June, 2019, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: Congress Wants Even More Pay For Being Useless, Hillary Was Hacked and Stupid Immigration Policies Reign

It is 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.

Let’s get started:

1) Let’s look at some of the biggest problems facing America today:

• Medicare going bankrupt.
• Medicaid going bankrupt.
• Social Security going bankrupt.
• $22 trillion national debt and growing.
• Public schools that under educate our kids.
• Out of control healthcare costs.
• Crumbling infrastructure.
• Millions of American homeless, hungry, and drug addicted.
• Dangerous and unchecked immigration of gang members, drug cartel members, drug runners, and potential terrorists on our southern border.

These are very serious problems affecting every American. And yet the Washington political class, especially those that have been in office for years and decades, have no plan, no will, or no ability to fix any of these problems. These problems get worse and worse as time goes by with Washington politicians more concerned about their perpetual reelection and self enrichment.

Which makes a recent article from Politico all that more disgusting:

• Caitlin Emma, writing for Politico on June 4, 2019, points out that Democrats in the House of Representatives are working on a plan to give themselves a $4,500 pay raise despite their utter failure to address and resolve ANY problem facing American today.
• Their justification goes as follows: “There is strong bipartisan support for these modest inflation adjustments,” said Evan Hollander, a spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee, noting that the panel does not have to take action to allow the automatic increases and will simply be forgoing language that would block the raises.
• In other words, they will get sneaky about it since they have rigged the system on the pay raises to happen automatically without public debate or voting by Congress.
• Although they current earn $174,000 a year, about three times what the normal America household earns, they still want a 2.6% increase.
• So far only one Washington politician to my knowledge has spoken out and said what most Americans are thinking, Senator Richard Shelby: “I think the American people would think that Congress ought to earn it first.” 

Thank you Senator Shelby, they should have to earn any pay raise first. This is what we proposed in our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” under Step 37 which reads as follows: “Base pay increases for Congressional members on an annual customer satisfaction rating and repeal the practice of automatically increasing Congressional pay without a public, Congressional vote.”

Most of us who work outside of Congress are probably subjected to such a merit based system already: perform your job well and add value to your organization, get rewarded with bonuses and pay raises. Perform your job poorly and do not get rewarded.

Unfortunately, Washington politicians do not see it this way and end up getting highly paid with outstanding life long benefits for failure. Never have so many accomplished so little for so long and been paid so well.

2) Speaking of accomplishing so little, consider the sad state of our failed immigration system:

• If you are caught illegally entering this country, you are arrested and go before an immigration judge.
• The judge will issue a warrant that requires you to come back to the immigration court at a future date to have your immigration status decided.
• It turns out this process is so stupid since 87% of illegal immigrants that were first detained and then released into the U.S. population until their asylum hearing never show up for those asylum hearings and are now roaming the country illegally.
• This was the finding of a recent study by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Department of Justice organizations.
• Adding insult to injury, during this time, illegal immigrants are often issued work permits that allow them to be employed despite their illegal activities, robbing citizen Americans of job opportunities.
• In addition, by releasing them into society and having an 87% no show rate for their hearings, additional taxpayer funds need to be expended to find them and deport them.

This ridiculous process is another example of Washington being out of step with the country’s wishes since, according to a recent Harvard-Harris poll, about two out of three Americans are against this catch and release program of illegal immigrants. Insanity.

3) Hillary Clinton assured us that her private, unsecured, and illegal email computer server was nothing more than a place for private family emails, recipes, and other harmless material and that it was not subject to secrecy requirements of being hacked. But, as with her many other lies, this one was nothing more than B.S. from a Washington political type:

