Showing posts with label associated press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label associated press. Show all posts

Thursday, December 26, 2024

December, 2024, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Biden Is Broken, Congress Is Broken, and The Associated Press Is Broken

 We have spent a lot of time lately discussing the violent and sometimes fatal consequences of Biden’s failed immigration policies on American citizens. Let’s take a break from that sad reality and discuss some good old political class insanity:

1)Biden has had many major failures across many components of his Presidency including foreign affairs. And one of his most disgusting and most total failures was the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Ignoring the input and advice of his civilian and military advisors relative to his ill advised withdrawal plan, he went ahead anyway with his plan and the result was a total disaster:


  • He left behind billions and billions of dollars worth of taxpayer funded military equipment which fell into the hands of the Taliban and has probably resulted in unnecessary deaths across the world well after the withdrawal because of those weapons.

  •  He left behind to fend for themselves American citizens and Afghan citizens that had aided the Americans during the 20 year war against the Taliban.

  • Rather than use the massive airbase that U.S. taxpayers had paid for, he decided to use the smaller and inadequate Kabul airport for the withdrawal.

  • His inept withdrawal plan led to the unnecessary deaths of 13 brave U.S. service people and 170 innocent Afghan citizens when a suicide bomber was able to infiltrate the withdrawal area.


Which gets us to the latest Biden scandal:


  • When the bodies of those brave 13 service people were returned to this country, the President, as is traditional, met their coffins when they were brought home from Afghanistan.

  • This is known as a “dignified transfer” ceremony.

  • But during the removal  of the coffins from the plane, Biden constantly looked at his watch, indicating that he was bored and had better things to do than to honor these brave soldiers.

  • But this scandal gets even more disgusting, given recently disclosed information.

  • Apparently, the families of the fallen soldiers were forced to wait for hours to receive the coffins of their fallen family members because Biden was not to be disturbed from his nap inside Air Force One.

  • According to one waiting relative, Roice McCollum: “Biden made us wait an extra three hours to receive the bodies of our dead family members because he could not pull it together.”

  • Mr. McCullom asserted that a military officer had actually told her that Biden was still napping on the plane and was not to be disturbed.

  • This assertion was confirmed by Darin Hoover, the father of a fallen Sgt. Taylor Hoover,  and Cristy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Sgt. Nicole Gee: “We sat in  that office for what seemed like an eternity waiting on the  doddering old fool,” said Mr. Hoover.


A Biden spokesperson denied this incident happened but given the long history of Biden’s habit of lying about everything, I believe the relatives of the fallen heroes rather than the Biden Presidency.


2)As many probably know, the Federal  government almost shut down  this week as the incompetent in Congress proved again that they still do not have a sane, competent, and efficient budget development process. Chaos was narrowly averted, no thanks to Joe Biden.


As President, Biden should have had an active participant in the  negotiations to get a budget done since as head of the legislative branch a President would be responsible for executing that budget. However, he had little, if any, input to the process, and made no public statements helping to resolve the budget crisis.


During a recent White House press secretary, White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, had to face this dereliction of Presidential duty,  being asked by a reporter: “Why hasn’t President Biden said anything in the public about this? Don’t the American people deserve to know why millions of federal workers could enter this holiday period without a paycheck?” 


As always with this inept press secretary, she dodged the question of Biden’s ineptness and ignored the crisis, responding: “All Americans need to know that Republicans are getting in the way here and they are the ones who have created this mess. That’s the reality. That’s the fact.” 


A  complete dodge of the question that was asked. Pathetic administration all around.


3)We have often discussed the reality that the mainstream press, including the Associated Press, has lost most of their credibility when it comes to reporting news in an unbiased manner, often ignoring facts that are contrary to their leftist. liberal leaning. They are quick to point out the details when negative news occurs relative to conservative and  Republican  elements but hide or deflect news when it includes Democrats or liberals.


This was recently illustrated yet again by the Associated Press: 


  • Sadly, there was a horrific mass casualty event at a Christmas market in Germany when a car sped through a crowd of Christmas celebrants.

  • There were two people killed and dozens were injured.

  • The Associated Press tweeted out the story with the title, “A car has driven into a group of people at a Christmans market in Germany.”

