Substitute "government" for "Hawaii" and I think this guy is on to something

The Washington Post ran a piece today on the op-ed page by one of its employees with the headline The Missile Employee Messed Up Because Hawaii Rewards Incompetence.

The author, formerly a public employee in Hawaii and later a journalist there, lays out the background of the incompetent fuck who panicked an entire state:

This week, we learned the man responsible for the bogus Hawaii missile alert kept his job for a decade even though he had a history of performance problems and has been a “source of concern,” according to an Federal Communications Commission report. His co-workers had expressed discomfort about his leadership, and the FCC said he has been “unable to comprehend the situation at hand and has confused real life events and drills on at least two separate occasions.” Although the emergency management supervisor, who remains unnamed, was a union member, he could have been fired at will. Instead, he was promoted to a leadership role. “Why,” Gizmodo understandably wondered, “was the employee in a position to send a false missile alarm to a couple million people?”

The author then attributes this monumental fuck-up to a uniquely Hawaiian situation:

There is a strong assumption in the islands that once you enter the state government system, you are set for life. There are great retirement benefits, union protections and the ability to move up, and laterally, across departments. (According to figures drawn from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Hawaii has the second-highest rate of union membership — more than 20 percent — after New York.) The prevailing assumption is: You do not have to work that hard.

Um, I don't know how long this guy has worked in Washington, but he is really missing the point. Yes, unions are part of the problem, but it isn't the state's level of unionization, it is the government's level of union membership. Private sector union membership is in the low single digits. Government employee union membership is about 40 percent. Further, civil service "reform" laws make it virtually impossible to fire government employees, regardless of how bad they are at their jobs. Unlike their private sector counterparts, not only do government employees not need to be good at their jobs (after they get through their first year probationary period, during which they must avoid being caught smoking dope at their desk) they can be just fucking awful at their jobs and still get a cost-of-living raise every year. Automatic raises are strictly a perk of government employment.

Hawaii might be really bad, or even worse than any other state, when it comes to rewarding incompetence. But they are by no means alone. Any system that gives raises regardless of performance, makes it difficult to impossible to fire someone for incompetence and offers generous retirement benefits base solely on whether you managed to avoid that near-impossible firing for incompetence is, by definition, rewarding incompetence. That effectively describes all government employment.

Sure, there are competent, dedicated government employees. No one who has been to get a drivers' license believes those employees are in the majority.

Our coal mine has a canary

Back in the day, coal miners would keep a canary with them, because the bird was more sensitive to lack of oxygen or too much carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide than were the miners. If the bird keeled over, the miners knew they needed to beat feet.

Well, our project -- or at least my little area of our project -- has a canary. There is a dude in our suite who probably isn't at his desk 10 minutes out of every hour, and he's actually coding documents even less than that. I got no fucking idea where he goes or what he does, but he is just never fucking there. Unfortunately for him, the two team leads in our suite sit directly across from him and two seats to his right, respectively. Naturally, both have let the firms know that this guy isn't actually doing any work, despite claiming pretty close to the maximum hours. The good news for the rest of us is, no matter how oppressive the firms are during this project, as long as this fuckchops has a job, fucking everybody has a job.

It's comforting. As of Saturday evening, he had not been fired. I'll let you know if things change Monday.

Is Barry already dialing it in?

It's so hard to tell his normal incompetence from inattention, I'm not sure. But at least a couple people think that's the case:

Obama, Politico says, is “giving more thought to his post-presidency than his aides like to suggest.” But there is nothing really for Obama to think about. His ambitions in this office, just like his ambitions at Harvard, in New York, in Chicago, and in the Senate, are now exhausted. America has disappointed him, and it is time to look to the next challenge worthy of Barack Obama. His post-presidency has already begun.
He has decided to relax. He has decided to fill his remaining days getting the most out of his presidential experience. The free travel and lodgings and security escort, the access to good tee times, the ability to get a reservation wherever and whenever he wants, the chance to meet VIPs who will flatter and ingratiate themselves to him—he is enjoying these perks and privileges to the utmost. His motto is not YOLO. It is YOPO: You’re only president once. Why not savor it?

