May, 2016, Part 8, Political Class Insanity: Still Wasting Taxpayer Money On Stupid Projects, Food Stamp Fraud In Florida, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc. In fact, last month we set a record, needing ten full posts to cover it all.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

It looks like our politicians have been especially insane over the past month or so let’s get started with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) A recent online article by the Heritage Foundation reviewed a Congressional oversight report from Arizona Senator Jeff Flake entitled, “Twenty Questions: Government Studies That Will Leave You Scratching Your Head.” As you read these insanely wasteful uses of your tax dollars, keep in mind that 45 million Americans still need government food assistance every month, almost 50,000 Americans die from a drug overdose every year, millions of Americans go homeless in their lifetimes, our veterans are not getting the medical care they need and were promised, cancers and dementia kill thousands of Americans every month, and the country is about to go bankrupt with almost $20 TRILLION in national debt. Then decide if these examples are more important and better uses of your tax money:

• The National Institutes of Health spent millions of its $32 billion budget to study the appearance of Jesus Christ’s face on toast, the musical preferences of monkeys, and the contagious nature of yawning.
• But then cried that they did not have enough money in its budget to fight Ebola.
• The Oregon Health And Science University spent $5 million of taxpayer wealth to study whether zebra finches altered their singing habits when intoxicated, finding that alcohol did have an effect, something that anyone at closing time in their local bar could have concluded for far less than $5 million.
• Researchers at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana spend almost a quarter million to observe and measure the impact of cocaine on honey bees, finding that cocaine usage caused the bees to tend to dance twice as much. Not only is this a stupid study but taxpayer dollars were spent to purchase cocaine, an illegal substance.
• Bowdoin College in Maine spent a whopping $3.6 million to find out that when male goldfish are given sex steroids, they exhibited more social behavior and swam closer to their female counterparts.

These are just a handful of wasteful government spending examples that go on everyday in Washington while Americans are hungry, homeless, drug addicted, and dying from uncured diseases. And to add insult to injury, the NIH, one of the biggest culprits in wasting taxpayer wealth, has the nerve to ask Congress for an additional $2 billion to fight the Zika virus despite having already wasted a ton of money on toast, yawning, and who knows what else.

And these examples are nickel/dime compared to the $100 billion in wasteful, useless spending that Flake recently published in his annual compilation of wasteful spending, “Wastebook 2016.” Enter the search word “wastebook” in the search box above to find out about recent and past Wastebook insults to taxpayers.

In light of the mega-wasting of taxpayer wealth every year, it is almost comical to review Obama’s massive whopper of lie when he was first elected when he promised to go “through the Federal budget line by line” to weed out wasteful spending. Seven plus years later we can see what a joke and deception that false promise was. But at least we finally know that sex steroids in goldfish make them more aggressive. 

2) There is an old baseball saying that goes: “You cannot tell the players without a scorecard.” And now apparently in New York state, you cannot tell the criminal state politicians without the Buffalo News acting as your scorecard. A recent online article by the Buffalo News reporter Robert J. McCarthy provided “A Guide To Political Corruption Probes In New York State:”

- Former Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison.

- Former Republican majority leader Dean Skelos of the State Senate, and his son, were recently sentenced for their crimes.

- G. Steen Pigeon, a statewide political operative and previous Erie County, New York Democratic chairman, had his home raided by state authorities last May. Recently, a New York State Supreme Court Justice was questioned by state and Federal government authorities based on information obtained by that raid. A grand jury is expected to be convened to follow up on both the Justice and others.

- NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio found out that the state Board of Elections found reasonable cause to go after a de Blasio political operation for possible coordination to hanky panky when it comes to donation limits in various New York state Senate races. Federal, city, and state district attorneys are investigating.

- New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo is seeing some of his political associates being investigated by state authorities relative to a state financed and sponsored manufacturing complex relative to how state government contracts are awarded. Additionally, a former Cuomo staff aide is being investigated to see if he and his wife improperly got tens of thousands of dollars from an engineering firm involved in the complex. Others are also being investigated, both individuals and companies. The Federal government is also investigating.

- State Democratic Senator Marc C. Panepinto is under investigation by a state ethics agency for undisclosed reasons after four Senate staffers resigned late last year. Panepinto suddenly decided not to seek re-election even though he was busy raising election campaign funds.

Just another day of political corruption, this time in the state government halls of New York.

3) The WSVN television station in Palm Beach County, Florida recently reported on the supposedly largest food stamp bust in U.S. history. The bust occurred at a flea market in Hialeah, Florida. The raid followed a complaint by an individual citizen who was a victim of identity theft. 

Details of the scam included the following facts:

• 500 Palm Beach County, Florida residents had their identities stolen which were then turned around and used to get fake Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) “food stamp” cards.
• The cards were then exchanged for cash at the flea market.
• Federal criminal charges involving 22 retail stores or operators who were involved in the scam were arrested.
• The scam resulted in at least $13 million of taxpayer wealth being illegally obtained by those charged.

More waste and more government ineptness. At least these people got caught. How many other similar taxpayer ripoffs are going on in every other county across the country that has not been busted by law enforcement? You can bet the Palm Beach County is not the only site of massive EBT corruption and criminal activity.

4) Earlier this week we reported on a recent opinion poll that showed only 6% of Americans believe that the media and today’s journalists are telling the truth when they report. We stated that we believe that most media and news outlets and sources have picked which political “side” they are in favor of and then report and slant any news coverage to make their side look good and the other political side look bad. 

This hypothesis and the opinion poll results get a little more credible when you consider the inane statement two, not one, MSNBC newscasters recently said on TV. According to MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts and Tamron Hall, Bill Clinton’s many, many instances of extra marital affairs are just “alleged affairs” and “alleged misconduct.” “Alleged?” Come on, Monica Lewinsky, Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and many, many others were only “alleged?” 

If you are going to tell a lie or stretch the truth, at least work with material that has a potential for truth. Bill Clinton was a serial philanderer and adulter, no American with any sense of politics from the Clinton administration on forward knows that. Do not insult our intelligence and try to put forth a false narrative, that only makes you a modern day Pravda. 

That will do it for today’s insanity: still wasting taxpayer wealth on stupid projects, New York state politicians look to be more involved in getting indicted than governing, criminal fraud in government welfare programs proven again in Palm Beach county in Florida, and delusional MSNBC political commentators who somehow cannot face the reality that Bill Clinton has had a few extramarital affairs. More insanity tomorrow.

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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