Category Archives: Government & Politics

Federal, State, and Local Government… Taxes, Social Programs, and International Affairs.

What I Did on My Furlough Friday (Part 6 of 6)…

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I feel like we’ve reached the end of an era together. Now that I’m sitting here writing at the tail end of Furlough 2013, I’d love to say I’m sorry to see it go… but in the perpetual war between free time and spending money, money has won out yet again. It’s just as well that next week will bring back the standard 5-day work week. Another five of six weeks of being a part time worker would have probably ruined me completely for ever having a full time job again. If you haven’t had the experience in your adult life, a 4-on, 3-off schedule is pretty damned easy to get use to.

Being philosophical doesn’t really tell you much about how I used my final scheduled off-Friday for the immediate future. The answer to that one is simple: I did all the stuff I would have otherwise done on Saturday – grocery shopping, banking, stopping by the post office, and enjoying a late lunch at Chiplote just to top off the day. Now I’m back home writing, editing, and trying to remember that English is my first language and I should really know how to use it. All things considered, it’s been a successful Furlough Friday… I just hope it’ the last time I have to use those two words together in a sentence. Somehow I can’t shake the feeling that it’s just an operational pause before we reach a whole new level of stupid when the new year kicks off on October 1st.

Be sure to tune in here tomorrow for “My Trip to Walmart…”, a Post By Request coming to you whenever I get around to turning it in to actual sentences based on the notes I took while shopping for groceries this afternoon. With a plug like that, how can you not want to come back and check it out?

iPads for inmates…

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So, I see that Attorney General Gansler wants to issue tablet computers to Maryland inmates. My initial response was that I couldn’t possible have read that article correctly. Surely the AG is pushing to restrict inmate’s access to the internet, email, and phone services that connect them to the outside world. After all, didn’t we just find a jail in Baltimore City where the inmates were quite literally running the asylum in part due to cell phones that had been smuggled in to them by members of the corrections staff? What in the name of high holy hell makes the AG think that giving everyone access to these devices would result in something different? Surely inmates with nothing but time on their hands would never conjure up a means of using these computers to communicate amongst themeslves as well as with the outside world. I can’t imagine how a prison full of inmates snapchatting with one another and their friends beyond the wall could possibly go wrong.

Sigh. The best part, the part that I really love, is that while I’m sitting here living with a 4-day a week paycheck, the esteemed Attorney General of Maryland and an assumed candidate for governor wants to spend $500 an inmate to give them these computers. Are you shitting me? Inmates get three meals a day, a bed, and a roof over their precious little heads. They get cable, a library, exercise equipment, and a host of other “privileges” if they’re not complete douchtards (by the standards of the corrections system). And now the AG wants me to think that spending another $500 a head is a good idea for these people who broke what I can only assume was some kind of major law – because let’s face it, if it was a minor infraction they’d have paid a fine or done 30-days and been out.

I’m a simple man. I really only want to hear about prisoners in a couple of contexts: 1) Making license plates; 2) Picking up trash along the highways and byways of the jurisdiction in which they are incarcerated; 3) Turning big rocks into little rocks; or 4) The news report where Inmate X was executed last night for rape, murder, or some other heinous crime. I don’t want to hear about their troubled childhood, or their anger management issues, or getting them the same computer that I’ve had to go out and earn an honest living to buy for myself. I want them to work demanding, physical jobs, so at the end of the day the only thing they can even thinking about doing is going to sleep.

That’s not how we roll here in the People’s Democratic Republic of Maryland. Oh no. We’d rather take money from the taxpayer and fund whatever half assed, bleeding heart program the sociological flavor of the day dreamed up to pass off as public policy.

This has been the first in an occasional series of posts where Jeff answers questions or opines on topics submitted directly by the readers.

What I Did on My Furlough Friday (Part 5 of 6)…

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You can see from the title that word came down from echelons higher than reality that the Great Defense Furlough of 2013 has been shortened from eleven days to six. That’s outstanding. I’m all for it. I’ll be glad to get back to not having 20% of my pay chopped off every other Thursday.

