To honor the memory of the Last Great American Statesman, William Proxmire (Wisconsin Senator for 32 years) whose “Golden Fleece Awards” uncovered shameless pork barrel projects and focused media attention on all manner of self-serving, waste, and corruption in the United States government: Rajjpuut has since June, 2009, been awarding the “Platinum Fleecer” to the elected or appointed official or private citizen most deserving of the illustrious title.
The federal government has long forced an unwelcome “erotic relationship” upon the western states. While public land in some smaller eastern states might amount to a whopping 2% of total land area; and average about 7% in the lands just west of the Mississippi . . . a total of 28% of all the country’s land is owned by the federal government. Today several far western states find over 50% of the land inside their borders is owned and controlled by the feds. States have exercised some right to control usage and gained income, jobs and mineral resources as a right. The recent Obama-Salazar effort will amount to just one more sabotage of the 10th Amendment and betrayal of the individual western states in the name of Big Brother Obama’s Ever-Growing Bigger Government.
Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
Rajjpuut Prediction Comes True:
Toyota Recalls Again Hit Lexus
For those of you looking to best understand the world of business and management across all human endeavor in and outside of business, government, education, etc., Rajjpuut highly recommends the book “The Rational Manager” (or its update “The New Rational Manager) by Kepner-Tregoe, Inc. A month ago when he predicted that Toyota’s new campaign to win people’s trust back would fail and that its random acceleration and steering problems were NOT actually fixed, Rajjpuut based his thinking on Kepner-Tregoe management principles and techniques. Lo’ and behold, now we find that Toyota problems have continued after all.
Today, Monday, May 24, 2010, Toyota executives announced the recall of 3,800 Lexus LS Sedans in order to fix a problem with the electronic (i.e. computerized) steering system. This recall comes on the heels of a 4,500 car recall in Japan last week for the same steering problems. According to Toyota sources, the Lexus steering wheel can become “off-centered” after “a specific driving maneuver” but not during “usual driving.” The Lexus steering wheel, controlled by a computer will purportedly be a quick and free fix. Again, just as in the computerized braking system failure, Toyota is NOT revealing exactly what’s gone wrong and exactly how it’ll be fixed. Based upon Rajjpuut’s understanding of K-T management systems, he won’t be buying any Toyota’s in the near future.
The Kepner-Tregoe system provides an overview of the management process as “situation analysis.” Once the situation is analyzed as either a problem to be solved; a decision that needs to be made; or an ongoing program or direction that needs to be safe-guarded from failure (PA, DA, PPA in K-T lingo), the manager uses specific K-T processes to answer the demands created by the situation. What struck Rajjpuut about the Lexus situation is
A. Another system controlled by computers is now malfunctioning for Toyota
B. Toyota never has precisely defined the original problem with its braking system and never said precisely how that problem was being repaired.
C. Toyota repeatedly has claimed the brake system snafu is a “mechanical problem” but has repeatedly shown itself unable to precisely explain what that problem is
D. Congressional hearings with Toyota were most unhelpful, apparently the congressmen have no idea of how best to efficiently question a manufacturing firm about problems with manufacturing processes or results.
E. Toyota has obstinately refused to allow for the possibility that something related to the computer or spurious signals “could NOT” be causing the problems.
So Rajjpuut’s newest prediction: the current braking and steering problems will continue to haunt Toyota. Do NOT expect Toyota’s to re-emerge as a trusted and safe and desirable part of the new car picture until: they can name and can demonstrate before an impartial reviewer the precise problem with their electronic braking; and electronic steering . . . which means Toyota can create the problem on demand and demonstrate the cause; and they then produce a “fix” that refutes the problem situation which also can be demonstrated. Until such a time arrives, all Toyota advertising and promising has to be considered nothing more than wishful thinking. Stay safe!
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
If socialism and big government are the desired ends, Americans are not buying it according to the highly accurate Rasmussen Reports polling service.
Item: 68% of Americans are against boycotts of Arizona over their new Immigration law. While Obama and the federal government are permitted 17 specific powers, 55% of voters would like a law like Arizona’s in their own state because they don’t believe the federal government is protecting our borders.
Item: when it comes to terrorism, 52% of voters say we are NOT safer today than we were on September 10, 2001 just before the 9/11 attacks.
