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USAFE5
PO2
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 362
Location: Reno Nevada
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 Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 7:42 am Post subject: |
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if you like these go to http://www.stormkingpress.com/ and check out the other essays he's done as well as those by the other part of this site Graham Fuller.
| Quote: | An acknowledge expert in languages, Graham E. Fuller has studied sixteen of them including French, German, Persian, Japanese, Turkish, Chinese, Arabic, Greek, Russian, and even Esperanto. As both a language student and teacher, he's well aware of the problems that beginners face.
During his career with the Foreign Service, Graham and his family spent more than seventeen years overseas — in Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. So he's especially sensitive to the practical aspects of using a foreign language in everyday life.
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"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I’m here to help." Ronald Reagan |
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scotty61
LCDR
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 419
Location: Glyndon MN
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| Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:55 am Post subject: |
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A few other things need to change in our intellegence community, like letting the members of the House and Senate Intellegence Committees know that, if they leak info for political purposes, it will get them bounced from the committee. If any CIA workers want to play footsie with the press or politicians, let them know that they will be transfered to the Dept. of the Interior and can start counting trees. Pride in their position means a lot to these people and if they know it can be taken away they will start playing ball.
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John Kerry. A Neville Chamberlain for our times. |
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Snipe
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 03 Jun 2004
Posts: 574
Location: Peoria, Illinois
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| Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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Oh I'd really like to see a wholesale RIF in the civilian side of the
Government after living through numerous RISs in the military.
Now go make a living on the outside with your Sociology degree!
(Ya want fries with that?)
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Tin Can Sailor |
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PhantomSgt
Vice Admiral
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 972
Location: GUAM, USA
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| Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 5:45 pm Post subject: Revise the Constitution |
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| scotty61 wrote: | | A few other things need to change in our intellegence community, like letting the members of the House and Senate Intellegence Committees know that, if they leak info for political purposes, it will get them bounced from the committee. If any CIA workers want to play footsie with the press or politicians, let them know that they will be transfered to the Dept. of the Interior and can start counting trees. Pride in their position means a lot to these people and if they know it can be taken away they will start playing ball. |
We need to consider passing legislation that will allow prosecution of reporters as coconspirators when they release classified information from an unnamed source. It is time to send a message, if you undermine our national security, you will be punished.
If reporters are facing a Life Sentence, they may think twice about the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
_________________
Retired AF E-8
Independent that leans right of center. |
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PhantomSgt
Vice Admiral
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 972
Location: GUAM, USA
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| Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 7:54 am Post subject: Bye IRS and Good Riddance |
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| Snipe wrote: | Oh I'd really like to see a wholesale RIF in the civilian side of the
Government after living through numerous RISs in the military.
Now go make a living on the outside with your Sociology degree!
(Ya want fries with that?)
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Can you imagine how many jobs will go away if we go to a national sales tax and eliminate the IRS?
The IRS has 100,000 employees with an annual budget of 20 billion dollars. Resulting in a whole bunch of IRS lawyers back on the street.
_________________
Retired AF E-8
Independent that leans right of center. |
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GM Strong
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 18 Sep 2004
Posts: 1579
Location: Penna
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| Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2004 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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Do away with the so-called Govt Employees Unions. (One of Jimmuh's gifts to the public) They are parasites. They are no reflection of what labor unions were meant to be. They are just fat bloated bureaucracies like the agencies they infest.
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8th Army Korea 68-69 |
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OKLady
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 17 Sep 2004
Posts: 126
Location: Edmond, OK
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| Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 12:42 am Post subject: |
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Check out this blog - the diplomad - A Blog by career US Foreign Service officers. They are Republican (most of the time) in an institution (State Department) in which being a Republican can be bad for your career -- even with a Republican President!
http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/
they have some interesting suggestions. This article deals with their advice for Rice. From their November 18th section
To the Next Secretary of State
Unless you live on Pluto, by now you know that Colin Powell has submitted his resignation as SecState and President Bush has selected National Security Advisor Condi Rice to succeed Powell. We offer below some totally unsolicited and free advice on managing the State Department to Mr. Powell's successor.
We won't deal with policy issues here. There will be plenty of time for that. Our concern is the Department as an institution and what can be done to rescue it from itself and make it an effective agency, and by that we mean effective at representing and promoting America's interests abroad. We all know that the new Secretary is not going to spend time fixing this broken institution. No political appointee Secretary with perhaps four years to look forward to will spend that time worrying about reforming arcane personnel and managerial practices. The new Secretary will want to think the deep thoughts, and will probably be inclined to let the Department muddle along. We hope that this inclination will be resisted (we can dream, eh?) and that at a minimum a fierce, Neanderthal-like brute will be appointed Undersecretary for Management. It is to this person that we direct ourselves with hope in our hearts and pleading in our eyes.
