Februrary, 2016, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Immigration Follies, DHS Incompetence, 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 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.

So let’s get started with the latest insanity:

1) We often have a debate during these insanity reviews trying to figure out what is the most incompetent Federal government entity. Is it the Veterans Administration that despite Congressional and public scrutiny still does a horrid job at serving our veterans? Is it the IRS that somehow fails to collect untold hundreds of billions of dollars a year from tax evaders and pays out billions of dollars a year to criminals? Is it the Department of Homeland Security whose TSA organization failed to detect fake bombs and weapons passing through airport security 95% of the time?

The candidates for ineptness are wide but this month the award for incompetence probably goes to the the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the organization tasked with protecting us from terrorists. DHS inventory reports obtained by the news website, Complete Colorado, via a Freedom of Information Act request, found that hundreds of DHS security badges, credentials, cell phones, and guns have been lost or stolen in recent years from DHS employees. Obviously, this raises very serious security issues if these items fell into terrorists’ hands.

The reports show that between 2012 and 2015, a 31 month period, DHS employees somehow managed to lose or have stolen over 1,300 DHS badges, 165 guns, and 589 cell phones. This comes out to roughly 40 badges a month, 5 guns a month, and almost 20 cell phones a month. Tom Miller, a retired Secret Service special agent told FoxNews.com: “It’s scary that you’d have that number of credentials out there that someone could manipulate.” Miller went on to say that the badges and credentials could allow access to high security areas at airports.

The DHS did not deny that the reports were accurate when contacted by Complete Colorado but did tell FoxNews.com that they were working to improve their procedures when DHS assets are stolen. But the fact that the thefts were going on for at least 31 months does not give one a warm feeling that the DHS was on top of the problem. 

2) One does not have to be an immigration expert to know that the Obama administration has done a horrible job of securing our borders. Last summer thousands and thousands of Central and South American kids stormed our borders. Every week or so it seems like Border Patrol officers are apprehending young males from Middle Eastern countries trying to sneak into the country. The flow of drugs continues unimpeded with recent reports saying that the cartels are now using drones to transport illegal drugs literally “over the border.” The story of “rape trees” has emerged, which are trees that are used to display the undergarments of women who were sexually assaulted by human traffickers as the women tried to sneak into the country. Illegal immigrants are involved in almost daily reported violent crimes across the country, e.g. the Kate Steinle murder.

Anyone with a lick of common sense and who reads the papers or news reports knows that the border is far from secure. Which has not stopped a Texas Congresswoman from denying this reality. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee recently proclaimed that Obama had already fixed the border: “The president has spent $108 billion on border security, and we have been successful,” Jackson Lee said in a recent Homeland Security committee meeting. “Oh we’ve had our moments, but we have been successful.”

Huh? Widespread rape, drug running, human smuggling, etc. and this is viewed as a success? At a cost of $108 billion? Note: I question where she got the $108 billion estimate from but if it is correct, we certainly did not get our money’s worth. But we should not be surprised since this is the same multi-term Congresswoman who wondered out loud if a Mars rover would be driving near the spot where Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, who thought the Constitution was 400 years old, who thinks there are still two Vietnams, and who wanted Congress to formally honor Michael Jackson for being a “global humanitarian.” 

Did I mention that she is a multi-term member of Congress? Insanity.

3) Continuing on the illegal immigration line from the previous point, The Eagle Rising website recently ran a news article that described how a Texas city councilman was caught smuggling illegal immigrants into the country. Yes, an elected political official has gotten into the act of human trafficking. 

Crystal City, Texas councilman Marco Rodiguez was pulled over by a Border Patrol agent and after a brief discussion allegedly tried to run away. He was eventually taken into custody along with three illegal immigrants he had with him. In the eventual criminal complaint filed on the incident, Rodriguez admitted to being hired to transport the three illegal immigrants. 

He also reportedly told a Federal agent involved with the case that on two other occasions he had also transported illegal immigrants to San Antonio. He told authorities that he had been paid a total of $1,900 for these two previous endeavors.

