There, I said it.
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Every government employee has to do this. Disclosure of all financial ties to foreign businesses, foreign banks, ownership of foreign companies or ANY monetary gain from any source outside of the US. Anyone with a security clearance is required to disclose any contacts with ANY foreign nationals period. Our exalted office holders are not required to do any of this. Most of them could not pass a background check to even obtain a security clearance. If we want to make it a requirement that every single elected office holder must be investigated up to a TS-SCI level, this would be the way. The investigations are very thorough and polygraphs should be required every 6 months for every elected official and appointee. This is how we stop corrupt POS' from getting into office and weeding out the ones that do get there. Every single one should be required to undergo a psychological evaluation to also weed out the psychopaths and sociopaths. There are many more out there than you think. They are predominantly at the highest levels of government.
Every government employee I don't agree with. There's a certain level that it definitely has to happen - but the current ties to report are foreign. I say all finances. Everything - and not just you, anything you are in charge of or can make use of.
As for psychological profiling, it's all a crock. We all share traits that are dubious and we all have moments we give into them. The actions taken are the only judgement we should go for.
The psychological screening is to locate sociopathic and psychopathic personalities. Some of psychology is a crock, but there is quite a bit of profiling and patterned behavior and response that is dead on accurate. The ability to identify aberrant personality disorders is very accurate because it is based on anecdotal evidence that numbers in the hundreds of thousands or millions. It isn't just some hare brained quack dreaming up the patterns of behavior
I disagree. Its all a crock built upon a loose federation of gravel. Its all back casted (he had a bad childhood, therefore he committed this crime) and almost always proven hilariously inept when they are trotted out in news situations to tell us who to look for that's doing some x thing.
The only place they are accurate is Hollywood.
The old "bad childhood" excuse is about the most ridiculous thing that ever got trotted out into public. I work with a guy that was born in prison. He spent his first 18 years of life in foster care. Some of the families starved him, abused him and degraded him. His last family of four years was good to him and built a safe environment for him to grow. He joined the Marine Corps at 17. He served for 18 years until a helicopter crash in Iraq broke his back and he suffered a traumatic brain injury. He spent a year in a hospital bed and had to wear a diaper for another year. He was medically discharged from the Marines with 30% disability and not allowed to reach 20 years to retire. He receives $1200 a month in disability and still has full VA benefits because they are still trying to fix his TBI that has left him with deficiencies. He holds no grudges against the Marine Corps, even though I think he was screwed. He refuses to hire a lawyer to have them reconsider his disability because he says that some of his brothers are missing limbs, are paralyzed or are far more damaged. He goes to the gym everyday. He volunteers at the local orphanage and donates money, clothes, school supplies and time. He has a wife and a child and works full time plus is a licensed exterminator and does it on weekends to generate extra money. He is a stand up guy that I trust with my life. All this with a childhood much worse than mine. So to folks with the excuse of a bad childhood, it holds no water with me.
As far as which government employees, there are laws which deal with conflict of interest that prohibit employment for a certain number of years within the same sphere. Unfortunately, like most of the laws, it never seems to apply to the highest levels of government. They find ways to skirt around the law by finding loopholes in the letter of the law and violating the crap out of the spirit of the law. I think that once you get into handling finances and directing awards of contracts, they should be required to non-compete for a number of years after leaving government service.
I think that it should be if you supervise more than 20 people or handle more than 250,000 in selling or purchasing per year.
The janitors don't have their lives ruined for looks, and it gets people "in power" so to speak.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Pretty sure this can all be hashed out and agreed upon after some intelligent debate to create a system that is difficult to corrupt.