• According to the Washington Times, Clinton’s email server was not secure and was hacked and government documents were violated.
• Recently released FBI documents prove that her illegal server was hacked at least by one hacker and the information that was obtained ended up on the Dark Web, a nefarious virtual place of shady dealings and illegal activities.
• A Romanian hacker that goes by the name “Guccifer” breached a computer server used by long time Clinton cohort Sidney Blumenthal that allowed Guccifer to hack into Hillary’s illegal computer server.
• This initial hack gathered information from Clinton’s computer and transferred it to a computer located outside of Bucharest, Romania.
• The FBI documents show that multiple subsequent hacks of her illegal computer also occurred beginning on May 22, 2009.
• It appears that Guccifer used an anonymous computer server in Russia to carry his hacks and there was a “high possibility” that Russian officials had access to these computers and any information from the Clinton computer hack that was on that Russian computer.
• At least one file taken from the illegal Clinton computer server ended up on the dark web and has been described as containing “targeting data,” that would usually require the highest level of government security: “If it is determined by the by the FBI that this file ever was overtly classified, it will serve as a potential ‘smoking gun document.'” the notes said,” as described by the FBI documents investigating the hack."
• Moreover: “This file represents a major loss to the Intelligence Community because it appears to be targeting data.”
• Guccifer appears to have hacked a number of different computer networks and 37,000 files were found on a computer traced back to him.

And this lady wanted to be President of the United States. Imagine how much damage she would have done if elected, her careless and lawless handling of information as Secretary of State was bad enough but being President would have taken her carelessness and chutzpah to new, dangerous heights for the country and its citizens.

And yet, she is still not in prison for knowingly violating a very serious Federal law regarding the handling of top secret information. One must wonder what national security damage and what lives may have been lost of our operatives based on her stupidity. Insanity.

That will do it for today’s insanity: Clinton gets hacked and top secret information is stolen and shared with the world, idiotic immigration rules and regulations, and greedy Washington politicians. Typical political class insanity, more to follow.

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

May, 2017, Part 11, Political Class Insanity: Congress Gets Hacked, The Rich Get Richer, The IRS as a Political Weapon

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.

Today and for all of the insanity posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy."

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1)We have often talked about how the Obama administration shredded the First Amendment rights of millions of citizens when it used the IRS as a political weapon to deny non-profit status to Tea Party and other non-liberal organizations. Very serious stuff, the political class turning agencies against the citizens that support both entities because of legitimate free speech.

But it seems that shredding the First Amendment was not where it ended, based on very scary testimony in a court proceeding regarding the political weaponizing of the IRS,. According to a recent USA Today report on May 12, 2017 by Dan Horn:

• IRS officials, testifying in court, claim that their lives are at risk in the Tea Party suit before a judge.
• The judge has already ruled that there was a “strong showing” that the IRS had a systemic bias against Tea Party organizations.
• During the court proceedings, former and current IRS executives, Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, testified that information in recent or future court filings and proceedings should not be made public.
• They feel that the public’s right to understand what the Obama administration did to American citizens should be secondary to the threats to their lives that would exist if the truth was actually made public or they were forced to testify in public.
• According to the article: ‘"This documentation, as the court will see, makes very personal references and contains graphic, profane and disturbing language that would lead to unnecessary intrusion and embarrassment if made public," their attorneys argued in a recent court brief. "Public dissemination of their deposition testimony would put their lives in serious jeopardy."
• Currently, everything and every document associated with the case is under lock and seal per the judge’s order.
• An attorney for the Tea Party claims that: "Generally, our position is that this is a matter of great public interest and there is no legal basis for sealing the depositions or the arguments about whether the depositions should be sealed."
• The attorneys for Lerner and Paz put forth a real weak argument why the truth should be suppressed: "Although there is a compelling need for sealing, there is no countervailing need to make those details public. Allowing public dissemination ... would likely lead to media coverage that may then subject both individuals to the very harms they seek a protective order to avoid."

So sad that we are even discussing any aspect of this conversation on so many levels: the strong likelihood that First Amendment rights were squashed, that the truth has to be suppressed, and that government workers are afraid for their lives because of the truth. Insanity.

