Category: government transparency

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency national politics & policies

The Servers of the Self-Serving

Hillary Clinton, investigation, FBI, crime, server, email

Feel like Charlie Brown? That football … yanked away again.

Yesterday, FBI Director James Comey announced he’s not recommending prosecution of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate.

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information,” Comey stated, “our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” He saw the evidence as not strong enough, “especially regarding intent.”

It doesn’t appear that Mrs. Clinton purposely divulged classified material, though her “intent” in setting up a private server for State Department work was self-​centered, and purposely not transparent. She was clearly more concerned with shielding her communications from the U.S. Government and the public, than shielding classified information from the Russians, Chinese, Iranians or ISIS.

While the FBI noted that Clinton and her aides lacked any apparent intent “to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,” the investigation discovered ample “evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

Not a sterling report card for someone seeking to be the commander-in-chief.

Donald Trump’s negative standing with voters, 70 percent disapproval in a recent survey, may save Mrs. Clinton. Still, standing in her way remains the fact that a majority of voters just don’t trust her.

That won’t change with yesterday’s news.

“Key assertions by Hillary Clinton in defense of her email practices have collapsed under FBI scrutiny,” read the lead of an Associated Press story, detailing six public statements made by her that the investigation found to be false.

Let’s split the difference: neither prosecute Hillary nor elect her president.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo credit: Toms Norde /​ Valsts kanceleja on Flickr

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Accountability folly free trade & free markets general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights

The Return of the Philosopher King

technocracy, expert, epistocracy Brexit, illustration

On Sunday, at Townhall, I addressed the whining attacks on referendums and “democracy” that followed the Brexit referendum.

The most outrageous? A broadside from Jason Brennan.

“To have even a rudimentary sense of the pros and cons of Brexit,” argues this Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Associate Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, “a person would need to possess tremendous social scientific knowledge. One would need to know about the economics and sociology of trade and immigration, the politics of centralized regulation, and the history of nationalist movements.”

In other words, most Brits needn’t worry their pretty little heads about deciding their future; experts have everything under control.

Brennan has a new book coming out, Against Democracy, wherein he posits that we need “a new system of government — epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable.”

Sound familiar? ’Tis the old Platonic whine in new wineskins.

This Philosopher King is necessary, you see, because citizens don’t posses the advanced degrees to judge whether Brennan is right or wrong. We can’t even find a Holiday Inn Express in the phonebook. Or a phonebook.

Nonetheless, why not consult other known knowers?

The late William F. Buckley, Jr., well-​educated and well-​spoken on political matters, once declared that he would “rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory, than to the faculty of Harvard University.”

“Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-​proclaimed expertise are always rank-​closing and mutually self-​defending, above all else,” warned journalist Glenn Greenwald, an expert on such hooey.

“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves,” wrote Thomas Jefferson, “and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”

Most decisions in a free society are thankfully made by individuals (not voters, bureaucrats, or academics) about their own lives.

But when legitimate decisions of governance must be made, I’ll take democracy over rule by experts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly government transparency

A Most Bizarre Misuse

transparency, government, copyright, illustration

Increasingly, folks in government balk at the commonsense requirement for transparency. They don’t like the basic idea of a republic, apparently — that we have rights; folks in government have duties. They are bound to serve us.

And allow us to oversee their work.

The latest bizarre attempt to wiggle out of transparency comes from California. A proposed bit of legislation, AB-​2880, seeks to grant state employees copyright protection — for their everyday work as public servants.

“The bill claims to protect access to the documents through the California Public Records Act,” explains Steven Greenhut in The American Spectator, “but it gives the government the ability to control what people do with many of those records.” Emphasis added — to direct your attention to the enormity of the increase in government prerogatives.

Public records are called “public” not merely because they putatively serve the public, but because they are open to the public. Yet, if this measure passes, those records are essentially privatized … to the government.

That is not what we mean, usually, when we say “privatize.”

Using copyright law to protect “thin-​skinned officials,” AB-​2880 would insulate bureaucrats even further from citizen oversight.

The excuse for the law, to help agencies manage their “intellectual property,” is hardly a big concern, except perhaps in one way: trademark infringement. We do not want private businesses to pretend to be state parks or bureaus. But the overreach beyond this core issue goes so far into crazyland that one must question the intent behind it.