All other things considered, Furlough Friday has gone pretty much how you might have expected. There was grocery shopping and playing with the dogs. Before the day is over there might even be a little laundry. What there hasn’t been, of course, is anything that would have required any more funds than was absolutely necessary. The grand irony of furlough is that you have plenty of time off, but the pay reduction makes you want to squeeze every quarter until George screams for mercy. Fortunately beer is still pretty cheap and no one is charging admission to sit on the deck, so it hasn’t been too much of a sacrifice yet.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go now and do absolutely nothing. It’s my furlough day after all and working is against the rules. With the end in sight, at least now I can kick back and attempt to enjoy the rest of the day. Someday soon I’ll once again spend Fridays fiddling with PowerPoint, but today’s not that day.

The storm before the bigger storm…

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So the intrepid leadership of the Dysfunction of Defense has magically discovered a way to reduce the total number of required furlough days for civilian personnel from eleven to six. On the surface, that sounds like a fine thing and if you’re not picky about the details and surrounding circumstances, I suppose it would be. Being the slightly jaded and cynical jerk that I am, of course, I have a slightly different take on how things are going inside that five sided funny farm on the banks of the Potomac.

As close as I can figure, reducing the number of furlough days probably has as much if not more to do with the legal requirements for the Department to close the books on the fiscal year before the clock strikes midnight on September 30th. Someone, somewhere deep in the bowels of The Building has probably realized that along with the rest of us schleps, the finance and logistics people they need to close out the fiscal year are also working 20% fewer days and not authorized overtime. In my experience, that makes completing the year end financial festivities a statistical impossibility. Woops.

Another perk of getting everyone back to the office in the next week or two is that it gets everyone into a nice routine for the inevitable shitstorm that’s going to take place at the start of FY14. My best guess is that the fiscal year about to start on October 1st will include such highly sought after features as Debt Ceiling Induced Government-wide Shutdown, Furlough: Part II, Reductions in Force, and Pay Freeze: Part 4. Hopefully I’m wrong about some or all of those predictions, but I don’t think I am.

I have the sinking feeling that this six day furlough was a dry run – the storm before the even bigger storm ahead.

What I Did on My Furlough Day (Part 4 of 11)…

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Well, we’re four weeks in to DoD’s brilliant cost-saving furlough and routines are starting to develop. Saturday Part 1 (a.k.a Furlough Friday, a.k.a. Old Friday) has become the default day for running errands, going to Walmart for groceries, and beating the lawn back into submission. Basically I’m still putting in a full day’s work, it’s just work that I’m not getting paid for and use to be considered part of the weekend routine. Aside from the making of a new routine, there’s nothing significant to report. Hanging out at home, minimizing expenses where I can, and generally trying not to have an aneurism every time someone mentions a five-week Congressional recess or a multi-million dollar presidential vacation.

Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give him a bank and he can rob the government… but if you elect him to office he can steal it all.

Half and half…

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As part of the Magical Mystery Furlough of 2013, half the people stay home on Mondays and the other half stay home on Fridays. It’s one of those ideas that sound better in theory than it operates in practice. The logic was that inflicting the furlough on two separate days would mean that offices were open and “servicing the customer” during normal business hours. Like I said, it sounds fine in theory. I mean what customer doesn’t enjoy a good servicing, no?

What’s really happened, of course, is both Monday and Friday have become bureaucratic dead zones – the lights are on, there are a few people around, and we can officially say that Quadragonthe office is “open.” Just don’t try to get much done because odds are at least half of the people you need to talk to are scheduled out on the opposite Furlough Day. It’s hard to believe no one at echelons higher than reality saw that coming.

What we end up with is a functional work week that takes place only on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday because that’s the only time most people make it to the office nowadays. That’s not taking into account the people who are out in the normal course of using vacation days or sick time. Since no meetings were harmed in carrying out this furlough, anything that was usually scheduled on Monday or Friday now takes place on one of the other days too. That’s not even accounting for the meetings we now have to have to talk specifically about the impacts of sequestration and the furlough. Far be it for me to criticize, but let’s just say productive time is becoming an increasingly rare commodity.

The lights are on. We can say we’re still open five days a week. But what’s been lost in productivity is far greater than the sum of everyone’s collective 20% reduction of hours. Maybe this whole asinine exercise will save Uncle a penny or two on the dollar, but what he’s losing in the productivity, morale, dedication, and respect of his employees will cost him a shitload more than that in the long run.