2) We have often written about how the Federal government’s desire to hand out farm subsidies usually ends up being subsidies for the rich. According to a recent Heritage Foundation article by Daren Bakst on May 22, 2017, nothing has changed since our last visit with this wasteful practice:

• The Federal government and American taxpayer currently spend about $15 billion a year on different commodity and crop insurance programs.
• Since the recipients of government handouts in these programs usually consists of millionaire farmers or large agriculture companies, less wealthy Americans are subsidizing more wealthy Americans and major corporations.
• For example, according to 2015 data, midsize farm households have a median annual income that is three times higher than the median income of all U.S. households and the median wealth level of midsize farmers is 26 times higher than the median wealth level of all U.S. households.
• Commercial farming operations and corporate agriculture companies represent only 10% of all farms in the U.S. but generally receive over 70% of all government subsidy payments.
• But government handouts are also selective when paying out taxpayer money with 95% of the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage program payments in 2015 going to only five crops (corn, peanuts, rice, soybeans, and wheat), other crops be damned.

The rich get richer, the poor and middle class pay more and more in taxes and the political class lets it happen anyway.

3) Democrats in Congress are obsessed with somehow proving that the Russians have infiltrated the Trump administration, a task that they have failed miserably at achieving. But maybe they need to worry about how their own operations in Congress and their lives have been infiltrated by some shady Middle Eastern types:

• According to an article by Luke Rosiak on May 22, 2017 for the Heritage Foundation, Congressional computer experts believe that a recent computer breech executed by an outside computer technology company, owned and operated by a Pakistani family, working for Congressional members may be using or could use the information that was gathered by the breech to blackmail members of Congress with their own data and information.
• The company employees, all family members, provided IT employees and support to various Democrats in Congress but they have recently been banned from Congressional computer networks after suspicions arose that the family members accessed Congressional computers and files without permission.
• The article claims that: “Congressional technology aides are baffled that data-theft allegations against four former House IT workers—who were banned from the congressional network—have largely been ignored, and they fear the integrity of sensitive high-level information.”
• Furthermore, “Five Capitol Hill technology aides told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group that members of Congress have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty toward the suspects who police say victimized them. The baffled aides wonder if the suspects are blackmailing representatives based on the contents of their emails and files, to which they had full access.
• Pat Sowers has managed IT roles for several House of Representative members over the past twelve years and she was even more explicit: “I don’t know what they have, but they have something on someone. It’s been months at this point with no arrests. Something is rotten in Denmark.”
• A local computer technology company had offered their services to Democratic House members at one quarter the price that the brothers were charging but were rebuffed in their bid, further raising suspicions.
• Another computer company also tried for Congressional business but ran into more suspicious behavior: “The Awans’ ban sent 20 members searching for new IT workers, but another contractor claims he’s had difficulty convincing offices to let him fill the void, even when he seemed like a shoo-in. He says he has the sense some members wrongly believed that he blew the whistle on the Awans’ theft and they were angry at him for it.”
• The Heritage article references a similar Politico article that claimed that the family members are “accused of stealing equipment from members’ offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network.”
• Follow up analysis after the brothers were banned found that Congressional data was sent to an offsite server in violation of policies and procedures.
• Family members have been paid $4 million for their computer services since 2010.
• The family members had access to all emails of dozens of members of Congress and access to any computer files those members and their staffs stored.

Great, Democrats in Congress are worried about Trump while they are possibly being robbed blind of information within their own realms of responsibility, information that is quite possibly being sent overseas or being used for blackmail purposes domestically. Insanity.

Nasty stuff today: Congress gets hacked, the rich get richer, and turning the IRS into a political weapon now makes Americans fear for their lives. More insanity to follow.

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

July, 2016, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Federal Government Continues To Get Hacked, Mutiny In The State Department, and More

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. In fact, last month we set a record, needing ten full posts to cover it all.

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.

It looks like our politicians have been especially insane over the past month or so let’s continue with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians one day earlier than we usually do:

1) It is our opinion that the Obama/Clinton/Kerry foreign affairs strategy has been a disaster. The Taliban control more territory now than what they did way back in 2001, making the investment in U.S. blood and wealth next to useless. The Russians invade Europe (the Ukraine) and nothing is done to punish them of any consequence, years later they still occupy a large part of the country. Iran and North Korea have had almost eight years of unimpeded progress towards becoming nuclear weapons powers. The Obama/Clinton un-Constitutional and illegal invasion of Libya has destroyed an entire society and created a new terrorist haven.

