And as you will see, this month’s review and discussions do nothing to prove that this thesis is wrong in any way:
1) We reported last month that the TSA airport inspectors had flunked simulated weapons and bomb searches 95% of the time when tested for the ability to identify airline passengers carrying weapons or bombs. One would have hope that the TSA would be putting all available resources towards fixing an error rate of 95% relative to the safety of the traveling public.
One could hope but one would be wrong. According to a recent Washington Examiner article, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, the home of the TSA, testified in front of Congress that he was investigating the leak findings of the undercover operation in which investigators were able to slip through airport security with weapons and phony bombs more than 95 percent of the time: “We have started an investigation to determine where the leak was,” Inspector General John Roth told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Yes, the TSA cannot do its job 95% of the time and they are looking for the person who exposed them, not doing everything possible to fix the situation. And why would they go headhunting, whistleblower hunting: “I was as disturbed as anyone that this information got into the media,” the inspector general said.
Whoever leaked the information should get a medal, not hunted down. Who knows if we ever would have found out how inept the TSA is, based on their failure rate of 95% in this test, and how we are certainly not getting our money’s worth funding such incompetence. Knowing how untransparent the Obama administration is, we need every whistleblower we can get.
2) But the airport whistleblower is not the only whistleblower to be harassed by the Federal government and the Obama administration. Taylor Johnson was a senior special agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE). a division within the Department of Homeland Security. Her story is even more harrowing since the Department actually identified her as a whistleblower and then, according to her statements to the press and Congress, they went after her with a vengence.
According to Fox News: Johnson told lawmakers she ran into resistance after investigating the so-called EB-5 program, which offers visas to investors. She said she looked into the program over concerns about security risks, questioning whether visas were being approved with little scrutiny.
According to a CSPAN transcript: “I began investigating the EB-5 Regional Center, and some of the violations investigated surrounding the project included bank and wire fraud and I discovered ties to organized crime and high-ranking politicians and they received promotions that appeared to facilitate the program. I disclosed this to my management and then specific examples of national security risks, and some of the security risks coincided with what the FBI and CIA already discovered as well. During the course of the investigation, I discovered applicants from China, Russia, Pakistan, Malaysia had been approved in as little as 16 days and the files lacked the basic and necessary law enforcement enquires,” Johnson said.
She did her job and then the following started to rain down on her:
- Other government agencies and high ranking Washington politicians started to complain about her findings.
- Their complaints resulted in her being removed from the investigation.
- She was placed on administrative leave and forced to turn in her weapon and credentials.
- But in her own words to Congress, it then got really nasty: “My government vehicle was confiscated, and access to the building and all government databases was revoked and I was told I could not carry my own weapon, which was a constitutional violation. When an adoption social worker tried to contact and verify employment, she was told I had been terminated for a federal offense and I almost lost my 1-year-old child. I am continuously placed in dangerous situations with no way to protect myself or others.”
- When asked to try to explain why the Federal government was coming after her, she opined: “I think that because of the people that were involved with the investigation, it was put in a different light and there was extra outside influences and back and forth with the different members and different agencies.”
3) One thing that the political class does very well is hypocrisy. Obama Care is great for the country...but not for Washington politicians. We all need to sacrifice for the good of the country...but no Washington politicians. We all need to do our part to fix the man made global warming/climate change problems… but not the President.
Obama recently took another trip, an another expensive cross country trip to California, to attend several political fundraisers, one of well over seven hundred he has already done in less than seven years in office. He flew directly to northern California. At one of the fund raisers, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi heralded his visit to “a state that is in the lead on climate change.” Hurrah.
But that is when the bad optics started. Rather than stay in northern California to play golf, which I am sure has some great golf courses, the President hopped on Air Force One and traveled to southern California. Specifically, he flew to Palm Springs where he played golf on the ultra exclusive Annenberg Estate Sunnylands golf course.
Thus, he took a large plane and burned lord knows how much carbon just to get to a far away golf course. He upbraids those of us that do not totally buy into the whole man made global warming theory. Cannot be that bad if you can jet around just to play a specific golf course. Or is this just another example of Washington hypocrisy, you out there in the country make the sacrifices while we continue to live the good life here inside the Beltway.
Even some of the liberal environmental groups got on his case for this lack of good sense. According to the New York Times, Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica said, “President Obama needs to take a mulligan and rethink golfing in Palm Springs in the middle of a drought.” And they were not the only ones to call out just another case of political hypocrisy.
4) One last piece of insanity for today. Despite veterans not getting the healthcare they were promised, despite millions of suffering drug addicts across the country, despite millions of people still not getting the medical care they need, despite millions of homeless and hungry Americans, the Federal government and the American taxpayer spent about half a million dollars for a Johns Hopkins effort to study the anal penetration of young black men.
Let me repeat that. Yes, in light of all the other suffering Americans, the Federal government sponsored a study to look at the impact of anal penetration of young black men: “Prior work has demonstrated that same-sex relationship trajectories support the development of self-esteem in young gay and bisexual men, while opposite same-sex relationships may be associated with homonegativity. Little is known about the meaning and function of first same-sex experience in AA adolescent men and whether satisfaction with first penetrative same-sex experience impacts sexual trajectories."
The study abstract, if you do not believe $500,000 was spent on this project, can be accessed at:
http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=8669742&icde=24280595
Let’s end the insanity here for today. Half a million dollars to study a very small sub-segment of Americans health and life issues while very large segments of Americans are still suffering in oh so many ways, a President who says one thing about global warming but does the opposite in order to not interfere with his golf addiction, and the Obama adminstration hunting down whistleblowers who are only doing their job and who actually care more about the country and its citizens than their own well being, a trait sadly lacking in today’s politician. 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:
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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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