Two things.
First off, the voting machines and technology of Smartmatic. Some now long closed tab had an article about the Maduro election in Venezuela and how many votes he got from people rioting in the streets against his government, and pointed out that there were “concerns” over the voting machines used. Made by a company named “Smartmatic”. A trivial amount of searching leads to the Wiki on them. It says, basically, ~”Designed to be hackable”. Best Venezuelan Dictator Approved, and all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartmatic
Smartmatic (also referred as Smartmatic Corp. or Smartmatic International); is a Venezuelan-owned multinational company that specializes in technology solutions aimed at governments. It is organized around producing electronic voting systems, smart cities solutions (including public safety and public transportation), and identity management systems for civil registration, as well as authentication for government applications.
All in one place for easy one stop shopping by those in Power who want to stay in Power. Round up your citizens, manage their “identities” (and create more voters if needed?) and make sure YOU can count the votes.
But surely they are not beholden to the office holders or working a little too closely with them, right?
First election
In 2003, Bizta was losing money with “barely a sales deal to its name”. It was at this time that Bizta was awarded a $150,000 “loan” from Marieta Maarroui de Bolívar – wife of the then-Chavista governor Didalco Bolívar – who was president of FONCREI, the Venezuelan government’s organization dedicated to industrial funding. Smartmatic also received an additional $200,000 loan from the Chávez government. Smartmatic later responded to the bid process initiated by the CNE for the 2004 Venezuela recall, forming the SBC Consortium in the third quarter of 2003, prior to bidding. The SBC Consortium comprised Smartmatic, Bizta, and Venezuela’s state-run telecommunications organization CANTV. The SBC Consortium deal was notarized by then-Vice President José Vicente Rangel’s daughter Gisela Rangel de D’Armas in Caracas. The deal with Bizta required the Venezuelan government to own 28% of Smartmatic and placed Venezuela’s Head of the Council of Ministers and advisor to Hugo Chávez, Omar Montilla, on Smartmatic’s board of directors. Montilla was also appointed director of Bizta on 15 December 2003.
After it was reported that the Venezuelan government had been involved with funding and managing Mugica’s Bizta for over two years, Smartmatic quickly repaid Bizta’s “loan” a month before the election. A Venezuelan government propaganda organization, the Venezuela Information Office, also released a “fact sheet” about Smartmatic, defending the company from allegations at the time.
By the time Smartmatic made its first large deal with the Venezuelan government in 2004, the majority of employees worked in its Venezuela offices shared with Bizta, with 70 in Caracas while only 7 worked between Boca Raton, Florida and Sunnyvale, California. During the election, Smartmatic operated the voting machines, Bizta sent manual votes in remote areas to software centers and CANTV provided logistical assistance.
Well, I’m sure they are all moral upstanding folks and everything is above board…
But who cares about elections in Venezuela, anyway? Well, an attractive product can have wide adoption…
Elections
The company was contracted in 2004 for the automation of electoral processes in Venezuela. Since 2004, its election technology has been used in local and national elections in: Africa, Venezuela, United States, Belgium, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, the United Kingdom, Mexico and the Philippines.
Well I guess it’s just the case that the UK, Belgium, and the USA just don’t have the technical skills to make a voting system. Or perhaps harder to make one with all the necessary “features” and controls… or is that adjustments?
United States
2016 Utah republican presidential primariesIn the 2016 Utah Republican caucus, where Utah Republicans voted to choose the party’s nominee for president in the 2016 US Presidential election, the voters had the opportunity to vote using traditional methods or to vote online. For online voting, the Utah Republican Party used an internet voting system developed by the Smartmatic-Cybernetica Internet Voting Centre of Excellence, based in Estonia.
Despite warnings from security experts, Utah GOP officials billed the online voting system, for which the state paid $150,000. Multiple issues occurred with the system, with voters receiving error messages and even being blocked from voting. Smartmatic received thousands of calls from Utah voters surrounding issues with the process. The Washington Post states that “the concern seems to be less with the technology and more with the security of the devices people use to vote”.According to Joe Kiniry, the lead researcher of Galois, a technology research firm:
Several of us did a lightweight analysis of it remotely, to see how it was built and deployed and this sort of thing … we found that they were using technologies that even modern Web programmers stay away from. … It’s like the dumbest possible choices are being made by some of these companies with respect to deployed technology that should be mission-critical!
Now that’s a bit harsh. It may not be dumb at all, depending on your goals.
Controversy
PhilippinesSmartmatic has been criticized by various entities for its motives and handling of elections in the Philippines.