However, perhaps the worse failure had been in Syria. After threatening a “red line” and then backing off of it, Obama’s credibility was destroyed. His arming of the rebels resulted in the development of ISIS, the worst and richest terror group of all time. His premature withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq facilitated the rise of ISIS. 

And apparently, these failures have really ticked off the people most responsible for our foreign affairs, according to an article by Saagar Enjeti writing for the Daily Caller website. In a diplomatic rebellion not seen since the Vietnam War, 51 State Department diplomats signed an internal State Department letter ripping apart Obama’s Syrian policy. 

The diplomats cited the “ continual Syrian violations of agreed upon ceasefires and the “overwhelming” of U.S. foreign policy by the Syrian civil war.” This type of pushback has not been seen since the State Department set up its “dissent channel” during the Vietnam War. The purpose of the channel was to encourage diplomats to express their opinions without fear of retribution.

I go through this background to show that these diplomats are not loose cannons that are constantly complaining when they do not get their way. This is serious stuff and it is the failure of the Obama, Clinton, and Kerry foreign affairs management that caused serious diplomats to step out and speak up. The 51 diplomats are almost all career members of the State Department with a hundreds of years of combined Middle East foreign affairs experience.

I will not go into details of the strategy these professionals think should be followed, they obviously know more than I do. But the insanity of the whole situation is that seven and a half years into his Presidency, Obama is facing a mutiny of the most expert foreign affairs people the country has. He has learned nothing since he was sworn in back in 2009, still allowing his huge ego, vanity, and lack of foreign affairs experience to overwhelm expert opinions and experiences of others. As a result, his legacy has another failure to hang on the wall.

2) Over the past couple of years, there have been a number of instances where hackers penetrated and stole personal and government information from Federal government computers, endangering our national security and the personal identity integrity of millions of Americans. Despite these previous warnings, it appears that the Federal government and the political class that operate it have done little to prevent further hacks.

According to a recent article by George Russell writing for Fox News: 

• In 2014, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, a single, unidentified Federal agency was hit with a whopping 1,370 computer hacking attacks of its most important computer systems.
• These attacks resulted in 516 so-called “data leaks,” about a 40% success rate for those trying to hack the entity.
• This level of incompetence comes despite the 2014 successful hack when 4.2 million personnel files of past and former U.S. federal civil servants from its Office of Personnel Management (OPM) were stolen by China-based intruders.
• The data for the GAO report came from a survey of 24 Federal organizations, in other words the results were self reported, meaning that the hacking crisis could be far worse than the self reporting agencies are willing to admit to.
• Eighteen of the 24 Federal entities are pretty important since they have so-called “high impact” systems, systems defined as those systems where “the loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability can have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect on organizational operations, assets or individuals.”
• The GAO was also critical of the processes for cyber security that were in place across the Federal government since the GAPO claimed all agencies of the Federal government “had lots of guidance on how to protect themselves, but even now are still not doing enough to make sure the guidance was followed.”
• Also, it was clear in the GAO’s mind that necessary cyber security training of pertinent personnel had not been carried out and no Federal agency had fully implmeneted identified remedial plans to fix what was wrong with their cyber security.

Bottom line is that like just about every other part of the Federal government bureaucracy, it is totally dysfunctional despite the American taxpayer paying big tax bills for little benefit in return.

3) Consider the sad plight of many Americans today:

• 45 million Americans still need Federal food assistance every month despite us being six years into Obama’s tepid economic recovery.
• Tens of millions of Americans can either not find a job or cannot find a full time job.
• The number of young adults living with their parents is at an all time high.
• About 50,000 Americans die every year from drug addiction.
• The number of homeless Americans at any one point in time is at least in the hundreds of thousands range.
• Many of our armed forces veterans are not receiving the medical care they need and deserve.

I could go on but you get the idea. There are tens of millions of Americans that could use a helping hand to make their lives a little better. 