And stop it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability government transparency moral hazard national politics & policies

Secrecy, Conspiracy, and the Sauds

secrets, government, Saudi, 911, conspiracy, illustration

The U. S. cleaves to some bizarre security standards. That is, about secrecy. Critics have been complaining for years about how “liberal” the federal government is in classifying information as secret. Or, put another way, how stingy the government is in providing us with information.

Not liberal at all.

This problem inhabits every nook and cranny of official Washington. But it’s most obvious in the case of 2002’s 9/​11 report, from which 28 pages were removed. For reasons of state secrets. And that, as the BBC related this weekend, is the likely cause of much suspicion against Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia? Yes. The country whose sands were walked upon by Mohammad, the Prophet, is also the country that gave birth to 15 of the 18 terrorist skyjackers, as well as spreading the Wahabist spin on jihad throughout the Islamic world.

So, by withholding portions of the report from the public, the government fed the flame of conjecture. And with it, the belief in a Saud conspiracy and a Bush and Obama cover-up.

The withholding of information does not give us a univocal perspective. We don’t know what is being kept from our eyes and ears. So when I read the BBC report, which stated that the “probable publication” of the previously classified parts “will clear Saudi Arabia of any responsibility, CIA chief John Brennan has said,” I get suspicious.

Good, if true. But the timing of this Brennan opinion, on the weekend of the Orlando massacre?

Stinks of spin and deflection by the government, against us … who wonder, not without reason, about “conspiracies.”

Should we trust the newly de-​classified segments?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment folly government transparency insider corruption national politics & policies

This Too Shall Pass

teflon, white house, Hillary Clinton, Obama, corruption, illustration

We are living in what I hope are the latter days of the Watergate Era.

I’m old enough to remember Watergate. The un-​making of President Nixon, before our very eyes, informed Americans in a deep and profound way. It led, in part, to the election of Jimmy Carter, often referred to as one of the least effectual presidents. And the Carter presidency led to Ronald Reagan.

While living under Watergate’s dark shadow, not all of us took away the same lesson.

We outsiders learned, once again, that power corrupts.

Insiders, on the other hand, learned something different: never willingly play a part in your side’s unmasking and un-making.

We tend to forget, what with the economic rebound and end of the Cold War, that the Reagan Administration had significant scandals. At the time, Reagan was dubbed the “Teflon President,” because Reagan & Co. figured out how to react: shrug; stall; deny, deny, deny. For this reason, scandal flowed off him, not sticking, as water off a well-​oiled duck’s back.

Reagan and the Republicans did not allow what Republicans had allowed in Nixon’s day: there was no turning on one’s own, no (or few) breaking of ranks.

Then, President Bill Clinton took the effrontery of denial and stonewalling to new heights. With great help from fellow Democrats.

And so it goes, even to the present day, with Hillary Clinton carrying on her husband’s tradition. She, the first candidate to run for the presidency while under official investigation by the FBI, just received the current president’s endorsement. 

The back-​room deal has been made, perhaps? Obama will not allow Hillary to be prosecuted. It would tarnish his legacy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability government transparency nannyism national politics & policies responsibility

Disneyland vs. Politicians

V.A., VA, Veterans Administration, Disneyland

Last week, when asked by reporters about the arguably deadly wait times that vets have endured (or not), Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald replied, “What really counts is how does the veteran feel about their encounter with the VA. When you go to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? … What’s important is: What’s your satisfaction with the experience?”

The national commander of the American Legion, Dale Barnett, calls the remark “an unfortunate comparison”:

“People,” after all, “don’t die while waiting to go on Space Mountain.”

The secretary also errs about Disney, as Fox News’s Neil Cavuto noted. Disney does measure the time people must wait in line. The for-​profit company goes out of its way to entertain folks while they wait.

But the clowns running the Veterans Administration shouldn’t take up entertainment.

Fix the problem. 

Democrats Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders both seek to throw more money at the VA. They seem most concerned in protecting the Veterans Administration, not veterans. And Sanders’s real beef turns out  to be with Disney.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, tweeted: “Obama’s VA Secretary just said we shouldn’t measure wait times. Hillary says VA problems are not ‘widespread.’ I will take care of our vets!”

But will he? Through the VA system?

A zillion reform efforts have failed.

Let’s demand more than a simple promise sans details.

Do congressmen wait months to get a medical appointment? No. Then why not close the VA and give veterans the same healthcare coverage as our (pardon the term) representatives?

On this Memorial Day, who comes first: the vets or the politicians?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo credit: Xiaojun Deng on Flickr