Love My Country, Loathe My Government: inspector general

Showing posts with label inspector general. Show all posts

Thursday, May 12, 2016

May, 2016, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: HIllary's History of Lies, More Obama Economic Underperformance, and More

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) One recurring theme that keeps surfacing this week is Obama's mishandling of the economy. Tens of millions of Americans still receiving government food assistance every month, stagnant wages and household growth, low economic growth, millions of part time workers who cannot find full time work, skyrocketing debt, real unemployment still around 10%, etc. Pathetic economic policies and strategies.

And today we start off the political class insanity with more proof that the Obama administration is going to go down as one of the worst economic administrations ever. Consider some recent analyses from the Commerce Department:

Obama will be the first President EVER to not see a single annual national economic growth level exceed 3%.
Continuing this trend, the Commerce announced last week that the economy grew only .5% in the first quarter of 2016, down from the meager 1.4% growth in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The Reagan administration, for comparison, annually averaged 3.5% during its term in office.
Obama’s overall annual growth average will likely end up somewhere between 1.5 and 1.6%.
If the previous point holds true, it will make his Presidency the fourth worst ever from an economic growth perspective.

And this anemic economic performance was achieved despite spending well over $800 billion on a failed economic stimulus program, enjoyed an extended period of rock bottom energy prices, and benefited from the Federal Reserve pumping trillions of paper dollars into the economy. An insane failure of epic proportions.

2) For a very long time, our veterans have not been receiving the medical care and treatment that the Federal government has promised them despite Obama’s insistence that he was dedicated to maintaining high standards of medical treatment for them. Long waiting lists, falsified records, etc. have been uncovered by investigators to prove that the Veterans Administration (VA) has been a failure in doing its job, so much so that its top executive was fired a while ago for the scandal.

However, despite the firing and Obama’s claim he was working the problem, things have apparently not gotten much better:

After investigating ten VA veterans benefits offices around the country, VA investigators found that the VA was systematically destroying documents via shredding relating to veterans’ claims with some of the destruction affecting veterans benefits.
The surprise visits to the offices by the Office of the Inspector General found that of 155 claims related documents that were scheduled to be shredded, 69 of them (almost 40%) were found to have been incorrectly placed in the shred bins at those ten offices.
Two of those 69 documents would have definitely affected veterans benefits directly, 9 had the potential to impact benefits, and the remaining would likely not have affected benefit payouts for veterans but should not have been waiting to be shredded anyway.
The Inspector General report was harsh in criticizing the screwups: "The potential effect should not be minimized. Considering that there are 56 [VA regional offices], and if weekly shredding is conducted, it is highly likely that claims-related documents at other VAROs are being improperly scheduled for destruction that could result in loss of claims and evidence, incorrect decisions and delays in claims processing."
In addition: "VBA's policy is outdated, lacks standardized procedures for records management staff and increases the likelihood for VARO staff to destroy claims-related documents without supervisory-level review."
The VA accepted the Inspector General’s recommendations for change but, of course, insisted there were no systemic problems.

Thus, even after all of the attention and all of the promises to fix the broken Veterans Administration over the past two years, the administration, Congress, and the VA itself are all still inept.

3) It has been my personal opinion that Obama has never been a great believer or respectful of our armed forces. His inability or inattention to fix the broken VA discussed above is just one example of why I feel this way. Which means I was not surprised when he committed the following insult relative to our brave military people.

The Obama administration recently announced that a new Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer will be named the USS Carl M. Levin. Who is Mr Levin? Is he a valiant war hero or Medal Of Honor winner? Did his bravery save the lives of fellow soldiers or civilians? Did he do something extraordinary to help our military forces? Was a brilliant General or Admiral?

No to all of the above. Mr. Levin has been a 31 year veteran of the U.S. Senate, a Democrat from the state of Michigan. The closest thing he came to serving in the armed forces was to be a one time chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee for eight years.