To put a cherry on top of this whole sordid affair, the vehicle that Rodiguez was driving when caught was a stolen truck.

Now, the good councilman is innocent until proven guilty but it seems he has already confessed to a number of immigration crimes. Tough to respect these types of people in public office who continually act as if the laws of this country do not apply to them, from the White House to Congress to Crystal City, Texas. Does not sound like this councilman got the memo from the Congresswoman that the immigration problem has been resolved successfully.

4) Onan Coca, writing for the Eagle Rising website on January 28, 2016, reported how someone named Ali Muhammad Brown was recently given a 36 year prison sentence after being found guilty of armed robbery in New Jersey. He has also been accused of committing four murders to protest the U.S.’s foreign policy and being involved in terrorism.

What is even worse than these brutal crimes is the reality that Brown was on a Federal government terror watch list. If the government and the political class that operate it already are suspicious about a person but that person still goes on to kill four Americans, how is that government and political class going to protect us when the Obama administration allows thousands of unvetted Middle East refugees into the country? The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are already on record of saying they cannot possibly totally screen out violent refugees and this case just proves them right. 

5) Liberals and Democrats in Washington’s political class are always trying to divide and conquer America along different dimensions but their most popular, and tired tactics, involved trying to divide Americans by income level, their so-called income inequality approach. But Paul Bedard, writing for the Washington Examiner on January 25, 2016, showed the high level of hypocrisy of these politicians:

• According to research done by the Corporation for Enterprise Development, Washington D.C., the locale of these politicians harping about income inequality, has the worst ratio of income equality in the entire nation. 
• The ever growing size of the Federal government and its high priced employees, give the city the highest annual wage level in the country at $72,963, more than 40% higher than the overall national annual wage level.
• The research found that the richest 20% of people living in Washington D.C. make 7.3 times more money than the poorest 20%.
• The top 20% average $161,348 while the poorest 20% earn only $22,185.
• Adding insult to injury, D.C. has the highest unemployment rate according to the research....and you can bet it is not the highest 20% of earners that are unemployed.

And despite having the first African American President living within the district: "The situation is most dire for households of color. African-American and Latino households in D.C. are significantly more likely to live below the federal poverty line compared to white households. Even more startling, new data show that businesses owned by whites in D.C. are valued almost seven times higher than businesses owned by African-American residents."

In addition, while Washington liberals and Democrats are trying to force flawed Common Core education standards on the rest of the country, D.C. reading proficiency ranks at the bottom in the country. "The District's 8th-grade math and reading proficiency rates (19.1 percent and 18.6 percent, respectively) are the worst in the nation." said the report.

Insanely hypocritical and pathetic. Telling us how to behave when the capital of the country is setting a terrible example of income inequality, suppressing the success of minority residents, and running inept schools and education processes. 

That will do it for this month’s initial political class insanity. Hypocrisy in Washington, incompetence at the DHS, and political immigration embarrassments. 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:

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

December, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 5: Developing a Martian Menu, The St. Louis Trolley To Nowhere, Third Party Desires and More

This is our fifth post for this month’s monthly series, “Political Class Insanity.” The first post from this month can be viewed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/12/december-2013-political-class-insanity.html

We do this feature at the start of each month in order to keep tabs on the lunacy, idiocy, and wasteful spending of the American political class. We are up to five posts this month because the insanity they create with useless and stupid programs continues to grow exponentially over time, requiring more and more blog space to cover it all it each and every month.

