced leadership. I will admit that Bill Clinton was not my favorite President. OK, he was a dog. Most guys of my generation just look on and shake their heads in wonderment. But Clinton's comments about Obama are telling. Clinton said about Obama "he's incompetent, he's an amateur, he doesn't understand how the world works". That's painful.

Even more telling, but less believable to some, when the Bush administration gave extensive briefings to Obama and his people. They were really trying to make a seamless transfer of power. Bush walked out of  one of these meetings, shaking his head, looking befuddled, and said to his people, referring to Obama, "this guy is clueless". To Bush's everlasting credit, he never criticized Obama publicly, even when Obama was blaming him for everything up to and including the Korean War.

So, today, we still have the amateurs in charge.  And I cannot remember when our great country has been in worse straits.

It's A Free Country

Well, it used to be a free country. I can remember, it was only a few years ago that I could walk into a Walmart, buy a shotgun, some shells, and a hunting license and go chase some wily pheasant. Now to purchase firearms, you have to practically sell your soul to  the dev.., excuse me, government. If you want ammo, good luck. It is mostly “Out of Stock”.

You  can always stop and buy one of those great big cups of soda to cool down. Unless you happen to be in New York City. Those people are just so lucky to have a Mayor that realizes that they are too stupid to run their own lives so  he is obligated to do it for them.

How about going to the range and punching some holes in paper targets. That is always a good stress reliever. Not if you’re in Chicago or Washington DC. The Second Amendment does not apply in those two towns. It seems that not all America is America.

You might want to work on that Nativity Scene that you have been building to put out on the village green next Christmas season. Oh, oh, had to drop that project to. The city attorney banned it because he felt they might get sued if someone takes offense. It just seems that there are some people that are easily offended lately. Guess they just hate seeing joy in others.

I think that I have made my point. Our freedoms are eroding daily. It is worse under the Obama administration than any I can remember. Just about every president in the past has misused the power of his office for political purposes. And they usually get caught at it. But none have gone so wholesale gangster as this administration. From using the IRS to damage opposition political organizations to using the Justice Department to criminalize disliked members of the press, this administration is awash in scandals but have the gall to still stand up and face the cameras and lie, lie, lie. It has been an amazing performance. 

Not to get maudlin, but I can remember the free country of my youth. It has long gone. But what really worries me is the question, Will my grandsons be writing, fifty years from now that they remember the free country of their youth? If they do, What kind of country will they be living in?

In a recent blog I wrote about the Bernanke Bubble. I commented that it would burst one day soon. Actually, I predicted sometime after mid summer. The other evening I watched a commentator from one of the cable business programs talking about the same subject, although he did not call it the Bernanke Bubble. I enjoy listening to his analysis and respect his conclusions. We agree that the increase in the stock market is a rebound for the rich. The middle class is shrinking and all but the rich are hurting.

We differ in when the bubble will burst. He predicted five years with a Dow approaching twenty thousand. If he should be right the blow up will be an explosion. The point is that the politocrats have an iron grip on the economy to prevent it getting worse under Obama. The American economy prospers as a free economy. A politically controlled economy, reminiscent of Russia or China, will not prosper in America because we are a nation of entrepreneurs. We will become America again when the politicians loosen their grip and restore our freedoms.

One last thought before I post this, Are Obama and Christie the new Laurel and Hardy?