- Spending taxpayer wealth on idiotic programs and projects.
- Wasting taxpayer wealth on their own selfish financial and political needs.
- Implementing legislation to resolve problems that make the original problems worse or which created unintended bad consequences as a result of their legislation.
- Implementing legislation that supports their political donors and financial backers rather than the typical American citizen.
- Issuing idiotic and stupid comments.
- Overseeing government organizations that are incompetent, inefficient, ineffective, and wasteful of taxpayer wealth.
As always, we have already identified new forms of insanity over the past week or so as we reviewed the past ineptness coming out of Washington and other bastions of American politicians. Today and tomorrow should allow us to get the best of the worst discussed for this month.
1) Let’s start off today’s insanity with some foreign affairs insanity. The following video clip
is from part of a recent daily State Department briefing. Apparently, the Venezuelan government is accusing the U.S. of trying to overthrow the government down there. In the clip, a State Department spokeswoman claims that this charge is baseless since the United States has NEVER intervened in the foreign political affairs of another country or tried to influence or change the political affairs of another country.
The clip then pauses and rolls down the names of at least two dozen countries where the U.S. has been known to have intervened and interfered with another country’s political process. Which gets us to a question we have asked a number of times: do these political people know that they are lying or do they think that we are too stupid to check their facts, which in this case was pretty easy to check?
In any case, more proof that we should not trust anything this Presidential administration says, given their weak history and track record for truth, integrity, and honesty.
In any case, more proof that we should not trust anything this Presidential administration says, given their weak history and track record for truth, integrity, and honesty.
2) Staying with foreign affairs, consider the following Obama quote from last year:
“This counter-terrorism campaign [against ISIS] will be waged through a steady, relentless effort … using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”
Again, most people would have a different opinion with what actually has happened in Yemen and what the President is saying. We have abandoned our embassy in the country and withdrawn all U.S. military personnel from the country, leaving behind about half a billion dollars worth of military equipment to be divvied up by at least three different terrorist organizations operating in the country.
On top of this, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee recently warned: "The problem is that we're not going to have any intelligence in Yemen. Yemen is one of the most dangerous spots in the world." One of the most dangerous spots in the world and we will have no idea what is actually going on inside the country.
But the President insists that our strategy and relationship with Yemen has been a success as has his State Department spokespeople, as seen in the following video clip:
If Yemen is a “success,” I would hate to see what this administration considers a failure.
3) The Secret Service has been guarding and protecting the President and First Family for a long time. For the most part, they have done a great job in doing so.
However, over the past year or so, they have been shown to be most inept in many situations. We have seen German tourists in the White House wander off into supposedly secure areas, we have had White House windows shot out, we had an intruder actually get deep into the White House before being apprehended by an off duty Secret Service agent, and recently two drunk Secret Service agents drove right through an active crime scene on White House grounds. All of this in itself is insanity.
But on top of these breakdowns comes an $8 million budget request from the Director of the Secret Service, Joseph Clancy, that he would allocate the money to build a replica of the White House for training purposes. Clancy testified in front of Congress that Secret Service training is hampered by the lack of a good reproduction of the White House. Apparently, training is now done in a parking lot which doesn’t have the bushes and fountains as the White House grounds do.
Given that in all of the decades up until today, an $8 million replica of the White House was not available and the Secret Service did a good job, I do not think that wasting $8 million today on a replica is going to resolve the current breakdowns in the agency’s performance. This request is a lame excuse for the current Secret Service management that obviously does not know how to do its job and wants $8 million of taxpayer money to buy time for its ineptness.
4) The wonderful website, Against Crony Capitalism, recently did some writing about how screwed up Defense Department spending and accounting is. The prime example is the snake bit F-35 fighter jet that is billions and billions of dollars over budget, years late, and severely under performing relative to what was promised. The author claims that the Pentagon has purposely underestimated the lifetime costs of the F-35 by two thirds and that the jet will end up costing taxpayers money for the next 30 years and will never perform at its originally promised level.
For a comparison of how badly managed this project is, consider the reality that just the F 35 will waste more money than France and the United Kingdom spend on defense in one year, combined. Classic wasteful spending gambit, under estimate, over promise and end up spending more and getting less. to the level claimed by the Pentagon.
But the F 35 is not the only black hole of spending in the Pentagon. The article also singles out the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). Although the Defense Department has cut back the number of LCSs it plans to purchase, the current cost estimate is that a single LCS will cost nearly $500 million more PER SHIP than originally proposed. This is a “hole in the water” that will continue to suck down taxpayer dollars and provide no real incremental value for the anticipated global missions of the U.S. Navy.
Let’s take the waste a step further. According to the article, a recent Government Accountability Office analysis found that more than half of the Pentagon’s top weapons programs increased in cost last year to the tune of $27 billion. That is just the increase in costs, not the overall costs and the increase happened in just one year.
The $27 billion is about the size of the entire annual Department of Energy budget and about half of the Department of Homeland Security’s annual budget. All for weapons systems that are likely to under perform or never perform at all. Sad and insane.
5) The next piece of insanity looks really crazy on the surface. Eric Holder has probably ran the most corrupt and political Justice Department in a long time. He has refused to go after potential criminals that were Democratic Party related but did not hesitate to go after political opponents.
Keep that history in mind when we review the recent indictment of U.S. Senator Robert Menendez for various corruption charges involving a wealthy campaign donor. The charges involve actions that Menendez allegedly did as far back as 2010. If he is guilty, then it is rewarding to know that that the government will go after lawbreakers regardless of what their job or profession is.
But Menendez is a Democrat, and the alleged infractions happened years ago, which is totally out of character for the Obama administration’s Justice Department. Could it be that the Department suddenly found integrity? Or is it more likely that Menendez was leading the Senate effort to make sure that Obama’s negotiations with Iran and its nuclear effort was kept true and valid and that ticked off the administration?
It is always fun when they turn on themselves with the upside being that a crooked politician may actually pay for his alleged transgressions.
That will do it for today, one more post tomorrow to wrap up this month’s political class insanity.
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
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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