And yet despite these needs for our fellow citizens, a recent article from the Fix This Nation website found that each new refugee that Obama wants to bring to this country will initially cost American taxpayers about $20,000. According to a report from Negative Growth, Inc.:

• The Federal government spends $19,884 of taxpayer wealth for every refugee that comes into the country.
• This computes out as a result of 95,000 new refugees coming into the country divided into the $1.8 billion annual budget.
• We take in 67% of refugees referred by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
• This is obviously more than the rest of the world combined.
• The $19,884 cost is just for resettlement of refugees, the actual cost is far higher since 74% of refugees are on food stamps, 47% receive cash benefits from the Federal government, 56% are enrolled in Medicaid, and 22% receive some form of housing subsidy.

If someone wants to come to this country today, that is fine as long as they do not burden existing taxpayers with their wants and needs. We have tens of millions of Americans who need food, jobs, housing, drug treatment and medical treatment. With a $19 TRILLION national debt, at some point in time we need to force the political class to look out for our own and not the unwanted of other countries.

Another day, another set of political class insanity: Saving the world’s refugees while our own citizens suffer, a leaky set of government computers managed by incompetents, and a mutiny in the State Department who are tired of Obama’s failed foreign policies. More insanity 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:


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

November, 2015, Part 4, Political Clas Insanity: The Corruption of Government Officials and The Politicians That Rule Them

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.
• A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
• 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) We have often shown that many times Federal government employees misbehave in so many different ways but no one is ever punished for abusing their jobs and taxpayer wealth. The latest insult to taxpayers was reported by an October 22, 2015 article by Kathryn Watson, writing for the Freedom Force website:

• Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents who allegedly engaged in sex parties with prostitutes, that were likely funded by drug cartels, along with their direct supervisors who did not report the parties, still received bonus payments.
• This insult came about after an inspector general report found that 10 of the 14 agents involved in the parties received their bonus payments despite it being in violation of internal DEA rules.
• The bonuses were paid out despite the DEA having to testify for the scandal in front of Congress.
• One DEA regional director identified in the inspector general's investigation received four performance awards, three Senior Executive Service bonus awards and one Meritorious Executive Rank worth a total of $68,600 over a four-year period.
• One Congressman, Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform committee expressed his disgust, even though Congress did nothing to punish the agents’ infractions: “It is astounding that employees who should have been prosecuted, fired, or at a minimum, severely disciplined for their misconduct, were instead given undeserved promotions and bonuses. It is troubling that supervisors who looked the other way at employee misconduct received substantial bonuses. Rewarding bad apples promotes a toxic work environment.” 
• Keeping with the Obama administration’s habit of stonewalling any investigation into the administration’s many scandals, the DEA failed to hand over the documents requested by the inspector general investigating the scandal.

Another day, another Obama administration scandal, another investigation stonewalled, another insult to the American taxpayer.

2) Richard Pollock, writing for the Freedom Force website on November 3, 2015, brought to light another affront to Americans. Glenn Woodell, a former NASA employee who had actually pled guilty to U.S. espionage laws that involved a Chinese contractor, was fined $250 and given six months probation. Another NASA employee and co-worker of Woodell, Daniel Jobson, had his espionage charges reduced to a misdemeanor and got away without any penalties.

According to Woodell’s indictment, he allowed a Chinese national to have “complete and unrestricted access” to NASA’s Langley Research Center. Sounds pretty series and yet, this NASA employee gets only a $250 fine? Are you kidding me? Former Congressman Frank Wolf nailed it when he said: “It’s like a traffic ticket or something for littering.” 

If the cost of getting cost for espionage is only $250 while the upside of selling America’s secrets to foreign agents is likely to be substantially higher, where is the incentive not to indulge in espionage? Congressman John Culberson, who succeeded Wolf as chairman of the NASA appropriations subcommittee, also deplored the plea deal and held the same view as we do: “It is intolerable that espionage is not taken more seriously by the administration.” FBI Director James Comey told Congress that foreign citizens with green cards “wander around” sensitive U.S. facilities like NASA.

