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January 15, 2010
Exclusive: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up! (1/15/10)
Whenever you think general incompetence by those who purport to serve by the consent of the governed can’t get any worse, think again:
“Joe Biden update: He meets on transparency today. But the meeting is closed” (Top of the Ticket, LA Times, 1/14/10)
Unsubstantiated rumors that Vice President Joe Biden had suddenly gone a little loopy and ordered some of his official meetings opened to at least cursory public or media attention were just that – unsubstantiated rumors.
After a recent public sighting, fears had mounted that the one-time, long-term senator might rebel against traditional White House strictures and start acting on all the administration's oft-promised promises of government transparency and official openness running back into 2008.
But the VP's public schedule today puts all those fears to rest.
In fact, loyal Ticket readers will recall that one day last summer with no advance warning whatsoever Biden's official White House schedule changed from listing frequent "private meetings" to listing frequent meetings that are "closed press." Was this dramatic and....
...little-noticed vocabulary change a sign of internal administration turmoil? What did it really mean?
No, of course not. And, nothing.
Announcing everyone the VP meets with, including sessions with unidentified senior staff, which consume much of the vice president's listed time, and what subjects they talk about would have been a stark contrast to George W. Bush's administration, whose notoriously secretive ways drew such criticism from Democrats in Congress during eight long years of really failed policies.
Instead, in the apparent interests of bipartisanship, the Delaware Democrat has adopted much the same sort of undetailed schedule as his Republican predecessor, Dick Cheney, who was not in the Senate when Obama was only 11 years old.
In fact, today's Biden schedule highlight is a meeting with the chief of transparency for economic recovery. But, unfortunately, the transparency meeting is non-transparent, closed to the press. (See his full schedule below.) Which makes it – what? – secret openness? Open secrecy?
(read full article here)
Where’s the transparency? Anyone? Bueller? Perhaps it’s all a matter of what the word “transparency” means, much as the famous “what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
“IRS Commissioner Doesn't File Own Taxes: I Find The Tax Code Too Complex” (Town Hall, 1/13/10)
C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" rightfully asks Douglas Shulman a good follow-up question: How could the tax code be less complex? SHULMAN: "I don't write the tax laws." Bravo, commissioner.
(full video here)
If the guy in charge of the IRS can’t even make sense of the tax code, perhaps it’s time to throw out the book and start over from scratch.
“Google China cyberattack part of vast espionage campaign, experts say” (Washington Post, 1/14/10)
Computer attacks on Google that the search giant said originated in China were part of a concerted political and corporate espionage effort that exploited security flaws in e-mail attachments to sneak into the networks of major financial, defense and technology companies and research institutions in the United States, security experts said.
At least 34 companies -- including Yahoo, Symantec, Adobe, Northrop Grumman and Dow Chemical -- were attacked, according to congressional and industry sources. Google, which disclosed on Tuesday that hackers had penetrated the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights advocates in the United States, Europe and China, threatened to shutter its operations in the country as a result.
Human rights groups as well as Washington-based think tanks that have helped shape the debate in Congress about China were also hit.
Security experts say the attacks showed a new level of sophistication, exploiting multiple flaws in different software programs and underscoring what senior administration officials have said over the past year is an increasingly serious cyber threat to the nation's critical industries.
(read full article here)
This is the nation that keeps on buying up U.S. debt, and the nation with which we have a huge trade deficit. “American manufacturers contend China is unfairly manipulating the value of its currency to gain trade advantages.” So why do we do it?
Brought to you by the editors and research staff of FamilySecurityMatters.org.
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