Friday, March 6, 2015

March, 2015, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Watching Porn, The Financial Struggles of Congressmen, Keystone LIes, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time once again to review the latest insanity and ineptness from the American political class. We do this review every month to prove our hypothesis that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of our country. 

They waste hundreds of billions of dollars of our wealth every year, they never resolve any of the major issues facing Americans today, they continually put their foot in their mouth with their idiotic statements and positions, and they operate government functions that are bloated and ineffective in delivering quality service to taxpayers. And worse of all, they have rigged the country’s elections processes so that their election and subsequent re-elections are almost guaranteed to ensure their mediocrity continues. 

To review the past examples of political class insanity just type in “political class insanity” in the search box above.

So lets get started on what is now a multi-day review of their latest incompetence and insanity:

1) Yesterday, we discussed the rare good news coming out of the Washington political class, namely that two Congressmen are trying to get legislation passed that would terminate the traditional pension benefit for Congressional members. Since most the nation's workers no longer have a chance at a traditional pension, it is not fair for those same taxpayers to pay to subsidize the pension benefits of Washington politicians. This is especially true when these people are paid more than three times the median annual household income of regular Americans.

However, even given how good these intentions are, passage of such legislation is not a guaranteed thing, especially when viewed against recent selfish and inane comments of Nancy Pelosi. As background, know that some members of the Department of Homeland Security may have to go without pay for a little while until Congress gets its act together to agree on some pieces of legislation related to the un-Constitutional gambit of Obama to unilaterally give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.

This postponement of wages would obviously place a financial burden on those working to defend our borders, no doubt about that. But Pelosi goes on to claim that even Washington politicians could not survive without a regular paycheck: “I don’t know about you, but I think almost everybody I know cannot live without having our paycheck on time – members of Congress even.”

Really? Those people that are paid over $170,000 a year with great benefits would have trouble surviving? The fact that Congressional millionaires would have trouble surviving if their paychecks were postponed? Keep in mind that the Pelosi household is worth well over $20 million and she has the nerve, the gall to make such an outrageous statement? 

If this is indeed the reality in Washington, then the people serving us in Congress are the most pompous in the world or the most foolhardy and economically ignorant when it comes to doing their household budgeting. And the last thing the nation needs now are pompous and ignorant people in charge.

The video of her idiocy can be viewed at:


2) Often our review of political class insanity is to show how even though Americans are paying more taxes than any other time in the history of the country, they are getting very poor service from government entities in return for such high taxation. A recent report and study from the Post Office's Inspector General shows how poorly the U.S. Postal System (USPS) is doing relative to delivering friendly and efficient service:
  • The overall conclusions of the Office of the Inspector General work is that Americans think the Post Office is failing to deliver on customer service.
  • And give that the USPS continues to preside over a declining market and business model, it handled 5.2% fewer retail transactions in 2014 than the year before, one would have hoped that they would make up for their declining revenue and customer base with superior customer service.
  • Negative customer feedback about retail experiences in local post offices increased 8.7% in the most recent analysis with overall satisfaction below 80% compared to a customer satisfaction target of 90%, which is not that great even if it was attained.
  • According to the audit, Americans feel that Postal Service workers are coming up short when it comes to treating people as valued(24.9 percent), being pleasant (21.5 percent) and friendly (20 percent), as well as treating customers with courtesy (20.5 percent) and respect (20.3 percent).
More taxes, more expense for less service and satisfaction, just another typical Federal bureaucracy coming up short in serving the taxpayers who make their existence possible.

3) Several years ago we reported how various news media had discovered that many Federal employees were spending their days, and taxpayer wealth, using their government computers and networks to watch, enjoy, and download tremendous amounts of pornography during work hours. And unfortunately, many of them were never fired for behavior that would be a sure fire job termination in the private sector. Those reports can be read at the following link:


Several years later it appears that life is still good for porno addicts in the Federal government workforce. According to a recent CBS report from early March, 2015:
  • The CBS report focused on the reality that even if a Federal employee is caught doing porn on the job with government equipment, it is almost impossible to terminate the employment of that employee.
  • Specifically: "At the Environmental Protection Agency, red tape is preventing the removal of a top-level employee accused of viewing porn two to six hour as day while at work since 2010.”
  • Specifically, the investigators found 7,000 pornographic files on his computer, caught him red handed watching porn on his computer and still could not get him fired. 
Now we know why the Federal government continues to not provide efficient service in a timely and cost effective manner: a lot of them are still watching porn on the taxpayer’s dime, years after the problem was first identified.