  • The title gave the  impression that the car, not a driver, had driven into the crowd by itself.

  • In reality, the car was driven by a doctor from Saudi Arabia who, when he was arrested, was found to also have an explosive device in his possession, apparently intent to cause even more damage and deaths.

  • But from the AP headline it appears a self driving car did the damage.

  • And the first paragraph of the article led to the same impression: “A car plowed into a busy outdoor Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring at least 60 others in what authorities called a deliberate attack. The driver was arrested at the scene shortly after the car barreled into the market at around 7 p.m., when it was teeming with holiday shoppers looking forward to the weekend.”


Like the mainstream has done many times, when a Muslim commits a terror attack like this, the mainstream media will very often try to hide the characteristics of the terrorist. And they wonder why no one trusts them to report unbiased news any more.


4)Back in 2020, we made the observation that, in our opinion, Biden was in cognitive decline and doubted he was intellectually capable of being President. For that observation, we privately received several deriding and profane comments on our position as some TDS folks rushed to refute our opinion on  his mental decline.


Four years later, after many verbal and physical gaffees, outbursts of anger and idiocy, we are pretty confident that we were right in our cognitive assessment four years ago. And according to the a recent article and research by the Wall Street Journal, we were probably right in our assessment:


  • The  Journal article outlined how his aides and staff often went to great lengths over the past four years to protect Biden from embarrassing himself in public and in private, and thus not embarrassing the country on the world stage.

  • The research involved speaking with 50 people to come to the  conclusion  that Biden nas been in serious cognitive decline for a while and the White House staff did their best to shield the public from this knowledge

  • For example, two staff members, Annie Tomasini and Ashley Wllias, were given the task to always be within ear shot and eye shot in order to guide him on how to enter and exit the stage at any public event.

  • Other aides made sure that Biden’s work schedule started later in the day since he was not that sharp in the morning.

  • Other meetings were often scrapped entirely because Biden was having an “off day“: He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow,” a former aide recalled one official saying to them, according to the WSJ.

  • Some Washington politicians said that aides and senior advisors acquired larger government roles over the years that Biden himself should have been doing but could not regularly handle because of his mental state.

  • Biden held only nine  full Cabinet meetings in four years with cabinet members more often having to meet with Biden advisors and not him.

  • The advisors would bring any needs or updates to Biden  rather than allow cabinet members to work with Biden  directly.

  • And according to the research, those cabinet members that often had direct interface with Biden saw those direct contacts decrease over time, probably because Biden’s cognitive abilities also decreased.

  • When meeting privately with political donors, those donors were shocked when told there would not be an open question and answer session with Biden, that they had to submit questions ahead of time that would presumably then be used to prep Biden.


You get the idea: Biden never should have been put in the position to run for President, he was in significant brain decline four years ago, a condition that just got worse over time. As a result, the American people suffered through the worst Presidency in  modern times because of his inability to define, plan, and execute positive strategies for the benefit of Americans.


As we have said before, this was not all Biden’s fault. It  seems much of the past four years he had no idea what was going on. His wife, his family,  and his political handlers should all be  arrested for elder abuse for putting a man  in his mental  condition through the pressures of being a Washington politician.


Not a pretty day: Biden  is broken, Congress is broken, and the Associated Press is broken.


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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:


https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom



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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:


Thursday, July 16, 2015

Obama's Iraq Debacle

As a long term Libertarian both in mind and voting record, I was certainly against the Bush invasion of Iraq. It was none of our business what was going on within that country since it was highly unlikely to have any impact on America or Americans or place either in danger. And like every other Middle East U.S. excursion, both diplomatic and military, it was destined to end badly. Which it did.

So, understand that I am not about to get after Obama on Iraq because I am a hard core Republican, conservative, neocon, etc. I am about to get on him today about Iraq because of his inability to formulate a long term strategy. We constantly see this glaring deficiency in many other areas including health care with his failed Obama Care legislation (too many sub-failures to mention here), economic matters (e.g. still over 45 million Americans on food stamps), government efficiency and effectiveness (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security likely lose upwards of $200 billion a year to criminal fraud), etc. 

