November, 2017, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: A Tome Deaf Congresswoman, Foreign Troops Wandering Our Cities, and Constitutional Ignorance

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Note: we realize that November, 2017 has not started yet but trust me, we have so much political class insanity to get to this month that we are going to start a few days early in order to get it all in:

1) As most of the world knows, Harvey Weinstein, a major Hollywood film producer, has been found out to be a potential sexual predator on young actresses. His alleged perverted behavior was sexist to the ultimate degree. In these days of supposed enlightenment, one would not have expected the following inane behavior from an African American Congresswoman, according to a recent article on the Independent Journal Review website by Virginia Kruta:

• Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnston, a Texas Congresswoman, recently condemned the alleged behavior of Harvey Weinstein.
• But she could not keep from making a fool of herself when she continued on to suggest that women bear a certain “responsibility” when it comes to sexual harassment.
• Adding on to her stupidity, she said that some women’s clothing can be “inviting.”
• In her own words: “I grew up in a time when it was as much the woman’s responsibility as it was a man’s – how you were dressed, what your behavior was. I’m from the old school that you can have behaviors that appear inviting. It can be interpreted as such. That’s the responsibility, I think, of the female.”

How insensitive are these comments from a woman and a member of Congress? Pathetic. But even worse, can you imagine the uproar that would have happened if a white Congressman had said the same thing? There would have been a deluge of condemnation. But since a liberal said it, no big deal from other liberals.

That is the main reason for why our country is so divided, politicians are only upset when their political opponents say something insensitive and stupid.

The Congresswoman offered a half ass apology after she got roasted on social media: “Sexual assault and harassment has no place in our society. This is something I believe deeply. And at each turn of my professional life, I have made it my mission to fight for women’s rights. I do not blame victims of sexual assault for the actions of their assailants.

I do acknowledge that my comments regarding behavior and attire come from an old school perspective that has shaped how some of us understand the issue, but that does not detract from the fact that criminals need to be held accountable for their actions.”

As always with politicians, too little too late.

2) John Sopko has been the Inspector General for Afghanistan for years. We have reported on his fine work many times in past posts. He often was a lone voice in the woods in pointing out the massive corruption, ineptness, and wasting of billions of taxpayer dollars during the entire Afghanistan occupation. 

Unfortunately, he recently brought more bad news to Americans:

• Apparently 152 foreign soldiers from Afghanistan, training in the U.S., have walked away from their bases and have disappeared into the country.They were brought here outside of normal immigration processes to train next to American soldiers and were to bring that training back to their home country.
• So now we have trained military personnel wandering around the countryside and the Federal government has no idea where they are.
• These wandering foreign troops started leaving American military bases in 2005, the majority of them walking off of the Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas and the majority of them disappearing between 2015 and 2016.
• According to the report: “It is clear that Afghan trainees go AWOL while in the United States at a far higher rate than do trainees from any other country, and we believe that the State Department (as well as other government agencies) should use all the tools at their disposal to reduce these occurrences and ensure that Afghan trainees return to Afghanistan and make use of the substantial U.S. taxpayer investment in training.”

While there is no evidence that these walkaways have or will be involved in terrorism within our borders, it is quite distressing that trained foreign military troops are wandering around our towns and cities. And it is not so far fetched to think that their families back home in Afghanistan might be held hostage in exchange for committing acts of terrorism here. Insane incompetence of both the Obama administration and the Pentagon.

