Yes, Barack, You Did Have Scandals, Part 3

Usually I reserve the early days of the month to review the latest political class insanity. Insane quotes, stupid actions, unlawful activities, the nonsense of the political class is usually grouped together early each month.

But let’s get an early start on June’s political class insanity. Barack Obama has been very quiet over the past few months, almost suspiciously quiet. My theory is that he is laying low given that there is a decent chance that he weaponized the nation’s Federal intelligence agencies and resources to spy on the Trump campaign. If he knew or allowed such despicable behavior to happen it would be an incredible affront to freedom and I suspect his lawyers are telling him to lay low and shut up.

But given the ego and narcissism of Obama, he cannot keep entirely quiet and humble. He dared to speak out recently when he proudly said that his administration had no scandals. We have already killed this fantasy in a series of posts beginning with the following post back in 2016:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/10/part-1-obama-presidency-end-of-error.html

But let’s reminisce using a recent list of Obama’s “Lies, Scandals, and Quotes” that was recently printed by the Gateway Pundit website. Despite Obama’s delusion that he had no scandals, the Gateway Pundit came up with an amazing 108 things to dispute his view. Let’s review this insanity with Part 3 of additional comments that were not included in the original list from the Gateway Pundit. Note: the first 68 points reviewed can be accessed at the following links:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/05/yes-barack-you-did-have-scandals-part-1.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/05/yes-barackyou-did-have-scandals-part-2.html

69. The Russians invaded Ukraine, (and Obama does NOTHING). Comment: Years later and nothing has changed, the Russians still occupy part of the Ukraine.

70. 6 million people losing their healthcare thanks to Obamacare. Comment: Covered already.

71. "The United States maintains a 'rock-solid' commitment to Israel" - Comment: Then why did Obama suggest Israel go back to its pre-1967 borders, surely a national suicide move for the country?

72. Illegal fundraising for Obamacare by Katherine Sebelius (solicitation of money from the companies she regulates) with no penal or cirminal ramifications. Comment: I believe she obviously violated the HATCH Act.

73. Katherine Sebelius' TOTAL incompetence in rolling out Obamacare. Comment: Well, it was not as if she had the market cornered on Obama Care incompetence.

74. Ex-IRS official Lerner takes 5th. Comment: And yet she and others get no jail time for weaponizing the IRS against Obama’s political opponents.

75. Failed to fund our Nation’s military. Comment: He funded the military and but funded it badly, resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in wasted taxpayer wealth while weakening our armed forces' fighting capabilities.

76. Higher Spending and No Balanced Budget—EVER. Comment: Covered in the previous post, first Presidential administration to have four consecutive years of trillion dollar budget deficits.

77. $1.2 Trillion in Higher Taxes. Comment: After a while you lose track of how high the tax increases were.

78. Known Obama supporter appointed to investigate IRS targeting scandal.Comment: Unaware of this situation.

79. Buying clothes at The Gap: "Oh wow; credit card machines had electronic signature pads": Comment: Unaware of this situation.

80. Former Soviet Union laughs at Obama's Ukraine sanctions. Comment: Pretty sure this was not the only time Putin has laughed at Obama and the U.S.

81. Over 70% of Obamacare signups from people who LOST their insurance BECAUSE OF Obamacare in the first place. Comment: Another example of why Obama Care was such a disaster, much of its customer base was simply people who lost their insurance because of... Obama Care.

82. In Maryland: Obama celebrates 60,000 obamacare signups…. BUT 73,000 lost insurance BECAUSE OF Obamacare. Comment: See previous comment.

83. Obama did NOTHING to prevent some 150,000 people being killed in Syria, and he and the LIBERALS are silent on the matter. Comment: Another in a long line of Obama foreign policy failures.

84. On April 6th, 2014 Obama gave a speech on the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda lecturing about “the world’s failure to respond more quickly” and that “we always have a choice . . . we must never be indifferent.” Comment: And yet he stood by and failed when he could have intervened to prevent the genocide in Syria.

85. Obama demands "equality" but only pays women 88 percent of what it pays men. Comment: So close!

86. "We're focused like lasers on job creation!!!" Comment: And yet had anemic job creation success over the entire length of his administration.

87. "Jobs are our number one priority!!!!" Comment: See previous comment.

88. 6 million full time US workers sustain 149 million "benefit takers" in the USA under the "Obama recovery." Comment: do not know what this means.

89. "Republicans still can’t bring themselves to admit that the Affordable Care Act is working." Comment: Republicans never had to admit that Obama Care was working because it never worked from day one: missed sign up targets, higher and higher premiums, higher and higher deductibles and co-pays, doctor and hospital networks getting more and more narrow, Medicaid imploding, national debt exploding, etc.

