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The Administrative State — Size, Scope And Resistance Of The Swamp Adam Andrzejewski ,

Posted By on January 2nd, 2018

‘Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of OpenTheBooks.com, as published at Forbes.’ Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski)

“It’s hard, when you’re up to your armpits in alligators, to remember you came here to drain the swamp.” – President Ronald Reagan (1983)

“What we have to do is drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” – Rep. Nancy Pelosi (2006)

The Republican Congress and president argue it’s time to “drain the swamp” and cut spending. It’s not a new fight, but here’s why it’s so difficult: Our OpenTheBooks Oversight Report – Mapping the Swamp, A Study of the Administrative State describes the size, scope, and power of the federal bureaucracy.

Today’s federal bureaucrats are paid $1.1 million a minute, $66 million an hour, and over $524 million a day – and that’s just the cash compensation cost. Taxpayers also pay for lucrative perks like weeks of paid time-off, performance bonuses and padded retirement pensions.

Using our interactive mapping tool, quickly review the 2 million federal employee salaries and bonuses by ZIP code across America. Just click a pin and scroll down to see the results rendered in the chart beneath the map. See your local piece of the swamp: how much are the federal employees in your backyard earning? Which agency employs them, and what is their job title?

Here are a few of our key findings:

$136 Billion in Cash Compensation – The federal government disclosed 1.97 million employees across 122 independent agencies and departments. In FY2016, these 2 million workers received $136 billion in compensation. If we could factor in another 2 million undisclosed employees – at the Department of Defense and on active military and other agencies – the cost would be much higher.
$22.6 Billion in Time Off and Benefits – After just three years of public service, federal employees receive ten federal holidays, 13 sick days, and 20 vacation days per year. That is eight and a half weeks of paid time off (43 days per year). That benefit costs taxpayers an estimated $22.6 billion annually.
$1.5 Billion to Bonuses – The federal government awarded 330,713 bonuses for $351 million (FY2016). However, the federal union agreement bars the disclosure of the $1.1 billion in performance bonuses. So, who received how much? It’s time to open the books on the billion-dollar performance bonuses. The largest federal bonus last year ($141,525) didn’t go to a rocket scientist or a doctor researching a cancer cure; it went to Bart Ferrell, a Human Resources Manager in charge of processing payroll at the Presidio Trust. Ferrell’s total pay last year exceeded $300,000.
A Six-Figure Minimum Wage? In 78 large agencies, the average employee made more than $100,00. We found 30,000 bureaucrats out-earning every governor of the 50 states with salaries exceeding $190,000. The number of federal employees making $200,000 or more has skyrocketed by 165 percent during the past six years. ‘Diet and Nutrition’ employees can make up to $207,060; ‘Food Services’ workers in the prisons system can bring in $136,622; and ‘Laundry Operations’ employees at the VA can make $101,694. Even ‘photography’ is lucrative, averaging more than $80,000 with top pay reaching $157,971

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hillary Clinton Backers Paid $500k to Get Trump Harassment Accusers to Come Forward By Rick Moran

Posted By on January 2nd, 2018

Two cronies of Hillary Clinton donated more than half a million dollars to celebrity attorney Lisa Bloom’s effort to get women accusing Donald Trump of sexual harassment to step forward.

The New York Times reports that Susie Tompkins Buell, a major Hillary donor, and Democratic attack dog David Brock both gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bloom, who was representing several of the women accusing Trump.

Fox News:

Susie Tompkins Buell, the founder of Esprit Clothing and a major Clinton campaign donor for many years, gave the money to celebrity lawyer Lisa Bloom who was working with a number of Trump accusers at the time, according to the paper’s bombshell report.

Bloom solicited donors by saying she was working with women who might “find the courage to speak out” against Trump if the donors would provide funds for security, relocation and possibly a “safe house,” the paper reported.