Some additional insulting facts about this Obama move:

Levin never served in the military.
The Navy has traditionally named these types of vessels after deceased Medal of Honor recipients and other combat heroes, as well as admirals and generals who played significant roles in naval warfare.
Of the 318 Medal Of Honor recipients, 100 have had a ship named after them while 218 are still awaiting that same honor.
This naming does not conform to the Navy’s own guidelines that were submitted to Congress in 2012, “Policies and Practices of the U.S. Navy for Naming the Vessels of the Navy.”
This will be the only one of 71 Arleigh Burke ships that do not meet the Navy’s guidelines.

But as always with the Obama administration, rules, laws, regulations, and customs do not apply to its actions and insults. It is whatever is politically expedient and convenient, everything else be damned including the memories and actions of our brave fighting men and women. Insane and pathetic to name a ship after a non-descript politician when there were so many other more noble names to opt for.

4) One last piece of insanity for today. We have often shown the many lies of Obama and his administration, far too many to review here. But for those of you thinking about voting for Hillary Clinton, keep in mind the old line from a Who song: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

The link below will take you on a video history of Hillary Clinton’s many lies and deceptions over the years. If you think that Obama was bad from an integrity perspective, I think this video montage will show you that Hillary is not going to be any more trustworthy or in integrity than Obama:

http://conservativepost.com/after-watching-this-video-nobody-should-vote-for-hillary-clinton/

That will do it for today’s insanity: the history of Hillary’s lies, naming a Navy ship after a has-been politician, more screw ups at theVA, and more anemic economic growth, courtesy of the Obama administration. Every day they seem to come with new and unique ways to mess up and tomorrow should be no different.

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:

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

Thursday, December 10, 2015

December, 2015, Part 6, Political Insanity: More Waste In Afghanistan, Lost Federal Guns, Pelosi's Geography Fail and More

It is the start of another month which means it is time for our monthly review of the latest political class insanity that continually spews forth from America’s politicians. Their actions, words, quotes, incompetency, and general ineptness continue to reinforce our theory that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of the nation.

As you read about the latest shenanigans and ineptness of the political class, keep in mind what should be their priorities in these difficult times and compare this list to what they are actually working on:

NBC recently reported that ISIS forces are getting larger and stronger despite the Obama administration spending billions of dollars on a failed air campaign and military strategy.
The stock market is stalling.
Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.
Wage growth is anemic, growing just .2% in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly growth since 1982.
The labor participation rate is at the lowest level in decades because the Obama economy cannot generate enough jobs.
Thousands of veterans are still not getting the medical care they were promised by the Federal government.
45 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.
Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets.
Major programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are hurtling towards insolvency and lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fraud and mismanagement.
Our kids are still getting lousy public educations at most public schools.
The IRS and other government functions seem to be getting their computer systems hacked on a regular basis, exposing tens of millions of Americans to identity theft potential.
Obama Care is a failure along so many dimensions as health care costs continue to soar despite the Obama promise that they would decrease.
Annual Federal deficits, while down, are still about half a TRILLION a year meaning that even though the Federal government is collecting more in taxes than ever before, it still cannot run a balanced budget.

Again, keep these real crises in mind as you read what our politicians are actually doing, saying and wasting.

1) According to a December 3, 2015 article by Cristina Corbin, writing for Fox News, the Department of Defense was very lavish with spending taxpayer money on some very expensive villas in Afghanistan. Specifically:

Taxpayers spent $150 million to build fancy, hotel like villas in Afghanistan to house private security employees, who were guarding government employees, rather than having them live on U.S. military bases.
Housing them on military bases would have incurred a fraction of the cost of the specially built villas.
Such is the finding from the most recent inspector general report.
The report found that 20% of this particular Pentagon organization’s budget was spent just on these housing units for a “handful” of security people, where handful is defined at ten of fewer people at any one time.
In a definite understatement, John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan reconstruction stated: "We are concerned that this may be another example of U.S. government officials not looking out for American taxpayers' dollars."
This latest round of wasteful spending comes on the heels of a report last month that the Department of Defense had spent an amazing $43 million to build a single gas station in Afghanistan, a construction project that should have cost about $500,000.
In addition to these dreadful financial disasters, Sopko told FoxNews.com his office had received "numerous allegations" of criminal activity by the same Pentagon organization from former employees as well as "current and former uniformed officers who worked over there, other agencies and contractors."
A former employee involved in the construction of the villas, described the villas as hangouts for senior Pentagon officials who traveled to Afghanistan, "simply to accumulate flying miles. They just came in and didn’t do anything but hang out in the villa."
The following is a picture of what taxpayers paid $150 million for:

How many veterans do you think could have gotten the medical care they deserved and were promised if that $150 million had been spent on them and not to provide luxury housing for security consultants and senior Pentagon officials? Disgraceful waste of taxpayer money.

2) I do not want to get into a Second Amendment discussion today but do want to talk about government operations and guns. We have already discussed the fact that the ATF, the government entity responsible for gun law enforcement and safety, is so inept that it cannot even keep track of its own guns and munitions:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/06/june-2013-poltiical-class-insanity-part.html

These are just two examples where the premier Federal government agency responsible for gun control and weapons control cannot even protect its own facilities from the theft of explosives and guns. Pathetic.

And now we have another example where government cannot even keep track of its own guns never mind trying to enforce any kind of gun confiscation or gun control measures that hysterical liberals are demanding in light of the recent California terrorist attack. According to Oakland’s ABC 7 affiliate on September 29, 2015:

Tuesday morning around 10:30 a.m., 27-year-old Antonio Ramos, was shot while working on a mural under a freeway overpass in West Oakland. He later died. Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent said this fatal shooting was "really tragic" and "totally unacceptable." He added Ramos was "someone who was trying to make a positive difference in this city and lost his life."

Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said the artist was one of several artists working on a mural planned for West Street under the Interstate 580 overpass between 35th and 36th streets. Friends of Ramos said a man was messing with their equipment and Ramos asked them to stop, then before they knew it, he was shot while working on the mural.

Marquise Holloway, 20, was arrested for the murder. However, what makes this a unique case of senseless violence is that Holloway used a gun that had been stolen from a Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Yes, a stolen Federal government gun was used to murder an innocent American citizen.

Insanity and just another example of government incompetence when it comes to any aspect of gun control. If the Feds cannot protect their own weapons and explosives, what makes anyone think that they can protect us by stripping away Second Amendment rights?

3) We used to talk a lot about the inane things that Nancy Pelosi often said. Once she was no longer Speaker of the House, her silly and bewildering comments seemed to drop off. Thus, it is refreshing to come across another idiotic comment from her. After a meeting of U.S. officials and officials from a bunch of different African countries, she tweeted out the following tweet:

“Honored to join my colleagues & @OfficialCBC at #USAfrica Leaders Summit to discuss the valuable relationships between our two countries.”

Nice sentiment but somebody needs to tell Ms. Pelosi that Africa is a CONTINENT, not a COUNTRY. There are 54 countries in Africa, Africa is not a single country as referred to by Pelosi. Can you imagine if Bush had something inane like this? The mainstream media would have been all over him. However, when a Democrat exposes their ignorance, the media is silent.

Makes you start to doubt all politicians’ intelligence when they are too stupid to know Africa is not a country. Also makes you wonder how inept their staffs are for not catching this ignorance before it hits the Internet.

4) An old saying goes like the following: “The government is just like the Mafia except the Mafia is profitable.” A recent article from the Washington Post that was reviewed in the December 4, 2015 issue of The Week magazine reinforces that reality. In 2014, law enforcement entities across the country confiscated more property from American citizens than burglars did.

Under current civil forfeiture laws, law enforcement/government seized $5 billion in property and cash from Americans while burglars took only $3.5 billion worth of property and cash. Amazing.

That will do it for this month's insanity. Today we now know we have a government structure that takes more from Americans than criminals do, we have a leading Congressional figure who is totally ignorant of world geography, we have a government that cannot keep track of its own guns and explosives, and the Pentagon continues to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars for no purpose in Afghanistan. More insanity next 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:

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

December, 2015, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Bomb Detecting Elephants, Social Security Ineptness, TSA Insanity 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.

