The Largest Company in History: “The United States Corporation of Government (USCOG)” I follow global social and commercial networks, looking for entrepreneurial opportunities. Innovation surges when industry and government models change. Buggy whips. Landline phones. Railroads. The Soviet Union. Apartheid South Africa. All marked social and commercial innovation, both bad and good. We are witnessing …
From the Tongue-in-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books Houston, TX — Police in Houston, Texas, recently charged a 10-year-old girl with aggravated sexual assault. The victim was a 4-year-old boy. The girl had been caught playing doctor with the boy. It is the second such case to be reported in Houston in only a few …
From the Tongue-In-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books… Washington, D.C. — Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced that her committee will hold a “major review into all intelligence-collection programs.” This surprising declaration followed the revelation, through documents leaked by government whistle-blower Edward Snowden, that the NSA has been listening to …
From the Tongue-in-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books… Washington, D.C. — Jeff Incast, a Democratic representative from California, has tabled a bill that would expand current insider trading laws. He said he was “distressed” by the acquittal of Mark Cuban, whom a jury cleared of civil charges of insider trading brought by the Securities and …
From the Tongue-in-Cheek Department of Spy Briefing Books… Washington, D.C. — The complex negotiations aimed at bringing a long-term solution to the federal government’s expenditure and debt problem have produced an unconventional proposal. “Although the solution only focuses on a tiny fraction of government expenditures,” declared President Barack Obama, “it is a step in the …
A tense drama unfolded this week with the virtual shutdown of vital government agencies: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as many other such federal agencies. Without them, the Founding Fathers could not have imagined the republic. Even if …
A sixth-grader has been suspended for drawing an inappropriate picture. The drawing did not include any gun, but showed a checkpoint backed up by a SWAT team carrying flower pots while an unarmed drone hovered above. The suspended girl, whose name is kept secret at the request of her family, said she “just wanted to …
Like all great historical ideas, the project of licensing journalists so that they may benefit from the First Amendment was born in a very modest place. In fact, it began in the most modest of all places: the brain of Dianne Feinstein, U.S. senator from California. The new law, which was just adopted by Congress …
From the moment Barack Obama, the president of the United States, arrived at this plush resort community for a family vacation after another year of hard labor for the American people, it was obvious that security was not a detail. Seventy hotel rooms had been booked for the president’s secret police (not counting those for …