90. "If Republicans want to spend all their time talking about repealing a law that’s working, that’s their business." Comment: See list of Obama Care failures in previous statement

91. 169th round of golf on 4/19/14 while Putin re-assembles the USSR and Jews are being ordered to report in the Ukraine. Comment: Not the only time his tee time was interrupted with world affairs and Presidential duties.

92. Syria uses chemical weapons crossing obama's "red line" and Obama is SILENT on the matter. Comment: Another Obama foreign affairs failure, warned Syria not do do something and did nothing when Syria did it, completely undercutting Obama’s international credibility.

93. 04/21/2014 Obama delays the Keystone pipeline for the 45th time. Comment: Even though just about everyone in the Federal government recommended going forward with it.

94. China has become the #1 economy with "ObamaNomics." Comment: do not know what this means.

95. Iran WILL have a nuclear bomb under Obama. Comment: Not sure what this means but it is pretty obvious Obama allowed North Korea and Iran free reign to develop nuclear weapons during his eight years in office and yes, his nuclear arms agreement with Iran was a joke.

96. There are 92 million unemployed (may 2014) THAT IS 51% UNEMPLOYMENT RATE, including retirees. Comment: A biased and unfair comment, a lot of those 92 million people decided they did not want to work although the labor participation rate during the Obama years was the lowest since the Carter administration, reflecting very poor job creation results.

97. In 2013, under the direction of Barack Obama, The Immigration and Customs Enforcement released 36,000 illegal immigrants who had been convicted of murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, and aggravated assault, and drunk or drugged driving. Comment: Kate Steinle’s parents were not consulted prior to this insanity.

98. Incompetence at the Veterans Affairs Administration. Comment: Promised to fix the dysfunctional VA at the start of his tenure, followed up with multiple other promises to fix it and never did anything that stopped veterans from dying because of the dysfunction.

99. Almost every photo of Obama at the White house shows Obama with his feet on the historically significant antique furniture….no respect for its historical significance. Comment: No comment.

100. Over 40 veteran patients die after being placed on a hidden VA waiting list that could last for up to a year, while officials at the hospital shredded documents and faked evidence to make it seem as if waiting times were under control. Comment: Again, Obama did nothing to fix the situation despite multiple promises to fix the problem.

101. New Horizons in Presidential Dignity: President Obama does the "Shake Shack Shimmy" during his visit to the sandwich joint in Washington Friday May 17th 2014. Comment: No class.

102. May 17th 2014: Greater than Fifty million working-age Americans aren’t working, according to the labor department, and Obama pushes immigration plan. Comment: No comment.

103. "STINKBURGER"Comment: no idea what this is.

104. King Barry's "executive actions." Comment: When Obama did not get his way within the law and framework of Congress and the Constitution, he would just ignore existing laws and the Constitution and try to do whatever he wanted.

105. Russia signs a contract with Iran to build two more nuclear reactors at its Bushehr power plant as part of a broader deal for up to eight reactors in the Islamic state. Comment: Putin still laughing at Obama and the U.S. all the way to the bank.

106. New Record: Price of Gas Above $3 Gallon for 1,245 Days. Comment: Cannot ignore the numbers. See Keystone Pipeline discussion above.

107. Incomprehensible!! 5-30-14 ILLEGAL negotiation with terrorists: 5 gitmo Taliban terrorist leaders ILLEGALLY released for one American ARMY DESERTER: BOWE BERGDAHL. Comment: Adding insult to injury, Obama hosts the parents of the deserter Bergdahl in the White HOuse but ignores the families of those brave soldiers who died or who were wounded looking for deserter Bergdahl in Afghanistan.

108. Obama negotiates with terrorists to release an army deserter because "we can't leave an American behind" but does nothing for the Marine being detained illegally in Mexico, less than 1 mile away. Comment: Nice example of where Obama's priorities were, a deserter has precedence over a real soldier.

So, that should do it. Over 100 examples of real and potential scandals from the Obama administration. And it is not comprehensive since we already know that Obama signed the assassination orders to kill American citizens without due process, that he ignored a judicial ruling relative to oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, that when the rest of the world went to Paris to support France’s efforts to resist Islamic terrorism after the Paris terrorist attacks Obama stayed home, sending John Kerry and James Taylor afterwards to lamely sing “You Have A Friend,” he allowed his Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton) to break the law by using a non-secure email server in her house, he allowed a top national security person (James Clapper ) to lie to Congress regarding Fourth Amendment violations, etc.

The biggest scandal was that the Obama Presidency was a total failure: morally, legally, economically, and patriotically.

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

The Department of Veterans Affairs - Why The Government Should Never Be In Control Of Our Health Care, Part 2

Many times in this blog we have tried to determine what is the most inept and most wasteful Federal government agency or organization. Which agency is the most inefficient, sucking up the most resources while falling far short of fulfilling even their basic job functions. Leading candidates usually include the TSA, the IRS, the Defense Department, and the Social Security Administration.

