November, 2015, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Lack Of Integrity Everywhere in Washington

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

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

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

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

1) Given all of the problems listed above, given the number of homeless and hungry in this country, given how underserved our veterans are, given how poorly our schools educate our kids, one would hope that the Federal government would be prudent with our tax dollars and efficient in using those dollars to help struggling Americans. But prudence is never a good assumption when talking about American politicians.

Consider how the Feds are spending $70 million of our taxpayer wealth….overseas:

• Michelle Obama is sponsoring a $70 million program called Let Girls Learn.
• Nice concept except for the fact that the $70 million is not being spent to better educate American girls, it is being spent on educating girls around the world in such places as Pakistan.
• According to the program’s website: “We know that countries with more girls in secondary school tend to have lower maternal mortality rates, lower infant mortality rates, lower rates of HIV/AIDS, and better child nutrition. But too often, a girl who could change her world for the better is locked out of that future by the circumstances of her birth or the customs of her community.”
• Which raises the obvious question: couldn’t that description also apply to millions of American kids, especially African-American kids living in poor households across THIS country?

If American schools were flush with money and doing an excellent job of educating all American kids, than there might be a chance that spending an extraneous $70 million overseas might somehow make sense. But given the lousy education many poorer American kids are receiving, given the low graduation rate of our kids in inner city schools, given overcrowded classrooms, etc., it is difficult to believe that sending $70 million overseas where it MIGHT be used to educate other countries’ kids is anywhere close to being a good idea. In fact, it is an insane idea.

2) Integrity has never been an overriding attribute of American politicians, especially the current set in Congress, the White House, and the Federal bureaucracy. The current President has put forth more deceptions and broken more promises than we would have time to discuss in multiple posts. 

The latest spin or deception also concerns the First Lady and her kids’ obesity program, “Let’s Move.” Her school lunch program has generally been a disaster with kids going hungry because the food provided under the program under nourishes and is ghastly to taste and eat. As a result, kids go hungry, food gets wasted, and school budgets are devastated as kids stop buying school lunches.

These disasters and failures have not stopped the Federal government from trying to make this wasteful, failed program look good. Government documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that the White House was doing everything possible to misrepresent a 2014 American Medical Association (AMA) study about obesity rates in kids. The basis of the misrepresentation was to show that the First Lady’s obesity reduction efforts were working.

The FOIA request came across the following statement in an email from a Centers For Disease Control official, senior press officer Karen Hunter: “Well, our press release is skewed to highlight the good news per HHS request.” In another email she wrote: “This release will have a first lady quote and they are mainly wanting to focus on the decline among 2 to 5 year olds during the current administration.”

So, there is the smoking gun proof that the Feds are intentionally trying to “skew” the analysis’ results to make Michelle Obama’s efforts look better than they are. This disconnect is proven by a press release by the AMA which read as follows: “Obesity Prevalence Remains High In U.S.” No Significant Change In Recent Years.”

No wonder Americans view government and government officials as corrupt. Lies are their language of the day.

3) Harry Truman is known for the following famous quote: “The buck stops here.” What he means is that as President, whatever goes wrong, he is ultimately responsible. He is the leader, he is in charge, he should take the blame for anything that goes wrong.

Which is a great characteristic of any leader. They should be setting the tone of their organization, setting the guidelines of behavior for all who serve under them, accepting the consequences of anything that goes awry within their scope of leadership.

This is a characteristic that is certainly not a trait of the Obama administration. This President has always pointed fingers at others whenever anything went wrong. During his tenure in office, Obama has blamed Bush, ATMs, Republicans, the Japanese tsunami, Israel, and a whole host of other entities, people, and events rather than accept the Truman doctrine that the responsibility for success and failure starts and stops with the President.

And now we know that this lack of integrity and acceptance of responsibility also extends to his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In her recent Benghazi testimony, it was revealed that over 600 requests for increased security at the U.S. Benghazi consulate were made prior to the deadly attacks that killed four Americans including a U.S. ambassador. It appears that all 600 requests were ignored, resulting in the fatal consequences.

When questioned why she did not respond to the requests, she arrogantly and insensitively responded that it was not her fault since she never saw those requests. Not her fault. Certainly not very Truman-like. Certainly not a leadership trait. Not her fault even though she was responsible for the entire State Department operation.

Unfortunately for those who lost loved ones in the Benghazi terror attack, Clinton’s email history shows that she did receive and respond to over 150 emails from a friend, Sidney Blumenthal, someone who was not connected to the State Department or Federal government in any capacity. She did receive and respond to at least one email from actor Ben Affleck regarding his political interests. But somehow she did not receive or respond to over 600 request for increased security from her own experts and apparently, does not think that is a problem despite the loss of four American lives. Insanely pathetic example of leadership.

Her arrogance is on display at the link below:

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/watch-clinton-claims-she-never-got-security-requests-libya#.tqggic:oc5N

5) Fortunately, even if Clinton does not recognize her lack of integrity and leadership, much of America does. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 52% of those polled do not think she has been honest in her responses and position on the Benghazi attacks. Only 27% think she has been honest. In addition, the poll also found that only 37% of voters say they trust Clinton.

The real insanity her is in two areas:

1. First, why is she even in the running to be President when over half the country does not trust her?
2. In a country of over 300 million people, is there know one out there that has the integrity to be President and a true leader as opposed to one that refuses to take responsibility for their actions?

No integrity when it comes to wasting taxpayer wealth overseas, no integrity when it comes to lying about failed government programs, and no integrity when running for high office. A sad, sad commentary on today’s American political class. And that sad commentary will continue for the next week or so as the failures of today's politicians continue to far out number their success.

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