3) Many times people in Washington say something that is just so stupid or so devious that you cannot believe your ears. One such case if either extreme stupidity or massive deception recently arose, according to a report from Melissa Quinn, writing for the Washington Examiner on October 26, 2017:

• Tom Perez is the head of the Democratic National Committee, making him a very powerful person in our national politics.
• Thus, you would expect him to be very well versed in our laws including the Constitution.
• He was recently a speaker at the Indiana University Law School’s Annual Birch Bayh Lecture series where he made the following totally inane comment: "The Electoral College is not a creation of the Constitution. It doesn't have to be there. There's a national popular vote compact in which a number of states have passed a bill that says we will allocate our vote, our electoral votes, to the person who wins the national popular vote once other states totaling 270 electoral votes do the same."
• Obviously, Mr. Perez did not read the Constitution or somehow does not understand it since Article II of the Constitution states: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”

Is he that ignorant of the Constitution, in which case why is he in such an important position? Or is he being that deceptive and is still ticked off that Hillary won the most popular votes for President in 2016 but lost the Presidency because of Article II. Ignorant or deceptive, not untypical but still undesirable qualities to have in our political arena.

Enough insanity for today: a leading political figure who is so ignorant or dismissive of the Constitution, foreign troops walking around the country’s streets and cities, and a tone deaf Congresswoman when it comes to sexual harassment. More insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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

May, 2016, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Taxpayer Waste In Afghanistan and Idiocy In MInnesota

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Today and for all of the insanity posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy."

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) The military and foreign affairs operation in Afghanistan has been a disaster of epic proportions. Current news reports show that the Taliban now control more of the control than any time since they were beaten back during the Bush administration. Thus, militarily we have probably spent hundreds of billions of dollars, the majority of which was spent during the Obama administration, and are facing a military disaster.

And operationally, it has also been a disaster. We have often reported in this blog how the inspector general for Afghanistan has constantly reported on massive waste and fraud involving taxpayer money in Afghanistan. Billions and billions of dollars have disappeared, equipment has disappeared, multi million dollar facilities have been built but never used, the corruption and criminal fraud has been disgusting.

And apparently it continues today despite the best efforts of the inspector general to stop it:

• According to John Sopko, the inspector general for Afghanistan, the American taxpayer has helped to pay the salary for the soldiers and police officers in the Afghan army and police corps. 
• But in a recent interview with Sharyl Attkinson of Full Measure, many of those “positions” in the army and police do not exist, they are so-called ghosts that draw a salary, paid for by Americans, but whose money ends up somewhere else, paying for nothing that contributes to the success of the Afghanistan operation. 
• “We’ve been raising this concern about ghosts going back a number of years,” stated Sopko. “Actually I want to say we heard about it from (Afghan President) Ashraf Ghani years ago, before he became president, he warned me about ‘ghosts,’ so we started looking three years ago.” 
• “What we’re talking about are policemen, Afghan policemen, Afghan military, Afghan civil servants who don’t exist or they have multiple identity cards and we’re paying their salaries,” he explained. “By ‘we’ I mean the United States and the international community. And we started finding out that we had no capacity to measure the number of soldiers, teachers, doctors, military people who we are paying their salaries.” 
• In a separate Fox News report late last year, that report estimated that the ghosts fraud could be as high as $300 million annually. 
• According to Sopko, the higher ranked officers in the Afghan army and police corps are just pocketing the ghosts’ salaries: “Major fraud. And what’s happening is the commanders or generals or other higher officials are actually pocketing the salaries of the ghosts.” 
• Sopko went on: “And I remember President Ghani again, at that time he wasn’t president, saying, ‘John, you the United States government are paying the salary of an Afghan who’s a teacher, he’s a civil servant, he’s a doctor, he is a policeman, and he’s a soldier. And it’s the same Afghan. And he doesn’t exist.’” 
• But the defrauding of the American taxpayer does not only occur with police and army personnel: “It’s not just the salaries. But we’re funding schools based upon the number of students, so if you invent or inflate the number of students, you’re going to be paying more money. On the soldiers and the police, we’re paying for extra boots, for food, for everything else, logistics for numbers that don’t exist.” 
• The article contends that the Trump administration is finally doing what the Obama administration did not do and fix the problem by implementing so-called “proof of life” before paying out taxpayer funded salaries. 

And while it is good that Trump is getting after the problem, why should such a problem exist anyway? We have been mired in Afghanistan for about 16 years, one would have hoped that by now that correct counting and accounting procedures would be put in place to fix such expensive nonsense. But apparently not, not with $300 million a year being spent on ghosts and air.

