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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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