Former Clinton nemesis turned Clinton operative David Brock also donated $200,000 to the effort through a nonprofit group he founded, the paper reported in an article entitled, “Partisans, Wielding Money, Begin Seeking to Exploit Harassment Claims.”

Bloom told the Times that the effort was unproductive. One woman requested $2 million then decided not to come forward. Nor did any other women.

Bloom said she refunded most of the cash, keeping only some funds for out-of-pocket expenses accrued while working to vet and prepare cases.

The lawyer told the paper she did not communicate with Clinton or her campaign “on any of this.”

She also maintained that she represented only clients whose stories she had corroborated and disputed the premise that she offered money to coax clients to come forward, the paper reported.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Death of Academic Rigor By David Solway

Posted By on January 2nd, 2018

The notion of academic rigor has fallen on evil times. In a typical instance of continuing epistemic degradation, Donna Riley, of Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education, insists that rigor must be eliminated since rigor is a “dirty deed” fraught with “exclusionary implications for marginalized groups and marginalized ways of knowing.” It matters little, apparently, if our bridges collapse so long as “men of color and women, students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, first-generation and low-income students” are welcomed into the new holistic community defined by “other ways of knowing” – whatever these may be. Similarly, Rochelle Gutierrez, of the University of Illinois, fears that algebra, geometry, and math perpetuate white male privilege and discriminate against minorities. Indeed, minority under-performance is often disguised as a form of “mismatching” – that is, the fault lies with the institution for being beyond the student’s intellectual means. Clearly, the dire situation we are in can only deteriorate as the concept of excellence bites the dust and students are deliberately coaxed into pre-planned intellectual darkness.

The precipitous decline in educational quality in North American schools, colleges, and universities has been amply documented in a plethora of articles and books over the last 20 or so years, including my own efforts in such volumes as Education Lost, Lying about the Wolf, and The Turtle Hypodermic of Sickenpods. One of the places where we can find real “climate change” is the educational establishment, from kindergarten to graduate school, a mind-sphere where heated rhetoric and frozen accomplishment go hand in hand. The pedagogical and scholarly climate has become almost unlivable. Like far too many teachers, I have witnessed the debacle from the trenches – as a supply teacher in the high schools, an ESL instructor, a college professor, a visiting lecturer, a guest professor on the international circuit, and a university writer-in-residence. The scenario never changed.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Meryl Streep Gives Worst Performance in ‘Me Too’ Campaign By Robin Dolgin

Posted By on January 2nd, 2018

Meryl Streep learned a painful lesson about falling out of favor with her liberal admirers in Hollywood last year: the left eats its own.

She paid dearly for playing the dumb card when confronted about her silence on routinely collaborating with the worst serial sexual predator among the titans in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein. “One thing can be clarified,” Ms. Streep assured her fellow thespians who were launching the “#MeToo” campaign calling out sexual predators on social media. “Not everyone knew,” she asserts. “I did not know about his having meetings in his hotel room, his bathroom, or other inappropriate coercive acts.”

Living in a bubble does have its disadvantages for the three-time Oscar-winner. Ms. Streep’s sanitary use of the words “inappropriate coercive acts” falls hopelessly short of touching on the outrage experienced by the legions of women who suffered blatant sexual assault or violent rape by the now world-famous serial abuser.

Unfortunately, Streep kept going off script, digging herself into a deeper hole as she attempted to explain herself to her colleagues. She referred to the dozens of sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein as an “example of disrespect” to her fellow actors during a women’s conference in Boston. “No Meryl, it’s a [f——] crime,” wrote Rose McGowan, the actress who heads the “#MeToo” campaign on social media. “You are such a lie,” McGowan added, referencing the elder thespian’s claim of ignorance of Weinstein’s 30-year sexual rampage stretching across several states in the U.S., encompassing at least two countries in Europe, and impacting the lives of dozens of victims and possibly hundreds of bystanders.