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 post 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.

So let’s get started with the latest insanity:

1) A primary, continuing theme in our political class insanity series is the fact that the Washington political class and the Federal government it oversees waste hundreds of billions of dollars a year from wasteful spending, inefficient operations, and outright criminal fraud.

This point was driven home again in an article by The Hill back in May, 1015. The article featured some of the waste that was uncovered by a Senate oversight committee headed by Senator John McCain called “America’s Most Wasted.” Highlights of that analysis included the following atrocities:

The Federal government spends almost $300 billion a year on hundreds of expired Federal government programs.
This number was based on a Congressional Budget Office analysis that was released back in January.
Some of these programs included Army research done relative to bomb detecting elephants ($50,000), puppet shows in Vermont, and the creation of a dog bite prevention website ($391,000).
$225 million was incorrectly sent by the Social Security Administration to 106,000 citizens.
The National Guard has spent $49 million on advertising agreements with pro sports leagues to support recruiting.
The government spent $14 million on a program at the Department of Agriculture to develop a catfish inspection office even though the Food and Drug Administration already has one.
The EPA spent $15,000 to study pollution from backyard barbeques.

Nowhere in the Constitution is it stated that taxpayer wealth should be used to study barbeque smoke, puppet shows, redundant catfish inspections, etc. And of this expense is being wasted while tens of millions of Americans are either homeless, hungry, or unemployed. Pathetic insanity.

2) As a result of the Great Recession, the Federal Reserve printed trillions dollars of money to try to restart economic growth. Given that we are talking about TRILLIONS of dollars, one would hope that someone, somewhere was tracking that flow of the trillions and making sure that it was being used the way it was intended to be used.

But as always when dealing with politicians and the government operations they are supposed to be overseeing, that is a false hope. Take a look at the following video where a Congressman is asking the head of the inspector general organization within the Federal Reserve if anyone, anywhere is tracking those TRILLIONS of dollars. I guarantee that you will be shocked by the non-answers and half baked answers the head inspector general gives.

The bottom line is that the Federal government printed and distributed TRILLIONS of dollars and has no idea whether it did any good, where that money went, how it was used, etc.:

http://realitieswatch.com/9-trillion-dollars-missing-federal-reserve/

3) While the inspector general at the Fed is obviously not doing her job, as the previous video shows, the inspector general at the Social Security Administration (SSA) continues to uncover massive ineptness and fraud within that organization. Figure this one out. The latest audit from the Social Security Administration found that SSA erroneously sent out $128.3 million in so-call “low-dollar” overpayments between 2008 and 2013. The SSA recognized their mistake and tried to recover the overpayments, a good thing.

Unfortunately, they are so incompetent that it cost them $323 million in expense to try and recover the $128.3 million and ended up collecting only $109.4 million. Thus, they ended up spending almost three times the amount of money that they recovered, making a waste of taxpayer money even worse, spending over $213.6 million at the end of the day in an effort to recover $128.3 million. You cannot make up this nonsense.

4) The following video is short but gives a concise insight of how large, unwieldy and freedom threatening government has become. Rather than repeat all of the scary stats within the video, just consider the following nuggets:

21.3 million people, or 16% of the voting population works for some level of government in this country. Thus, a huge voting bloc that would want to extend and enlarge their own salaries, benefits, etc., has a big say who is elected to the detriment of non-government employees who are responsible for the well being of these government employees.
Before the last recession started, the average total compensation package (i.e. wages, benefits,etc.) for those not working in government was about $61,000 a year while the compensation package for the average government employee was $123,000. If anything, as you will see in the video, that gap has probably gotten worse since the recession started.

See the rest of the depressing news at:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xOAgT8L_BqQ

5) Let’s finish today’s political class insanity with another visit to the buffoons over at the TSA, that government entity that is supposed to protect the traveling public. Of all the government organizations we talk about, the TSA has to be the inept, incompetent group of government employees when it comes to doing their job effectively and efficiently.