1) The following six stupid spending programs come courtesy of government spending tracking done by the Heritage Foundation and posted on their website on February 11, 2013:

• Lost green energy equipment. A 2012 Department of Energy Inspector General audit found that the Department cannot locate $500,000 worth of green energy manufacturing equipment it purchased with stimulus money. 
• $2 million internship program. From 2010 through 2011, the Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Chief Information Officer funded a $2 million intern program intended to enhance the agency’s IT security workforce. Only one intern was hired full time. 
• Extravagant Las Vegas conference. The General Services Administration (GSA), which is responsible for managing federal buildings and helping cut government spending and costs, held a 2010 conference in Las Vegas that cost $822,751, or more than $2,500 per employee. GSA paid for $44-per-person breakfasts and commemorative coins that cost $6,325.
• Mars menu. The U.S. has not sent a man to Mars and has no immediate plan in the next few decades to do so. However, NASA spends nearly $1 million every year to create hypothetical menu options if humans one day live on Mars. In 2012, Cornell University and the University of Hawaii received $947,000 from NASA’s Advanced Food Technology Project to develop creative Mars menus. How many homeless and unemployed Americans could be fed with non-Mars food and $947,000 every year?
• Greek yogurt factory for New York. PepsiCo, a multi billion dollar company, and Theo Müller Group are joining forces to build a Greek yogurt factory in Genesee County, New York. The Departments of Agriculture and Commerce granted them $1.3 million to jump-start the project. Hey, if it such a good idea, let Pepsi pay to jump start the project.
• Trolley system in St. Louis. The Federal government is giving $35 million to St. Louis, Missouri, to construct an “old-fashioned style-trolley system.” Great, mass transit, right? No, the trolley will only cover the 2.2-mile span between the Missouri History Museum and the University City Library, duplicating nearby bus and light-rail service…at a cost of roughly $17 million per mile!

And some politicians, the President included, think that we need to pay more taxes to support the Federal government spending, spending that subsidizes big business, builds unneeded and overly expensive trolley lines, etc. No wonder we have a $17 TRILLION national debt with nothing to show in return except for theoretical Mars food menus, million dollar interns, etc. Pathetic protection of taxpayer assets.

2) The Heritage Foundation also reported on another government insult to fiscal integrity when it reported on a Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) smartphone app that uses temperature and humidity data to warn workers if it is too hot outside.

According to OSHA’s website, the “Heat Safety Tool”—available for Android, Blackberry and iPhone—“allows workers and supervisors to calculate the heat index for their work site and, based on the heat index, displays a risk level to outdoor workers.” The app also outlines protective measures that workers can take to mitigate the risks of overexposure to heat.

So much wrong with this wasteful spending:

• According to government documents found under a Freedom of Information Act request, the app cost a whopping $643,997.60 to develop. Really, over $600,000 to develop a smartphone thermometer?
• Taxpayers have no chance of ever recuperating this investment since the app is given out freely to whoever wants it.
• The same information already exists via the Weather channel app and the smartphone app of thousands of local and regional weather outlets.
• Rather than fire up the old smartphone, why not step outside and see, using common sense, and not over $600,000 of taxpayer wealth, to determine if it is too hot to work outside?
• And finally, does anyone really think that most construction and other outdoor industries are going to bother with such a silly app?

And to add insult to injury, according to the report, the app is very poorly rated by those iTunes users who downloaded it, receiving only 1.5 stars out of a possible five. Pathetic, totally unnecessary, and laughable waste of taxpayer wealth.

3) Let’s stay with wasteful government spending and do some simple math based on the latest government debt numbers from the wonderful website, Bankrupting America:

• Most educated and informed people know that the Federal government national debt is about $17 TRILLION.
• However, what people do not know is that we as a country are paying $359.8 billion a year just to service that debt.
• This means that we are spending just under a BILLION DOLLARS A DAY to pay for our ill gotten national debt.
• If spread evenly across the country, every U.S. household is paying about $3,100 a year to service that debt, wealth that cannot be used for better schools, better vacations, new cars, and other economy enhancing activities.
• This debt load comes out to about $8.60 per household per day.
• Bankrupting America estimates that the debt load will grow to an almost unfathomable $21.7 TRILLION by 2018, increasing the household debt load of every U.S. household to almost $4,000 a year.