The full weight of the liberal left came down to bear on Streep at the end of 2017. Humiliation is a major form of protest in the progressive community, oftentimes mercilessly targeting victims deemed un-P.C. In this case, Streep wasn’t mocked with a “pussy hat” campaign, but her likeness appeared on hundreds of posters with two words symbolically covering up her eyesight, “She Knew,” which were posted throughout the Los Angeles area (i.e., the center of Tinseltown). Repackaging the truth in attacking President Trump never hurt Streep’s professional standing, but now she’s being held accountable for her words by liberals who are diverting from the same groupthink narrative.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Gets the U.N. to Cut Spending The U.S. uses its leverage for once to force budget reforms.

Posted By on January 2nd, 2018

Here’s something more miraculous than Congress spending less money—the United Nations doing it. Yet that’s what happened at the end of 2017 as the 193-nation General Assembly agreed to a 5% spending cut in its new biennial budget after American prodding.

The General Assembly agreed by consensus to shrink the U.N. budget by $286 million, to $5.4 billion, down 5% from the prior budget. The U.N. will save about $50 million by trimming hiring and overhead costs, and another $18 million from cutting the U.N. Department of Management, better known as human resources. The peacekeeping operations budget, which was negotiated separately earlier in 2017, was reduced by $593 million to $7.3 billion, a 7.5% cut.

The General Assembly also agreed to spending reforms, including restrictions on construction projects and an audit of the U.N.’s $60 billion staff pension fund. Starting in 2020, the U.N. will move to annual budgeting, which Secretary-General spokesman Stéphane Dujarric called “one of the most significant shifts in the programme planning and budgeting process of the Organization since the 1970s,” which says a lot about the U.N.’s accounting systems.

These reductions are hardly draconian. They don’t include cuts to the U.N.’s elevator operators, who cost about $300,000 per year, or trim the budget of the International Court of Justice’s judges and spouses, who travel first class. Committee for Programme and Coordination members, a strategic planning group for bureaucrats, holds a five-week meeting every year in New York City, rather than meet in a cheaper location or via teleconference.

Secretary-General António Guterres has supported the reforms. But none of this would have happened without pressure from the United States. President Trump called out the U.N.’s bloated bureaucracy and “mismanagement” in September, and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has pressed the case. The U.S. has leverage at the U.N. because it provides 22% of its budget, but credit the Trump Administration for finally using it.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

About That Trump ‘Autocracy’ Remember all those progressive predictions of looming fascism?

Posted By on January 2nd, 2018

As Donald Trump heads into his second year as President, we’re pleased to report that there hasn’t been a fascist coup in Washington. This must be terribly disappointing to the progressive elites who a year ago predicted an authoritarian America because Mr. Trump posed a unique threat to democratic norms. But it looks like the U.S. will have to settle for James Madison’s boring checks and balances.

“How to stop an autocracy,” said a Feb. 7, 2017 headline on Vox, ruminating on a zillion-word essay in The Atlantic on how Donald Trump might impose authoritarian rule. Academics and pundits mined analogies to Mussolini, Hitler and Vladimir Putin.

Four political scientists even formed something called Bright Line Watch—with the help of foundation money—to “monitor the status of democratic practices and highlight potential threats to American democracy.” Readers won’t be surprised to learn that the only graver threat than Mr. Trump is the Republican Congress that refuses to impeach him.

One of the Bright Line Watch founders, University of Rochester professor Gretchen Helmke, wrote in the Washington Post on April 25, “Could Trump set off a constitutional crisis? Here’s what we can learn from Latin America.”

A year later, where are we on the road to Venezuela?
***

Far from rolling over Washington institutions like a tank, Mr. Trump seems as frustrated as other Presidents with the limits of his power. He achieved one major legislative goal in tax reform but failed on health care. His border wall isn’t built and he may have to legalize the “Dreamer” immigrants if he wants Congress to approve money for it.