Imagine how many hungry Americans could be fed for $300 million dollars year. Imagine how many drug addicts could be treated for $300 million a year Imagine how more teachers could be hired for $300 million a year. Pitiful, disgusting, and insane.




2) Sometimes you wonder where common sense hides when it comes to politicians. In Minnesota recently, a common sense law was voted on which would allow life insurance companies to deny death insurance benefits if the deceased killed themselves in a terrorist attack on Americans. Makes sense, if you intentionally kill yourself while killing others for a terroristic reason, life insurance companies should not have to pay for your idiocy and martyrdom. If you commit suicide, I believe life insurance companies do not have to pay out so it seems reasonable that if you kill yourself say in a suicide bombing attack, life insurance companies definitely should not have to pay out death benefits.But apparently that sanity is lost on a Muslim state politician in Minnesota who actually voted against this proposed law in that state. According to Leo Hohmann writing for the WND website:

• Illhab Omar was a community organizer who came to this country from Somalia as a refugee. 
• She is now an elected member of the Minnesota state legislature. 
• She was two out of 129 legislators who voted “against a bill that would allow life insurance companies to deny payouts to the beneficiaries of terrorists who die in violent attacks on Americans.” 
• This legislation was introduced in Minnesota in reaction to the terror attack in San Bernardino, California in which 14 Americans died and 22 others were injured. 
• The terrorists in that attack, a husband and wife terror team, made sure that their life insurance policies were valid before they carried out their terror attack, likely to insure their daughter was properly cared for after they were likely to die for their actions. 

Again, common sense out the window when talking about some politician's actions and idiotic reasoning.That will do it for today's insanity. Wasting billions in Afghanistan...still and lack of common sense and decency in the Minnesota legislature.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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

December, 2016, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Wasteful Spending In Afghanistan and the Pentagon, Pelosi Goes Racist, and The Economic Recovery That Isn't

It has been almost a month since Donald Trump has been elected which means at some point in the future we may run out of material to talk about. With the demise of the Obama administration, eight years worth of wasteful and excessive spending for nothing in return, foreign affairs blunders, Obama Care disasters, and assorted other administration and government blunders and screwups might end with the onset of a new administration. Trump may usher in a new paradigm of government actions that are limited, effective, cost efficient, and protective of the Constitution. If so, then this blog would run out of material to discuss and would have to be shut down.

But I doubt it. Even if Trump is truly a different type of President, he is still fighting over 500 embedded and entrenched politicians in Congress and thousands and thousands of government bureaucrats who will not go peacefully into the night for the good of the country. I wish him well and hopefully he can fix at least some of the myriad of problems the American political class creates everyday but until then, enjoy the latest political class insanity from Washington and beyond:

1) We have often discussed the reality that the Pentagon’s financial systems and processes are so screwed up that even trained, professional auditors have thrown up their hands after trying, and failing, to understand and straighten out the Pentagon’s financial situation. So far, no one has been able to tame the out of control spending of the Pentagon, likely making it easy for fraud and criminal activity to ravage taxpayer wealth earmarked for our national defense.

And according to the Washington Post, things have not changed much:

• The Pentagon had tied to hide an internal study that identified a whopping $125 billion in “administrative waste” in its business functions and operations. 
• They tried to hide the findings in order to not give Congress an excuse to clean up its act or cut its budget. 
• The original study was supposed to identify ways to be more administratively efficient in order to funnel those efficiency savings back into combat operations but the findings were so bad that the decision was made to try and hide the findings. 
• This waste comes out to roughly about $1,050 for every American household. 

Seems some things never change or Congress and the President have no desire or ability to save taxpayers money.

