Sowell: Our ‘Public Servants’ Have Turned Into Public Masters

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Photo Credit: M.Scott MahaskeyThrow the Rascals Out?

Polls indicate that the public is so disgusted with Washington politicians of both parties that a surprisingly large proportion of the people would like to get rid of the whole lot of them.

It is certainly understandable that the voters would like to “throw the rascals out.” But there is no point in throwing the rascals out if we are just going to get a new set of rascals to replace them.

In other words, we need to think about what there is about current political practices that repeatedly bring to power such a counterproductive set of people. Those we call “public servants” have in fact become public masters. And they act like it.

They squander ever more vast amounts of our tax money and still leave trillions of dollars of national debt to be paid by our children and grandchildren.

They intrude into our private lives with ever more restrictions, red tape and electronic surveillance.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrat Senate Intelligence Chair Dianne Feinstein Calls for ‘Major Review’ of NSA Spying and Says it’s a ‘Big Problem’ if Obama was Unaware

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Photo Credit: APThe U.S. Senate’s top foreign intelligence official said Monday in a scathing statement that she is ‘totally opposed’ to spying of the sort that has gotten the Obama administration into hot water this week.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who chairs the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, seemed miffed at the idea that she and her colleagues were out of the loop when the president’s men conducted surveillance on foreign leaders in Europe and Latin America.

And she said President Obama’s lack of knowledge about monitoring of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phones going back to 2002 posed ‘a big problem.’
So she’s tightening the leash.

‘The White House has informed me that collection on our allies will not continue, which I support,’ said Feinstein.

‘But as far as I’m concerned, Congress needs to know exactly what our intelligence community is doing. To that end, the committee will initiate a major review into all intelligence collection programs.’

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Benghazi Attorney’s Major Assertion: ‘Reason to Believe’ People Who ‘Insisted’ on Military Response That Night Were ‘Relieved of their Duty’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: APSome military commanders may have been relieved of duty for insisting on trying to send help for the Americans trapped at the Benghazi compound during the terrorist attack there on Sept. 11, 2012, an attorney for Benghazi whistleblowers said Monday.

Joe diGenova, former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, made the assertion during a Monday moning radio interview on WMAL, the D.C. radio station where he is a regular legal analyst.

“We have reason to believe that things happened that night in the chain of command where people were relieved of their duty because they insisted that there be a military response,” diGenova told WMAL. “We’re working on trying to establish that with news organizations. But there is very, very good evidence that people were actually relieved of command because they refused not to try and dispatch troops and some response.”

Because the information is preliminary, diGenova did not delve into names. But he said he would like to see former Defense Secretary Leon Pannetta answer questions on the matter.

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Feds Confiscate Investigative Reporter’s Confidential Files During Raid

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, journalist Audrey Hudson revealed that the Department of Homeland Security and Maryland State Police were involved in a predawn raid of her Shady Side, Md. home on Aug. 6. Hudson is a former Washington Times reporter and current freelance reporter.

A search warrant obtained by TheDC indicates that the August raid allowed law enforcement to search for firearms inside her home.

The document notes that her husband, Paul Flanagan, was found guilty in 1986 to resisting arrest in Prince George’s County. The warrant called for police to search the residence they share and seize all weapons and ammunition because he is prohibited under the law from possessing firearms.

But without Hudson’s knowledge, the agents also confiscated a batch of documents that contained information about sources inside the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, she said.

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Government ‘Mining’ Social Media for Information on Health Behavior

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Photo Credit: APThe National Library of Medicine (NLM) is “mining” Facebook and Twitter to improve its social media footprint and to assess how Tweets can be used as “change-agents” for health behaviors.

The NLM, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), will have software installed on government computers that will store data from social media as part of a $30,000 project announced last week.

“The National Library of Medicine is the world’s largest biomedical library and makes its stored information available online at no charge to consumers, health professionals, and biomedical scientists through a diverse suite of resources,” the agency said in a contract posted on Oct. 23. “Evaluating how its databases and other resources are utilized is an important component of continuing quality improvement and has long been an on-going program of NLM management through a potpourri of monitoring tools.”

“The world-wide explosion in the use of social media provides a unique opportunity for sampling sentiment and use patterns of NLM’s ‘customers’ and for comparing NLM to other sources of health-related information,” the agency said.

