The Corurption and Hunger Games Mentality of the Political Class, Part 5: An African-American Writer's Take On The Obama Administration

This is our fifth and final, (for now) review of the rampant corruption and Hunger Games mentality that exist throughout the American political class. Our politicians have become less and less leaders and good examples of citizens and more and more simple crooks and selfish individuals who look after themselves, their friends, and their own self enrichment. And they move in this negative direction in an increasingly corrupt, illegal, and despicable manner and behavior as time goes by.

As a guide for reviewing political class corruption, we have been relying on the multi-level definition of corruption that the Webster online dictionary provides:

a : impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle : depravity 

b : decay, decomposition 

c : inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery) 

d : a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct 

Today we look to a writer named Mychal Massie, a respected writer and talk show host in Los Angeles. His essay, included in its entirety below, was brought to my attention in an email sent to me by a friend. I do not know if these are his words or if he even exists. 

However, regardless of his status, the thoughts attributed to him below certainly and elegantly capture the disgust and loathing many Americans feel about the politicians in office today relative to their corruption, greed, and condescending Hunger Games mentality that they feel and exhibit for ordinary Americans. 

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The following allegedly comes from Mychal Massie, a respected writer and talk show host in Los Angeles.

The other evening on my twitter, a person asked me why I didn't like the Obama's. Specifically I was asked: "I have to ask, why do you hate the Obama's? It seems personal, not policy related. You even dissed (disrespect) their Christmas family picture."

The truth is I do not like the Obamas, what they represent, their ideology, and I certainly do not like his policies and legislation. I've made no secret of my contempt for the Obamas. As I responded to the person who asked me the aforementioned question, I don't like them because they are committed to the fundamental change of my/our country into what can only be regarded as a Communist state.

I don't hate them per definition, but I condemn them because they are the worst kind of racialists, they are elitist Leninists with contempt for traditional America. They display disrespect for the sanctity of the office he holds, and for those who are willing to admit same, Michelle Obama's raw contempt for white America is transpicuous.

I don't like them because they comport themselves as emperor and empress.

I expect, no I demand respect, for the Office of President, and a love of our country and her citizens, from the leader entrusted with the governance of same. President and Mrs. Reagan displayed an unparalleled love for the country and her people. The Reagan's made Americans feel good about themselves and about what we could accomplish.

His arrogance by appointing 32 leftist czars and constantly bypassing congress is impeachable. Eric Holder is probably the MOST incompetent and arrogant DOJ head to ever hold the job. Could you envision President Reagan instructing his Justice Department to act like jack-booted thugs?

Presidents are politicians and all politicians are known and pretty much expected to manipulate the truth, if not outright lie, but even using that low standard, the Obama's have taken lies, dishonesty, deceit, mendacity, subterfuge and obfuscation to new depths. They are verbally abusive to the citizenry, and they display an animus for civility.

I do not like them, because they both display bigotry overtly, as in the case of Harvard Professor Louis Gates, when he accused the Cambridge Police of acting stupidly, and her code speak pursuant to now being able to be proud of America. I view that statement and that Mindset as an insult to those who died to provide a country where a Kenyan, his illegal alien relatives, and his alleged progeny, could come and not only live freely, but rise to the highest, most powerful, position in the world. 

Michelle Obama is free to hate and disparage whites because Americans of every description paid with their blood to ensure her right to do that.

I have a saying, that "the only reason a person hides things, is because they have something to hide." No president in history has spent over a million dollars to keep his records and his past sealed.

And what the two of them have shared has been proven to be lies. 

He lied about when and how they met, he lied about his mother's death and problems with insurance, Michelle lied to a crowd pursuant to nearly $500,000 bank stocks they inherited from his family. He has lied about his father's military service, about the civil rights movement, ad nausea. He lied to the world about the Supreme Court in a State of the Union address.

He berated and publicly insulted a sitting Congressman. He has surrounded himself with the most rabidly, radical, socialist academicians today. He opposed rulings that protected women and children that even Planned Parenthood did not seek to support. He is openly hostile to business and aggressively hostile to Israel.

His wife treats being the First Lady as her personal American Express Black Card (arguably the most prestigious credit card in the world). I condemn them because, as people are suffering, losing their homes, their jobs, their retirements, he and his family are arrogantly showing off their life of entitlement - as he goes about creating and fomenting class warfare.

I don't like them, and I neither apologize nor retreat from my public condemnation of them and of his policies. We should condemn them for the disrespect they show our people, for his willful and unconstitutional actions pursuant to obeying the Constitutional parameters he is bound by, and his willful disregard for Congressional authority.