2) One never knows what nonsense is going to come out Nancy Pelosi’s mouth. After Trump announced that he wants to have Dr. Ben Carson head up the Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency, Pelosi went off on the choice: “Dr. Ben Carson is a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice to lead a department as complex and consequential as Housing and Urban Development. Our country deserves a HUD Secretary with the relevant experience to protect the rights of homeowners and renters, particularly in low income and minority communities, and to ensure that everyone in our country can have access to safe and affordable housing without facing discrimination or homelessness. There is no evidence that Dr. Carson brings the necessary credentials to hold a position with such immense responsibilities and impact on families and communities across America.”

A few realities Ms. Pelosi:

• Dr. Carson is an African-American so I would think that he would be sensitive to minority communities. 
• Dr. Carson actually grew up poor and living in public housing so he knows firsthand what is is like to live in a HUD facility, an experience that I bet no other HUD head ever had. 
• Dr. Carson is a former brain surgeon, I bet he is smart enough to work through issues and problems, smarter than most people serving in Congress and that his work ethic is high above most of the rest of the world. You do not become a renowned brain surgeon by sliding by. 

Imagine how Democrats would have reacted if Obama had nominated Dr. Carson for the same position, the cries of racism would have been rampant, such hypocrisy.

In fact, if Pelosi really believes this trash, let me take her words and twist them slightly to that she can see how stupid and racist she sounds: “Former community organizer and short term Senator Barack Obama is a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice for President of the United States. Our country deserves a President with the relevant experience to protect the rights of all Americans and to ensure that everyone in our country can have access to safe and free lives. There is no evidence that Senator Obama brings the necessary credentials to hold a position with such immense responsibilities and impact on families and communities across America.”

Of course, I bet Pelosi would find this Obama statement as racist but her Carson statement as not racist. Insanity.

3) Perry Chiaramonte, writing for Fox News on November 17, 2016, provided another disgusting example of wasteful Pentagon spending:

• Back in December, 2006, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a U.S. government financial institution, approved a plan to build a 209 room, five star hotel and apartment complex next to the U.S. embassy in the capital of Afghanistan. 
• This was supposed to be a cornerstone of the country’s post war reconstruction program. 
• Ten years later, millions and millions of dollars later, the only thing to show for the effort is a “ghost hotel.” 
• According to the Office of the Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), $85 million in taxpayer wealth has been lost because of “troubling management practices and lax oversight.” 
• And expenses for the doomed project continue to go on to pay for security for the failed effort since it is right across the street from the U.S. embassy. 
• "The Marriott Hotel Kabul is emblematic of our reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan,” Special Inspector General John Sopko told FoxNews.com. “Great ideas, tons of money, poor execution and no oversight create incredible opportunities for fraud." 
• Although tens of millions of dollars were wasted during the Bush administration, additional tens of millions of dollars continued to be wasted deep into the Obama administration. 
• According to SIGAR inspector,the $85 million got U.S. taxpayers a building with major cracks in the roof, damaged fireproofing, demolished walls, uninstalled doors and windows, and incomplete water and electrical systems. 
• In addition, “The SIGAR inspectors accused OPIC of not doing enough to monitor the construction on-site and taking the builder’s status reports at face value. OPIC accepted either invoices or receipts as proof to demonstrate how the loan proceeds had been spent,” they wrote. “However, without on-site verification of activities and progress, neither the invoices nor receipts required by OPIC provided sufficient evidence to support purported purchases.” 

Despite this disaster, want to bet that no one has or will be held accountable for wasting $85 million in taxpayer wealth?

4) While Obama likes to brag that he singlehandedly saved the U.S. economy, we have often pointed out the following realities of his “salvation:”

• The labor participation rate is at 40 year lows despite six years of the Obama recovery. 
• The average/median household income and wage levels have remained stagnant for most of the Obama recovery. 
• Millions of Americans cannot find a full time job, settling for part time employment, despite the Obama recovery. 
• A record 94 million American adults are NOT in the labor force despite the Obama recovery. 
• More than everAmericans over the age of 65 are still in the workforce, likely because they need the money despite the Obama recovery. 
• More Americans under the age of 30 are still living with their parents because they cannot find good enough jobs to live on their despite the Obama recovery. 
• The country’s annual GDP levels have never attained even the historical level of growth despite the Obama recovery. 