His inability to formulate and execute a long term, winning strategy on any issue is not unique to Obama. This deficiency infects everyone in the Washington political class. But today we will focus on Obama's inability to formulate, communicate, and execute an Iraq strategy to defeat ISIS, the most violent and well financed terrorist group in the history of mankind. 

The basis of our discussion will be a well written article by Ethan Bartion and Erica Wenig earlier this month for the Daily Caller website. Now, many liberals will immediately go over the edge and claim that the Daily Caller is a biased, slanted, right wing rag and cannot be trusted to give Obama a fair shake. However, before you do go crazy, please read the entire article at:


You will see that not only is the article well written and fair but that the information they use to prove that Obama is wasting our time and wealth in Iraq in the absence of a long term strategy is based on sources that have long been a favorite of liberals including the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and official government reports. The article sources from all of these sources and others and can be directly linked to from the article. 

Keep in mind two facts when reviewing the following disaster from the Obama administration:
  1. The President himself has admitted, more than a year after first admitting the same thing, that he and his administration still do not have a strategy for defeating ISIS.
  2. His military and diplomatic advisors had warned him in 2011 that withdrawing all U.S. troops at that time would create a power void since the Iraqi army was not up to snuff from a training and capability perspective. However, from a political Presidential campaign perspective, Obama decided to do the selfish political thing and not the proper military and foreign relations thing. As ISIS rose, it turns out that his advisors were right, Obama did withdraw U.S. forces out prematurely despite his promise that we were leaving behind a safe, secure, and democratic Iraq.
So what is this leadership failure and the subsequent lack of long term planning costing us in Iraq:
  • According to the Pentagon, we have already spent $2.91 billion on this ISIS effort with little to show for it except temporarily stalling a few ISIS advances.
  • This $2.91 billion comes out to about $9.2 million PER DAY so far.
  • About half of these costs are directly tied to our airstrike missions against ISIS but according to Congressional sources, a whopping 75% of those missions return without dropping any bombs.
  • Regardless, we are currently averaging only about 12 airstrikes a day, of which 75% do no damage to ISIS, in a vain attempt to cover an ISIS controlled land mass that is thousands of square miles.
  • The reason is that the planes cannot find any targets without the U.S. having a substantial ground presence to identify targets. As a result, 75% of the missions return after burning millions of dollars of fuel without making any difference on the ground.
  • The Obama administration put together a half a billion dollar training program to train and equip Syrian rebels to fight ISIS but so far that half a billion dollar program has resulted in training a grand total of 60, yes 60, rebels to fight ISIS, according to Obama's Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.
  • Originally, the Obama administration had aimed to train 5,400 rebels per year, according to the Associated Press. This leaves them 5,340 short of their target goal for this year with 60 trainees representing a pitiful .9% of their goal.
  • According to the article, $2.91 billion could have fed every family in Philadelphia for a year, could have wiped out the average student debt of 118,239 college graduates, or could have paid the average annual income tax bill for just over 200,000 American families.
So we have no strategy, no plans, no goals that would define victory, and it is still costing us billions of dollars. And with no strategy in sight, there is obviously no end in sight for spending billions of more dollars. But as we should expect, American politicians care only for themselves, their own short term glory, their own political careers, their own personal enrichment. That is why whenever career politicians like Obama make decisions based on their own political goals and aspirations and not the good of the country, we end paying for it big time in the form of wasted lives and wasted national wealth.

That is why we are big advocates of term limits for all Washington politicians, "one and done.” Because really, how much worse could it be to replace all of the existing career politicians with new people who might at least give us a chance of having a long term strategy for our issues, a strategy that would work and be cost efficient? We get neither with today’s political class and so far it has cost us almost $3 billion just in Iraq. 

Find out more at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com


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




Friday, October 10, 2014

October, 2014, Part 7 Political Class Insanity: Rich But Ineffective Politicians, The Transparent Administration That Isn't, Hawaii Going Bankrupt and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time to check in with the American political class to see what insanity they have wrought over the past month or so. It is always amazing to follow the exploits, quotes, and actions of our politicians and the government entities they operate to see how often idiocy, incompetence, and heartbreak are almost always the output from their actions.