Dislike for them has nothing to do with the color of their skin; it has everything to do with their behavior, attitudes, and policies. And I have open scorn for their constantly playing the race card.

I could go on, but let me conclude with this. I condemn in the strongest possible terms the media for refusing to investigate them, as they did President Bush and President Clinton, and for refusing to label them for what they truly are. There is no scenario known to man, whereby a white president and his wife could ignore laws, flaunt their position, and lord over the people, as these two are permitted out of fear for their color.

As I wrote in a syndicated column titled, "Nero In The White House" - "Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader.

He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequaled. Using Obama as the bar, Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood.

Many in America wanted to be proud when the first person of color was elected president, but instead, they have been witness to a congenital liar, a woman who has been ashamed of America her entire life, failed policies, intimidation, and a commonality hitherto not witnessed in political leaders. He and his wife view their life at our expense as an entitlement - while America 's people go homeless, hungry and unemployed.

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I cannot add anything else, a beautiful essay on the realities of politicians in America today, focused on the Obamas, but a description that could apply to many others in Washington DC and in state capitals and local governments around the country: incompetent, arrogant, liars, dishonesty, deceit, subterfuge, obfuscation, elitists, racialists, disrespect, un-Constitutional, dishonesty, etc. 

But the closing line of the essay captures the essence of this political class and the Obama era perfectly in alignment with the Hunger Games premise: He and his wife view their life at our expense as an entitlement - while America 's people go homeless, hungry and unemployed. And that is the true definition of corruption for a President of the United States.

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

Putin's Russia, Obama's America: Mirror Images Of Corruption, Cronyism and Waste? Part 4, Corruption of The American Political Sould

Over the past three posts we have been dealing with political class corruption in all of its forms: bribes, kickbacks, cronyism, government bungling, self enrichment, etc. We examined how the cost of the Russian Olympics was more than five times more expensive than forecasted, due mainly to the fact that nothing gets done involving Russian politics without baking in the costs of kickbacks, blackmail, and bribery. 

We compared that cronyism and bribery situation to the Obama administration who gives out the most attractive foreign countries’ ambassadorships not to the best, most experienced State Department diplomats but to those political friends who raised the most money for his election campaigns.

We examined local political corruption with the recent conviction of former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin on twenty counts of bribery, kickbacks, wire fraud and other corruption offenses.

And finally, yesterday, we looked at just one example of corruption within the disaster known as the economic stimulus program along with the bribery-like behavior of Comcast. Comcast is showering financial support on Congressional members who are likely to have a substantial voice in whether or not Comcast can complete its merger with Time Warner. Such a merger that would significantly enrich the Comcast operation and business.

But political corruption does not always involve the exchange of money for political and business favors. Sometimes corruption is of the soul and ego. Sometimes, with our politicians, it is a sense of entitlement that enriches themselves at the expense of the American taxpayer’s wealth and well being.

This type of corruption came to mind when recent news reports surfaced that the Obamas were going on yet another vacation. And they were not even going together, they were jetting off to separate long weekend vacations. And they were not going down to a beach or golf course in Maryland or Virginia, you know, local, less expensive venues.

The President was jetting off to a three day golf vacation in California. The First Lady was jetting off in a separate government plane to ski country in the Rockies. These vacations come on the heels of a two week luxury vacation the Obama family just took to Hawaii over the Christmas holidays. This followed the African vacation that the family took in mid-2013. 

At last count, the President had played over 160 rounds of golf while in office. Now, the President is entitled to some rest and relaxation, his job is likely the most stressful in the world. But 160 rounds of golf in just five years, that must set a record in Presidential golfing history. 

Now I am sure that some of the President’s supporters are outraged by this observation. But it is so hypocritical that his party peers were so critical of Bush when he took off for stays at his Texas ranch because there are a few major differences:

1) I do not recall Laura Bush jetting off to separate vacations at taxpayer expense while her husband went home to their ranch in Texas.

2) Bush was going to the same place every time, making the cost of security and protection much less than jetting off to different, exotic places, throughout his administration.

3) A lot of the Bush trips to Texas also involved meeting with foreign diplomats in a more relaxed, casual and hopefully better locale than the stress laden Washington D.C. environment. I do not believe that the current President has accomplished a lot of diplomatic business on the fourth green.

[Full disclosure: I have never voted for a Republican for President since I first became eligible to vote in the 1970s. Up until 2010, I had never voted for a Republican for national office in my life. Thus, defending Bush’s vacation behavior is done from a more or less third party, unbiased viewpoint.]

The current political mantra and PR ploy of this President is a nebulous concept called “income equality.” But it rings a little hollow talking about income inequality when the First Family is jetting off around the world to expensive and exotic spots for many, many vacations every year. 

