Howard's Political Commentary

But It's NO Thanksgiving for the Kurds Trump gives Kurds the bird The Kurds in Syria, recently abandoned by the United States, are getting attacked by Turkish military forces and Turkish allied militias. The Kurds are literally getting murdered as well as having their military forces attacked and bearing substantial casualties. This is a major foreign policy failure of the Trump Administration. This is true on several levels. Abandoning allies on the battlefield is dishonorable and makes the world think the United States in unreliable and unwilling to stand with its friends. Turkey is now an unreliable ally and should be thrown out of NATO. The President blinked when Erdogen of Turkey threatened to invade Syria whether the US withdrew 50 special forces from the border or not. President Trump threatened economic sanctions against Turkey if it misbehaved in Syria – apparently, murdering Kurds in the streets doesn't count. American military forces have come under a

One of the big problems with the budget process for the US Government is that it encourages expansion of government to get agreements on a budget. It is easier to have everyone agree to spend more taxpayer money than to make hard decisions to cut government spending to benefit all taxpayers. The essential problem is that it is just as easy - or even easier - to hold out on reaching an agreement to get more spending rather than less. Proposals that have been put forward such as a balanced budget amendment do not sufficiently focus on reducing government spending or can be bypassed with government accounting procedures designed to understate deficit spending. A balanced budget requirement would be more likely to result in tax increases than spending cuts given the current political climate even if it could be passed. There is a need to focus on creating pressure to reduce spending. There have to be procedural changes implemented in the Constitution to make it more difficult to spend

This article posted by WBEZ news in Chicago illustrates how the city government is worse than criminals when it comes to financially exploiting people. The city imposed strict ordinances to add more fees and more automated speed camera; the city then let tow truck companies loose on violators. How do you think Chicago city officials would respond to a private company doing similar things in a business context in Chicago without city backing? The article shows an example of how $360 in civil violations increases to $820 in just one day and becomes $1595 in 21 days.  Plus, you will lose your vehicle after 21 days. Keep in mind that the proceeds of the vehicle sale just go to the city and are NOT applied to fines, the auto loan, or anything else except the city treasury. Typically, the towing companies buy the cars for a very low "scrap" price that is well below market value. This compounds the evil by taking what could be city money gotten by evil means and putting it in t

The government shutdown has caused TSA employees to not get paid. Considering that they provide negative overall value to the nation and travelers, they are still technically getting over paid. However, getting them to pay travelers is not feasible. They generally provide very little protection for the inconvenience and humiliation they inflict on travelers. The real security in an airplane cabin is a secure cockpit and passengers who will fight hijackers to the death now that we know what they are up to. I'm also still waiting to hear a good explanation of why banning pocket knives from aircraft and other great TSA ideas enhances our security. Basic TSA-Pre screening without those ridiculously expensive scanners (also known as what was done before 9-11) is also perfectly adequate. The Huffington Post has a whiny article about the TSA employees not getting paid. Of course, all government employees including those not actually showing up for work will get back pay once the approp

This Huffington Post article  makes a hysterical case that the government shutdown is causing deaths in national parks to be reported one week after they occur. First, the article itself says that the response time in Yosemite National Park was about one hour which, for a wilderness area, is fairly good. That means the shutdown didn't actually impact the National Park Service response to the emergency in any substantial way; it may have impacted only reporting that an emergency occurred and that the person recovered after suffering an injury ultimately died from the injury. That is not something justifying the dramatic headline that the government shutdown caused a death to be reported one week after it happened. Those involved in the incident were handling it immediately and there was no indication that next of kin had any delay in receiving information about the injury and passing away of their family member. Second, if individual parks were privately owned and operated, a go

I took a break from political blogging because I was concerned that my Information Technology career would be adversely affected by my conservative and often politically incorrect views. Now that I'm retired, I'm back!