We started dong these updates several years ago, usually taking one or two days every month to get all of their insanity covered. Unfortunately, over time, the insanity has seemed to accelerate almost exponentially, causing us to now have to take six or seven posts each month to get it all in. This month will be no different. As our foreign policy implodes, the economy stagnates, and the midtem elections approach, the insanity levels are intensifying daily.

To check out past instances of political class insanity in this post, simply go to the first week of each month and check out the posts that begin, “Political class Insanity.” This is the seventh entry in this series for this month, with the first six posts appearing over the past few days.

For the latest insanity, read on:

1) Fiscal and economic insanity is not restricted to Washington. Many times we have discussed the financial abyss in front of states like California and cities like Chicago. We can now add the state of Hawaii to that list of poorly run state governments.

Senate Minority Leader Sam Slom recently warned his fellow Hawaiian lawmakers he has serious concerns about the state’s economic future because of the following financial numbers and realities:
  • “Hawaii is set to go bust in 2016 unless the new governor and the state legislature make some serious cuts,” Slom said.
  • Since he claims that Hawaii is already one of the highest taxing states in the union already, raising taxes even more will have the least desirable financial benefits to the state and its residents.
  • He cites work done by the state Council on Revenues, an appointed Hawaiian entity that forecasts economic trends in Hawaii from which lawmakers create their budget, which predicts that the state will have $76 million less revenue than anticipated to work with in 2014 and $188 million less in 2015. 
  • That is a $264 million deficit in just one two-year budget cycle.
  • Even though the governor has told state government departments to cut their budgets by 10% over the next two years, those reductions, if they occur, will reduce government spending by only $14 million within the overall state budget of $6 billion.
  • This will force the state to go into an emergency reserve budget to cover the shortfall, but which does not resolve the long term budget and spending crisis.
Looks like Detroit and Stockton, California and other government entities that have spent themselves into insolvency will soon have another member of their dubious club, the state of Hawaii.

2) In the recent past we discussed the good news that the state of California was moving to enact legislation that would limit the amount of spying law enforcement could do in California via drone operations. Their effort would have made it illegal to use drones to spy on California citizens without first showing probable cause and obtaining a search warrant from a judge. This is great news from a freedom and liberty perspective since it would have respected the privacy of innocent citizens while preserving all of our rights under the Fourth Amendment.

Good news accept for the fact that for some daft reason, Jerry brown, the governor of California, vetoed the bill, at least temporarily preserving the right of the government and law enforcement to spy on you in the state as it sees fit, without judicial oversight. He did this even though the legislation left plenty of flexibility for exceptions that don’t entail secret, uncontrolled drone use such as disaster assessment, traffic accidents, “hot pursuit” situations involving threats to public safety, and wildfire surveillance.

Many observers n this area reacted appropriately by criticizing the veto action: 
  • Slate’s Margot E. Kaminski: “A warrant requirement does not prevent law enforcement from using drones, which are cheap and useful technology; it checks the scope of drone surveillance by involving legal standards and a judge. California’s drone bill is not draconian. It includes exceptions for emergency situations, search-and-rescue efforts, traffic first responders, and inspection of wildfires. It allows other public agencies to use drones for other purposes — just not law enforcement.”
  • California Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, a Republican from Camarillo and the bill’s sponsor, said that Brown had sided with the wrong side in the area of electronic privacy law: “We’re increasingly living in a surveillance society as the government uses new technology to track and watch the activities of Americans. It’s disappointing that the governor decided to side with law enforcement in this case over the privacy interests of California.” 
Brown apparently is also in the minority vs. other governors according to Ars Technica. Ten other states already deny police the authority to conduct warrantless drone surveillance: Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin. Just when you think the political class will actually do something right, they screw it up again.

3) According to an article in the September 19, 2014 issue of The Week magazine by Carolyn O’Hara:
  • For the first time ever, more than 50% of the members of Congress are millionaires.
  • Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor recently left Congress, where he was earning about $175,000 a year, to take a job with a wall Street lobbying firm where he will make over $3 million a year.
  • The Clintons are now worth far more than $100 million as a couple. Heck, their daughter is worth over $7 million.
  • Five of the nine Supreme Court justices are millionaires.
  • The President of the United States is a millionaire many times over.
Ask yourself this: do you really think that these millionaires, and a few instances have any idea what it is like living in America today and what the daily struggles are of feeding a family, educating a family, keeping a family safe, etc.? Do really think they have our best interests in place when economically and wealth wise they are so far different than us? 

