Pentagon says to Congress: Hold back

Seems the Pentagon thinks that military members are making enough already. The Washington Post reports:

The Pentagon, not usually known for its frugality, is pleading with Congress to stop spending so much money on the troops.

Through nine years of war, service members have seen a healthy rise in pay and benefits, with most of them now better compensated than workers in the private sector with similar experience and education levels. [emphasis mine]

That's the key here: similar experience and education. I need a show of hands from all you civilians out there:

• Have you refueled a B-52 from a KC-135 at 45,000 feet, flying 15 feet apart while pumping thousands of gallons of JP-4 aviation fuel?
• Have you crawled around some tropical shit hole while guys in funny clothing want to kill you, one of your team carrying a 12-gauge to defend against the cobras?
• Have you spent a better part of a year on a temporary duty to a third-world country, not seeing your wife or kids, working 18-hour days to keep things going?
• Have you spent Christmas eve sitting on top of an M-118 track, guarding the F-111s parked behind you?
• Spent a dark night on the plains of South Dakota, wind chill of 80 below, guarding B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons?
• Had to fly to remote bases so low that the sides of the canyons where just off the wing tips?  

These are just a few of the things military people do, and I did all of these things in my 25 years in the military. But hey, that was just the fun stuff. So please, don't tell me about similar experiences. There just aren't any.

I looked up my pay scale, and if I was still on active duty, as an E-8 with 26 years, I'd be pulling down about $86,000. And E-8 for you civilians is an Air Force senior master sergeant, Army master sergeant, Navy senior chief, or Marine gunney.

A base commander, normally a full bird colonel, who is responsible for 6,000 personnel and 75 aircraft, makes about a tenth of what a corporate CEO does.

Granted, no one joins the military to get wealthy, but they'd like get compensated so they can have the same standard of living as everyone else when they are not getting shot at.
If you think that is much too pay for this type of experience and education (a lot of us NCOs have college degrees), let me know and why.

Thoughts for Friday

Are you feeling safer?

How many of you think the federal government's current anti-terrorism programs have improved lately? Show of hands.

After the Christmas bomber, in which a passenger foiled his plans and the
"alleged" bomber was quickly Mirandized, Janet our Homeland protector says: "The system worked." My ass. You got lucky.

Then Miss Janet tells a senator that our borders are as secure as they have ever been. Next there's a shootout between drug smugglers and a border patrol agent (or sheriff's deputy?) at the border. The agent is injured. Yea. Real secure.

Then some idiot Islamic Terrorist tries to blow up Times Square, but he obviously didn't stay awake in class and the bomb doesn't go off. The investigation is so leaky that he gets wind of it and attempts to escape: makes a one-way reservation a few hours before the flight, pays cash, is put on the no-fly list, but gets on the airplane anyway. Someone was paying attention, however, and the feds nabbed the dirtbag after he had already boarded. His buddies are probably already back in Pakistan or some other shit hole.

Obama's policies working? There is not one damn thing Obama has done that has worked. This was plain old-fashioned luck.

News Flash: Unemployment up to 9.9 percent. That stimulus is really working. But this is a nominal unemployment rate for a welfare-state, so don't worry too much.
And you don't think we've become a welfare-state already? Nearly 40 million on food stamps. Liberals are proud of that number. Why? Because the more people on the government nipple, the more votes for Democrats. Those evil and mean Republicans wouldn't want you to have a life of luxury. No, they'll make you go to work.

What you say? No jobs. We'll, if the feds did their job, we wouldn't have 12-15 million illegals working here...and that's about the number of unemployed Americans, isn't it?

And one last thing: How about a government-supported program to provide free cell phones and low-cost airtime for "income-eligible" people (they mean poor people).

https://www.safelinkwireless.com/EnrollmentPublic/home.aspx

I want to be poor in this country. Free housing, free medical, free education, food stamps, a car, a phone. Why in the fuck should I work for a living? That way, I don't have to pay for shit. Let the other guy (which is me right now) pay for it.

I think I'll go join the Tea Party. The country is losing its mind, like Greece has already. After Europe falls, we're next.

Have a great weekend.

You learn something new everyday!

I didn't know this until today. According to the NY Times:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is in Washington this morning, testifying before the Senate, as timing would have it, on terrorism. Mr. Bloomberg is one of many elected officials addressing a hearing of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee on “Terrorists and Guns: The Nature of the Threat and Proposed Reforms.”

The mayor’s speech is a plea for lawmakers to close the so-called “Terror Gap,” a hole in the law that prevents the federal government from blocking the sale of firearms or explosives to people on the the terrorist watch list... [emphasis mine]

...The Bush administration first proposed closing the gap in 2007. But because nothing has happened, people who may want to do our country harm have had no trouble buying guns and explosives, as the G.A.O. report clearly shows.

What? Someone on terror watch list can buy firearms and explosives?