But it is not just the vacations where we see the hypocrisy of the “income equality” issue. At a recent state dinner at the White House, for the leader of France, the First Lady’s dress was widely reported to be worth $12,000. If true, this dress was worth more than the poverty income level for an American living by themselves ($11,670). It was more than half the income level of a family of four living at the income poverty level ($23,850). 

Nancy Reagan (whose husband I also did not vote for) was crucified by the press and Democrats when she went out and purchased new china and silverware for use at important White House functions because the existing china and silverware was reportedly old and an embarrassment. No such outcry about $12,000 dresses was raised today. At least the new china and silverware had a useful life of more than one night.

Going on, the President recently had yet another photo op with rich athletes. The current NBA champs, the Miami Heat, visited the White House recently to be honored by this President. I would imagine every member of that team is a millionaire and such, they all have no problem with income equality issues in their lives.

Rather than constantly hanging with pampered millionaires via the numerous photo ops this administration seems to conduct, it would be nice if just once this President hung out with some people at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen to show a little real compassion for those where there really is an income equality issue. 

Rather than playing so much golf at plush locations around the country, it would be a welcome surprise if he actually found the time and fortitude to reorganize the many ineffective government training programs so that those programs actually made a difference in people’s ability to get a job. That would certainly be more helpful for income equality than another round of golf or another exotic vacation or another photo op with rich athletes.

Rather than vacationing nowhere near where the heart of America lives, works, and vacations, it would be a welcome change if he actually met with some real American dealing with real problems, problems that do not involve choosing what country club to join, what $12,000 dress to where, or what multi-million dollar pro sport contract to sign.

We have over 20 million Americans in this country who are unemployed, under employed, or who have become too discouraged to even look for employment. 

We have a record number of people who have been in the long term unemployed category for a record length of time. 

We have almost 50 million Americans who receive food assistance from the Federal government to eat everyday. 

We have seen median household incomes continue to decrease every year since the end of the recession.

We have thousands of veterans who served this country and who need our help with emotional and physical wounds and needs but who never seem to get a visit or visible support from this President.

Yes, corruption does not just involve bribery, kickbacks, cronyism, the selling of ambassadorships, etc. It can also involve the corruption of the soul and ego. 

And when any Presidential administration takes on the aura of Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake attitude,” when golf vacations, Hawaiian vacations, African vacations, hanging with rich athletes, and $12,000 dresses take precedent over our hungry, our unemployed, our veterans, and our diminishing income levels and lives, then the corruption cycle within a political class is complete: from bribery to kickbacks to cronyism to soulless self indulgence.

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

July, 2013, Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Wasting Taxpayer Money Overseas

It’s that time of month again, time to review the latest insanity, lunacy, and idiocy from the American political class. When we started doing this monthly feature several years ago, we usually could fit each month’s insanity into a single post.

Unfortunately, as time has gone by, a single post never seems to be adequate to capture all of the craziness. It has gotten so bad, that recently we had to use six days of posts to cover everything. There is a very good chance that this month six posts will not be enough to contain everything that the political class has been dumping on us, our country, and our economy.

So let’s get started. Today our focus will be mostly how our government now wastes our taxpayer wealth across the globe on stupid, inane international programs that have no benefit at all to Americans. This is what we are paying today’s politicians to do, to think, and to screw up outside of the country:

1) According to a report in the U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor, in 2012 the Obama administration sent $90 million in foreign aid to Indonesia. In a program called PRIORITAS (formally known as in the FedBizOpps database as Solicitation #SOL-497-12-000004), Prioritizing Reform, Innovation and Opportunities for Reaching Indonesia’s Teachers, Administrators, and Students, the U.S. taxpayer paid $20 million from that program for Indonesian students to get their the masters degrees.

American students are graduating our colleges with massive student debt burdens and finding it very difficult to find a job. And the Federal government under the Obama administration is sending tens of millions of dollars to help educate foreign students. Insanity.

2) The Washington Examiner reported on another taxpayer-funded, foreign aid disaster. The article from June 21, 2013 reported that a Pakistani organization was given $89.4 million in 2011 to create jobs for Pakistan farmers but the investment was a failure along every possible dimension:

• The program gave financial grants to 110 agriculture Pakistani farm projects but a Federal government Inspector General found that not a single incremental job was created or was the local farm economy expanded: "The audit team found that it has not had much success in achieving the two goals," the report said.
• Two groups of goat farmers were given only female goats, making it very difficult for them to expand their goat herds.
• A group of pickle producers didn't have access to the market and couldn't sell their pickles even with this program’s resources, with the farmers ending up selling their pickles to friends and families, something they likely could have done without U.S. taxpayer funding and support.
• More than 80% of the projects cost less than $5,000 and thus were not subject to oversight by the Federal government entity overseeing the funding, making fraud and corruption easy to commit and get away with.