I think not but that is just me ….and the fact that over the past five decades these wealthy and getting wealthier Washington types of been unable or unwilling to resolve a single major issue facing this country.

4) One of the biggest lies and deceptions of the Obama administration was that it was going to be the most “transparent’ Presidential administration of all time. Well, it did not take long for that promise to go poof in so man ways:
  • Freedom of Information Act requests were routinely ignored, partially filled, illegally delayed beyond the time frames prescribed by law, or redacted so much as to be useless.
  • The administration tried to illegally charge those who submitted Freedom of Information Act requests in order to have their request fulfilled, often at exorbitant rates.
  • Journalists were tailed, bugged, or had their computers hacked.
  • Administration members failed to produce documents requested by Congress, either by ignoring them or claiming executive privilege, such as in the Fast and Furious Congressional investigation.
  • The administration oversaw the intentional destruction of documents, hard drives, back up copies, etc. in order to avoid fulfilling Congressional investigation request, such as in the IRS targeting of innocent Americans and EPA actions.
As you can see, this insanity shows that the Obama administration could not be any further away from being a “transparent’ administration. This reality was recently succinctly and easily summarized by recent writing by the Associated Press’ Washington bureau chief, Sally Buzzbee, who became the latest journalist to criticize the Obama administration for failing to live up to its promise of transparency” “Bush was not fantastic. The [Obama] administration is significantly worse than previous administrations.”

To prove her point, Buzbee described eight ways the Obama administration is restricting access to information at a recent joint meeting of the American Society of News Editors, the Associated Press Media Editors and the Associated Press Photo Managers, as recently outlined in a Heritage Foundation summary:

A) Journalists Can’t See the Fight Against Islamic Militants: Buzbee contends Americans are being kept in the dark about recent military action, noting that journalists aren’t allowed to take photos or record video of bombers when they take off. This is unlike the Bush administration which embedded journalists right with our fighting forces.

B) Journalists Often Are Barred From Obama’s Meetings With World Leaders: Buzbee says previous administrations advocated for journalists to be present during the president’s meetings with world leaders when he is abroad. This change, she says, sends the wrong message to the rest of the world.

C) Access to Upcoming 9/11 Trial Is Restricted: Journalists do not have access to court filings in real time, Buzbee says, and even access to nonclassified information about the trial has been blocked or delayed.

D) Coverage of Guantanamo Is ‘Virtually Nonexistent’: Information normally released by the previous administration is now nearly impossible to come by. “The military won’t release the number of prisoners on hunger strike or the number of assaults on guards,” Buzbee says.

E) Sources Are Being Intimidated: Sources have told Associated Press reporters they could be fired for talking to the media. Buzbee called the intimidation tactics “chilling,” adding: “Government press officials say their orders are to squelch anything controversial or that makes the administration look bad.”

F) The Freedom of Information Act Is ‘Under Siege’: FOIA requests have become so expensive and delayed that many organizations are forced to sue federal agencies to get a response at all.

G) The White House Uses FOIA Requests to Monitor What News Organizations Will Cover: Political appointees use FOIA requests as a “tip service” to gain insight into upcoming stories, Buzbee says. At the agency overseeing Obamacare, political appointees have been put in charge of FOIA requests.

H) State and Local Governments Release Less Information: The Obama administration has tried to dictate to state and local governments what they can and cannot reveal, particularly when it comes to surveillance programs.

Another promise, an other lie, another hit to freedom and liberty from a seasoned journalist.

5) And finally for today, what or who do we really think has a chance it eliminating all of the insanity we have been discussing over the past week or so and actually put the country on the right track? If you believe the results of a Gallup poll from this past July, that is a very difficult challenge for the country. According to the poll results, only 30% of those surveyed had any confidence in the Supreme Court, only 29% had confidence in the Presidency, and a dismal 7% had any confidence in Congress. 