All I can say is WTF, Over.

Do sanctions work?

I've always been of the opinion that sanctions are more destructive than they are worth. If you look at the history of them, they have not been very effective. Usually they are against a government, but end up hurting the people instead.

What are they teaching these days?

Recently I was reading -- and posting my own comments  on -- a financial blog. The subject was federal spending. The discussion started out as where we spend our tax revenues, and whether there should be more for this, or less for that, until someone came in and started discussing the constitutionality of federal income taxes and spending. In other words, income taxes and many safety net programs are unconstitutional (disregarding there is an Amendment regarding income taxes.)

Everything was pretty much what you'd -- or at least I expected until one fellow posted some remarks that just threw me. Fall off your chair type comments. I'll take it one by one. My conclusions may not be the same as yours, but I must have learned the founding principles of this country differently than this fellow did.

What the original writers of the constitution meant is irrelevant since they are not around to defend their arguments.

What a start! And how illogical, but I'll bet a lot of people believe that our founder's principles are irrelevant. Until you actually read them, I guess. So what Jefferson, Washington, Madison, et al, meant is irrelevant because they are dead. Wow. Then logically what follows this argument is that what Lincoln, King or Kennedy argued is also relevant. "I have a dream" is irrelevant. Or how about Plato and Locke? Is what my father and mother taught me irrelevant, because they are dead? I don't think so.

For instance the 2nd amendment is used to defend any use of guns. Perhaps the writers of the constitution would say “No, that’s crazy. We meant having guns to defend against the British. They aren’t intended to be used in the way you are using them now.”

Not true. It doesn't defend the use of guns, only the right to bear them. I believe it was Jefferson who stated that the right to bear arms was especially important for a people to defend against any tyranny, not just the British. But hey, don't bother reading any of that...

Similarily they might say that the 1st amendment was not supposed to mean big business should have the right to trump the rights of the citizen with billions of dollars to finance candidates. We don’t know. Supreme Court justices make decisions based on the constitution? That’s B.S. Their decisions should be based on what is best for our country and its citizens.

Well, since our laws treat corporations as individuals, the Supreme Court, in following the Constitution, was correct. Doesn't mean it's right. What needs to happen is the laws dealing with corporations and campaign financing need to change, not the Constitution. But this writer wants the Court to just rule based on the Zeitgeist of the moment! If we allow the Court to rule what it thinks is best, who is to say that it is? Aren't the people supposed to decide?

If our constitution is so great, why hasn’t every other country in the world adopted our constitution? Our country ignores the poor, has a terrible trackrecord with minorities, still discriminates people based on sexual preference, has the least efficient health care system in the world, ships our jobs out to other countries at the expense of its citizens, and just contributed to a global market crash by our greed. I feel the constitution has failed to create a fair and equal society, and there are many people out there that would agree with me. I feel that the constitution is far more often used to defend positions that couldn’t be supported with other evidence.

So why hasn't every country used our constitution? Ask them. Our country has ignored the poor? In the last 40 years, we've spend trillions. I guess I could point out all the improvements we've made, and compare our accomplishments to say -- the old Soviet Union, communist China, Saudi Arabia, etc, but why bother. "The Constitution has failed to create a fair and equal society." That's not it's purpose. It's purpose is to protect your rights, not insure fairness or equality. You want equal opportunity to succeed, not equality of outcome. In the latter case,  how can anyone succeed beyond a basic level?

I won't even start on health care, but his understanding of efficiency vs. expense is fuzzy wuzzy...

The purpose of our Constitution is to limit government. In the last 100 years, the Constitution has been shredded. Government is now so powerful that you can't get it out of your life. The Federal Register (all the rules you have to follow) is now 157,000 pages in length.

Is this what is being taught in our schools today? Not only the lack of knowledge, but fuzzy logic? I sincerely hope not.

Campaign Finance Reform: Really?

If everything I'm reading so far on a new campaign finance reform bill is accurate, I'm going to support it, even if Chuck Shumer supports it also. One of the parts I like about it is requiring full (or at least more) disclosure.

Seems some folks don't like it, because it treats all organizations or groups equally. According to Investor's Business Daily:

But Disclose Act sponsors, like Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., indicated they won't back down.

"Some of our allies are not happy," Schumer said at the bill's unveiling last week. "We've told our friends in the unions that they should be treated the same as corporations, no more, no less."

The legislation is a response the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. FEC ruling, which tossed prior restrictions on campaign spending by corporations, arguing they ran afoul of the First Amendment.

Liberal groups reacted with horror, arguing that the decision would let corporations flood elections with money. President Obama slammed the ruling in his State of the Union address while several justices sat nearby. It was an unprecedented White House rebuke of the court.

We need some serious finance reform here. Why don't we take special interests out all together? Use federal funding ONLY to run. Would it not level the playing field?