But yesterday’s and today’s focus is on another of the usual suspects, the Veterans Affairs (VA) organization. Many, many times we have reviewed how the VA is not fulfilling even its basic role of providing medical care to our veterans, wasting millions of dollars in many different, inane ways while the VA executives get large pay bonuses and salary increases. 

And while Obama has claimed from the very beginning of his Presidency to fix the VA, his efforts have been little more than empty rhetoric as almost eight years later, veterans are still not getting the medical care they have been promised and deserve.

So let’s check in on the latest embarrassments from the VA and see if they still deserve to be classified as one of the worst functioning government organizations ever:

1) One of the excuses the VA administrators has put forth on why veterans are dying from not getting the medical care they should be receiving is that the VA does not have enough money or resources. But according to a Daily Caller article written by Luke Rosiak, while the VA claims it is under funded, it currently has 167 interior designers on its staff. So rather than putting dozens of more doctors on its staff to serve the veterans in need of medical care, the VA leadership has decided that 167 interior designers and the budget they burn up are more important to their mission.

Details of this disgrace include the following atrocities:

• Part of the interior decorators’ jobs includes buying artwork for VA facilities and they have spent a whopping $16 million on this art since Obama took office.
• Even more amazing and gross is the reality that at least 12 of these pieces of art cost more than a quarter million dollars each with nearly $700,000 of taxpayer wealth spent on just two sculptures that were displayed at a VA location that served blind veterans.
• Besides the artwork, the American taxpayer has likely spent over $136 million on salaries and benefits for these 167 interior designers since Obama took office.
• How many veterans could have been served with that $136 million rather than wasting it on interior designers?
• The article claims that just about every VA facility actually has an interior designer on its staff with some facilities employing more than on designer.
• The Cleveland VA location has FIVE designers on its staff, which is pure insanity.
• Adam Andrzejewski, the head of the government spending watchdog organization OpenTheBooks.com, stated that: “The VA needs more doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals and fewer public relations officers, lawyers and interior decorators and designers.” 
• Additionally, Mr. Andrzejewski pointed out the following low cost alternative to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single piece of art: “Veterans have their own art museum. Why is the VA spending millions on lavish art when veterans are already producing great art? Veterans themselves should benefit from art displays, not vendors who sell the VA pricey art.” 
• A recent government want ad for an interior designer said the potential hire would be in charge of “accoutrements” like “window treatments” and that any job candidates with a Ph.D. in interior design was preferred, i.e. the VA was not hiring cheap labor for its interior designer positions.
• This wasteful spending and cries of poverty continues to go on even though Congress increased the 2016 VA budget by 7.5% over the 2015 level.

Veterans are not getting the treatment they need, they are being put on multi-month waiting lists where many of them die before getting in to see a doctor, and the top officials at the VA continue to waste millions of its budget dollars on interior designers that have no relationship to the mission of the VA, serving the medical needs of our vets. Pathetic and often fatal priorities.

2) But the VA does not just waste taxpayer wealth on artwork and interior designers. According to an August 9, 2016 Washington Times article by Dave Boyer, the VA inspector general has found that the VA has wasted millions of dollars on its solar energy project.

Details of this atrocity include the following details:

• The VA has spent over $408 million on solar panels over the past five years but the use of them has been delayed and much of that investment is still not operational.
• 11 of the 15 VA solar projects that were awarded between 2010 and 2013 are still not completed.
• Only 2 of the 15 have been completed and are actually creating solar energy.
• Two other projects have been completed but are not yet generating power.
• This dismal performance, according to the inspector general, is because: “This occurred because of planning errors, design changes, a lengthy interconnection process, and contractor delays. As a result, VA did not increase renewable energy for those solar projects in the time frame planned and incurred additional costs through needed contract modifications.”
• At the Little Rock, Arkansas VA facility, solar panels were installed but before they could generate any power, they had to be removed, at a cost of more than $1 million, to make room for the building of a parking garage. 
• If it cost an insane $1 million to remove the panels, imagine how much it cost to install them for nothing in return from an energy perspective.
• The total project of solar panel installation at the Little Rock location will likely run $1.5 million over budget and be four years behind schedule.
• Investigations of the VA’s solar panel effort found that while all of the projects were initially expected to take 7 to 12 months to complete, in reality, they are likely going to take 42 months to complete on average, just another example of terrible and inept VA management and personnel.

The VA objected to the inspector general’s findings, claiming that its solar panel projects are providing $10 million in savings per year, savings that allows it “to redirect those recurring funds to provide care and services to veterans.”

But at $408 million, that means that the break even point for the solar panels is just currently just under 41 years (which assumes that the panels last that long and do not require repair or replacement, activities that would push the break even point out way beyond 41 years). In 41 years, today’s veterans would be long dead, many of them dying prematurely because they could not get the proper medical care TODAY, not 41 years from today. 

Look, I am all for saving energy costs and saving the planet and using solar energy. But there is a crisis today when it comes to the medical needs of our vets. That $408 million could have been used to save lives today, not four decades or more from today. 