4) Many, many times we have pointed out the lies and deceptions of this President and his administration. From "if you like your insurance policy you can keep your insurance policy” to “we will cut the annual Federal government deficit in half,” the lies and deceptions have been coming fast and furious. For those of us that take integrity and honesty seriously in our lives, at some point long ago we stopped believing anything this President said since we were much more likely to correctly assume a deception than to assume he was telling the truth.

It seems that he recently told another whopper and this time the usually Obama-friendly newspaper, the Washington Post, gave him four Pinocchios, the highest level of lie status possible. Specifically, on February 26, 2015 in an interview on WDAY in Fargo, North Dakota, the President uttered the following quote: “I’ve already said I’m happy to look at how we can increase pipeline production for U.S. oil, but Keystone is for Canadian oil to send that down to the Gulf. It bypasses the United States and is estimated to create a little over 250, maybe 300 permanent jobs. We should be focusing more broadly on American infrastructure for American jobs and American producers, and that’s something that we very much support.”

But as the Post correctly points out with its highest lie rating, the Keystone oil will not “bypass the United States:”
  • While all of the Canadian crude will be sent to the U.S. Gulf coast refineries, much of it will be turned into regular gas and diesel fuel with current trends and demand indicating that at least half of the refined products will stay in the U.S. for our use.
  • An analysis by IHS Energy, a consultant firm for energy companies, estimates that the Canadian crude will be a good substitute for declining imports of heavy crude oil coming in from Latin America, with IHS estimating that 70% of the refined Canadian oil will stay in the U.S.
  • Now, some environmentalists may believe that IHS is biased towards the oil companies it consults with but their findings are consistent with the findings and conclusions of Obama’s own State Department, which had to do their own analysis since the pipeline affects more than just the U.S.: “Comments were received throughout the review process speculating that WCSB heavy crude oil supplies carried on the proposed Project would pass through the United States and be loaded onto vessels for ultimate sale in markets such as Asia,” the State Department said. “As crude of foreign origin, Canadian crude is eligible for crude export license as long as it is not commingled with domestic crude. However, such an option appears unlikely to be economically justified for any significant durable trade given transport costs and market conditions.”
Thus, the President is disagreeing with his own administration’s findings. Plus, who cares if it only creates a few hundred jobs, it is a few hundred, good paying American jobs that do not exist today and it will not cost the taxpayer anything. In reality, most reputable sources, i.e. those that do not lie on a regular basis, estimate that thousands of temporary and permanent jobs will be created by the endeavor which will help make us more energy independent.

And for those who think that not building the pipeline will improve the environment, consider this: that Canadian oil is going to be used somewhere in the world. Whether it is used in this country with our stricter pollution controls or shipped overseas (e.g. China) where pollution control is certainly not as high a priority, that oil will be used somewhere, somehow regardless of the pipeline fate.

That will do it for today's insanity. Today we learned that:
  1. At least according to the usually Obama-friendly Washington Post, Obama received the highest rating of lie possible, a lie that disagrees with his own State Department, regarding the Keystone pipeline.
  2. Porno viewing by Federal government officials and employees is still a big issue and one that has not been resolved as of a CBS report.
  3. The United States Post Office continues to under serve and overcharge American, delivering poor customer service in the process.
  4. And despite being paid more than three times the median household income in this country, over $170,000 a year, many Congressional members, according to Nancy Pelosi are barely living paycheck to paycheck.
More insanity tomorrow.


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.loathemygovernmobama,washington post,politifactent.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.bankruptingamerica.org

http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w




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