Truth to power…

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I’m use to getting form letters from my elected representatives. Writing them directly might not count for much in today’s world, but the right to petition our government for redress of grievances is one of the hallmarks of the American democracy. Even as one voice among 300 million it’s not a right that I’m willing to let quietly die or to forgo simply because it doesn’t feel effective.

Like others of a certain age, I also use Facebook and Twitter to make my opinion known. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, these messages to power go unremarked and barely noticed… Which is why I was surprised today to get a reply to my last post on Representative Andy Harris’ Facebook page. It might have had a bit of the form letter flavor, but it at least meant that a staffer had to take the time to note my opinion and provide the appropriate response. That was unexpected.

The government writ large understands two basic things: money and popular opinion. Until I hit that elusive Powerball jackpot, I won’t be hiring my own lobbyist, but the one thing I can do, loud and long, is let my opinion be known at every opportunity. I know there are plenty of people out there who thing I should shut my pie hole and be glad I have a job (even if it is part time for the next 9 weeks), or think that the typical bureaucrat is overpaid, or think the whole damned machine needs to be torn down. That’s fine. We all know that opinions are like a certain anatomical orifice.

I expect and encourage others to have their own opinions, but know now that despite any thoughts to the contrary I will continue to make mine heard through every avenue available to me. To borrow a quote from one of my favorites, I strive to “Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Sometimes I’m going to fall well short of that goal, but I’ll be here as long as I can hold out, raising hell and telling truth, as I see it, to power.

A week with no Wednesday…

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Since this is the first of 10 more furlough weeks to come, it should be noted that for purposes of record keeping I’ll be dividing the week as follows:

– Monday and Tuesday will be held as scheduled.

– Thursday replaces Wednesday and is immediately followed, as usual, by Friday, which will take over Thursday’s old time slot.

– Saturday Part I is allocated the space formerly occupied by Friday.

– Saturday Part II is takes the place of the traditional observance of Saturday.

– Sunday remains in its historic place as the day that keeps Saturday (Part II) and Monday from crashing together.

Please note that until further notice, Wednesday will no longer being observed by jeffreytharp.com. While posts will continue to appear as normal, official business will only be transacted on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday as outlined above. Saturday (Part I and II) and Sunday are considered non-working days and will be subject to lying about on the couch watching trashy daytime television, surfing the internet, perfecting a diabetic-friendly rum punch recipe, arguing with the evening news, and otherwise being an unproductive member of society.

We regret that Uncle Sam has made this drastic step necessary and hope that Wednesdays will be restored to service as soon as funding levels allow.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

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The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

– He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

– He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

– He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

– He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

– He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

– He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

– He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

– He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

– He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

– He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

– He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

– He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

– He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

* For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

* For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

* For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

* For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

* For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

* For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

* For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

* For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

* For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

– He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

– He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

– He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

– He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

– He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock

Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple

Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Conflicted…

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A year ago, hell, six weeks ago I would have called Edward Snowden a traitor. Handing information to the press, especially classified information, goes against the grain and against a decade worth of training and experience. I can’t fathom a circumstance under which I’d do it… I’m philosophically opposed to finding myself in a Video-Surveillance-Usefederal prison or being “disappeared” by some of the more clandestine elements of our government, you see.

Maybe the country would be a happier place if we were all left fat and ignorant of what happens behind the fence line. With reality TV and the celebrity of the moment to entertain us, I wonder how long our collective national focus will remain fixed on what I think we can agree is at best an egregious violation of our collective rights as citizens of the republic. I’m sure it won’t be for as long as it should.

Look, our data is out there. We’re giving it freely to companies like Apple and Google every second of every day. It’s not that I have a problem with Uncle having a peek now and then, it’s that he’s blatantly said for so long that he’s not doing it. If the president or the Director of National Intelligence stood up and said “yep, we’re keeping an eye on phone calls and email and we’ve stopped X, Y, and Z as a result,” I’d probably be on the government’s side of this one without a second thought.

It’s the lie that chafes. It’s always the lie. That’s why I’m conflicted. And that’s why I can’t quite bring myself to condemn Mr. Snowden.