The Manila Times has stated that Smartmatic’s system was unreliable, glitchy and vulnerable to tampering. After the newspaper reported that Smartmatic had been funneling voter information through “unofficial servers”, The Manila Times ultimately called on officials from the country’s electoral body, Comelec, to resign. In early 2017, The Manila Times reported that Smartmatic machines were equipped with SD cards where voter entries are recorded, citing Glenn Chong, a former congressman of the NGO Tanggulang Demokrasya (TANDEM) stating that “at least one SD card was tampered with”, allegedly showing that Smartmatic’s system was “very much open to hijacking or sabotage”.
Hijacking? Isn’t “quality adjustment” a better sounding phrase?…
Just OMG. Who on this Earth would possibly think that a system funded by Socialist Dictators for their own vote counting “adventures” would be anything solidly secure from tampering.
RINO Deep State
Then from this link at SDA:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/06/22/with-friends-like-these/
With ‘friends’ like these…
June 22, 2018And the GOP wonders why their own base hates them.
I ran into this article that is, well, “chilling” is just not enough…
Clearly any creature too long submerged in the Swamp starts to smell of decay and get covered in slime; eventually adopting the habits of all the other successful swamp dwellers.
Judicial Watch Obtains IRS Documents Revealing McCain’s Subcommittee Staff Director Urged IRS to Engage in “Financially Ruinous” Targeting
JUNE 21, 2018
McCain minority staff director Henry Kerner to IRS official Lois Lerner and other IRS
officials: “the solution is to audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous”
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released newly obtained internal IRS documents, including material revealing that Sen. John McCain’s former staff director and chief counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including then-director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner, to “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.” Kerner was appointed by President Trump as Special Counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.
The explosive exchange was contained in notes taken by IRS employees at an April 30, 2013, meeting between Kerner, Lerner, and other high-ranking IRS officials. Just ten days following the meeting, former IRS director of exempt organizations Lois Lerner admitted that the IRS had a policy of improperly and deliberately delaying applications for tax-exempt status from conservative non-profit groups.
Lerner and other IRS officials met with select top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a “marathon” meeting to discuss concerns raised by both Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Senator McCain had been the chief sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act and called the Citizens United decision, which overturned portions of the Act, one of the “worst decisions I have ever seen.”
In the full notes of an April 30 meeting, McCain’s high-ranking staffer Kerner recommends harassing non-profit groups until they are unable to continue operating. Kerner tells Lerner, Steve Miller, then chief of staff to IRS commissioner, Nikole Flax, and other IRS officials, “Maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous.” In response, Lerner responded that “it is her job to oversee it all:”
Henry Kerner asked how to get to the abuse of organizations claiming section 501 (c)(4) but designed to be primarily political. Lois Lerner said the system works, but not in real time. Henry Kerner noted that these organizations don’t disclose donors. Lois Lerner said that if they don’t meet the requirements, we can come in and revoke, but it doesn’t happen timely. Nan Marks said if the concern is that organizations engaging in this activity don’t disclose donors, then the system doesn’t work. Henry Kerner said that maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous. Nikole noted that we have budget constraints. Elise Bean suggested using the list of organizations that made independent expenditures. Lois Lerner said that it is her job to oversee it all, not just political campaign activity.
[…]
“The Obama IRS scandal is bipartisan – McCain and Democrats who wanted to regulate political speech lost at the Supreme Court, so they sought to use the IRS to harass innocent Americans,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Obama IRS scandal is not over – as Judicial Watch continues to uncover smoking gun documents that raise questions about how the Obama administration weaponized the IRS, the FEC, FBI, and DOJ to target the First Amendment rights of Americans.”
And they wonder why Trump got elected, why we no longer hear their FUD claims (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt), no longer care what sob story and angry-of-the-day rent-a-mob is on the nightly Propaganda Show called “news”. Because we’ve seen that it is All Slime All The Time!
If ever there was a good example of why term limits are needed, IMHO, this is it.
Musings from the Chiefio 
We need work limits as well. The Deep state has been thriving under presidents of both parties (who have term limits). I have never worked for the feds. But I have worked WITH the feds (when I worked for a state government). I never spoke to a federal employee. I only dealt with contractors. For the most part, the entire civil service bureaucracy could be turned over in a year, and there would be no loss of service (hard to lose what you do not have).
I think it is time to start thinking about that. Federal employees now earn about 40% more than their private sector counter parts. It is no wonder that 7 of the 10 richest counties in the country are surrounding the beltway.