As the rest of the poll data shows, it seems that in the voters’ eyes Mr. Obama is NOT doing what the federal government is supposed to do and doing everything else instead. It also appears that Americans do NOT want to be ruled from the left . . . or the right or the center, but want to rule themselves:
Item: 72% do not believe Congress knows what it’s doing when it comes to the economy. Along those lines, 41% expressed the opinion that a group of people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than Congress.
Item: Rasmussen’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows President Obama’s favorability rating stands at -18 with only 25% of voters highly approving of the job he’s doing and 43% highly disapproving. Overall 44% at least somewhat approve of the President’s work while 55% disapprove.
Item: It appears Nancy Pelosi was wrong when she said, “We’ll just have to pass it so people can see what’s in it (and you’ll love it)” in reference to the Obamacare health measures. 63% of American voters now favor repealing the bill. As a move toward socialism, roughly 390 separate government agencies are created by Obamacare – just one law. In contrast only 40 separate federal agencies were created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in just over twelve years in office. Obama has been in office fifteen months.
Item: 65% of all Americans and a surprising 51% of Democrats now espouse “mainstream”^^ views up from 62% in March and 55% in September. Only 4% now support the “political class” (those numbers are staying steady at the lowest such reading in Rasmussen polling history). When “leaners” are included 81% align with the mainstream and 12% trend toward the political class.
Item: 67% of mainstream America consider Obamacare “bad for America” while 77% of the political class believe Obamacare is “good for America.”
Item: 76% of Americans say they trust the voters more than they do the politicians and 71% see the federal government as a”special interest group” looking out mainly for its own welfare. 70% believe that the government and big business generally work together for their own benefit against the interests of the people.
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
^^The three questions used to calculate the Political Class Index are:
-- Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more - the American people or America’s political leaders?
-- Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group?
-- Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?
To create a scale, each response earns a plus 1 for the populist answer, a minus 1 for the political class answer, and a 0 for not sure.
Those who score 2 or higher are considered a populist or part of the Mainstream. Those who score -2 or lower are considered to be aligned with the Political Class. Those who score +1 or -1 are considered leaners in one direction or the other.
In practical terms, if someone is classified with the Mainstream, they agree with the mainstream view on at least two of the three questions and don’t agree with the Political Class on any.
Audacity of Presidential Power-Grabbing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalism
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/06/01/meaning-of-federalism/
http://www.umt.edu/law/faculty/natelson.htm
Barack Obama is the national nightmare that some supporters of the Articles of Confederation and other anti-constitutionalists back at the nation’s founding strenuously condemned. Seemingly ignoring all seventeen of the allotted powers (enforcing our borders; standing up to our nation’s traditional enemies; obeying the uniform laws of bankrupties; and keeping treaties with our friends are all powers which Barack Obama has not chosen to exercise according to the folks in Arizona; South Korea; certified creditors of GM in Indiana; and allies in Poland to name just a few instances), Obama has made himself a picnic in abusing the constitution by advancing powers NOT granted by the Constitution. Many thought that Franklin Delano Roosevelt grossly overstepped the bounds of federalism with the 40 new agencies his administrations created. Barack Obama created almost 390 new agencies just in one law: Obamacare.
The powers of the federal government are listed in Article I, Section 8. They are available for anyone to read and simple to understand. More importantly, these powers
A. follow a simple, predictable pattern and
B. Much discussion was also made of which powers the federal government definitely did not have and should not have.
In its obvious general outline of powers for the federal government which amount to the 17 specific powers allowed, the Constitution provides for a government which protects the nation’s borders and defends against foreign invasion by maintaining an efficient army and navy; deals with custom and tariff matters; conducts foreign relations including war and treaties; settles disputes among the states and facilitates trade and intercourse among the American people and states and with the peoples and states within sovereign foreign nations.
Before looking at the powers the founding fathers refused to grant to the federal government, it’s crucial to understand that in a federal system such as ours the efforts over the entire two hundred plus years of the nation’s existence to turn the states into “departments or extensions” within the federal government . . . that is, into mere “administrative units” of the national govermnet is the greatest single threat to our nation’s survival as the founders foresaw and planned for it. Recent “States Rights” discussions (that is, up until the contemporary furor in Arizona over that state’s immigration laws and the 21 State “rebellion” against Obamacare directiives for the states that would literally bankrupt every state both calling for a new appreciation of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution) arguments were as insipid as the notion that people wishing upon stars might somehow influence the cosmos to somehow influence our fates. Lyndon Johnson’s expansion of the “Welfare State” is the prime example of this insidious trend both in Welfare itself and in Medicaid especially . . . the states were turned into administrative arms of the federal government’s policies. Nixon’s policies of “federalistically” turning over large grants of federal monies to the states has undoubted great practical value, but only confuses the issue . . . why is that money in the federal hands in the first place?