Mr. Trump’s political appointees still aren’t close to fully staffing the executive branch. He’s making more headway on judges, but that’s partly due to former Democratic leader Harry Reid’s decision in 2013 to eliminate the Senate filibuster for judicial nominees. The press cheered on that partisan, mid-session change of Senate rules to pack the courts.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trump Backs Protesters in Iran The biggest wave of demonstrations in almost a decade has backed leaders in Tehran into a corner By Aresu Eqbal,Asa Fitch Michael R. Gordoni

Posted By on January 2nd, 2018

The biggest wave of protests to hit Iran in almost a decade has backed the country’s leaders into a corner, and the Trump administration is increasing the pressure by threatening fresh sanctions if the government forcefully cracks down on the demonstrations.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, who has been a favorite of the country’s moderates, now finds himself under fire from a young population eager for change. U.S. President Donald Trump waded into that volatile situation on Monday with a strong statement of support for the protesters.

In an early-morning post on Twitter, Mr. Trump said the Iranian people “have been repressed for many years.”

“They are hungry for food & for freedom,” Mr. Trump posted. “Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. TIME FOR CHANGE!”

In Tehran, a 26-year-old marketing-company employee named Tamana echoed the sentiment as she joined a demonstration Monday. “We are deprived of the simplest things that are a given for people in other countries, both in terms of basic welfare and economic security and of course freedom to express opinions and complaints,” she said, declining to give her last name. She called Mr. Rouhani’s performance on issues relevant to young Iranians “very weak.”

Unrest spread on Monday through central Tehran, where security forces used tear gas and shows of force to disperse crowds, and unverified video showed protests in other parts of the country, including Shadegan, Abadan and Kangavar in western Iran and Isfahan in the center.

At least 12 protesters have reportedly died since the demonstrations began, and a policeman was killed in Najafabad on Monday, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency. A member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was also killed during clashes near Isfahan by a shotgun blast, Mehr reported Monday, without providing further details. CONTINUE AT SITE

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The NGO Industry’s Terror Trail Gatestone’s Person of the Week: Dr. Gerald Steinberg by Ruthie Blum

Posted By on January 1st, 2018

All a group has to say to garner the support of many European politicians is that its mission is to promote human rights. The words have a “halo effect,” a term used in psychology to describe the tendency to favorably judge people, companies, groups, products, and so forth, based on the image of morality or some other positive factor. In the context of NGOs, groups that claim to promote values seen as universally good — such as peace, human rights, justice and coexistence — are automatically perceived as credible and above criticism or investigation.

After World War II and the Communist period, the concept of “civil society” — later called “NGOs” by the UN — became holy in Europe. Civil society was supposed to be the antidote to manipulative democracy, like that of the Weimar Republic. But they forgot to ask what happens when civil society is itself the manipulating force. There are no checks and balances imposed on it.

The NGO lobby at the UN plays a crucial role, because it is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business. It is an industry, and it needs to be called just that.

Last week, Professor Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of the Jerusalem-based research organization NGO Monitor, had “breaking news”: The Danish government had formalized a decision to stop funding the Human Rights International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, an NGO framework established in 2013 at Birzeit University in Ramallah, with an annual budget of millions of euros, paid for by the governments of Sweden, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland.

Steinberg’s research had revealed that of the 24 core NGOs funded by the Secretariat, six have ties to the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – which is on the EU’s official list of terrorist organizations — and 15 are involved in worldwide campaigns to destroy Israel by economic means.

Denmark’s decision, according to Steinberg, came on the heels of votes in the Swiss Parliament calling on the government to cease funding “projects carried out by NGOs involved in racist, anti-Semitic or hate incitement actions.” Denmark’s decision also coincided with an investigation launched by The Netherlands into the Secretariat funding. “The Danish example is the most important,” he said, “as it is the largest chunk that has been cut in one fell swoop, and Danes were among the Secretariat’s founders.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Regime Chants “Death to America”, Iranians Chant “Death to Mullahs” by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on January 1st, 2018

Now, people in Iran are demanding not just limited reforms but regime change. The government has been doing all it can to stoke the flames of hatred, but has been trying to deflect it to “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

The Trump administration is taking the right side by supporting the Iranian people; they are the principal victims of the Iranian regime and its Islamist agenda.