One would think the ReDimowits would be pushing for paper ballots all around. But …
Soros pushes voting machines. That’s all you need to know to figure it;s crooked.
Near as I can tell. 90% of everything the government does could be cancelled and the world would be better for it. Why do I say that? Because that’s the way it was before when things worked better.
There is zero need for a Federal dept of Education. 90%+ of the EPA (perhaps all of it via State arbitrage of disputes). The entire “war on drugs”. The entire energy department (we know how to build power plants already. Give the nuke stuff back to the military). etc. etc. (HUD for example, and Dept. of Ag. Cancel all subsidy programs.)
I think “term limits” is a States issue.
States, even small ones benefit if their senators remain in office for many terms.
Thus and therefore, don’t expect a change.
While I respect McCain’s military service, I think his political service is not to be applauded.
With minor exceptions, in Washington State we are sent a ballot in the mail that can be sent back by mail or dropped in a box in front of the county court house. Both county and state monitor this process and constantly check voting rolls. There have been no serious complaints. Oregon was first, WA 2nd. Early objections have gone away.
There are so many folks trying to fix elections in so many ways.
So how do you stop it? Firing people like Kerner and Wasserman-Schultz achieves nothing……they move on to a better paid job! We need indictments followed by hefty prison sentences for the worst offenders.
The GOP brand is contempt for its base (e.g. voter betrayal) and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The DEM brand is contempt for its base (e.g. fixing primaries) and corrupting our institutions of government.
@Chiefio,
“There is zero need for a Federal dept of Education. 90%+ of the EPA………”
There is a maxim in medicine “First do no harm……..”
If that concept was applied to government the Federal department of Education would be abolished. That department harms education and so do the state departments of education and the district administrations at county level. If all these bodies could be magically removed government schools would be managed like private schools. Result……higher performing schools and big cost savings.
Let’s not stop with education. The same concept should be applied across the board. Maybe in his second term Trump will apply business style budgeting to all government departments. This used to be called “Zero Based Budgeting” because the budget is built from the ground up each year. Expenditures that harm are the first to go and eventually dead wood gets trimmed too. I would expect the cost of government to fall by at least 40% while the services provided would improve dramatically.
Another way to look at K-12 education is to understand that is a monopoly (only 10% of our children attend private schools). Monopolies suffer from “Provider Capture” which means that the interests of owners/managers come before the interests of customers. Whichever way you look at it the answer is to force schools to compete for your patronage.
A start on the clean up today with the Supreme Court ruling on mandatory union dues. Maybe Right to Work is back in force. This will cost the unions and Democratic Party big time and remove some of the driver of public sector corruption…pg
@P.G.:
Ossqss posted a note that Justice Kennedy has retired (on another thread). Expect more ‘Splody Heads on the Left and more Supreme’s Rullings of legal merit, fewer of political spin.
@G.C.:
I’d like to see a simple cost / benefit application to departments. Have a Presidential Commission that POTUS Trump appoints. It’s charter is ONLY to identify departments or divisions that have zero or negative benefit / cost. That way they can’t get “points” for approving the continuation of the Navy, for example… Only way they can show some power and collect a check is identify something to quash. Maybe make their collective salary 0.00001% of budget eliminated. So saving $Billion or 10^9 dollars would net them $10,000 in pocket. Just nuking the $200 Billion to the IPCC/Paris boondoggle would get them $2 Million…
The biggest thing they could do for cost of government is to find a way to give departments an incentive to come in under budget and on time, instead or spend all your budget before end of year so you don’t get penalized in next year’s budget. I have seen first hand that burn money at the end of the year game play out, buying cases of copy paper, budgeting staff retreats etc. to burn up funding so they can ask for more next year.
Something like the only way they can hire new people is to come in under budget, or have a mandatory cull of funding every year where they specify a short fall to meet by not spending all the budget and still accomplishing their work load.
I frankly can’t think of a way to do it that a smart bureaucrat could game some how.
The primary incentives for an organization is to grow head count and expand authority and influence. How do you come in under budget and not feed those aspects of an ever growing malignant growth of the agency?
Oh Dear!
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/02/03/rod-rosenstein-threaten-house-intelligence-community/
https://www.theepochtimes.com/justice-departments-rosenstein-threatens-legal-pushback-against-congress-oversight_2561587.html
Battles being won for individual freedom, thx to Trump, but
not the long war. Deep state creep and leftist ideology long
march through the institutions is ongoing. Constant vigilance
and purposeful action by the plebs required but this is under-
mined by identity politics promoted in school programs. Like
gallopingcamel says, abolish government control of education.