We already discussed the reality that when a field test was done to find out how often a fake weapon or bomb could be smuggled past TSA screeners, those screeners failed a whopping 95% of the time to identify and confiscate the dummy weapons and bombs. This is just one of many screw ups we have covered relative to the TSA over the years.

And to that history of ineptness, we add the following failure. The Associated Press recently reported that a convicted male sex offender used a stolen female boarding pass assigned to a female to pass through TSA security screening and almost made it onto a plane in Utah. The guy allegedly took a boarding pass that a woman passenger had accidently left behind at a check-in kiosk and used it to get past TSA.

Fortunately, the woman who lost her boarding pass got a replacement boarding pass which likely led to the discovery that the guy was not the name on the woman's original boarding pass. So not only did the TSA screeners fail to see that the id presented to get past security was not the same name on the boarding pass, they did not even question the reality that a guy was trying to get through security with a boarding pass with a distinctive female name on it. Insanity and dangerous at the same time.

That will do it for this today’s political class insanity from the worst set of politicians ever to serve the country. More 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:

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

November, 2015, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Bad Priorities In Illiniois and Wasteful Sepnding In Afghanistan

NBC recently reported that ISIS forces are getting larger and stronger despite the Obama administration spending billions of dollars on a failed air campaign and military strategy.
The stock market is stalling.
Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.
Wage growth is anemic, growing just .2% in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly growth since 1982.
The labor participation rate is at the lowest level in decades because the Obama economy cannot generate enough jobs.
Thousands of veterans are still not getting the medical care they were promised by the Federal government.
A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
45 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.
Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets.
Major programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are hurtling towards insolvency and lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fraud and mismanagement.
Our kids are still getting lousy public educations at most public schools.
The IRS and other government functions seem to be getting their computer systems hacked on a regular basis, exposing tens of millions of Americans to identity theft potential.
Obama Care is a failure along so many dimensions as health care costs continue to soar despite the Obama promise that they would decrease.
Annual Federal deficits, while down, are still about half a TRILLION a year meaning that even though the Federal government is collecting more in taxes than ever before, it still cannot run a balanced budget.

Again, keep these real crises in mind as you read what our politicians are actually doing, saying and wasting.

1) The state government of Illinois has always been a joke. At one point in time there were more living former Illinois governors who had done prison time than living former governors who had not done prison time. The state is very close to being bankrupt. Vendors have not been paid for their products and services provided to the state government for a very long time (current unpaid debts are likely to be $8.5 billion by the end of the year), and state lottery winners have not been paid despite winning the state lottery.

I would also assume that the state is not any better than other states when it comes to issues like failing public schools, crumbling infrastructure, drug abuse, crime, and other major issues affecting a large number of Illinois citizens. One would hope that state politicians in Illinois were hard at work resolving these major, major issues.

But as with our national politicians, associating hope with any American politician is usually a bad bet. Illinois is no exception. Instead of focusing on resolving the major issues affecting the state’s residents, Illinois state representative Edward Acevedo recently wrote and filed legislation that called for the national Republican Party to “denounce Donald Trump for his disgraceful behavior and to distance itself from him in the future.”

Furthermore, the legislation contends that Trump “has repeatedly made misogynistic, sexist, and derogatory comments towards women,” as well as “offensive and abhorrent comments towards people of Latino descent, Mexican immigrants, and Asians.”

Really, this is what a major state politician is spending his time on instead of saving the state from fiscal insolvency and tackling the other major problems facing the states’ citizens? Name calling and hissy fits vs. sincere and effective governing? Inane priorities, just another case of inept politicians rearranging the deckchairs on their Titanic because they have no idea how to stop the state government ship ship from sinking.

As a result of Acevedo’s bad priorities, the New York Times reported on the crises that his inaction and the inabilities of him and his peers in the state government are causing:

Social service organizations that have contracts with the state, and the low-income populations they serve, may be suffering the most. Some nonprofits have not received money from the state since July 1 and say they have been forced to deplete their cash reserves and scale back services. Mark Mathews, the executive director of the Child Abuse Council in Moline, which provides counseling and visits homes of troubled families, said he had eliminated two staff positions and reduced one program’s caseload by 40 percent.