Unbelievable numbers, especially insulting when you put this debt load next to the idiotic spending of the Washington political class on useless two mile long trolleys, useless weather apps, etc. Now, we may never reach a national debt over $20 TRILLION because the government and economy may collapse long before that level is attained, which obviously would also be bad news caused as a result of the ineptness of the Washington politicians.

4) Given the growing incompetence of the current political class, it should come as not much of a surprise that according to an October, 2013 Gallup survey, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a lousy job of governing the American people that a third major party is needed. This is the highest Gallup has measured the desire for a viable third political party in the 10-year history of this question. Additionally, a new low of only 26% believe the two major parties adequately represent Americans.

Among those that identify themselves as Independent voters, a whopping 71% want a third party to come along. 52% of Republicans and 49% of Democrats feel the same way, indicating that pretty much the majority of Americans, regardless of their political leanings, are fed up with the current clowns in office. One way around that problem and to start the process of cleaning house in Washington is via term limits, an effort that you can become a part of at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

5) And finally for today, how would you like it if a lowly government worker had easy access to your medical history? And with that access made a decision that had a major impact on your life? 

Well, that recently happened to a Canadian citizen named Ellen Richardson. Keep in mind that this incident involved a United States Customs and Border Protection agent and a Canadian citizen. 

Ms. Richardson has been denied entry into the United States by a Customs and Border Protection agent because she was hospitalizedonce for depression, in Canada in 2012. Ms. Richardson, who is paraplegic, had gone to Pearson airport in Canada to fly to New York City, where she was to embark on a Caribbean cruise. The cruise cost her $6,000 and the fee was nonrefundable.

The agent who refused Richardson entry cited the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 212, which denies entry to people who have had a physical or mental disorder that may pose a 'threat to the property, safety or welfare' of themselves or others. According to news reports, Ms. Richardson, from her wheelchair, had never been a threat to others, had never attacked others, had never made threats against others, had no criminal record, etc. However, a U.S. lowly border agent, with no apparent psychiatric background or education, who somehow had easy access to her medical records, made the call not to allow her to proceed to her vacation because she had failed at a suicide attempt a few years ago. Suicide, not homicide.

Additional facts include:

• According to news reports, in order for her to be cleared to travel into the U.S., Ms. Richardson would have to pay to be examined by one of only three doctors in her native Toronto whose assessments are accepted by U.S. Homeland Security and pass that assessment that she was not a threat.
• She has traveled to the United States on three separate previous occasions since 2001 without any hassles.
• The Star newspaper reports that Richardson, who has a master's degree in counseling, is on medication that has helped her depression and she sees a psychiatrist regularly.

The main piece of insanity here, besides the stupidity of the agent and the scary fact that this agent somehow had access to her medical records, is that the political class and inept Federal government has allowed millions of illegal immigrants to enter and settle in this country and now those same politicians want to provide them with amnesty. 

But a single woman, in a wheelchair who is just passing through the U.S., who has done so before, gets stopped and refused entry. Insanity.

I am hoping that this is the end of this month’s insanity. Five posts chock full of politicians wasting money on silly programs and projects, operating stupid government program inefficiently, hassling innocent visitors to our shores, the list goes on and on. However, I will not promise this is the end of the insanity for this month because by the time this post goes live in a few days, more insanity is likely to have cropped up.

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.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

May, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 6: More Washington Stupidity and How To Solve It

This is the final post in this month’s series of posts that cover the insanity from the American political class. This month’s series set a record for the most insanity in that it required six posts to get it all covered. At some point soon, if the current set of politicians continues on their road of lunacy we may need to rename this blog the “Political Class Insanity” blog.

Today we will look at some final acts of insanity but also set forth some changes to our political processes that are needed to get this insanity and waste out of the country. This lunacy not only wastes valuable taxpayer wealth but also strips out our liberty and freedom from our lives.

1) The Hill reported on April 29, 2013 that about a dozen Democratic Congress people are pushing an interesting, if inane, resolution. They are calling on Congress to recognize that climate change is hurting women more than men, and could even drive poor women to "transactional sex" for survival. In other words, global warming, if it exists, will result in more women turning to prostitution:

"[F]ood insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health."