Here’s a video of Soros funded EU University pushing its
‘occupy’ their heads, promoting social warriors’ program. Social
responsibility replacing critical thinking.
“was awarded a $150,000 “loan” from “
IN today’s exchange rate, that would be 517,241,379,310.34 bolivars! (that is 517 BILLION).
The Socialist paradise of Venezuela has made everyone a millionaire! (hell, billionaire!).
“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how” – Josef Stalin, 1923. Boris Bazhanof, The Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary, 2002. Cheers –
The Smartmatic story gets more complicated in recent years. In December of 2015, Venezuela’s election for National Assembly gave a super majority to MUD, a coalition of opponents to President Maduro. If they were cheating, they weren’t very good at it.
Then last year, after a national election for Maduro’s rump “Constituent Assembly” (AKA “Cuban Assembly”) it was Smartmatic that announced that the results had been tampered with:
“We know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated,” the company, Smartmatic, said in a statement.
I think the company was dropped from this years irregular presidential election….
@beththeserf,
Putting K-12 education under local control as in New Zealand will make it impossible for a few zealots to impose their ideas from “Sea to Shining Sea”. When a small group can control a nation it is called Oligarchy.
As Robert Michels pointed out in his “Iron Law of Oligarchy” (1911):
“…….all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations.”
Today the USA is ruled by an oligarchy consisting of unaccountable bureaucrats doing the bidding of the “Donor Class”, consisting of “Big Business”, both major political parties, the banks and academia. These bureaucrats are not like the relatively benign Sir Humphrey in “Yes, Prime Minister”. They ensure that the will of the people as measured by the outcome of elections has little effect on public policy. The Donor Class wants cheap labor so they have opened our borders. The down side is that the majority of the population have seen their wages stagnate or fall even though the economy continues to grow.
This is not the first time. From 1865 to 1900 the “Robber Barons” gradually increased their control of the US economy and government. They were eventually defeated by a watchdog press led by William Randolph Hurst and muckrakers. They exposed the abuses of the oligarchs with the result that the public demanded reform in the shape of the “Sherman Anti-Trust Act” and related legislation.
Today we have a different cast of oligarchs who are more able to resist reform because the Media is no longer free or unbiased. Instead the Donor Class uses the Media to mislead and distract the public. The Media are owned by the oligarchs.
It should surprise nobody that more and more voters (The Forgotten Men and Women) demand reform. This led to Ross Perot making a run for the presidency under the banner of the “Reform Party”. Then there was the Tea Party starting in 2009 which still has influence today. As these attempts at reform were crushed by the oligarchs it was inevitable that the forces for reform would become stronger culminating in the astonishing 2016 election which placed Donald Trump in the White House.
If Trump had lost the 2016 election you can be sure that an even stronger reform movement would have emerged to contest the 2020 election. The general public in the USA is sick of “Stupid Government” that works for the rich and powerful but causes the wages of the majority of Americans to stagnate. Thus the Donor Class and the Deep State created Perot, the Tea Party and now Donald Trump.
The USA now has a leader elected to reform our government. He ran on a laundry list of promises but did he mean what he said or would he follow the GOP brand by betraying the voters? To the amazement of almost everyone (including me) he is keeping his promises so the central campaign message for the 2018 mid-terms is “Promises Made, Promises Kept”. Anyone who can make such a claim without provoking laughter is likely to make gains in 2018 and win a second term in 2020.
The people who benefit economically from the Trump agenda are gaining power while the Donor Class and the Deep State are losing theirs. Naturally there will be push back as explained by Machiavelli in 1505:
“And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them.”
Prince Trump is under siege from the supporters of the status quo. They are giving it their best shot but they cannot win as long as Trump remains popular with the voters. They thought he would have been driven from office by now but instead his popularity is growing owing to an amazing string of accomplishments. Even if he does nothing for the remaining six years of his presidency he could still go down as the best president since Abraham Lincoln. If he can maintain his present pace he will rank next to George Washington.
While Trump’s achievements are impressive, what matters most is his resolve to control our borders. Douglas Murray chronicled the “Strange Death of Europe” that is probably inevitable given the “Open Border” policies in many European countries. The European Union is doomed because “Tyranny by Bureaucrat” is more obnoxious than all the other types of tyranny. Open borders accelerate the collapse by ramping up debt. As Maggie Thatcher pointed out:
“The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”
The defeat of the Robber Barons would not have happened without unbiased investigative reporting. While the term Muckraker was intended as an insult these were the people who diligently exposed the activities of the ruling elites. Once the American people learned what was going on they demanded reforms such as the Sherman and Clayton acts.