“It’s definitely damaging the not-for-profit agencies,” he said. “We haven’t been serving as many families. At-risk families aren’t getting home visits or services. That’s the tough thing.”

The sheriff of Cook County, Thomas J. Dart, said that people who would normally be helped by nonprofits, like the homeless, have begun to show up at jail instead, in search of assistance. Nonprofits are cutting staff, and some could close if the impasse continues, he said.

“These are folks who have missions to help the disadvantaged,” Mr. Dart said. “What was already difficult is becoming impossible.”

Despicable abuse of citizens welfare, tax dollars, and needs.

2) Let’s stay in Illinois and take a brief look at how bad the state government has been run and where it is today from a financial perspective:

As mentioned in the previous point, by the end of the year, the state government might be looking at a mountain of unpaid operating expense debt that could total $8.5 billion.
This means that every Illinois household would theoretically have to write a check for almost $1,800 just to pay off this outstanding operating expense debt in addition to any other state taxes they are already paying.
With the state politicians unable to come up with a functioning state government budget, it is highly likely that the state will not be able to pay the $560 million in pensions that are due in November and December.
Until they do come up with a budget, state lottery winners will not be paid their winnings.

All of which gets them into a potential fiscal death spiral since what fool would buy state lottery tickets knowing that previous winners might not get paid for a while or ever, reducing lottery revenue, and if they start missing big payments like pension bills, the cost of the state borrowing money is highly likely to increase, increasing its interest payments and deepening a debt hole that is huge to begin with.

What a mess, what insanity. A rich state like Illinois that could go bankrupt, you cannot make this stuff up.

3) It is no secret that America’s roads, bridges, tunnels and other infrastructure are in need of serious repairs. They have been neglected as the American political class squandered trillions of dollars over the years on useless, wasteful and often crime infested programs and projects. One day a major bridge or tunnel is going to collapse and kill a bunch of Americans because of this neglect.

I wonder how many bridges or road could be repaired, in this country, for $43 million? Why $43 million? That is the amount of money that a Pentagon inspector general found that the Defense Department spent when they built a natural gas station in Afghanistan. This $43 million natural gas station was built in Sherberghan, Afghanistan to show the Afghans how natural gas could serve as a viable energy option for their country.

Not only is this a stupid idea to implement in a war zone, but the underlying numbers are incredibly insulting to the American taxpayer:

The original project plans were bid out at a cost of $3 million. Still a lot of money but nowhere near $43 million.
But somehow, between 2011 and 2014, the project costs skyrocketed from the original $3 million bid to a total cost of $42.7 billion, about a 14 fold increase.
Those involved claimed that $30 million of that nearly $43 million was nebulously called “overhead.” Others of us might call that $30 million corruption and kickbacks.
If $30 million was “overhead,” than the overhead portion of the project was two and a half times more than the construction of the project, hardly an efficient ratio.
To add insult to injury, the inspector general looking into this debacle found that as similar project that was built in Pakistan by the Defense Department cost $300,000, a fraction of what it cost to build a similar facility in neighboring Afghanistan.
More insults to the American taxpayer, according to the inspector general: “One of the most troubling aspects of this project is that the Department of Defense claims that it is unable to provide an explanation for the high cost of the project or to answer any other questions concerning its planning, implementation, or outcome.”
The final insult: the area of the station in Afghanistan is too dangerous for the inspector general to even determine if the project ever became operational.

As always, you cannot make this stuff up, the creative and original ways that the political class and the government operations it oversees find to waste our wealth on idiotic and corruption infested projects. Again, ask yourself: how many American roads, bridges and tunnels could have been repaired for $43 million and not wasted somewhere in the boondocks of Afghanistan?