All the more reason to impose term limits on all Washington politicians and court appointees. If we got rid of everyone in Washington in all three branches of government, how much worse could it get than these Gallup results? You can help move that effort along at the following site:


To do anything else or to live with the status quo is a true definition of insanity.

Seven days into this political class insanity view and we are still not done, more idiocy and such 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.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w




Tuesday, October 7, 2014

October, 2014 Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Gambling Government Employees, Our Kids Going Hungry, Losing Track of Illegal Immigrants, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time to check in with the American political class to see what insanity they have wrought over the past month or so. It is always amazing to follow the exploits, quotes, and actions of our politicians and the government entities they operate to see how often idiocy, incompetence, and heartbreak are almost always the output from their actions.

We started dong these updates several years ago, usually taking one or two days every month to get all of their insanity covered. Unfortunately, over time, the insanity has seemed to accelerate almost exponentially, causing us to now have to take six or seven posts each month to get it all in. This month will be no different. As our foreign policy implodes, the economy stagnates, and the midtem elections approach, the insanity levels are intensifying daily.

To check out past instances of political class insanity in this post, simply go to the first week of each month and check out the posts that begin, “Political class Insanity.” This is the fourth entry in this series for this month, with the first three posts appearing over the past few days. 

For the latest insanity, read on:

1) Given that the Federal government routinely spends more money than it takes in, running up a national debt level of an amazing $18 TRILLION, one would at least hope that minimal standards are in place so that government employees do not waste taxpayer wealth. You could hope, but based on employee behavior, at least at the Federal Department of Transportation (DOT) you would be wrong.

It seems that an audit of DOT employee credit card usage found that those employees have been using government credit cards for cash advances at casinos and racetracks and for other unauthorized spending, according to a report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). The misuse of the government issued travel credit cards amounted to $2.1 million in charges for personal items in fiscal year of 2012, besides being used for cash advances at casinos and race tracks. This total did not include the $180,000 that the employees used in unauthorized cash advances while they were not on business trips.

The audit found that over two hundred cash advances were taken at casinos and that the department did not have effective policies to prevent the government credit cards from being misused: “While reviewing cash advance transactions, we identified cash advances collected at casinos,” the Inspector General said. “While DOT’s Travel Card Policy does not preclude cardholders from taking cash advances at casinos, this presents another opportunity for abuse to occur.”

Among the offenses:

  • The audit examined 218 cash advances that were taken at casinos, and found 27 were made by employees not on official travel.
  • A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employee collected $492 in cash advances from his government credit card at a casino in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
  • A former Inspector General DOT employee was also able to use his travel card, despite leaving the agency more than two years before. 
  • The cards are also used at racetracks: “Between October 2011 and June 2012, an FAA cardholder collected seven cash advances totaling $719 while not on Government travel,” the Inspector General said. “On one occasion, this employee obtained a $104 cash advance on a race day at an Alabama Superspeedway.”
  • The audit also found that government credit cards are used on personal items, such as groceries.

In the real world, outside of government employment, these would all be grounds for dismissal and potentially criminal prosecution. In the world of government, I doubt anything was done, to the detriment of the American taxpayer and our ever rising government debt.

2) As we have pointed out probably hundreds of times in this blog, the Federal government does a lot of things but does none of them well:
  • Social Security - wasteful and going bankrupt
  • Medicare and Medicaid - wasteful and going bankrupt
  • IRS - inefficient and destroying the freedom of Americans
  • Military Spending - out of control and extremely wasteful
  • TSA - transportation safety that exists in name only …besides the degradation of being groped while in public.
You get the idea, I dare you to name one program, one operation, one anything that the Federal government does efficiently and effectively.

Apparently, those government agencies charged with handling our immigration crisis on our southern border or no better, effective, or efficient than any other dysfunctional government entity:

  • According to a recent Associated Press (AP) report, a whopping 7 of every 10 families released by the Obama administration this year, after entering the country illegally, failed to show up for follow-up appointments with immigration authorities.
  • The AP got their hands on an audio recording of a confidential meeting held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during which one ICE official said thousands of families caught crossing the border this year, 70 percent of the total, subsequently failed to meet as instructed with federal immigration agents.
  • At that same meeting, the ICE official also said final deportation had been ordered for at least 860 persons traveling as families and caught at the border since May but of those, only 140 had reported for deportation, a success rate of a meager 16%.
  • More than 66,000 immigrants traveling as families, mostly mothers and children, have been caught for illegally crossing the border since October.
I would make anyone a bet that the vast majority of those seven out of those ten delinquents will never be seen by the Federal government’s immigration people again. And as you see, we have another government entity that is a total failure with a success rate, depending on how you measure it ranging from 16% to 30% (i.e. seven out of ten disappear). 