Today there is no equivalent of the muckrakers; the Media exist to spin everything as their oligarch masters require. This is not just an American problem, it is a global problem; governments around the world should have no control over Media yet it is common for governments to punish people who try to expose the truth about immigrant crime, sex trafficking, the climate change hoax and government misconduct.
People who openly challenge Politically Correct views are subjected to ad hominem attacks (e.g. Racist, Homophobe etc.), shouted down or even prosecuted. Freedom of speech is under attack even on college campuses.
What I propose is an organization in the fashion of Wikileaks but with a much broader scope. The point about Wikileaks is that it publishes facts with close to 100% accuracy. I am not aware of any situation where they have been proven wrong. To broaden the scope of Wikileaks one would need far more leakers and that could be an expensive undertaking. What I recommend is setting up a network of unpaid leakers. Rommel called Montgomery’s 8th army “Desert Rats” and the insult was gleefully turned into a shoulder flash. In a similar way the corps of amateur leakers should be known as Muckrakers.
Maybe this would be a good place to start looking for Muckrakers.
Thx, gallopingcamel, that’s a masterly summary of the development of oligarchy
and a suggestion for combating it. Gotta’ get bureaucracy transparency somehow.
If you don’t mind, I will quote it elsewhere.
@gallopingcamel
Today there is no equivalent of the muckrakers; the Media exist to spin everything as their oligarch masters require.
This statement is only correct if you limit yourself to traditional media and the public broadcast media.
The new Muckrakers are the independent journalists on the web, primarily twitter, and until it got shut down by the deep pockets Youtube.
These web journalist are to list a small sample ( I follow these folks on twitter – I do not always agree with their positions and observations, but they consistently shred the traditional media narrative.
Tim Pool @Timcast
Tracybeanz @tracybeanz
Harold Finch @hfinch61
REX @_ImperatorRex_
Drawandstrike backup account @BrianDCates
Ashton Whitty @ashtonbirdie
GalacticRedPill @GalacticRedPill
Brad Todd @BradOnMessage
Candace Owens @RealCandaceO
Daniel Ashman @dashman76
Ryan Saavedra @RealSaavedra
Heshmat Alavi @HeshmatAlavi
Stephanie Hamill @STEPHMHAMILL
Katie Hopkins @KTHopkins
James O’Keefe @JamesOKeefeIII
Laura Loomer @LauraLoomer
Zuzanna W. Mroz @OpinionatedEuro
Brittany Pettibone @BrittPettibone
Caolan Robertson @CaolanRob
Duke Selden @DukeSelden
Katie Pavlich @KatiePavlich
Dana Loesch @DLoesch
Raheem @RaheemKassam
Allen West @AllenWest
Dinesh D’Souza @DineshDSouza
PeterSweden @PeterSweden7
Dan Bongino @dbongino
David A. Clarke, Jr. @SheriffClarke
Sebastian Gorka DrG @SebGorka
Tom Fitton @TomFitton
Far Left Watch @FarLeftWatch
Paul Joseph Watson @PrisonPlanet
Voice of Europe @V_of_Europe
David Horowitz @horowitz39
Daniel Greenfield @Sultanknish
Nurit Greenger @NuritGrg
Katica @GOPPollAnalyst
Michelle Malkin @michellemalkin
James Woods @RealJamesWoods
Josh Caplan @joshdcaplan
World Events Live @IdeologyWars
STEALTH JEFF @drawandstrike
UTT @UTT_USA
Lauren Southern @Lauren_Southern
Jack Posobiec @JackPosobiec
SalenaZito @SalenaZito
Kerry Smyth @SmythRadio
Mike Cernovich @Cernovich
Stefan Molyneux @StefanMolyneux
Bill Mitchell @mitchellvii
Dr Bill Warner @PoliticalIslam
Sharyl Attkisson @SharylAttkisson
Judicial Watch @JudicialWatch
GC – great comment and bookmarked so I can find it again when needed. I think it won’t convince solid Democrat voters like my US (ex) family , though, or my friends in the UK who have swallowed the MSM propaganda.
There is a gap between our aspirations for universal elimination of poverty, universal healthcare, and all the other nice socialist promises, and our ability to pay for all that for all the people we currently have, let alone all the people who also want to immigrate and have all those goodies as well. Denmark has wonderful social support, but limit that to only Danish people as far as they can since otherwise they’d be overrun by immigrants. Who doesn’t want Free Stuff if it’s offered? Still, that Free Stuff is patrimony, and built up over generations of work to enable it for the number of people expected to need it. Increase the number of needy people, and the system will get overloaded.
