It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.
The current monthly record for the number of posts that were needed to cover one month's worth of insanity is ten. We equaled that record last month when we needed ten days to cover one month’s worth of political class insanity. There is a very good chance that the ten day record could fall this month since as we get closer and closer to the election, the volume of ineptness grows almost exponentially.
But today and for all of the posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy."
He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistle blowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:
http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/
With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:
1) The Patriots Update website recently reported on how Yahoo had helped the Federal government seriously abuse the Fourth Amendment. Apparently, Yahoo scanned hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the request of the NSA or the FBI, according to four current and former Yahoo employees. This was likely done without court orders, search warrants, or any other legal or justified reason.
This is obviously a direct contradiction and violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, the protection from unreasonable searches. According to the article: “Some surveillance experts said this represents the first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to an intelligence agency’s request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.”
Obviously, to at least this administration, the Constitution has become more a set of suggestions than the law of the land.
2) In most industries in the world, if you have a bad year financially, you are stuck with those results. You just suck it up, make changes and improvements and try better next year.
Unless, of course, you are an American farmer. In that case, if you have a bad year the Federal government will take taxpayer dollars and make it better. According to Rob Williams, writing for Newsmax on October 4, 2016, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) will pay U.S. farmers over $7 billion this year to compensate them for low crop prices in 2016. Market conditions have been so favorable for growing crops around the world this year that there is an over supply issue which has driven down crop prices for U.S. farmers by about 11% vs. 2015.
Why the U.S.government should put billions of American taxpayer dollars at risk to help a particular industry is beyond me. Just about every other industry often faces reduced prices, oversupply, and a shrinking market size and the U.S. government does nothing to bail them out. I might be able to see protecting the small, classic American farmer who may not be able to stand a temporary fluctuation in prices. But the majority of farming in this country these days is done by huge agriculture conglomerates who should be able to manage their business and absorb market and pricing setbacks.
However, the Washington political class has seen it fit to throw taxpayer money at these huge companies when things get a little rough. You can be sure that these companies are very generous when it comes to election time to ensure that incumbent politicians will stay elected to protect this taxpayer funded revenue stream.
3) We have already reported in a previous insanity post on how Harry Reid, in order to make a trivial, ego-driven point, single handedly held up legislation that had unanimous House and Senate support to make it a felony to distribute any recorded material that depicted the torture and killing of animals. As a dog and animal lover, I found this pathetic attempt at attention to be despicable.
But according to Alice B. Lloyd, Harry Reid blocked the enactment of a law that would have provided emergency support to a veterans suicide hotline program that is sorely needed. The Government Accountability Office recently concluded research that found the Department of Veterans Affairs crisis hotline failed to answer the phone between 20 and 30% of the time from veterans that needed counseling and support.
The “No Veterans Crisis Line Call Should Go Unanswered Act” was unanimously passed in the House of Representatives and a similar companion bill was moving quickly through the Senate. The plan was to use the unanimous consent function of the Senate, a procedure that is used when unobjectionable bipartisan legislation has widespread appeal within the Senate. In this case, if no Senator objected, the bill is passed. But obviously at least one Democratic Senator did object, since every Republican Senator was on board with this critical piece of legislation, and it appears that the objecting Senator was Reid.
Thus, Congress has recessed and veterans in severe need of counseling and support will continue to be under served, all because of a very small minded Senator who would rather score political points than save the lives of veterans and animals. Pathetically insane.
4) In a great piece of irony, a Hispanic activist that actively objected to what he considered the racism of Donald Trump relative to when Trump was calling some illegal immigrants rapists, has himself been arrested and charged with, you guessed it, rape. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Latino Tony Yapias has been charged with rape in an assault of a former girl friend.
Yapias once was the director of Utah’s Hispanic Affairs Office and works on immigration and other Hispanic issues. Despite pleas that he stay away from her, Yapias went to his former girl friend’s home, forced himself in and allegedly raped her, for which he has been arrested. Somewhere Donald Trump is smiling.
5) Last piece of insanity for this month. This is a story that was published in a September, 2016 website article on the Truth Feed website but it actually covers an investigative report by CBS News out of Atlanta in 2015. That report found that the Obama administration had spent an amazing $770 million overseas to refurbish and repair Muslim mosques around the world. The State Department defended this wasteful spending by claiming it was a “good will effort” in Muslim countries and that they are “fighting Islamic extremism by building relationships with Islamic leaders.”
Two things grossly wrong with this insanity:
- Tens of millions of Americans need Federal food assistance every month, upwards of a million Americans are homeless at at any time during the year, tens of thousands of Americans are dying from drug addiction every year, and untold thousands of American veterans cannot get the medical attention they deserve and were promised. Would not that $770 million be better spent taking care of needy Americans first since I see no benefit of giving that ridiculous amount of money away to fix buildings halfway around the world?
- The second issue with such nonsense is a carry over from the last phrase in the previous paragraph - what benefit, if any, have we seen by spending such money around the world? The link below that has the CBS story also has an interview with a former Muslim where she explains how this type of program relative to the Muslim psyche is a joke and a total waste of money which, unfortunately, is pretty much the status quo on most Federal government programs.
http://rightwingnews.com/barack-obama/outrage-obama-spends-770m-dollars-tax-payer-money-renovate-mosques-seas-video/
The Washington political class is willing to spend $770 million to fix leaky pipes in a mosque in Cairo but cannot pass a simple piece of legislation that would provide the needed suicide prevention support for our veterans. So pathetic.
That will do it for today’s and this month’s political class insanity: spending millions overseas to fix buildings while veterans cannot get suicide prevention help, an anti-Trump racists feels some cruel irony, helping rich farming conglomerates stay rich with taxpayer money, and shredding the Fourth Amendment...again. More insanity next month.
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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http://www.reason.com
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http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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