Imagine how long you would keep your job if you were successful only 16% of the time. But in government work, apparently 16% success rate is actually acceptable. Pathetic.

3) It is no secret that the Federal government drive to get kids to eat healthy meals in schools has turned into a wasteful, expensive, and failed effort. As with most government directed dictates, you cannot force a nation to do what a small group thinks is best in Washington. 

Yes, our kids probably do not eat healthy enough, resulting in high overweight and obesity rates. But this is a public health issue, not a government law making issue. A long term public health program needs to be put in place to get all of America to eat healthier. You cannot change these deeply entrenched, bad eating habits by passing a piece of legislation.

As a result of this misdirected government effort, often associated with Michelle Obama, kids are rebelling against tasteless healthy foot options around the country. As a result, schools' food lunch budgets are getting decimated by kids not paying for and eating cafeteria food, resulting in food being thrown out every day and kids going hungry. Recent news reports point to further unintended consequences of Michelle Obama’s efforts and the Federal law it spawned:

  • Some experts estimate that a whopping $4 million worth of perfectly good but tasteless food is being tossed in the trash each day as a result of Michelle’s school lunch program.
  • To date, almost 600 school districts have already dropped out of the First Lady’s lunch program, Fort Thomas Independent Schools in Northern Kentucky being one of them.
  • Fort Thomas School Superintendent Gene Kirchner stated out that since the program is resulting in so much waste, then it is not very effective. “I have to think that across the country, it has to be a staggering amount of food going to waste, and I think there are people out there who could really use that food.” 
  • According to one government study, over one million kids across the country have stopped eating lunch altogether after the new standards were imposed on their schools, depriving school budgets of lunch money revenue and causing economic hardships for those schools’ budgets.

Another remedy from the political class that causes more problems than it solves. In this case, this school lunch legislation solved no problems but caused millions of kids to go hungry, wasted millions of dollars of food every day, and never came close to getting obesity rates down. 

Again, this is a long term public health issue that the Washington political class tried, and failed, to solve with a short term legislative action. Can you say “Obama Care in school lunches?”

4) More times than not, when a group of American politicians enact a law or undertake any major action, they end up making the initial situation worse. Obama Care was supposed to bring down health care costs, it has caused and will continue to cause health care costs to rise. The Patriot Act was supposed to protect us from terrorism but ended up costing us a lot of our freedom and constitutional protection without protecting us from the numerous terrorist attacks we have suffered over the past few years.

The politicians in Minnesota lived up to this heritage of failure when they enacted a law that banned texting while driving in a vain attempt to cut down on car accidents caused by be texting distracted while driving. According to a study published in the May, 2014 issue of Journal of Adolescent Health, a Minnesota law that banned texting while driving did indeed reduce the number of minor traffic accidents. However, it apparently increased the number of serious car accidents.

How could this be? It is now against the law to text and drive. Well, texters decided that it was okay to text in Minnesota as long as no one, including the police, saw you texting. This resulted in texters putting their cell phones in less conspicuous places while texting and driving, places that required them to be further out of touch with their surroundings. This likely resulted in an increase in more serious and dangerous road accidents. Unintended consequences of politicians not thinking through what their actions might cause.

So lets review: we have at least one government operation, the DOT, whose accounting controls are broken or non-existent, allowing their employees to use government/taxpayer funds at casinos and racetracks. 

We have an immigration operation that loses 70% of the people it is supposed to be tracking. 

We have a Federally mandated school lunch program that is breaking school budgets, making our kids go hungry, and not resolving the original problem. 

And we have political class insanity in Minnesota that is making driving a car more dangerous even though the legislation was supposed to do just the opposite. 

More insanity, more wasted taxpayer money, less positive results. And more insanity for 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.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w