Stewart Lawrence, writing for the Daily Caller website on December 6, 2016, filled in some of the latest details of the lousy Obama recovery:

• The U-6 unemployment rate is a more accurate measure of unemployment in today’s economy, not the U-3 unemployment rate that Obama likes to tout because so many American adults have dropped out of the workforce because they became too discouraged to look for a job. 
• The better U-6 measure currently stands at around 9.3% about double the U-3 rate, a spread that is at historical highs, not unexpected given that the labor participation rate is at such a low level. 
• There are a whopping 6 million Americans working part time who desire full time work but cannot find it, the highest level in 30 years. 
• According to Mr.Lawrence: “Many economists have begun referring to a “new normal” in the US labor market — a permanently high number of under-employed part-timers.” 
• Since most part time workers earn less than full time workers, it is no surprise that wage and income levels have remained stagnant for most of the Obama recovery. 
• The labor participation rate has continued to decline steeply throughout the entire Obama recovery, to steep to be explained away by Baby Boomer retiring from the workforce, especially since a record number of Americans over the age of 65 have decided to stay in the workforce. 
• The Federal Reserve predicts that the labor participation rate will continue to decline if nothing changes in Washington, getting down to a depressing 61% by 2022. 
• And whatever jobs the Obama recovery created have usually been lower wage jobs with the economy seeing a net loss of one million higher paying jobs through 2014 in market segments such as accounting and legal, but seeing a net gain of two million jobs in low paying market segments such as fast food locations, another factor in stagnant wages and income. 

Over taxation, over regulation, over optimism and delusions by this Presidency.

That will do it for today’s insanity: an economic recovery that isn’t, wasteful Afghan and Pentagon spending that is, and the nsanity of Pelosi continues. 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:


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

December, 2014, Part 6 Political Class Insanity:Presidential Lies, More Afghanistan Waste, Fixing Africa But Not America and More

It’s the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from America’s politicians. Whether it is wasteful spending, inane quotes, faulty government operations, or insulting the American public, there is always new material spewing forth from these people, usually enough to fill up half a dozen or so posts every month. Given what we know today, this month should be no different as the insanity seems to be expanding exponentially from those in office today.

This is our sixth installment this month and we are nowhere near the end of the latest insanity from our politicians. A lot of what you will see today and in the following days comes from events that happened this past summer. It is only now that we have been able to get through the recent insanity that we can now review older, but still crazy, political class insanity.

1) Kelly Cohen, writing for the Washington Examiner on June 12, 2014, reported that the Pentagon had spent $3 million on a fleet of eight boats that were to be sent to fight in Afghanistan. Unfortunately for the taxpayer and our fighting forces who may have needed the boats, they are still stuck stateside in a U.S. Navy warehouse in Yorktown, Virginia.

The boats, which cost $375,000 each, were supposed to be used by the Afghan National Police to patrol a river along the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan border. The Defense Department purchased them in October 2010 and were slated for arrival in Afghanistan the following June. However, the order and subsequent delivery of the boats were cancelled just nine months later and the boats were sent straight to the warehouse in Yorktown. 

John Sopko, the designated special Inspector General for all U.S. Afghanistan operations, uncovered this disgrace and has demanded answers on why and how the order was cancelled, how much it is now costing taxpayers to pay for storage of the boats, and what would become of the boats’ usage and fate. His initial request for information was not met and he has since asked again for answers: "The list of unanswered questions is particularly troubling given the fact [...] that this program had been an important national security priority for the Afghan National Security Forces prior to its cancellation." 

More out of control and useless and wasteful spending by an out of control Defense Department. As readers of this blog know, Mr. Sopko has been a very busy man over the years, uncovering billions of dollars worth of wasteful spending by the Federal government in Afghanistan. His good work also includes a May, 2014 analysis that showed an $11 million Afghan prison, completely funded by U.S. tax dollars, is already falling apart and virtually useless.