Okay, even if we buy the global warming theory, where is the proof, rather than opinion, that prostitution will increase? Plus, don’t we have enough on our plates in the immediate future such as the unraveling of Obama Care, an anemic economy, high unemployment, etc. that should have the current attention of Washington?

This resolution is just that, only a statement, it does not call for funding, it does not call for concrete action, it does not call for resolution of the alleged problem , etc. it just asks for a statement of opinion. Pathetic priorities. The Titantic is sinking and these politicians are worried and spending time and resources on something that may or may not happen decades from now.

2) The Associated Press reported on April 5, 2013 that NASA is planning for a robot controlled spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore. Yes, the Obama administration, according to the article, is planning on asking for $100 million in its 2014 budget to explore this possibility, capturing a small asteroid. Dang, you cannot make this stuff up.

The robotic ship would capture the 500-ton 25-foot asteroid in 2019. Then, using a yet-to-be-developed Orion space capsule, a crew of four astronauts would park themselves next to the asteroid in 2021 and conduct spacewalking explorations.

The $100 million would be used to find the right asteroid. Lord knows how many more tens of billions of dollars will be needed to actually put together the program, training, logistics, equipment, etc. to execute the catch, capture, and explore aspects.

How would this capture work? According to the article, it would work like the space equivalent of "a baggie with a drawstring.” NASA’s ship would then attach a yet-to-be-developed solar propulsion module to the asteroid to de-spin it and then bring the asteroid to where they wanted to park it. The Senator supporting such an endeavor in the Senator, Bill Nelson of Florida, makes the rather sizeable jump in logic that doing this project, besides protecting votes in his state, would help us understand how to guide an asteroid away from a collision with earth.

Okay, let’s talk about real priorities:

- Probability that today well over 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed: 100%

- Probability that today we are fast approaching a incomprehensible national debt of $17 TRILLION: 100%

- Probability that today tens of millions of Americans are going hungry every day because of an anemic economy: 100%

- Probability that today our public schools are failing miserably to educate our kids today: 100%

- Probability that today we have a leaky border that is resulting in an immense illegal alien and drug control problem: 100%

- Probability that today Americans and Americans businesses are taxed at such a high level that taxation in this country has really morphed into repression: 100%

- Probability that the world will be destroyed in the near future by an asteroid: Barely measurable.

Yes, an asteroid could hit us in the near future. But could we take care of some more immediate problems that affect just about every American today before we throw limited resources and wealth at a problem that may never occur and which is decades and billions of dollars away from being possible.

Back to Senator Nelson. Even if this far fetched idea was possible, i.e. we could “lasso” a small asteroid and control it, how does that translate to a mega-sized asteroid that would destroy the earth and which we would have no chance to stop it in space, de-spin it, and nudge it? Makes no sense.

NASA also wants to go to Mars. We know from life experience that the more things government does, the more things get screwed up. Focus on fixing the short term earthly priorities and focus only on the Mars effort. Gives everything a much better chance of getting resolved without this space lasso trick.

3) In a CNBC report from April 30, 2013, a study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve found that of the $108 billion paid out in unemployment benefits in 2011, at least $3.3 billion was paid out dishonestly in benefits to people who are still working, no longer alive, or, get this, are behind bars. The largest share of the fraud payments,$2.2 billion, went to people who were still working.

The report also contained some other disgusting fraud results:

• Nearly 3,200 households making more than $1 million per year received unemployment benefits during the economic downturn.
• That fraud amounted to $80 million paid out by the government or enough to keep the White House tours going for over 80 years and keep the FAA air traffic controllers staffed for lord knows how long.
• Other people illegally collecting benefits include prisoners such as inmates in Philadelphia's prison system fraudulently who collected $7 million in unemployment benefits while behind bars in 2011.
• Benefits are also continued going out to people who have died but have not been purged from the government rolls.