“By examining relevant tweets and other comments,” the contract said, “NLM will gain insights to extent of use, context for which information was sought, and effects of various health-related announcements and events on usage patterns.”

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Gallup: Higher Marriage Rate Could Boost the Economy

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Photo Credit: APMarried Americans spend more than their unmarried counterparts, suggesting that if the marriage rate increases, overall spending in the U.S. might also increase, benefiting the U.S. economy.

Those are the findings of a Gallup Daily tracking survey conducted Jan. 1-Sept. 30, 2013 among 135,537 adults contacted randomly by telephone in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.

To get an estimate of discretionary spending, Gallup asked Americans to report how much money they spent the prior day, excluding payments for normal household bills and major purchases such as homes or cars.

The survey found that married Americans report a daily spending average of $102, followed by $98 among those who are living in domestic partnerships, $74 by divorced Americans, $67 by those who are single and never married, and $62 by those who are widowed. Across all age groups, those who were married spend more than those of other marital statuses.

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‘Who Can Possibly Stand Against Them?’: Buck Sexton Highlights ‘Chilling Effects of NSA Domestic Surveillance Programs

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Photo Credit: TheBlaze TVTheBlaze’s national security expert Buck Sexton appeared on The Glenn Beck Program Monday to discuss the alarming quantities of information the U.S. government is gathering on its citizens, and the ramifications it may have on the future of the country.

Sexton began by referencing a Wall Street Journal report that he says highlights how “NSA-derived data has officially been used in a criminal prosecution.”

“This was against a suspected would-be terrorist, somebody who was going to travel overseas allegedly to join the fighting in Syria,” Sexton said. “But in the court documents given over to his lawyer, it’s become clear that some of the knowledge that the government had derived from the NSA.”

“This was not with some special warrant,” he continued. “This was just – the NSA had this stuff, they decided to give it to criminal authorities.”

Sexton said that the government always starts with using information against “the worst of the worst,” but that it’s only a matter of time before the government starts using “this massive trove of data that’s just at its fingertips” in other ways.

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Rand Paul Warns Eugenics on Horizon Unless Conservatives Stand Up Against Abortion Rights

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Photo Credit: Reuters Tea party hero Rand Paul warned scientific advancements could lead to eugenics during a Monday visit at Liberty University, looking to boost the political fortunes of fellow Republican Ken Cuccinelli’s bid for governor.

During a visit to the Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell, Paul looked to energize conservative supporters by warning that genetic tests could identify those who are predisposed to be short, overweight or less intelligent so that they could be eliminated. With one week remaining before Election Day, Cuccinelli is hoping the joint appearance with the U.S. senator from Kentucky will encourage the far-right flank of his party to abandon third-party libertarian spoiler Robert Sarvis.

“In your lifetime, much of your potential – or lack thereof – can be known simply by swabbing the inside of your cheek,” Paul said to a packed sporting arena on Liberty’s campus. “Are we prepared to select out the imperfect among us?”

Some states ran eugenics programs that sterilized those considered defective in the 1900s, though all were abandoned by the 1970s after scientists discredited the idea.

Campaigning later in the day on Virginia Tech’s campus, Democrat Terry McAuliffe renewed criticism of Cuccinelli as a candidate who doesn’t believe in science and sought to remind voters that Cuccinelli unsuccessfully sued a University of Virginia researcher under the state’s anti-fraud law.

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Syria Weapons Inspectors Miss Deadline for Visiting All Declared Sites

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Dusan VranicInternational inspectors overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile have missed an early deadline in a brutally tight schedule after security concerns prevented them from visiting two sites linked to Damascus’ chemical program.

The chief of the global chemical weapons watchdog disclosed for the first time in a report obtained by The Associated Press that Syria has declared 41 facilities at 23 chemical sites where it stored approximately 1,300 tons of precursors and agents, and over 1,200 unfilled munitions to deliver them.

Ahmet Uzumcu said in his first report to the U.N. Security Council that inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had corroborated the information provided by Syria at 37 of the 41 facilities.

But the OPCW said inspectors were only able to visit 21 of the 23 sites because of security risks — which means the tight timeline for visiting all declared sites by Oct. 27 was missed.