Once the VA was a well functioning and efficient operation, then the diversion of some budget dollars to solar energy would be appropriate. But the VA is no well functioning and certainly not efficient and as a result, people are dying. Another set of very, very bad government and Washington politician priorities.

Going by today’s and yesterday’s list of embarrassments and waste, it is quite clear to any open minded person why the government should never be in charge of any American’s health and medical needs. Between the unfolding disasters of Obama Care and the joke that the VA has become, we have shown hundreds examples of wasteful spending, incompetent management, greedy employees, a general ineptness that results in the deaths of Americans and not the saving of lives and easing of pain. Thus, the VA continues to be on the short list of most incompetent Federal entities ever.

The Department of Veterans Affairs - Why The Government Should Never Be In Control Of Our Health Care, Part 1

Many times in this blog we have tried to determine what is the most inept and most wasteful Federal government agency or organization. Which agency is the most inefficient, sucking up the most resources while falling far short of fulfilling even their basic job functions. Leading candidates usually include the TSA, the IRS, the Defense Department, and the Social Security Administration.

But today’s focus is on another of the usual suspects, the Veterans Affairs (VA) organization. Many, many times we have reviewed how the VA is not fulfilling even its basic role of providing medical care to our veterans, wasting millions of dollars in many different, inane ways while the VA executives get large pay bonuses and salary increases. And while Obama has claimed from the very beginning of his Presidency to fix the VA, his efforts have been little more than empty rhetoric as almost eight years later, veterans are still not getting the medical care they have been promised and deserve.

So let’s check in on the latest embarrassments from the VA and see if they still deserve to be classified as one of the worst functioning government organizations ever:

1) Natalie Johnson, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on August 25, 2016, reported how veteran Peter Kaisen committed suicide in the parking lot of the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Long Island by fatally shooting himself. Mr. Kaisen had been a patient at the medical center.

Now, a single incident like this in isolation does not necessarily mean the VA is still inept. But given that the VA itself confirmed in 2014 that dozens of veterans had died waiting for care at the Phoenix hospital system when hospital employees deliberately erased 1,700 patients from care waiting lists which they then tried to cover up and the Government Accountability Office released a study this past April that concluded the VA system had not fixed its wait time problems, a suicide in a VA parking lot raises some suspicions.

Suspicions that are somewhat confirmed when we find out that two employees at the Northport VA facility told reporters that Mr. Kaisen had gone to the emergency room to seek treatment related to his mental health state of mind and was denied service. He apparently then left the emergency room and returned to the parking lot where he killed himself. 

One of the employees said that Mr. Kaisen should have been referred to the center’s mental health center which is open 24 hours a day but apparently he was not. According to the employee cited in the Free Beacon article: “Someone dropped the ball. They should not have turned him away.”

And yet they did and another veteran unnecessarily died as a result of VA incompetence. On average, 20 veterans commit suicide each and every day of the year. Veterans suicide account for 18% of all U.S. suicides even though veterans make up only 9% of the entire population so it appears Mr. Kaisen’s suicide was not an isolated incident but a pattern of under serving the mental health needs of our vets.

2) Sometimes the VA is just inept and no one dies. But according to the Against Crony Capitalism website on August 24, 2016, their level of insanity in incompetence stretches the imagination. The VA fired one of its own employees because that honest employee had the nerve to report that the Greater Los Angeles VA facility had somehow lost 30 of its 80 vehicles and official government credit cards intended for use for that fleet of vehicles had been misused.

Whistle-blower and VA employee, now former employee, Anthony Salazar, was fired by his manager, Robert Benkeser, after Salazar reported the lost vehicles and credit card abuse. As a result of this incompetence, the VA convened an “administrative investigation board” process that resulted in a “letter of counseling” be sent to Benkeser for his mismanagement of the motor pool. Several months later, surprise, surprise, Benkeser fired Salazar for doing the right thing.

More government incompetence, the protection of the incompetent, and the wasting of taxpayer wealth.

3) The article just mentioned on the Against Crony Capitalism website also contained the following sad joke about VA incompetence:

Q. What’s the difference between a VA nurse and bullet?

A. A bullet can draw blood. A bullet only kills one person. A bullet can be fired.

Think about.

4) Let’s dive into another tremendous waste of taxpayer money, courtesy of the VA. Morgan Chalfant, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on August 15, 2016, reported how the VA had bought almost $300,000 worth of televisions and then left them unused in storage for more than two years. The John D. Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit purchased the TV sets in September, 2013 as part of an effort to overhaul the patient TV system at that hospital. 

However, a VA inspector general report uncovered the reality that those TV sets were incompatible with the wiring that was installed at the facility. As a result, the 282 TV sets, which had cost $292,000, were put into storage for two and a half years. According to the article: “Officials at the Detroit VA did not communicate with the contractor “in a timely manner” to make sure that the TVs the agency bought were right for the project, the inspector general found. 