2) This next piece of insanity is really, truly depressing and also comes to us compliments of the investigative audit work of Pentagon auditors. According to their analysis and calculations, adjusted for inflation, total American taxpayer aid to Afghanistan now exceeds the cost of the Marshall plan that was implemented after World War II to rebuild Europe

The Marshall Plan is almost universally regarded as a total success. After six years of war had ravaged Europe, the Marshall Plan and the billions of dollars spent helped get the entire continent back on its feet and on the path to democracy, thwarting the intentions of the Communists and other potential dictators in the process. However, according to a report Mr. Sopko recently submitted to Congress, Afghanistan is high unlikely to meet the same happy fate that Europe met, despite spending more real money than what was spent in Europe.

Sopko wrote that:

• Afghanistan is still mired in political, corruption, and financial crises more after more than a decade of foreign aid support.
• Afghanistan will likely remain dependent on foreign donors, primarily the United States, for years to come.
• U.S. spending on a whole slew of Afghan projects and programs over the last dozen years is now over $104 billion, more than the inflation adjusted $103.4 billion value of Marshall Plan expenditures.
• “SIGAR [Sopko’s inspector general office] calculates that by the end of 2014, the United States will have committed more funds to reconstruct Afghanistan, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it spent on 16 European countries after World War II under the Marshall Plan.” 

This really puts it into perspective. Successfully saving sixteen countries fates via the Marshall plan cost less than failing to save a single country, Afghanistan, from failure. I do not think anyone can argue that today’s political class and Federal government are so much more less competent than previous versions of each. 

In fact, I still assert we are living through the reign of the worst set of Washington politicians in the history of the country. This is just another historical example that strengthens my argument.

3) Kelsey Harris, writing for the Heritage Foundation on July 3, 2014, pointed out that the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a bureaucratic monster created by the useless Dodd-Frank financial industry reform legislation, is renovating its Washington, D.C., headquarters, a building that it only rents, at a cost per square foot that is more expensive than Trump World Tower in New York City.

The CFPB renovations will likely cost taxpayers more than $215 million, causing members of the House Financial Services Committee to question agency officials about its rising price tag. Cost projections have increased an amazing $65 million in just the past six months and $120 million since last year’s estimate.

But one should not be surprised by another government project cost overrun, given what the government employees are treating themselves to:

• There will be a four-story glass staircase.
• There will be a two-story inside waterfall.
• Somewhere in the facility will be a sunken garden.

Somewhere in America, millions of Americans are homeless and hungry, millions need drug addiction treatment, millions need new job training skills, and millions of veterans are not getting the medical help they need and have been promised. But Washington bureaucrats will be able to go to their high paying jobs and use a glass staircase, gaze at a two story waterfall, or lounge in a sunken garden at the taxpayers’ expense.

Those that are running this cost overrun operation and the politicians that let them get away with such waste and bad priorities should be ashamed of themselves. But it seems like shame is not possible with those in the political class in Washington.

4) Most experts and people would agree that the U.S. needs some major infrastructure improvements to its roads, bridges, electrical grids, etc. And back in August, President Obama announced that he wanted to invest $7 billion in infrastructure projects….in Africa.

Yes, while America’s roads crumble and our electrical grid creaks, the President announced $7 billion of U.S. taxpayer money would be used to invest in African energy and electricity grid infrastructure. This is part of the Power Africa program the Obama administration announced in June 2013, which originally aimed to provide 10,000 megawatts of electricity for 20 million homes and businesses in six sub-Saharan African countries. 

So when you car hits its next pot hole, when another bridge collapses in the country, when the local power grid goes out because of its age, smile knowing that many Africans have modern energy capabilities and infrastructure due to your tax dollars, courtesy of President Obama.