This is what the St. Louis Federal Reserve was able to identify as fraud. It is unknown how much more fraud goes on that is not identified by their efforts simply because criminals may be better at hiding their fraud than government employees are in identifying the fraud.

Oh, and please do not tell me that on a percentage basis this is good government. $3.3 billion or more is a lot of money and the government has been doing this function for decades. They should know how to do it much better by now.

4) Let’s finish up this month’s political class insanity with the most disgusting affront to the American taxpayer that has come along in a long time. The Boston Herald has reported that the Tsarnaev brothers, the Islamic terrorists who are suspected of executing the horrific marathon bombings and the murder of a local policeman, have received from more than $100,000 in taxpayer welfare funding:

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

"The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning," said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

How much more disgraceful can this political class become and how much more dysfunctional can the government it operates become? Terrorists blow us up, killing and maiming untold numbers of innocent Americans and many of those maimed and killed Americans had their taxes go to funding the terrorists’ life styles? Words escape me on this grand level of incompetence.

Okay, let’s stop talking about political class insanity and start talking about how we fix the situation. We have moved way beyond the point where can assume that these people will ever have the initiative, intelligence, and wherewithal to fix what ails our government processes, operations, and the major issues of our times.

Thus, we are going to have to do this ourselves, starting with at least the following steps from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government:”

1. Step 39 would impose term limits on every Washington politicians, one and done. They have forfeited their right to be in office any longer, we need a fresh set of people, ideas, and integrity to start fixing what is wrong.
2. Step 44 would not allow any Federal taxpayer money to be used on any government program or project unless it significantly affected the citizens of at least five states. This simple rule would greatly reduce wasteful spending since stupid expenses like developing a prom week simulator video game, studying the sexual behavior of New Zealand snails, and other such nonsense would ever be underwritten by the American taxpayer.
3. Step 6 would not allow any business, PAC, union, or lobbyist group to contribute to any political campaign. When the founding fathers put freedom of speech into the Constitution I am quite sure they were worried about freedom of speech of individual citizens, not large organizations. Thus, this step would allow only individual citizens directly contribute to a politician’s election campaign.
4. Step 7 would not allow anyone to contribute to a political campaign who was not directly affected by that campaign’s results. For example, a citizen in Kansas, no matter how rich, could not contribute to a Congressional campaign in a New Jersey district.
5. Not directly included in the book but totally necessary is a full court press to get the criminal fraud and waste out of our social safety net programs. Many times we have reported on how the Federal government loses well over $200 billion a year in its Social Security, Medicare food aid, and other welfare-like programs to fraud and waste.
6. We also need to overhaul the IRS so that it protects the rights and privacy of citizens but finally gets around to collecting the over $380 billion a year that it fails to collect from tax evaders every year.

We are a great country served by a horribly underperforming political class. Unless we start executing these steps as soon as possible, the insanity coming out of Washington will eventually overwhelm the great promise of this country. Einstein forecasted this would happen long ago:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Seems like he had our current political class in mind when this gem was spoken.

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.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

January, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 3: Food For Mars, Democrats Evading Taxes, Cartel Corruption Reaches Texas, Buying Ambassadorships

Okay, I thought we could get way with only two posts this month to review the insanity and idiocy we were forced to absorb from our political class last month. However, since I finished the first two posts, more insanity arose, requiring this third, and hopefully, final post for this month’s craziness.

1) Senator Rand Paul and other members of Congress held a news conference in the middle of December where they vowed not to raise taxes on any American, given the incredibly wasteful spending of the Federal government. They cited many examples of massive and trivial spending including this gem: the Federal government spent thousands of dollars to send Federal employees to Hawaii to brainstorm on what types of food future astronauts would eat while on Mars.

It was unclear why 1) these employees had to be sent away (especially to far off Hawaii) from their offices to think about this silly subject and 2) more importantly, why they needed to think about something as inane as this for an event that is highly likely to never happen or, best case, will happen many decades in the future. It is no wonder why we have a $16.3 TRILLION national debt.