Unbelievable lax security. But given that the Chinese continually hack Federal government computer systems, it should not be a surprise that the Federal government and political class that operate it to allow Chinese nationals to ”wander around” secure government facilities.

3) Let’s stay with government employees’ misdeeds and incompetence. Continuing the stonewalling of the Obama administration, two senior executives from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) pleaded the Fifth Amendment in front of a House Congressional hearing. As many people know, the Veterans Administration has been one of the most inept and corrupt Federal entities, failing to provide the needed medical care to our veterans that was promised to them. 

Philadelphia and Wilmington VA regional offices director Diana Rubens and St. Paul VA regional office director Kimberly Graves took the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer any of the numerous questions put forward by committee chairman Congressman Jeff Miller. The employees were forced to come before Congress because, surprise, surprise, the Obama administration did not allow the VA employees to appear to a more causal request to appear.

The driving factor behind the hearing was an inspector general report that concluded that two VA employees abused the so-called relocation program to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The two officials called before the committee were accused by the inspector general of forcing subordinates out of their current job positions and the two officials then applied for the now vacant positions so that they could receive generous accounts. 

The inspector general found the infractions serious enough that he referred the situation to the DC’s U.S. Attorney General for prosecution. The two officials ended up receiving over $400,000 in improper payments. And despite these actions and findings by the inspector general, the Obama administration still tried to stonewall yet another Congressional investigation.

That will finish up today’s discussion of political class insanity. Somehow today we ended up illustrating just a small sample of government and government employee misdeeds and disrespect for taxpayer wealth. Given that a recent public opinion poll, almost 80% of Americans said that the Federal government was corrupt, it looks like that poll was right, based on the malfeasance discussed above. More insanity 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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

October, 2015, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: We Mostly Think That Congress Is Corrupt, Hillary Ignores the Rules, and More

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 post 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

Let’s continue with the latest insanity review that we started two days ago:

1) While it is pretty obvious to anyone who reads our monthly updates on political class insanity that we are being served by horrible politicians, maybe, just maybe, the country is coming to that same conclusion as a whole. According to a recent Gallup poll:

• 52% of those polled believe that most members of Congress are corrupt.
• 79% of those polled believe that 79% of Congress is out of touch with the issues of the day.
• Unfortunately, many of those polled feel that their particular representatives in Congress are not as bad as others with 59% claiming that their elected member of Congress is not corrupt and that 47% (still a bad number) are in touch with the issues of the day.

Seems like we all know that people in Congress stink at their jobs and the results or non-results they generate. The question now is what do we do about it so that I no longer have enough material every month to write about the latest political class insanity.

2) Anyone remotely in touch with today’s politicians knows that Hillary Clinton is in a ton of political and legal trouble. This all relates to her nonchalant handling of classified material and bypassing government security protocols to have a non-secure email server in her private residence and also have her email capabilities running in a bathroom in an unsecure data system vendor’s facility. 

We now know that there have been serious hacking attempts from inside Russia to get at her highly classified Secretary of State files and communications. And you know if the Russians were hacking her, at least the Chinese were also hacking her, putting national security in danger. 

Why was this allowed to happen against the law and security requirements of the Federal government? Well, according to recent inspector general findings, the State Department higher officials during the Clinton tenure routinely and callously ignored the legal requirement that they attend data security training. This casual attitude to protecting state secrets permeated up to and including Hillary Clinton herself who also blew off data security training.