Hat tip to Ace for this. It makes sense. Barry knows he can't really get any more major legislation, since the Republicans won't be losing the House and likely will gain the Senate majority. So, what's a socialist to do except use regulatory action and executive authority, no matter how legally dubious. He still has the power to kill the coal industry on his own, right? And if he is able to simultaneously create power brownouts and blackouts, and make electricity prices spike, too, well, that's the price you pay to save the fucking planet, right? Never mind whether the planet is actually in danger from anything, or whether, if it were, what you are doing would make any difference. You showed you care, didn't you? And that, not actual effectiveness, is what matters, right?

Yeah, so we can count on Barry to keep making half-assed gestures he hasn't really thought through that will "save the planet" or "save the Syrians" or whatever. I am pretty sure that the only thing we can count on is that nothing Barry does will help anyone or anything, and all of it will make America look a little less like the land of the free as he burdens us with ever-more government regulation.

You mean he lied to us to make Obamacare sound good?

Well, of course he did. Otherwise, it wouldn't have sounded good. But who wouldn't be thrilled to hear that their insurance premiums would be going way down? Never mind that it made no sense -- lie to me, bitch! So, he did:

Looking back, it is amazing that Obama wasn’t laughed off the stage at the outset. His central claim — that premiums would drop for the typical family by $2,500 — could literally have been taken from the back of an envelope. As the New York Times explained back in 2008, the $2,500 number came from economist David Cutler, who predicted that Obamacare would reduce all health-care spending by $200 billion a year. Candidate Obama, looking for a good sound bite, simply divided this number by the number of families in the United States; then, calculating inexplicably that total health-care spending and family health-insurance premiums were exactly the same thing, he concluded that all money saved would be returned to the people. That Obama considered this a reasonable way of selling a plan that reorganized one-sixth of the economy betrays either a fundamental economic illiteracy or a deeply troubling readiness to mislead.

I'm voting for stupid. I have never been impressed with Barry's intellect. While he is more than willing to lie without batting an eye, I think this one is rooted in dumb. Unfortunately, the media have consistently refused to look at the shit this guy is doing in a critical way. The Obamacare rollout has been a disaster, yet we hear about "glitches." Incompetence is not a glitch.

Damn, y'all, when the AP calls a liberal Democrat a liar . . .

. . . you know that chump is lying. Turns out the Associated Press didn't think too much of the truth factor in Barry's speech trying to convince the American people of, um, something. As the AP notes, the president didn't bother to actually support his statements with something like, you know, evidence:

A look at his remarks to the nation, seeking support for a military strike against Syria, and how they compare with the facts as publicly known:OBAMA: "We know the Assad regime was responsible.... The facts cannot be denied."THE FACTS: The Obama administration has not laid out proof Assad was behind the attack.The administration has cited satellite imagery and communications intercepts, backed by social media and intelligence reports from sources in Syria, as the basis for blaming the Assad government. But the only evidence the administration has made public is a collection of videos it has verified of the victims. The videos do not demonstrate who launched the attacks.Administration officials have not shared the satellite imagery they say shows rockets and artillery fire leaving government-held areas and landing in 12 rebel-held neighborhoods outside Damascus where chemical attacks were reported. Nor have they shared transcripts of the Syrian officials allegedly warning units to ready gas masks or discussing how to handle U.N. investigators after it happened.The White House has declined to explain where it came up with the figure of at least 1,429 dead, including 400 children — a figure far higher than estimates by nongovernmental agencies such as the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has counted only victims identified by name, with a current total of 502. In his remarks, Obama more generally accused Assad's forces of gassing to death "over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children."

 I guess Barry didn't really have too much wind left in the "we have to attack Syria" sails after the last couple days when Russia's Putin basically made Barry his prison bitch. As Reuters reports, once Barry agreed that the Russians had a great idea on how to deal with Syria, the Russians promptly said "not so fast":

Russia is not keen at this stage for a binding U.N. Security Council resolution that would provide a framework to control Syria's chemical weapons' stocks, France's foreign minister said after talks with his Russian counterpart on Tuesday.

Basically, Russia just saved their Syrian buddies from having to do anything about their chemical weapons while simultaneously making Barry look like a blundering fool who will do anything to avoid doing anything about Syria. Which is what Barry is. So they feel no need to actually make anything enforceable. (To the extent the UN is actually capable of enforcing anything.) I think that puts us at status quo. Syria remains free to do whatever it wants, and Barry will occasionally chest-thump and suggest that "you better not make me mad." Brilliant strategy.