5) One last piece of insanity from the President to wrap up today’s episode. His path of lies, deceptions, and/or ignorance is long and sad:

• ŸHe said he would close down the terrorist prison at Guantanamo but he didn’t. 
• He said he would cut the national annual government deficit in half but he ended up tripling it for a number of years.
• He said he would go through the Federal government budget line by line to weed out wasteful spending but he didn’t.
• He said his health care reforms would reduce the average household’s annual insurance premiums by $2,500 but premiums actually went up, not down.
• He said the Obama Care data systems experiences would be wonderful but they were not.
• He said that if you liked your current doctor, hospital, insurance plan, etc. you could keep it but he was wrong.
• He said the Benghazi terror attack was caused by a video when he knew it wasn’t.

We could go on but you get the idea. This is probably the most dishonest and least transparent Presidential administration and President in the history of the country.

And we recently came across another deception, as witnessed by the following link:

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/08/166764-obama-vacations-flashback-2008/

The link contains a video of then Senator Barack Obama discussing the perceived reality that a President should be prepared to give up having any kind of personal life and once elected to that office, that President should “give their life to it.”: “The bargain that any President strikes with us, you give me this office and in turn my, fears, doubts, insecurities, foibles, need for sleep, family life, vacations, leisure is gone. I am giving myself to you.”

Given that the President has embarked on well over four hundred political campaign fund raising events during his Presidency, more than any other President, given that the President has played well over two hundred rounds of golf during his Presidency, given that the President has taken many extended vacations to Hawaii, Ireland, Africa, Martha’s Vineyard, and other exotic places, it does not seem that he has given “his life to the job” or foregone leisure as he promised. Resulting in just another big political sham and we are insane to have believed him, given his now proven track record of deception.

The bad news is that today we have had to wade through another depressing set of political class shenanigans and insanity. The good news is, at least for this month, we are nearing the end of this review, hopefully wrapping up the latest 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

November, 2014 Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Scrapping Unused Military Equipment, Obama's Credit Card Bounces, John Kerry's Plane Falters, and More

It is the start of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity that has been dumped on us by the worst set of politicians to ever hold office in the history of this country. From wasteful spending to bad priorities to general ineffectiveness, the insanity rolling out of Washington and other political centers and governments around the country seems to be accelerating as the idiocy of our political times increases.

Last month we set a record by needing almost two full weeks of posts to get all of the insanity documented and discussed. Given what I see today, we will be hard pressed not to get close to or exceed that record of insanity this month. It keeps getting worse and worse and the effectiveness of the political class gets less and less.

This is our fifth post in this month’s series so the insanity continues to flow out of the political class and into our lives, our wallets, and our freedoms. The first post in this month’s series can be seen at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/11/november-2014-part-1-political-class.html

1) Our post popular post in this blog concerned the disgraceful and wasteful spending on two brand new Navy ships that were built almost to completion at a cost of $300 million. However, before they were used they were scrapped at an additional cost of $10 million because someone in the U.S. Navy decided those brand new, taxpayer funded ships were no longer needed. That post can be found at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/07/us-navy-ships-for-sale-cheap-never-used.html

Well, it seems the Pentagon still cannot figure out a way to spend our money efficiently and effectively. According to the Afghanistan Inspector General, sixteen transport planes were purchased for use by the Afghan Air Force at a cost of almost $500 million. However, if barely being used they were than scrapped to return a scrap metal value of on $32,000.

The Inspector General, John Sopko, uncovered the disgrace involving these military transport planes which had been sitting at the Kabul airport for a number of years. Apparently there are another four such planes sitting in German that he also wants to know the status of. He asked the following, totally logical question of those in charge at the Pentagon relative to the planes: “I am concerned that the officials responsible for planning and executing the scrapping of the planes may not have considered other possible alternatives in order to salvage taxpayer dollars.” 