Details of the inspector general’s findings include the following:

• State Department Inspector General Harold W. Geisel produced six scathing reports that found top Hillary Clinton State Department managers did not submit themselves to mandatory “security awareness training” during Clinton’s tenure. 
• That training covers procedures for properly handling of sensitive and classified government documents and how to secure computer information, something one cannot do from their private home.
• This refusal to submit to the training is a violation of the requirement set out by the department itself and government-wide data security standards.
• And Hillary cannot claim ignorance in this area since Geisel had been warning of this security laxity since November, 2010, stating that the State Department “should improve methods to identify individuals with significant security responsibilities, ensure that they take the required training every 3 years, record the training records in the Office of Personnel Management-approved centralized system, and provide management with tools to monitor compliance with the training requirement.”
• A random audit in November, 2012 found that 46 out of 46 State Department employees “had not taken the recommended role-based security-related training course in the time-frame (that is, 6 months) as recommended in the Information Assurance Training Plan.”
• According to official government requirements and standards: “A strong IT security program cannot be put in place without significant attention given to training agency IT users on security policy, procedures, and techniques, as well as the various management, operational, and technical controls necessary and available to secure IT resources. Failure to give attention to the area of security training puts an enterprise at great risk because security of agency resources is as much a human issue as it is a technology issue.” 
• “There was a corporate culture among the highest echelons of State Department that she perhaps deliberately chose to ignore these security protocols. And consequently, they just were not enforced,” said James Williamson, a former Special Forces and counter-terrorism officer who is now president and CEO of Global Executive Management. “I would hold Mrs. Clinton directly responsible for inculcation of this culture within her organization,” Williamson said.

But alas, as often happens with people in Washington, not following the rules or breaking the law holds no ramifications for those that do so, they are special when it comes to rules. Could it be that the Obama administration’s Middle East performance and screw ups are because the rest of the world, including our enemies, knew exactly what was going on because they had access to an unsecured email computer server in someone’s house, a server that was accessed and maintained by people that decided to ignore data security training. 

Just saying, but in any case, the lack of accountability and punishment for such idiocy is insane.

3) One of Obama’s biggest campaign promises was that he was going to operate the most transparent Presidential administration in the history of the country. Sounds great in the heat of the political campaign. Right after he was sworn in, he issued the following statement:

I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency, and to publish such guidelines in the Federal Register. In doing so, the Attorney General should review FOIA reports produced by the agencies under Executive Order 13392 of December 14, 2005. I also direct the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to update guidance to the agencies to increase and improve information dissemination to the public, including through the use of new technologies, and to publish such guidance in the Federal Register.

But as we saw with dozens of other Obama promises this one also turned out to be a massive lie or massive incompetence. He has in actuality operated one of the most opaque and secretive administration ever. His administration has lost Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, it has failed to comply with requests in a timely manner or at all as required by law, it has tried to charge money for the execution of FOIA requests, a clear violation of the law, and many documents that were eventually produced for a FOIA request was so redacted as to be useless.

To see how many times Obama has fallen short on this promise, enter “freedom of information act” in the search box above or go to the following link for a comprehensive summary of abuses:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-transparent-failure-of-obamas.html

How insane has this whole transparency issue become within this most secretive Presidential administration? Well, Cause of Action, an independent government accountability entity has gone to court with a Freedom Of Information Act complaint about….Freedom of Information Act complaints:

“Cause of Action a government accountability organization, sued 10 cabinet agencies, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Internal Revenue Service today for refusing to disclose communications concerning documents the agencies shared with the White House. The records would reveal whether and how the White House politicizes records requests sent to federal agencies.

“Accountable and transparent government does not involve instructing agencies to send politically sensitive records to the White House for review. The bureaucracy has violated the law by stonewalling the public’s access to documents for political reasons. Cause of Action’s own investigation reveals that the White House is actually demanding access from agencies to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and Congressional document requests, as well as the documents subject to those requests, in a manner that may obstruct congressional oversight and violate the spirit of FOIA,” stated Dan Epstein, Cause of Action’s executive director.

Yes, we have fallen so far down the corruption rabbit hole that Freedom Of Information Act requests are needed to be made about Freedom of Information Act requests. You cannot make this stuff up.

That’s enough for today relative to political class insanity. We have a Secretary of State who thinks her and her organization are not bound by government rules and laws, a promised transparent Presidency that needs to be investigated for not being transparent, and a citizenry who overwhelming appears to believe, with good reason, that members of Congress are all corrupt, with the possible exception of their representative. 

More insanity in the coming days, with an emphasis of how insane our economic plight has become under this administration and this Congress.

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