The agency was forced to modify the contract by adding $19,000 in additional funds to change the project specifications to accommodate the televisions. The hospital still had not selected a contractor to install the televisions as of June, when the inspector general completed the probe.”

The TVs are now two and half years worth of old TV technology and the warranties have expired since they were not installed during the warranty period. The inspector general also found that the VA facility may have violated the government’s “bona fide needs rule” by using federal dollars available in fiscal 2013 to pay for needs in a future year.

Congressman Jeff Miller had an insightful take on this and other massive wastes of taxpayer wealth: “If VA’s job was mismanaging money, it would have a near-perfect record of achievement. Yet despite this and other high-profile budgetary failures, all too often the department’s knee-jerk response to challenges is to ask taxpayers for more money. This is more proof the department doesn’t have a money problem, it has a management problem.”

One last issue on the TVs. On average these TVs cost over $1,000 each which means they were either very, very high end sets or, more likely, the VA got screwed by who ever sold them to it. Walk through any Best Buy and I dare you to find a really good wide screen TV that costs over $500, never mind over $1,000. 

We have previously reported on how the VA spent an amazing $20 million on high-end art over the last decade despite thousands and thousands of veterans not receiving the medical care they needed or were promised. As of the onset of August of this year, 513,000 veterans had waited more than 30 days for medical care at VA hospitals across the country.

There is more VA incompetence to come tomorrow. But just going by today’s list of embarrassments and waste, it is quite clear to any open minded person why the government should never be in charge of any American’s health and medical needs. Between the unfolding disasters of Obama Care and the joke that the VA has become, we have shown hundreds examples of wasteful spending, incompetent management, greedy employees, a general ineptness that results in the deaths of Americans and not the saving of lives and easing of pain. More proof 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

The Department of Veterans Affairs - Why The Government Should Never Be In Control Of Our Health Care, Part 1

Many times in this blog we have tried to determine what is the most inept and most wasteful Federal government agency or organization. Which agency is the most inefficient, sucking up the most resources while falling far short of fulfilling even their basic job functions. Leading candidates usually include the TSA, the IRS, the Defense Department, and the Social Security Administration.

But today’s focus is on another of the usual suspects, the Veterans Affairs (VA) organization. Many, many times we have reviewed how the VA is not fulfilling even its basic role of providing medical care to our veterans, wasting millions of dollars in many different, inane ways while the VA executives get large pay bonuses and salary increases. And while Obama has claimed from the very beginning of his Presidency to fix the VA, his efforts have been little more than empty rhetoric as almost eight years later, veterans are still not getting the medical care they have been promised and deserve.

So let’s check in on the latest embarrassments from the VA and see if they still deserve to be classified as one of the worst functioning government organizations ever:

1) Natalie Johnson, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on August 25, 2016, reported how veteran Peter Kaisen committed suicide in the parking lot of the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Long Island by fatally shooting himself. Mr. Kaisen had been a patient at the medical center.

Now, a single incident like this in isolation does not necessarily mean the VA is still inept. But given that the VA itself confirmed in 2014 that dozens of veterans had died waiting for care at the Phoenix hospital system when hospital employees deliberately erased 1,700 patients from care waiting lists which they then tried to cover up and the Government Accountability Office released a study this past April that concluded the VA system had not fixed its wait time problems, a suicide in a VA parking lot raises some suspicions.

Suspicions that are somewhat confirmed when we find out that two employees at the Northport VA facility told reporters that Mr. Kaisen had gone to the emergency room to seek treatment related to his mental health state of mind and was denied service. He apparently then left the emergency room and returned to the parking lot where he killed himself. 

One of the employees said that Mr. Kaisen should have been referred to the center’s mental health center which is open 24 hours a day but apparently he was not. According to the employee cited in the Free Beacon article: “Someone dropped the ball. They should not have turned him away.”

And yet they did and another veteran unnecessarily died as a result of VA incompetence. On average, 20 veterans commit suicide each and every day of the year. Veterans suicide account for 18% of all U.S. suicides even though veterans make up only 9% of the entire population so it appears Mr. Kaisen’s suicide was not an isolated incident but a pattern of under serving the mental health needs of our vets.

2) Sometimes the VA is just inept and no one dies. But according to the Against Crony Capitalism website on August 24, 2016, their level of insanity in incompetence stretches the imagination. The VA fired one of its own employees because that honest employee had the nerve to report that the Greater Los Angeles VA facility had somehow lost 30 of its 80 vehicles and official government credit cards intended for use for that fleet of vehicles had been misused.

Whistle-blower and VA employee, now former employee, Anthony Salazar, was fired by his manager, Robert Benkeser, after Salazar reported the lost vehicles and credit card abuse. As a result of this incompetence, the VA convened an “administrative investigation board” process that resulted in a “letter of counseling” be sent to Benkeser for his mismanagement of the motor pool. Several months later, surprise, surprise, Benkeser fired Salazar for doing the right thing.