You will find very smart people in the Department; people who put in incredibly long hours. Laziness is not a characteristic of the Foreign Service. The FS prides itself on being a meritocracy. You must begin to restore our shaken confidence that that, in fact, is true. The single greatest step you could take to ensuring that merit is the basis for advancement is to do away with the Department's Affirmative Action program, i.e., quota system. It is a total fraud. It is just another white upper- and middle-class entitlement. The overwhelming beneficiaries of the program are white women from elite schools. White upper and middle-class women are not oppressed in the United States; it is time to end the fiction that they are. Kill off the affirmative action program in all its many manifestations at State. Let white women compete with everyone else on an equal footing. They'll manage just fine.
Slash and burn. At times it appears that half the FS is involved in making personnel decisions on the other half. The teeth-to-tail ratio is very poor. The assignment process must be streamlined; the seemingly endless negotiations for assignments must end; the protracted meetings and deal-makings must stop; show less sympathy for special needs, e.g., tandem couples. It can take a year or more to assign someone to a posting. Absurd. Reduce the size of the personnel (HR) operation. Put an end to the little empires that exist in HR, empires established by bureaucrats who "homestead" themselves in the HR system, spending years there accumulating power, establishing networks to reward themselves and friends and to punish "enemies." It is tempting to rely on these persons' "expertise," but resist it; rotate them out. Make them stand in a visa line in Mexico City. Get them out of Washington on a regular basis. It's the Foreign Service. They don't want to go? They can go work for the DMV.
Drastically reduce the layers of bureaucracy. Do we need so many staff assistants, special assistants, executive assistants, etc.? Flatten out the pyramid. Work on eliminating whole offices and bureaus. Have the Secretary go to Congress and argue for eliminating the annual human rights report exercise -- an enormous and wasteful enterprise that keeps hundreds of people employed to appease a handful of NGOs who don't like the reports anyhow. Kill off this requirement; eliminate the whole human rights bureau (DRL). Scrap the Undersecretary for Global Affairs (G): what the hell is that job anyhow? Cut the oceans and environment bureau (OES). Merge the three quasi- pol-mil bureaus and reduce their overall size. Beef up the INR function. Spin off USIA, again. Take a merciless look at the consular affairs (CA) bureau, and get rid of all those lawyers in that bureau! Do we need to baby long-term American expats who haven't lived in the US for years and years and often don't pay taxes? Split the CA bureau: hive off citizen services from visa issues.
Until you reform the assignment process, have the Secretary not assume that a person who is, for example, working on Arab-Israeli affairs, actually knows something about Arab-Israeli affairs or that what he knows is actually right or worth knowing. That person could have gotten the job thanks to some complex deal having nothing to do with substance.
Take a hard look at the size and number of embassies abroad. Do we really need an embassy in every African and European country? Do we need them so big?
Finally, ignore the New York Times and CNN.
More thoughts to come . . . |
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scotty61
LCDR
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 419
Location: Glyndon MN
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| Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 1:25 am Post subject: |
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Wow! Sounds like someone really knows what's going on.
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John Kerry. A Neville Chamberlain for our times. |
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Digger
Commander
Joined: 30 Aug 2004
Posts: 321
Location: Lakemont,Gerogia
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| Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 5:12 am Post subject: |
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It's about time somebody scared the shite out of those bluehats and NAAFFIs.
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Hey swifty, I'm with you, Just watch you don't get "Kerry'd away in the propwash
Sgt. Maj. Seamus D.D. MacNemi R.M.C. Ret. |
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 5:54 am Post subject: Re: US Government Scared of New Administration |
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| PhantomSgt wrote: | It is happening already. The new CIA Director is kicking butt all over Langley. The liberal spooks are crapping in their pants and punching out fast. The field spooks would tell you their support was near zero from the home office.
Powell was a nice guy at State and well liked by the staff to a fault. State is next on the list to be cleaned out and Bush has handed Condi Rice a big broom to make sweeping changes in our approach to foreign policy and ensuring we speak as a Nation with one voice. She is the right woman, at the right time and in the right place.
Homeland Security is this monster of a creation and such a hodgepodge of agencies that it has breakdowns everyday of one kind or another. Whoever Bush appoints to this agency will have the juice to streamline management and eliminate cross-functional areas. Look for old agencies as they were known to go away and mergers or reallocations of tasks are the rule of the day. A blind man can see the issues here.
Cutting government overhead will be a priority and reducing levels of management a benchmark, for success. This will allow more funds to get out to “where the rubber meets the road” and empower lower level managers to make decisions closer to the problem.
You want to get the deficit cut by half in five years, you need to cut at least one third of civil service management right off the top tiers. The Empires built within government agencies over the years need to overthrown and reorganized for efficiency.
A second term President doesn’t care if everybody likes him or not, just that he gets it right before he leaves. |
Good analysis Sgt, although I am worried about the "minor" issue of it taking 20 years or longer to create a good field operative. Since the communist left gutted all these operators it will be a long time before we have real intelligence again.
