If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
In preparation for NATO, both local law enforcement and the military are sending a message to pimps, traffickers and potential customers: If you buy sex in Chicago, there will be consequences for your crimes.
This week is Public Service Recognition Week: a time to honor the men and women who serve our nation as government employees. But lately, the feeding frenzy surrounding scandals by federal employees will not go away.
It would be a colossal bit of hubris to suggest that Robert Caro needs any help from me in researching Lyndon Johnson's presidency from 1964-68, but I have two good stories about that period, and I'd like to get them on Huffington before the book comes out.
The scandalous acts of a few government employees who wasted taxpayer dollars and abused the public trust are making headlines, but these cases are not representative of the nation's 2.1 million federal workers.
The size and scope of government means scandals like those at GSA and The Secret Service are inevitable. Simply making more rules won't end scandals -- that's impossible -- but may make government even less efficient.
Whether with baseball and steroids, basketball and greed, or football and "pay-to-injure," the stakes and competition of sports have outpaced classiness, noble intentions and decorum.
Better safe than sorry, but investigating a public figure with a big mouth and political animosity only promotes a more restricted purview of speech, especially politically motivated forms.
April 12, 2012 was surely a dark day for the Secret Service, but the worst day? Not even close. Ridicule the 12; they're fair game. But the Secret Service's motto is "Worthy of Trust and Confidence," and yes, America, it still is.
Make an appointment to see your boss, confess everything immediately while talking into your sleeve as usual, and resign before you are fired. Then act like a real member of the Secret Service for once, and go quietly, discreetly and above all, secretly.
Through the looking glass of their families and early years, Reagan/Matalin analyze Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. Can Left & Right hear each other or be merely riders of reason on the elephant of intuition?
Please don't keep thinking that women cheat just for romance and love, or because we're not getting fulfilled at home; we also cheat for the thrill of it, the passion and the novelty, and because we can -- just like men.
Recent headlines reveal gross recklessness among public servants. I'm not going to suggest that observing kashrut or any ritual laws serves as a panacea against moral turpitude. However, they help create a framework. They provide us with discipline.
The line between what's legitimate free speech versus a threat of bodily harm to him will be tested, blurred and challenged just as repeatedly. Nugent is only the latest example of that. He won't be the last. That's what makes what he said so chilling.
