June, 2020, Part 3,Political Class Insanity: Possible Sexual Assault In Virginia, Cuomo's Failure In New York, Ever Present Food Stamp Fraud, and Expensive Virtual Political Fundraising

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) Let’s take a short break from the insanity of the coronavirus, the ineptness of governors and mayors across the country in dealing with it, the mental decline of Joe Biden, etc. and talk about some good old fashioned government program fraud and incompetence:

• The Federal government spends billions of dollars every year on its food stamp programs.
• The intent of the programs is quite noble, make sure that needy Americans for whatever reason are ensured that they can get aid to pay for food for themselves and their families.
• But the food stamp programs have been some of the most corrupt, criminally infested and wasteful spending programs inside the Federal bureaucracy for a long time.
• In a classic case of throwing good money after bad, the government has allocated a whopping $5 million to fund investigations of how bad the program is from a waste perspective.
• The money is to be used under the fancy marketing moniker of “strengthen integrity activities” by improving fraud prevention.
• The annual cost of the program before the extra $5 million in budget is a whopping $60 billion a year which is used to provide food aid to 40 million lower income Americans.
• The government admits that annual fraud levels in the programs are $1.1 billion, a number that I believe is way too low.
• 12% of the retailers that accept food stamps and other Federal food dollars likely engage in illegal activities relative to the programs, indicating that the $1.1 billion in fraud in a $60 billion program, or less than 2%, is bogus and low.
• In one of the few successful anti-corruption efforts, the government busted a Florida operation involving almost 200 people in which a staggering 22,000 illegal food stamp transactions got those 200 people $3.7 million in taxpayer wealth.
• Back in 2008, the government gave itself broader authority to track down and prosecute food stamp fraud and criminals and yet 12 years later the fraud is still going on.

The political class solution? As always, rather than be creative and elegant to resolve a problem, they just throw more money at the problem. I would hope that the $5 million is a worthwhile investment and results in much more money saved from fraud but given past efforts, I am not holding my breath.

2) Back when we published our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government 50 First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying the American Political Class,” and since then we have lamented the terrible, excessive, and corrupt money that is wasted in this country on political campaigns. Every Presidential year, billions and billions of dollars are wasted on ad agencies, research companies, and advertising to elect politicians who never resolve anything. It is a bad set of priorities for the country.

And that bad set of priorities still exists today:

• In this age of the coronavirus, many gatherings are held virtually whether they are business meetings, family reunions, or political fundraisers.
• Back in mid-May, a virtual fundraising meeting was scheduled featuring Hillary Clinton.
• Which is all well and good but the money involved is disgusting.
• The virtual fundraiser is for the benefit of the Biden Victory Fund, a joint committee of the DNC and the Biden campaign.
• Here is the disgusting part: if you wanted to be a “host” of the fundraiser, whatever the heck that means, you had to ante up a whopping $100,000 for that honor.
• Less prestigious titles, on a “limited availability,” went for anywhere from $50,000 down to a mere $5,600 to be a virtual meeting participant, i.e. you will not get to personally hobnob with Hillary and other self important political types.

What a waste of money on a non-productive and excessive effort. A single $100,000 contribution could have been used to provide about 30,000 meals for homeless and hungry Americans. That would be such a better way to serve the country and its citizens than kissing up to some political, self declared hotshots.

3) We have often pointed out the horrific decision that the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, made when he ignorantly forced nursing homes in his state to accept coronavirus patients. It turns out that the virus is particularly harmful to older Americans and those with existing bad health conditions, a description of most nursing home residents across the country. And yet Cuomo dictated that New York nursing homes accept coronavirus patients.

New information from California shows how horrific his decision was:

• New data from the California Departments of Health and Social Services show that about 49% of the coronavirus deaths in that state were people staying in nursing homes.
• There were at least 11,344 confirmed cases of the virus among staff and residents of California nursing homes which was 18.1% of the state’s total 62,512 cases.
• 1,276 staff and residents of nursing homes in the state have died from the virus which is about 49.4% of the state's virus deaths.
• So only 18% of the cases but 49% of the deaths, leaving no doubt that nursing homes were a breeding ground for the virus, a place where Cuomo shipped a lot of elderly New York residents.
• Michael Connors of the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform thinks the number of nursing home related virus deaths is actually too low: “COVID-19 is like a viral wildfire in nursing homes. It’s way past time for all public health authorities in California to start treating it that way.”

This will be the last time we mention this horrific and fatal decision of Cuomo. It was done in ignorance and not fixed until thousands and thousands of elderly New Yorkers had died. If one of the few primary responsibilities of government is protecting citizens, he failed miserably.

4) Staying with the California numbers for a minute, consider how much economic damage was done for really very little reason. There are about 40 million people living in the state of California. According to this state government analysis, 62,585 Californians caught the virus. Thus, the overall infection rate in the state for the virus was a miniscule .16%. Not 16%, not 1.6%. .16%. Even more microscopic, the death rate from the virus in the state’s population was .006%.

Now, I am belittling any death due to the virus. But our political class put a lot of economic hurt on everyone in this country for a very small subset of the population. Hopefully, in future pandemics the political class has a little more elegance than what they had in this pandemic. But alas, elegance is something these people never seem to have.

5) Let’s finish up the latest bit of insanity with the following arrest news. First, let us reiterate our view that every American is innocent until proven guilty. Second, however, one would hope that anyone in a delicate government position has been properly vetted and is of the highest integrity. Given that consider:

• Scott Moretti was the head of Secretary of State’s John Kerry security detail from 2013 until 2015.
• This was obviously a critical job and one that you would not want just anyone to hold, someone with high integrity and the ability not to be blackmailed for their actions outside of the job.
• Unfortunately, Moretti was recently arrested in Virginia on sexual assault allegations.
• The disgusting part is that the woman says the assaults took place between 2011 and 2013 when she was eleven years old.
• After a police investigation that spread over several months, police arrested him on charges of forcible sodomy and indecent liberties with a minor.

Again, innocent until proven guilty. But still a tarnish on the political class and government workers that the political class hires to do their work.

That will do it for today. Possible sexual assault by a high ranking Obama administration government official, a final assessment of Cuomo’s terrible handling of the virus crisis, the obscene waste of wealth on political activities and the food stamp criminal fraud program rolls on.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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