Let us not be on the side of history that would remain silent in the face of such crimes against humanity, let us not join the ranks of other dictators, terrorists, and criminals, that turned a blind eye to violence, and the will of brave, innocent people.

Protests have grown and have spread across Iran in cities such as Tehran, Kermanshah, Shiraz, Rasht, Qom, Hamedan, Ahvaz, Isfahan, Zahedan, Qazvin, and Sari.

The political nature of the protests has been made clear from the outset and the regime is experiencing a political earthquake. The regime’s gunmen have been out in full force. Despite the brutal power being deployed to crush these peaceful demonstrators — four protestors have already been reported killed — more people are flooding the streets in defiance of the regime.

The scale of these sudden protests is unprecedented during the last four decades of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s rule.

These demonstrations, however, are different from other protests in Iran since 1979, when the theocratic regime was established. In 2009, during the popular uprising in the name of the “Green Movement,” people were protesting against rigged elections and the presidency of the anti-Semitic politician Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Chants echoed through the streets, “Where is my vote?” while the government ratcheted up its power to silence the protestors.

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The Islamization of Britain in 2017 “I think we are heading towards disaster.” by Soeren Kern

Posted By on January 1st, 2018

Reports of alleged links between Islamic charities and terrorism or extremism surged to a record high, according to the Charity Commission, a charity watchdog.

Azad Ali, an Islamist who has said that he supports killing British soldiers, was named a director of Muslim Engagement and Development (Mend), a controversial Muslim pressure group which advises the British government. Ali said that the jihadist attack at Westminster on March 22, 2017 was not an act of terrorism.

“Politicians tell us they are unafraid, but they are never the victims. How easy to be unafraid when one is protected from the line of fire. The people have no such protections.” — Manchester-born singer Morrissey.

The British government refused to say whether telling people about Christianity could be a hate crime. Lord Pearson of Rannoch said that when he raised a question on the issue in the House of Lords, the government failed to state clearly whether Christians can be prosecuted just for stating their beliefs.

The Muslim population of Britain surpassed 4.1 million in 2017 to become around 6.3% of the overall population of 64 million, according to a recent study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe. In real terms, Britain has the third-largest Muslim population in the European Union, after France, then Germany.

The rapid growth of Britain’s Muslim population can be attributed to immigration, high birth rates and conversions to Islam.

Islam and Islam-related issues, omnipresent in Britain during 2017, can be categorized into several broad themes: 1) Islamic extremism and the security implications of British jihadists; 2) The continuing spread of Islamic Sharia law in Britain; 3) The sexual exploitation of British children by Muslim gangs; 4) Muslim integration into British society; and 5) The failures of British multiculturalism.

JANUARY 2017

January 1. Hundreds of adult asylum seekers lied about their age in order to enter Britain “as teenagers,” according to official data provided under the Freedom of Information Act. Figures obtained by Mail on Sunday show that social workers carried out 2,028 age tests between 2013-2016, during which almost one in four of the claimants — 465 — were found to be over 18. By concealing their real age, migrants hope to improve their chances of being granted asylum.

January 1. Reports of alleged links between Islamic charities and terrorism or extremism surged to a record high, according to the Charity Commission, a charity watchdog. The number of times the Commission shared concerns about links between charities and extremism with police and other agencies nearly tripled, from 234 to 630 in just three years.

January 4. Jamshid Piruz, a 34-year-old Afghan-born Dutch citizen declared guilty of murder in the Netherlands, pled guilty to attacking two British police officers with a hammer. Piruz entered the UK unchallenged, despite being convicted of decapitating a Chinese woman in Amsterdam. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the murder, but released early. As a Dutch resident, Piruz was allowed to travel freely across the EU. “Britain has got to have tougher border controls,” said MP Henry Smith.