The reality that this waste was not identified until years after it occurred shows just how dysfunctional the Federal government has become

Wasteful spending, bad priorities, and idiotic financial management. A typical day of insanity review from the American political class. 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:

Thursday, July 9, 2015

July, 2015, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Hunting Down Whistleblowers, Obama's Golf Hypocrisy, and More

At the beginning of each month we take a week or so to review the latest insanity from the American political class. Insanity from them includes a wide range of very depressing actions which can include wasteful spending, idiotic quotes, an inefficient and ineffective government bureaucracy, failed economic policies, etc. Every month we continue to prove that we are being served by the worst set of politicians ever.

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.”

Again, so much for the most open and transparent administration ever, just one of dozens of broken promises or outright lies from this Presidency. God bless the whistleblowers for their integrity and courage, two characteristic sorely lacking from today’s Washington politicians and bureaucrats.

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:

Friday, June 26, 2015

Even When The Feds Get It Right They Still Get It Wrong

Even when the Federal government and the Washington political class do something good for taxpayers, they cannot help themselves but step right back into another screw up that overwhelms whatever good their first good deed did. Consider the recent announcement of good news that the Feds had busted 46 doctors and other healthcare professionals across the country for bilking the government, and the American taxpayer, out of $712 million.

Details of the fraud and bust include the following, as reported by CNN:

This was the largest Medicare bust ever.
In total, 243 people were arrested in 17 cities for Medicare billing of $712 million worth of patient care that was either unnecessary or never given.
In one case, owners of a mental health facility in Miami billed tens of millions of dollars for psychotherapy sessions based on treatment that was little more than moving patients to different locations.
Four other people are charged for mass-marketing a talking glucose monitor, shipping the monitors to Medicare patients across the country who didn't need or order them, and then billing Medicare for the devices to the tune of more than $22 million.
Health care providers got in on the scam by paying kickbacks to fraudsters who got their hands on Medicare patients' personal information which they would then use to bill Medicare for care never given.
These fraudsters often got the patient information by preying on the down and out in society by canvassing places like homeless shelters and soup kitchens.
A Los Angeles doctor allegedly billed $23 million for 1,000 power wheelchairs and home health services that were not medically necessary and often not provided.
In a Florida case, a health care provider received $1.6 million from Medicare for prescription drugs that were never purchased and never given.
"In these cases, we followed the money and found criminals who were attracted to doctors offices, clinics, hospitals and nursing homes in search of what they viewed as an ATM," said FBI Director James B. Comey.
The DOJ's Medicare Fraud Strike Force team led the investigations which since 2007 it has charged 2,300 people who have falsely billed the Medicare program for more than $7 billion.
In recent years, the Strike Force team has expanded from two cities to nine.

Great news, criminals ripping off the American taxpayer might finally be brought to justice. But let’s consider some of the downside to this whole, less than comprehensive law enforcement effort:

These people were arrested for ripping off $712 million. However, there is no mention of how much of that $712 million will actually be recovered, much of it is likely to already have been spent and is gone forever.
We have previously reported many times that credible, nonpartisan analyses and sources estimate that Medicare loses anywhere from $40 to $60 billion a year to waste and criminal activity. Thus, if we assume that the $712 million was all ripped off in one year, unlikely, than the recovery rate from the “biggest bust in Medicare history” is a measly 1.8% on $40 billion or 1.2% on $60 billion.
Since the $712 million was probably obtained over a period of years, then the recovery rate is highly likely to be well below 1%. And this is the biggest bust in history, meaning other busts likely got far less.
The strike force has been in operation for nine years, 2007 to 2015 and has busted criminals who had illegally collected $7 billion in Medicare funds. If we assume the lower end of annual Medicare ripoffs and waste is $40 billion, nine years worth of such behavior is about $360 billion. That means the task force has recovered a staggering...only 1.9% of the criminal activity and waste.

Look, I am happy that hundreds of people were busted and hundreds of millions of dollars were identified as stolen (not recovered). If some of that money can be recovered and funneled to reducing the national debt, helping the homeless and unemployed, feeding the hungry, then great.

But come on, a measly 1.9% rate for nine years. Seems the taxpayers are still being abused by a government that cannot get out of its own way when it comes to wasting taxpayer wealth.