While there are no consequences for missing the deadline, the group’s failure to meet it underscores the ambitious timeline as well as the risks its inspectors face in carrying out their mission in the middle of Syria’s civil war.

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Dispelling Liberal Myths: The Tea Party is Not Racist and the Right is Not the Realm of Homophobes and Misogynists

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Photo Credit: Irish Central When Niall O’Dowd invited me to be the voice of the right at IrishCentral, I was met with complaints from those who didn’t like having a different opinion disturbing their peace and quiet…. But I was also greeted with welcome from those who felt they had not previously been given a voice. One priest even commented “praise God for Ed Farnan,” after I came aboard.

I have seen the myths put forth by my liberal colleagues, repeating stereotypes to paint all on the right with. If you repeat something often enough, it becomes the truth, even if it is not.

The myths that are particularly galling though, are the ones claiming the Tea Party is a racist organization and the right is a breeding ground of homophobia and waging a “war on women.”

Of course, in any group there will be fringe elements, but that should never be a basis to label an entire political movement with.

For me there is nothing better than to talk to those who are directly involved in a subject in order to get their opinion…..Especially the ones that would be feeling the brunt of the racism and discrimination, if there was any.

I called Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, someone I have deep respect for. Reverend Peterson is the founder of BOND Action and The South Central LA Tea Party, which self-identifies as “a black-led organization that loves and supports America,”

During our phone call Reverend Peterson, couldn’t be more emphatic that the Tea Party is composed of regular American citizens, who only want to see a responsible government and fiscal sanity restored to our country. His Tea Party chapter is:”not only popular in my own community;” he said: “I was surprised at the number of members throughout the US who joined, including many Hispanics and African Americans.”

Reverend Peterson was recently outraged when he saw claims made by Democrat Congressman Alan Grayson, comparing the Tea Party to the Ku Klux Klan. Reverend Peterson demanded that the “race baiting Grayson apologize to Black Americans and the Tea Party for his outrageous lies.”

“Alan Grayson is playing on the worst fears of Blacks in an attempt to continue the brainwashing tactics of the Democratic Party. He knows that for more than 160 years it has been the Democrats who have used the Ku-Klux-Klan, Jim Crow, and failing liberal policies to keep many blacks on the liberal Democrat’s plantation.” Read more here.

My next contact was Richard Grenell. Richard is a conservative, registered Republican, openly gay and appears frequently on Fox News as a foreign policy/security expert. He has been interviewed on CNN, Fox News, ABC News, NBC News and many other media outlets.

I asked Richard for his opinion as a gay man in the conservative world, if he faces discrimination:

“First of all, I classify myself as a consistent conservative. I consistently want government out of my life. I recognize that government must act when there is no market force but should stay out when there is a desire from the private sector to do something.”

“But generally I say that the far left and the far right are both intolerant. I have experienced it first hand. The far left hates the fact that I am a gay conservative. They want to keep gays in an ideological box. They alone get to decide when we get to speak up and on what issue.”

I contacted Jana Neweley. Jana has co written articles with me in the past and has helped research for upcoming interviews. Jana is a freelance writer of conservative political commentary. Follow her political tweets at PimpingtheUS.

“As a Black, Conservative woman, I have experienced racism and intolerance over the years, encountering both White and Black racists. So, how is it possible for any one group to say to another, “You’re racist?” Yet, the Democratic Party has accused The Right of just that. Well, I accuse The Left of being intolerant, because Liberal-Dems have zero tolerance for me. Sure, they’re okay with the color of my skin, but not with the fact that my conservative values are in direct conflict with their political agenda. If there was anything I could share with the American People, it would be Blacks ARE NOT automatically liberal.”

I had calls in to Carly Fiorina, Melissa Meyers and Meg Whitman, all former and present CEO’s of top American corporations. I wanted to get a first hand account of the conservative’s war on women intended to keep them “barefoot and pregnant”….but their busy schedules prevented a comment in time for this article.

A woman is considering a run for president; hopefully she’s a conservative. Women are governors, senators, members of congress and very powerful in the Republican Party. Women have assumed leadership roles in all strata’s of society, there is no one telling them they can’t do something. It is just another liberal fallacy to claim there is a war on women.

It’s easier to call someone a name or label them as an extremist instead of having to answer real questions about your failing policies.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.