More government incompetence, the protection of the incompetent, and the wasting of taxpayer wealth.

3) The article just mentioned on the Against Crony Capitalism website also contained the following sad joke about VA incompetence:

Q. What’s the difference between a VA nurse and bullet?

A. A bullet can draw blood. A bullet only kills one person. A bullet can be fired.

Think about.

4) Let’s dive into another tremendous waste of taxpayer money, courtesy of the VA. Morgan Chalfant, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on August 15, 2016, reported how the VA had bought almost $300,000 worth of televisions and then left them unused in storage for more than two years. The John D. Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit purchased the TV sets in September, 2013 as part of an effort to overhaul the patient TV system at that hospital. 

However, a VA inspector general report uncovered the reality that those TV sets were incompatible with the wiring that was installed at the facility. As a result, the 282 TV sets, which had cost $292,000, were put into storage for two and a half years. According to the article: “Officials at the Detroit VA did not communicate with the contractor “in a timely manner” to make sure that the TVs the agency bought were right for the project, the inspector general found. 

The agency was forced to modify the contract by adding $19,000 in additional funds to change the project specifications to accommodate the televisions. The hospital still had not selected a contractor to install the televisions as of June, when the inspector general completed the probe.”

The TVs are now two and half years worth of old TV technology and the warranties have expired since they were not installed during the warranty period. The inspector general also found that the VA facility may have violated the government’s “bona fide needs rule” by using federal dollars available in fiscal 2013 to pay for needs in a future year.

Congressman Jeff Miller had an insightful take on this and other massive wastes of taxpayer wealth: “If VA’s job was mismanaging money, it would have a near-perfect record of achievement. Yet despite this and other high-profile budgetary failures, all too often the department’s knee-jerk response to challenges is to ask taxpayers for more money. This is more proof the department doesn’t have a money problem, it has a management problem.”

One last issue on the TVs. On average these TVs cost over $1,000 each which means they were either very, very high end sets or, more likely, the VA got screwed by who ever sold them to it. Walk through any Best Buy and I dare you to find a really good wide screen TV that costs over $500, never mind over $1,000. 

We have previously reported on how the VA spent an amazing $20 million on high-end art over the last decade despite thousands and thousands of veterans not receiving the medical care they needed or were promised. As of the onset of August of this year, 513,000 veterans had waited more than 30 days for medical care at VA hospitals across the country.

There is more VA incompetence to come tomorrow. But just going by today’s list of embarrassments and waste, it is quite clear to any open minded person why the government should never be in charge of any American’s health and medical needs. Between the unfolding disasters of Obama Care and the joke that the VA has become, we have shown hundreds examples of wasteful spending, incompetent management, greedy employees, a general ineptness that results in the deaths of Americans and not the saving of lives and easing of pain. More proof 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

September, 2015, Political Class Insanity, Part 4: VA Gutting Whistleblowers, Cartels Taking Over Phoenix Area, and Americans Fed Up With the Status Qupo

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 in free fall.
• 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
• A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
• 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.

1) Apparently all of the crises and problems we listed above are not figments of our imagination. According to a recent opinion poll by Quinnipiac University, that was reviewed in the September 11, 2015 issue of The Week magazine, 71% of American voters are dissatisfied with the ways things are going in the country today. Even worse, 41% are “very dissatisfied” with the way things are going in the country.

Thus, we should not be surprised that people like Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorini, and other non-politicians are doing well in the early Presidential running. People are tired with the current members of the American political class who have done nothing as far as making live better and more secure for most Americans.

Which makes visiting the term limits website, 

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

all the more important since really, how much worse could it get if we replaced every Washington politician with a new person today? At least 71% of Americans would probably support such a move.

2) We have previously reported on how inept the Veterans Administration (VA) is. A recent study showed that almost 300,000 military veterans died while waiting for treatment. At the same time, high ranking VA executives were getting large bonuses for being such screw-ups.

Turns out these these executives are also pretty vindictive. According to an article that was in the August, 2015 issue of Reason magazine:

• VA employees that complained and blew the whistle on VA incompetence have been the target of retaliation by VA executives.
• In some cases, the medical records of alleged whistleblowers were accessed and information on those records were used to try to discredit the whistleblowers.
• One of those whistleblowers, Brandon Coleman, was placed on administrative leave after he publicly complained that veterans were receiving dangerously poor medical treatment.
• He presented evidence to both Senator John McCain and the head of the VA that his medical records had been accessed illegally prior to being forced onto leave.

So much for a transparent Presidential administration, as promised by Obama. Do the right thing and point out government incompetence and then get your private medical records thrown in your face in retaliation and to protect those that are not doing their jobs.