But the story somehow gets a little worse. Even if the Feds can collect the $712 million that these 243 people stole, it will get wiped out by the embarrassing findings of a recent inspector general report relative to Obama Care. That Federal audit report found that the Department of Health and Human Services cannot find out what happened to about $2.8 billion of Obama Care subsidies that have already been paid out.

This should not come as a surprise. The entire Obama Care data processing effort has been a disaster from day one. The online exchanges failed to work properly for weeks. The systems security features were almost non-existent, subjecting millions of Americans to identity theft risk. The interface between the exchanges and insurance companies were chaotic.

Thus, we should not be surprised when the inspector general’s report shows that those systems now cannot track almost $3 billion in just the first four months into the Obama Care world. Apparently the whole system was launched without finishing and checking the accuracy of the back end processes that would communicate between the Federal exchange and insurance companies.

The audit went onto say that HHS did not have an internal system to ensure that subsidies went to the right enrollees, or in the correct amounts: “[The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] CMS’s internal controls did not effectively ensure the accuracy of nearly $2.8 billion in aggregate financial assistance payments made to insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act during the first four months that these payments were made,” the inspector general said. Furthermore, “CMS’s (HHS) system of internal controls could not ensure that CMS made correct financial assistance payments.”

Other findings in the report show that HHS did not have a process in place at the time money was being paid out to “prevent or detect any possible substantial errors” in Obama Care subsidy payments and could not “ensure that financial assistance payments were made on behalf of confirmed enrollees and in the correct amounts.”

Great, the Justice Department may have recovered upwards of $712 million that were likely stolen over a period of years from HHS’s Medicare program and then HHS goes out and likely lost almost $3 billion, in just four months, by being totally inept when it comes to Obama Care subsidies. Even when the Federal government and the political class that operate it give us good news they still manage to overwhelm us with bad news.

There are only two solutions to this incredible criminal waste and theft of taxpayer wealth, a short term and long term solution:

- Short Term: Nine years after trying to track down criminals that are stealing from taxpayers via the Federal government and it is safe to say that hundreds of billions of dollars went unaccounted for and the recovery rate is incredibly small, less than 2%. Thus the better short term solution is to offer rewards for anyone who turns in anyone who is scamming the government. Give them a 10% reward of what ever is recovered from their tip.

Police departments have been using this tip process for decades to have the community help them apprehend street criminals. Why not use the same theory to apprehend white collar criminals who rip off taxpayers? Get the whole citizenry involved with the potential of a large financial reward, a cut of what money is recovered. Waiting nine years for the task force to put a substantial dent in the criminal activity is not working, time to try something new and creative.

- Long term: this is just another example of a government beast that is out of control and totally dysfunctional. As we have pointed out a number of times, the Federal government today is no different than Jabba The Hutt from the Star Wars stories. Jabba was a large, formless blob that fulfilled no worthwhile function but who consumed massive amounts of resources via tyranny.

Severely downsize the Federal government and have it work on far fewer efforts that might actually work rather than what they do today, work on way too many efforts that are either not needed, too expensive, are criminally infected, or plain just do not work.

Because even when the Federal government gets it right (finds the criminals involved in $712 million worth of fraud over years), it still gets it wrong (loses almost $3 billion in just four months).

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:

Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Thursday, May 12, 2016

May, 2016, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: HIllary's History of Lies, More Obama Economic Underperformance, and More

Thursday, December 10, 2015

December, 2015, Part 6, Political Insanity: More Waste In Afghanistan, Lost Federal Guns, Pelosi's Geography Fail and More

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

December, 2015, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Bomb Detecting Elephants, Social Security Ineptness, TSA Insanity and More

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

November, 2015, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Bad Priorities In Illiniois and Wasteful Sepnding In Afghanistan

Thursday, July 9, 2015

July, 2015, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Hunting Down Whistleblowers, Obama's Golf Hypocrisy, and More

Friday, June 26, 2015

Even When The Feds Get It Right They Still Get It Wrong

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