August, 2016, Part 1, Poltiical Class Insanity: Veterns Still Getting Short Changed, Lobbyists INfest the Demcorats, and a Throwback Obama Lie

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) We have often reported on the horrible, horrible job that the Veterans Administration has been doing during the Obama administration in taking care of the medical health needs of our veterans. Scandals at various VA facilities across the country have left our veterans without care, put them on long waiting lists and then destroyed the long waiting lists and other personnel records to enhance the financial aspects of VA executives’ job performance. Although Obama made a change to the leadership of the operation a while ago, persistent reports and evidence showing little improvement have previously been reported in this blog.

One of the reasons why our veterans have not been given the care promised was reviewed in a recent article on the Breitbart website. According to a report by the organization, Open the Books:

• The Veterans Administration spent $20 million on an art collection while veterans' medical needs were going unserved.
• Included in the $20 million was the cost of a whopping 27 foot artificial Christmas tree that cost $21,500 and two sculptures that cost $670,000 that were installed at a California VA facility that, get this, serves blind veterans.
• $483,000 was spent on a decorative rock for the VA facility in Palo Alto which does not include the $807,000 that was spent to prepare the area to receive and display the decorative rock.
• At the same VA facility, the government spent $330,000 for something called a half arc that was placed in the lobby, another $365,000 was spent on a sculpture that was placed near the pool, and $285,000 that went to paste dozens of rocks to a wall that spelled out quotes by famous Americans... in Morse Code.
• In a San Francisco Veterans Administration building, $32,000 was spent to hang 62 framed photographs, not paintings, photographs from the local geographic area, a whopping cost of $500 framed per photo.
• A VA facility in Puerto Rico spent $610,000 on artwork and a facility in Alaska spent $100,000 on a single piece of sculpture.
• To add insult to injury, a letter from Senator Mark Kirk pointed out to the head of the VA that even though the VA issued a moratorium on all art purchases a year ago, the VA went forward and spent $1.8 million despite the so-called moratorium.

Such bad priorities, such bad judgement, such a waste of taxpayer money. Veterans get sick and die without the promised care yet the VA continues to purchase useless and unneeded pieces of likely overpriced artwork even though they promised NOT to do it. 

And Hillary Clinton wants to raise our taxes and give the Federal government even more of our wealth even though the Federal government and the bureaucrats that operate it obviously do not know how to spend it on what is needed and critical to serve the citizens of this country. Pathetically insane.

2) If someone claims that the political system in this country today is not rigged to serve the political class and those that fund them, then maybe a recent article from the Washington Examiner would help convince them. We have previously pointed out, both in this blog and in our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” that the Democrats rig their Presidential primary processes with so-called super delegates. These are about 700 Democratic Party hacks that have a big say in who gets the Presidential nomination regardless of what Democratic voters want.

An example of their power was shown a few times during this year’s Democratic primaries where Bernie Sanders got a large majority of the primary voters' votes but ended up getting a far smaller percentage of that state’s delegates since the super delegates of that state favored Hillary Clinton. In such places, the voters spoke and the super delegates said “never mind, we know what is best for you."

Well, it gets worse. According to a recent Washington Examiner report by Daniel Chaitin on July 30, 2016, almost 10% of the Democratic Party superdelegates were actually registered lobbyists. Research by the Sunlight Foundation found that:

• 63 out of the 712 super delegates were registered at some point in time as lobbyists at the state or Federal government level.
• These super delegates/lobbyists represented banks, health care insurers, the telecom industry, labor unions, Goldman Sachs, and Planned Parenthood.
• Specifically, super delegate and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is currently registered for the healthcare insurance company Aetna, former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt is a registered lobbyist with the Gephardt Group and former DNC General Chairman and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell was registered for Ballard Spahr LLP as recently as 2012.
• Sunlight also found an additional 32 individuals it called "shadow lobbyists," which it describes as super delegates who "aren't officially registered as lobbyists, but are heavily involved in the influence industry."

Given that over 86% of the super delegates voted for Hillary Clinton, a far higher percentage than the percentage of Democratic voters that voted for her during the primaries, you can see how rigged the system is and how alive crony capitalism is with the Democrats. The very people that usually arrange for government bailouts, favorable tax treatment, lucrative government contracts, etc., for their industry employers are the same people who pick who gets to run for office. 

And to think that they are not expecting pay back, after delivering 86% of the super delegate vote, is naive. Pathetic and an insult to democracy and freedom.

3) This last piece of insanity for today is a throwback, retro look at another preposterous Obama promise/claim that he made back when he first ran for the Presidency. In 2008, Obama said Bush was unpatriotic for increasing the national debt by $4 TRILLION during Bush’s eight years as President. But if you go to the actual White House budget website at:

chrome-extension://bpmcpldpdmajfigpchkicefoigmkfalc/views/app.html

you will find some incredible lies and hypocrisy of Obama:

• This website contains a detailed historical compilation of the Federal government’s budget performance since the country’s formation over two hundred years ago.
• If you look down Column D to the Bush years, you will see that Bush had budget deficits that exceeded $400 billion for only two years, making it mathematically impossible for Obama’s $4 TRILLION statement to be correct.
• Obama never had a budget deficit under $500 billion until his sixth year in office and even that year was higher than any annual budget deficit of Bush.
• Obama had four consecutive years of running a budget deficit over $1 TRILLION a year, two to three times higher than the highest Bush budget deficit.
• And while Obama’s lowest budget deficit in 2015 did finally get under Bush’s HIGHEST budget deficit, by a mere $20 billion, his White House budget website currently shows the 2016 deficit to be over $600 billion, the sixth highest budget deficit ever for the country, with Obama possessing the five higher budget deficits.
• And finally as we all know, the combined budget deficit of ALL previous Presidencies will be equal to the the budget deficit created by the Obama administration by itself:

So if Bush is unpatriotic for running up a $4 TRILLION deficit number over eight years, which Obama’s own spreadsheet shows he did not, than Obama should be tried for treason given his many $1 TRILLION annual budget deficits. 

I am against all budget deficits, I am not defending Bush. We now have a national debt that has exceed 100% of the country’s GDP, a financial warning sign if there ever was one. But Obama's claim is just one of dozens of false claims and lies he has put forth over the past eight years, claims and lies that do not stand even the simplest efforts to research the truth. 

I cannot figure out if he and other politicians like them actually believe the lies they spew out or they think we are too dumb to understand when they are lying to us. In either case, they are an insult to integrity and truth.

To hear Obama actually speak these words, go to:

http://www.youngcons.com/2008-obama-said-bush-raising-debt-4-trillion-was-unpatriotic-fox-news-tweet-slays/

That will do it for today’s insanity. A Veterans Administration that wastes gobs of money on artwork while veterans die and get sick because they cannot get the healthcare they were promised, how the lobbyists and vested interests infest the Democratic Party’s political processes, and a throwback Obama lie that the test of time shows was a joke. More insanity for many days to come.

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:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w