Thursday, October 9, 2014

October, 2014, Part 6 Political Class Insanity: A Poitician Votes Early and Often, $100,000 Presidential Drapes, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time to check in with the American political class to see what insanity they have wrought over the past month or so. It is always amazing to follow the exploits, quotes, and actions of our politicians and the government entities they operate to see how often idiocy, incompetence, and heartbreak are almost always the output from their actions.

We started dong these updates several years ago, usually taking one or two days every month to get all of their insanity covered. Unfortunately, over time, the insanity has seemed to accelerate almost exponentially, causing us to now have to take six or seven posts each month to get it all in. This month will be no different. As our foreign policy implodes, the economy stagnates, and the midtem elections approach, the insanity levels are intensifying daily.

To check out past instances of political class insanity in this post, simply go to the first week of each month and check out the posts that begin, “Political Class Insanity.” This is the sixth entry in this series for this month, with the first five posts appearing over the past few days. The first post in this update can be accessed at:
For the latest insanity, read on:

1) It seems that Democrats are always trying to get our political processes to a point where a photo id is not required, a piece of insanity that always baffles me. The act of voting is the truest form of democracy in our country that should be protected in order to protect the sanctity of every individual’s voice.

Plus, we have shown many times in this blog that research and reality proves that when states institute photo id laws, minority voting participation actually goes up, killing Democrats’ fears that photo id laws hinder minority voting. And finally, voting is a responsibility, is it too much to ask for a citizen to go to the relatively minor trouble of getting a photo id to vote?

The need for photo id voting laws became more evident with the recent arrest of a Democrat state representative in Connecticut who was arrested for illegally voting a whopping 19 times. The New Haven Register reported:
  • Democratic State Representative Christina Ayala of Bridgeport, Connecticut was arrested on 19 voting fraud charges.
  • Ayala is accused of voting in local and state elections in districts she did not live, the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office said in a press release.
  • Ayala’s arrest warrant also alleges Ayala provided created fake evidence to state Election Enforcement Commission investigators that showed she lived at an address in a district where she voted while actually living outside the district.
  • Ayala allegedly voted in various Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee elections, a municipal primary election and a state primary election between 2009 and 2012 in districts inconsistent with the location of her residence.
  • She is also accused of voting in the Bridgeport state general election in 2012 in a district where she did not live.
  • According to the Connecticut Post, Ayala’s mother, Santa, was also investigated by the Elections Enforcement Commission and the commission recommended criminal charges be filed against her also.
And this children, is why we need photo id and other stringent laws that prevent no one from voting once but prevent everyone from voting more than once or in an illegal voting district. To say there is no voter fraud going on is insane.

2) Government and the American political class can waste money in a myriad of ways and locations. For example, one of our most popular posts talked about how the Navy had built two ships, the USNS Benjamin Isherwood and the Henry Eckford, for $300 million and then decided they would not be needed. This resulted in the Navy spending another $10 million to scrap them before they were ever used. (for details of this spending atrocity go to the following site: 
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/07/us-navy-ships-for-sale-cheap-never-used.html)

But as we have often proven that you do not have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destroy taxpayer wealth. President Obama recently traveled down to my metro area, Tampa, Florida, to address the people who work and serve at the McDill Air force base.

David Rufful, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on September, 29, 2014, described how the President needed a podium from which to give his speech, a speech that only ran for 18 minutes. The stage from whence he spoke, the drapes behind him, and the sound system he used cost the taxpayers nearly $100,000, according to a contract made public by the Air Force. This comes out to an amazing $5,242.22 per minute for the 18 minute speech.

Are you kidding me? McDill is a huge facility, are you telling me that they had no sound system on site capable of serving the needs for this short speech? They had no podium or stage setting that already existed on site or which could have temporarily been put together for a short speech? Why did they need drapes at all, why not set up in front of a huge taxpayer funded plane? That would have been cheaper and more dramatic than really, really expensive “drapes.” 

These people have no respect for taxpayers or the taxes they work hard to pay for. $100,000 down the drain when a short distance outside of McDill there are no shortage of Tampa homeless Americans who theoretically could have been given a meal or two with that $100,000. There are probably a few Tampa veterans who could have been given a little better medical care for that money. Instead, we fed another politician’s ego with “drapes” for no reason. Insane.

3) As most Americans know, the ISIS hordes of terrorists are running rampant throughout Syria and Iraq. Too bad we did not know about them before they gathered strength. It would have been a lot easier taking them out before they got so big, powerful, and dangerous.

Oh, wait we did know about them before they got so big. However, since we just found out that the President of the United States had only attended about 40% of his daily intelligence community briefings over the years, often out of town on vacation, golf excursions, or political fund raising, it is no surprise the matter was not addressed and resolved when a minimal amount of effort would have done the job.

The Washington Times recently reported, as have other news sources, that the White House and the President have been given detailed daily briefings on the activities of the Islamic State and their relentless spread of terror for well over a year. These U.S. intelligence community briefings and analyses warned that the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group was gaining strength in Syria and was on the verge of seizing territory deep inside Iraq, where the Iraqi military was struggling to respond.

Thus, the taxpayer gets screwed again. We probably spend tens of billions of dollars a year on the national security intelligence apparatus that is run by Washington only to have it all go waste when the President of the United States opts out of the daily briefings by that apparatus almost 60% of the time. Money wasted and the lives of many, many civilians and soldiers killed by this laxity in attention to a real terrorism threat.

4) Eric Holder, attorney general of the United States recently announced his resignation, to happen once a successor to his post has been named. I could probably make a strong case that Mr. Holder was likely the most inept, lawless, politically driven, and arrogant attorney general in the history of the country. However, I will make that case on another day. 

Given his performance in office, one would think that it is impossible for his approval ratings to be lower than other members of the Obama administration. However, if you thought that, you would likely be wrong. As of a recent opinion poll, he is only the third most reviled former or current Obama administration official.

According to a recent YouGov poll, only 26% of Americans have a favorable view of the attorney general. 37% have an unfavorable opinion of Holder. Pretty pathetic ratings. But believe it or not, there are two former members of the Obama administration that grade out even lower.

Only 19% of those polled had a favorable opinion of former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius while 41% had an unfavorable opinion of her performance, climaxed by the disastrous rollout of the Obama Care legislation. But even she could not outdo, in a negative way, the dismal performance of former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki. When he resigned, only 18% of the public viewed him favorably while 40% viewed him unfavorably.

As we have observed many times before: in an educated country that has over 300 million citizens, is it too much to ask to find three people that could have done better jobs and been viewed more favorably than these three sub standard performers?

Another day, another day of varied pieces of political class insanity: pathetic approval ratings of important government figures, $100,000 for drapes and a microphone, a President who probably golfs and fund raises more than attending national security briefings, and a current politician that has taken the Chicago voting mantra, “vote early and vote often,” to heart.

More insanity tomorrow, we are just getting warmed up.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w




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