Federalism, and specifically the 10th Amendment, is the single greatest system ever devised for the protection of individual and state liberties and for providing counter-balance to over-reaching by the federal entities. Powerful centralized government is the threat to our listed freedoms and to freedom of action. That is, because we don’t have LISTED LIBERTIES for the individual or the states . . . but they are free to do whatever is not listed as criminal . . . we have true liberty. Confusion about the limits of federal government must be cleared up and must be always aligned with the intents of the founding fathers if this blessed state of liberty is to prevail. All powers NOT listed in the Constitution are specifically reserved for the states and individual citizens.
And just how far has the nation strayed from this wise path? Virtually no one today understands the breadth of discussion, consideration and debate that ensued once it was popularly agreed that the Articles of Confederation were too weak. During the argument going on over possible adoption of the Constitution, the Constitution’s advocates also enumerated powers the federal government absolutely would not have. The Bill of Rights was, one answer to critics. The most Republican document in the world still stands us in good stead 223 years after its creation. But the biggest protection, the thing that satisfied virtually all the Constitution’s detractors was the addition to the Bill of Rights of the last of the original Amendments: the 10th Amendment. The federal government would NOT be granted the potential for unlimited power but severely limited in power and abuse potential and all powers NOT specifically enumerated for the federal government would be reserved to the individual states and to individual citizens.
In addition, moreover, the Constitution’s proponents publicly told the people some of the important subjects which fell within the states’ exclusive jurisdiction - and outside the federal government’s control in a variety of speeches, newspaper articles, letters, and pamphlets. Chief among these proponents were, of course Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Other names of note include:
James Wilson (convention delegate and chief proponent in Pennsylvania), Edmund Pendleton (chancellor of Virginia and chairman of his state’s ratifying convention), James Iredell (North Carolina judge, pro-Constitution floor leader at his state’s ratifying convention and later U.S. Supreme Court Justice), Maryland Congressman Alexander Contee Hanson, Nathaniel Peaslee Sargeant (a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court), Alexander White (Virginia lawyer, ratifier, and later U.S. Senator), prominent businessman Tench Coxel and John Marshall (ratifier and later U.S. Chief Justice).
Here are some of the powers they solemnly promised would be outside the federal sphere:
The vast majority of these areas have been encroached upon by the federal government already. For example, the national endowment for the arts and other such organization is not a federal matter; involvement in the welfare state is forbidden; as is educational involvement; interstate highways; income taxes; inheritance taxes; family affairs; the national guard as we know it; control of personal property; and a hundred other areas where the federal government has crossed the line drawn by the 10th Amendment.
Right now our National Debt is approaching $14 TRillion; more shockingly our national obligation for Government Spending Boondoggles and Government Interference Boondoggles (GSBs and GIBs such as Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid) has reached $109 TRillion . . . all this problem debt was created in areas where the Constitution forbid the federal government to tread. The lifeblood of the nation has been poisoned by this wanton and total ignorance and denial of the 10th Amendment. Most Americans not only don’t understand the provisions of the 10th Amendment, but because of the welfare state and the gross entitlement sentiment many citizens would also feel threatened by the loss of federal government involvement. The problems are exacerbated when its realized that these programs were all created as set asides and that congress never obeyed its own laws and set the money aside for these programs. Here, then lies the root cause of our present fiscal unaccountability and the potential for danger from the Obama administration’s headlong power grab . . . .
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
It’s always nasty when a politician gets hoisted upon his own petard especially if corruption or ignorance is involved. Rand Paul, a Republican (he calls himself a Libertarian) candidate, who just earned the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky is now mired in serious controversy. Paul says that while he approves strongly of nine of the ten provisions in the 1964 Civil Rights Act . . . had he been around he would have tried to modify the 10th provision which concerns potential discrimination in private businesses. The other nine provisions affect discrimination in publicly-funded institutions and government and Paul states his agreement with them.