Stupid programs, a lack of goat sexual knowledge, failed objectives, and easy fraud and corruption, sounds about right for a Federal government project.

3) The Independent Journal reported on another in a long line of wasteful spending programs from the President’s economic stimulus program. This failure spent $431,363 in Nancy Pelosi’s district to study psychological distress of homosexual fathers. The study resulted in zero jobs, but the study did conclude that homosexual men likely reduce their chances of contracting HIV after becoming fathers because they have less time for sex.

Hey, guess what: heterosexual men also reduce their chances of contracting HIV or any other sexual disease once they become fathers because they also have less time for sex. Whew! America has been dying to find that out!

4) That same article reported on another useless government program that also cost close to half a million dollars. The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, a division in the, State Department, will spend $450,000 “to support programs that increase protection of transgender persons who face acute forms of violence and harassment.”

I find these types of programs to be a tremendous waste of U.S. taxpayer money. However, if you think that transgenders need to have more protection, I respect that position. However, this program calls for programs that “are strongly encouraged” for implementing programs in Eastern Europe, Central, and South America. Thus, we are not protecting American transgenders, we are sending taxpayer money around the world to protect foreign transgender people. Ridiculous.

5) Same article, different foreign country, more wasted taxpayer wealth on foreigners. A $228,000 study by the National Institutes of Health will study why Kenyans avoid AIDS treatment…in Kenya. Really? In Kenya?

6) Looks like this is the month for spending taxpayer wealth abroad, with the First Lady even getting into the act. Recently, President Obama was in Belfast, Northern Ireland for a G-8 summit meeting. However, rather than jetting over in Air Force One, the first lady, Michelle Obama and their two daughters flew over in Air Force Two, certainly a huge waste of taxpayer money to begin with.

However, the First lady and the kids stayed in Belfast for only a short time before flying off to Dublin. Once there, rather than spending the night in either the Irish ambassador’s home or in the American embassy, the First Lady treated herself to a $3,300 a night hotel room in Dublin, which of course was picked up by the taxpayer. Given the security detail and others that follow the First Lady around, it is a pretty good bet that other expensive rooms were used by her entourage at the same expensive hotel, a tab also being paid by the American taxpayer.

The administration tried to spin this Dublin visit as having diplomatic importance but given that the First Lady and the kids went to Trinity College library to explore President Obama’s Irish family roots, attended a performance by the world-famous Riverdance troupe, and visited the Wicklow Mountains national forest, this spin does not whirl from a believability perspective.

Extra planes, lavish accommodations, and exotic vacations on the taxpayer’s dime, good work if you can get it, with the White House PR machine making weak excuses for the whole deal.

7) The Associated Press reported June 14, 2013 on what we had previously called inevitable: Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr announced that the city of Detroit would be defaulting on about $2.5 billion of city debt. Detroit will be asking its creditors to take about 10 cents on the dollar of what they’re owed. Underfunded city claims will get less than ten cents on the dollar.

In addition, Mr. Orr announced a moratorium on all of Detroit’s payments on unsecured debt, seeking forgiveness of millions of dollars owed by the city and that $1.25 billion will be set aside over 10 years for public safety, lighting and neighborhood blight elimination. You know a city has gone over the edge when public safety, lighting, and city blight is a top priority as opposed to fixing roads, improving education, etc.

Thus, in just a few short decades, the political class has taken the fourth most populated U.S. city with thriving industries and the fourth largest population of any U.S. city and driven it completely into the ground. Kudos to mismanagement, corruption, and greed.

Our original prediction on Detroit’s demise can be found at the following link:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2009/10/detroit-vs-helsinki-vs-150-other.html

8) Let’s wrap up today’s insanity with one more trip overseas. Our government is sending $2.5 million to Bangladesh, to improve fire and general building safety. Annually, we import billions of dollars worth of goods from there and as outlined in the government grant, most of these goods come from the “ready-made garment sector.” The grant also pointed out there are severely unsafe working conditions in the country‘s garment industry.

I could not agree more but that is not a good reason for the American taxpayer to fund the remedy to those unsafe conditions. It should be a cost of doing business, the retailers and importers of goods from Bangladesh should be the ones paying to fix unsafe working conditions. They are the ones that profit from shoddy safety conditions, let them pay for fixing the shoddy working conditions. For the American taxpayer to do so to the benefit of private companies is ludicrous.

Eight acts of political class insanity and we are just getting started. Hang on for more of the same over the next week or so, its going to be a rough night, to paraphrase a Betty Davis move line from long ago.

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:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w