March, 2018, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Belief That The Deep State Exists, More Federal Budgeting Fiascos, and More

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.

We thought we were done with this month’s political class insanity with the last post but enough nonsense has popped up quickly that this will be a bonus post for this month’s insanity. Let's get started:

1) The Federal government just passed a spending bill for this fiscal year that was a whopping $1.3 trillion. Here is why it is so idiotic and wasteful:

• The spending bill was over 2,000 pages long and members of Congress had less than two days to read it, an impossible task, before they had to vote on it.
• Thus, who knows what junk and idiocy was embedded deep in its bowels that American taxpayers will be stuck paying for.
• Obviously, given the volume of the bill and the short amount of review time, it is obvious a very small cadre of Congressional members developed it and wrote it, which means from a representative government perspective it stinks to high heaven.
• To add insult to injury, Congressional members and their staffs will see increases in salaries, i.e. they obviously made sure to take care of themselves.
• The legislation gave an incremental $3 billion in budget to the failed and useless National Institutes of Health.
• There was a $4 million grant to combat “excessive alcohol use” via the CDC, an amount which is way too little to make dent in excessive alcohol abuse in this country but which could have fed a lot of homeless Americans or served a lot of veterans’ healthcare needs.
• There is $8 million set aside in the budget for “breastfeeding grants” and a mandate that the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau improve “wine label accuracy.” Seriously, the Federal government needs to spend taxpayer dollars on wine label labeling?

As you can see, nothing has changed. Regardless of what party is in the White House or is in charge of Congress, the idiocy, wasteful spending, bad priorities and the continuing piling on of trillions of dollars of national debt marches on while major issues facing Americans NEVER get resolved.

2) Up in New York, a trial is underway regarding illegal campaign funding as it relates to current mayor, Bill de Blasio:

• Former campaign donor, Harendra Singh testified in court that de Blasio was aware of and apparently did not care that his campaign was receiving illegal campaign donations.
• According to Singh, de Blasio told him: “Listen, I don’t know, I don’t want to know. Just do what you’ve got to do.”
• Singh is the star witness in the corruption trial of former Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano and former Oyster Bar Town Supervisor John Venditto.
• Singh has already pleaded guilty to bribing de Blasio and in the trial of Mangano and Venditto.
• Singh has testified that he had thrown free fundraisers for de Blasio and used straw donors to raise campaign funds for the mayor, where straw donors are donors who give money to campaigns and are secretly paid back by the actual donors, a process that is illegal. 
• While de Blasio’s legal team has denied such illegal activity, Singh is the second person to admit to shady campaign financing practices, Jona Rechnitsz has also testified that he also donated large amounts amount of money to the de Blasio in exchange for political favors.

Obviously everyone is innocent until proven guilty but there is a lot of suspicious corruption smoke prevailing up around the New York City mayor.

3) I am not a big fan of rap music and I am certainly not a big fan of profanity. Someone once told me that people use profanity because they are too lazy or too stupid not to use it. But I certainly agree with a recent anti-government rant that rapper Cardi B. went on when via social media she wanted to know in detail what the Federal government was doing with all of her tax money. 

Her request for details on the status of her tax money included the following social media posts:

• “So you know the government is taking 40 percent of my taxes and Uncle Sam, I want to f***ing know what you’re doing with my f***ing tax money!” 
• “When you donate, like, to a kid from a foreign country, they give you updates of what they’re doing with your donation. I want updates on my tax money!”
• “I’m from New York and the streets is always dirty, we was voted the dirtiest city in America…there’s still rats in the trains. I know you’re not spending it in no damn prison because y’all be giving n****** two [pairs of] underwear, one jumpsuit for like five months. So what is ya n***** doing with my f***ing money?”
• “I want to know, I want receipts, I want everything … Uncle Sam, I want to know what the f*** you’re doing with my f***ing money!”

Again, while I disagree with her language, I feel the same frustrations and disgust on how Washington and the rest of the American political class at all levels of government use and abuse our tax dollars. She is just more “colorful” in expressing her frustration than I am!

4) Woodrow Wilson once said, “The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.” This was a warning from a hundred years ago that government may have already gotten too big and that its bigness has threatened to destroy our basic freedoms and our democracy. 

Well, according to a new poll from Monmouth University, the majority of Americans agree with Wilson and his foreshadowing of such a shadow government:

• A majority of those polled believe that a groups of powerful non-elected government and military officials actually rule America behind the scenes.
• Both Democrats and Republicans in the poll believe this concept and that there does exist a so-called “deep state” movement that actually makes policy in addition to spying on ordinary American citizens.
• Again, the suspicions of the “deep state” violating the rights of its own citizens is bipartisan.

Even if there is no deep state and there are no blocs of unelected powerful people running the country, the suspicion and feeling that there are is not conducive to long term freedom and democracy.

That will finally do it for this month’s political class insanity: a belief in a shadow government, a rapper goes off on wasteful spending, the current set of politicians still do not know how to put a budget together that is frugal and effective, and possible political class corruption marches on in New York City. More insanity sure to follow next month.

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:

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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