Rajjpuut, is a REAL Libertarian. Let’s be clear here, 100% clear: Bill Clintonesque word-parsing is NOT what Libertarianism is all about. Mr. Paul does have a teensy-tiny point in what he says . . . but then he ignores 99.999999% of the spirit of Libertarianism in making his foolish argument. Too bad Mr. Rand, son of the well-known Ron Paul, doesn’t actually understand the political philosophy he espouses. So, exactly how is Paul right in saying that the private business provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act might have been improved? And how exactly did he miss the boat (the spirit of Libertarianism) with 99.999999% of his comment?
We’ve all seen those signs on business walls “The proprietor reserves the right to refuse service to anyone.” That’s the teensy-tiny part that Rand Paul got correct. No business should be forced to ever serve all customers entering its establishment. There are customers who come in shirtless, shoeless, stinking, etc. There are would-be repeat customers that have previously been kicked out of an establishment for obnoxious behavior. Refusing this class of undesirable customers is definitely within business owners’ rights. So far, so good, Mr. Paul. However, Mr. Paul clearly abused and misstated Libertarianism in virtually all of his objection to the ’64 Civil Rights Act and in the process, showed himself an extreme light-weight in intellectual ability.
“Whites Only” signs in the windows of a few Missouri businesses and all over the segregated south . . . “No sailors or dogs allowed in city parks” . . . “Our business is offered to ‘restricted clientele’ only” . . . “Jewish business is NOT desired” . . . “Colored” bathrooms and drinking fountains . . . are we getting the picture? That is clearly the core issue here. Should a private business open to the public be allowed to ban people because of skin color? religion? national origin? or other extraneous issues? Extending the question, can a private business open to the public, refuse to hire people because they’re, for example, freckled? black? a naturalized rather than a native-born citizen? etc.? etc.? That Mr. Paul does NOT understand the differences between what’s being described in this paragraph and the one immediately preceding it is a dramatic indictment of his lightweight-thinker status.
Once again, people MAY be legally refused service from a business for CAUSE, and for cause only. Then, if they violate the owner’s prerogative to ban them for cause , they can be legally barred by restraining orders issued by our courts. Eventually repeated violations can result in arrest and imprisonment. Banning people for extraneous reasons such as skin color, religion, etc. is a violation of their civil rights. Do you get that now, Mr. Rand Paul? A wise general picks his battles carefully, but you decided to debate on how many angels can stand on a pinpoint . . . foolish.
As a side issue, Rajjpuut would like to advise any serious conservative candidate to respond to questions on abortion, civil rights, “don’t ask-don’t tell, and the like with the simple declarative, “It’s the law of the land.” Conservatives need to stick to the point: discussions of fiscal responsibility; border security; security against terrorism; balanced budgets; Pay-Go legislations; unending deficits; runaway National Debt; almost $109 TRillion in unfunded obligations to Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid -- unfunded obligations which are stealing our children’s and grandchildren’s future. Add in Obamacare, bailouts, stimulus packages, cap and trade, and lies about openness-transparency-and cleaning up Washington, D.C. and there are enough relevant issues that no sane statesman needs to get involved in legal hair-splitting . . . especially when he claims to be a Libertarian and hasn’t a clue about what Libertarianism is all about.
Politics is a strategic endeavor. In warfare, in business, in every strategic game you can think of . . . the road to victory always lies with creating a plan of attack making your own strong points into the crucial elements of the conflict and your weak points and your opposition’s strong points totally irrelevant. And, one more thing, holding the ball in the air and igniting a celebration on the ten-yard line is utterly stupid as well. Some conservatives are already cheering for their victory in November's elections . . . day-dreaming, in other words. Conservatives need to “do the frigging job” well and keep on doing the frigging job well and forget about headlines and applause and premature celebrations. The country is a center-right nation on the Constitution and on Taxes and Government spending and long has been a center-right nation. Irresponsible Conservatives today, Republicans and TEA Party folks who might feel that the country’s highest priorities are to repeal or weaken the civil rights laws; or the abortion laws or to institute creationism in public schools are misreading the sentiment of the voters even worse than Mr. Obama and his cronies are. Stick to business. Save America.
The country needs jobs. The country needs statesmen and stateswomen elected to Congress and then for them to clean up our financial messes and unchain the free markets and to initiate a new era of respect for the United States Constitution. Americans are almost completely offended by progressivism, particularly the economic results of that misconceived doctrine . . . perhaps wise conservatives need to learn to stick to the subject? Get real, if an issue does NOT advance the cause of fiscal conservativism and constitutional conservativism and help retake the country ignore it. ‘Nuff said.
Rajjpuut