The proportion of people either not working or working for government directly affects the proportion of an individual’s income that must be taxed away. The output of the producers needs to supply both their consumption and the consumption of all the non-producers. If the non-producers are paid more money per hour than the producers, then the tax situation gets worse, and the Laffer curve tells us that too much tax reduces the profitability of production and thus reduces the amount produced. There is thus currently an optimum weight of taxes that should be applied, and most countries seem to be significantly above that, which causes a general loss of productivity per person and general poverty (with a few uber-rich, of course).
It looks to me that Trump is reducing the burden on productivity. We’ve already seen unemployment reduce dramatically, and the more productive people a country has the more it can afford in the way of aid for those who need it – fewer people need it because jobs are available.
The balance of what jobs will be available will change with automation. Maybe we can do things better (fewer sudden cuts of employment opportunities) than we did during the Industrial Revolution. If we start from a platform of prosperity, though, then it’s easier to pay for the necessary re-training and for people to find niches that are not yet or can’t be automated.
Apart from the stuff I’m working on, there are also several other projects that look capable of drastically reducing the cost of energy, and along with the automation that really ought to make for a bright(and interesting) future. Maybe this will also solve the immigration problem, too, since a lot of that is founded in poverty. Meantime, Europe needs its own Trumps to replace the people who are systematically messing up the values that made it great in the first place.
Missing in your discussion is the burden on productivity imposed by expansive bureaucracy. Regulation is a massive “TAX” before wealth is created. Taxes are imposed on wealth after it is created. The true genus of the Trump machine is in the reduction in regulatory burden just as soon as they took office. The Trump boom that took place in the first 18 months was due to that effort. The tax reduction caused boom has just started. Bureaucrats always strangle the society they manage in snarls of regulation and paper work. It is their nature as a parasite to grow until they kill their host by bleeding it dry. Some regulation is needed to control the GEB but they are slippery and are constantly trying to create an edge of advantage for themselves within the regulatory system. The regulators become their tools rather then limiters. The only way to control bureaucratic bloat and over reach is to keep them poor and overworked so they don’t have the time and resources to plague the general population. Believe me, I have been studying them for years. Poorly paid bureaucrats work for you, Well paid ones insist that you work for them. Poorly paid bureaucrats can be bought by GEBs but will soon be caught. Well paid ones can also be bought but are much harder to catch as they have the power to cover their tracks. So keep them poor and few. ..pg
@Larry Ledwick,
Thanks for the list! As you point out there already are plenty of people speaking out yet it is not nearly enough.
There has to be some way to prevent the “New Media” such as Fakebook and Twitter being hijacked by the oligarchs. It seems that once people like Zuckerburg get wealthy enough they inevitably lick the boots of the establishment.
@beththeserf,
Thank you for liking my rant in spite of its verbosity!
You mentioned transparency and that is a huge issue in the DoJ, FBI and three letter agencies.
Rush Limbaugh mentioned this book on his show on Monday and I just finished reading it 48 hours later.
We have crooks running around in the Department of Justice and nobody dares to hold them accountable! One of them is currently on Mueller’s team. It is not just Hillary who is crooked.
Thx galloping camel, I will buy the book.
@GallopingCamel – I took the 4th off, so just read your long comment and add my praise to those of the others. Excellent comment and worth the read! Thank you.
Thanks to y’all for taking the time to read my lengthy rant.
For years I have been politically apathetic because it made no difference whether I voted Democrat or Republican. All the presidential candidates were bought and paid for by the “Donor Class”. In protest I voted for Boris Johnson (the Thinking Man’s Idiot) in the last three presidential elections while my wife voted for Alvaro Uribe (Honest and Brave).
Thanks to Trump reform is possible at last so here I am passionately supporting our amazing president. We need to show up this November to give Donald Trump a resounding mandate that will force the remaining RINOs to understand that “RESISTANCE IS FUTILE”.
We need to bring truth in advertising to politics. let George Will and his ilk declare who they really are – Champions of the swamp. Shove the rest of the swamp denizens over there (half the republicans an 90% of the democrats). Then place the remaining in the party of the “Outside beltway”. 2 years ago, I was more inclined to vote for Sanders (who I have nothing in common with) than most of the rest of the candidates. Why? He was kind of an outsider as well.