3) Brandon Coleman was only placed on leave for doing the right thing in his VA job. VA whistleblower and Army veteran Vanessa Lech claims she lost her job when her superior retaliated against her when she called attention to safety issues and sexual harassment at a New Mexico VA facility.

Within a month of being hired in October, 2014 she filed a grievance through her union for being retaliated against by her harassing supervisor. She also publicly pointed out the many safety issues at the facility where she worked including lack of security and VA autos that were dangerously maintained. While an investigation of her complaints substantiated many of her allegations, she still lost her job as a result of speaking up.
According to Ms. Lech: “A culture of fear, retaliation and toxic leadership plagues Veterans Affairs, an organization, which is supposed to consistently provide high quality services for our military Veterans. VA management is more focused on bonus money, bad press and doubling down on the status quo instead of being concerned about the well being of Veterans and VA employees.”

Besides the sad stories of brave people like Mr. Coleman and Ms. Lech is that the Obama administration has been aware of the incompetence and scandal of the VA over the years. But it has still been unsuccessful in providing the promised medical care to veterans and protecting those whistleblowers that would actually help Obama clean up the mess and disgrace that is the VA. Pathetic.

4) Let’s stay in the southwest U.S. for the next piece of insanity but move over to the state of Arizona. According to Pinal County, Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu, Mexican drug cartels who are armed with AK-47 automatic weapons “control many areas on American soil” in areas that are only 30 miles from the Phoenix metro area.

The Sheriff stated on TV: “This is literally an unsecured border. We have cartels that think they own the place. They control many areas on American soil and this how they freely move billions of dollars of drugs and hundreds of thousands of illegals into our country.” 

“They control many areas on American soil.” This is scary stuff if true. This is just one other reason why the Obama administration has been just a total failure relative to immigration policy and reality, we have an unsecured border that is now controlled by foreign interests. And these foreign interests are violent, organized crime types that apparently are operating without danger of being arrested or stopped.

That will do it for today’s insanity, all very depressing. We have drug cartels taking over U.S. territory, we have a VA that has not changed its ways of ineptness despite being aware of the problems for years, we have an Obama administration that is not protecting whistleblowers despite its vow to have all time high transparency, and we have proof that American citizens are fed up with those that are in political office today. Insanity across the board.

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

Is This the Most Cluesless Administration Ever?

As most people probably know, the U.S.and its allies have been in negotiations with Iran for a long time to try and find a way to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. Obviously, this is a worthy goal given Iran leaders’ continuing threats to wipe Israel off the map and attack Western interests and the U.S. 

Last week, the parties to the negotiations announced that a general framework for an agreement had been reached and that the details would be filled in over the next three months. Today’s post is not on the merits or lack of merit of the agreement. Those details will be discussed after the political smoke settles and we see if the Obama administration actually got Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions (the early betting money says this is another failure but time will tell).

No, today’s discussion is focused on the following statement the President put out after the tentative framework agreement was reached:

“If Iran cheats, the world will know it. If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. So this deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification.”

Keep this statement in mind, particularly the words “the world will know it,” as we review the following key moments in the Obama Presidency:

1) Let’s start with the highlights of an article by Sharyl Attkisson, a former journalists for CBS News who lost her job after daring to report damaging facts about the administration and who likely had her work and home office computers hacked, likely by the Feds, as a result of her reporting. A recent article by her reviewed the remarkable number of times when Obama claimed he found out about a scandal or significant news event within his administration by watching or reading the news:

• Early in his Presidency, an Air Force One plane (not carrying the president at the time) made an unannounced low level pass over the Statue of Liberty on April 27, 2009 in order to take White House approved photos, as if there are no aerial photos of the Statue of Liberty in existence. The low level flight panicked New Yorkers who feared a repeat of 9-11 was underway. The next day, President Obama told reporters, “It was something that, uh, we found out about, uh, along with all of you.
• Fast and Furious was a cross-border undercover operation under the Justice Department in which Federal agents illegally allowed thousands of weapons be sent to Mexico’s violent drug cartels under the weak assumption that doing so with thousands of guns would help the Feds track down drug traffickers. Even though Fast and Furious guns were used to murder a U.S. Border Patrol Agent in Dec. of 2010 and the magnitude of the operation was huge (thousands of guns), Obama claimed he remained in the dark about the whole operation until after it was exposed it was exposed in the news. On Oct. 12, 2011 Obama told reporters, “I heard on the news about this story, that, uh, Fast and Furious.” Attorney General Eric Holder, who had been sent regular briefings on the Fast and Furious operation, a case approved by his criminal division, also said he was clueless about the case.
• White House officials said President Obama was kept in the dark for months as the FBI investigated his CIA Director, General David Petraeus, in a sex scandal.CIA, sex, scandal,national security, months, and the President never knew what was going on until after the fact. White House officials have refused to answer the question as to when, exactly, Obama was finally briefed.
• The President said he was also unaware of the IRS was harassing and targeting conservative groups, denying them their First Amendment rights, and destroying or hiding thousands of emails as part of a coverup. In May of 2013, a reporter asked the president: “When did you first learn that the IRS was targeting conservative political groups, to which he answered: “I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this. I think it was on Friday.”
• When it became public knowledge that the Obama administration had secretly stolen phone records of AP news reporters, another illegal action and violations of the First Amendment, the White House said President Obama hadn’t known about it. Obama spokesman Jay Carney told reporters in May of 2013, “We don’t have any independent knowledge of that, [President Obama] found out about the news reports uh yesterday on the road.”
• When it became clear that the NSA under the Obama administration not only violated the Fourth Amendment rights of millions of Americans by spying on their electronic communications but had also spied on foreign leaders, President Obama claimed he had no idea his administration was indeed spying on foreign leaders as outlined in an Inspector’s General report. On Oct. 28, 2013 he said, “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked through the press.”
• In May of 2014, White House spokesman Carney said that Obama had no idea clueless about the Veterans Administration waiting list scandal and cover up involving medical care for military veterans. Carney told reporters: “You mean the specific allegations that I think were reported first by your news network out of Phoenix, I believe. We learned about them through the reports. I will double check if that is not the case. But that is when we learned about them and that is when I understand [V.A.] Secretary Shinseki learned about them, and he immediately took the action that he has taken.”
• And the final example of the President finding out about scandals within his administration that he was clueless about until the rest of the world found out about them according to Attkinson concerns the recent shocking news that Hillary Clinton installed an email server in her home and illegally bypassed government rules and protocol for using email. The President again claimed he did not know her use of a private email address and server for official business until the New York Times published it in a story. The Obama told CBS News reporter Bill Plante that he found out “the same time everybody else learned it through news reports.”
• Earlier, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters, “I have no idea when the president first learned” about it but he hypothesized that: “I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if he had learned about that by reading the newspaper.”

Eight different scandals that Obama officially knew nothing about until news reports occurred even though they happened within his own administration and within the confines of the country’s borders and often within the confines of the D.C. metro area. A little out of touch, at least officially?

2) But Attkisson is not the only news person to observe how disconnected and out of touch this President is. To see him tell it in his own words how out of touch he is, click on the following montage of video clip:

http://www.westernjournalism.com/president-nothing-phony-anger-act/

3) You know that the President has screwed up when even Jon Stewart gets on his case about finding out about what is going on in his administration the same time that the rest of America finds out, as witnessed in this clip from his show.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/stewart-tears-apart-obama-you-cant-keep-saying-you-found-out-about-news-at-the-same-time-as-us/

4) Even Politico, usually a strong support of the President saw the insanity of not knowing what was going on as reported in their reporting:

• After the Operation Fast and Furious scandal broke, Obama responded to national outrage in an interview broadcast by CNN's John King on October 12, 2011, similarly saying he was out of the loop until he turned on his television. 'There have been problems, you know,' the president said then. 'I heard on the news about this story that – Fast and Furious, where allegedly guns were being run into Mexico, and ATF knew about it, but didn't apprehend those who had sent [the guns]'
• “Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters in New York Monday night. "We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department. Any questions about an ongoing criminal investigation should be directed to the Department of Justice.”
• "When was the president first made aware of these [Veterans Administration] problems?" CNN reporter Jim Acosta asked. "These fraudulent lists that were being kept to hide the wait times?” “You mean the specific allegations that were first reported by your network out of Phoenix, I believe, he learned about them through the reports. I will double check if that is not the case. But that is when we learned about them and that is when I understand Secretary Shinseki learned about them, and he immediately took the action that he has taken."

Attkisson, Politico, video montages, Jon Stewart, it is pretty clear, regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, that this Presidency is either totally clueless about the world and even about what various parts of it are doing or is nothing but a pack of lies, denying knowledge of what they knew was either illegal, un-Constitutional, or incompetence. If the administration is not lying, then thank goodness for the news media because, at times, it seems that without them, the President wouldn't know anything about what is really going on in his backyard and administration.

Taken to the comic extreme, consider a Jon Stewart observation on the Daily Show which made fun of the President's claims he finds out about everything through the news:

"I wouldn't be surprised if President Obama found out about Osama Bin Laden had been killed when he saw himself announcing it on television."

Okay, let’s pull this back to the original quote above:

“If Iran cheats, the world will know it. If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. So this deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification.”

Given that this President did not know about scandals in his IRS operation, his Justice Department, his Veterans Administration, his NSA, his CIA, his State Department and who knows what else, do we really believe him when he says he and the rest of the world will know if Iran cheats on their nuclear weapons programs? 

Any Iranian cheating is going to be going on halfway around the world deep under an Iranian mountain or two. It is highly doubtful this President will know that cheating is underway….until he reads it or hears it on the news. Sad, sorry set of managerial and leadership skills sitting in the highest office in the land.

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