Great question. Is the Pentagon telling us that nowhere in the world someone would not be willing to pay more than $32,000 for sixteen non-fighting, nonproprietary transport planes? Just like the Navy ships, there must have been someone, somewhere that would have paid more than $2,000 for each plane, the average value they created by being scrapped.

According to information provided by the website, www.threepercentnation.com, the following math shows how wasteful this program was:

$500,000,000 - Original value of the planes
– $512,000 - Total cost received from scrapping = $32,000 x 16
——————-
$499,488,000 - Total in lost taxpayer dollars

As we keep mentioning, how many Americans with drug addiction problems could have been treated with that wealth? How many homeless and hungry Americans could have been taken care of with that wealth? Bad, bad priorities.

More details of the waste can be found at:

http://threepercenternation.com/2014/10/govt-waste-us-planes-worth-500mn-sold-for-scrap-in-afghanistan-for-only-32000/

2) By just about any measurement possible, this administration has added more debt to the country’s national debt load than any previous administrations. The Obama administration ran TRILLION dollar annual deficits for the first four years of its existence and subsequent deficits have not been much better.

At some point in time, investors are going to stop buying U.S. government bonds and financing these deficits because the Federal government has over extended itself with so much debt. At that point the Federal government will either have to dramatically raise taxes on U.S. citizens, dramatically cut government spending, or default on its current debt. Much like a household, at some point in time, credit dries up and default happens.

In fact, this has already symbolically happened to the one person most responsible for the massive build up of debt in the past six years, Barack Obama. According to news reports, Obama had his credit card denied in September when he took time out from U.N. General Assembly meetings to grab a bite to eat at a NYC restaurant. 

The irony of the President most responsible for the possible bankruptcy of the country has already had his credit card denied, how long before the rest of the country follows?

3) We pay the Federal government a whopping $3 TRILLION a year in taxes. This comes out to about $25,000 for each U.S. household on average. Is it too much to make sure that the Secretary of State, John Kerry, has a working airplane to carry out U.S. diplomacy around the world?

According to a recent news report from Reuters, Kerry’s plane has now broken down four times just this year during his worldwide jaunts. Most recently Kerry ended up taking a commercial flight out of Vienna where he was in negotiations relative to the Iranian nuclear program.

Look, I do not want to pay any more in taxes than I do, the Federal government wastes so much of our tax money now. But how bad does it look when the most powerful country in the world cannot even get its top diplomat a decent plane to do his job? Maybe he should have hooked up with the Afghanistan Inspector General, maybe one of those junked transport planes could have done the job better than what he flies in now.

Just another symbolic view of how broken and dysfunctional the Federal government has become. They cannot even get a working plane together much like they cannot get a working government agency or entity to work efficiently or effectively.

4) The Associated Press recently ran article where it highlighted how the United States promised $212 million in immediate assistance to Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. As most informed people know, the Gaza Strip was the focal point of the recent warfare between Israel and the ruling terrorist organization in Gaza, Hamas. 

According to our Secretary of State, John Kerry, people in Gaza “need our help desperately — not tomorrow, not next week, but they need it now.” He claimed that more than 20,000 homes need to be rebuilt and 100,000 people remain displaced with winter fast approaching. He went on to say in the article that this new money would take American aid to the Palestinians to more than $400 million in 2014 and would go to security, economic development, food and medicine, shelter and water and sanitation projects.

I like to think that I am a caring and compassionate person but why is the American taxpayer always the one that has to take care of people in foreign lands? Hamas brought a lot of this destruction on themselves with their terror tunnels and other terrorist behavior. Who can promise this $400 million will not go to their terror programs and to their people? That certainly has been their behavior in the past.

Why hasn’t China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, and other wealthy countries stepped up to help Hamas and the people of Gaza? Again, we have homeless and hungry in the U.S. Why not take care of them first and the terror organizations later? 

That will do it for today. Wasting taxpayer wealth all over the world, from Afghanistan to the Gaza Strip to failing Presidential credit cards to failing Secretary of States planes. The political class insanity knows no bounds and will continue unabated 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

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Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w