2) An investigative report in the Washington Times in the second week of December found that a West Virginia millionaire Congressman from West Virginia owed back property taxes on his $900,000 Washington, D.C. house.

Apparently, Democratic Congressman Nick Rahall had spent years claiming a homestead exemption on his D.C. home AND another homestead exemption on his other home back in West Virginia. This is a no-no, no one, by law and Congressional rules, including a Congressman, is allowed to claim more than one homestead exemption. The article reports that while he has paid the back taxes owed, he still owes the penalties and fines he incurred.

This insult to taxpayers should not be confused with what happened to Congressman Fortney H. “Pete” Stark (D.-Calif.) in 2009. He was investigated by the House Ethics Committee for his taking a homestead abatement on his $2 million Maryland home, where he lives with his family, while claiming as his residence a home in his district, lived in and owned by his wife’s parents.

The investigation cleared Stark after it determined that his taking the Maryland tax break because it was credited to him, but he had never requested it. While he never asked for the exemption, it does not appear that he refused when it was given to him.

This is not to be confused with Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, a former California Democratic Congresswoman. She had her February 2009 Congressional confirmation hearings delayed until her husband paid his back taxes on his auto repair business.

This is not to be confused with U.S. Democratic Senator Sherrod C. Brown was in arrears to the Washington D.C. city government for the taxes on his $222,000 Capitol Hill condominium. This charge of not paying taxes was used against Brown by his 2012 Republican opponent Ohio Joshua A. Mandel, a charge that was validated as true by the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s “Truth-O-Meter” column.

Now you begin to see why Democrats in Washington want to raise taxes. Many of them never get around to paying their “fair share” so raising taxes is not a reality in their lives.

3) We usually combine illegal drug-related news and insanity into periodic posts dedicated to our lost war on drugs. However, this news item was worthy of being included in this month’s insanity. According to a December 14, 2012 Associated Press article, four law enforcement officers in Texas were arrested and charged with taking bribes worth thousands of dollars to protect shipments of cocaine through their law enforcement areas.

We have predicted this type of behavior many times before. Our idiotic lost war on drugs has enriched the Mexican drug cartels and corrupted much of the Mexican government structure, from judges down to local police. This corruption has now jumped the border, if these charges should prove to be true.

4) Speaking of bribes, a Business Week article educated me on how many of our most important ambassadorships are assigned. Ambassadorships are very important posts since they are our official Federal government liaison to other governments and other countries.

Thus, one would think that these important State Department posts are staffed and managed by some of the brightest people in the State Department, people with a long history of international and government affairs. You could think that and you would be wrong.

According to an article in the December 17, 2012 issue of Business Week, some of the most important and most visible ambassador posts are given to political allies who raised the most money for the politicians currently in power. Case in point: President Obama is considering naming Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour to be the next U.S. ambassador to England.

What is the number one reason for this potential appointment? Ms. Wintour raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s Presidential run and inspired the “Runway To Win," a fashion line that brought upwards of $40 million to his campaign. Yes, the editor of a fashion magazine is in line to become one of the most important ambassadors in the world. Ludicrous.

Wintour’s competition for the London post is Obama’s national election finance chairman, Matthew Barzun. The article states that Wintour may also be in line for the French ambassadorship but would have to beat out Marc Lasry who raised over $200,000 for Obama’s campaign.

Money talks regardless of who is in power in the White House and Congress, almost always to the detriment of well run, efficient, and effective government operations.

By the way, whoever does become the next ambassador to England will live on a 12 acre estate called Winfield House, a building with dozens and dozens of rooms with private gardens that “are exceeded only by those of Buckingham Palace.” Now, aren’t you sorry you did not raise a lot of money for the campaign?

Three days of insanity: wasteful government spending, tax evading Democrats, armored cars for pumpkin festivals, and more. And just think, in just thirty days we will have to do this all again, with the latest idiocy from our political class.

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