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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PhantomSgt
Vice Admiral
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 972
Location: GUAM, USA
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| Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:06 am Post subject: Re: US Government Scared of New Administration |
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| GenrXr wrote: | | PhantomSgt wrote: | It is happening already. The new CIA Director is kicking butt all over Langley. The liberal spooks are crapping in their pants and punching out fast. The field spooks would tell you their support was near zero from the home office.
Powell was a nice guy at State and well liked by the staff to a fault. State is next on the list to be cleaned out and Bush has handed Condi Rice a big broom to make sweeping changes in our approach to foreign policy and ensuring we speak as a Nation with one voice. She is the right woman, at the right time and in the right place.
Homeland Security is this monster of a creation and such a hodgepodge of agencies that it has breakdowns everyday of one kind or another. Whoever Bush appoints to this agency will have the juice to streamline management and eliminate cross-functional areas. Look for old agencies as they were known to go away and mergers or reallocations of tasks are the rule of the day. A blind man can see the issues here.
Cutting government overhead will be a priority and reducing levels of management a benchmark, for success. This will allow more funds to get out to “where the rubber meets the road” and empower lower level managers to make decisions closer to the problem.
You want to get the deficit cut by half in five years, you need to cut at least one third of civil service management right off the top tiers. The Empires built within government agencies over the years need to overthrown and reorganized for efficiency.
A second term President doesn’t care if everybody likes him or not, just that he gets it right before he leaves. |
Good analysis Sgt, although I am worried about the "minor" issue of it taking 20 years or longer to create a good field operative. Since the communist left gutted all these operators it will be a long time before we have real intelligence again. |
It is true that it takes awhile to develop a network of operatives around the world. The past two decades have decimated their numbers and put constraints on them that stifled them from building a network of reliable sources. President Bush announced he wants more agents hired and trained over the next few years. In other words, more agents “where the rubber meets the road”.
It used to be the “Station Chiefs” were Gods to a field agent and they ran their leads to them and decisions were made on the spot. This authority was removed and decisions were made in an office at Langley rather than in the field. I think you can see the decision process was agonizingly slow and leads that could have bore fruit if acted on in a timely manner were lost in the bureaucracy. I think the most absurd thing the agents had to deal with was ensuring the source was not a criminal before they could develop them, pay them and use their information. Imagine a background check on ******** (best sources) who would sell their mother for the right price. God help us who came up with this set of handcuffs for the field agent. We paid the price on Sep 11th 2001.
_________________
Retired AF E-8
Independent that leans right of center. |
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PhantomSgt
Vice Admiral
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 972
Location: GUAM, USA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 9:52 am Post subject: Re: US Government Scared of New Administration |
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| PhantomSgt wrote: | It is happening already. The new CIA Director is kicking butt all over Langley. The liberal spooks are crapping in their pants and punching out fast. The field spooks would tell you their support was near zero from the home office.
Powell was a nice guy at State and well liked by the staff to a fault. State is next on the list to be cleaned out and Bush has handed Condi Rice a big broom to make sweeping changes in our approach to foreign policy and ensuring we speak as a Nation with one voice. She is the right woman, at the right time and in the right place.
Homeland Security is this monster of a creation and such a hodgepodge of agencies that it has breakdowns everyday of one kind or another. Whoever Bush appoints to this agency will have the juice to streamline management and eliminate cross-functional areas. Look for old agencies as they were known to go away and mergers or reallocations of tasks become the rule of the day. A blind man can see the issues here.
Cutting government overhead will be a priority and reducing levels of management a benchmark, for success. This will allow more funds to get out to “where the rubber meets the road” and empower lower level managers to make decisions closer to the problem.
You want to get the deficit cut by half in five years, you need to cut at least one third of civil service management right off the top tiers. The Empires built within government agencies over the years need to overthrown and reorganized for efficiency.
A second term President doesn’t care if everybody likes him or not, just that he gets it right before he leaves. |
Well I had the jump on the Heritage Foundation about Homeland Security Reform with my posting. Read their report here:
http://www.csis.org/hs/041213_dhsv2.pdf
Keep checking this topic for more Blind Men who can finally see the problems as events unfold in the Federal Government over the next few months.
_________________
Retired AF E-8
Independent that leans right of center. |
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AMOS
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 558
Location: IOWA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 5:03 pm Post subject: Who? |
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| Clinton.......second to last of all presidents in terms of moral authority. Who the Hell was worse? |
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AMOS
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 558
Location: IOWA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 5:21 pm Post subject: National Sales Tax. |
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| PhantomSgt, rather than a national sales tax, you might take a look at APTTAX.com where the rate is a mere three dollars per thousand. Most all monetary transactions are taxed, including import cars and OIL. A much broader tax base and much lower rate. And everyone pays rather than just you and I. |
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Uisguex Jack
Rear Admiral
Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 613
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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From way up the thread:
| Quote: | | . BTW did anyone see the claim that the new super big burger at Hardee's is Karl Rove's secret plan to get rid of MM? |
Somebody please give this guy three gold stars and a check plus! |
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